Goodbye Snow. . .Hello Sun!!!

Just thought I'd let all my faithful blog readers know we're off to HAWAII!!!! Wahoo!! We leave tomorrow. . .Jaida says we only have one sleep left! We're going to Oahu and won't be back until next Friday. So enjoy the snow. We'll soak up some sun for everyone!

Brrrr....

The Giants vs. Packers game registered temp was 0 degrees and 24 below zero with the wind chill. This picture doesn't do it justice, but it was painful to look at Tom Coughlin's face (head coach of the Giants). Will someone please get the man a face muff!!!

My friend Franny

These are pictures of one of my friends from my Guru's day (I used to be a manager at Guru's restaurant. . .which sadly isn't around anymore). Her name is Francisca. It's an interesting friendship considering she only speaks Spanish and my Spanglish is definitely lacking. We get by though. She understands some simple English and I understand some simple Spanish. And Mike fills in when needed (thanks babe!). Franny worked in the kitchen at Guru's and quickly became one of my favorite people. She's just pure. Such a good person and made my job as a manager soooooo much easier. Love her.

Here's Franny with her daughter Lindsay. Yes, she named her Lindsay. My little Mexican namesake! Love her. This girls got more energy than most kids I know and she's a little fireball. Must be the name!



My girls with Lindsay. It took a LOT of persuading to get Lindsay to sit still long enough to do this. She just kept saying "No Quiero" (I don't want to). And Jaida was really bent that Lindsay wouldn't play with her. Jaida kept trying to talk to her and couldn't quite grasp why Lindsay wouldn't respond (she doesn't speak English). My favorite was Lindsay said "Cheese" (in English) when I took the picture. ha ha

These are for my Mom.

My mom LOVES cats. At least as much as she loves her own children. I am not a cat lover. But I couldn't resist taking these pictures of my sisters cat. the stupid thing sleeps in the sink. I won't mention how tempting it was to turn the faucet on. My dad certainly would not have been able to resist.


Cats are so snotty. Look at its face. So sorry to interupt you. . . .

Love these pictures.

Mmmm....Lunch time!



Mya's new "face". She does this all the time and sniffs and blows really hard through her nose. I laugh everytime.

In need of pictures. . .

I took some pictures of my new niece (well, she's 2 months old) and couldn't resist getting some of my own kids at the same time.


Love those pigtails. They fit her personality perfectly!



You can see the wheels turning in that girls head. She keeps me on my toes and unfortunately always seems to be one step ahead of me. Sigh.



Jaida with her cousin Kelsey.



Jaida trying to give loves. . .Mya's not interested.



Mya's new favorite game--turning off the lights.



Mya's going to have some nice calves. She's ALWAYS on her toes. Usually because she's trying to reach something she knows she's not supposed to have.



Mom. . .seriously. . .no more pictures.

If she were a tub. . .

Does anyone else watch the American Idol tryouts?? I don't even watch the show, just the tryouts. My favorites from the past two nights--the guy who sang the "Stalker" song to Paula Abdul. Best line: "If she were a tub, I would caulk her." Unbelievable. And my most favorite: the girl who wanted to moon Simon and then said she would just go in to "actressing." Actressing. Well said.

Medical mystery. . .PLEASE HELP!!!

So my kids throw-up. Randomly, often, and everywhere. I've known this since Jaida was one. Her pediatrician termed it "over-active gag reflex." I call it pain in the a**. Jaida was getting better about it once I let her know she had to help me clean it up. It was most often provoked by crying too hard. I can usually calm Jaida down before she gets that far. And now we've discovered Mya does it too. That's not the mystery though.
For the past 5 nights (YES, FIVE nights) Jaida has thrown up in the night. The first night we thought it was stomach flu because she did it 4 times. Each night after that it has been 1 or 2 times. But it's ALWAYS in the middle of the night. She'll be asleep, she wakes up, does a very distinct "I'm going to puke" cry, I run and get the puke bucket, and hopefully we catch it all. The first few nights we changed sheets 3 or 4 times throughout the night. I'm getting much better at acting fast and catching everything. Last night, she didn't even wake up. She sat up, eyes closed, cried, I caught the puke, tried to talk to her, no response, and she laid back down and resumed sleeping. During the day she's totally fine. she eats, never complains of stomach aches. But every night, without fail, she wakes up at some point (or doesn't wake up) and pukes. To all my medical friends. . .any ideas??? No, I haven't taken her to the doctor because I don't want to pay $25 for them to tell me "we're not sure what it is." I'm wondering if it's anxiety, but I have no idea how to cure that. I DO know, I'm REALLY tired of throw-up. Between Mya having a cold and coughing so hard she threw up on me (ON ME) for a week straight, and now Jaida's week long nighttime fun, I've had enough puke to last me a life time. So someone cure my kids. . . .please. . . I'm tired. . . .

"I am not a toy. . . ."

Jaida was a little wearing the other day (that's the polite way to say she was driving me absolutely crazy after a long day of patience. . .ha ha) and was climbing all over me while I was trying to do something. I'd move away and she'd follow. She then climbed up on the counter and got right in my face. I looked at her, took a deep breath, and then asked her to go somewhere where I couldn't see or hear her. (Calmly of course). Mike took the cue that it was time for him to step in so he walked over and picked Jaida up off the counter and started walking away with her. She started kicking and yells at him "Dad, I am NOT a toy to play with." Seriously?

Blog Makeover

I'm attempting to jazz up the blog a bit. It felt so naked. It's ridiculous how much time you can spend trying to customize the blog. A shout out to my dear friend Hollie for walking me through it. It's a work in progress which unfortunately never ends. Happy viewing.

My day in Court

So I thought I'd join the ranks of my brothers and have my turn in court. I got a ticket for "failure to yield to an emergency vehicle." Bogus. The cop was in his car and I moved in between two lanes instead of moving all the way over. So another cop pulled me over. I pointed out to the cop that HE didn't change lanes when passing the other cop either when he went to pull me over. He did not care for my observation. He then threatened to taze me so I backed off. Okay, he didn't really, but it adds to the story. He really just threatened to give me another ticket for not having my license. Oops. Forgot you need that when you drive. Whatever.
Thankfully I know people in high places and one of our friends who is a lawyer (thanks again!) worked out a plea in abeyance for me so the ticket wouldn't go on my record. The only downside was I had to appear in court.
I've been to court before with my brother (stories for another time) but there were never very many people. My experience in Draper court was much different. . .it was packed!!
So there I was, with all the prisoners from the Salt Lake County Jail, and the rest of the people there who were either on probation from jail or on their way.
I was last on the docket so I sat through everyone else's sentences. There were 5 prisoners there and they all sounded exactly the same. I wanted to shake them. . .so dumb. It reminded me so much of my brother. They just don't get it. One poor kid stood before the judge and was about to get released from jail and somehow ended up with 180 more days. Shut-up buddy. Seriously. Evertime he opened his mouth he got more time. After all 5 prisoners went, they each requested to appear before the judge AGAIN. . .Um, can you do that?! Pretty sure you've already got your sentence and you've had your turn. The judge was nice and let them do it. Some of them didn't understand their sentence, some were trying to reduce their time. . .and there I was just shaking my head.
One of the prisoners moms was there. She looked very out of place if you know what I mean. A classic suburban house wife. And there she was trying to talk her kid out of jail who was 20 and was caught in possession of alcohol while driving. Based on experience from our family, she better lay it down hard on him now or she's in for a long hard ride in the future.
My favorite cases from the day were the grown man who was caught on the roof of IFA. His friends used to climb the tower there when they were in highschool and he though he'd relive the glory days. He got fined $800. Tough lesson to learn. I laughed out loud when I found out what he'd done. Not sure he appreciated that.
The other classic was an older woman (maybe in her 50s) who saddled up next to me. She knew one of the prisoners and they were yelling a conversation to each other from across the room. At one point they began talking about the need for a shot of heroin. Hmmmm....
Lucky for me, she was on the docket just before me so we had a long time together. She talked to the prosecutor just before me. Apparently she beat the crap out of her grown daughter in a car while driving on the freeway. Not sure who was driving. The daughter "bit her and pulled her hair out" so she smacked her before the daughter tried to jump out of the car while speeding down the freeway. honestly.
She really let the prosecutor have it so by the time I got to him he was in no mood for bargaining. Luckily my plea and abeyance had already been worked out. I just tried to work my magic and get the fee waived as well. He wasn't having it. no budging from the big man who'd been in a hot courtroom all day with people who forget to use their brains.
Anyway, 2 hours and $132 later, I was out the door on probation (I feel like a real criminal) for 6 months.
Lesson: make sure you change lanes when passing a cop. Otherwise, you get a very educational day in court and a ridiculous fee for the "crime" committed.

Fun in the tub

So many hairstyles to choose from. . .

Ony pony. . .

pigtails (or antennas as most people call them)

wet and soapy. . .

down. . .

or just wild and free. . .

my personal favorite. this took a few days to perfect!

Peek-A-Boo

Love these pictures.

Miss Mya

Mya is still a good age to be my little model. I took a bunch of pictures of her outside one day. Here's one I particularly like.

Missing "nana"

I ran across these pictures (I'm sorting through all my pictures right now because I have 30,000 on my laptop and I don't have any more room) and I'm definitely ready for Mom and Dad to come home. I miss seeing my parents interact with my kids. They left when Mya was only 1 1/2 months old. I especially love the picture in the middle of my mom snuggling Mya. Miss you mom!!

The "wrestling suit".

I have told some of you about the infamous "wrestling suit" that Jaida is obsessed with. My sister Kelli gave it to her. It used to be some sort of dance outfit, but I think it's missing something and now just looks like a wrestling outfit. Anyway, thanks Kelli. Jaida wore this for a week straight once. We washed it periodically, but it wasn't worth the fight to get it off her. The only time she took it off was when we had to go somewhere. She really works the camera when she's wearing it. The pictures are a little blurry because I was laughing so hard while taking them.

Jaida's facial expression and pose in the last picture says a lot about her personality. Love that kid.

Oh deer!

These deer have found a new home in my parents back yard. My mom would love it. My dad, not so much considering they're eating his bushes he's been working on for years. Dad, do you want me to hook up the car battery and give them a little shock?







This is the look the deer gave me after I hollered at it for eating my dad's bushes. It wasn't terribly intimidated. In fact, after I yelled enough to make them move a little, they walked over and pooed all over our sledding hill. Dirty little buggers. I guess they showed me.


Here's Mya taking a peek at the deer. Both of my girls were bawling while I was taking these pictures. . .Jaida because she was terrified the deer were going to stampede into the house and wanted me to shut the door, and Mya because she wanted to go out and pet them and I wouldn't let her out in the snow. Oh the drama.

Skydiving

I just found these pictures on my computer when I was sorting through them all. (I have over 30,000 pictures on my laptop and I'm trying to get it cleaned up). thought it would be fun to post them. The summer before we got married we went on a little skydiving trip up in Ogden. If you haven't done it, you should. The scariest part was driving to the skydive place because i was so nervous. After that it was just fun. Berly, if you read this, we did this well before we signed up for the Life insurance plans! :)








The hats were my favorite part. I'm still not sure why we got the ridiculous conehead hats and the guy strapped to our backs got helmets. . .whatever. The guy who went with mike was so short that when Mike stood up straight, he lifted the guy right off the ground. Pretty funny. Not sure the guy thought so, but we sure did.

Fruities

Mya hoovers fruities. She blows on them (because she blows on all her food now as if it is hot) and then they go right down. No chewing. She swallows them whole. Probably because she has no teeth to chew them with. She does the same thing with hot dogs. She can eat an entire hot dog (I cut it up of course) in about a minute flat. It's impressive. She'd put that Odom kids jellow slurping to shame.

Time-out. . . .useless!

So Jaida is going through one of her "phases" that require a LOT of endurance patience. I can't even remember what she had done, but she was on her way to time-out in her room. I was carrying her and she was singing (to the tune of nana-nana-nana) "Jaida's going to time-out". She was pretty upset about it as you can tell. Once I got her in her room, I closed the door and held on (there's no lock on the outside so I have to hold the door to keep her in). I could hear her on the other side of the door saying "I can't deal with this anymore. So stupid." She was talking to herself. Time-out really does nothing for her. I'm reading all the parenting books I can and so far the methods are not very effective yet. Jaida's REALLY good at finding ways around them. Some people have recommended spanking. When I told Jaida I was going to spank her, she turned around, stuck her butt towards me, and said "spank me mom. . . spank me." I had to walk away. Sigh.

Yea for Christmas!!!

We had a great Christmas as always this year. It was weird not having my parents here. Jaida was in heaven because she got to open all the presents. Mya didn't care about opening so Jaida tore through everything. The first thing she noticed was that Santa ate the cookies we left out for him and she was pretty mad. I'm not sure what she expected.

Jaida with Santa's cookies. She saw this on some cartoon and insisted we leave some out for him. You gotta love TV.




She decided the cookies looked good so she helped herself to a few of them before going to bed.



The loot.



We got this chair for Mya and once she saw it, she camped out in it all morning. Jaida would open presents for Mya and put them in her lap until the next one was opened.


Mike surprised me (and I mean absolutely surprised. . .I didn't ask for this nor did I expect him to get it) with a new camera for christmas to "help make my dreams come true" as he put it. What a guy. So supportive. And he managed to make me feel like a complete Shmuck for not getting him something better. There's always next year. :) Perhaps a Malibu!



Jaida loves playing store, and Mya loves eating all the coins that came with the cash register. Fantastic. I'll be expecting one of those in her poo sometime.


Jaida and Mya's rock and roll band. It's REALLY fun to listen to.


Our traditional Christmas breakfast. Growing up, my dad always put food coloring in the food to correspond with whatever holiday it is, so Christmas gets green pancakes and red eggs. it looks gross, but doesn't change the flavor any.


Here's the fam at the end of a long christmas day. Mike and Mya look spent. :)