Snapshots from the end of 2011

September 8, 2011

We went to the firm's summer party at the beginning of September and Anna had her face painted like a butterfly. She also added a little chocolate brownie to her makeup.

September 11

September 11

Costco had several Disney princess costumes this past October and I figured they'd make a good costume for Anna. I decided to take her with me to pick one out. She found the Barbie costume and picked that one, much to my chagrin. Don't ask me why I'm okay with the Disney Princesses but not Barbie. I'm sure it's not rational. I decided to buy an Ariel costume on the off chance that I could talk Anna out of Barbie. We tried the costumes on and Anna was even more convinced that she loved the Barbie costume and so the Ariel costume became part of the Christmas dress up present.

September 23

October 1

October 26

After lots of research and many hours of negotiating with Dan, we finally got a park for our backyard. I payed for delivery and assembly and so the girls had their faces glued to the backdoor while it was being constructed in our backyard. They were so excited when they finally got to play on it.

The very next week it snowed, and I thought we would be done playing on our swing set, for the season, but we've had plenty of nice weather and the kids like playing on it in the snow as well as the sunshine.

November 5

first snowfall

Speaking of nice weather, the very next week I decided to potty train Evie and in the middle of it all, she begged to go swing. So I sent her outside in her panties. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should also confess that Evie is now back in diapers. Around the first of the year, when it became obvious that she could care less whether her panties were wet and I cared very much, I decided to stop the fight and put her back in diapers. 

November 11

November 14

We decided to meet up with Heather the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I thought the girls might enjoy exploring Temple Square, so we decided to meet there. It was so nice to be there when it was so empty. I'm sure everyone else was waiting to go after Thanksgiving to enjoy the lights. 

November 19

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I wanted to go scope out Toys R Us to see if it would be worth going back for their Black Friday sale. Evie kept saying, "I love it!" She especially loved the Furr Real cats and I had a hard time dragging her away.

November 23

December 19

Phew! I think these are the last of the photos from 2011. I hope I didn't have too many repeats. Now if I can just catch up to March, then I will make a resolution to stay on top of blogging this year. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Halloween 2011

I had hoped to carve pumpkins on Friday night, but instead found myself spending three hours trying to pick up my packet for the half marathon I ran on Saturday morning. With all the construction it took me about an hour to make it down to the University Mall in Provo. Then I stood in line for about an hour and a half before getting back in my car to drive another forty-five minutes home. The kids were pretty good sports about standing in line, especially when the couple behind me held my place so that I could go buy a pretzel and ice cream. I had thought picking up my packet would be a quick in and out, and then we'd go to Costco, so I hadn't brought any snacks. To add to the stress of it all, while I was holding Evie's hand, she decided to hang and then her arm started to slip out of socket again. I think it was the other arm, but I'm not sure anymore. As soon as she started to let out her wail that means she's in pain, I picked her up and pushed on her arm, hearing the crunch as it popped back into place. Then as we were almost to the packet pick up area, Anna totally disappeared on me. I had my eye on her as she played with a sculpture nearby, and then Evie blocked my view for a second and Anna was gone. Finally I found her holding the hand of a security guard.

By the time we made it home at 7:30 Friday night, we decided to just put them to bed after feeding them some late dinner.

Saturday didn't work out either for pumpkin carving and then on Sunday evening we went trick-or-treating at Grandma's, so that meant that we carved our pumpkins Monday afternoon.

Evie was supposed to be taking a nap while we carved our pumpkins, but for some reason she never actually fell asleep. About the time we finished pulling all the guts out of the large pumpkin, Evie's yells turned a little hysterical, so I got her up. I don't think Anna ever reached in a touched any of the pumpkin guts. She did try to use a spoon, but let me do most of it.

Anna recommended the square eyes and a silly mouth. She also decorated his nose while I went to get Evie out of bed.

We finished our pumpkins just in time to put on costumes and go trick-or-treating at Dad's office.

Evie refused to wear her hair, but she asked to wear the purple headband that came with her costume.

One of Dan's co-workers had a bowl full of Tootsie Pops sitting on a chair outside his office. When Anna saw them, she said with excitement, "Look Mom! It's like every day poop!" I think she was trying to express the idea that the Tootsie pops are just like the ones I reward her with when she goes poop on the potty. Of course, we laughed at her statement and so did the owner of the Tootsie Pops, and our laugher seemed to embarrass Anna a bit.

Monday was full of funny quotes from Anna. At one point she told me that I was "a bad parent." I guess I found it funny that she used the word parent, because she often tells me I'm a bad mommy. Then she got angry at me again when we were driving out of the Costco parking lot and said, "You are a sad little man." When I laughed at that, she said, "Stop your sillying, Mom!" But you know, if I don't laugh, I'll cry.

Evie's loves suckers most of all.

Trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. The weather was awesome and this year no one was sick.

One last picture at the end of the day with our Jack-o-lantern.

Fourth of July 2011

Because our front yard has a great view of the nearby fireworks show, we can usually get the rest of my family to come to us on the Fourth of July. This year, as with past years, we grilled up some meat and had plenty of food before heading out to our front lawn to watch the bigger fireworks show. My sister Erica brought some fireworks for the boys to light off and Jamie brought some sparklers for Anna and Evie.

Thanks to the change in laws about fireworks, several of our neighbors also put on some pretty good fireworks shows. Anna is still a little nervous about fireworks because they are so loud, but I bought her some earplugs, and we tried them out when our neighbors had us over a few days before the Fourth for their "Street of Fire" fireworks show. The earplugs were pretty ineffectual, but Anna loves being around other kids, so the our neighbors' show turned out to be a good warm up for the Fourth. Anna didn't want to leave the other kids, so she managed to overcome her anxiety about all the loud noises. 

On the Fourth, Anna and Evie were out in the backyard after dinner when our backyard neighbors started shooting off some arial fireworks. Christa and Shawn stood out on the back porch with the girls and I kept hearing Anna and Evie exclaim "wow!" 

Evie looks like she's running for cover, but I think I just caught her in a funny position. 

It looks like she's had one too many goldfish, but mostly I think she was just really tired. 

Easter Sunday

Sunday morning, they are still eating easter candy and they are still hyper. It looks like Evie is also still drooling.

I wanted to take pictures of them in their Easter dresses before Church, but as usual, we were running late, so I just snapped a quick photo and then planned to try to get more pictures after Church.

But then, on the way home from Church, Evie fell asleep. So I took some photos with Anna and by the time Evie woke up, I had already changed Anna out of her Easter dress, so it didn't quite work out to get pictures of them together after Church.

Easter Saturday

The Easter Bunny came to our house early Saturday morning. I think he hid a few eggs along with the easter baskets and Anna was great about helping Evie find some of the eggs.

Admiring each other's bunny ears. They seemed to be a hit!

Just like Anna when she was this age, Evie started stuffing candy in her mouth.

She had so many chocolate peanut butter eggs in her mouth that she couldn't even chew them. She could only suck on them and then while climbing on Dan, she started to drool.

When she started drooling, I decided to intervene and pull some of the candy out of her mouth.

She wasn't happy about loosing some of her candy. Both kids were pretty hyper all day long, which is another good reason for the Easter Bunny to drop off the baskets on Saturday morning instead of Sunday. Dan and I are thinking about putting in a request for granola bars and carrots for next year's Easter baskets.