The little things in life...

Here are just a couple pix from last week. Sophie taking some steps over by the front door. Our new calphalon frying pan that I'm soooooo excited about. That pan retails for $100! I found it on clearance at TJMaxx for $29!! (I suspect it originally had a lid to go with it, but I'm still really, really, really excited about it!). The kids were all playing outside so nicely together on Wednesday evening. They looked so cute out there together. Also this weekend we went downtown to the street fair "Fall for Greenville" with Casey and Christina Eichhorn. We've meant to go the past two years, but the first year we were unpacking boxes (we moved in that weekend)and last year we were up in NC with Hailey and Steve. It was really fun. They have Main St. lined with booths from all the restaurants in town and you go around and get little tastes of whatever looks good. The weather was nice, and the company was fabulous and the food was stellar! I had mexican, Craig had Japanese, the kids ate their pizza and we tried multiple desserts. The Black Magic Chocolate cake was yummy, but the Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie was the winner! Sooooo good! I'm gonna try to recreate one this year at Thanksgiving (if not before).

Our little over achiever!

Sophie started walking yesterday! She may have taken a step on her own before (about a week ago Taylor said she walked from the ottoman to the couch)but I witnessed 3 unassisted steps in a row yesterday!!! Pretty exciting. It's crazy to think that Katie and Taylor just learned to crawl at this age. I guess this kid is taking after her Daddy (now if she was talking already, then she'd be taking after me). Pretty big stuff!

Happy Birthday to me!

I had so much fun reading about Rachael on her blog, I decided to do a blog all about me. Most of the time I have no problem with it not being about me (not the blog, but life in general). Today has been a crummy day for a regular day and pretty much really sucky for a birthday. I'd like to pick a different day when my kids aren't so crabby and I don't have their miserable cold and I feel cute and get to be special to be my birthday instead of today. I'm feeling really pouty, stressed out, misused and immature. Anyhow, since today really hasn't been all about me, I decided the the blog WOULD be all about me! Here's some stuff about me:
1- I like being in my 30's! I'm much more comfortable with myself now especially as a mom now than I was in my 20's. I'm especially happy to feel all done with the childbearing years and happy to move on to the child-rearing years.

2- I'm a little OCD about recycling. Everything that can be recycled SHOULD be recycled. Garbage day in our neighborhood drives me nuts. People shouldn't ever need to throw away cardboard boxes or paper!! It makes me want to pass out flyers telling them to recycle.

3- I also hate it when people litter.

4- It drives me bananas (b-a-n-a-n-a-s) when people don't use their indicator when they are driving!

5- I love dark chocolate, especially the doves dark chocolate promises(although the milk chocolate with caramel are a close second, they are HEAVENLY).

6-I dream of being a good runner, but I've always been really horrible at it.

7-I'm addicted to the endorphins I get from a great work out. I can only really go one day without it before it's sorely missed.

8-I don't hate small children, but I do HATE all the crying.

9-I love traveling. Thanks to my mom, Craig and Mommo (Craig's mom, Kathy), I have seen many of my traveling dreams come true since we had kids. Thanks!!

10-I'm not good with change. When we change our daily routine or when we move it still freaks me out for a bit. I need to have a plan.

11-I love to make lists. Grocery lists, to-do lists, want lists, wish lists, all those kinds of lists. I keep a pad of paper and pen next to my bed.

12-I almost always remember my dreams and pretty much everybody I know shows up in them at some point.

13-I'm a hoarder. If I find one thing I really like, I want to get them all (ie: great t-shirts, need one in each color).

14-I love small cars. I still hate driving the minivan, but it's so convenient that I guess I'll wait til the kids are in college to get a C-RV.

15-My favorite color is red. It's even better if it's sparkly!!

16-I love reading. Children's books with the kids or on my own. The library has always been one of my favorite places.

17-I think that Disneyland is still magical(I'd probably feel the same way about Disney World if I'd been there).

18- Fall is my favorite season. I love that it lasts so long down here.

19-I love jewelry (probably because I love sparkly things).

20-I could wear jeans every day of the week, I only wear skirts when absolutely necessary.

21-I just discovered the world of calories this year. Let's hope it makes a difference in the future!

22-I still wish my hair was straight most of the time.

23-I love really spicy food, so spicy that my nose runs while eating it. Especially Thai, Chinese and Japanese. I need to learn how to make it myself.

24-I am a procrastinator. I'm trying to train myself to be more organized and to not put off doing things that need to get done that I don't want to do. I'm still a work in progress.

25-I love sleeping with the windows open.

26-I crave light. First thing in the morning (after prayers, of course) I open the blinds to check on the weather.

27-I like to wake up early, take a nap and go to bed late(and sleep the WHOLE night through without any interruptions).

28-I think that 10 yrs of marriage + 3 kids + one possible move + one kids that has a language Processing disorder + 1 sassy know-it-all 4 yr old = a really tough year.

29-I love westerns and Star Wars. I also have dreams where the cast from "Friends" and "Gilmore Girls" are in my circle of friends. Tom Hanks is my favorite actor. If they made a movie about my life, Reese Witherspoon would play me (or Carrie Underwood) and Mark Ruffalo would play Craig.

30-I'm so happy that the book club I started is thriving. I look forward to it every month.

31- I'm 31 this year!

WE WON THE RACE!!!

Friday evening after a long day at school for Katie and a long dentist appointment for all of us, we went to the BMW Fun Run/walk (2 miler). It was really cool to be there all together as a family. You can see Taylor warming up for the race in that huge puddle and Katie pouting because we wouldn't let her play in it in her tennis shoes before the race. I pushed Taylor and Sophie in the jogger and Katie rode most of the time on Craig's back. I was really annoyed that she couldn't even walk that far, but at the mile and a half mark, she bucked up, got down and started running! We ran all the way to the finish line! It was so great! She was so thrilled and completely convinced that we had won the race (and to me we had). The kids got ribbons and they had wonderful snacks and then the BMW Performance Drivers got out on the track and started racing the cars. People who won the raffle got to ride in the cars. It was really a wonderful experience and I'm so glad we went!

School Carnival

Last weekend we went to the school carnival. It pretty fun, all things considered. I took those brownies (they are sooooo good, the ganache really makes them! To find the recipe go to the Bakarella blog that is linked on ours and search for "Thank you Betty". Super easy and soooo good). I volunteered in that needle in a haystack game for half and hour. Craig took the kids to ride rides. We got some chickfila there. I had pre-ordered our tickets and when they were gone we were done. Fairly painless overall. Every year they hold this Carnival to raise money for the landscaping (who ever heard of a school built WITHOUT grass put in??? WEIRD!) but landscaping never shows up. Craig has a theory that somebody is buying a different sort of "grass" with the money. The only hang up is that the lady in charge of this PTA sponsored school carnival is in the Stake YW and works pretty closely with Craig. Very unlikely that any sort of underhanded things are going on there.

Just another day in paradise

Well, it doesn't always feel like paradise, but today went quite well! I'm including pix of Taylor in his Halloween costume, I found the mask and gloves at the dollar section at Target! too fabulous! Let's hope they make it to Halloween. Katie had school picture day. Last year she didn't turn in the money to her teacher so we didn't get her school picture so I'm taking a backup, just in case. Look how cute and beautiful she is! I love the new hole in her smile. Also there is a pic of Sophie in her chair. She scrunches up her nose and giggles and snorts at us! What a cute baby! I'm not really sad to see her grow up (almost 9 months) but I am sad that perhaps some of her sweetness will wear off. (Taylor's has more than a little, maybe it'll come back someday. I love him, but he's a major know-it-all right now. I'll probably never be right about anything again until after he's got kids of his own). Also I'm loading a video of Sophie eating. She "chews" all her baby food! Too funny!

Put him in a body bag Johnny! (and Pooh in her pants)

I was soooo excited about the sale that Gymboree ran on their halloween skeleton jammies, down to $10 and then I had a 20% coupon! Anyhow, Taylor wants to be a skeleton for Halloween so his was an even better deal because it's jammies and a costume (Sophie's maybe too). Anyhow, they are so cute and I had them all put them on this morning and then all those skeletons reminded me of Karate kid and that part where all the bad kids are dressed up like skeletons and they chase Daniel down and beat him up. That's not the part where they say "put him in a body bag Johnny!", that doesn't come until the competition at the end.
Then later today, Katie put that Pooh bear in Sophie's fabulous stretch pants (I can't get enough of that girl in stretch pants, sooooo cute) and I got a good laugh about Sophie having "Pooh in her pants"! HA! Why did they name that bear "Pooh"? Just too funny! I guess you could say she has "Poohy" pants! See? It just never gets old!!! HA! HA! HA! (I know you're all rolling your eyes, but at least Craig and I are laughing!).