Family Pictures

It's that time of year again! Cue the anxiety, the stress, the frazzled shopping sprees, and oh yes, the family drama. No, I'm not talking about the holidays, I'm talking about the annual event known as family pictures. It's kinda silly when you think about it, like you are presenting this perfectly edited image of you and your family walking in a golden sunset in your perfectly coordinated (but not matchy) outfits and you are like, "Oh hey, this is us. We like to smile and hang out in our church clothes all the time." What you don't see is that the kid is actually kind of sick and somehow manages to get snot in her hair. And that mom forgot to bring tissues so she had to wipe the snot with her hand and then wipe in on the grass. (Quite possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever had to do.) You don't see how how the mom and the dad are arguing over where the best lighting is. You don't see how the mom has to hold her breathe and suck in her gut in every picture because maaaaybe she gained 5 lbs this past month from stress eating. And even though that golden sunset makes everything look warm and glowy you have no idea that everyone was actually freezing because it was 35 degrees. And know that you know all these lovely details please enjoy our family pictures.

 

I have to admit it's worth all the trouble once I finally get the pictures. I love this little family of mine and I'm glad that I have these photos to remember this stage in our life.

So that I don't forget...

Just a few things about Shye at three and a half so that I don't forget. And some totally unrelated pictures.

Since we've been working on potty training she has become very interested in bodily functions. She loves to tell me and anyone else who is around whenever she has tooted. I also let her watch a potty training video where they sing this song called "Bye-bye pee-pee, bye-bye poop" and now every time I go to the bathroom she comes in to sing that song to me. One time we were at the library and I stopped in the bathroom and she started singing that awful song I tried to shush her but she just started yelling "BYE PEE-PEE, BYE POOP!". The more I tried to quiet her the louder and more insistent she became. As I we left the library she was yelling, "But Mooom! Where's the pee-pee?!! Where's the poop?!!" Of course everyone heard us because, you know it's a library and it's dead silent. Lovely.

Her favorite food lately is raspberries, here she is eating all the raspberries of Grandma's bushes.

Up until recently Shye used to just give people dirty looks when they said hi to her.  Now she has suddenly become very social, she says hi everyone every where we go. Like incessantly, "hi, hi, hi, hi, hewow, hewow!!!!!" until the person finally says hi back. And then it's the same with goodbyes, "bye, bye, bye, goodbye, goodbye, see ya, see ya, see yaaaaaa!!!!!" until the person says bye back to her. Its equal parts adorable and annoying.

Always counting, "one, two, free, four, fibe..."

She likes to play this little game she made up that we call nice monster/scary monster. When she is a nice monster she will snuggle up to me, stroke my cheek, and whispers "I'm a nice monster, nice, nice, nice..." and I'm supposed to pretend relax and then she will roar and scare me. I don't know why but she gets such a kick out of tricking me.

Trying to get her to say "cheese!"

She likes to steal sips of my sodas. One day she kept running into the kitchen and then running back and giving me a kiss. She did this like 10 times and she finally brought me my empty soda cup and was like, "Sorry momma, kiss?" I guess she felt guilty every time she took a sip and would come and give me kiss.

Shye had just finished drinking all of Auntie Bernice's soda and was eyeing someone else's soda.

Another time I heard her in the kitchen moving the step-stool around so I knew she was getting into something. I peeked around the corner to watch her and she had moved the stool over the counter where my soda was and she was standing on the stool looking at it and talking to herself, "no sips Shye-shye, no sips okay?" And then the temptation must have finally overcome her because then she was like, "Do you want a sip Shye-shye? Okay!" I think it was hilarious that she was having this inner dialogue over whether or not to take a sip. 

Trying to steal some sips from Grandma.

The other day I walked into the front room and she looked up and gasped and said, "oh momma, that's soooo cute!" I was wearing a towel.

Always on the run.

I caught her on my iPad, she had logged into my pinterest account and was looking through my Fall inspiration board. When I took it away from her she was like, "moooom! I want to look at the punkins and hawoweeeeen!" Yep, definitely my child.

Silly girl.

She was in her room playing and suddenly started yelling, "mom! mom! moooooom!!!!!" it sounded urgent so I came running when I got there she just smiled and said, "wanna smuggle momma?" Stinker.

She wasn't too happy about me asking her to hold this leaf.

Speaking of snuggles Shye still likes to start and end her day with snuggles. Recently I decided that I wanted her to fall asleep on her own so I started tucking her into bed and giving her a kiss and leaving her to fall asleep on her own. And for a few nights it worked. But then after a few nights of her falling asleep on her own she started getting up and coming out into the front room. I would just take her back to bed give her a kiss and say goodnight again. And she just kept getting back up. Finally one time when I was putting her back in bed she started to cry and said "come back! I want a smuggle!" my heart just broke so I laid down with her and she wrapped her little arms around my neck and fell asleep a few minutes later. That night I decided that I will lay down with her and snuggle with her for as long as she will let me because I'm sure that the days where she doesn't need snuggles from her momma will be here sooner than I think.

Morning snuggles. 

A Costume Drama

Man, the older I get the less I like Halloween. What used to be a fun relaxed holiday on which you could throw together a last minute costume has become a months long headache of brainstorming, planning, shopping for a costume that is unique, cute, relevant, and above all else cheap. And then finally, if you do happen to find such a costume (which is basically like finding a unicorn) you then have to engage in some pretty intense negotiations with the toddler terrorist that is supposed to wear the costume. Gives a whole new meaning to the term costume drama.

I decided a few months ago that Shye would be Einstein for Halloween, we could frizz up her hair, draw on come eyebrows and put a lab coat on her and that would be that: Shyeinstein. It would be cute, cheap and easy to do. Win-win-win, right? Wrong! In early October Shye spotted a Belle costume and lost her mind over it so I bought it for her, figuring that at least she would be happy and she would be excited to wear it. Wrong again. A week later, my fickle child was bored with it and refused to wear it anymore. So onto plan C, I decided we would both dress up as witches. Easy-peasy, classic Halloween costumes. I found all of the stuff for our outfits at the thrift store, even the cutest little broom for Shye. A few days before Halloween I met up with my sister at Witchfest and I thought it would be a good chance to test run of Shye's costume. But Shye refused to wear the hat and what is a witch without her hat? A goth child. Gah! So it was back to the drawing board for me. Again. I was scrolling through my Instagram feed that night and came across someone dressed up as a mime and I decided that was it. Except Shye still wanted to carry her broom around so she was a witch-mime of sorts.

Anyway. Yeah. I'm starting to kinda hate Halloween.

All the costume drama aside, Shye had blast on Halloween. We went to the neighborhood trunk-or-treat that night. Shye remembered how it all worked from last year and had no problems holding out her bucket and saying "twickatweet!!". Though I did sometimes have to remind her to only take one piece of candy at each stop, she did a really good job remember to say "ank you!!!" at each stop. She was completely thrilled with all the candy she had by the end of the night.

How about you? Love or hate Halloween?

Jackson Hole: the 2014 edition

So last week on Monday night I got a call from Brian's production assistant asking me if I could fill in for some extras that they needed on location in Jackson Hole the next day. Once I got past the initial weirdness of realizing that my husband is so busy he couldn't make a quick phone call to me (he has been clocking between 80-100 hours for the past two and half months. And no overtime either. Boo.) I of course agreed to go. We had such a great time there last year and I've been feeling a little cooped up lately and was looking for something fun to do. So at 6am the next morning I loaded Shye and an overnight bag into the car and off we went!

I love Jackson Hole, it's the perfect blend of rednecks, cowboys, hippies, and snowboarders. Oh and everyone has a dog. I swear, you aren't allowed to live there unless you have a dog. But seriously, the people there are super friendly. People will stop and talk to you in the park, at the store, even just walking down the street. It's kinda surprising to me too since it's such a touristy place, you would think they would get kinda tired of visitors but it certainly doesn't seem that way. On our first day there we hung out around town in between shooting with Brian.

Our second day was mostly free so we spent a lot of time up in the mountains. I love the gorgeous mountains of Teton National Park. Last year all the national parks were closed due to the government shutdown and we weren't able to see the mountains up close. Shye and I spent the better part of our second day in Teton National Park just driving around, stopping here and there to take pictures and have a picnic or throw some rocks in the water. And for the record, I'm still terrified of being eaten by a bear or something. At one point Shye and I were walking along a short but completely deserted trail that went from a parking lot to a lake and I just kept picturing in my mind a bear coming barreling through the trees and taking off with Shye. I ended up freaking myself out so much that so I picked Shye up and ran back to my car.

One of the neatest places we discovered on this trip was this little rock beach. There were these rock towers all up and down the beach. Some were really impressive, like total feats of engineering. We spent a good hour here throwing rocks into the water and building our own little tower. Can you guess which one it is in the pics? 

On our last day we stopped by Granite Hot Springs before driving home. The hot springs were the highlight of our trip last year and so I knew I wanted to go back again this year. I think that maybe I enjoyed it more last year a bit more. Last year it was super cold, raining, and misty when we went up so it made the hot springs feel even warmer and made for a really picturesque setting with the steam rising up against the backdrop of the foggy mountains. And besides one other guy we were the only ones there. This year it was a bit more crowded because it was a beautiful sunny day. While it was still pretty chilly it wasn't super cold like last year and it just felt like dipping into a warm bath. Call me crazy but I'd really love to go back in the middle of winter. 

Thanks Jackson! Until next time!