Sunny Days!!!

Everyone else in my blog list had a HUGE exclamation as their title...I only thought it fair to add my own. I've been stuck on the Sesame Street theme song all day, just for the fact that it starts..."Sunny Day"...then from there I'm just not so sure. "Keepin' the Clouds Away....duh duh duhhhhh duh duh duh da da dAAAAA Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street!"

But I am moving on....

This week we've had some fun times at our house. (and out of our house.)

First of all, we went to the "Sportsmans Expo" in Salt Lake, and had a pretty okie doke time. Here's a pic:

That little thing that Morgan is holding is a 2 month old bear. It was the cutest thing EVER. They had a bunch there and would trade them out when one got tired. They would suck on your finger like a bottle. Cute cute. This was REALLY the highlight of the evening. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy chattin' it up with salespeople, but this was seriously neat. I even had my "hunters' orange" on for the evening. :)

Secondly, it was my birthday...now I'm not writing about this day to brag or anything, just wanting to show off my rockin' birthday hat.

Is this the most BEAUTIFUL hat you have ever seen? I knew it was. Morgan made this for me during the 2 days I was gone for my scrapbooking overnighter. It's totally made out of paper and tape. I was actually VERY impressed with the fact that it stayed on my head. Morgan is very ingenious with her imagination. Way to go Bug!

My day started out around 8am (Chance let me sleep in!) when Chance and the kids came into my room with Breakfast in Bed. There were eggs. There was toast. There was even a brownie and 2 snack cookies (I am not sure why the desserts, but at least my birthday candle stuck in the brownie pretty well.). Everyone sang "Happy Birthday" and then left me in sweet quiet while I ate. After eating breakfast, we went to church for yet another fun-filled 3 hours (well really only 1 1/2 hours) of battling with kids who are NOT being reverent. Okay let me 'splain. Grace actually does really well during Sacrament Meeting now. We're really only battling with my little Crede. He's a bugger when we are trying to be quiet. (but that is a WHOLE 'nother post).

After church, Chance told me he was making dinner. I had all kinds of dinners imagined. Deer roast? Elk steaks? I did NOT know what to expect. Well he made....da da da daaaaaaaa.....Stouffers frozen lasagne with brocolli as a side dish. He really did think things through and went through a lot of effort to actually grocery shop for me. I just gotta say though, that lasagne was SICKENING. Chance kept saying, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought this was going to be good.". My Mom came over to eat dinner with us, and she was being the good sport of the day. She ate her whole dinner. **dry heave**

Before we sat down to eat, we snapped some pictures:

Morgan was mad at Chance in this picture...who knows why. She is becoming such our little drama queen. (I about said drag queen. Wow.) Anyway, my Mom is holding Crede, and Grace is just excited to be saying "cheeeeeese".

Here's Chance cookin' up our grub. I should start calling him Chef Ramsey. But he'd have to be English and cuss a lot. Perhaps I will call him Chef Chancez (You have to say it with a french accent.) That is lookin' GOOOOOOOOD. Oh, and so is the brocolli. ba da ba CHING


Here's my cute husband enduring my camera shoot. He really hates it when I take his picture. Cute little husband of mine. Thanks for making my birthday a lot of fun. I love you schmookims. (I really don't call him that) I really did have a good birthday thanks to this man.

Now for other items of business.

My Scrapbooking overnighter was a lot of fun, and I'm glad that it's over for another 6 months. It's surprising how much sleep I require nowadays. It's not so much that I'm pregnant, it's that I need a LOT of sleep! I only got about 5 hours, and i was DRAGGING the next day. Wowsers. Well, while I was gone, Chance did a really good job taking care of our kids. He drove Morgan to ballet on Saturday, he actually did Grace and Morgan's hair (Morgan always teases him because he can't do a ponytail holder. He does some boy-scout knot thing instead of pulling the hair through, twist, and repeat.) The only thing I am going to point out is the fact that he put Crede in his "emergency" pajama's that I only use if all his others are horribly dirty, and the laundry is horribly behind. These pajama's have been handed down for generations, (really only for about 10 years, so lets say decade.) and are VERY holey and old. Here's Crede eating his breakfast Saturday morning.


do ya notice his feet? Look a little closer.


closer...



closer...



okay here is a close-up.



poor Crede. You know how irritating it is to wear holey socks. I can't imagine having almost my entire foot sticking out of my pj's and NOT be bugged. I do believe these pajama's have now been officially retired. Sorry little boy!


And lastly,

Here's some pictures of Grace. She is now getting up in the morning and going STRAIGHT to her dress-ups. She layers and layers them until she looks like a little marshmallow. And you KNOW you can't go anywhere without sensable heels.


I particularly like the pink hat that's been put on either backwards or upside down...I'm not sure which. Does the name Christopher Columbus come to mind? Yankee Doodle? Napoleon Bonaparte? That's it. Napoleon Bonaparte. He was only about as tall as Grace is....so lets go with that. :)

How's that yogurt Grace?

Well I'm leaving with good potty news. The elmo underwear was a big success, and Grace is now OFFICALLY potty trained. I still have to give her either a cookie, or chocolate everytime she poops, but I think that's a SMALL sacrifice in my opinion.

Well goodbye, and Happy Potty.

A Little of This....A Little of That.

Does anyone else ever have the delima about which words, if any, to capitalize in their post title? Just wonderin'.

The last week has been pretty uneventful, but I'm updatin' anyway.

Chance:

He's been starting to go "Shed Hunting" more and more. If you don't know what shed hunting is, let me fill you in. You drive up to the mountains, you park your truck, and you walk around for 5 hours looking at the ground for deer antlers that have dropped. Now does that sound exciting? I sure think it does. But here's the thing. Chance LOVES it, and finds some really cool and big horns that way. Here, I'll show you a couple of pictures. Chance is going to LOVE the fact that I've, once again, used a deer in my blog. You're welcome.

These horns Chance actually found during the "Antelope Island" shed hunt. Pretty nifty, 'eh?

Sometimes Chance even makes stuff from his finds. This is an elk antler lamp he made. He's even made some tables, and smaller table lamps. He is actually pretty talented. I just don't like this stuff spread through my house, which is why he has his own hunting room. He can decorate however he wants in that space.

One side note, Chance wants to name our unborn (sweet and innocent) baby, Shed, if it's a boy. Uhhghhmm. Now. I love you Chance, but I just don't see it. Chance has made a deal with me. He will let me name our baby, Emma, if it's a girl if he can have full reign over the boy choice. I am just not sure that I'm ready for that kind of commitment. We're still in the negotiation stage, so I'll have to keep ya' posted on this one.

NEXT!!!

Emily:

I have been trying to stay sane here in my house of Toddlers. I like to refer to my life as Toddlerland. There are some days where I honestly feel like I do the same thing over and over and over. My kids don't age, I don't age, it's just the same day over and over. Kinda like the movie Groundhog Day. I am looking forward to Summer. HOLY COW I am looking forward to Summer. I think wintertime is hard with little tikes. What can you really do? Movies? nope. Library? nope. The Mall? (no money?) nope. Any ideas anyone?!

Lets see. I have been getting ready for our scrapbooking overnighter this weekend. I'm actually pretty excited for it this time. I have my laptop, and some scrapbooking software called "Memory Mixer" and I'm going to start scrapbooking that way. I'm trying to figure out how to post ya' an example, and when I figure that out, I'll be sure to let you know.

And lastly, I have this lovely C-PAP machine to use at night. It came as a result of my snorin' study (see previous post). The plus side? I don't snore anymore, and I don't get horrible headaches in the middle of the night. Yay. The downside? Well let me first just SHOW you what this thing looks like:

It almost looks like something not of this world. That blue band thingy wraps around my head to keep the face mask over my nose and mouth, and the tubing blows the oxygen continuously through the night. Every night (and this NEVER gets old, let me just say) Chance will say, "Where are we flying to tonight?" Nice. It has also given me some nice face-marks in the morning. It's TEN TIMES worse then bed-sheet face that we all get on occasion. Ah well. Let's move on.

Morgan:

Our little 6 year old just lost her very first tooth on Friday. Morgan is such a girl. For about a week, all I heard was, "Mom! Look at my tooth! It is SOOOOOO loose!" This would always be followed by me or Chance saying, "Morgan, do you want us to pull it out?"...which would always be followed by tears and running away. On Friday Morgan walks upstairs crying. I said, "What's wrong?" She said, "I don't want my tooth to be backwards!" She is near hysterics. So she opens her mouth and her tooth is completely turned around backwards. I said, "Are you SURE you don't want me to pull it out?" Morgan: "NOOOOOoooooooooooooo" (as she runs away). Well about 10 minutes later she comes running downstairs and proudly announces that she pulled her tooth out. Whew! (only about 20 more to go.)

Morgan drew a picture for the tooth fairy, and put that and her tooth under her pillow that night. Well the tooth fairy made 2 attempts to visit, but was thwarted each time by a little girl who was NOT asleep! Finally around 5am the tooth fairy made her appearance, tried to get the 81/2 x 11 piece of paper out from under the pillow SILENTLY, and slipped the dollar under there. An hour later when my girls woke up (see previous post for my morning issues), Morgan was so excited to see her dollar. Here's our little toothless wonder:

Grace:

Grace has been up to her ususal. Getting into stuff, being goofy all the time, and goin potty every once in awhile. I think you can really consider yourself "arrived" as a Mom when you find yourself sitting with your toddler in the bathroom cheering her on, "you can do it!! go poop!!" And when the blessed moment finally arrives, you are sincerely excited for your child. We usually celebrate with chocolate and cookies. We're making progress, and I have even bought elmo underwear for Grace when she can keep her pull-ups dry. Gotta love pottie training. **gag**

In this picture Grace has some residual Skittle on her face from going potty. Oh and there's also some on her shirt. We're still learning how to eat them without drooling all over the place.

Another funny thing Grace has started - happens at bedtime. She will sit by her open door, line up her baby dolls right next to her, and read books to them. She will usually do this for about an hour before relenting and going to sleep. During this hour, she will sing at the top of her lungs. Her very favorite song goes like this. "A B C D E F G noonowmoooomalllaaaatadooooo". Sometimes she sings her Mom and Dad song too. It goes like this, "Mom likes meeeeeeeee, Dad likes meeeeeeeee" and the tune varies each time it's sung. last night I took a picture of her babies all lined up after she fell asleep. On my cute detector, this is about an 8.

AND LASTLY.....
Crede:

He's been talking up a STORM. He can now count to ten (before Grace I might add), and he says 4 letter sentences to me. I'll get him up in the morning and he'll say, "Pajama's all wet Mom." because the lovely Walmart brand diapers he wears to bed have leaked once again. If any of you have ever watched "Sid the Science Kid" on PBS, you'll understand this next little dooha. In the beginning of the show Sid says, "There's Gabriella!" And she says, "Watch what I can do!" Then she does some cheerleader dance. Crede walks around saying, "ya ya hooooo! ya ya hoooooo!" and sounds just like her.

Hmmmm.....Crede has been buddying up with his big sister for some more exciting mischief, and has been spending a lot of time in timeout. I'll go get him out at the end of it, and ask, "Why did Mom put you in time out?" He'll totally tell me why. The last time he said, "Jumped on the couch." Yep he's a genius.

Well now, if you've read this much of my post, you must really enjoy hearing the ramblings on of my family. Enjoy your day, and know that I'm here in Toddlerland enjoying myself thoroughly.

When did ignorance become such a BAD thing?!

When I was about 7 years old, I thought the idea of a lemonade stand was GENIUS. How else could I make a fortune?!! I thought a lot about it, and approached my mom with the big question. Do you know what her response was?

"You can't sell lemonade because you have to have a sales license."
"How can I get a Sales License?" I ask.
"I really don't' know!" She replied.

Well I grew up thinking I would never be able to make my brilliant business plan, of owning my own lemonade stand, come to be.

Fast forward...oh 23 years. (yes I am now 30 *yikes!*) Morgan and I were sitting in the kitchen and she decides that she wants to color. My mom gave us a bunch of OLD template pictures from the 1950's because she finally cleaned out her filing cabinet. WELL. Morgan wanted to color them. One of those said pictures had some "cut-outs" where you could make your own little paper doll. Morgan looks at me and asks,

"Mom what does this tell you to do?"
I look at her and say, "You're going to have to ask Grandma. I'm not sure HOW that works."

So at what point did I become my MOM?! Sometimes I think it's just easier to say, "I don't know." rather than spend 20-30 minutes explaining why and how and who and what to my kids. I am really crossing my fingers that I am not the only one that has this issue at times.

And while I'm confessing, I might as well warn everyone about a phenomenon that attacks me sometimes. I'll be sitting in the kitchen with my 3 kids (or on the couch, or ANYWHERE.) when all of a sudden, KABLAM! there's this incredible force pulling me into the privacy of my bathroom or my bedroom (whichever is empty at the time), locking the door, and sitting in the blessed silence until my kids figure out which room I'm in. Then all I hear is, "MOM! MOMMMMMMMMMMMM" with the little fingers sticking under the door. I can't explain these phenomena, but they are pretty much unbearable. There's no ignoring them.

Well I'm off to play referee with Grace and Crede. He's head-butting her at the moment. I love these memorable moments.

Once there was a Snowman with random questions for dessert

Morgan had her friend Mallory over one afternoon to play. They both wanted to go outside and play in the snow. When they came in, they were so proud of their creation. They did this all on their own. Morgan was the proud one who lifted the head onto the top. Yeah Bug! Now I think it's MAYBE the cutest snowman in the world. I would never make an assumption like that if I wasn't 100% sure of myself. I mean look at that face. Who in this world could ever create an expression such as that on a snowman!?? Who I ask? Look at the delicate way the arms just extend from the torso, It's very balletesque (I'm also pretty sure balletesque is a word.)!

ANYway,

Now here is a random question. Why does Grace look like this before church.....(pardon the BOMB that blew up in my front room whilst taking this picture. This is just what Sunday morning looks like in the Bailey home. I personally like the fact that Crede is in the background trying to climb up onto the piano bench. There's no mischief going on there...noooooo.)

and like THIS after church


wait for it


wait for it...



BAM! We're only talking 3 hours folks. I don't quite understand the time and effort Grace puts into this metamorphasis. She's already gotten rid of the dress (who knows where that ended up), the pigtails are only a distant fond memory **sigh** and she's sitting at the kitchen counter waiting for her lunch. Somedays I'm not sure why I even put forth the effort. What do you think people would say about us if we just showed up at church like this? I'm all for it if you are!

Here's one more random question I will leave you with this evening. Why is it my kids wake up when there is just a HINT of sunlight coming up over the horizon?! EVERY morning regardless of when my kids go to sleep I hear "GRACE!!! GET IN HERE!!!" (courtesy of Morgan) and then that is always followed by "AAHEORIGHSDGHSLHGSLGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" (courtesy of a frustrated Grace). This is around...oh...6:30am. If you know me at all, I am SUCH not a morning person, and I am secretly cursing under my breath in my own bed. After said cursing, I progress into yelling, "GET IN BED!" Yeah, that works wonders, let me tell ya'. After that tactic, I resort into stomping into their room, vision blurred, bumping into walls and doors on my way, and saying, "If I hear a peep out of either one of you....." I never seem to quite finish that sentence as I'm stumbling back into MY bed and closing MY door to try to drown out the next cycle of, "GRACE!!! GET IN HERE!!!". Oh, and around THIS time I hear Crede in the next room just chatting away, happy to be alive, reading his books that he has strategically stashed in his crib. This usually lasts until about 7:30 when I relent and get up.

Now is this just my happy home? Am I such a lazy slob that I can't drag myself out of bed before 7:30am? Come on people!! Let me hear your mornings. (so I can feel much better about mine.)

Happy Birthday Morgan......

In my entire existance, I vowed I would NEVER make a Barbie Cake. You know the kind.....the cake is the skirt, and the barbie sticks out the top. If you need any visuals, see this link:

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2009/02/come-on-barbie-lets-go-party.html

Guess what? I have officially broken that vow. I was searching for days, weeks, perhaps even months (really only a couple of days) for the perfect Little Mermaid cake for Morgan. I found one similar to the one I made, and I thought (I can do that!) so I did. I don't think it turned out 1/2 bad...but I'm biased because I spent all afternoon making it.

Now isn' that pretty? Ahhhh....ooooooohhh. I had to make cupcakes as well because the actual cake was so teeny. I just basically like to make extra work for myself. But there is my final product. Oh, and the seashells? They're all chocolates made a la me. Thank you thank you. But the real purpose of this post is to spotlight my Morgan. Here's my little birthday girl next to her cake:

She got a little party today in Kindergarten - we made a poster for her to take to display in her class. Morgan drew pictures of all her favorite things. You can basically guess what each picture is even before she tells you. She's a mini-Van Gogh. Again, I have a very keen talent of recognizing talents early on in life. Morgan is going to be an artist, Grace will be a brilliant scientist, and Crede will be....um....a hunter. (He's still a little young for my talent sensing abilities to perform 100 %)

Here's the poster that we made for Morgan to take to school. Here's the list of her favorites: Treat: ice cream. Holiday: Valentines Day. Movie: Little Mermaid 2. Family Activity: Checkers (we've never played checkers...so who knows about that one). Game: Hungry Hungry Hippo's. Food: Pizza. Thing to Do: play with Alaina, Breauna and Mason. Song: Once there was a snowman. TV Show: Curious George. Book: Pinkalicious and Purplicious.

Morgan right now is into being a total goofball. She thinks any little funny face or funny dance is the most hilarious thing in life, and it doesn't help when Chance is sitting there laughing just as hard...but I digress. Right now she is playing with Chance's cell phone and listening to the funny rings he has on it. There's a baby laughing to some kind of techno song and she has made up a dance while lip-syncing the baby. Now THAT's a sight to see.

She is a VERY smart little girl and is able to pick up new and challenging things very easily. She's a very good big sister to Grace and Crede and when she finds the patience, she is very good to spend time with them and play with them.

Well, Happy Birthday Morgan. We love you very much.

Hardware Ranch

Well I'm finally getting around to blogging about our escapade to Hardware Ranch. Chance has had a LOT of spare time lately due to the lovely economy, so we decided to take a day trip up to Logan. Is it Logan or Nibley or....oh I don't know. We took the kiddo's up there and they had a pretty okie doke time.

When we first arrived we thought, "Lets go to the visitor's center and check it out." So let me just say how lame that visitor's center was. There was a big room, an Elk in the middle of it (stuffed of course), and a fireplace with a mountain lion on the hearth. Ooooooooh I could have stayed there for hours! Crede and Grace just wanted to pet the animals and get into anything they could. Chance on the other hand had to investigate every pamphlet and had to educate the children on the Elk, what it might have scored, the amount of points it had.....it's normal habitat, it's feeding habits, yadda yadda... oh but it was very interesting (Love you Chance).

Well we drove down to the sleigh area and loaded up. Here's the kiddies all ready for the ride.

Crede, Morgan and Grace. Grace thought it was a bit bright. Sorry little girl. Then the ride started. Oh how exciting. The sleigh moved at about walking speed, and it looped around in a big circle. I do have to give Chance props though because it was neat to see the elk right up close. Here's a picture of Chance and Crede checking out the wildlife.

When we were all done, we asked one of the passengers to take a family picture of us. Chance wanted the elk in the background, which meant we were all looking directly into the sun (which is why we're all pulling some pretty fun faces...)

Well that was our little family trip. We love you Hardware Ranch.

Back to Normal

Thank you everyone who called, emailed, delivered food, presents, etc. to our family over the last couple of days. We have so many awesome friends. Grace is doing wonderful, nothing else has happened since Monday, and we're just counting our blessings. She is back to getting into mischief, and screaming at Morgan and Crede if she doesn't get her way. Lovely. But to tell you the truth...I wouldn't have it any other way.

Today I discovered Facebook. Yes, I know I am a little behind the times, considering my entire High School has joined already! I have now officially declaired myself addicted. It's really fun seeing all of my old friends and their families, and hearing about what they are up to. I still don't understand a LOT of it...but I'll get there.

Lets see....Last night we went to Crew's birthday party (Chance's little brother) and let all the little cousins play. Chance's Mom and Dad have 14 grandkids with 15 come August. It's mayhem when we all get together, but our kids have so much fun. We ate an oreo cake, and Morgan threw a HUGE fit because we wouldn't let her have any. Okay back up here....during dinner she said, "I don't want to eat. That's a gross dinner!" we said, "okay but you can't have any ice cream or cake at Crew's birthday!" She gave us her BEST 6-year-old attitude and announced that she really didn't care!. Well at Crew's birthday, she did care, and she did throw a fit, and she did stand in the corner. We survived, and she's back to her ol' self today. It was a pretty good cake though ... I think it was from Baskin Robbins. mmmmmmmmmmmm.....ice cream.

Oh, and the other night Morgan and Grace got out the dress-up clothes, and went to town. Our little boy LOVES to play too. He'll put on the sparkly high-heels and strut his stuff just as well as his big sisters. I had to take a few of the kiddo's all decked out in their "best".

Hmmm...I particularly like the red skirt with the purple leotard. Nice color combo Morgan! Credes' just happy to be in the picture (he looks like some kind of farmer? explorer? I can't put my finger on it.), and Grace's denim hat looks MARVELOUS with her princess dress. Is that a hula skirt in the stroller?


Here's little Crede....Beautiful hat little boy. I also like the silver slipper on your hand. Is that helping the grip on your dump truck?

One thing I have forgotten to post...and that is Morgan's 6 year old pictures. We went Monday morning to get them taken. She was in the STRANGEST mood while we were there. She was worried about how to smile, and she thought that if she laughed she would get a good smile. So she kept "courtesy laughing" the whole time, making the photographer think she was a goof-ball. Cute Morgan. She's just turning into a girl who worries what she looks like all the time, and worries about smiling crazy in a photograph. It's sad that she's only 6 though. Anway, here's her pictures.




Morgan's birthday is next Tuesday, so here's a pre-birthday shout out. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Morgan. We love you.

Well that's all that's been happening since the big MONDAY. Have a lovely day. We will check in again soon.