Easter Dresses

It's that time of year again.
Easter that is...I love Easter for many reasons: Springtime, Cadbury eggs (all kinds I don't discriminate,) pretty dresses, Cadbury eggs, coloring eggs, Easter Candy (I could go for a creme egg right about now, )but most importantly I love what it represents...The Resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who lived and died for us. He broke the bands of death and rose from his tomb...He lives.

Sydnee really wanted to involve Bella in the pics...just imagine an Easter Guinea Pig instead of an Easter Bunny.

Strangers are Strange

After watching the YW General Broadcast, a young lady walked up to me and gave me this: No wonder she kept looking over at me throughout the video.
Hmmm...What do you say to someone when they give you something like this? "Uh, thank you for showing me my very unflattering profile...I personally am thankful that this is an angle of myself I don't get to see on a daily basis." ???
No, of course I didn't say that, but seriously this was a weird experience. She was a very sweet 14 year old...and pretty talented I would say...especially because I think she was aware enough to hide my imperfections and make my nose much less witch-like than it really is (maybe I will take this drawing when I go get my nose job, Vicki...for an idea of what I want the after to be. ;)
After talking to her for a while I made my exit...but not without getting a hug first...
like I said, strange.

Snow Day!

Although I am not a huge fan of snow, I LOVE Spring snow storms. Now I am just as ready as everyone else for it to warm up and turn green outside...BUT...that happens faster when you get lots of wet snow like this: School was cancelled on Wed. and the girls and I got to play in the snow on a beautiful day. It was so warm that the snow was melting too fast. We wanted it to last a little bit longer. Our first idea was to make a dinosaur...then I suggested that the girls slide down his neck...when they couldn't stay on a straight path, we flattened out the neck and pretty much quit with the sculpting. By the time I got the camera, Justee was done...she didn't like the taking turns part. She kept saying she wasn't done yet, so it was still her turn.

Sydnee dug out a tunnel and started making it big enough to sit in the middle of her little cave.

I'm a little surprised, but I hope we get another storm like this before the snow is completely gone...we want to make an igloo! :)

Good Excuse to do Nothing

It is doing a lot of this outside: So we will be doing a lot of this inside:

Justee Moments

This little girl can be quite the pest. She hates her picture taken and she never wants to look at the camera. When I get her to make eye contact, it is for a split second and she is usually pulling a face. She loves to tease her sisters, but she is definitely the type that can dish it but can't take it. She gets really mad if we laugh at her tantrums or the silly things she says when she is upset.

Even though she can be quite the pain, she makes us all laugh everyday and can be so thoughtful and caring. She is pretty quick to say "I'm sorry" and loves to give hugs. She is pretty social and warms up to people quickly.

We got our Easter decor out a few days ago, and Justee loves to play with all the figurines like they are toys. Several have been broken and glued back together. She had them out one day and Sydnee hollered at me, "Mom, look what Justee is doing!"
I heard Justee say to Syd, "Don't tell, Sydnee! Don't tell!"
I looked at her and told her to put them back, they aren't toys.
She turned and yelled at Sydnee, "I told you not to tell! You couldn't have telled!"




While in Sacrament Meeting Sun. Justee was being her usual chatty self. We kept trying to get her to be quiet, but she just wouldn't stop talking. She was on Justin's lap and was patting his face as she talked to him. "Daddy, you have lots of hair on you. You have hair right here and right here......Daddy! You have hair in your NOSE!"
Justin and I started to chuckle, but he forgot to acknowledge that he heard what she said; and we all know that if you don't let kids know you heard them...they repeat themselves. "DADDY, YOU HAVE HAIR IN YOUR NOSE!"
I think the people around us found a little humor in this conversation.

On Friday as I was making dinner, Justee really wanted to help. She was sitting on the counter when she started to act sleepy. I asked if she wanted to go lay down. She insisted that she wasn't sleepy and she wanted to help. Then she proceeded to get comfy. After she was laying there for a while I tried to pick her up to carry her to the couch. She woke right up and yelled, "I'm NOT sleepy!" I told her that she was just asleep. "No I'm NOT. I was just taking a break."
I let her sleep there, in the middle of them mess, while I finished up dinner.

Gotta Love Em

Today was a good day...even if it is nearly impossible for me to get a good picture of my girls.

We had fun enjoying the beautiful weather together...PLUS, I got a new lens for my camera.
Can't wait to try it out on a wedding next Sat....Hopefully I get better cooperation.





P.S. I just remembered that I have to change my clocks for tomorrow. I hate "Springing" my clock forward! I NEED that lost hour of sleep. Crap, I better get to bed.

unmotivated

I have been feeling beyond unmotivated lately. It seems like I have so much to do and yet I just can't get myself to do any of it. I did however muster up enough motivation to go downstairs and clean up yesterday...I put away all the toys that were piled up and cleaned up mounds of drywall scraps (my throat and lungs are not happy with me for breathing in all that dust.) Our basement is slowing making progress and now that everything is cleaned up and out of the way, taping the drywall and getting the texture on should be a breeze (well at least easier than it would have been with all that crap in the way.) As happy as I am to think about the basement being finished, part of me is just thinking, "Crap, more house to clean" and where there once was excitement about painting and decorating there is dread and self-pity. Anyone want to come paint and decorate my basement when it is done?
...maybe I just need Spring to get here.

Moving on: I have to tell this story before I forget it...I had a couple others, but I wasn't fast enough and now I can't remember what they were.

Sun. night we started a little fire in our fire pit. Of course that made the girls want to roast marshmallows. Justee was determined to do it by herself. I wanted to help so she wouldn't catch it on fire, but she wouldn't let me. Alas, she caught it on fire. After blowing it out, I helped her take a bite not knowing what this would result in....She immediately spit it out and through gagging noises she yelled at me, "Why did you do that, Mommy?! I didn't say you could do that!" She rubbed her tongue and continued, "Now I have to get a drink! Don't ever do that again, ok Mommy?! That was yucky!" Then she stormed into the house to get a drink. Apparently Justee does NOT like burnt marshmallows...she let me help her with the rest of them.

Asleep on the Job

Who knew coloring was such hard work? Charlee and I have been participating in a preschool type of playgroup. It is every Thurs. for an hour and a half. We rotate every week whose turn it is to host. This last Thurs. was my second week hosting/trying to teach 4 year olds something. Justee likes when it is at our house because she gets to join in. We had a small geography lesson and discussed the state of Colorado. It seemed to work out well...any ideas for future lessons?

"Mermaid off the port bow!"...

...every time I saw the words port or bow or stern...lines from the Little Mermaid popped in my head. "Kiss the Girl" was our theme song for this trip.


This post has seemed impossible to finish...it just isn't possible to put into words all the fun we had (making fun of each other. ;)


Before I tell about our fabulous adventure to the Bahamas, I have to acknowledge my wonderful husband who not only "let" me go on this girl's trip, but came up with the idea and did most of the early planning. It is nice to know I have an understanding husband who is willing to make sacrifices to see me happy.



Renae, Dana and I headed to Miami last Sun. We stayed in a dumpy hotel in South Beach where the 3 of us shared a "queen-sized" bed (no way was it a queen, more like a full)...needless to say, I slept half in the bed, half on the nightstand.


We passed the time Mon. morning doing a little shopping...we bought some sweatshirts and such being that we packed for warm weather and we weren't experiencing any yet. The wind on the beach was ridiculous.

Once we boarded our ship, "Majesty of the Seas," we found our way to our room at the bottom of the ship. None of us were completely prepared for the tight quarters...We were laughing so hard at how tiny it was....BUT...at least we had our own beds! :) ...even if I froze the first night sleeping inches away from the AC.

The first night we met our dinner company (we had to share a dinner table with 3 strangers.) They weren't the most friendly of women, but they warmed up to us by night 3...they had no choice we (and by "we" I mean Dana and Renae) were going to talk to them whether they liked it or not.

The ship set sail right during dinner and the motion wasn't a welcome feeling. Luckily none of us got sick (Renae felt a little queasy, but some bromine took care of that) but some other lady wasn't so lucky...let's just say we saw the results of her illness and it wasn't pleasant.

Our first stop was Nassau. This is where we learned not to touch anything unless you wanted to be surrounded by women asking if you wanted to buy it. "You like, pretty lady? You want to buy? It is on sale today!"

They even trained their kids to try flattery to sell things...8-10 year old girl says, "Our price is usually $12, but for you because you are so beautiful, $6."

I experienced a first while in Nassau...I went snorkeling (if you can call walking around in waste deep water, sticking your head under the water, taking a few quick deep breaths, and standing back up a handful of times snorkeling.) I am not a fan of water and drowning is probably my biggest fear...but since I am not an irrational person, I don't let this fear keep me from doing things. ;)

This is the little island we went to for our Stingray Adventure. It was really pretty and we were there for our sunshiny-est day.

Here are our little friends. Renae said when she snorkeled before, her instructor likened them to cats...we made lots of jokes about that.

As we walked around Nassau, several different people called us Charlie's Angels...then at dinner we got it a couple more times. Because we are such idiots (seriously idiots) we took this next pic.

I didn't like the referral that well, because it meant I was Drew Barrymore.

Day 3 took us to Royal Caribbean's private island Cococay. (the date printed on this pic is wrong, it was the 24th)

We were excited to go kayaking on the pretty little island, but the weather wouldn't cooperate. It rained us out and the sun never showed his face. We waited for an hour for the rain to clear (which it did) but the wind was too strong.

We were left to entertain ourselves...which we do quite well. We played volleyball and relaxed in a hammock and took pics.

We sunbathed with towels for blankets...I think Dana still applied 3 coats of sunscreen throughout the day. hahaha

After we had as much fun as possible on Cococay, we headed back to the ship.

As we got close to the ship, we could see the anchor chains going into the water. (this is where I make fun of Renae, it's ok because she never reads my blog anyway.)

Renae turns to me and asks me (in all seriousness,) "Teri, how do they get the anchor in at an angle?" Realizing that she was dead serious I gave her a straight answer and then we all had a great laugh. "Oh, that makes sense...I just thought maybe they shot it out or something." Hahaha Renae is always good for a laugh. :)

That night we went to the free entertainment which happened to be a pretty funny comedian. Much better than the singers/dancers they had....they were ridiculously terrible, and by that I mean that I could have joined their little group and fit right in...seriously...I was embarrassed for them. Embarrassed and annoyed...I refused to clap for them because that is how I am. As funny as the comedian was, we thought we were funnier. He stopped us outside after the show and talked to us for about an hour. We had fun making fun of the comedian...everything he said, we had something funnier to say (at least in our opinion.)

We stayed up late and went to the club to dance after we broke away from Mr. Funny Man. It was the one night we weren't in bed unusually early.

The forth day we stopped in Key West, FL. We got our swimsuits and sundresses on and headed off the ship, only to turn around and change. It was pretty cold before noon...then it warmed up, but not enough to ever go into any water. We walked around and did some shopping, laughing at each other the whole time.

We had a different towel animal in our room every night...here is the cat a.k.a stingray.

Once we got back to Miami, we had several hours to kill before our flight left. Luckily Justin's best friend Scott lives in the area. We called him and he took some time to hang with us for a while. Scott is always good for a laugh and we had a great time with him.

Summary: Although the weather wasn't as nice as we would have liked, we had a blast regardless because friends always supply a way to laugh...whether you are laughing at them or with them, it is good times. :)

We are already thinking about where our next girls' trip should be...New York, or Renae's homeland (Mexico)???

SO....If you are one of our friends (or want to be ;) start saving up so you can join us next time!

Pea-sized dab is all you need

Can someone please explain how this happens in 10 days??? **I just want to point out that I am not blaming Justin for this...the girls' toothpaste always looks like this...so gross. It was a perfectly clean tube 10 days before this pic was taken. It is just amazing how fast they can ruin it.