Halloween 2011

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Sydney got her Aerial!

Sydney has been practicing so hard for the past two months. Every night she practices in our backyard--after dinner and homework is finished. Finally on Friday night, in acro class, she was able to do her aerial twice. The next day, I had her go to a gymnastics coach so he could help her with the correct form. Mark took this video after she had already practiced for almost a half hour with the coach so she was pretty tired. We are so excited for her!!! She did a few aerials in our living room today, which kind of scares me. I'm still a little nervous about how she flings herself up in the air.

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Hawaii

Mark and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary in Hawaii this year! It was the best place I have been so far! We stayed in Waikiki on Oahu. Waikiki beach was about a block away from the hotel.

Of course since we are Poulsen's we had to stop at Costco to load up on supplies like beach towels and giant cream puffs and Doritos (for Mark). I fell in love with the gelato in the sugar waffle cones for only $1.50. Seriously they were so yummy. We stopped back a few times during the week just so we could have a gelato cone. I am so sad that none of the Costco's in AZ seem to carry the gelato on the food court menu.

This was Kailua beach. It was amazing to see beaches that look picture postcard perfect. Our favorite beach was Lanikai which was actually about 1/2 mile from Kailua. The sand (at Lanikai beach) was white, super soft and the beach was that perfect turquoise blue. It was gorgeous.

Mark and I went to see Pearl Harbor one of the days. While we were there, we also visited the U.S.S. Arizona (battleship) and toured a submarine. The submarine was so tight that it made the battleship seem large and roomy--even though it wasn't in the least bit.

We did a little surfing on Waikiki beach along with hundreds of other tourists.

One of our favorite places we visited was the Polynesian Cultural Center on the other side of the island. We tried the fresh poi and it really wasn't too bad! We both loved the buffet in the evening and the night show "Ha Breath of Life".

Other fun things we did while we were there was tons of snorkeling...no pictures because we were always in the water. Seriously, we snorkeled almost every day and at almost all the beaches we went to. One afternoon we hiked to Manoa Falls which was kind of inland a bit--in a jungle. I can't forget my favorite place we ate at was Haleiwa Joe's Seafood Grill. The other wonderful thing about Oahu was the weather. It was nice to breathe fresh air and walk around outside without the heat from Phoenix. I definitely think we will have to take the kids back during the summer.

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Sydney Baptism 2011

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Tooth Fairy!

As usual I am catching up on things I wanted to post on my blog. Here is the story about these two tiny teeth pictured below. When Sydney started Kindergarten...a few years ago...many of her friends started to lose a tooth or two. She waited so patiently for one of her own teeth to fall out and was very excited for the expected visit of the tooth fairy. However, Kindergarten passed by and none of her teeth fell out. I was sure that at least one would fall out during her first grade year. Again, first grade came and went and she still had not lost any teeth. She was very sad about all the stories she heard from friends at school and cousins who were losing teeth and having a visit from the busy tooth fairy. I hauled her to the dentist at the beginning of last year to figure out what was going on and the dentist assured me that she would probably lose a tooth last summer. Summer came and went, again no teeth fell out...not even a tiny loose tooth appeared. Imagine my surprise one September day when I peered in Sydney's mouth and there was not one but two tiny permanent teeth poking through, behind her baby teeth. I was horrified. My daughter is not a shark and doesn't need double sets of teeth. I took Sydney back to the dentist and he again reassured me that her baby teeth would loosen up in no time and fall out. By Christmas, the two permanent teeth had come completely in (behind her baby teeth) and although we worked on loosening up her baby teeth and she worked on wiggling them, they refused to budge. So during Christmas break the dentist pulled out both of Sydney's teeth. I guess she doesn't have any cute teeth gap pictures because her permanent teeth moved forward into the space within a few days! This was a picture of her tiny baby teeth the dentist pulled. She is half way through second grade and has finally officially had her first tooth fairy visit!
I felt kind of bad that Sydney had to wait so long for the tooth fairy to come. She practically does not believe in the fairy any more. Plus it was a bit dramatic having to get her teeth pulled instead of just losing them like other kids. So...the tooth fairy wrote her a special letter...

slipped into a special envelope...and paid quite nicely (I think)...for the tiny baby teeth left behind!

This was a puzzle my family started around New Years when they came to visit. I finished it a few days later. All 2000 pieces we carefully fitted together. I love puzzles so if you come to stay at our house...there are plenty of puzzles to do--in the drawers of the guest room night stand!

I picked Sophie up from preschool one day and was horrified to find a screw in the sidewall of my tire. We made it safely to Discount tire. The guy informed me that I couldn't drive anywhere on the tire and that the replacement tire wouldn't be in until the next day. So I called Mark from work to come get me. He rearranged his schedule, came all the way to the tire store to pick me up...and then the guy told him that actually they could put the spare tire on so I could have driven home. Yup, I was slightly annoyed.

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Nutcracker 2010

In December, Sydney participated in 6 Christmas shows for dance plus an additional performance of the Nutcracker a few days before Christmas. Sydney had a blast and I was exhausted after the unglamourous job of the behind the scenes mama! I am very good at make-up and hair...specifically sleek buns after all those shows. Oh, and I can do hot rollers in her hair in less than 10 minutes. The Nutcracker was a pretty cool experience for Sydney. She was a Snowflake (and performed during the Snow Fairies' scene) in the Moscow Ballet's Nutcracker in Phoenix. We arrived at the huge theater downtown several hours before the performance and went in the stage entrance. The security guards waved us on by and down the stairs we went to do hair and costumes, pictures and rehearsal.
Most of the dancers spoke only Russian but a few spoke a little bit of English, at least enough to communicate about the ballet performance. During the dress rehearsal, a few of the moms snuck in to the front row seats to watch. It was pretty cool to see all the dancers up close, especially since our seats were pretty far up in the balcony. Here's Sydney right before the show was about to start. I left her backstage and went to find my seat. I was so nervous for her once I realized how huge the audience was. There is this part in the middle of the Snow Fairies' scene where the Snowflakes went to the front of the stage (close to the audience) and I didn't want Sydney to get stage fright.

Although, this isn't a picture of Sydney's specific group, this is just the one part where the snowflakes are out on the edge of the stage. I couldn't have taken pictures even if I wanted to because our seats were too far up. It was a beautiful performance and Sydney did a great job. There was no need for me to worry.

At the curtain call, Herr Drosselmeyer lead Sydney (she was holding onto the rest of the Snowflakes) out on stage. She thought that was pretty cool. Sophie loved the whole ballet from start to finish. I can't even begin to count the number of times we have listend to the Nutcracker soundtrack since October. Ha, we are still listening to it at least once a week, although I hope the CD goes into hiding soon. There is only so much Nutcracker I can tolerate. Sydney loves to dance and especially loves ballet. I have to admit it was so amazing to see my little girl on the big stage with all the beautiful ballerinas!

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Before I wish everyone a Merry Christmas...

I'm a bit behind...but I wanted to post the girls in their cute Halloween costumes. We had lots of fun trick-or-treating with cousins in the nice warm weather. Sophie was a witch (Sydney's old costume).
Sydney wanted to be Princess Leia...mostly because I dressed up as Princess Leia a few years ago for a Halloween party. We watched Star Wars with her so she would have a basic idea of how cool Princess Leia is. The funniest thing we discovered was that both of our girls love playing with the laser gun. (hmmm...I'm thinking we need to acquire more of these types of toys) They will run around the house chasing each other and taking turns with who has the gun and shooting at each other.

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Girls Soccer

I signed both girls up for soccer this year, despite the fact that they are both dancing already, I'm in school, and there are way too many things scheduled on our calendar. Both Sydney and Sophie are having fun playing though. Sydney has gotten so much better from previous years. She is really fast and has suprisingly good footwork (maybe somehow from footwork in dance?), even though I really haven't had time to teach her many basic soccer moves. She is good at turning the ball around and has excellent field sense! Her coach commented on how even though she is little, she usually wins the ball when she goes up against the bigger girls! (I'm so proud of her!)
Miss Sophie has also decided she likes soccer. She plays for about a half hour after a short practice. Her team is coed since she is still little, and she is often the only girl willing to play during the game part. It is still pretty hot out, and we are hoping that next weeks games are much cooler.

Here they are on Saturday morning, before we rush off to their games.

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Sophie's Nosie Rosie

I didn't want to forget a few things that have happened with Sophie that really made/makes us laugh. She is so funny sometimes. A few weeks ago Sophie stuck two perler beads up one of her nostrils. I'm not sure why, but I suppose most kids do stuff like this at some point or another. It took me awhile to figure it out because she kept saying, "Mama, my nosie rosie". That's what we call noses around here. I gave her a tissue but she still seemed quite concerned. Finally I went to fetch the booger picker, sucker thing and was a little horrified to see a tiny perler bead up in her nose. I was able to extract one of them with a toothpick, but after inspecting her nostril with a flashlight, we realized there was still another one way up in her nasal passageway. So off to the urgent care we went to fish out the last little bead. I think we had only been home a few hours and I caught her putting a lite-brite into her nostril. Thankfully, though, we have had no more stuff in the nose incidents!

The other funny, cute thing she says or rather asks almost every night (when we are saying prayers with her) is "Daddy, are you going to have a sleepover with Mama?" Sometimes we let Sophie and Sydney have sleepovers with each other and they love getting to sleep in each other's rooms and sometimes Sophie will just sleep in Sydney's bed with her. So I guess Sophie has observed that Mark and I apparently have "sleepovers" and she is always asking us if we are having one that night! Ha, we still laugh every time she asks us this.

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Beach 2010

Summer was a little too short for me. Since I had my class all of the month of June, I didn't really get to start having fun with the girls until July...and then everything went by so fast. We went to Tempe Beach park for fireworks on the 4th of July. We had the best spot. We were on the north side of the lake directly across from the paid venue part. These were definitely the best fireworks I have seen in AZ! At the end of July, we took a quick trip to visit my Grandparents and play at the beach. It was heavenly. The temperature was in the 70's during the day and even cooler at night. We slept with our windows open and wore jackets and shivered! We brought the girls bikes so they could ride all over around my Grandparents house, and Sydney had so much fun exploring. This year we decided to spend some time hunting for tide pools so a few of the beaches we went to were new to all of us. This is from one of our favorite spots in Carlsbad. Sydney and Sophie had so much fun jumping in the waves. We borrowed a boogie board from my Grandpa and Grandma and played on that too. The day we were at the beach in Carlsbad, the waves were pretty rough but we all had fun playing in the water. Oh, and of course we went to Harbor Fish Cafe to stuff ourselves with fish and chips!
As I mentioned earlier, our specific mission was to find some tide pools for Sydney. She loves all things ocean and beach! We drove down to Cabrillo State Park and hiked down to some smaller tide pools. Then we went back up to the top to see the light house and look out over the San Diego harbor. It was beautiful, dotted with hundred of sailboats. The other beach we went to (when the tide was out) was Swami's beach. It is mostly a surfer beach, I think. We had to hike down a million stairs to get to it and then we walked through some shallow water to these rocks that had some pretty good tide pools.

Sydney turned seven this summer and I took a few pictures (quickly because it was sticky hot that week)! I know I am always posting pictures of Sydney and Sophie :)

She just filled out this sheet about herself at school...so I'll share some of her 7 year old thoughts about herself! Her favorite color is blue. Something that makes her very happy is dancing. Her favorite candy bar is chocolate. (I guess that means anything with chocolate in it) Her favorite subjects in school are math, science, and reading! (We're hoping she continues with this attitude!) If she could live anywhere in the world it would be California. If she could be an animal for a day, she would be a cat. Her favorite show is Phineas and Ferb. She still wants to be a dolphin trainer when she grows up. (hmmm, wonder when she'll grow out of that stage :) Her favorite book is Ivy and Bean. Her favorite junk food is ice-cream. And the cutest one...the sentence was I like...and Sydney wrote my little sister. Ahhhh, so cute!

Don't you think she is growing up way too fast!

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June Fun

The month of June was full of lots of fun activities! One of my friends does short summer sessions of preschool and Sophie attended a few sessions. She was so excited to get a backpack and go to "my preschool". Her backpack is pretty much as big as she is!

Sydney finished off her year of dance with two shows at the Chandler Center for the Arts. She did acro and ballet this past year. Her shows were exciting, exhausting, and a fun way to end this past year of dance. We love her new dance school, Tempe Dance Academy.

My parents got me a table saw for my birthday (don't worry, that is exactly what I wanted) and I built this book shelf/night stand using some plans from Knock-offWood. Then I finished and distressed it. It turned out great, so I modified the design a bit and made a similar one for Sydney to use as a nightstand and much needed bookshelf (for her growing piles of books). I had so much fun making these and I have a long list of "projects" I am wanting to do! I'm sure I'll post pictures as I finish things (in my bit of spare time before school starts).

This was the nightstand I built for Sydney's room.

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May Madness

The month of May is usually crazy for many reasons...school is almost done, anniversaries, and birthdays! Sydney had her school music program that Sophie and I were able to attend. It was cute and I tried to video tape it while feeding Sophie fish and helping Sophie sit quietly. The video didn't turn out that great...thanks to a kid sitting next to me that kept rocking our bench. Oh well.
Then we had our anniversary...but Mark had class and I was probably busy with something so we didn't celebrate this year. Next came my 30th birthday. It didn't take me too long to figure out that my sister-in-law Melissa decorated our front lawn the night before. We were all excited by the fun signs and confetti all over the front porch in the morning. Sydney apparently loved all the signs because she collected them out of the lawn that evening and has them stored in her desk. Maybe she is hoping to use them when her friends turn 30???

Again, we have been so busy so we were unable to celebrate my 30th birthday. But I did love the fun decorations!

Next comes the end of school...no pictures of that...but it is always a bit crazy with end of the year things like teachers luncheons (I volunteered to bring food for both days), yearbook signing parties and just general last minute things to figure out during teacher appreciation week! Last but not least, Sophie turned three.

I decided that she needed to have a celebration, no matter how busy we were. We had a small party for her during the day with some of her cousins. It was Princess and the Frog themed. Mark blew up 20 green balloons and 20 purple balloons while I baked home-made chocolate cupcakes the night before and wrapped presents.

While all this madness has been going on, I managed to refinish a desk I bought off Craigslist a few months ago. I sanded down the entire desk, painted several coats of white paint, distressed the edges and put several coats of polycrylic on. I also found some new hardware that was perfect for it and a cute hot pink chair from IKEA. It goes perfectly with her PB surfer girl bedding. I love that she can put aways all her crafts and "things" that she wants to save. The rule is...if it doesn't fit inside her desk than she either has to get rid of something or decide whether she really wants to keep it-whatever it is! You would not believe the amount of stuff one small girl can accumulate.

I hope she loves it. I know I do...and it was a fraction of the price I would have paid to buy a real wood desk from a furniture store. I spent many hours working on this project.

So that's a few high lights of our month. I am going to take a blogger, FB, and a general break from all my normal duties to focus on a month long anatomy class (the first half of anatomy) I am taking in June. It is accelerated, but I had anatomy years ago at BYU so hopefully some of my previous knowledge will come back quickly. Science courses at ASU are only valid for 7 years so I have to redo this course...I can't believe it has been more than 7 years since I took anatomy. Anyway, I will be immersed in cell biology, bone structure, muscles, the nervous system, and the integumentary system for the month of June. Sounds fun :)

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Graduation

Mark graduated last weekend from ASU with his MBA! We are so proud of him and all the hard work he put in to achieve this goal. I can't believe this chapter of our lives has finally come to an end. It is a little weird to have him come home after work and actually help out with little things like dishes, dinner, or playing with the girls.

His graduation was held at Wells Fargo Arena and was attended by about 4,000 people. Mark's parents came down from St. George and most of his siblings as well as a few nieces and nephews came to watch him graduate. My Grandparents also drove over from California to attend. A bagpipe band preceded the graduates playing the traditional commencement music. It was pretty cool because there were so many people and it was in the arena. Sophie keeps asking if we can go to graduation and see the "drums". I guess she really liked this first part. The rest of graduation she spent watching Princess and the Frog on Mark's Ipod and climbing all over everyone. Overall she was very well behaved though.

Then the band lined up at the front while the professors and faculty of the W.P. Carey school of business filed in and took their places.

Then came all the graduates. His commencement ceremony was just Masters graduates of the W.P. Carey school of business, with the bulk of the graduates getting MBA's.

Here's Mark walking across the stage. His name and picture were also on the big screens above (just like at basketball games)! We all cheered for him.

After graduation was over, we had a party for him at our house with the remaining family members. My grandparents had to return to California immediately following the ceremony--so we missed them. I decorated our great room and kitchen area in the ASU colors and we had a fun party with lots of yummy food to celebrate.

Don't worry...even though he is an official graduate from ASU we still are BYU fans at heart. We will always bleed blue!

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