at the playground

One of the best things about living so close to the elementary school is having the playground just a few minutes walk away. We go there pretty much on a daily basis. Often times the neighbor boys tag along with their friends. We take Wrigley over there so he can run around in the field. He won't get up on the play equipment because he's too scared. Kind of funny! It took Elsie some time to get up the courage to go down the big slide, but now she just wants to do it again and again (or "anaw, anaw" as she says it).

(Don't you hate when you think you've stopped recording, but you haven't? I do that all the time...including this video. Oops!)

"Is this thing on??"

We spend a lot of time out on the front porch, enjoying the shade, watching the cars go by, talking with the neighbors, and so on. While we were out there this evening, Elsie picked up the end to her sprinkler and was singing into like it was a microphone. She was totally into it and was putting on quite the show.

It was so good I had to record it. Yes, I know there are several videos here, but I couldn't decide which ones to put on the blog. At least they're short...and you get to hear my beautiful voice. :)

Notice she's so intense, that she even has to close her eyes as she performs.

You've got to listen for her special surprise at the end of this one.

playing catch up

I realized after blogging last night that I lied when I said I didn't have any pictures. I do have quite a few...I just kind of forgot (and then I got lazy!).

I told Aaron that for Mother's Day I wanted a pedicure. My feet were pretty nasty, I had major callouses on my big toes...anyway, you get the picture. I finally went last week to get it done, and it was heavenly. My feet are very ticklish, but the guy doing it was really good about applying a lot of pressure so I wouldn't twitch all over the place. He even asked me "Are you a runner?" I proudly said "Yes" even though I felt a bit like a fraud. My feet felt so good and looked so pretty when I left the salon. As soon as I got home and Elsie saw my toes, she was determined to get her toes painted. She picked purple!


Elsie got some new sunglasses at the Disney Store. She was feeling pretty cool in them while we were out shopping the other day.

Elsie's a picker! She loves to pick at everything, but especially her nose. She always has to find one us to wipe the boogies off with a kleenex. At least they're not going in her mouth! Now, Aaron just has to teach her the roll and flick. He he.

We went to Cheesecake Factory for Aaron's birthday. Just some cute pictures at the restaurant.

Elsie and I sat outside while Aaron was mowing the lawn. She brought her crayons out to color at her little table. Outside + coloring = Happy Elsie!! (Too bad I forgot to bring the tub of crayons back in when we were done. When I went to get them later that day, the whole top half of crayons were melted together.)

I'm not tired, so I guess I'll blog

-This is the first 3-day weekend in a long time that Aaron and I haven't travelled or had someone come visit us. It has been really nice to be at home and not have anything we have to do. Don't get me wrong...we LOVE getting to see our family and friends, but we needed this break from travelling. Our next adventure is in a couple weekends when we drive down to Burley for Aaron's triathlon.

-Elsie is a talking machine. The last couple days she has started with all sorts of crazy jibberish talking mixed with some of her usual words. I'm fascinated by this language she has come up with and am constantly trying to decode what she says. I know it will start making more sense and she'll learn to say more and more words correctly, but, in the meantime, it can be a bit challenging. She say teetles instead of tickles, pice instead of spiders, mize instead of my or mine...I'm know there's a lot more, but I can't think of them right now. I do love hearing her cute little voice and being able to communicate with her so much more.

-Last weekend we went to see Wolverine. It was way fun to go to the theatre to see a movie, but, truthfully, it wasn't one of my favorites. I like all the other X-Men movies, but I had a hard time getting into this one. Who knows why?! Maybe I'm just getting old and boring. No, I think I just get bored with all the action scenes. It happens in a lot of movies. We rented Marley & Me last night. I wasn't a super fan of that either. Jennifer Aniston just bugged me in that role because it wasn't believable. Plus, I'm not a real dog person (yes, I know we have a dog...but I don't get real sentimental about it.). So, what it comes down to is that I need to see a good movie. I'm 0 for 2. :(

-Last Sunday I stayed home from church with Elsie because she had a fever. For the next couple days, she continued to have it off and on. I took her to the doctor to make sure it wasn't a UTI (thank goodness it wasn't), but they weren't able to find anything else. Anyway, it went away by Wednesday, but I had a few days stuck at home with a sad, sick Elsie. The only good part about her being sick is that she snuggled a lot and slept a lot.

-I've continued running for exercise. I still suck at it! Why can't I do it?? I know it's a mental thing. I'm in pretty good shape overall, but running is just a challenge and I get so frustrated. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

-Elsie's favorite song right now is "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga. She loves to sing it, but we are not allowed to sing or dance while the song is playing. She's so bossy!

-I don't know why I haven't been taking any pictures lately. I need to work on that.

Happy Birthday to our Man!

Yesterday was Aaron's 33rd birthday. It's so weird to think that the first birthday I celebrated with him was his 23rd birthday. So much has changed and happened since then. At that time, I was home in ML for the summer, and my mom had the idea of driving down to Orem and surprise Aaron. It worked out so great. He had no idea I was coming and I called him on the phone right before I knocked on the front door. When he came to answer the door, he was so confused and shocked. It was perfect! We've had a lot of fun celebrations since then, but that was probably one of my best.

Anyway, yesterday was a pretty much a normal day. Aaron still had to go to work, still went to the gym, and so on. He couldn't think of anything that he wanted for his birthday...that we could afford, that is. He did buy himself a watch the other day, so he has something to time himself when he's running. So, since we didn't have any fun presents for him to open, we had to come up with something else. Elsie and I did a little creative shopping at Target and decided to decorate the hall where he comes in the house. We cut out 33 hearts and each one said one thing that we love about him. (I won't write the list for you all because that would be embarrassing.) We also blew up some blue balloons for him, which Elsie insisted on putting them in straight rows. (I know it's a little amateurish looking, nothing fancy. There's only so much you can get done in a couple hours!)

Elsie and I each gave Aaron a card, and I made his favorite dinner...sweet pork burritos. Elsie was very excited to give the card to Daddy. She colored a picture for him, and the card was purple and orange...her two favorite colors. But then she wanted to take the card back!It turned out to be a nice evening, so we went on a walk with Wrigley after dinner. Then we watched all the Thursday night shows after Elsie went to bed. This weekend we're going to go out and maybe even see a movie...that hasn't happened it quite a while!

Happy Birthday, Aaron! You're the best!

My weekend

I ran the "Race for the Cure" on Saturday in Boise. It was only a 5K, but it was a good first experience to prepare for. I did it with a friend in my ward, her niece, and some other friends and family of hers. Well, really I ended up running by myself because I couldn't keep up with Diana and the others decided to walk. That was okay, though, because I had my music going and there were all sorts of people and things to look at. I kinda liked it...I think we are going to keep running and do a longer race this summer. Anything to help me get this last bit of weight off!! (By the way...officially lost 20 lbs.)

I had a nice Mother's Day. Aaron let me sleep in and got up with Elsie. However, I couldn't really get back to sleep...but it was a nice thought! When I came out of the room, Aaron was standing at the counter writing in my Mother's Day card. Oops! (I love him to death, but these kind of things...mother's day, valentine's day, etc...are not his thing!) I told him I wan to get a pedicure and a few tans this week as my present. We went to church, took a nice long walk, went a little overboard with yummy food...just a nice, relaxing day with my little family.

Elsie at the library

Elsie is quite the performer and independent little thing. She won't sit on my lap anymore. She has to be front and center. But she always look to me after every "performance" to make sure I was watching and am clapping for her. She's getting to know all the actions to all the songs and rhymes. It puts a humungous smile on my face every time we go because she's just a crack up to watch. She sings along and every once in a while will actually shout out the right word at the right time. Sometimes she'll stand right in front of the lady in charge and just stare at her every movement and copy her. I'm sure some of the other kids and moms are annoyed, but there's no stopping her. She gets in a major zone! And, frankly, it's too cute and I don't want to ruin her fun.

(I've taken a few videos of Elsie at the library in the last couple weeks. I had to keep the camera kind of hidden, otherwise she would just come over and grab it from me. So, it's not always the best view.)

Enjoy!!

(Notice her "lasso" at the end of this one.)

We are ready for Disneyland!

On Thursday some friends of ours told us about this "Day of the Child" celebration in Caldwell where they have crafts, hand out books, etc. It is really for the Hispanic community, but we went anyway. We were walking around, mostly just following our friends who have a tad bit older kids, when we see Mickey and Minnie Mouse walking up the stairs. Ok, so the costumes were not Disney quality, but Elsie did not care!! She was beside herself!! She was not afraid of them at all. I tried to get her to wait a few minutes to go over to see them because our friends were doing something else. She would not have it. She walked right over to them...making a gitty, giggly sound the whole way...waved hello, gave them a hug, gave them a high-five. But, guess which loser mom didn't have her camera. That's right, me!! Oh, I'm so mad at myself. She had the cutest grin on her face the whole time. Needless to say, we visited them several times throughout the afternoon. You thought I was excited to go to Disneyland before...now, I really don't know how I'm going to wait until October!

I can't sleep, so I might as well blog

Last night we went to a scout fundraiser dinner for the scouts in our ward. We were able to drop off Elsie at our friends' house because their niece who lives with them was going to watch all the kids. It was nice to eat dinner and visit without having to deal with her. We take her out with us all the time, so it's not like she's super difficult or anything...it's just nice to not even have to think about it. After we dropped our friends off and picked up Elsie, we headed home to get her ready for bed. They called us a few minutes later to see if we were up for playing a game. So, Elsie stayed up late playing with her friends, and we had a fun time as well. You would think that would mean Elsie would be so tired and completely out for the night. Not the case! She woke up at 4 a.m. crying, finally settled herself down, and woke up again crying 15 minutes later. I went up there to snuggle her and got her back to sleep. But I couldn't ever get back to sleep, so I've been out on the couch watching HGTV and looking on the computer since 5:30 a.m. What a bummer!

It's pouring rain outside right now, which is actually nice to listen to. I was supposed to go running this morning to get ready for my 5K (don't laugh...that's a big deal to me) race that I'm doing next week. I guess I'll just be running on the treadmill at the gym instead. I'm still working on losing weight. I've lost about 19 lbs. so far. I want to lose 5-10 more lbs. I have a certain size I want to get to before I invest in summer clothes. I better get moving!

I had a good week with Elsie. Nothing too exciting or different, but we had a good time together. I never had one of those days where I felt like she was driving me crazy. I feel like she is just getting cuter and cuter and more and more personality. She's talking more and says funny things. I watched another little boy the other night that is a week younger than Elsie. It was so interesting to see the difference between the two of them. Elsie was so much more vocal and understood more, whereas he is more physical. I guess that's a big difference between boys and girls.

Okay, I'll post more later. I can't even keep a thought anymore.