Sand Castles and Chocolate Chip Cookies

One of the things I love about Liddy being back in school is the amount of time I get to spend one-on-one with Halle. A few days ago I decided to make chocolate chip cookies and asked Halle to help me. She loved dumping everything into the bowl and waited very patiently in front of the oven while the cookies were baking. I liked it when she dumped the packed brown sugar into the bowl and said, "It's like a sand castle Mommy!" How many times have a used brown sugar and never thought of comparing it to sand? If only I could be as creative as a little kid...I love the things they say--so special.

Second Grader

School has officially started and I officially have a 7 year old girl in 2nd Grade! Where does the time go? Liddy is enjoying the beginning of the school year, mostly I think because she hasn't had any homework yet so she's allowed to play outside all afternoon. We love our new house--next door to a small park, surrounded by kids and on a cul-de-sac so the road is a lot less busy than our old one.

Canada/New York Trip

Summer vacation is over and we are almost settled into our new house so here is an update on our lives. At the end of July we moved into our new house and a week later we took a trip to see Mike's family in Ontario, Canada. All but one of his siblings were there to celebrate his parents 50th wedding anniversary. It was great to be there with all of them. Here is a picture of Mike with his family and also one of Mike's parents with the younger grandkids.


On our first day there we made the drive to Niagra Falls, stayed the night in Buffalo, NY and then drove to Palmyra to see the Hill Cumorah and Sacred Grove.

Here is Mike with his dad and the girls at Niagra Falls.

This picture was taken on top the the Hill Cumorah.

A few of us in front of the Joseph Smith Home.

Here we are in the Sacred Grove. Mike had been to all of these sights as a child and teenager but I had never been. It turned out to be a neater experience than I had anticipated. Hopefully next time we go the girls will understand a little better the significance of where we are.

One of Mike's favorite things to do when we go to Canada is to get "chips" (fries) at the Chip Truck. He worked there after his mission to save money for college and thinks they have the best fries in the world! I disagree as the amount of grease on the soggy fries doesn't make me feel very good :( This is a picture of the Bluewater Bridge (courtesy of my sis-in-law Morgan) that we have to cross to get from the US to Canada. The Chip Truck is underneath it. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it.

Mike's parents live just a few blocks from the shore of Lake Huron. There are a few areas with sandy/rocky beaches and the kids had fun playing in the water. It never ceases to amaze me how HUGE the the Great Lakes are! So beautiful too.

Halle's 2nd Birthday

Here is Halle the frosting theif. She couldn't keep her hands off the cake while we waited for everyone to gather to sing "Happy Birthday." She's such a stinker, stealing gumballs and poking holes--I guess it was her birthday so she should be allowed.


My sister found this rainbow cake on someone's blog and Halle and Liddy both love rainbows so I thought it was a good fit. The gumballs around the edge were just to entertain the kids but I thought they were fun too.

Halle Said....

So I'm standing in the kitchen cleaning off the stove last night and little observant Halle climbed up on the bar stool to see what I was doing. I thought it was cute when she looked at the frying pan that was sitting on the counter filled with soapy water and said, "Mommy the pan is taking a bubble bath!" I love her sweet little raspy voice.

Birthdays and Easter

I celebrated my last birthday in my twenties last month and I'm not looking forward to next year when 30 hits and I feel like all of a sudden I need to grow up, not play, not spend my summers swimming, maybe do something that seems more grown up than just taking care of my kids all day. Then I realize that 30's not that old and why not just keep going the way I'm going, feeling younger than I am and being mom to my kids cause that's definitely what I do best. Anyway, I'm rambling, so here is a picture of me with my sisters Mollie and Chloe on the right and my sister-in-law, Marcy, on the left with her new baby, Conley. My sisters are my best friends so it's only right that Chloe and I share our birthday parties since our birthdays are only 2 days apart.

The day we celebrated our birthdays was Easter Sunday so here are some pictures of my girls in their Easter dresses. Because we had just gotten home from Maui and were scrambling to get our house ready to sell, we didn't have an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday and did it on Sunday in my grandpa's backyard instead. The girls had fun racing for the eggs with most of the cousins on my side of our family. Liddy and Halle were both thrilled at having so much access to candy! Not that they don't get enough during the week:)

Halle Smiles

I had to include these pictures of Halle because it's such a rare thing to get her to smile in a picture.

Spring Break in Maui

It finally came! Our would-have-been Christmas Vacation turned Spring Break in Maui. At the beginning of the month we packed up our summer clothes and flew to Maui with my sister Mollie and her family. We spent our days playing on the beach, swimming in the pool and lying in the sun. We ate some good food and just enjoyed our time together. I was thrilled that Halle wasn't afraid of the water!

Playing on the beach behind the house.

Swimming in Grandpa's Pool

The Volkswagon Thing. This car hardly runs but Mike and the kids have fun driving around town at least once during our trips to Maui. It was included with the house that my grandpa bought when I was a kid. We really should use it more!

This picture is taken at the Two Tiered Pools. We hooked up with some friends from Kennewick and hiked down to the ocean. The view was amazing but it was a little tricky to find a place for Halle to play near the water.

Oh the Joys of Snow and Utah

One of the joys of being home this Christmas is that we actually got to have a White Christmas which we NEVER have here in Kennewick. I bought Liddy some snowpants and it's been worth the cost because she loves to be out in the snow sledding with her cousins or building a snowman with Daddy. Halle would rather stay inside and complain that she's not outside. Silly baby:)


The other joy was that we were fortunate to have good weather long enough to make a trip to Utah to see our good friends Ben and Lindsey. While we're pretty sure we never want to move to Utah, it's a great place to visit and we had fun in Salt Lake and Heber City. Liddy especially had fun when we took her ice skating for the first time. She started to get the hang of it just as we were leaving.

Halle Learned to Walk

So she finally did it. At 19 months old, Halle gave in and took off. Mike was standing in the hotel bathroom and she just came walking in like she'd done it 100 times before. We couldn't stop laughing because it was so funny to finally see her off her knees! So for all of you out there with babies who don't walk--don't worry it happens. And contrary to popular belief, she's not into anything because she's walking that she wasn't into before and she still sits in her stroller and the grocery cart (as long as she's not with her daddy who lets her out). Congratulations Halle for mastering the skill of walking!

Christmas

Here are the girls in their Christmas outfits. Liddy loved her twirling "princess dress" and Halle since she was walking on her knees, did a good job of ruining the knees of every pair of tights I put on her.


Here we are at Grandpa Curtis' house for Christmas Eve. Santa comes every year and although Liddy has gotten used to that idea, Halle was irate every time we went near him.

This is the best gingerbread house we've ever made but only because Liddy decided she wanted it to look just like the picture on the box. This was perfectly fine with me and all of my perfectionist ways.

Maui Cancelled

Have you ever heard of The Great Wolf Lodge? We hadn't heard much either until driving thru a blizzard to get to Seattle, only to find out our trip to Maui for Christmas was cancelled. Sad times, but we had a blast for one night and one day at this great lodge! It has an indoor water park that has lots to do, an arcade if you're into that, a spa for adults and kids, good restaurants, a clock tower with mechanical singing animals (that sounds cheesy but the kids loved it) and lots and lots for the kids to do and they gave us a great deal on a two room suite with two bathrooms, a living room and a little kitchen area-nice compared to the usual hotel room. It doesn't compare to Maui, but we had fun while it lasted. Plus, how could I forget? Halle learned to walk here!!!

Mike's Christmas Tree

It finally came, the day that I embarassed Mike instead of the other way around. We were invited to a Christmas party at a friend's house and after talking with some friends a few days before the party I decided it would be fun to convince Mike that we were supposed to dress-up like a Christmas tree in order to attend the party. It didn't take much convincing and he never thought twice about me not dressing up because as he always says, I'm a "party pooper." Anyway, we showed up last to the party and no one else was dressed up. Mike played it off like he was all cool for being dressed up and that he didn't care but after the party he told me it had embarassed him more than anything I'd ever done. Hooray for me! I finally got even for all the parties we've gone to that he's embarassed me in some dumb way. I love you Mikey!

Liddy Art

So you may not appreciate these drawings as much as I do but when drawing and coloring keeps your child occupied for hours at a time you have to be grateful for all of the colorful artwork around your house. I love to see the new things Liddy comes up with. These are some her most recent drawings. What do you think of the nose, ha ha? Sometimes I have a hard time throwing the papers away so some genius person suggested I take pictures of the ones I can't part with and save them for Liddy that way. I love my Liddy.

Halle Mei Doesn't Walk

Here are some recent pictures of Hal. She loves to set up this little doll table, put a doll on one chair, food and dishes on the table and then sit in the other chair. She'll stay there forever and play quietly. Halle is 2 days away from being 18 months and she absolutely refuses to walk. There's nothing wrong with her, she'll hold my hand and walk or walk behind push-toys, but nothing on her own. She is the biggest chicken I've ever known, my mom says it reminds her of me when I was Halle's age and Mike says it reminds him of me at 28. Whatever Mike.

Halloween

The reason I don't update my blog very often is that I don't feel like I have anything really interesting to say. Well I still don't but I thought I'd put up a couple of pictures of my girls on Halloween. We had fun hanging out with friends at our church and then came home and handed out a million pieces of candy while Mike and Liddy took turns jumping out of the garbage can to scare people. I guess I probably should have gotten a picture of that! Oh, Halle was an octopus and Liddy was a witch.




Below is a picture of me and Mike on our way to a Halloween party at a friend’s house. The theme was 70's and this is about as 70's as we got. We had a lot of fun though!



While Mike and Liddy were trick-or-treating, I stayed home with Halle. As you can tell, I didn't keep a very close eye on her and she found this sucker which she sucked the wrapper right off of.




We carved pumpkins the Monday before Halloween. We just stayed at home and did it in our kitchen, but the girls had fun (once Hal stopped being scared of the guts from the pumpkin) and Liddy even carved some of her own pumpkin. She probably would have done the whole thing if I wasn't such a control freak:) I thought it was cute that she had drawn a picture of a jack-o-lantern at school and brought it home to show me that's what she wanted her pumpkin to look like. I forgot to take picuters of the finished product--I'll do better next year.

Halfer-Doodle

Halfer is my 16 month old, not talking, not walking, expression- less shrimp of a baby (the child refuses to laugh). She weighs less than 20 pounds and is just over 28 inches long–that’s extremely small for her age. We’ve watched her go from rolling to doing the army crawl for months to crawling, and are being driven beyond crazy waiting for her to walk. Something tells me though that this child will be very different from our first and that when she learns to walk we’ll be wishing she wasn’t. Halle is my little buddy. I spend all of my time with her so it’s important that we communicate well. Halle’s communication skills are very good–she points, says “that” and gets what she wants! I love being at home with her and I love that she’s learning new things every day. One of my favorite things about Hal is that she’s cuddly. She cuddles with everything, especially her baby doll with an attached bottle that she loves to shove in the doll’s mouth. Right now I hear her in the other room playing with Liddy’s piano books. I guess that’s my sign to get off the computer and take care of my kid:)

My Liddy

So Liddy started school four weeks ago and it’s been really weird having her gone. It’s also been really nice because I have a lot of freedom not having to keep her entertained or hearing her complain about going places and being bored. At the same time, I miss having her around to entertain Halle. She’s a great kid and I’m glad she’s so happy to be at school. Liddy is taking a Jazz dance class which she loves and she is also taking piano lessons which is sometimes a challenge but she’s really doing well. Her favorite thing about playing the piano is being able to play Primary songs. Liddy is a very friendly kid. She makes new friends every day and tells me about it all afternoon. She is the kid who never stops talking, the one who drives the teacher crazy because she always has something to say. Ha Ha! We love her anyway:) Here is a picture of her on her first day of first grade.

My happy girl!

On Lake Huron, near Mike's parents house.

In August we went to Virginia to see my Grandma and Grandpa Butterworth for Grandpa's 90th birthday. This is Liddy with each of them.


While in Virginia, Mike and Liddy took a trip to D.C. Here is Liddy at one of the Smithsonian Museums, next to an elephant's leg bone.

My Little Family

I love to be with my family and wish I could spend every second of the day with them. My husband Mike is the strongest person I know. I love him more than anything. I don’t know how he’s able to offer me the support he does, but he is wonderful and I love him for the unconditional love he offers me. As a family we love to get ice cream, go on bike rides in the park, go on drives outside the city and pretty much anything that involves being together. This summer we camped, swam and went on a few trips. The first picture here is of the four of us under the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia, ON, Canada where Mike’s parents live. The second picture was taken in my grandparents backyard near Richmond, VA.

Get The Hal Off Me!!!

I guess I’m finally going to give in to peer pressure and do this blog thing. I swore I never would but with Liddy in school all day and Halle still taking two naps, I’m finding I have a lot of free time. There are probably a million other things that I could be doing with my free-time like cleaning my house, doing my laundry or "finding myself." The problem is you can only spend so much time doing that stuff and isn’t this productive too? I mean it’s a way to keep in touch with friends, journal, let family see pictures . . . . I’m sure I could kind find several reasons to justify the time I’m going to end up spending on the computer:) Please be patient with me as I probably won’t post as often as some of you do.

Maybe I’ll start by explaining the title of my blog. I have to little girls, Liddy who is 6 and Halle (that’s Hal-ee not Hay-lee) who is 16 months. Well Halle’s nick name is "Hal" and we like to joke around using "Hal" in place of "Hell." So we’re sitting in Stake Conference a few weeks ago and Halle is being restless and crawling all over Liddy. Liddy gets annoyed and says very loudly, "Get the hal off Me!" Now I don’t think she really meant what it sounds like, I think she meant "Get my sister off me." Either way it was funny coming out of her 6 year old mouth. You’d probably have to be there to think it was funny but it’s just been a joke in our family ever since.