Art Day! Hoo-ray!!

Nanny Had fresh apricots!

Art Day with the Cousins!!

Watch me paint!!

My little artist, hard at work!

My Sierra just LOVES to do art projects. My mom loves teaching art. What do you get when two trains collide??? Art day at Nannie's house, of course! We had so much fun. A few days ago, my mom had Sierra, Lilly, Tyler, Brook, and Chris over to her house to have an art day. Sierra couldn't have been more thrilled. She is such a cute artist. She works so hard at her pictures. My mom had all kinds of fun paint and glitter and paint brushes to use. The kids really were cute. As you can see, even Lilly got into it. She was a little mad at me, because I was trying to not let her paint her clothes, skin, hair...you name it, and that is what she really would have liked painting the most. Also, she decided she really needed a big drink of the paint water, and I didn't think that was the greatest idea either....It was otherwise a giant success.

Ever since art day at Nannie's, Sierra has had to write letters to all her friends and invite them to her Art Show, "Saturday Noon." That's what she tells me to write. And Nannie's Glitter is apparently the best glitter, because Sierra has been telling me to write "Nannie's Glitter" on the grocery shopping list so I don't forget to buy some for her. But the best thing she has said, she just said yesterday. This is how our conversation went...

Sierra: "Mom, do we have any glitter like Nannie's Glitter?"

Me: "No."

Sierra: "I KNOW!!!! We can make our own glitter!!!"

Me: "I don't know how to make glitter."

Sierra: "I do. First you add 4 cups of sugar. Then you add some sprinkles..."

Me: "Sprinkles and sugar...got it."

Sierra: "...and then you slowly stir in milk, water, and juice!!! It is very simple and easy!!!"

Me: "Yup. Probably."

Good old Glitter. If any of you decide to try out this recipe, let me know how it turns out...I'd be very interested.

Chi-Town 2009!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

July 2009 MoFo!!!

Just waiting for the fire works to start!!

Sparklers and Black Cats at Nanny's

Well, here it is. My July post. We have been so busy, really we have. I feel like all I have been doing is running around. What a great month we have had. We have really done everything. I started the month with a fourth of July 5K run. I did pretty good, considering I shaved 3 minutes off my time. However, I got shin splints pretty bad and I haven't been able to run since...story of my life right there. Miner ran it with me and took fourth place in his age group. I was pretty proud of him. We had so much fun on the fourth of July. We went to Evanston to watch fireworks. If you haven't ever done this I would TOTALLY recommend it. They light off every firework known to man. It is a giant free-for-all. Literally, we went to a big park that had lots of ball fields and people just parked their cars in this big parking lot and just started lighting a gillion fireworks!! Talk about hometown fire work show. It was parking lot of fire!!! It was a little white trash, but totally fun! Then the city actually puts on a pretty good fire work show when it gets dark, and it is all free, unless you spend $10,000 on fireworks to light off in the parking lot, and I swear people must have spent that much, because this went on for hours. When we left to go home at 11:30pm they were still going STRONG!! I am going there next year for sure.

The next weekend we got to go to Chicago (my new favorite city) to see our friends Rusty and Collette get MARRIED!!! We had so much fun while we were there. You can check out my slide show to see all the coolness! But we went to the Sears/Willis Tower, the glass balconies they just installed are AMAZING! It totally gave me butterflies to walk out there, but it was such and incredible view from up there and it almost felt like you were flying. We took a water taxi through the city down to Navy Pier. We had lunch at Navy pier and walked all over the City. We had so much fun with the Griffin family, it was the most fun I have ever had at a wedding. The Griffins are such party animals!!! I love you guys so much!! And I have to give a shout out to my girl Lindsay, I am so glad I met you, because you are the best friend I have every had on facebook!! HA HA! And I also want to say that I totally ROCK at Wii bowling and Rick is a baby bowler who is to afraid of a rematch!! I just tell it like it is... Moving on, we went to the Cubby Bear and we got see Wrigley Field. The Cubs were playing but we didn't have time to see a game, which would have been pretty cool. I have to say, the weather was amazing while we were there. Even the humidity felt good, kind of reminded me of Oregon in that respect. After the wedding we got to take a trolley tour of the city with the wedding party. I saw the biggest black guy I have ever seen and he had the longest dreads I have ever seen...I told him he had great dreads, but I was kind of afraid to say it to him, that's how big he was!! He probably thought I was the smallest whitest girl he had ever seen, so I guess we are even... We got to have dessert at the top of the John Hancock building, and the city lights were so gorgeous, and they were lighting fireworks at Navy pier and we could see it from way up there. It was just so fun to be with such good friends and just to have such a great time. P.S. Collette's family is straight out of the Mafia and I think they totally adopted Miner into the "family" if you know what I mean, and so be respectful, if you know what I mean!!!

The next weekend we went to a Miner family reunion. These are always fun, because I don't get to spend much time with Miners extended family and so it is good for me to meet them all over again. Plus, we had the best waterfight ever! And I played Volleyball...for those of you who know me, you will be surprised by this since you should be aware of my fear of ball sports (these include sports in which a ball is used, if you couldn't tell). I think I would have been better at volleyball if I would have managed the art of keeping my eyes open when the ball came towards me. This is extremely difficult for me to do, since I have been practicing keeping my eyes closed practically my whole life. Finally, Lilly started crying and this saved my team from my services. Then the Candy cannons were brought out. Roger Miner (my father-in-law) has a new hobby. It is making cannons out of PVC pipe which he uses to lauch candy several hundred feet in the air. Children love this. So he made several of them and we launched candy for about 45 mins.

Miner now owns his own Candy cannon, and it is actually quite awesome. We used it at Sierra's Birthday party and it was a huge hit.

My Sierra turned four!! I can hardly believe it. She is the light of my life. She is such a great kid. She just wants to be good and make her mom and dad happy. She loves to help me clean and she loves to play with Lilly. She just is so happy and it rubs off on everyone around her. You just can't help smile at her. She is that cute. She loves to play with her friends and her cousins. I just can't get enough of her, really I can't!! I love you, bug. Happy Birthday!!

Miner and I had our Anniversary. We have been married 9 years!! We are just getting older and older....We didn't really celebrate. We feel like we have just been celebrating all month long, so we played golf. OH!! You will want to know this, I hit my first real BIRDIE!! It was awesome. It was a par 3 on the back nine at Thanksgiving point and it was totally awesome, because I drove the green and ended up about 4 feet from the hole and I totally sunk my put!! How awesome is that? I am so amazing! Someday, I may actually be able to play a full round!! Ha ha Ha...

And that brings us pretty much up to date. I signed Sierra up for preschool today. It is sort of a sad and exited feeling for me. I think her preschool is going to be awesome. Her teacher is really a neat lady. I will keep you posted. Maybe I will have time to update the ol' blog more often!! Peace!

JUNE!

Lilly turns 1!!

Visit to Oregon!

14 hours in the car...Yeah!

Zoo Train!

As big as a Gorilla!

We can see it!!!

Well, I would have been blogging, but I have been really busy. I did want to mention some fun things we have been doing. June 4th, my sweet Lilly turned 1 year old. I have to say, she is just the best kid. I love her so much. She is so smart. She is walking and learning sign language, and when she laughs...I promise there is nothing better in the world. I truly have the best kids. They make me smile all the time.

Sierra dressed up in her pink tutu and her dancing slippers and got her pink pom poms out just the other day. She was so cute. I could hear her in her room doing her "cheers" and when I really got listening to what she was saying I realized she was cheering, "TIE HER UP! TIE HER UP! TIE HER UP!"...oh well...I guess we can't win them all!

We took our kids to Oregon to see our good friends Rusty and Collette graduate from college. It was so fun. Even the 14 hours to and from weren't too bad. Rusty and Collette had our entire weekend filled with events. And we just had the best time. We also got to stop by and visit with our good friends Barbara and Judy, who were our neighbors in when we lived in Oregon. They were doing so good, and their daughter Jessica was also graduating college and she was there and it was so wonderful to know they are just doing so well and to get to see them! There is just a special place in my heart for Oregon and the people I know and love there.

I turned 32 on the 24th....I had just recently had a conversation with Sierra about how people die when they get old, and so, not thinking I said,"Congratulations to me, I'm OLD!!" Well, of course Sierra burst into tears, because she didn't want me to be old..."AND DIE!!" But, lucky for me, I'm not quite that old, yet....My friend Becky says that since 30 is the new 20, I actually only turned 22. And that is the age I will give when you ask me how old I am...

I took my kids to the zoo. That is one of my favorite summer activities. My sister Sara and her kids were there and my Mom and Dad brought Jack and Lachlan. It was fun. Kids just love the zoo. Even Lilly loved the animals, she really loved the Monkeys, the cats, the elephants, and the bears. I thought the Giraffe would be more exciting especially because it stuck it's head right up to her, but she wasn't thrilled about that.

Sierra loves animals. She said the elephants and the giraffes were her favorite. We also had fun talking like King Julian, the ring tail lemur from Madagascar!! He is my favorite, but Sierra was a little miffed that the real ring tail lemur at the zoo didn't actually SAY anything. She said she likes "talking animals" the best...I guess that means cartoon animals are better than anything that the crappy old zoo had, but she had a good time at the zoo anyway.

We have been doing swimming lessons the last two weeks. It has been so fun. Sierra is a pretty good swimmer! She even goes under the water. She LOVES her teacher, but she did inform me that next year she hopes she gets a boy teacher...those of you who follow my blog know how scared I am for the teen years!! Lilly LOVES swimming! She is a little fish. She kicks her legs and dunks her face under and giggles the whole time!! I have never seen a kid who likes to go under water, but she doesn't even care. When we get to the pool she gets so excited and claps her hands! I am telling you, I have cute kids!

Anyway, tomorrow is the last day of June! It is just flying by!! I expect that I will probably be doing the same kind of post for July!! Hope you are enjoying your summer. Cheers!

Vegas Here Us Come!!

We went to Vegas over Memorial Weekend to visit Aunt Erica and Uncle Landon and Babies Will and Holden. It was so so much fun! I was a little worried about if maybe the kids would be scared, but no way, they loved every minute of it....well, as you can tell by the picture Lilly was a little unsure about the fountain show, but she was real tired by then too, so it could have been that. We played in the pool, we went golfing, we went to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay, we walked the strip and watched the fountains at the Belagio and the Volcano at the Mirage. I am surprised how many family friendly things there are to do in Vegas. Everyone is so nice to you when you have your kids there, and they don't hand you any porn when you walk down the street. I thought that was very respectful of the porn dealers!! Sierra said, "Boy, there sure are a lot of cards in the road!" and I was all, "...um...yeah....cards...." Anyway, Thanks Landon and Erica for showing us a good time!

The Pics!!

Pics and Cones!

I just took my girls to Kiddie Kandids to have some spring pictures taken! I think they turned out so cute. My appointment was at 10AM this morning. I got my girls all dressed and in their cute dresses, it was all so perfect. We got right to the store (which is located in the Logan Mall) about 10 minutes before our scheduled appointment time. My girls were happy, cute, smiling, in a good mood, the whole bit. Just as we were getting checked in for our appointment the mall security came in and said that everyone had to evacuate the mall immediately, because of a gas leak!! So my kids and I spent the next 45 min. waiting in our car in the parking lot while the fire department checked out the gas leak!! After that I had to bribe the girls with an ice cream cone just so they would go back into the store with me :( ...but it actually turned out. I think the pictures turned out really cute. I'm just glad they let us back in, because it is actually a lot of work to get your kids ready for picure day, and rescheduling is NOT an option, if you get what I mean!!

P.S. My kids are not really that deprived, but after I bought the ice cream cones, Sierra thinks I am the greatest mom in all the wide world!! She has been playing "cone lady" all day long!! She just brought me a rock and told me to "just pretend it's and ice cream cone, but don't really lick it, Mom, because it's really just a rock!"