Carniceria.

Fiday night after Mark got home from work, he asked me if I would like to get out of the house and go somewhere (probably because being home all day long makes me a bit crabby). I couldn't think of somewhere I really wanted to go and I didn't really want to drive for an hour in rush hour traffic so of course I said I didn't really want to go anywhere and there wasn't anywhere to go. Mark asked me again if I was sure I didn't want to go somewhere. Sydney glanced up from her coloring book and says...."Mom, why don't you go to the carniceria." We both looked at her and just started laughing. WHAT??? Where on earth did it occur to her that I might want to go to a carniceria to get away from my kids? I shop at Walmart and Fry's and sometimes Safeway, but the carniceria? Of all the grocery stores we frequent...of course that is the one that stuck in her head!

Ok...well actually she does sort of know what the carniceria is (but it is still sort of funny that she thought I might want to go there) because she has been in one a few times with Mark. If any of you remember from those college days long ago...you may recall that my most favorite meal was fajitas. I am always trying to perfect the fajita experience at our house and so I constantly try new marinades, salsas, tortillas, etc.! We do stop at the local carniceria in town, usually about once a week to pick up carne ranchera in this special marinade that is oh so good. Mark always goes in and orders (because I am not too confident in my Spanish) and usually Sydney tags along. I'm sure they know him well now...because he is probably the only tall white guy in a polo shirt and dockers that comes in there to buy meat. We also went to Food City (which is a grocery store that caters to the Mexican and Hispanic population around here) to get fresh homade tortillas from the tortillaria. They taste so much better than anything you buy at the grocery store off the shelf. Then all you need is fresh salsa or my special mango salsa to top it off with some rice and beans and you pretty much have the best fajita! I would have to say that the fajitas we now cook up are pretty good...especially compared to the ones we used to make in college.

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Happy Birthday to Sydney!

This weekend we celebrated Sydney's fourth birthday with a Ponyville Carnival Party! I think Sydney had a blast. I had the idea for her party from a My Little Pony dvd that Sydney has where all the ponies in Ponyville invite the winged ponies for a party. Sydney LOVES playing with the little Ponyville ponies and all their tiny accessories so I thought this theme would be perfect! Let me explain one thing (about me)...I always have these ideas that start out like little seeds. My intent is for my idea to grow into a flower but sometimes (actually most of the time) my ideas turn into whole farms of flowers! (If that makes any sense). I seem to do it all the time like on Primary sharing time lessons, or FHE's, or all sorts of projects I start working on. Oh well, I guess that's the way I am. I spent all week making the games for Sydney's party...and I never really intended everything to get so complicated, of course. For the beginning part, I made sugar cookies in hearts, flowers, and butterfly shapes and put them in ziplock bags for each girl. Then I put all different kinds of sprinkles in the middle for the girls to decorate with. I also mixed frosting in pink, blue, and white for them to frost their cookies with. So we started out frosting and decorating cookies! It was lots of fun and a bit messy but all the girls loved it!

Next I took all the girls into the den where I had the "carnival games" set up. First we did the bean bag toss...
Next we fished in the fish pond...
Then we did the balloon pop game (they had to pop a balloon and pull out the string to see if they won a prize)...
And last but not least we played "pin the tail on the My Little Pony"...
And in case you were wondering...I did make all the games up and drew and colored the My Little Pony and all the rest of the stuff. (That's kind of what I meant about my idea turning into a whole field of flowers).

Here is the frosting and decorating cookies part of Sydney's party.

Sydney is on the end, then her friend Maddy from church, and her cousin Lexie!
On the other side we had Sydney's cousin Tori, and her friend Katie from soccer.
And last but not least Robyn came back to finish up her cookies (which turned into masterpieces)...I wish I had taken a picture of her finished cookies. I don't think even I could decorate them so beautifully.
"Happy birthday to Sydney"...We just made strawberry frosted cupcakes and the funny thing is most of the kids didn't really eat much of their cupcake, except for Justin. Good thing we didn't try and do a whole cake!
See Justin really enjoyed his cupcake and frosting!

Grandpa and Grandma McGary sent Sydney a tent for her birthday. It is now residing in our den. She absolutely loves it. I guess I am now a retired "fort builder" because she just wants to pretend in her real tent now!
She has already moved Ponyville into her tent with her.
Another fun toy she got was one of those balls you hold onto the handle and bounce. It took a few trys to figure out how to balance on it.
She got the hang of it pretty quick...and now she can bounce all over the house! I hope this means we don't need a trampoline for awhile.

Happy birthday Sydney! She is getting so big at four!

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Running in an Oven!

I am officially trying to lose the last of my baby weight...and unfortunately the best way to slim down and build my muscle tone back up is by running. Mark has also decided to run and do crunches and push-ups with me. Imagine running after dark in an oven that smells like cows. Well that is what it is like most nights. We don't like going until the sun goes down because it is even hotter when the sun is beating down on you. Crunches and push-ups are much easier because we can just do those in the house! Last night Mark was finishing up some sets and Sydney was also copying him (like usual). She got done doing her version of crunches and said "Wheww, Daddy, I am so puffed out!" We think she meant "pooped out" or something like that but it was so funny. I asked Mark if he was puffed out as well.

And my next story is about...I haven't been able to wear contacts since about my seventh month of pregnancy with Sophie because my eyes changed shape and then because I didn't know at first, I kept wearing my contacts and developed scar tissue on both my eyes. However, I am taking drops now to help them get better...and hopefully go back to contacts! One night last week, I stepped in the shower (without my glasses of course) and I saw this huge blurry bug of sorts running all over the shower floor! I screamed so loud and immedietly wrapped up in a towel and ran to get Mark. It turned out it was a cockroach the size of Texas running around in there. Sydney was all excited and was peering through the glass on the tub side to see the giant "roach". This is the first time we have ever seen any of these in the house or even around the house. Thank goodness Mark was home. I could never have killed a bug that big. Sydney is so funny about bugs. One day she found this tiny caterpillar outside in the back yard. Seriously it was probably only a few millimeter long. She was fascinated with it though. I got her a shoe box which she filled with some leaves and rocks and lots of dirt (because thats all our back yard is right now) and then she asked me for some water for it. This tiny caterpillar entertained her all afternoon! She was also so concerned where the caterpillars family might be and that it was all alone. Unfortunately the caterpillar died later in the afternoon...maybe from too much attention...maybe from too much sun, who knows. Even caterpillars probably end up in Heaven!

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Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July to all our family and friends! We want to send out a special thank you to Grandma McGary for spending two weeks at our house helping out with both our kids. (that still sounds a little funny, that we have two kids!) She spent countless hours playing Ponyville with Sydney and coloring hundreds of pictures from the My Little Pony coloring books. If you haven't guessed already...My Little Pony's and Ponyville are some of Sydney's favorite things to do! Grandma also babysat Sophie lots so I could go to all the doctors and dentist appointments I could pack in over a two week period. Well, we are looking forward to spending the fourth just relaxing here at home this year. Mark is going to take Sydney to Phoenix International Raceway to see fireworks and I am going to stay home with Sophie because it is just going to be too hot to bring her out for such a long time. It is supposed to be around 116 degrees on Wednesday! So here is a quick update on what we have been up to this past month...Mark is such a good Daddy and is great with both his little girls.

Sophie is working on growing her cheeks because they make nice pillows to sleep on!

We started Sydney in swimming lessons this year. She cried the first day of lessons because she didn't want to get water in her eyes but then after that she loved getting in the water. She is getting much better at floating on her back and going underwater. On the last day of swim lessons all of the kids, including Sydney got to go down the big slide with their teacher (even though the sign says you have to be at least 42 inches tall). Of course after their teacher had taken each child down the slide once they all wanted to go again...so he had to bribe them with popsicles to get them to go back to their lesson! Sydney's Grandma McGary also took Sydney for her favorite strawberry ice-cream cones everyday after swim lessons.

Here is Sydney's swim class. It was kind of funny that all the kids in her class were from church. None of us moms even talked to each other about signing up our kids at this particular pool. So we were all laughing when we showed up the first day and realized somehow we had all independently put our kids in the same class.

Sydney loves the water!

This was kind of funny...I pulled out Sydney's gym toy from when she was a baby for Sophie to hang out under. Sydney was so excited about this and as soon as I set it up, Sydney crawled underneath the gym toys to play with them. I was laughing because the case on the gym says 0-9 months (but they forgot to add "almost four year olds")! Who would have thought all these baby toys would be so entertaining.

Sydney is showing Sophie how to look at all those funny animals. Actually Sophie is starting to look at the baby toys now and even trys to bat at them. Sophie gets so frustrated when her arms/hands just won't go where she wants them to.

Sophie is officially one month old! She is now nine pounds and has already outgrown some of her newborn clothes (because she is so long)! She is spending lots more time during the day looking around and sleeping better at night. We are trying really hard to get her on a schedule so that she sleeps mostly at night and eats mostly during the day. So far she is doing pretty well.

Here is our most recent family picture that Grandma McGary took for us. We had to take about a million pictures because Sydney loves to make silly faces or look all over the place (except at the camera). Thank goodness for digital cameras!

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