Pajama time

These are some new pajamas we got for Elayna. But mostly I like the picture cause she is just hanging out on top of the pressure cooker.


My two cute pajama girls:



I was trying to take some pictures of Elayna going up and down the stairs. Maybe the camera is like an eye? You know how babies always want to touch other people's eyes?



When the girls play outside, this is where I can most likely find them. Katie riding her scooter around,



And Elayna riding the riding lawn mower. Ha ha!

Las Vegas, part 2

Saturday Evening was a Halloween costume party at Ryan's cousin Staysi's house. We all admired each other's costumes and talked and mingled more.
This is the Bowman family: (minus Ryan and Clarissa, because they didn't dress up)



After the party, Matthew graciously stayed with the sleeping girls while Ryan and I went partying! I know, weird, huh? Guess what is even weirder? It was at a smoky bar. bleh! I was pretty scared of the place. Our group was in the back corner. I didn't look anyone but our group in the eye, I didn't move from my chair for the first 10 minutes. Then I chose a song, and went straight back to my chair. I stayed within arm's length of someone in our group the whole time were were there. Well, except for when I got brave, and headed to the bathroom all by myself! It was scary. I truthfully think I was more scared by the venue than I was of singing. Oh, we went for the karaoke, and it was really fun! I must admit, I was nervous. The song I chose I didn't recognize at all, so I hurriedly chose another one. "Just a Girl" by No Doubt. It also didn't sound familiar, because I was the one supposedly singing, not the artist! I was so used to hearing the artist sing it, I didn't know how the song went. Luckily, my (Ryan's) cousins and sister were there to cheer me on, and sing with me. By the time I got to the chorus, I think I did alright. If I ever do it again, I will do so much better!


Later, a group of us girls got up and sang "Sweet Caroline". It was really fun, and I really enjoyed singing with them.


Ryan sang "In Your Footsteps" by Depeche Mode. He did awesome. Derek and Amber (cousins) also sang songs, and they did great too.


By the time we had done those songs, it was about 1:00 AM! Agh! I don't normally stay up that late. We brought 2 very drunk cousins home. Ryan, of course, was hungry, so we stopped and got him a Carl's Jr burger. While we were in the drive-thru the before mentioned cousins both got out of the car and hurled. A couple of times. Yuck! Thank goodness we were stopped already! A definite deterrent to drinking, in my opinion. So we got home really late, and Irma was sleeping in our bed. (Matthew had skipped out on us, I guess.) Ryan offered to sleep on the couch so she wouldn't have to walk back to her room, but she wanted to go.

After the party, but before the karaoke, I realized I had forgotten my ID. We drove 10 minutes back to get it. Ryan went into the room while I stayed in the car. I guess when he got to the room, the door wasn't closed all the way. If it was me, I would have probably freaked out. The girls were both asleep within about 10 feet of the door. Well, he went in and found Jerry and Irma in our bedroom, because Matthew had gone long-boarding with Jerome. Lest you think Jerry and Irma were being irresponsible for leaving the door open, they were expecting Matthew and Jerome to come back, and that way, they wouldn't have to wake the girls by knocking on the door. Ah. What a relief. So many scary things can happen!

Sunday morning came bright and early. Ryan was a sweetheart and went out with the girls when they woke up so I could have another 1/2 hour to an hour of sleep. Thanks sweetie! Checkout was at 10:00 normally, but the hotel extended it to noon for us. We got everything back into the car (ending up with more stuff than we came with. How does that happen?) and headed to the Luau.



More yummy healthy food, and yummy desserts. Everyone got a lei, leia, you know, the flowers around the neck thing. They had hula hoops there to have contests, balloons, a limbo bar, (how low can you go?),a plastic beach picture, and fun decorations. It was fun, but we were about ready to head home. We had been playing for 2.5 days straight, and it was hard!



We all said our goodbyes and headed off. Oh wait, we need to stop at the gas station to go to the bathroom and get gas. Now we are off! Elayna fell asleep before we got to the gas station (about 5 minutes away). Katie fought sleep for about an hour. I actually just about fell asleep as we were leaving Vegas. I was asking Ryan questions, because he had mentioned he was sleepy, and I was listening to his answers, I really was. I just happened to be dreaming about other things in between my mumbled "uh huh"'s and "oh yeah?"'s. Luckily Ryan has a lot to talk about, and it kept him awake. Important since he was driving. Katie slept for an hour and a half until we got to the Virgin River park area. It is beautiful!


We all got out and walked down to the river. We hiked some rocks, threw rocks in the river, (some people, named Ryan, threw rocks into the water way too close for comfort and splashed me! The idea!) and just hung out there for about an hour, I would guess.





The Virgin River park area was really fun. It was a much better rest stop than just a gas station, and we really enjoyed it. Thanks to Jerry and Irma for stopping with us, and suggesting it in the first place!

Then we drove until Cedar City, ate at IHOP, and drove home from there. We got home at about 10:00 pm on Sunday night.

Wow. What a trip. We had a blast. I'm so glad we got to visit with our family. I'm grateful we got there and back safely. I'm grateful to Irma for coordinating and planning the WHOLE (mostly) thing! It was great.

Las Vegas trip, part 1

We drove down to Las Vegas for a family reunion. Oct 9-11. I know this will probably be boring to most of you, but this is my "journal", so you will just have to deal with it. Or skip it. :)

My mom let us borrow her car/truck. (If I'm talking to Mom, it's a car. If I'm talking to Ryan, it's a truck.) By the way, Thank you Mom! It made the trip so much better! We left Friday morning at about 8:00 am. I had packed lots of snacks and drinks. We all ate quite a bit, but the applesauce, grapejuice, and doritos were a little too much for Katie. She threw up on the way down. Not very fun. Luckily, none of it got in the car, so that was a relief.

Katie moved into Bowman's car after lunch at the Mongolian BBQ place in St. George. Yummy. They stopped and played in the river at the Virgin River Gorge. Ryan, Elayna and I opted to keep driving, since Elayna was asleep.


We checked in at the condos. They are great. We stay at a place called "The Cliffs" and they are in a neighborhood area, with a swimming pool and lots of room. It is worlds away from "the strip". The price was very nice also. The whole place is non-smoking, and we have always been very impressed with the accommodations there. They have 1 and 2 bedroom suites. All the suites come with a kitchen, washer and dryer, and large living area. And the cost? Seriously, about $60 a night. Awesome!

We went swimming, then got ready for the first party. Irma, Mickie (her real name is RoseMarie, but I always forget to call her that.) and Blanca shared memories of their mother, "Tita". They also talked about their grandmother. We had lots of yummy desserts and snack foods. I think Irma counted about 40 people there. Katie won the drawing for a huge door prize. It had candy, movies, chips, popcorn, and candybars in it. Katie thought it was a birthday gift from everyone at the party, so she thanked Grandma Irma for it the next day.

That night, the girls slept pretty well. So did Ryan and I. Saturday morning, we slept in, (kinda) then Ryan went to the park to help secure the spot. I guess it would be more accurate to say I slept in. Katie went over to Bowman's "house" and then shopping with Irma. Then I put Elayna down for a nap and she slept for like 3 hours. So I had a fabulous morning of showering, getting ready, and reading. It was so relaxing! The park we went to was awesome. It was huge. Very nicely maintained, with play areas covered with permanent canvas things. The only bad part was that the bathroom was so far away! Len brought some old-fashioned looking bikes that we all took turns riding.
Ryan was the first to ride his bike to the bathroom. Unfortunately, when I had to take Katie, we couldn't ride, so we just walked. And walked. Ugh. While we were there, we had a Mexican Fiesta with wonderful Mexican food. There was a pinata and lots of talking and catching up.


Pictures courtesy of Derek, Clarissa, and Staysi. We always bring the camera. We just forget to use it!

Movies, Continued

When Elayna had just started walking a couple steps. It's more of a lean and jump rather than walking, but her feet do move:


Beautiful girls dressed up for Church. Elayna walks a couple of steps. But notice the weird dragging crawl Elayna does at the end of the video. She will crawl on her hands and feet (not knees) when she wears dresses. This was kind of half way between a regular crawl, and a downward facing dog crawl.



Katie dances and sings a compilation. All I can make out is Baa Baa Black Sheep at the end:


Elayna practices talking on the phone while taking a few steps. Also Elayna walks to Gracie. She says "Hi", and "Baby":


So, in the last post about movies, I showed Elayna walking with the help of our hands. That was in July. Then, September 16-she takes some steps on her own! Yay! Now, October 20th. She can be coaxed to walk across the room to you, but she doesn't like to do that more than once a day, maybe twice if you're lucky. Just on Sunday, the 18th, I guess she was walking more, but she doesn't do it much at home.

Movies

This video was taken in July. She was just starting to walk with us:


Elayna loves to laugh, especially where Katie is concerned. Sometimes Katie will do something, and Elayna will laugh and laugh. I don't get it most of the time, but I laugh with them, because their laughs are so contagious. Here Katie and Abby were playing with balloons, and it was apparently hilarious!


This is what meets me most mornings. I'm usually a little slow getting into their room in the morning, and they are awesome about just playing in there until I come in. Katie comes and tells me they are awake, then she goes back in and entertains Elayna. The other morning they were both just saying, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" until I came in. Such cute girls! (this was taken in August, right about Elayna's first birthday. Note how she says Hi and waves.)


This is just a couple of different clips of Elayna. The first clip shows her getting upset that Ryan is holding onto her. The next one is her reaction to seeing the camera--climb on Mommy to get the camera! Next is Elayna dancing and singing, standing up by herself, and then getting distracted from walking. Last is Elayna meowing like a cat.

I dislike coming up with titles.

Elayna took her first steps on Sept. 16th! She walked 3 steps to Grandma Paula.

Katie is really trying to understand time. She will ask if today is tomorrow, and refer to days of the week. However, I don't think she understands the concept yet.

Katie has a "school" book that she loves to play with. It is a dry erase book, with pictures, letters, numbers, matching, etc in it. She will work on it for 15-20 minutes.

I cleaned out our garage, so there is actually room for 2 cars to park INSIDE the garage. Weird concept, I know.

We have way too many flies in our house. The other day I was swatting flies away from the food, and noticed Elayna doing the same thing! She also likes to rub her hands together as though she is rubbing in lotion.

Katie saw a picture of her cousin Bella on the beach. Katie said, "I want to go to that sandbox, mom". Time for a beach trip!

When Elayna stands on her tippy toes, she can barely reach the handles on the doors. We have the lever-type handles, so it is just enough that she can pull the handle down, and it will flip back up. Another inch or two, and she will be out the door. She seems to get into a lot more stuff than Katie did. I remember being surprised that Katie never played with the toilet paper in the bathroom. Well, Elayna is more than making up for that! It must be this phase of life, because I felt like this morning all I said to Elayna was "No!". I remember doing that with Katie some days.

Katie can do somersaults now. She is so cute.

The girls were playing outside, and I came out to check on them. I saw Elayna, poised on her tippy toes, stretching as high as she could to reach the tools that were on the shelf. Did I mention she was on the seat of Katie's red tricycle? Agh! I really wanted to get a picture, but, under the circumstances, decided it would be better to get her down, and not risk the wheels on the bike suddenly shifting and throwing her onto the concrete.

My harvesting achievements for the year include:
1. picking about 7 gallons of plums, juicing them (a 4-5 hour process), and then, after having the juice in the fridge for 2 weeks, drying the juice into fruit leather.
2. drying a bushel of peaches (about 7 batches),
3. making about 12 peach/plum fruit rolls, and making 5-6 plum fruit rolls,
4. picking enough tomatoes from my garden and Irma's garden (thanks Irma!) to make about 6 quarts of spaghetti sauce that I froze,
5. peeling and coring enough apples to make a batch of dried apples, and a crockpot full of applesauce.
I feel fairly satisfied with my accomplishments!

We were having a tickling war, and suddenly, Elayna came up behind me. She was moving her fingers in a ticklish fashion and saying, "tsckl, tcskl, tkl". It was so cute! I love that she wanted to be involved.