My best friend

Is it any wonder that my best friend is the Swiffer Wet mop?

This is no exception! My floors look like this after EVERY meal.

Wyatt is the true culprit, although Owen does add to the mess 99% of the time.

Every meal, I want my children to sit on their bottoms all the way, facing their plates. I want them to use their utensils appropriately and chew with their mouths closed in hopes that these rules will eliminate some of the mess on the floor after each meal. I don't think that is too much to ask, do you? Yet, each meal, I find myself repeating the words: "Turn around," "Sit on your bottom," "Use your fork," etc, etc, etc. In their defense, Lilly does do a pretty good job, unless there is something going on around her that she is gawking at (she gawks a lot!) and Owen still has motor deficits with holding a fork/spoon and using them appropriately.

Wyatt is at that lovely stage of throwing EVERYTHING on the floor. He picks it up looks at it, and then chucks it. He does it so conniving too! He knows it drives me crazy, looks at me and smiles as he does it again and again. I love this age!

In an attempt to make lemonade out of lemons:

At least after meal-time, my kitchen floors are super clean!

Family Pictures

On Thanksgiving day, we decided to attempt some family pictures. My dad took the pictures on my parents' street and neighbor's house. I am actually quite impressed with how well they turned out. Besides me in the picture (I think everyone can always find a flaw with a picture of themselves), everyone looks really cute and the background colors are fantastic! For a family who has an incredibly hard time sitting still, looking and smiling at the camera, HORRAY for us.

Fall

We have a large tree in our front yard that we love. It gives our home so much shade during the heat of the summer months. It is beautiful, although I don't have any idea what type of tree it is.

The down-side of having our tree is the fall season. The leaves fall off the tree so quickly and clog the gutters and bury our planters. At certain times, we will rake in the morning and by that same afternoon, the whole lawn is covered in leaves...again!

At least we can have some fun too!

Ice Skating

Okay, I am finally getting around to posting what we did for Lilly's 6th Birthday.

Since the kids had the day off from school (Lilly will never have to go to school on her birthday, pretty sweet!), we took the kids to the local ice rink.

We had a blast! The ice rink had buckets that the kids could use to help support themselves and keep from falling, what a clever idea!

Aubrey came too (when we told Lilly we were only having a family party this year, she happily announced that Aubrey could come too! She was right, Aubrey is part of our family).

The kids did fantatic!

We hit up Leatherby's on the way home. The ice cream quickly disappeared!

Lilly's 6th Birthday

Yesterday was Lilly's 6th birthday

(where does time go?!)

We celebrated her special day as a family. We told her ahead of time that this year we were not going to have a "friend" birthday party (we'll only do those at special milestone years, namely 5, 8, 12, 16, etc.).

She got to wear a SPECIAL birthday outfit from Mema and Bepa covered in cupcakes! She LOVED it! Mema also made her a special cupcake necklace at the family reunion this year that matched perfectly!

We cannot believe how fast our little girl is growing up!

She was given some wonderful gifts, including a high chair for her Hayley doll, clothes for Hayley, some Gymboree clothes, a special day with Uncle Dustin and Auntie Landon, a tea set, an adorable weiner dog shirt, and a special pillow Mommy made for her bed from fabric that was Grammie Ireta's (Lilly's name-sake).

With her birthday so close to Christmas, we are very cautious about the amount of gifts she receives for her birthday. We definately do not want our children growing up with the expectation of huge amounts of gifts for their birthday and Christmas. That's not what Christmas and birthdays are about. We are very fortunate to have families that respect our decision and give gifts that are meaningful and thoughtful rather than a lot of trinkets and toys.

Thank you to everyone who called, sent gifts, came to celebrate, etc. to make Lilly's birthday such a fun occasion!

P.S. I'll post more about what we did after presents later...ice skating!

Headstands

The other night, Lilly asked me if I could do a headstand. "Of course," I said. She quickly responded, "Show me!"

I quickly thought "Uh-oh! Can I really do a headstand anymore? It has been probably more than 20 years since I took gymnastics. Of course I can, it's just like riding a bike! It may not be pretty, but here goes..."

Here is what happened next:

What fun!

Halloween Pictures

Halloween has come and gone.

We had a fantastic day yesterday (even the weather was fantastic). We started off the day with a trip to Fenton's in Vacaville where we met some friends. We stuffed ourselves with yummy onion rings and famous Fenton's sundaes.

We then headed off to Mema and Bepa's ward Halloween party, complete with trunk-or-treat. Then off to trick-or-treating around our street. We went around our circle once, hitting only about 1/4 of the hosues (we don't need the candy, but wanted them to experience trick-or-treating).

Here are the kids in their costumes. Getting a picture with all three of them smiling and looking at the camera is no small feat. I challenge anyone out there to give it a try! Between Owen's actually inablity to look at the camera and Wyatt being the wiggliest kid on the planet, I think we did pretty good.

Lilly was Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid (she got this dress-up last year from Santa Claus).

Owen was a firefighter (we had this costume on-hand from therapy) and Wyatt was a frog (I got his costume at a second-hand store for $6).

Pretty good for $6, huh!?!

We hope you all had a fun Halloween!