SO proud of my girls

Ariel won 2 medals in her school's "Reflections contest" One fpr 3-d art and one for literature.
Adriana insisted that we build a snowman when we first got snow last week.
Here is Annika just being pretty. You can see the box that our Christmas tree came in behind her. I still am not sure how I feel about a fake tree, but at least there aren't the needles to vacuum up all the time.
Adriana really wanted to wear this Christmas ribbon in her hair like this to preschool. And I let her. You can't really see in the picture, but she put on jeans that had a matching red ruffle at the bottom to complete the look.


New this week, I got my hair cut and bought some new shoes and dresses. It was fun to do something for myself. It was the first time that I had been to a salon and bought myself a dress since we have been married. maybe I'll post pictures next time. There may be some more news brewing in our family too, that I will be able to tell you about in the near future.

Vote for our Christmas Card Picture

So, while Peter was here, we had him take some pictures of us to try to get a good one for our Christmas cards this year.
Please vote for the one you like the best out of the 4 top finalists.

Thanksgiving

Luke and Peter came to visit on Wednesday and just left yesterday, so that is my excuse for not blogging lately. I was going to try and blog about one thing I am grateful for each day, so now I need to play catch up. I am grateful for good books. I am grateful that Luke and Peter came to visit. I am grateful for my cute kids, especially when they are being nice to each other. I am grateful for the public library system. I am grateful for my husband.

i am grateful for doctors

up dog, downward facing dog

Are you ready to see Dallin's new trick? He can do down dog!

Look at him smiling for the camera!
Look at those tippy toes!!!
Ariel in the leaves. It is still warn enough to wear short sleeves.
While we were making a pile of leaves, Annika kept taking them and putting them on the table then got up and said "Mommy, picture ME!" So I took her picture and this is the triumphant face she made.
Adriana in the leaves
Yet another attempt at a family picture. I have decided that when Luke and Peter are here to visit we are going to get Peter to try to take one of us in front of our beautiful door. We'll see if it will be Christmas card worthy or not.
I decided to post this one, because I hardly ever put pictures of myself up here.

So, the reason that I haven't been blogging lately is that I have been selling scrapbook pages on ebay in my spare time. Crazy, but fun. I have basically figured out that so far it just pays for itself, I earn a little money and then go out and spend it on new scrapbook supplies without the guilt. I have quite a stockpilr now, but there is always something on the horizon that I am wanting to get. It is officially my new hobby. I just sold a bunch of layouts last week, but when I come up with some more good ones, I will put a link here.

As far as Erin's tag to list ten things I am grateful for, I am going to do them one at a time.
Today I am grateful for our super duper camera. It is a lot of fun. At the time that we bought it I really only wanted a video camera, but Nikolay insisted on a digital camera combination, and he was SO right that that is what we really needed.

Halloween costumes

mom, look how many persons fit in this car

A few days ago in the morning Adriana and Annika were playing with Polly Pockets before we even got dressed or had breakfast. I was feeding Dallin and Adriana said to me, "Mom, look how many persons fit in this car." I just cracked up. If you think that was funny too, let me know. I guess they were all on their way to a wedding or something.

pumpkin carving

Annika's Birthday

The girls posing in their new dance costumes, (Annika joined the big girls for the picture).
Monday we went to Temple Square for family home evening after getting Ariel's blood checked.

rug rats

Annika just loves Dallin and tries to play with him any chance she gets.
Isn't he so cute holding his head up like that. But every once in a while I hear a thud as it plops back down on the ground.
She laid down by him all nice like that and said, "I wove u babi Dahli." In other words I love you baby Dallin.
Last Sunday I tried feeding him some rice cereal for the first time, and decided to wait a little bit more before trying again.

Well, there was my attempt at blogging for today just to inspire Erin, but I'll write some more tomorrow. I just got back from playing basketball and am all sweaty, I really just came to turn the computer off, but then I saw all those pictures that I posted and decided to at least label them a little. I am so excited that Emily is coming tomorrow because she is so with it and fun to talk to and I feel so much more at ease with her than most of the adults that I see regularly. Oh was that too mushy. And I am way excited to go to Lagoon on Saturday and do something "out" with the whole fam and it is free thanks to Give Kids the World and the AAPA. It really brought back to me how socially inept I am tonight at volleyball when I felt like joking with the other ladies but felt unsure at their reception of my attempts at humor. Only a few select people in this world get my humor and they are probably also the only ones reading this blog.. I love you guys. You know who you are. Now that was really cheesey, I better go take a shower and get back to my better half who is waiting for me.

COOL!

Wow, I haven't blogged in a long time, but I have to write down this really funny thing that happened today. I hosted book club this evening and the plan was that Nikolay was going to watch a movie with the girls in our room while I was having book club in the living room. Ariel asked if they could choose a prize from the prize bag if they were really good during book club. I agreed and they were all really good. So before putting them to bed we got out the prize bag and everyone chose something. Even Annika. She held up her eraser and asked "My prize?" and I said, "Yes, that's your prize." She got a big grin on her face and said "Cool!" Like kinda slow and really excited then she started bopping up and down because she was so satisfied. It was so funny! I had never heard her say prize or cool before.

Grandpa stopped by on his way to visit Luke last week. Here he is with Dallin.
We got to meet Barbie as Island Princess today at the zoo.

We made paper bag puppets for our family home evening activity last Monday.

Here's Grandpa with Adriana.

So the latest funny thing that Adriana said: I was doing 2 digit flashcards with Ariel and Adriana and at first Adriana was just guessing, and then she caught on and could identify ninety-five and fifty-six but when we got to 24 she said "twoty-four". It was really funny.
Dallin rolled over from his back to his front today. Lately whenever the girls kiss him, he reaches out and grabs their hair. Maybe I won't have to tell them not to kiss him so much anymore.

Quote of the Day

"When Ariel grows up if she bes a gingerbread man, I will run faster than her," Adriana.

This is our latest attepmt at a family picture.

Sometimes Ariel writes us notes early in the morning or when we are taking our Sunday afternoon nap. This one says "Sorry Annika got hurt. Just Kidding."

last week in pictures

I just had Ariel take this picture of me holding Dallin because I didn't have any other ones of him this week. Isn't he gorgeous?
This is Adriana in front of the CEU Prehistoric Museum in Price.
The whole gang at Grandma Beth's house
Annika riding Papa like Mowgli at Jacob and Emily's house. She has her pajamas on because we were counting on her falling asleep in the car on the way home, which she did.
Adriana brushing Annika's hair and Annika letting her. Notice Adriana's new haircut.
Ariel in front of her school on the first day.

I guess I like to post pictures more than write in my blog lately. I wish that more people would leave comments. Maybe I will start e-mailing everyone everytime I post. I quess I just don't know if anyone but Emily is even reading. Well I guess it will be kind of like family history for us than anyway even if no one else cares :( Sob sob.
Just kidding.

Lately I have been awed and amazed at authors. How could anyone have so much talent as to create a whole world with people who have individual believable personalities of their own. And they interact and interesting things happen to them.
I just remembered something interesting that happened to us. While we were at the dinosaur museum, Adriana was having so much fun, that she forgot to go to the bathroom and had a little pee-pee accident. So of course the super mom that I am had to solve the problem. We had no extra panties or pants for her in the car, but we went out anyway to investigate what we did have. I wanted her not only to be acceptable in public but also dry for our long drive home. I have an "emergency" bag in the car that has sweatshirts and socks for everyone in the family, but nothing that would really help with our problem. I looked in the diaper bag and found an extra pair of knit pants that I had brought for Dallin. I wasn't sure if they were going to fit Adriana who is four, but I grabbed them anyway and one of Annika's diapers because I thought that would be better than nothing. We got to the public restroom and she finished peeing and took off her pants and panties and tried on Dallin's pants. She just happens to be so skinny that the pants looked just like shorts her size. So, phew, we were saved.