Two Worlds Collide . . .

There have been two traditions that have permeated our household as of late . . . the first of which involves our beautiful "fairy-princess-queen-mermaid" Sarah. She has spent the past few months pretending to be odd and sundry fairies and princesses including, but not limited to: Tinkerbell, Cinderella, Snow White, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, and Ariel. She wakes up in the morning and immediately pulls out her fairy princess skirt and wings - sometimes with a crown, sometimes without.

The other tradition involves both Tim and Sarah descending the basement stairs to play the guitar/drums and/or dance (respectively). Sarah usually dances around while Tim plays the drums or guitar, but Tim is also trying to teach Sarah how to play the drums as well.

Anyway, here is the part that made me chuckle and forced me to log on to the computer to tell the tale. Just now, after dinner was done, Tim asked Sarah if she would like to go downstairs with him. She looked at him and said, "Are you going to play the guitar?" He responded, "Yes."
She then proceeded to pretend to strum a guitar, so Tim said to her, "Are you going to play the Air guitar?" She got a HUGE grin on her face and said, "Yeah! The Ariel guitar! And it has Belle on it!"

LOVE IT!!!!!!

The Lost Art of Negotiation

Mommy, I'm SAD!

Fun in the Hammock.

Exploring the Frog Pond by our house.

Okay, so the photos have nothing to do with this post, I just had to record a little bit of trivia for posterity.  For several months now, we have had the pleasure of being able to negotiate with our lovely 3 year old - This is how the negotiations usually go: 

Me:   "Sarah, you need to eat two more bites of your dinner before you can be done."  

Sarah:  "No, mommy, I'm going to have THREE bites."

Me:  "Okay, you convinced me."

It's a beautiful thing, and I know it won't last, but I'll take what I can get!

Sunny Cancun!

So, last week Tim and I spent seven days in beautiful and sunny Cancun, Mexico with most of my family (parents, siblings and spouses - my brother, Geoff is currently deployed in Afghanistan, so he and his wife were the only ones missing). We had a super fun time, and Sarah had a blast getting spoiled by Tim's parents here in CT. Here are a few photos of the fun . . .

Getting ready to scuba dive in the middle of the Yucatan Jungle . . . what!?! In the jungle? That's right, we did a cavern dive in a few of the cenotes (underground caves filled with water from an underground river). It was spectacular! Like spelunking, except underwater in full scuba gear. There were cave openings where the sun was shining down through the water and just looked really awesome! By the way, I'm taking the photo:).

Biking through the ruins of Coba.

At the top of the biggest pyramid in Coba (one of the last you are allowed to climb in Mexico)

Tim jumping off a 40 foot platform in another cenote where we stopped for a swim after a long hot day at the ruins.

Swimming in the cenote (the bright light in the middle is the sun shining through the small opening way above us).

Tim and the boys ready for some fun in the ocean waves!

Oh, and our vacation euphoria was cut short, when on the way home from the airport we found out that the Stake President wanted to meet with us the next day . . . Tim was called to be the 2nd Counselor in the Bishopric . . . he thought his goatee would be good 'Bishopric Insurance', but I guess the coverage isn't valid here in CT.

Eastertime!

Sarah spent the entire week last week asking, "Is is Eastertime now?"  After getting a little hopped up on candy, and seeing the camera in my hand, she got a little goofy.



She had so much fun hunting for Easter Eggs, and finding her well stocked basket in the morning.  After letting her eat a good amount of candy, I told her she needed to wait until after dinner to eat any more.  At one point, as I was cooking dinner, and she came running into the kitchen screaming 'Mommy!" like she had seen a ghost.  When I said, "What?"  She said, "I want to eat some candy, NOW!"  I can just imagine her standing over her basket exercising all her will power not to just dive in and munch - what a good obedient child.

For weeks, Sarah has been grabbing the Spanish Hymnal that is in our pew at church and sings along (making up her own words) with the congregation.  This week, the opening hymn was "Christ the Lord is Risen Today", where at the end of each line you sing 'hallelujah'.  Well, on the first verse, Sarah realized that we were singing the same word over and over again, so she joined in and sang all the 'hallelujahs' and was so proud of herself.  We were very proud of her, too.

Tagged!

SO, I have been tagged (first time for me) and I am going to try to get it right - don't really know what I am doing . . .




What is his name? Tim
How long did you date? 1 year.
How long have you been married? 10 years in May! (My grandmother would say, "Ten years with that woman there? No wonder he hasn't any hair!") She was always quoting some thing or other, and we love to keep her memory alive by passing on the quote tradition!
Who eats more sweets? That's a tough one! Probably me, but don't tell anyone, I usually sneak them when no one else is looking - no wonder I can't lose weight!
Who said I love you first? That would be ME! He looked at me and said, "That's nice." (Another family joke - My mom said that to my dad the first time he told her he loved her - Ah tradition!)
Who is taller? Tim - by like 10 inches!
Who is the better singer? I enjoy it more, but we can both hold our own. You won't see us on American Idol anytime soon, though - that's just child's play to us;).
Who is smarter? Definitely Tim! Especially now that I am a mother - I don't know what happened to all my brain cells after Sarah came along, but I feel like I just get dumber every day! Huh?!
Who does the laundry? Mostly me.
Who pays the bills? Mostly me, but he makes all the money so that I can.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? He does.
Who mows the lawn? He does.
Who cooks dinner? Me. Except when we are grilling, then he cooks the meat, and I take care of everything else.
Who drives? Mostly him.
Who is more stubborn? I am, No He is! (Wait, I am!) Yeah, it's kinda like that! Depends on the day.
Who kissed who first? He kissed me first, but I had to practically beg him to do it! I think he got a kick out of torturing me with the anticipation!
Who asked who out? Technically, I asked him out (but, in my defense I used the ruse of needing help studying for an upcoming exam - so it wasn't a DATE date, just a STUDY date:)). The date that I consider to be our first REAL date . . . he asked me out.
Who proposed? He did - knee down in the snow while we were snowshoeing in Provo canyon.
Who is more sensitive? - Oh, ME! And not always in a good way!
Who has more siblings? I do (Me - 5, Tim - 3)
Who wears the pants? Tim does, I am a skirt kind of a gal lately:).

And, now . . . I tag Melanie, Rachel, and Flori.

Let's Dance!

Just a few photos of Sarah in her dance class . . . 

. . . Oh, and a cute one playing in the snow!

When I Grow Up . . .

Lest you wonder how I spend my free time, let me enlighten you a little bit . . . but, first I must emphasize the fact that I don't really have very much free time (as you other mothers of toddlers will attest).

In fact, I have lately been pondering all of the things I want to be when I grow up, or at least when I have some time to take for myself, and here are just a few of the things I came up with: An artist (time, patience, and talent required - I'm a little lacking in all three), an athlete (time, willpower, and lack of laziness required - I seem to have an abundance of laziness these days), an adventurer (Oh to explore the great unknown - scary, yes - but oh, so appealing), a quilter (see requirements for 'artist' above), a creative writer (my inspiration is random and fleeting - can't see a career coming out of that), a photographer (ah, one can dream), a great reader (Lizzy Bennett has nothin' on me! - "I am not a great reader, and take pleasure in many things."), an outdoorswoman (I admit, I am a fair weather outdoorswoman, but I would like to be an all-weather, 'give me your worst, Mother Nature', kind of woman!)

So there you have it, some of my musings over the past weeks. As it stands right now, however, I love being a wife and mother, and so, all of my other (supposed) passions I will willingly put on hold to focus my time and energy on my darling husband and daughter.

But, I digress, "How DO you spend your free time," you ask? I have been spending much of it in the improvement of my surroundings - I have new carpet coming on Monday (to replace the teal, smells of dog carpet in the living room), and new blinds for the bedrooms arrived yesterday. Once the blinds are up in our room, I will be able to paint the walls (finally! - they are lavender (with plum carpet to boot) and I bought the new paint two months ago - I had to wait for the blinds so I could also get rid of the lilac curtains - I know, you are wondering why I would change such a lovely plum and lilac haven - that's just how I am.

Anyhoo, I did manage to get Sarah's room re-painted a few weeks ago, and here are the before and after shots. I even managed to find the time (during American Idol) to make a huge tree stencil for the wall and try a new sheen on sheen technique that makes the wall look just like a plain painted wall unless the light hits it just right. It turned out pretty cool in the end.

Before

After

My Tree

What do YOU want to be when you grow up?

Once There Was a Snowman . . .

. . . who looked tall, tall, tall . . .

. . . but he was really very small, small, small.

So, great mom that I am, I waited until the snow was melting (and practically gone) to take my daughter out and help her build a snowman - Oh well, I guess that's better than nothing, right?!

Welcome 2008!

On New Year's Eve, we went "Cosmic" bowling with some friends of ours - we had a blast!

Anytime Sarah would knock down any pins, she would turn around, throw her hands into the air, and yell, "I DID IT!"

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!

A Tale of Three Christmases

This year it felt like we celebrated Christmas many times over throughout the month of December. Around the middle of the month (just as a huge snow storm hit New England), we flew out to Dallas, Texas to celebrate with Tim's family. While we were there, we took a little drive over to Shreveport, Louisiana to visit our dear friends the Knox family (we knew them in Pittsburgh and were truly sorry to see them go when they moved away) - it was so fun to see them again and spend the day with them.
Sarah also got to meet some of her cousins for the first time in Texas, and she had so much fun playing with cousin Gavry and holding baby Fisher.



We arrived home to about 8 inches of ice covering our driveway, and chipped away at it for several days trying to clear a place for our friends and family (who were coming to visit for a few days before Christmas) to park.  Caty and Andy came and brought their new puppy Maggie - Sarah had so much fun playing with her.  They also brought her a new baby doll, which turned out to be a good thing, because just that day Sarah had said that Santa was going to bring her a baby doll, and I was pretty sure that he wasn't:).
Santa did bring her a new red tricycle, and she has already had tons of fun riding it!  After our friends, Caty and Andy left, my brother and his family came from Rhode Island to have a sleep over on Christmas Eve - Eve.  We had tons of fun hanging out with them!  The next day was Christmas Eve, and we enjoyed reading the Christmas story from the Bible, and then going to bed early.  The next morning, when Sarah came into our room I said to her, "do you think Santa came last night?"  She looked at me, shrugged, and said, "No."  I said, "Maybe he came and brought you a new red tricycle." Her reply, "I don't think so."  Anyway, we finally got up and came down stairs to find out that he really did come - then she was excited.  At one point, she opened up a package with a new coat inside - it was still in the plastic, and she looked at it and said enthusiastically, "SHEETS!"  (hee, hee).  Later that day, we had a nice dinner at our friends the Jones' house.  Overall a nice Christmas season, and a lot of celebrating all month.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!