Saturday, August 21, 2010

Laughing with my sister

My youngest sister is here visiting, and we've had so much fun together. I'll post more later, but I wanted to post two videos that we think are quite funny. Perhaps you, as the viewer, won't find them so, but I'll post them anyway. The first video is of Jillian making a funny face over and over again. The second video is Annabelle trying to help me strengthen my abs.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Craziness

Wow, it's been a busy week, with a lot going on. And the craziness is only going to continue this week, as my younger sister will be spending a week with me before beginning her freshman year at BYU! Anyway, I'm sure I'll blog about the exciting visit we're going to have later. In the meantime, Michael's sister and her 20 month old daughter spent a few days with us last week and it was quite fun to have them here.We have had unusually cold weather the last few days. We like to keep the windows open at night and let the cool air from the night keep the house cool during the day. Well, one particular morning, it was quite chilly and I felt it was necessary to put a hat and these awesome slippers on Jillian to keep her warm. Aren't they the coolest?! Jillian has also taken to eating her feet. Weird baby. =) Michael is a member of the Kiwanis Club, which is a non-profit, service organization. They put on a luau for the members last week and it was really fun. Annabelle enjoyed playing with the other kids and Michael was called upon to participate in some of the games. Someone tied an apple to some string and attached the string to his belt buckle. Then, he had to try and hit a balloon with the apple across the finish line. One of his finer moments in life, I'd say. Today is Dora the Explorer's 10th birthday (meaning the show's 10th birthday- Dora the character continues to be 7 years old every year). A friend (thanks, Christy) emailed me some information that Dora would be appearing at walmart and having a birthday party and everyone was invited. They were giving out free cupcakes and taking pictures with Dora. We decided to go and let Annabelle celebrate Dora's birthday with her. Well, we were sorely disappointed to find out that Dora wouldn't be there after all. However, we did eat some yummy cupcakes and Annabelle got to try out her surprise Christmas or birthday present. We haven't bought a bike yet, but she'll have one for next summer. Currently, she has a little baby tricycle and she has definitely outgrown it. As you can see, she had no problem figuring out how to ride a big girl's bike.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Videos

Annabelle is still very obsessed with Dora, the Explorer. I try and get the girls outside in the morning, before it gets too hot for Jillian (well, actually too hot for me, but I'll use Jillian as an excuse). Then, in the afternoon, we have to try and amuse ourselves inside in the afternoon. In order to keep Annabelle relatively quiet during Jillian's nap, I'll turn on Dora for Annabelle to watch. Well, she was watching it the other day when an ad came on advertising a new Dora episode in which Dora is celebrating her birthday. During that hour long episode, the channel would air videos that people sent in of them singing or dancing to the Dora theme song as well as any birthday wishes. Annabelle got so excited. She loves birthdays and wanted to send a birthday video to Dora. So, here is her video.


Here is a video of some sister playtime.

And here is Annabelle playing, unaware that I'm filming her. It's hard to understand her sometimes, but the dialogue goes like this:
"Let's have a race."
"But I don't want to race you."
But I want to winned."
"Let's flip"
"There they are."
"Peek-a-boo. Deedle, deedle, deedle". (I don't know what that means, but she says it a lot to Jillian.)

I need a fix-it machine

It's been a tough weekend for me. First, I got a little too close to a sprinkler head when mowing and chopped it off, then I broke the pump on the weed sprayer. Fortunately, the sprinkler still works. I only broke off the top cover, which doesn't do anything. I take full responsibility for not paying closer attention and hitting it with the mower. However, with the weed sprayer, I have no idea what happened there. It's a complete mystery. I filled it up with the weed killer and water, pumped to build up pressure and it worked fine. I went through a whole container, pumping and spraying as I went, without any problems whatsoever. Then, when I had it filled a second time and went to spray the rest of the yard, I found that the pump was not working. It was not creating the pressure needed to shoot the water out of the hose. How is it possible that it worked all the way up til I used the last of the solution and then broke in between refilling the container? The fact that I didn't even use the pump during the refilling makes it even more bizarre. You can imagine how upset I was at myself when I went in to tell Michael that the sprayer wasn't working, especially after having just told him the day before that I mowed over the sprinkler. I don't know how it happens, but these types of incidents always happen to me, where for absolutely no reason that I can see, something just breaks whenever I'm using it. Frankly, I'm getting tired this scenario being repeated. Am I just a magnet that sucks the life out of objects or is it just bad luck? Well, in any case, I guess I could always use that as an excuse to get out of doing household chores like mowing the lawn and spraying the weeds. Heck, I would hate to have the dishwasher, washer, and dryer break so I might as well stop doing the dishes and laundry, too right? Ah, the pleasures of wishful thinking!

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

International Folk Dance Festival

Every year, our town hosts the International Folk Dance Festival. Many different countries are represented as natives fly here and demonstrate part of their culture through dance. These dancers stay with volunteers around town and travel to different parts of Eastern ID to perform. The festivities begin with an opening ceremony, then there is a parade where all the participating countries dance through the streets, evening performances, and a closing ceremony. Last year, Annabelle and I went to the parade and I was amazed at all the countries that were here. I think there were about 15 countries. It was awesome to watch. This year had a very poor showing, only 3 countries coming. Anyway, it was still fun to watch the parade. Before it started, the crowd was entertained by a jump roping group that won some national awards. This video shows some of the jump roping followed by a short clip of the countries, with our own wonderful USA being last to go.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

6 months and "The Ponytail"

Okay, I feel like life is somewhat back to normal and I can get back into blogging. After our trip to Utah, it took awhile to get back into a normal routine. Jillian particularly struggled with sleeping and eating. But with things better now, I look forward to keeping my avid readers entertained with updated posts.

We hit a huge milestone on Sunday. I decided to see if Jillian had enough hair on top for me to get into a little ponytail. I was so thrilled when I did. It's such a little tiny thing that I laughed out once it was done. But I enjoyed it so much and she got so many compliments about it on Sunday, that I did it again today. Isn't she so cute?! Today, Jillian had her 6 month checkup. I'm happy to report that, as expected, everything is looking well. She weighs 16.25 pounds, 25.2 inches long. Her gums are swollen, as she is teething and I hope that her teeth cut through soon. She's been a little bit fussy over the last week.

Just out of curiosity, I put on a show for the girls the other day, a live concert of Celtic Woman performing at Shane Castle in Ireland. I used to put it on for Annabelle when she was a baby. It was the only thing that would ever calm her down and stop her crying. I wanted to see if Jillian was immediately as taken with it as Annabelle was. Jillian was somewhat interested, and would glance back and forth between the tv and Annabelle, who was dancing around the room.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Eric's visit

Michael's brother Eric came to visit us this weekend. It was a lot of fun having him here. The highlights of the weekend were some good ping pong (where Eric showed me how to put side spin on the ball), frisbee throwing, and great conversation. He was even kind enough to watch the kids while Michael and I went out. Saturday morning, Michael, Eric, and Annabelle went on a little trip to Mesa Falls, while I stayed home for a piano lesson. They saw a really beautiful rainbow that Michael captured on his iphone. And then today, we ended our visit by eating a really spectacular meal of fillet mignon. It was my first time cooking fillet mignon, but with the help of Michael and Eric, the meal turned out really wonderful. Thanks for a great visit, Eric!