Talia turns 3!

My princess Talia turned 3 on March 9th. She knew her birthday was coming up and talked about it for months leading up to it. I was hoping to bypass a birthday party this year but as we approached her special day she specifically asked me for an "Ariel" birthday party and we caved. It was thrown together rather last minute b/c that's how I roll these days, but it turned out fine. I always forget how much work a birthday party can be, but the end result is a very happy child so the work is totally worth it.
 Talia had asked for a princess big girl bike for her birthday, I told Andy this and he being the "guru" of bikes told me absolutely no. He said they were junky, over priced bikes and that it wasn't going to happen. I of course just wanted to please my child and debated with Andy over this princess bike ordeal and then  he showed me a beach cruiser he found online at REI that he was going to order for her. It was pretty cute so we compromised in that he could get her that bike but I would get a princess basket for the bike and princess streamers for the handles. He was fine with that. So on the 9th we gave Talia her big girl bike and she LOVED it! 

Here is Talia as she first sat on her new beach cruiser, she had that balloon in her mouth all day. As I was decorating all she kept trying to do was blow up balloons. Funny how we can give her bike, gifts etc...but she just wanted to try and blow up balloons and that consumed most of her attention. Nana gave her the cute doggy back pack she is wearing. Talia has a love for dogs and "pack packs" as she would say.

 We had her birthday party the following day. Since balloons are one of Talia's most favorite things in the world I made sure to have a lot of them floating around. She loved it!!!

 Some of the Ariel decor...notice the pinata on the left, it was a GIANT Ariel. I once again have to thank my wonerful neighbor Rosa.  She provided Andrew's pinata and now Talia's. Her mom brought it down from El Paso. It was pretty impressive.

 the birthday girl smiling from ear to ear

 Here is Talia ready to greet her friends as they arrive.  I wish I had a closer picture of these cute skewers in the background that I gave away. They were of "under the sea" gummy creatures. swedish fish, gummy sharks, gummy octopuses etc...they turned out super cute.

 It's always tough to get the party started and thanks to the balloons the kids got the party started themselves. They can be amused so easily, and to think I was stressing over games and activities.

 So I decided to do a craft for Talia's birthday. I bought canvas boards, sea shells, crystals and paints so the kids could do an "under the sea" masterpiece. It was really fun, although I probably should have waited another year or two to do this as Talia got paint all over herself even with me trying to be careful. I was also covered in paint by the time we were done. Regardless it was still a hit.

I wish you could see the giant clip on dress up earrings Talia was trying to put on in this pic...she cracks me up!

 This picture captures Talia's personality 100%, she lovse to grab your cheeks and squish them. This time Nana was the victim.

 Talia taking a swing at Ariel

 Oh Andrew is trying so hard to crack the pinata!

 These kids gave poor Ariel a black eye

ready to blow out her candles. I'm pretty sure her friends did it before she could. All kids like to blow out candles! Overall I think Talia loved having so much attention.  The party flowed smoothly and she got a lot of cute cute gifts which I was grateful for since she didn't really have "girly" toys. For some reason I'm stuck with boy stuff, buying Andrew toys is so easy and getting Talia the princess stuff has been an adjustment for me. So some things about my 3 year old....

Talia talks a lot, she will talk your ear off if you will sit and listen to all she has to say. She is super active. It has been about a month since she got her beach cruiser and I'm pretty sure I could take off the training wheels and that she would be fine. I may try this week. She speeds up and down our streets on her bike, goes down the hill, up the hill, nothing stops her. She is as determined as can be.  She adores Chica. She calls her "my baby" and she dresses her up all the time. I often find Chica running around the house with a crown on, bead necklaces etc...Talia could be totally amused having a play date with Chica. Talia is getting better with eating but is still soooo picky. She wants mac n cheese everyday. She will eat most fruit, yogurt, oatmeal, peanut butter and jelly, a cheese quesdilla (sometimes),  MAC N CHEESE, and that's about it. I got her to eat some spaghetti the other day with meat sauce. It was a miracle. I was seriously jumping in the air cheering. She enjoyed seeing that. She has the sweetest tooth I know. I still blame Andy for this since he stuck a lolly pop in her mouth when she was  6 months old.  She asks for candy constantly. She is also really into dress up. She wears dress up more than her normal clothes around the house. Talia knows all her letters in the alphabet, and we are working on the sounds the letters make. She is a fast learner and I just need to work with her more. She went from being potty trained last summer to regressing in the fall after multiple road trips and it took sometime to get her back to potty trained which was frustrating, but at the start of the year she once again mastered it, thank heavens! Talia is a joy to have around, she loves hanging out with me which makes me feel so special. I can't get Andrew to go to the store with me anymore for the life of me.  Whenever I need to go somewhere, it doesn't matter where Talia shouts "I want to go with you." She loves to be out and about, she says the funniest things that I need to take note of more often. She reasons really well for her age too. I love this little girl so much! She brings our family so much joy!

Presidents Day in So Cal

Over Presidents day we headed to Southern California for the long weekend. We stayed with Andy's old college roommate Clay and his wonderful family. We love the Gardners!! Talia was in absolute heaven playing with their little girl Peyton. They were constantly in princess dresses and living the little girl dream. It was so fun to reunite with our buddies from BYU days. The Gharrings came to hang out as well and it was so nice to see them after so long.  It was a good reminder that we need to do a better job at keeping in touch!

McEwen's, Gardner's, Gharrings! Love this pic with all of our kids :)

We left San Clemente for a day and headed to SD. We hung out at the Harbor and went on all the ships. Andrew especially loved exploring the "pirate ships" and the submarine.

The kids couldn't believe how small the sleeping quarters were on these ships. This little room had dress up for the kids to pretend they were immigrants.

The canon was a huge hit, at first Andrew was scared it might go off but once he realized it was safe, he couldn't stop playing with it.

The submarine was closterphobic! It was tiny, and seeing Andy try and go through these tiny spaces was a riot. The kids of course loved that part the best.

since we were down by the harbor we decided to go to Anthony's for some fish and chips and that just added to the experience.

We can't go to SD without stopping in La Jolla. Our absolute favorite place. We saw the sea lions and also went to the cove at low tide for the kids to explore.

My wild child decided to climb up a tree and the look on her face is priceless! It was a fun weekend getaway. Everytime we go to CA we wish we lived there. It really is so beautiful. I hope that we are able to go back soon!

valentines

Behind once again...I'm just going to get a few pics up. This year we had a valentines dinner with the family instead of going out with just Andy. We grilled filet mignon's and had a lot of yummy sides and it was a lot of fun. Andy got me beautiful roses and chocolates which of course I didn't get a picture of. I've just been bad lately with taking pictures and keeping up with our life!

 Andrew really enjoyed Valentines day! He loved getting all of his valentines at school. Once he brought them home he looked at them over and over again. I thought it was really cute b/c at school secret admirers could purchase pencils and have them delivered to you on Valentines day. Lets just say Andrew got a fair share of pencils from little girls in his class. They all love him! I think it is so funny. He tells me they want to marry him!!! These little girls need to calm down! I have had a number of moms come up to me after school, asking if my son was Andrew and then proceed to tell me their daughter just adores him. It's a riot. He has little girls after school running up to him to give him a hug and he just stands there limp. I told him to be nice but he said he doesn't like to hug girls. I guess that's a good thing!

This is the valentine I made for family and close friends from Andrew

Here is the Valentine we printed for his class. We attached a star wars lolly pop to this. Andrew wanted his favorite things represented in his valentines, Batman and Star Wars. He cracks me up!

This was my darling Talia's valentine that we gave to family. The photo was taken by the very talented Karen Edwards.

Romney Rally

I don't normally do political posts but this is time I must. I'm going to preface this with some background first. About a month ago, Andrew came home from school and told me he did not like President Obama. This caught me off guard b/c I had never talked to Andrew about President Obama so I asked him how he even knew about the President (Andrew turned 5 only 4 months ago...not a typical 5 yr old conversation piece.) Anyhow, he said they learned about the President and the white house at school. I then asked him why he didn't like President Obama and he told me he doesn't like him b/c he is "in charge" and HE wants to be "in charge." I thought that was pretty funny.  From then on Andrew has become extremely interested in everything presidential. He has watched the GOP debates with us even though he doesn't understand what they are talking about, he knows when someone has said something good and claps, cheers etc...He knows who all of the GOP candidates are by name and understands that both Andy and I hope that Mitt Romney wins the nomintation. Anyhow, when it came time for Nevada to caucus, I knew that Mitt Romney would be here and decided to take Andrew to his rally the first night he arrived in Vegas. Andy had to be at church for a young mens activity so I ventured off with the kids, picked up my mom last minute, not knowing what to expect. It was at Brady Industries and they packed the place. It was super exciting and fun, and the energy was awesome. It couldn't have been more perfect for Andrew though...Ann Romney opened up the night saying she couldn't believe how many kids were in attendance (she must have seen more b/c I thought I was the only one who brought kids!), she went on to ask if there were any 5 year olds in the audience and asked them to raise their hands.  I lifted up Andrew as high as I could and he raised his hand and both Ann and Mitt Romney waved at him. He was thrilled that they would single out 5 year olds. She continued by talking about their 5 year old grandson. I have pictures below from the rally.

Andrew got tired of standing so long so Talia was nice enough to let him sit on her lap

showing their support :)

NEVADA VICTORY RALLY

Andy and I participated in the Nevada caucus on Saturday morning.  Within our little precinct which had 42 people in it, 32 voted for Romney, so I figured that he may win Nevada that night. I knew he was having a rally at Redrock casino later that evening to give some sort of speech hopefully a victory one and I really wanted to go b/c I was hoping Andrew could maybe meet him.  It was also my Dad's birthday and I knew we were going to dinner and wasn't sure if we would be done in time but after I called my Dad and told him that Romney's rally was at 6pm at redrock he wanted all of us to go so we had an early dinner and headed to Redrock. It was rather crazy to get in but once we were in we were glad we waited. Just upon entering I was interviewed by cbs radio, and of course caught off guard as I'm strolling in Talia. I don't even know what I said, probably something stupid and I'm sure they didn't air it b/c it was like yeah Mitt will win it...haha. Looking back I wish I would have said a million different things but I wasn't even thinking right. We got there early enough to get a great spot and were  infront of Romney's teleprompter. It was so fun having the whole family there and with my Dad being so into politics he loved it, and thought it was a great way to end his birthday night. Prior to Mitt Romney arriving we could see ourselves on these huge screens, live on CNN, it was so much fun.

Talia showed Andy how she could raise her hands in the air and say "whooo whooo" I wish I would have gotten an action shot but this will have to do.

The best pic of the night!!! Andy knew how much Andrew wanted to meet Mitt so he made sure as soon as he was done with his speech that he headed to the very front to get Andrew in front of him. We found this picture online, and it was used in articles across the country as the main photo for the victory rally. I love this pic b/c you can see Andrew's little hand shaking Mitt's. Once Mitt realized he was shaking a little hand, he looked right at Andrew and said "hey, how are you buddy!" Andrew has repeated this story to just about everyone and says he shook the hand of our future president. So cute. I also was randomly watching a video on usa today and saw Andrew in the bottom left corner shaking Mitt's hand. Here is the link to that.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-02-04/republican-nevada-caucus/52957864/1?bctid=1434206546001 

Overall it was such a fun weekend. I was bummed b/c Andy and I could have gone to the small gathering of Donald Trump endorsing Mitt Romney but it was at 12:15 and I was working and Andy had a lunch with docs during that time so we couldn't make it happen. It was nice to see that Andy still had his political connections from when he ran a campaign, and worked with the republican party here in Nevada. I'm just glad that Andrew was able to meet Mitt Romney, and that he is still very interested in learning all about past presidents and what it takes to become one. Living in Nevada, and seeing how everyone has been so hurt with the economy I really think that Mitt Romney is the only candidate that can pull us out of this mess. His proven successful record in the private sector really sets him apart from everyone else. I sure hope he gets the nomination.

Nana's birthday

My mom had a birthday on January 25th, and we celebrated at my house all together. My kids absolutely adore their Nana. She does so much for them,  she spoils them, takes care of them, and loves them more than life itself. My kids ask me everyday if they can go to Nana's house. If we don't see my mom for some odd reason my kids call her on the phone to talk, they must have Nana in their lives daily :) I feel extremely blessed to have my family so close by. They are always there to help me with whatever I might need and actually offer to help me before I can even ask. I'm so thankful for my Mom, as she has always been an example to me and has shown me what it truly means to be selfless. I love my mom beyond words.  It was a joy to celebrate her special day together.

The Holidays

Our holiday came and went in a flash. This year seemed especially busy and chaotic due to work being nuts. I didn't feel like I got to do all that I wanted with the kids but made the best of it. Seeing Andrew so aware and ready for Santa was the best though...He was more into it this year than ever before. He asked me questions daily about Santa. On Christmas Eve he couldn't even contain himself, I caught him looking up the fireplace, wanting to know if Santa would fit, making sure there was no fire going so Santa could come down, had cookies and milk for Santa, carrots for Rudloph, and it was simply magical. Andrew really made us all excited for Santa to come. He told me Christmas morning that he was looking out his window all night and saw Santa far out in the sky flying over our house :) This is such a precious age and I'm soaking up every second of it!

Took the kid to see Santa with Tawny and her kids, were there for a few hours...bass pro shop never disappoints!

The kids loved all the fish in the aquarium, a few divers came in to feed the fish and that was very entertaining.

pajama party at school and holiday performance...they sang so many songs it was adorable!

fast forward to Christmas Eve...making cookies for Santa! The kids were so excited this year for Santa it was so much fun to see them get ready for him to come to our home. The kids opened up their Christmas PJ's, we watched the polar express and got them to bed early...it was the best night!

 Talia and Andrew in their Christmas PJ's

 Chica found a new spot next to the fireplace, she likes to keep warm :)

One of my most favorite parts of the holiday season...hearing from all of you and seeing your beautiful families. Andrew and Talia adored all the cards, and when I took them down Andrew wouldn't let me throw any away so they are in his room for him to look at whenever he wants. I'm starting to realize that Andrew is a bit of a hoarder...he won't let me throw away anything and frequently checks the trash to make sure nothing of value to him is in there. He cracks me up!

 Christmas morning in holiday attire.  The kids were so good and opened up presents and then let me put it all aside to get them ready for Church. I did prep them the night before by letting them know that was how the morning was going to go, so glad they listened.

Talia was loving this purse that my Aunt Vickky sent her, she is finally getting all "girly"

the boys

Andrew got spolied by Santa and had the lego Christmas he was dreaming of...we pretty much built Legos all during his Christmas break.

This picture melts me...it describes Talia's and Chica's relationship perfectly. Talia has a love for Chica like none other, she plays with Chica as if she were human. She puts crowns on Chica, princess dresses, purses around her neck, sits with her, lays with her, covers her up in a blankie to make sure she is warm etc...She hugs her all the time like this, and as you can see she was full of energy and super happy Christmas morning. We celebrated so much more with my family, and my mom made an amazing dinner as always and had the most beautiful table set up, fine china, gold goblets (that the kids LOVED,) but I forgot my camera of course! I feel jipped not having any pictures. I'm going to have to try and steal some from my dad and repost later. Overall the holidays were a little nuts this year, but once they finally came, Andy and I took a week off to be home and relax and it was pure joy.

redrock and side yard project

We love redrock...the scenery is so beautiful and the kids enjoy running around up there. This picture is hilarious and Andrew's hair looks more like a helmet lol...

I'm so happy these two have each other. Talia is at an age that she can hold her own now. Andrew and her play a ton together. They fight as well, but even with the fights I know that they have a deep love for each other. When it comes down to it, Andrew wants to make sure Talia is happy and Talia never wants to disappoint Andrew. Sometimes if they misbehave I take away toys and whomever is not in trouble always tries to get me to give their siblings toys back. I love seeing them watch out for one another. I feel blessed to have such wonderful children.

On a side note, Andy decided he wanted some cement work done and Ashton Cave came over and the next thing I knew the small cement project turned big...they started scheming on what to do with our side yard. We had all rock before and that was cleared out and filled an entire dumpster, who knew we had that much to clear! planter walls have gone up to the left and still need the stone veneer, plants etc...we will most likely put fake grass in as well. It turned cold so the project came to a hault but once it warms  up we will get this going  again. I'm excited to see the finished product.