CRIME & PUNISHMENT

All you who know I have had two binky babies.....

Charlotte's binkies have been taken away back in May. She volunteered to give up her binky while in Hawaii in exchange to join me on the drive to pick her Dad up from the airport. Well I believe she totally regets that choice (since 5 minutes into the trip she was asleep) and she has been sneaking Isabel's binkies every chance she gets. The sneaking has finally driven me the edge, she hides under blankets, under her bed in closets just sucking on the binky. So finally I decided that I need a punishment that would really make her always think about her actions. And I have found that the most effective punishment for her has been to make her wear pants. WHAT? Yeah, that is right, when potty training if she had accident (because she was to lazy or having to much fun to go to the bathroom), she would have to put on pants. Well turns out it is worse than death for charlotte to wear pants. So it has become my final straw punishment. This week it is the binky sneaking so guess what Charlotte has had to wear pants all week until today. And she was soooo proud to be in a skirt, she was telling everyone I didn't use Isabel's binky yesterday so i don't have to wear pants. And today no binky!! To soon to celebrate but i am hopeful. So if she asks you why you are wearing pants, she is really asking what did you DO.

What a sweetie

My new favorite picture of Charlotte,she has been allowing me to do more with her hair especially on Sundays. She likes to have an "up do" for church. We have been trying all different curling methods.

First Day of School

I can't even believe Charlotte is old enough to be in school, just pre-school, but it is school. She has been so excited to go, most of her friends started last year, so she has had a lot of time to get prepared. School came so early, we are definitely not get up and go people so being all ready (and extra cute for the first day) was a little bit tricky. Isabel and I walked her to school in our PJS but we got ourselves into gear once we got home.
Charlotte's first day (from what I can tell) involved taking off her shoes and putting them on the mat, leaving her sweater with her backpack, playing and cleaning up, sitting on a mat, getting her homework poster. She came out all smiles.
It is so strange leaving her somewhere and not watching her do her activity. She took tennis this summer and I sat courtside watching, dance lessons same thing. Odd to just leave her somewhere.


Isn't this the smile you wished you got every time the camera comes out?

Roland has been working out at a Crossfit gym (crossfit.com) and has a workout of the day everyday and the workouts are this insane combinations of cardio and weightlifting and reps. He really wants me to join so he has been making workouts of the day for me. My first workout: run 200 meters, 25 push-ups, 25 sit-ups, 25 dips, run 200 meters, 25 push-ups etc. Repeat 4 times. It was tough, but, i didn't throwup. That was Saturday, my arms and shoulders still hurt. You time yourself, so you are trying to go as fast as you can (and still complete the full range of motion)And before you have your work out they do challenages as a warm up, tonight my challenage was 300 meters of walking lunges, it took me about 21 minutes and I almost started crying, but the workout was on the easy side so I guess it evens out. I have to say I am enjoying it so far and I have had 4 workouts, all very different and all have challenged my body in different ways. And really only one of us needs to pay to go and Roland can just keep making up workouts for me.

Summer Days

Today while at the park I was standing in the sun sweating thinking how great it is going to be in a month. Nice cool temps even in the sunshine. And 2 months later I will be complaining that the 90 degree days are long gone and far far away. We have had a good summer though. Busy at times and lazy at others, just the way it should be. Roland started school up again this past week after a month off. His 4 free weekends went way to quickly.
One of the weekends was spent in Star Valley. He took the kids and i stayed home and enjoyed the single life for 2 days. Honestly what do you do when you our useful and accountable to no one? I watched a lot of tv, cleaned out my drawers and closet and painted the garage door.

We have had a lot of fun, Charlotte took tennis this summer. She is wanting to continue into the fall. She had a couple days of a kids camp. Many many days at the pool.

We probably consumed hundreds of Popsicles.

Charlotte will be starting school in September. And so excited.

TIME OUT

So Isabel is a little Monkey. She can get into and out of anything. Time outs are hard because there is no place that she cant just escape from. This is our solution.

I am kidding about the time out thing, she was actually the one who put herself here and it was her mean parents who had to enjoy every minute of her immobility

No Excuses, just updates

We have been away. Roland came home about the 12th of April and said he wanted to go on vacation. He had two weekends free from school and really wanted to go somewhere. 'Would it be crazy to go to Maui next week?' (crazy because we had a trip planned to Maui on May 11th) My response was if you figure out what to do with the kids I am in. Roland's parents were happy to watch them and bonus their condo in Maui was empty so we had a place to stay as well. So Roland and I watched our babies drive away and got on a plane to Maui. We went to the beach at 10 am and came home at 4 pm just about everyday. Probably the most relaxing vacation ever.

So we came home and drove to Wyoming, picked up the girls (who were so happy, and had so much fun. Thank you Paul and Geri) and headed home just in time to empty the bags, do laundry and pack up again. I took the girls back to Maui and this is what they woke up to their first day

CHarlotte took to the water, she loved the "rock pool" (rest of us called it the "kitty litter pool" because the rocks felt like walking on kitty litter) The resort we stayed has multiple pools and water slides, and wading pools so Isabel almost got in. Funny, I went into this trip thinking I was going to be saving Bells from the water every few minutes, but instead I had to beg her to touch it. Charlotte was the opposite. She got in the ocean and floated around in all the pools and even went down the water slide once.

Got in the ocean with Dad, Bells just screamed and wouldn't go near the ocean. She didn't even wear a swimsuit to the beach.

Charlotte even tried to catch fish in the tide pools. (who is this girl?, water animals?)

And taxi crabs

Done for now more later.
ALOHA

Post-Holiday and Making Shapes

Charlotte has been a bit obsessed with upcoming holidays. In February and march we have a lot of birthdays. This past february my brother and family was in town. Valentine's day, president's day and now st. patrick's day. We have had party after party. Parties with friends. Parties with family. Cakes and singing and dancing at restaurants. Making cards for her friends, shopping for birthday presents. Blowing out candles. Charlotte loves a good party, and so when I told her that there is another holiday coming up this week (just after leaving a birthday party) she was thrilled. I told her that on st patrick's day you have to wear green or you get pinched. She was game, anything for another holiday, no matter how strange it seems. So I am sure you can imagine her disappointment on st patrick's day, all dressed up in her green, when there is no party. She kept asking when are we leaving for the party? She just couldn't believe that was it.

So Charlotte is yelling at me to come "wipe her" (yeah, poo story) and so I walk into the bathroom and she gets off the toilet and looks in. "Hey, look mom I pooped a whistle"

Ah, she's so precious....

That Day

I guess that day has come to take a minute and update our blog.
We are still here, we have just recently recovered from all the holiday fun. I know I realize that Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years are long gone but the holidays were so special this year the germs stayed with us. That right the germs. We have all had a monster cold that lasted the entire month of January and the most contagious 24 hours stomach bug and just as we think we are all better, noses dried up, coughs subside, Belly (Isabel) goes and gets more teeth and RSV. Lucky for all of us she is a champion and fought through it, needing very little assistance from Roland or I. Even during the night all she wanted to do was sleep and nothing was going to stop her, those are the times you praise and applaud your stubborn, single minded, determined child.
But WOW, we had a great Christmas. Some highlights:

I decorated 2 trees for the Festival of Trees this year. One with sisters and one with my mom's 8-12 yrs old Primary girls. Both sold, and it wasn't my dad who bought them (Hooray) I had a lot of fun but my hands hurt for days after twisting so much wire on decorating day.

This was the first year that Christmas was it exciting for Charlotte, and that made it fun for Roland and I. I didn't even care that I didn't open a single present, because I loved watching her open mine and showing to me and telling me how much I love it.

Roland and I took a quick trip with some friends to Vegas for the Las Vegas bowl. We stayed at the new Vdara (City Center) Hotel and it was amazingly fun to just leave the kids for 48 hours and just eat well and take it easy.

After Christmas we travelled to Afton to visit with Roland's parents and his brother and family who came in from Virginia. We had a lot of fun just hanging around doing what you are supposed to do on your Christmas vacation, which is nothing.

New Years Eve was sad, Belly started with the above mentioned 24 hr stomach bug. So we rang in the New Year listening to our baby dry heave (sorry, gross I know) But we did have a fun New Years party the next night we our friends.

With all of Roland's siblings in town Dan and Kyli blessed their baby (Brooklyn) and at the same time we had a Scherbel family picture. Those are always fun. And to make it more fun I was in the middle of having the 24 hr bug and Roland was just starting. By the end of the day everyone was throwing up. FUN.

Afton land for interested buyer

Entire lot from street, lot starts after the bridge
From the bridge
Westside of lot. Trees line a small stream.
Entire lot from southwest corner
Picture taken from trees along westside
From west side looking south
From northeast side looking down the lot
North facing slope, totally secluded...buildable
Northern view from northeast corner