Opus 457 - Comedy Club

It's like a comedy club around here. Lissa and Joshua are saying the funniest things. I've posted most of these on Facebook, so I apologize if you have already seen some of this.

Joshua: When I'm 61.... (long pause), I'll cook stuff.

Jason and I had just finished hanging a Pooh border up in the kids room. Joshua walked in and said, "Oooohhh, this is great! You did a good job! This is nice! This is wonderful!"

Lissa (talking to me): Daddy has a big nose. You and me and Joshua have a little nose.

Lissa: I need lots of snacks. Snacks keep me warm.

Lissa (looking at a box of chocolate pudding): Look! It has chocolate on it!

Me: that's because it's chocolate pudding.

Lissa: Oh, I love chocolate!

Lissa: Remember Josh, no getting in trouble.

Joshua: We have to make messes. That is our work.

Me: What should we do for Daddy on Father's Day?

Joshua: Um, watch a show for him.

Joshua: I like cold. It keeps me warm.

Joshua: Someday I'll have my own garbage can..... Like Lissa.

One day Joshua informed me that an elephant hit him and he got owied. Lissa said she walked past the elephant.

Joshua told me that Cookie Monster's home is far, far away in the T.V.

One day Lissa sat on the potty for almost an hour with no success. She finally decided she was done. Since we were about the leave we put a diaper on her. About one minute later she sighed and said, "Ahhh, that feels better." I asked, "Did you pee?" She replied with a sheepish grin, "Yeah."

After I let Joshua start the microwave he turned to Lissa and said, "I pushed the button Lissa!" She replied, "That's good Josh! You are so big!"

After seeing images of the royal wedding on TV, Lissa said, "I'm a princess!" Joshua said, "I'm a prince! Let's kiss!" After the kiss, they danced.

One evening Joshua was running around the house yelling, "I'm a cowboy!" Lissa was running around saying, "I'm a pretty princess!"

When Jason needs to shave, Lissa says, "Daddy, take the crust off."

Joshua once informed me that Dora lives in Netflix.

Jason was sick one Sunday so I took the kids to Church by myself. During Sacrament meeting I did something that made Joshua laugh. Lissa looked at me very seriously, put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Mama, you need to be really quiet."

Piano student (upon seeing a game on TV): Oh, is this March Madness?

Joshua: No, it's basketball.

While watching Dr. Seuss Joshua saw Thing One and Thing Two and exclaimed, "Look! There's Lissa and Joshie!"

This last one has nothing to do with Lissa and Joshua, it just keeps cracking me up:

Two random girls walked into my classroom one day, started walking toward the practice rooms and asked, "Can we get to the Drama room through here?" I replied, "Well, you'll have to walk through a few walls..." They kept going until I stopped them and pointed out the walls.

Opus 456 - Sidewalk of Fire

The organizers of Sidewalk of Fire really stepped it up a notch this year. There were so many activities! There was a Fun Run and Pancake Breakfast on Saturday. Monday evening included Street Rockets, a Carnival, a Children's Parade, and of course, the incredible display of fireworks. The display was even better this year since the Utah State Legislature decided to legalize some aerial fireworks. There was even a DJ this year! There are Sidewalk of Fire t-shirts and a website. Impressive organizing!

It rained for a little while before the fireworks started, but the didn't stop anyone! We just put on the blankets and kept watching the fun :)

Joshua thoroughly enjoyed the dessert bar:

He also enjoyed the music. That kid loves to dance!

And now, I present to you, Sidewalk of Fire!

Opus 455 - Parade

We had originally planned to get up early on July 4th so we could watch the Balloon Festival, but since the kids were so grumpy on Sunday (due to loss of sleep), we decided we should let them sleep a little more. We did, however, brave the crowds and watch the parade. According to Joshua, his favorite things were the fire trucks, police cars, police motorcycles, and bands. Lissa really liked the Princesses (thank you parade organizers for having lots of Disney Princesses!!). We even saw Aunt Emily and Robert dressed as Snow White and Prince Charming!

I loved the kids' reactions. Joshua was especially dramatic: "Ooooohhh! Aaaahhhh! Look at that Mama!!"

Opus 454 - Daddy Time

The other day we came home from church and the kids were massively grumpy. Sadly, it's not unusual since we have 1pm church, but the fact that we had stayed up late the night before for the fireworks didn't help. I needed to get to work on dinner, so Jason took charge of keeping the kids happy. I looked into the living room and found this picture perfect moment:

Opus 453 - Freedom Festival / Fireworks

On the Saturday before Independence Day, we got up a little earlier than usual to attend a pancake breakfast in our neighborhood. We then drove straight to the Freedom Festival activities in downtown Provo. The highlight was learning a new way to do Lissa's hair.

Joshua wanted his hair done too. The poor stylist couldn't do much - he was in desperate need of a haircut and she wasn't set up for doing boys' hair. So we got some serious spikes.

That night we drove over to my cousin Nicole's house to watch the fireworks from Stadium of Fire. We love going there. The company is great and the traffic (or lack of) is perfect. It only takes 10 minutes to get home!

Can I just say that those sound reducing ear phones are on my list of best purchases ever? If you've been following my blog for awhile, you probably recognize them. We purchased them almost three years ago so we could take the kids to football games. They were wonderful then and are wonderful now. No kids screaming about loud fireworks! Yay!

Opus 452 - Videos

It is so funny to watch Joshua play with his cars. He has these long conversations with them and they have the greatest adventures. Miraculously, I was able to get a video of him playing without him stopping to see what I was doing.*

Lissa decided she wanted in on the action so she asked me to make a video of her. Unfortunately, she didn't want to wait until we actually made the video before watching it.

Joshua then decided that he wanted to sing a song for the camera:

*I love listening to his conversation. My favorite quotes, "They went to Costco to get their gas." and "Hey! You troubled this up!"

Opus 451 - Cars 2

Joshua has been looking forward to the release of Cars 2 for a very long time. He watched every trailer available. He watched everything we could find on the Disney website. He eats Cars 2 cereal (the Kellogg's cereal with Cars stuff on back). He has been waiting and waiting, then it finally came! We decided to be brave and take the kids to their first movie. Overall, it went pretty well. Joshua was mesmerized. Lissa got a little bored and wasn't a fan of the loud, dark, and shooting (it was a little violent for Disney/Pixar). We had to spend $3.50 on M&M's to keep her happy, but it worked. Naturally, Joshua was very prepared for the movie. He wore his Lightning sandals, Lightning shorts, Lightning shirt, Lightning hat, Lightning sunglasses, he even wore Lightning Pull-ups. He also brought his Mater and Lightning cars with him. That kid was ready.

I had a hard time getting them to look at me for a picture. They were busy watching the pre-movie stuff. You'll notice that Lissa got slightly involved in the Cars stuff by bringing Sally and Flo.

This was taken after the movie. He was very concerned about the sun in his eyes and really wanted to go back in and watch the movie again :)

Opus 450 - Hanging with Grandpa

While I was teaching Summer Band, Grandma and Grandpa were very kind and watched the kids a few times. Lissa and Joshua loved playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house! This was what they created with Grandpa one day:

Opus 449 - Toy Reorganization

One Saturday I walked into the living room to find this:

Complete Disaster! I took a picture with my phone, posted it to Facebook, and said something about needing a basement. That led to some discussions with a friend of mine about how to get the toys out of our living room. We have a third bedroom, but it's used for storage and technically a guest room (when we can find it) for Aunt Lissa, my parents, and other visitors. I have never put toys in the kids' room because I don't want to add that temptation during nap/night time. But then it hit me: clean out the closet, put the toys in there, and lock the doors when they need to be sleeping. Why this inspiration has never come sooner, I don't know :) Within a couple of hours we had everything reorganized. The kids' closet now looks like this:

Playing in their room for the first time:

And the best part - Our living room now looks like this:

We left a very few toys downstairs and the kids still bring down some toys sometimes, but we only let them bring a few at a time so it is very manageable. I love it!

Opus 448 - Pizza & a Movie

During the last semester of school, Jason had class every Friday night. So the kids and I decided it would be pizza and a movie night for us. We liked it so much that we're still doing it. We have a pretty set routine - I pick up a Pepperoni deLITE pizza from Papa Murphy's and the kids pick out a movie. Their choice is usually something like Care Bears, Dora, or Strawberry Shortcake :) We take their little table into the living room, eat the pizza and watch a movie. The kids LOVE it. I like it because it's fun and easy. Even the clean-up is easy since we use paper plates. Yay for building memories!

Opus 447 - Baseball

Lissa and Joshua participated in our local Start Smart Baseball program this summer. It's a parent/tot program for 3-4 year old kids that teaches them the basics of baseball. Jason was able to make it to a couple of practices. Grandpa was very kind and came to the rest of them. At each practice, they divided the kids into 3-4 groups. Each group would rotate to different stations where they would practicing hitting, catching, throwing, or running. Both kids were really into it at first. About halfway through the first practice, Lissa said to me, "Mama, this is so fun!" It got a little harder for her on the hotter days :) On the last day of practice they divided the kids up and had a t-ball game. Naturally, there wasn't much action, but it was cute.

Hitting the ball:

1-2-3 Go Pirates! (They LOVED doing the cheer!)

Receiving their certificates and medals (Lissa was very concerned about how the medal messed up her hair):

After game ice cream:

The Professional Pictures:

Their Certificates:

Opus 446 - I'm now the proud owner of...

A wheat grinder!* As you might remember from this post, Lissa needs to be eating more dietary fiber. We have found that getting more wheat into her diet is the easiest way. So I have been learning to cook with wheat. So far, I've mastered waffles, biscuits, and rolls. I'm still working on the whole wheat bread (I'm using my Mom's recipe, but it takes some time to adjust it for altitude), so we've been buy whole wheat bread, hot dog/hamburger buns, and bagels. I also cook with the "special" pasta that has more dietary fiber.

My favorite of all the recipes I've added whole wheat to is cinnamon rolls. My mom has a very yummy recipe that I love. We have a tradition of eating those cinnamon rolls every Sunday morning (that was the tradition in the Camacho house growing up). I didn't want to lose the tradition since the kids love it, so I started making it with 1/3 whole wheat. We love it! I'm so happy it turned out so good. Once I accidentally made the cinnamon rolls without the whole wheat and I didn't think they tasted as good. I guess we've gotten really used to whole wheat around here.

It's sure helped Lissa!

*It's actually one that attaches to my Bosch.

Opus 445 - Swimming Lessons

We enrolled Lissa and Joshua for the first session of summer swimming lessons. Although they have a little fear of the water (I like to call it a healthy fear of water), they always did what their teacher asked them to do and had a blast. There were a few times when one of them didn't want to go, but the other would say, "I'll help you!" and everything would be okay. Although it's very cute to watch them help each other out, it was very obvious that they need to learn to do some things on their own. We'll work on that as they get older :)

As you can see, I had a really hard time trying to get a decent shot of them before lessons started:

"Helping" each other jump across the pool:

Playing with noodles:

Opus 444 - Aunt Emily

After seeing Aunt Emily in Singin' in the Rain, we were inspired to tell Lissa and Joshua about how their Aunt Emily was once Belle and Cinderella. We showed the kids some youtube videos of Emily when she played Belle and Lissa was mesmerized. She just couldn't wrap her little head around her Aunt Emily being Belle!! We then showed them the DVD of Emily playing Cinderella. Once again, the kids loved it. They danced right along with Cinderella and the Prince.

Opus 443- Sage Kitty

Although we have a cat, the kids have been deathly afraid of cats since the first time they saw one. Our cat, Sage, is not interested in the kids at all and stays up in our room until the kids are napping or sleeping. She will not get near them. We have been working on getting both the kids and the cat used to each other. Lissa and Joshua have now decided that the kitty is awesome. They love to go into our room and talk to Sage. They show her what they are wearing and tell her about their day. They just love it when Sage meows at them. "Mama! She said hi!" Sage is patient and lets them talk to her or gently pet her, but she still has no interest in being downstairs with them. We bring her down occasionally, but she runs up the stairs as soon as she can. I don't blame her - those kid can be pretty loud!

Here's a picture of Sage humoring the kids for a few minutes:*

*The astute reader may notice that there is a program for Singin' in the Rain on the couch. We got to go see Jason's sister, Emily, play Kathy Seldon in the Scera's production of Singin' in the Rain. Emily is so beautiful and talented! We had a great time watching her!

Opus 442 - Camping

All winter the kids asked us to go camping. So we made plans to go to Moab over Memorial Day weekend. Overall, we had a good time. We did have a problem with 30-40 mph wind Saturday night. It was so bad we were sure our tent was going to collapse on us during the night. It gave a whole new meaning to the phrase "hold the fort down." We were literally holding our tent up all night. We didn't get any sleep at all. Since the wind was projected to get worse, we ended our trip early, but we're still glad we went. However, we are still finding Moab dust.

We didn't do a good job of taking pictures. Our favorite part of the trip was our visit to Arches. Several people told us to take the kids to Sand Dune Arch so they could play in the sand. So we brought along sand toys and made the short hike to the arch. Oh my goodness, the kids were in heaven! They had so much fun - they played for over an hour in the sand! Everyone else was a little jealous of the sand toys :) So glad we brought them!

Arches

Trail to Sand Dune Arch

Sand Fun

Sand Dune Arch