Sugar Overload

Today Sydney had a bucket of candy and three pepperoni for lunch (we're awesome parents right?).  By dinner time she was completely crazy.  She ate some food and wanted more candy.  Around that time she started being naughty.  She just couldn't seem to do what we asked.  By bedtime she was still all sugared up.  We asked her if she was hopped up on goofballs and crazy pills, and she replied, "No, but Mommy is."  Thanks for tattling Sydney.
While Aaron was putting her to bed she kept saying, "It's real hard to hold still!"  Poor kid!  She was trying, but she had so much sugar in her system she couldn't handle it!  Tomorrow we're back to normal living with just a few pieces of candy thrown in and at least 1 of the basic food groups in every meal.  That's how you feed your kids, right?
Guess how I eventually got her to sleep?  I swaddled her.  That's right. My 3 year old still loves to be swaddled and asks to be "wrapped like a baby" sometimes.  How cute is that? 

Happy Halloween!

We're not so much into the whole celebrating Halloween on Sunday thing, but don't you worry!  The girls still got plenty of loot and don't have any idea that they are missing the "real" trick or treating. We've had the front porch decorated for almost a month and it's been so fun!  The girls have been super excited about it too and almost EVERY time we leave the house they mention the pumpkins or the giant spider (which I snagged at a garage sale along with the skull sign in this picture, 2 grim reaper outfits and a skeleton, all for 50 cents!)

The inside was all ready too.  We're just crawling with creepies!

We've been doing lots of Halloween/Fall activities too!  We went to a fun little straw maze for the kiddos (3 times in 1 week!)

 Daddy came the last time! 

 We carved pumpkins.  Sydney enjoyed it, but Mady was running the other direction from all the "pumpkin guts" yelling, "No, yucky!
  Totally hilarious,

 Hooray for some spooky pumpkins!

 Does this child look deprived to you?  This was after her first little mini trick or treat at Barnes & Noble yesterday.  Happy as a little kitty!

 Round 2 was our ward Trunk or Treat last night.  We went dressed for warmth, so this pirate and doctor were the warmest ones there!

 Today we went to Round 3 at our local outdoor mall.  Trick or Treating to all the stores on Mainstreet with a million other kids.  How did they feel? 

 Pretty thrilled little fairy and pirate if you ask me!

 Get a load of those candy levels.  Yeah, I think we're good this year!

 Happy Halloween!

Projects

Whenever my parents come visit, we put them to work!  When they came out in October was no exception!  We finally had someone paint our living room this fall (YAY!!!!! it only took 4 years!) so it was time to do something Aaron has been wanting to do since we moved in... Case all those darn windows!

For those of you that have not been here, our living room actually has 11 windows in it.  10 are small like these and 1 is big.

Now the 9 up high are all nicely cased and oh so pretty!

Look at the great work they did!

Me likey.

High in the Sky

Our clubhouse has a history of hosting some fun/slightly odd events.  This one was no different - Oktoberfest Family Style!  Here we are enjyoing a pancake breakfast!

 Here we are in our little Christmas card type photo.  It would be perfect without that big ReMax sign on it.  Oh well.

 Oh yes, we actually got to go in the balloon!

 And up we went!  The whole time Mady was saying "like it!" as she shook her head no.  Our tall heads were awfully close to that blower.  When we got down she kept saying "like it" and actually sounding like she meant it!  I think she was really confused at first!

All in all, another fun, yet totally random event!  It was pretty lame as far as Oktoberfests go though, I think!  The strongest drink there was Orange Juice and the craziest thing that happened was that the girls got airbrushed tattoos on their arms.  Mady was beside herself when she got a panda.  It's her current favorite you know!

Mountain Time

 On October 8, 9, and 10 we rented a home in Estes Park and hung out there with my parents.  We had so much fun being back in the mountains! 

 Some quality time with Nana and Grampy.

 Did I mention it was FREEZING?  Do you like that my children are wearing every scrap of clothing we could muster?

 Look at those baby blues.

 After that weekend my parents came to stay with us for a week.  Hooray for carousel time at the zoo with Nana!

A girl and her kitty

I think I'm always going to be playing catch up.  It's just my current way of life.  I know I should blog more frequently, but the stack of books by my nightstand, lessons and talks to give at church, and those darns back episodes of glee that I missed keep taking my attention first.  Sorry.  I've neglected you folks.  Here's something fun though.  Sydney:  The little girl is a fireball.  She is an absolute hoot.  She is a defiant, crazy, smart, stubborn little monkey, who is hilarious, sweet, and beautiful. 

Oh yeah, she still loves to dance.  We discovered that we can get youtube videos through our blue ray player and the girls watch all sorts of music videos and dance like crazy.  Their favorites are Soul Sister by Train, Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz, and the Numa Numa song (Dragostea din Tei).  I actually took an awesome video of them dancing yesterday, but I had to get rid of it because Sydney decided to seriously flash the camera.  (We're having issues again in the potty area).

I love this picture of Sydney though.  It's fun to have one of us and her.  We were having our pictures taken and she ran over to us and linked her arms around our necks.  Little sweetheart.

Blogger flipped this picture from landscape to portrait and I can't figure out how to turn it back.  It cracks me up though.  I walked in the hall in the middle of the night once and found these two snuggled up on the floor.  Sydney being out of bed was not unusual.  She floats around the house at night (we can't figure out if she's awake or asleep), and Frodo liked to sleep outside our door in case we opened the door.  (He secretly was hoping we'd let him sleep with us I think).

 Frodo really is a great cat for us though.  He's funny and curious, he snuggles with us, and he lets the girls drag him around the house.  Right after we got him I gave him a talk about hose he better be nice to my babies or I was going to take him back or kick him out and let the hawks/coyotes get him.  He's been very good to them and almost never complains when they maul him.  Even when Mady drags him around by the neck (which we don't advocate or allow) he still doesn't even meow!  He is a crazy cat though and is fun to watch.  He has to be involved in everything.  He walks around the edge of the bath tub while the girls are bathing, he comes running every time you flush the toilet so he can watch (?), while I cleaned out the fish tank this week (the girls are not interested in the fish now that we have a cat) he got in it, which meant I had to give him a bath, which meant we had a largish black rat running around our basement for awhile.  In this picture, he's climbed to the top of the 5 ft ficus tree in our bedroom.  I think he was feeling like an adventurer.

Trouble with a Capital T

See this little munchkin?  Cute isn't she?  Yeah, don't let those smiley eyes fool you.  This girl is Trouble.

Yesterday, this little monkey wrote on my couch with a pen.  Today, she peed out of her diaper (her sister did this the night before too), magically torn a hole in her new shirt, and dumped a bottle of carribean blue nail polish on my carpet, all by 9:30 AM.  We've had a rough day.

P.S. Because I am a miracle worker (and have wonderful friends who utlize google) all of the nail polish and pen came out.  Shocking, but true. 

Happy Birthday

This hot man had a birthday last week!  Doesn't he look great?  And how about that hot wife of his eh?

Oh, yeah, they're one smokin' hot couple.  Happy Birthday babe.  Love ya bunches.

Toddler Birthday Parties

Sydney's two requests for her party were as follows:

1. It be held at the park.  Darn, no cleaning my house before AND after the party.

2. There had to be Jell-O. 

What can I say, she's a high roller.

We invited some of Sydney's friends and they all showed up!  It was so fun.  In true Sydney style, we played Pin the Party Hat on the Tapir.  Oh, yeah, baby.

After that we broke out the pinata!  Let's just say, the kids were stoked!  There were about 12 kids there, including all the siblings, etc. so they each got a turn taking a few whacks.

For a few days before the party, Sydney talked about how she would "kick the kitty and the candy and rings will fall out!" (There were plastic rings in with the candy).  I keep hoping she doesn't try to do that to our REAL kitty! (Whose name IS Frodo, btw).

It took awhile to break this guy open, so Aaron finally finished him off.

The pandemonium after it finally broke.  We had to push Sydney in there, she was just standing around smiling.

The birthday girl and her loving mommy and daddy.  Who knows where her sister was.

I made these fun rainbow cupcakes I found here (check out the rest of the blog too!).  Everyone loved them!

After the party we went home and opened Sydney's presents.  She had tons of fun and loved everything!  She milked it for all it was worth and is still talking about her party and her birthday!  Every time we drive past the park now she say, "That was my party!"  It was so fun and we are so glad everyone came and had such a great time!

P.S. I have been trying to blog this post for a week but my computer and blogger keep having hissy fits.  Finally it's up!

Sydney's Birthday!

Can you believe this little girl turned 3 last week?  And how's that for an action shot?

Guess what we did on the big day? (I bet you can't guess!!)  Oh, wait, you guess it - the Zoo!  Look who was so incredibly proud of herself because she got a happy birthday button and some coupons for a free carousel ride and a free ice cream cone.  (She looks bigger doesn't she?)

 The new little tiger cubs were kind enough to frolick and play a lot in honor of Miss Bean's birthday.  She enjoyed them a lot, as did Mady who has been begging to go back and see the tigers for a month.

We went to the zoo with Sydney's good friend Kenzie.  I kept trying to get pictures of them together to show we all were there, but it never worked very well.  Here's what we ended up with:

Not really paying attention

Too much energy to sit still!  Must be goofy!

Why are Mady's shoes off you ask?  No idea.  Silly girls.

After the zoo we celebrated with our good friends, had brownies, ice cream, presents, and blew out candles!  It was great and Sydney was VERY into it.

Sydney's been excited about her birthday since May when her friend had a birthday party.  In typical Sydney fashion, she sucked as much out of her birthday as she could, so she got her little party on her birthday, a friend party, and presents from her birthmom, (who got married a few weeks ago!  Hooray for her!).  Let's just say, she's all about birthdays!  Happy Birthday Baby Girl!  We love you so much!

RMNP Part 2

On Sunday we woke up and checked out of our hotel.  We headed straight back to Rocky Mountain for a beautiful scenic drive.  We stopped a short way in to see the Alluvial Fan. 

A natural dam that had been around since the last Ice Age broke in July 1982, sending millions of tons of water rushing down to the valley.  It brought a lot of big boulders down too, creating a large alluvial fan and a pretty waterfall that is now just a short walk off the road!

Right after this lovely family picture, Mady fell and got hurt and was out of sorts all day.  Then we jumped on Trail Ridge Road (the highest continuously paved road in the US) and went for a drive!  First stop was called Many Parks Curve.  We got out and crawled all over the rocks and overlook.

Sydney and her good buddy Esther had a great time together!

We fought with these two monkeys for awhile to try to get a good one of them together, but eventually gave up.

After that Mady fell asleep and got a much needed nap.  We stopped near the top of Trail Ridge Road, which tops out at 12,183 feet, and Aaron and Sydney got out to explore the tundra a bit.  It was pretty cold, so they didn't stay long, but we sure had fun!

We had so much fun on this trip and really enjoyed ourselves!  We'll definitely be going back!  The girls loved seeing the animals (including 1 coyote, some deer, and some elk), and the mountains.