So much fun!

I had so much fun with my kids today. I post enough about the crazy and awful things they do, I thought I should make sure and capture what a fun time we had tonight.

After dinner, they all went outside in their nightgowns to play before bedtime. They rode bikes, rode trikes, rode scooters, pushed babies in strollers, jumped on the trampoline, collected rocks, collected flowers... all the stuff that kids love to do outside! There was a time when I thought my kids would NEVER just "go outside and play!" But today, they did.

About 10 minutes into it, I decided to pour myself a Coke and join them. My first Coke I left on the stoop while I started cleaning out the Suburban, and Seamus drank the whole dang thing! I did manage to get insurance cards printed and put into all of our 4 vehicles (not one of the four had a current insurance card, d'oh!).

Then I poured myself a second Coke, and that one got dumped out inside the Suburban when I reached for a piece of paper under one of the seats. Oops!

My third one is waiting for me in the kitchen.

Anyway, after we played outside for about an hour or so, we went inside and the four of us put together the 50 states puzzle on the floor in the kitchen. The girls have been asking a lot of questions about places, so it was fun to put it together and point out different places that are important to our family's story.

K-Wiggles is looking like she'll be as good at puzzles as Miss-D. M-Moo was no slouch either. And Miss-D could read a lot of the state names on the pieces.

We looked at Utah, where we live, and Texas, where my sister and her four kids live. Then we saw Montana and Washington, where G'ma Libby lives. And Michigan, where Daddy-J grew up and G'Ma Jan still lives (and where M-Moo will be going in June!). We saw Florida, where Daddy-J was born (and where we've visited), and Maine, where Mama went to school.

Then there were a bunch of others we want to go to. The girls have been studying the Grand Canyon at school lately, so it looks like we'll be planning a trip there... maybe in the fall or next spring?!

We saw Wyoming, where we'll be camping in July. And New York, where Mama and Daddy went, twice, last fall.

Anyway, it was a really fun evening, and the kids even went to bed happy, which is a major accomplishment lately!

I want to make sure I (1) take time to do these things with them that are so simple and yet so fun and (2) write them down and remember them.

(Oh, and I found a power cord and connector cord for the monitor Daddy-J brought home a few weeks ago and said he didn't have a power cord for, so now I have a monitor on my photo-editing computer and just need to find a few minutes to sit down and fire it all up! So maybe more pictures soon?! -- no promises).

Flip Flop Shopping!

I must need to have my head examined! I took all three girls shopping with me today to get flip flops. I started out looking just for a pair of "sparkle" flip flops for Miss D, 'cuz she's mentioned a few times that she'd like some.

I banned flip flops about two years ago when Miss D tried walking in them and mostly did faceplants every time. The littles have never had a pair of flip flops.

Of course, flip flops is pretty much all I wear all summer (that and bike shoes!).

And of course, once we found some sparkle flip flops for Miss D, the littles wanted some flip flops too.

Thankfully, they didn't have the sparkle flip flops in the littles' sizes, so we headed off to Osh Kosh where I had seen a rack of $5 flip flops for them to try.

Of course, again, Osh Kosh had nothing in the littles' sizes either. So the next store up the road is Gymboree, which had some really cute red cherry and pink flower flips flops.

And of course they had the right sizes, and they were the kind with the adjustable heel strap so the littles have a prayer of walking in the darned things.

So anyway, turns out we all got new flip flops ('cuz the ones I bought Miss D were "buy one/get one half off -- so I had to buy some cute ones for me too!).

Here's the SOOC photo. Daddy J still hasn't got me a monitor for my fancy new photo-editing computer, and my poor old laptop just can't fire up Photoshop Elements anymore. The pic's a little gray, but I don't quite know how to fix that in my camera (actually, now that I'm done shooting, I thought of one more adjustment I should have tried -- oh well!).

New photos of the Casa Llamedos girls...

A photoshoot of me, my girls, my sister, and her daughter (she also has three boys, but this was a "girls only" shoot!

http://www.natalielaytonphotography.com

Go to "proofing" and the password is Vicky (case sensitive).

I think they turned out pretty good! She did a good job of capturing the goofy faces the kids like to make!

Exercise Challenge -- Day 2

So, I guess my exercise for yesterday was walking 10 city blocks from one law firm's offices to another law firm's offices in downtown SLC in 90-degree heat. Does that count?

Fortunately, today was much better. I got my friend Kerry and we did about an hour-long mountain bike ride.

She asked the very legitimate question of whether we can "bank" minutes (for example, does my 1-hour bike ride count for my 30 minutes today and 30 minutes tomorrow?).

I told her I thought probably not, since the challenge is to do "at least" 30 minutes "at least" 4 days a week. ;-)

Anyway, it was a good ride. We rode a trail called Fink Again, which is a nice, gradual climb (have I mentioned I'm not a good climber?) that gave me a chance to get some steady climbing in (instead of the air-gasping climbing I usually have to do!).

We came down a trail called "Dropout" that has a few little downhill park features (some funky bridges, some rock jumps, some dirt rollers). I did the first few bridges and then scared myself a little with one that was steeper than I was expecting on the backside... then I chickened on some features down lower that were really easy-peasy.

I want to go do that trail again soon so I can get used to what features are where and which ones I want to do and which ones I want to skip!

I'm looking forward to the Tuesday Night Rides that start next week (on Tuesday, go figure!). It's going to be a good mountain-biking season!

Shenanigans!

So apparently my two littles (M-Moo and K-Wiggles) have started to turn into quite the little, um, trouble-finders? Not sure quite what the right word is, but ...

Monday, they were home with Carmen, our sitter/housekeeper, while I was working in Salt Lake. Daddy J was the one to come home in time to let Carmen go. He sent me this picture from his phone, with the caption "the dogs can't eat any more."

(not a bad photo -- from his phone, BTW).

So, in case you can't see the important parts of the picture, there are three dog food bowls and one dog water bowl in this picture. Look closely. See the amount of food in each of these four bowls?

So Daddy J asks the girls who put the food in the dogs' dishes, and they unanimously pipe up that it was Carmen! Um, yeah, right! I think Daddy J might have been buying it, but I'm definitely not.

Then today, I left the littles with Carmen while I went to get Miss D and her friend from school, take the friend home (my week for carpool) and take Miss D to karate.

When Miss D and I get home from karate, Carmen says "hasta manana" and heads for her car. Miss D heads to find her sisters (usually they're in my room watching a movie at that hour) and comes out to tell me that sisters have done something "very very bad!"

Upon entering my bathroom, what do I find? M-Moo and K-Wiggles and a large empty bottle of Aussie 3-Minute Miracle conditioner. All of said conditioner is, of course, on the littles' previously dry heads, as well as on their hands, feet, and all other body parts, and a good portion was also all over the floor of my bathroom and the sides of my bathtub.

How I managed not to blow my stack, I don't know (maybe because it was funny?!). I got them undressed quickly and threw them in the shower. Ten minutes of rinsing and I think there's still a ton of conditioner in their hair!

Little stinkers! I thought of grabbing my camera, but didn't. Couldn't risk having them spread the chaos further through the (already torn up) house!

Anyway, when I asked them where Carmen was while they were doing their little project, they told me she was "on the bed, watching a movie!"

Those little boogers are going to try and blame Carmen for absolutely everything, I am sure!

This morning's visitors...

We had some visitors this morning. They came for coffee, I think! Daddy J got the headshot of Big Daddy Moose. He had Little Fella Moose with him (looks to be about a year old or so, maybe two). They were both looking quite mangy (shedding the winter coat) and a bit thin, but otherwise ok. They hung out for a while at the salt lick and drank some water from the troughs. No sign of Mama Moose today, but I imagine she's not far away.

Have I mentioned lately that I love living out here in the sticks?! These guys were, quite literally, not more than 20 feet from our back door.

30-day Exercise Challenge

My SIL over at Mommy Moments just finished a 30-day "no junk food" challenge the other day. While I was too chicken to join in that challenge (my little squares of chocolate are precious to me... and my sanity!), she's now doing a 30-day "exercise" challenge. This one I'm joining in!

So, the challenge is to do at least 30 minutes of exercise at least 4 days every week for the next 30 days. I think I can do this! Care to join me?

Miss D scored her first soccer goal today!

Actually, she scored two! Sadly, Daddy and I were not there to see it. I can't believe how bummed I am not to have seen it! But we were on another part of the field with K-Wiggles and M-Moo doing their soccer class. Miss D came over to our part of the field when she was done with her game (they won, 8-7!) and told us she scored two goals! I double-checked with another mom who was at the game and she confirmed the story!

WTG Miss D!!!

Fun travel in our future!

We have a few trips coming up... next weekend Daddy J and I are heading to Moab for a Saturday/Sunday bike trip with some friends who are unexpectedly going to be in town.

Then in June, we just booked a trip for me and Daddy J to Raleigh, North Carolina, for a work thing. As we were looking at the tickets the other night, we realized we could route ourselves through Detroit and thought it might be fun for one of the girls to fly with us on that leg of the trip and stop off to see G'ma Jan for a few days, then fly home with us.

G'ma Jan was all on board, and today I was actually able to book all the tickets for the three of us. We decided that M-Moo would go to see G'ma Jan. G'Ma Libby is coming to stay with Miss D and K-Wiggles, so everyone gets some special "g'ma" time. It's funny how M-Moo seems so little to me to go spend time with g'ma by herself, but at that age I had no qualms about Miss D doing the same thing!

Anyway, it should be a fun couple of months for the Casa Llamedos family!

Decluttering update: Monday, May 11.

So I think I mentioned here (and yes, I'm too lazy to go back and look) that I signed up for an 8-week decluttering workshop? Well, it started last Monday, while I was in Vegas, so I kinda missed the beginning. Of course, when I got home, the kids were still on swine flu vacation, so somehow I still didn't get started. I did see all the e-mails going back and forth among the other participants with their very excellent decluttering efforts, and that kept me inspired. So today, I finally joined in.

I am happy to report: 1 kitchen desktop fully cleared off; 1 kitchen desk drawer completely emptied out; 1 high chair listed on craigslist; and 2 pack-n-plays listed on craigslist.

It's a start! We're supposed to commit to 15 minutes per day of decluttering and stick to an 8-week decluttering plan (that I haven't had time to put together yet, but I'm getting there!).

Anyway, it's progress, and I'm happy about it! Now if I can just stick with it!

Mother's Day -- Part Two.

Mother's Day Part Two was just as lovely as Part One! We did end up going swimming at The Canyons. I spent most of the time in the hot tub while Daddy-J played with all three kiddos. Only one kid tried to drown herself (M-Moo) and she happily did not succeed!

Then we went to dinner at Maxwell's. The kids and Daddy had a gigantic pizza, and I got a lovely caprese salad and a not-so-great risotto. Oh well! Poor K-Wiggles fell asleep in my lap at the restaurant, but M-Moo ate 4 pieces of pizza!

We stopped at Whole Paycheck to get me a fruit tart for dessert (yum!). We got home, got the kids to bed and watched Slap Shot, which was a pretty terrible movie, but it made Daddy-J happy to watch it.

Unfortunately, the very tail end of my day was spent holding Miss-D's hair back while she barfed... that was about 11:30 p.m. Not sure what was up with her, but she was right as rain this morning and thankfully all went off to school for the first time in forever!

Now it's time to get on my decluttering projects... I signed up for an 8-week decluttering seminar and I've pretty much missed the first week of it. *sigh* Time to get moving!

Mother's Day -- Part One.

So far, it has been a lovely mother's day for me. I talked to my mom yesterday (as today she's on her way to Bangkok). The kids woke me up this morning (early, even though they went to bed at 10:00 last night, stinkers!) with cards and a lovely flowering plant.



This was the best picture of it I could find on the web. I'm keeping it my bathroom for now, in hopes that I will remember to water it enough to keep it alive!

I got to take a shower all by myself this morning... locked the bathroom door! Then we went to breakfast at the Road Island Diner... yum! Afterwards, we came home and took the dogs and kids for our first hike down to the Moose Pond for the year. Aside from Seamus (the new puppy) getting lost (he hiked back to the car by himself!), we had a lovely hike. It was the first time that all the kids were able to hike the whole thing, which is quite a milestone!

Now we're home for lunch, and I think we'll head out in a little bit to go swimming, then maybe out to dinner. Who knows how long the kids will hold up!

Happy Mother's Day to all those fantastic mamas out there!

And so it begins: Soccer edition.

So I had the pleasure of taking all three of the girls to their soccer stuff today. We missed the very first weekend of soccer for the littles because we were away. Then Miss-D's first weekend of soccer got canceled for snow. Then we had the great swine-flu panic of 2009. So despite the fact that we should be three weeks into the season, we just got started today!

Of course, everything is FUBAR because for some reason they're trying to jimmy the schedule around to make up the games that we missed for the flu panic. Why, I ask you? They are 3 and 5. If they miss a game, who cares? *sigh* Perhaps this is why they don't put me in charge of such things?!

Anyway, Daddy-J opted to go skiing at Snowbird today (wonder why I don't get that option? hmmm... NEway). So I was solo with the girls. Miss-D's game started at 9:00. Ordinarily, that would not be a problem, but since we've been on Swine Flu Vacation for a week, the girls have been sleeping in. I had to wake up M-Moo so she could get dressed to go.

It was a tich chilly this morning, but Miss-D played well. She's much more aggressive this year, really going for the ball, and got some good kicks in. I didn't see much of what she did last year, which was pretty much running along with the pack! They jiggered the system this year so that the field is much, much smaller and they play 3-on-3 instead of the 4-on-4 we had last year. Everybody gets much more of a chance to play, which is nice.

The coaches (they're on the field with the kids at this age) were both great and I think we got through a whole game with no tears, which for girls at this age is definitely a rarity!

So then we had about 1.5 hours to kill before the Start Smart soccer class started for the littles. We killed time at the playground, but by the time class started, we were a little wasted, I think. It still went well. K-Wiggles had a little trouble working out that she could really do the drills with any old ball and didn't have to have "her" ball for each skill session.

Miss-D was a great "parent" for M-Moo so I could help K-Wiggles (it's supposed to be one-on-one, but obviously Daddy-J wasn't there).

All-in-all, an auspicious start to the soccer season. I couldn't help thinking, though, as I was standing watching Miss-D's game, that this sideline-mom thing could be a significant chunk of my future. I could sure think of worse things for the girls to get involved in!

Jammie Day!

Well, since the kids and I are on swine flu vacation and Daddy J was in Denver, we had a slumber party in mama's room last night. The girls slept on the floor in their sleeping bags (well, actually, M-Moo wound up in my bed) and they were, of course, all up at the crack of dawn this morning.

We decided to have a "jammie" day, and all stayed in our pajamas all day. This morning we made cinnamon apple bread, and ate the whole loaf for breakfast, drenched in butter and cinnamon sugar! Ymmmmmm!

Then we spent the morning making bead necklaces and bracelets and cleaning up from various adventures. The girls created a giant snake out of some cups, forks, plates, and napkins. They played "pillow fight," which entails pulling all of the pillows off our window seat and taking turns burying each other in the pillows. Then we did a lot of "stamping."

It was warm enough that we decided to head out to the hot tub. Then by about 2:30 we were hungry, so, still in our pajamas, we headed out to McDonald's and Wendy's (we couldn't agree, so we went to both). By the time we got to the drive-thru, M-Moo and K-Wiggles were both out cold. So Miss D and I had a lovely lunch together once we got home. We woke sisters in time to climb into my bed for a session of watching movies.

Then it was a little more playing and then bed.

Amazingly, I accomplished some stuff today: took all the dining room stuff out of the sideboard and stashed all the art supplies, puzzles, and games in there (we access the dining room stuff maybe twice a year, the other stuff a little more often!); then I took everything out of the drawers in the wetbar and threw out two bags of stuff, counted all the decks of cards (after six, I started throwing them away!), and actually found all our "bar" stuff; then I tackled the silverware drawer in the kitchen, totally reorganized it and the knife drawer and one of the utensil drawers (are you sensing a "drawer" theme here? I did the sock drawers last week!).

So, all in all, it was a good day. Daddy-J gets home tonight, we have family day tomorrow, and then I'm off to Vegas on Sunday!

Oh, and we're still waiting on pictures because the new 'puter that Daddy-J brought up for me to work my pictures on still doesn't have a monitor (the one he brought got confiscated to our bedroom to use as a little TV for playing movies on!). Baby steps!