i'm worse than my children

Right after yelling at gently chastising my children for the colossal mess they had made of my scrapbook/craft supplies, I proceeded to spill a whole bottle of Mod Podge all over me, the kitchen cabinets, the kitchen floor, the kitchen wall, the dishwasher, etc. Elena heard me growling in the kitchen and came to inspect. The following was our conversation....

Elena: "Wow, Mom, what happened in here?
Me: "I'm cleaning up a mess."
E: "What is this stuff? Sour cream?"
M: "No, it's glue."
E: "This is pretty bad, Mom. I didn't know you could make messes this big. I know we make big messes, but this is way worse than ours."

Thanks, Elena. Rub it in a little more please. :P

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Since we were up after midnight last night (this morning) Keith was the first to tell me Happy Birthday today. Then when I woke Elena up for school, the first thing she said to me was Happy Birthday. She's normally a little grumpy in the mornings and I hadn't thought she'd remember, so I said "Elena, you remembered!!" And she said "Of course I remembered your birthday, Mom. I would be bad if I didn't remember your birthday". (Of course I assured her she wouldn't be, and then thanked her for remembering!) Then when Mari, Téa, and Amya woke up, they all came into our room and sang Happy Birthday to me with Keith. Then Keith took them to the kitchen to make me some breakfast - yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Probably not the most nutritious breakfast, but very yummy. Mari keeps walking up to me and singing Happy Birthday - it's very cute.

And the mail just came and it was ALL for me! A birthday card from Memmie (to which Amya said "She always sends pretty cards"), one from Sally&Ben (to which Amya said "They always send cute cards...usually with dogs" (and this one was no exception)) and one from my mom (to which Amya said "Is my money in there?" (long story, but it was)). Oh and I got a card from Ceci on Monday...the first one to arrive. After I opened the card from my mom and pulled out the 3 gift cards to Target, Bath&Body Works and Old Navy, plus a little cash (THANKS Mom), Keith had something to say - "Hey, is she trying to outdo me or what?" :) Thanks for the cards guys!! Love ya!

So far this is shaping up to be a pretty good birthday. And since it's my last one (I don't plan on getting older than 29), that's a very good thing.

Here's Mari singing to me....


And this is totally unrelated, but we think it's hilarious so I'm including it. We like to play a game we call "Who Says? Who Says?" (Amya made up the name when she was 2). We say a quote from a movie and the first person to correctly name the movie it's from or the character who says it, gets the next turn. Last night Téa came up to me with this gem....

I didn't think to have her say it again and tape it last night, but we got it this morning. I think it's SO funny how she changes her voice for the different parts. In case you can't figure it out, she's singing a line from the "A Whole New World" song in the movie Aladdin. She says "Don't you dare close your eyes (Aladdin's part) and then "A whole new world" (Jasmine's part). Oh and that's chocolate frosting from the cupcakes all over their mouths.

silly boy

Keith made these delicious and wonderful cinnamon rolls for the second time last night. He started around 9 and I think the first batch came out of the oven around 11:30 pm. They looked so light and golden. I was looking at them and wondering why they didn't look exactly the same as last time. Then it hit me. "Keith, did you put cinnamon in these?" I asked him. "No...why?" was his reply. I waited. A few seconds later, "Aw, man!" Yes, he forgot to put the cinnamon in the cinnamon rolls. I think we'll forgive him though - they still tasted wonderful. Here's a pic of the ones that he made the first time...before baking. I never got around to taking a picture of them after they came out of the oven because we were too excited to eat them.

findings

About 15 minutes ago (literally) I was on the phone with my sister when Maricela came up to talk to me. I noticed something funny in her nose (thought it was a weird booger) and told her to lift up her head. As soon as I realized what I was looking at, I told Kara I had to call her back and hung up the phone. I plugged Mari's other nostril and told her to blow. She sniffed. "No, BLOW" I shouted. She figured it out, blew really hard, and out shot a flower bead. She then opened her mouth to show me what she had in there - a pretty marble. I called Keith over to show him, and he said he thinks the bead has been in her nose since yesterday. He said she went to him and was talking about something in her nose and he checked it, but didn't see anything. We're wondering if it was up there even further and had somehow worked its way out enough for me to see it. Really, it was barely showing and I was afraid it wouldn't come out with just blowing and I'd have to break out the tweezers. We told her "Mari, don't EVER put things in your nose again". And she replied "That's what my friends do". Lately she's been telling us about her "friends", who usually do things we wouldn't want her to be doing. The other night, we had her in our bed because she was talking too much and keeping the other girls from going to sleep. Keith and I were in the living room watching tv, and could still hear her talking and giggling in our bed. Keith went to check on her and asked her who she was talking to. She said "my friends" and Keith said she was looking at something behind him and smiling. I don't know if we're dealing with imaginary friends (none of the other girls had any) or if it's just a phrase she heard and is using. Either way, these "friends" better straighten out their act before I straighten it out for them.

Here are the bead and marble, in case you were wondering. I think this will have to be the picture of the day for today.

good or bad?

The girls were eating ice cream sandwiches today and Keith told Téa to go get one for Maricela. She did, but she brought it to him with a big bite missing. Here's the conversation that followed:
Keith: "Téa, who took a bite out of Maricela's sandwich?"
Téa: "I did."
Keith: "Why did you take a bite out of her sandwich?"
Téa: "Because I wanted to see if if was good or bad. And it was good."

holy cow

The girls have been really enjoying the English Primary. They're learning all the songs and singing them all the time around the house. We play a game together to practice the songs. I start to sing and then when I stop singing they have to say the next word that comes in the song. It doesn't always go smoothly, and today was a perfect example. Téa and I were singing "I love to see the temple" and here's how it went...



Me: I love to see the

Téa: temple

Me: I'm going there some

Téa: day

Me: To feel the holy

Téa: cow



Yeah, we need to work on that.... (For those of you not familiar with the song, the correct answer was spirit.)

General Conference 08

I had signed up to take the 'expert' scrapbooking class from Jessica Sprague back at the end of April, but I never did any of the assignments. It was nearing the end of school and I had so much going on that I was never able to get around to doing them. I finally sat down today and completed the first page. It took forever! There were so many intricate things she taught us to do on this one. I am loving learning more and more about digital scrapbooking. Hope you like the page!
Funny from today - I made dinner for Keith and the girls, and I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. I kinda made my own recipe by combining a couple other ones. And it was a hit! All the girls and Keith loved it. After dinner Elena was talking about how glad she was that I had made dinner and how much she liked it. Then she said, "That dinner made me feel SO good! It made me feel like I have lots of friends!" So silly. Then later she was dancing and singing and asked me, "Mom, aren't you glad you have a daughter like me who loves to dance and sing?" She is so cute!

my eyes hurt

Well, I finally came upstairs and loaded the pictures onto the computer. But since my eyes are hurting and it's after 11, I think I'll wait till tomorrow to upload them here. And there are so many I want to share - I might have to put them on Flickr.

When I was typing the title, I remembered an Amya story I wanted to share. We went to the church the other night for a Family Home Evening type activity. They were telling the story that goes along with the "I'll Find You My Friend" song. It talks about how there were two friends in the pre-existence, and they both find out it's their time to come to Earth, and one is going to an LDS home and the other isn't and the one who isn't asks the other friend to come find him and share the gospel with him after they get there. Anyway, they're telling this story and then they start singing the song, and Amya leans over to me. She says "Mom, my eyes hurt and I feel like crying, but I don't have to." I asked her if her bangs were bothering her eyes and she said no. I asked if she liked what they were talking about and she said no. I asked her if she was feeling the Holy Ghost and that's why she was crying and she said she didn't think so. I told her it was okay for her to cry, it just meant she liked what they were saying and she buried her head in Keith's back and cried a little. It was so touching to me. I know she felt the Spirit (cause I was pretty close to crying myself) and just didn't know how to express it. I don't even know how to say what I'm trying to say, but I just thought it was such a sweet moment and I hope that she'll remember it.

And one other funny thing. Keith was talking about someone the other day and said "Yeah, he's crazy." Téa immediately asked "Crazy? Fox crazy?" Keith likes to say crazy like a fox and she had remembered that. Keith said he busted up laughing when she said that.

Okay, hopefully I'll either have pictures up tomorrow, or a link to my Flickr account with lots of pictures.

sorry mom

still no pictures. I just can't get my lazy butt up the stairs to load them onto the computer. This wireless on my laptop is totally spoiling me. But here are some updates sin fotos (that's spanish for without pictures).

Maricela folds her arms to say the prayer. Every time. And the other night Keith said "Hey you know what you can do to calm her down when she's going crazy?" He started saying a prayer and she immediately turned around, folded her arms and smiled. SO cute. She waves bye, has 12 teeth, walks and gets into everything everywhere, and is just turning into the cutest little person ever.

Elena can write her own name!!!! And guess who taught her - Amya! Amya absolutely loves to play school with the girls. She has rules and makes 'plans' and everything. We got a little annoyed with her the other day because she glued a class schedule she had made to the wall. Nice. Anyway, back to Elena. Amya was making her practice the letters in her name. She totally got the E and the L and then just needed a little more help from me to get the N and the A. But now she's writing it all by herself and is so smart! She's so proud of herself and keeps asking us if we want to watch her write her name again.

Amya and Elena both know their parts for the Primary presentation. Elena's is "Tengo fe en el Senor Jesucristo". And Amya's is "Yo tambien soy una hija de Dios. Mi padre celestial tiene un plan para mi". Elena is so cute - she'll say "Mom do you want me to say my prayer?" and then say her little part.

Did I already tell you about all the coloring Téa is doing? I think I did. But I just can't get over it. She's constantly coloring (even on our walls) and today she wanted to write her name like Elena was. I helped her write it, and then she tried to do it again by herself. She didn't do too bad for her first try! And then she drew a picture of herself next to her name - a cute little potato with hair and sticks for arms. It's so neat to watch these girls go through the same stages of writing and drawing that we saw with Amya. It's just really interesting to me to have learned all this stuff about how kids learn and when they start to do things like read and write and how they go through these different phases, and then to watch my kids do those things I learned about. (Sorry for that annoying run-on sentence.)

Well, maybe if I get enough sleep tonight, I'll have enough energy to go upstairs tomorrow and get some pictures posted. Don't cross your fingers though. :) TTFN!

comin to ya live... (part 2)

from San Diego!! We left our hotel this morning to drive down here to take the girls to Sea World. They were so excited to see Shamu again. And this time we got to feed the dolphins and all the girls got the chance to touch a dolphin. That was pretty dang cool. We also fed the seals. The trainer told us not to dangle the little fish over the edge because there were seagulls all around, just waiting for you to do that so they can fly in and steal the fish before the seal gets it. Sure enough, Elena dangled hers over and I got a picture of the bird stealing it out of her hand. Speaking of Elena, we only lost her twice today. So I'd say our parenting skills have greatly improved. Side note - I walked away from her just a little (like 5 feet), but she didn't see me walk away. She turned around, and started looking all around for me. Once she saw that I was nearby, she kind of chuckled and then said "Oh! I thought I was lost again!" And if anyone is wondering, the Orlando Sea World is definitely better than the San Diego one. Not that this one wasn't fun, because it was, the Orlando one is just bigger and better. I don't know what we'll do tomorrow. We don't really know. Maybe check out the Pacific coast beaches (I've never seen the Pacific before - but I'm sure it can't compare with the beaches of Naples) or just sightsee around town. I guess if you care you can check back in tomorrow night. And I still can't post any pictures, but I was able to find these ones of us from the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney. The one of Amya and Téa didn't come out for some reason, but there's one of me with Maricela, and Keith with Elena. And just so you know, my score is slightly lower than Keith's because I was trying to take pictures and wasn't really concentrating on shooting. (It's actually an improvement on my score from last year!)

crazy stuff

So Keith and I went on a date tonight and on the way home, his truck ran out of gas. 1.5 miles from our exit. Luckily we were able to coast to the exit and there was a gas station right next to it that we were able to pull in to. He filled up the tank, and then the dumb truck wouldn't start. We were an hour late to get home to the babysitter and had to call someone to come pick me up so I could take her home, and a tow truck to tow the truck over to the dealership so they can look at it in the morning. So annoying.

Anyway, on to the point of the post. We went to pick up Keith when the tow truck got there. He was in the car with the girls and I was standing outside. Elena told him "Dad, I have to tell you something. But don't tell Mom. I broke one of her bracelets while you guys were gone." Then when I get back in the car she says, "Mom, Dad has something he needs to tell you". Um, didn't you just tell Dad that you didn't want me to know? Did you think I wouldn't get mad if Dad told me instead of you? Keith busted up laughing, and that made everyone laugh. Almost a good ending to a crazy night. (I only say almost cause I'm a little upset about the broken bracelet, and the truck being broken is kinda hampering my humor.)

behave

Apparently, the word behave is a confusing word for kids to deal with. Allow me to give you some examples....

Amya: Why aren't they being have? (upon seeing some very rowdy kids)

Elena : I be-NOT-have (when Keith asked her if she was going to behave)
Keith : What does be-not-have mean?
Elena: It means be not good.

Obviously they get the meaning of the word, but the conjugation of it is a completely different story. :)

she's mean!

Elena: "I don't love her at all. She's so mean!" (talking about Amya)
Me: "Why don't you love her? She's your sister."
Elena: "Cause when I hit her, she hit me back!"
Me: "Umm, you shouldn't have hit her in the first place......"

You know those plastic kid playhouses that they sell at Home Depot for $1600? They're so cute, but SO expensive. Anyway, we were drving around HD the other day and Elena asked Keith to stop so she could look at the playhouse. She asked Keith if he would buy it for her, and he said no. Then she said "Well, we could stole it, but I guess that would be bad."

Amya had gotten dressed, wearing a black shirt and black skirt. I heard Elena tell her "Whoa, Amya. You look SOOOOOOOOOO beautiful." She said it so seriously. Way cute. Elena really likes black, and she looks good in it. I guess she was impressed that Amya was dressing in one of her favorite colors.

An era has ended

The other day we were watching TV with all the girls. Keith was not liking whatever show it was and said "This show is G-A-Y". He spelled it out so that the girls wouldn't know what he said. Almost immediately Amya says "Gay? Why is the show gay dad?" We were laughing and saying that we couldn't spell things out anymore. About half an hour later, we were watching another show and Keith says "This show is Y-A-G". And sure enough, after about 2 seconds, Amya says "Dad, that's gay spelled backwards." We couldn't believe it. It's gonna be so hard now to talk about stuff we don't want them to know about now that Amya can figure out what we're saying. We also won't be able to talk in Spanish for much longer, cause she's figuring that out too. That smart little booger is ruining everything! :) Oh yeah, I forgot, then she started spelling stuff out herself, like "d-a-d i-s g-a-y" and stuff like that. Crazy.

In other news, Maricela's other top tooth is coming in now as well.

funny of the day

Elena: Why do you love me so much?
Me: Cause you're my beautiful girl.
Elena: No I not, I your funny girl ... but I still beautiful.
Me: Oh, you're my funny girl today?
Elena: Yes, and not a mean funny girl, a beautiful funny girl.

Funnies

Here are some random things the girls have said lately that have made us laugh.

• I had poured some milk into my cereal and then realized that the milk wasn't very cold. I checked the fridge and saw that the temperature thingy was turned to "OFF". So I turned it back on and then when Keith came home a few minutes later, I told him about it. All the kids were in the kitchen with us, listening. Keith said "It was probably one of these monsters that did it." To which Elena replied "Probably it was me...cause I did it." We just started laughing.
• Also, Elena likes to call us "mother" and "father". I don't know where she got it from, but she's been calling us that for a few weeks now. "Mother, can I do this? Father, can I have that?" It sounds so weird to me to hear mother and father instead of mom/my and dad/dy. So we started calling her "daughter", and the funny thing is, she's not too fond of that. Oh well.
• Elena also gets "very" confused with "really". As in "I very want some candy" or "My toe very hurts". She's so silly.
• The other day Elena was dancing around like she had to go to the bathroom. Keith told her to run to the bathroom before she went in her pants. She said "I don't have to use the bathroom. I just have a song in my head."
• This is a little bit of potty humor (pun intended), so don't say I didn't warn you. Amya used the bathroom and then called me in to wipe her. There was a lot of "stuff" in the bottom of the toilet and I said "Amya, you sure did a lot today!" And she replied, "No, I just borrowed some from Elena. She forgot to flush."
• Téa likes to tell people "I love you this much" and she holds up her hand with her thumb and index finger right together, like she's crushing a bug or something.

Okay, for some reason I'm having a hard time remembering silly things that Amya and Téa have said. I'm going to have to think about it some more.

Night at the Museum

We took the girls to see Night at the Museum Monday night. They were really excited to get out and do something fun. As the movie was starting, during the opening credits, Elena said (loud enough for everyone in the theater to hear)

"I not sure I going to like this movie!"

Everyone in the theater started laughing. She is so silly. And she ended up liking it. All the girls liked it. It was really cute and fun.