Happy Birthday to me

For my birthday, I got a new apartment. A really, really messy apartment.I actually like it a lot, and I'm glad to have all of my stuff back. There were only a few casualties from the move; the crappy bookshelf didn't make it, along with one shelf of our storage shelf and one empty flower pot. There is also a few fairly big dings in my new dining room table. That one upset me the most, but there's not much that can be done now. We're going to try and find a wood stain similar to the table color and see if we can cover it up a little. I was able to find my cake pans and make my traditional chocolate junior mint cake. We went out for a birthday dinner and spent the rest of the day unpacking. The girls' room is coming together nicely. My kitchen is slowly getting done, but I'm still having a hard time figuring out where I want everything. One box at a time this place is becoming more of a home.

A big thank you to all the guys from the ward who helped us unload our trailer so fast!

Friday, Friday

Alice turned 3 months old yesterday. We tried to take a few sizing shots in our hotel in Iowa, but the lighting was really awful. They are on my real camera, so I have to wait until the big computer is set up to get them off.
Our trailer arrived this morning. From Alan's preliminary glance, it seems like one of our bookshelves didn't survive. Our things got a little tossed around and knocked over, so I hope that was the only thing we lost to the move. I guess we will find out tomorrow morning...

Driving Day 3 - Welcome to Wisconsin

Well, we made it. We pulled into our new apartment at about 4pm and picked up the keys. It is pretty nice. I can't wait to get all of our stuff and start putting it together. Our trailer arrives tomorrow morning and our new elders quorum is helping us unload it Saturday morning. Right now we are staying in temporary housing provided by Alan's company. It's really just a hotel room with a little kitchenette, but it's nice not to have to worry about unpacking and assembling my bed tonight.
Here are the girls in our new apartment. It's been a long trip, and I'm glad we are finally here. I think it will feel more real when we can unpack all our stuff, but for now I'm happy we don't have to spend anymore time in the car for a while.

Driving Day 2 - The Big One

Today was our longest day in the car. We made it all the way across Nebraska and halfway through Iowa. Elsie managed to take a long nap after our lunch stop, so that made the day go a lot smoother. Alice had one meltdown, but other than that she has been pretty calm. Elsie survived on stickers, books, and a few episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse as the evening wore on. The day went a lot better than I expected, but I'm still really glad it's over.

Driving Day 1 - Goodbye Utah

After spending the night at the in-laws, we hit the road at about 9:30am. We started driving through the canyon, and this was our view at right about the summit of Parley's canyon.
The snow only lasted for a little while, and it was only in the air, not on the road. We made it about 3 hours before stopping for lunch. About 20 miles from our designated stopping point, Elsie finally fell asleep.

We went another 4 hours to the hotel. Again, 20 miles before the hotel Elsie fell asleep again. Oh well. Both girls were very ready to get out of the car. Elsie was bored and Alice was lonely. We got them into the hotel, settled in a little, then headed down the the pool.

It was Alice's first time in a swimming pool. She didn't quite know what to think, but I think she liked it. Elsie sure had a fun time swimming with Alan and playing with her pool floaty.

After the pool we ordered dinner...

and waited...

and had a picnic on the bed. Elsie thought that was pretty silly.

First day of driving down! It went relatively well... Elsie had a few tense moments, but I was able to keep her somewhat entertained. Alice got a little fussy, but it was always when we were just about 10-20 miles from our destination. Alan and I are listening to Dan Brown's "Lost Symbol", so the time goes fairly quick. Tomorrow is our longest driving day, we have about 630 miles to cover before getting to our hotel. Wish us luck...

Goodbye apartment!

We're staying the night at Alan's parents' house. We hit the road bright and early tomorrow morning!

Easter Sunday

Alice was blessed by her daddy in church today. She wore the same dress as Elsie that was made out of my wedding dress. She was surrounded by good men that love her, and she whined through the whole thing.

Pictures will be added when we get to Wisconsin and I can get them off my camera...

I could say a lot more about today...

But I'm tired. We went to a local park for an Easter egg frenzy and other various activities. Elsie and Alice met the Easter bunny and his friend chipmunk with bunny ears. I have more pictures of everything, but Alan packed up the big desktop computer so I can't get them off my camera. I stole this one from my mom's laptop.

We had a nice graduation lunch with family then spent the rest of the day packing. We have most of the big items out of the apartment and just have a lot of little random things laying around. Elsie is having her usual pre-moving jitters and alternates between wanting to help too much and wanting all out attention to help her color or play with her toys. Once we're on the road and she knows we will all be together, she'll be ok. Right now it's just confusing for her.

Long day. I'm tired. It's time for bed.

He did it!

What I did today

Packed
Packed
Looked at everything that still needs to be packed
Went for a walk with Katie and Olivia (last one ever...)
Packed
Put the girls down for naps
Packed quietly
Wondered why we have to move and wouldn't it be better to just stay here forever
Packed
Got distracted by Elsie wanting to play Plants vs Zombies
Packed
And packed some more

...and there is still so much to do.

Yesterday and Today

I know it looks like Elsie is wearing the same clothes in both pictures, but they're just her jammies. I (foolishly) decided to play with her hair before getting her dressed. I then realized just how hard it is to try and carefully pull a shirt over the head of a wiggly two year old.

This was yesterday's style. I first tried to put her hair in french braids, but it turned out horribly. I resorted to pony tails that went down the side of her head. Next time I won't use such little rubber bands, as a few of them broke throughout the day.

Here is Elsie's hair from this morning. I attempted the french braids again, and they didn't turn out as bad. I still need a lot of practice french braiding. I realized yesterday that while I have had french braids in my own hair more times than I can count, I have never actually french braided hair myself. I understand the basic concept of it, and for only the second attempt at it in my whole life, I think it turned out ok. I don't know how well they will hold up after nap time, but at least it was semi cute for the morning.

In other news, Alice has been sucking on her thumb. She's been at it for a few days now. It's nice in that everytime she's tired she now knows how to soothe herself to sleep, but I worry about breaking the habit in the future. Oh well. It's pretty cute right now.

Yo

More hair

I stumbled across this blog a few days ago and spent a while looking through all of the hairdo ideas. I've been wanting to try different things with Elsie's hair, but it always seems like we're really rushed in the mornings and I end up just pulling it out of her face with a pony tail. We had some extra time this morning, and with the help of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Elsie sat still enough for me to play with her hair. It's definitely not great, but I was proud that I tried something different. Hopefully I'll be able to experiment more and come up with some new hair styles. Gah, my apartment is so messy! At least our moving trailer will be here on Thursday so we can start loading some of this stuff up and I won't feel like I'm being buried in boxes.

Edit: I just watched this video... Crazy hair. Maybe someday Elsie would sit still long enough to try something like that.

Hair cut?

With summer coming up, I'm thinking about cutting my hair. I think I might go a little shorter than I normally do, maybe even some sort of pixie cut. I'm thinking like the girl at the end of Tangled... (cute movie, by the way)

Thoughts? Would my thin-ish hair hold a hairdo like that? Would I love it or hate it? I think in some ways it might feel very liberating to cut off a lot of hair, but it's also kind of scary. I imagine I would have to use more product on a daily basis to manage that sort of hair style. Any suggestion of products that work well? Style tips? Anything would be helpful at this point.

One mans junk...

...is still just junk most of the time.

We had a yard sale this morning. Our ward put it together and it was conveniently located in our front lawn. We got rid of a lot of stuff we had laying around and surprisingly made a tidy little profit. Not a bad way to spend the morning. We got to spend it outside and Elsie loved running around with all the other kids trying to steal things from the other displays.

I hate moving...

My apartment is a mess, and it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. We're trying to sort through all of our stuff and decide what to take and what to get rid of. It is always hard to find that balance of packing up all the stuff we won't use until we get out there yet still leaving out enough toys/clothes/kitchen stuff/everything else to survive on (or keep Elsie entertained) before we leave.

Packing stinks...

Too early...

Elsie woke up way too early today. She came into our room at 5:30 this morning. Alan checked her diaper (which was dry), got her a sippy and put her back to bed. A little after 6 we heard her calling for us. She had completely soaked through her diaper, jammies, and her bed. Guess I'm not sleeping anymore this morning...Alan had his last day of class yesterday. It was pretty exciting. With the last assignment finally turned in, we went out to celebrate. We went to Tucanos and used my free birthday meal. We're going to have to find a new favorite birthday restaurant in Wisconsin.

Three finals, and Alan's done!

I win

Alice laughed for ME today! She has been laughing more and more, but it had always been at Alan, at Elsie, at the balloons floating around the ceiling... But today, she finally giggled just for me!

Four little words that I hate the most...

"No! Elsie do it!"

I hear those words way too many times during the day. Most of the time it is when we are in a hurry or trying to get kids out the door. I know she is just yearning for greater independence, but sometimes it is just a blatant stall tactic, and that is when it drives me nuts.

This picture really has nothing to do with this post, I just liked it.

I can be creative - Part two

Remember Alan's creativity project from last semester? As fun as building a giant pyramid out of rice crispy treats was, the fact remains that at the end of the night it ended up in the dumpster. This semester we wanted to make something that would last a little longer (notice how I'm using 'we' a lot? I should get university credit for this class too...) .

My mom made a little book for Elsie this past Christmas with pictures from all the times that Elsie played with grandma and grandpa throughout the year. Elsie loves looking at the "Dee Dee book" and naming everyone in it. With that in mind, we decided to make a picture book with people she would recognize and that would also be able to teach gospel principles. And so, we made a picture book of The Family: A Proclamation to the World.

We tried to incorporate everyone in both of our families. Our parents...Our siblings...

And our nieces and nephews.

I think it turned out really well. Now that the project has been graded, we can let Elsie read it and play with it. I hope that we will be able to enjoy it for a long time.

I have to add a thank you to my mom and my sister Becky for sending (and taking) some of the pictures. Once we finally came up with a solid idea, we a had a little bit of a time crunch to get it done and processed in time. After exhausting our picture supply, they sent the few we needed to finish up the book.

Just for you, Mom

Champion

I am proud to say that Alan is the Class of 2011 Mario Kart Wii champion, and he has a big plush blanket to prove it.

Happy Birthday Elsie!

Elsie is two years old today! She woke up this morning to a bunch of balloons tied to a brand new little table and chairs. We then went for a walk with her best buddy Olivia (and Katie). We came home and did two of her favorite things: she helped me make cookies and played Plants Vs. Zombies. Now she gets to play with two of her favorite people, Kyle and Shelina! They're coming over to watch the girls while Alan and I go to his Senior Celebration on campus. Tomorrow we'll have a birthday party with the rest of Alan's family with cake and ice cream.

Happy Birthday Elsie!

For Mickell

My old roommate Mickell texted me and asked a few questions about the girls. I didn't have a better idea for today's post, so here you go Mickell!

How far apart are the girls?
- Alice and Elsie are about two months shy of being two years apart. Elsie turns two tomorrow and Alice is just over two months. It makes it easy right now that I can just say "They are 2 and 2", but that won't last long...

Does Elsie get jealous of Alice?

- All the time. It was worse at the beginning when we first brought Alice home. We went through a little phase where whenever Alice would cry or whine, so would Elsie. A few times Elsie stole Alice's binkey and put it in her own mouth. We've tried to include her from the "helper" stand point, and that works to a certain degree. She likes to get Alice's binkey for her when she cries and she tells us when "Alice spit up again" and goes to get a burp rag. Elsie still gets mad when I can't do things or when I won't let her climb into my lap when I'm feeding Alice, but it's getting somewhat better.

Does Elsie like having Alice around?

- Most of the time. She always gets concerned when she can't see her or if we put Alice down for a nap when she's not watching. Elsie will ask for Alice to sit down next to her on the couch, or try to bring Alice toys to play with. We have a lot of talks about how Alice is little and we have to wait until she is bigger for her to be able to do certain things.

Here is another little video. Sometimes it sounds like Alice isn't sure if she is going to whine or laugh, but there are a few little giggles in there.

A little too much love

Mish Mash

Alice is still pretty grumpy from her shots. This was how I spent most of my day. Not that I got to sleep all day. That would have been nice...

We figured out how to keep Elsie in her big girl bed and she has had two days in a row of successful naps. All it took was letting her take a book or two to bed with her. Before bedtime or nap time we let her pick out a few books and she lays down and "reads" them to herself until she falls asleep.

We spent the weekend with Alan's family watching General Conference. We realized late Saturday night that we somehow ended up bringing a whole bunch of Alice diapers, but only had two Elsie diapers left. Since we didn't want to go shopping and buy new diapers on Sunday, I tried to come up with a solution. I placed an Alice diaper on Elsie, then put the last clean Elsie diaper on top of it to hold it in place. I was surprised at how well it worked. We had to change Elsie's diaper a lot more often to swap out the Alice diaper, but we had no leaks all day long.

We finished Alan's creativity project today. We completely scrapped the old idea and came up with something new. It's pretty neat, but it deserves a post of its own.

I started packing today. I got one box of books packed. That's all I could accomplish before Alice needed me and Elsie got bored with packing. Good thing Alan is almost done with classes so we can start packing full time. One week of classes, two reading days, three finals, and he is done!

Super Gross

Alice and Elsie had doctor appointments today and Alice got her first round of shots. It made her a little sleepy, a little cranky, and very fussy at bedtime. I had just gotten her in her jammies and was walking around trying to calm her down when she got so upset that she threw up all down my front. I handed her off to Alan and headed to the bathroom to get cleaned up. As I was stripping down (it had pooled up in my bra...) Elsie looked at me and said:

"Love you Mommy, even though you're super gross".

New Hair Style

A little tired and a little grumpy, but still cute.

Elsie's first prayer (without any help)

"Heavenly Father
Thankful for this day
Say these things
Jesus Christ
Amen"

Big Girl Bed

Elsie has moved out of her pack 'n play and into a toddler bed. At least, she slept in it last night and is sleeping in it right now. We moved things around in her room and had a big talk about what it means to sleep in a big girl bed and what the rules are. The rules are really quite simple. Stay in bed and don't bug Alice. So far she's been really good at bed time... but nap time today was horrific. She wanted to sleep in the big girl bed, but if we put her in it within 2 minutes she was coming out of her room. We gave her a few chances then tried putting her back in the pack 'n play, which resulted in a 2 hour scream/whine fest with no nap...

Any ideas? She does ok without a nap and could possibly give them up, but I don't know if I'm ready for her to not take one. I really enjoy my little hour and a half siesta in the middle of the day. It tends to keep me at least a little sane...