Evening Drive

We live [not too far] from this spot. Can you believe how lucky we are? 

…isn’t it amazing??? I told you this place is beautiful! We love to go on evening drives when the weather is nice. This night took us out to Utah Lake. It was amazing. I seriously didn’t have words to describe how beautiful it was. I just stood there and stared. And the cool breeze coming off of the lake made it even better. (It’s funny how much we’ve come to appreciate a cool breeze after living in Arkansas for a few years. They don’t believe in cool breezes there.)

Ky thought it was pretty cool too… Then we got attacked by mosquitoes and jumped into the car and shut the doors as fast as we could. A couple snuck in with us so we spent the drive home with Kylie yelling, “There’s one!” and Daddy diving to get them. The next morning all of us woke up with red itchy spots, but it was worth it. The view was amazing!

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Rise and Shout!

We went on a family date to a Cougar game. It was seriously so much fun. Most people  would say taking your kids to a BYU game is slightly crazy, but they did awesome and were cheering and yelling at the refs right along with us.It may have been just a little loud in the beginning...Some friends of ours had some really great tickets that they weren’t going to be using that night so they passed them along to us! I have never sat so close at a college football game before. I felt like we were some fancy VIPs in the fold-down seats and not the bleachers.

You can’t go to a football game and not have cute cheerleader bows in your hair. Well, at least I can’t. Kylie and I were little twinners.

When the girls started to get a little restless, we broke out the snack stash. Seriously, a life saver - especially since hot dogs are like $5 each, pizzas are $7, and we couldn’t get out of our seats too easily anyway... Here’s the 2nd-quarter fruit snack break, and by break, I mean for Mommy and Daddy.

10 cool points if you can guess why Kylie is so excited in this next series of pictures…

We only ended up staying until halftime. Since it was already 8pm, we decided it would be much better to leave on a good note with both girls happy and excited rather than stay until the end of the game and have to deal with two screaming, over tired girls. Good call.

It was seriously so much fun. It’s amazing how much more Cougar pride we have now that Mike is  a student at the Y.  Go Cougs!

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Soccer Mom

We tried soccer. That’s right, I’m a mom that drives a mini van and takes my kiddos to soccer… Well, maybe that should say I took my kids to soccer. Let me restate my fist sentence, we tried soccer. Ha! Who were we kidding, Kylie is way too prissy for soccer. I can say that because I’m her mom (and also because she gets that from me...)

 

The MBA spouses put together a little soccer league that is completely just for fun and I thought it would be a great way for Kylie to burn off some extra energy. When I asked her if she wanted to play soccer her exact response was,

“No! Princesses don’t play soccer, they daaaaaaaaaance!”

and then she twirled away. No joke! (Who is this kid, and where does she get this from?… don’t answer that…) So for the first couple weeks, soccer was a no go. Then I randomly asked her again if she wanted to play soccer and she proceeded to tell me exactly how to play and how fun it is and begged to go. We went out and got her some cute little soccer duds (because if a princess is going to play soccer, she had better look cute, right?), a little soccer ball, and some new sneakers.

We got to the park the first day and I could tell Ky was feeling a little nervous so we just kind of hung out on the sidelines for a little while until she was ready to go out onto the field with all her little friends. She never went out. The next week, same thing. Instead she danced on the grass and asked if she could just do Tangled (like sing and act out all of the songs). I tried really really hard to get her to go play and bribed her with everything from gummy bears to movies. nothing. By the third time I finally asked her if she wanted to just wait until next year to try again. She excitedly said yes and “I just want to do dance class, okay?”

If nothing else, it was nice to get out and run around in the sunshine for a while. And who knows, maybe she wanted to stick to the sidelines because she would really rather just be a cheerleader… haha!

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Tiny Dancer

Kylie started a new dance class at a new studio here in Utah. She is the cutest little ballerina, with princess panties hanging out of her leotard, I have ever seen.

Her class is going to have a big Christmas recital at the end  of November and then another one in the Spring. Mike already told me to be prepared for him to be the Dad in the front row with the video camera cheering obnoxiously for his little girl. It’s alright because I’m planning on being just as obnoxious.

It’s really fun, and incredibly rewarding in a way, watching her do something she loves and enjoys so much! All of us moms sit in the hallway and watch from the open doors and gawk over how cute our kids are… but really, mine’s the cutest :)

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Naptime is for babies

Lately Kylie has been very anti-naptime, even though mommy is incredibly pro-naptime. We will do our whole routine: read stories, sing a song, kiss goodnight and close the door. Then a few minutes later, and until I go in to finally let her come back downstairs, I hear laughing and jumping and singing and who knows what else. I’ll go upstairs to remind her she needs to be sleeping but as soon as she hears my footsteps she hurries and jumps back into bed, shuts her eyes tight, and pretends she was sleeping the whole time. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal if she seemed to just be growing out of naptime, but believe you me, she is not a happy camper by the time 6pm rolls around if she hasn’t had her nap. Either that or she’ll fall asleep in the car if we go out anywhere after 4pm, and I don’t know if you know this, but grocery shopping with a sleeping 3 year-old on your shoulder and a 1 year old in the cart is not the easiest thing in the world.  

 

 

 

  

Today, she sat in her room (playing, not sleeping!) for a good hour before I decided she could just come hang out with Mommy. When I walked into the room she was so excited to show me that her babies were playing Horsey

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Ugh, why does she have to be so cute when she’s NOT SLEEPING! I’m not ready for naptimes to end!

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Real Utahns!

We’ve been in Utah for one month now and it is just now all starting to feel real. I can look out my window and say, “those are my mountains.” And those mountains are gorgeous too, by the way. It doesn’t feel like we are just visiting anymore and we are falling more and more in love with this beautiful new place that we are calling home. Seriously, I LOVE it here!

We took the girls to Temple Square for the first time. I was so excited to take them there and it was just as beautiful as I remembered. Kylie spent most of our visit smelling and trying to pick the flowers or trying to convince us that she needed to go in the “swimming pool.” Emily laughed at Kylie.

My sister pointed out that Emily is looking at Kylie in just about every family or group picture we take. Seriously, she does. Go look back and you’ll see what she’s talking about, if you haven’t noticed already. Either she really looks up to her big sister or she is thinking, what is this crazy girl doing? I think it’s a little of both…

  

 

 

  

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She's Three

The little Lady is three years old. She's a big girl and she likes to remind us of that fact everyday. She's sassy, spunky, and hilarious. Her imagination is amazing and she makes up the funniest stories. Her smile in infectious and so is her laughter.

She loves to dress up and loves to dress up her little sister too. She is smart, so smart. She is caring and compassionate and always wants to make sure everyone is happy. If she sees that someone is sad she'll rub their back and say, "it's okay, I'm here."

 She's a perfectionist, but hates to clean up. She loves to put on "shows" for us complete with a song and a dance, but you had better not try to interrupt her before she's finished... and you had better ask for an encore. When she's done, she'll curtsy and say, "thank you. thank you."

She loves to jump on and off of everything. She loves to tell silly secrets and laugh uncontrollably when we count to three. She calls chocolate milk - bunny milk, sweat pants her comfys, our van - the big car, and mommy - her favorite (okay, I made that last one up). She loves shopping and throws all sorts of cute things into the cart and tells me about how much she needs it.  

Her favorite pajamas are her pink polka dot princess pajamas. Her favorite foods are french toast and macaroni and cheese with ketchup and hot dogs. Her favorite color is "all the colors" or sometimes just pink. Her favorite animal is a kitty cat and she thinks dogs smell like poopy but they're still so cute. Her favorite stuffed animal is her Daddy Teddy. She loves going on walks, having tea parties, and cuddles. She'll often climb into our bed in the middle of the night and when we ask why she's there she'll tell us "I missed you."

She's loud, crazy, sweet and rarely shy. She's the best big sister I could ever imagine. She's mommy's big helper, daddy's little buddy, and our favorite 3 year old!

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