My Smiley Boy

Captain Adorable is a HAPPY boy. It's SO easy to get him to smile.I LOVE this boy (and this picture)!
He's figuring out his pincer grip.
And of course, wherever Capt. Adorable is, there is Ballerina.
Pulling faces for the camera.
Captain Adorable found his blanket.
My favorite shot of the day:

So cute sucking his bottom lip.

And thumb. He's not much of a thumb sucker, but occasionally it will find its way into his mouth.

Not Always Butterflies and Rainbows

This week has been a little rough with lots of tantrums and fighting. It always starts out nice (in the crazy mess)...Then they find something to fight over. My grandpa says kids will fight over a piece of garbage. So TRUE.

Poor Sweetie.

It blew over soon enough and they were happily watching Max and Ruby together.
Notice Sweetie's Fancy Nancy underwear. I started trying to potty train her today. I took her to Target and she chose the Fancy Nancy underwear and some stickers for a sticker chart. She is almost 3 and a half and this is our first formal attempt. I think it'll take a while because she has no interest and no idea when she's peeing. But I want to try and see, so I'm giving it a week or so and see if there is any improvement. She earned one sticker today. Once she fills up her chart then we'll go out for ice cream. Ballerina is really excited about that part. Sweetie is having a hard time understanding that she only gets the ice cream AFTER the chart is filled with stickers. When I first told her that to earn a sticker she'd have to pee or poop on the potty she said, "No!" Ha, this will be fun.

A Day with Cousins

The other day Ballerina randomly came to me and asked to play with her cousins. I thought, "Why not?" and we arranged a play date. It's a bit of a drive, so we normally only visit when we are down at Grandma and Papa's for a holiday or something. The cousins have a dog that Sweetie just loved. I don't know that the feeling was mutual.(I realize I should do a better job with the girls' hair since I am always taking pictures, but I am imperfect)It also happened to be my other sister-in-law's birthday, so we arranged a birthday celebration for her. Grandma L came as well. We had diet friendly Angel food cake and strawberries sweetened with stevia. (I've lost 5 pounds so far!)
Happy Birthday Aunt M!
Our cousins also have MANY rabbits! The kids were crazy over the bunnies.

Ballerina wants three bunnies now, thanks to this.

Cousin I with a brown bunny:
Cousin C and Sweetie made a grass nest for their bunny.
Sweetie was pretty happy with making a grass nest for the bunny. Whenever I tried putting the bunny in her lap she would be excited, but would back away.

Ballerina and Cousin A with their bunny:

Making a grass nest. Feeding the bunny a dandelion.

Later Ballerina made a "hotel" out of buckets for the bunnies, but I didn't get pictures.

I brought my violin and played along with my little niece A, who is learning. She is using the Rainbow Tones method and I think it's awesome! I might use that with Ballerina when she's older.

We had a great time with cousins and the girls didn't want to leave!

A Typical Sunday

I brought my camera to church to take some pictures of the Young Women, but I couldn't resist taking a picture of Captain Adorable sleeping during the service.

If we weren't in the overflow area I wouldn't have done it and as it was Handsome Husband was hissing at me to stop. I would have gotten a cute picture of him and Ballerina cuddling, but it's frowned on to take pictures during church. (And I purposely did Cpt. Adorable's hair to match his daddy's)

The girls were being cute after church in their Sunday dresses. Sweetie loves those new white shoes, she is wearing a size 8.

After church Captain Adorable took another nap on Handsome Husband's lap. He's SO cute when he sleeps. I picked him up and just held him while he slept for a little bit.

Ballerina made this tower for her frog and lizard family. She loves playing with those frogs.

The Big Three-O

For Handsome Husband's 30th birthday he baked his own cake. I frosted it and wrote on it.

We went garage sale shopping in the morning. Then we had cake and presents.

Afterwards we went swimming as a family and had a BLAST. Ballerina and Cpt. Adorable loved it. Ballerina was self sufficient with her goggles and life vest. Sweetie floundered under water a couple of times, giving her a healthy fear of the water. She wanted to go home after we'd only been there for five minutes. But I took her and slowly got her used to the water. By the end she didn't want to leave. Handsome Husband liked taking Ballerina down the big slide and jumping off the diving board. He tried taking Sweetie, but she chickened out. Sorry, no pictures, I was busy keeping my children afloat.

After the pool Handsome Husband took off to meet his parents at the temple to do a session. I was busy cleaning the house and preparing for his big surprise. I had arranged a surprise birthday party with 6 couples from church. It was a murder mystery party. (see? I redeemed myself for not baking his cake) I left the kids with a babysitter when things were in place and met Handsome Husband and his parents for dinner at Applebee's. So good.

Handsome Husband had NO clue that I had organized a party for him (his first surprise party!). I told him we had to be home by 8 since that is when I'd told the sitter we would be back. I don't know why he didn't insist on staying out (maybe because we'd left Captain Adorable and didn't want to leave him too long with a sitter). So I got him to stop with me for gas, even though we were driving separate cars. I got home a little earlier and hurried to get my costume on (I was the wicked witch of the West). By the time I was coming downstairs Handsome Husband walked in the door and after a moment everyone shouted "Surprise!" (I wish I'd gotten the girls out of bed so they could have been part of that) He had no idea why everyone was all dressed up. I explained that it was a murder mystery party and that he was Robin Hood. I had bought him a costume (with his brother's help deciding on the right one) and it was waiting upstairs for him.

Our babysitter wanted to stay and take pictures since she knew all the adults (she could have walked home at any time since she lives close). She took almost 200 pictures! It was a really fun night, everyone enjoyed it. And I did get a Costco cake for Handsome Husband. We put 30 candles on it. He blew them out in one breath! I love my husband and it was so fun to put on this party for him.

The Norm

This week I have been really busy organizing last year's blog into a book. So we have had a few lounging days.

Captain Adorable fell asleep in his jumperoo.

I believe this happened while I was arranging photos on the computer.
Sweetie was having fun quizzing me on some flash cards. Don't you love her hair?
Ballerina decided that Cpt. Adorable would look great in pink.
She put the tights and her old ballet shoes on him herself.
Cpt. Adorable is blissfully ignorant.
Then Ballerina found Sweetie's little pink leotard and insisted we put it on him.
He smiles now...
Sweetie was pretending she had a baby. (as I said, we have been lounging, hence the hair and pjs)
Ballerina wanted get in on the fun.
Looks more like a baby in a baby carrier.
Sweetie's recent favorite thing is to have "I love you" wars. She will say, "I wuv you," and I will reply that I love her and she will say, "No, I wuv YOU." And we'll go back and forth and she'll giggle all the while, declaring that she loves me more and more vehemently. Until I say, "Ok, Sweetie." She does the same thing with "I wike you."