I'm Stylin'

Man, all these photos loaded in backwards. Oh well! So Olivia is now a big girl. She got her haircut and it looks SO GOOD! You can see Marcus in the background taking care of Bianca while I take pictures!

She is now sporting a sweet, sassy bob and it looks so great on her. The dum dum suckers they had there were perfect, she sat there happy as a clam to get pretties in her hair like Mommy.

This is at the start of the cutting off. She trimmed it up shorter and shorter a couple of times. I think Melissa (my hairdresser) didn't want to take too much off initially in case I didn't want it as short as I said I did. But I kept encouraging her to go for it and chop it off! Those shorter parts in the front are still some grow out from the baby hair. The length those already were flowed so good with the bob, she looks so chic and I don't have to deal with her ACTUALLY having bangs. Those should grow out perfectly with the rest of her hair.

This is the length is was before. Crazy and a million layers. And a big time mullet. It wouldn't look so bad if I had the front parts in a little side pony, but if I just let her wear it down then I would get some pretty intense 80's flashbacks.

This is the back before picture. It was starting to get some decent length, but those ends were so scraggly that it never looked cute. She just looked like a little hoodlum and even if I had just bathed her it tended to look stringy. Now it looks so smooth and gorgeous and full.

BEST DAY EVER. Momma and Liv got their hair done. Everyone took naps (Mommy included) then double date of dinner and a movie (THAI and Alice in Wonderland). Laughed a lot, had time away from the babies, ate a ton.

I just love days like these, so perfect!

Hair today, gone tomorrow!

Olivia is going to get her haircut, big time! I scheduled a little extra time after my hair appointment tomorrow for Olivia to get her hair cut too. My Aunt did a trim up on her a while ago, to get those scraggly ends off. Now that her hair is growing out a little bit longer she is sporting a style I like to call the "Master Mullet". It's almost always a crazy Afro mess of like 10 different lengths of hair. I tried to find a picture to do it justice, but couldn't, and didn't want to wake her up to take her picture right now.

I AM SO EXCITED!

I'm thinking short bob, like chin length. No bangs if I can help it. My hairdresser is AMAZING and I trust her judgment EXPLICITLY when it comes to hair, so if there was someone who could convince me to go with bangs it would be her. (I've been seeing her for the past 7 years, she works wonders with hair, especially curly hair). That way all her hair will be the SAME length and then I can start growing it out from there.

Olivia's hair has been a source of constant frustration with me lately with all the crazy-multiple-layered-mulletness. We will both be rockin' some stylin' hair do's tomorrow! You can bet your sweet bippy that I will be blogging about it when we get home!

Oldies but Goodies

When our first borns were just wee babes, the Holman's and ourselves decided to go on a camping adventure. Trevor is working hard at getting a fire started before it gets too dark.

The second day of camping we went to the Cultus Lake water slides to have some fun in the sun. Olivia and Blaine pretty much played around on this blanket all day. I think only Blaine got to venture in the water (hence the chic swimsuit). We had a covered table area that we camped out at for the day and even set up pack n plays and napped the girls at the waterslides.

We borrowed Kaitlyn's Mom's Expedition to get up there and we were PACKED TO THE HILT. We took this picture from the back as we were loading all the millions of camping necessities we would need for ONE NIGHT...or maybe it was two night?? So for TWO NIGHTS. The girls were wedged in around mounds of bags and boxes and suitcases.

Our two tents! This was only one of two times that we have actually used our tent. If I remember correctly we got a better nights sleep than Trevor and Kaitlyn because their air mattress deflated half way through the night.

This is in the morning after Olivia experienced her first sleep in the great outdoors.

We had planned to camp at the Provincial Park right there by the Lake, but we never thought it through enough to make any reservations. I guess when it is summer time and gorgeous and hot out there are other people besides us that like to go camping. Finding out our first location was booked solid we ended up driving up the road in search of a campsite. We ended up setting up camp at this family owned shenanigan of a campsite. The lady in charge liked to walk around and "investigate" what we were up too, at ridiculous hours of the day and then proceed to talk our ear off.

We did it up right with dinner by the campfire (tinfoil dinners!) and lots of awesome time around the fire. Little did we know that Kaitlyn was in fact pregnant on this adventure, but they somehow managed to keep it under wraps until a few weeks later.

We ate a ton of food and had a blast playing in the water. We also stopped by Bob's Burger and Brew in Sumas for Brunch on the way back home (my favorite brunch place EVER!).

I totally forgot I even had these pictures and it was so much fun to look through them again!

Going to Church Solo

Yesterday both my girls were sick. Runny noses, hacking coughs, generally feeling miserable. My calling at church is to teach sunday school to the 12-14 year olds, which kinda requires my attendance for the teaching to happen. Marcus' calling doesn't HAVE to have him doing things on Sunday. We decided that I would go to church and Marcus would stay home and run the ship solo.
Olivia put up a fight about wanting to go "bye-bye's to church with MOMMY!!". She LOVES going to church, which does make things a little less stressful because she has a ball in nursery. Singing songs, playing, learning about Jesus. They have never had to bring her to me early, and she throws a fit when we try to get her out at the end of church because she wants to stay in there forever.
What a difference it made to be able to stay seated during Sacrament meeting, not roaming the halls trying to rock Konks to sleep. It was Fast and Testimony Sunday and the people who did get up to bear their testimonies about the gospel and how it has change their lives was so inspiring. Such heartfelt declarations of the love they have for their Heavenly Father. It was so wonderful. My spiritual cup was running over at the end of that meeting.
Then my class ended up being just as perfect as Sacrament meeting. Sometimes it is hard to teach a lesson to them without it sounding too corny, but this lesson produced a lot of discussion. It was all about the power of personal prayer, the ways that Jesus taught us to pray and what things we should be praying about. A young gal even opened up about something personal things that she has been going through, with all of us providing ideas and uplifting words of encouragement to her.
I love being at church together as a family. I know we are blessed for going each Sunday no matter how hard it is to get us all out the door on time (with our sanity still intact), but on this rare occasion it was really nice to go all by myself!

Blueberries, Blueberries, Blueberries!

Someone has an addiction in our house.

And it is not me!

This crazy girl has been eating blueberries like they are going out of style. We got some at Coscto (frozen) a couple of weeks ago. I gave them to her once and she was hooked! I get her out of bed in the am and the first things she says to me is "Owie tummy" which means she is hungry, shortly followed by "blueberries, PEAS!!". She still has a hard time with her L's when talking.

So every day for her starts out with scrambled eggs and a bowl of slightly defrosted blueberries, with the eggs themselves turning purple before she is done eating because of all the blueberry juice on her hands. She does use forks and spoons but she's gotta have her berries fast and shoveling them in her mouth is her preferred form of eating.

She will ask for them every single meal/snack, but I have been trying to keep her to (at the most) twice a day indulgences. A lot of blueberries equals a lot of mess when they come out the other end.

So now I have half her clothing with blueberry stains on it, some stains that are starting to get permanent on her highchair too. I feel like I live in a blueberry crazy house, and on top of that I have to be careful anytime I take ANYTHING out of the freezer. No matter if she is in the other side of the house, playing in her room, watching something exciting on the TV, if I take anything out of the freezer SHE HEARS IT and comes running yelling "Yea!!! Blueberries!! YAY!!!". So I have to be super tricky getting anything out of our freezer.

So don't judge the next time you see my daughter with her darkly purple fingernails and fingers and occasional staining on her face. I scrub and scrub but that stuff REALLY stains!

Mom of the Year Award

We were having a salad making part with Olivia taking pictures of the event. She was coloring her Disney Princess book.

Bianca was sitting to her right, playing with some spatula's.

"Cheese Mommy, Cheese Mommy!!" She wanted me to smile for the camera as I was washing up my veggies for the salad.

Oh and what was sitting directly in front of her to her right? Oh, only my cutting board with my monjo chopping knife! I had been chopping up all the salad and veggies beside her on the counter and when I went to go spin them by the sink I left everything else right there beside her. I never even realized I had done this until I was going back and looking at all the kerbillion pictures she took. There were like 10 of Konks, 20 of her coloring, and then like 15 of me washing lettuce with this incriminating picture at the very end. Like she was showing me how long I was taking to wash the lettuce while she was within reach of a deadly weapon.

Oh yeah, I'm sure I'd get nominated for a mom of the year award. I let my toddler play up on the counter, right next to my infant, all the while within 6 inches of a chef's knife. I about crapped my pants and wanted to barf when I realized what I had done. Good thing she was so occupied taking pictures to document the event that she never had a free hand to grab anything else around her.

Letter to My Jeans

Dear Jeans,

3 1/2 years ago I lost weight. 20 extra pounds of unhealthy weight that had made me feel bogged down and yucky. I felt so good in my skin, so healthy, so light. I saw you in an outlet mall and tried you on in a whim. YOU FIT! Almost too tight but I could button you up, I felt so wonderful that day. I hadn't seen myself in this size since high school. If I lost only 5 pounds more, you would fit me perfect. I wore your sassy little self five different times.

Then I got pregnant and the number on the weigh scale kept going higher and higher. You went into my closet on a hanger in your still new condition. At first you were in the middle of my closet, but slowly and surely you got moved back in the recesses until I almost forgot you were there. I had my baby and slowly, at a near glacial rate, the numbers on the scale started going down. I would pull you out every once in a while and pull you on only to discover you barely made it past my knees.

Then I got pregnant again. At the speed of light the scale was reaching all new highs. I had my second baby. Not as much weight came off the second time around. I felt gross, like a big enormous blob. I was eating crappy and I felt crappy. I wanted to be a happy Mom, not a pencil skinny Mom, but a healthy slimmer Mom. I decided I wanted to have energy to run around with my kids, not sit on the couch and watch them run around.

I bought some veggies, stocked my fridge with healthier yummy food. I joined a fitness bootcamp. I got sore from exercising and life would stress me out and I would want cheeseburgers, fries and ice cream. I wanted to quit. Many times. I had friends that supported me. The weigh scale went down, down, down.

On Saturday I put you on. I pulled you up past my knees and thighs. You even made it over (dare I say it?) my bottom. Then I buttoned you up. I BUTTONED YOU UP!!

For three and a half years you sat in my closet. A reminder of the healthier person I wanted to be. Now you are sitting in my dirty laundry pile. I have never been happier about having dirty laundry to do in my life. Dear Jeans... Welcome back.