Penguin Park

Well, yesterday we got up at the crack of dawn to take Quentin and Natalie to the airport by 8am. The airport is about an hour away from our house or so, which meant we had to get up by 6:15 and get dressed and breakfast and out the door by 7. For those of you who know me, that is not only early for me, but for our girls too. They are usually pretty good about sleeping in. Well, we decided to try and make the most of it and go to Michelle's and play with Ashlyn and Preston since the airport is only about 15-20 minutes from their house. We decided to take advantage of the great weather and go to Penguin Park...what a fun park! It has big animals that have slides in them. There's a picture that didn't turn out too well, but we are all hanging our heads out of a stomach of a Kangaroo...sort of anyway. We thought there was a spot to sit by the baby joey and take your pic, but it ended up being a big hole to the ground and then the joey....so instead of risking all our lives, we just settled for a dark hang your head over the side pic. But it didn't turn out too great with the lighting, so I didn't put it in. But, there is also all the fun toys that I remember at parks when I was growing up to play with. It was fun and the kids of course loved getting play with their cousins.

Nada Mucho...Just an Update

Well, I just realized that it's been a really long time that I've posted anything and an even longer time since I've posted any pictures. Well, we haven't been up to much. But I guess the spring cleaning bug has hit here as Nick and I have been working on small projects here and there to our house...just projects that we want to do when we sell the house...we're not moving, but I always hear people say that once they get their house ready to sell that they want to stay and live in it now....so Nick and I compiled a list, well I compiled a list of things I wanted to do and we've been slowly working on them. One of our big projects was to put down rock in our landscaping and pull up all our mulch....what a job!! And it's still not finished yet! Then we are putting ceiling fans in the girls' room...what a difference it's already made in Kayley's room...she got the first fan since she has two windows instead of one. We are also planning on staining our deck, maybe next week when the rain slows down. Then, we are also replacing our outdoor lights with new ones. Then I'm also trying to convince Nick to paint the kitchen, our bathroom, and the basement...not getting very far there, even though I'm the one doign the work on this...we just can't agree on colors. Now it's time for us to plant our garden...another ongoing big project, but well worth it in the end. We'll do that next week or the next. I've also been busy being sucked in by Twilight series! I'm on eclipse and loving it, but it is slow comign with also trying to balance household things and being a mom...so I always have to choose wisely what I can do while they are taking their nap and then try to get in some me time too. Oh...the joys of motherhood! :)

The girls haven't been up to much either...just having fun in the nice weather. I found Kayley a big girl bike with training wheels for $5 at a garage sale and she is about to drive me batty with trying to ride it! She tells us she doesn't have big leg muscles to ride it. So I end up pushing her the whole way. She insists on riding her baby bike (by pushing her feet on the ground, not the pedals) or riding her scooter. I'm hoping that by the end of the summer we will be riding our bike! Kayley is also really into Dorothy now. She went over to Katrina's house and watched it once then realized Dorothy was a princess and then that week I found both a dress for a dollar (pictured below) that works for her dress and I also found a VHS copy of Wizard of Oz for a quarter at a garage sale. So she watches that about once a day or every other day and asks to wear her dress almost everyday...so we end up wearing it about 4 times a week. By next week she'll probably be into a new princess! :)

Cora is learning lots of new things...some things we are not excited about...spitting, hitting, and taking things away from her sister. We've been having to do a lot of naughty mat and taking away her baby (whom she absolutely adores!) But, it doesn't help that her big sister also does some of these things too so we're trying to balance it all with discipline and love with them. But, for the most part they still play well together and enjoy each other's company. In fact, I found them playing very nicely today in Kayley's bedroom...so I quickly took a snapshot so I can remind myself that they do love each other!! :) But, also this month we took our first attempt at potty training...it only lasted about a day if not less, but she did pee in the potty about 2-3 times and then pooped in her underwear about 2-3 times so I decided we weren't ready or I wasn't ready to take this challenge on. I liked that Kayley was trained in 1 1/2 weeks...I am willing to wait as long as I can with Cora if she can train as quickly as Kayley! Unless she is waiting until it's time for her to go to school! :) So we're back to diapers, but she does now tell me when she's poopy...which is progress in my book!

We are anxiously awaiting our pool to open up and I'm so grateful that we have a neighborhood pool...not only so the girls can get out and have some fun in the sun...but I can also hopefully try to work on my tan while chasing them around the pool!! :) And it helps that it's only 1/2 block away from our house too so we also get in some exercise.

Happy Earth Day!

Well, I realize that by the time you read this, it won't be earth day anymore, but I wanted to post what we did to celebrate...not much so don't get your hopes up! But, I decided to finally take our old newspapers down to the school in our neighborhood to recycle, so the girls got in the wagon, Einstein got on his leash and we took off down the road. I tried to explain to Kayley what day it was today and you could tell it was way over her head in trying to explain what the Earth was. But, she willingly along with Cora had the big pile of papers on top of their feet on our way to the recycle bin. Then, we took an extra long walk and the girls actually got out of the wagon and walked almost the whole way...I was way impressed at how long they walked! But, then I (this may sound silly) officially started a bag for our aluminum cans. When we lived in Columbia I was good about recycling b/c the trash people would pick it up with our other trash...here we have to take it to a recycle place or pay them to pick it up at our house, but Nick told me the other day that if you recycle one aluminum can it can run a tv for 3 hours...well as some of you may know...we like our tv and Nick likes his pop...so put two and two together and in order for us to always be able to watch our tv, we need to be better about recycling his pop cans. So, it's official and we are recycling them now! So, Happy Earth Day to you all and sorry I don't have any pics with the girls on this post...it was kind of hard to juggle the girls, the wagon, and the dog and then to try and balance the camera wasn't going to happen! So you can just imagine the girls walking very cutely and waving to our neighbors on our walk today! :)

Music of the Night

Well, last night Nick and I got to see the show of a lifetime! For Christmas Nick got me some tickets to go see the Phantom of the Opera. I of course was way excited because a) we are not the type of people to spend a lot of money on things like this, b) Nick is not a lover of artsy things as much as I am, and c) I grew up listening to this music as my Mom and Dad saw the play and would often play the soundtrack and I would also listen to my sister Jessica sing and play the music to it...so I went in knowing almost all the words, but contained myself and let the pros sing it instead. It was a great night only with a few bumps in the road. We had it all lined up and ready to go but then we found out that Jessica my sister couldn't babysit as our nephew ended up having strep throat! And our back-up (Nick's sister) had just left earlier that day to go out of town. So after racking our brains to see who could watch them on a school night and figuring out who they would be most comfortable with we asked one of my gracious friends (also Kayley's sunbeam teacher) and she very willingly babysat for us and on a school night for that matter! We were so thankful to her for being so willing so we could still go. And can I just say WOW!!? We loved every minute of it...even Nick! If you ever have the chance to go see this play, you MUST!! And apparently the guy who played the Phantom also played one of the lead roles in Les Miserables...so yes he was very good! It was a night to remember forever! Thanks for the great Christmas present!

Happy Easter!

Well, it's a bit late, but we wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter! We hope you all had a great one and enjoyed time with family and friends and reflecting time on our Savior and the great sacrifices he has made for each one of us! We had a good Easter spent in Branson/Springfield. We went down to Silver Dollar City again and then went back to Springfield/Willard on Sunday to do church and Easter lunch with Nick's mom. Our dinner consisted of Cashew Chicken so Nick was way excited! But the girls looked so cute in their dresses it just made me melt thinking about how big they have gotten and how much I just love them! Cora had so much fun that she fell asleep on Grandma's couch while we were all visiting...she had a fun-filled and tiring weekend! I also put some pictures of us seeing the Easter Bunny, which was at Petsmart of all places! He was actually there for you to take pictures of your dog/cat with the Easter Bunny, but he was kind enough to let the girls see him and talk to him. Of course as you can see from the pictures that Kayley talked his ear off and Cora wanted almost nothing to do with him! We never got her to sit with him, but that's ok, maybe next year! Anyway we hope you all had a great holiday!

Silver Dollar City, Here We Come!

Well, it's official, we've been to Silver Dollar City already this year! And sadly enough we are going again this coming weekend! But, that's what you have to do when you have season passes and kids that beg to go there all the time, right!?! About a week ago, we went and had a blast! We got to go with the Walkers, LaBrues, and Grandma. Both the girls love the place, especially Kayley who can now ride the bigger kid rides (with an adult of course!) But, she is one daredevil for sure! In fact, there is one ride that you can see below with little boats. She chose to ride it with Daddy and let me tell you that it was FAST!! I can't believe she wanted to go on it after seeing how fast it went! But she said it was fun, although as soon as she got off the ride she came up to me and gave me a BIG hug and said "Mom, I missed you SO much!" It was cute and just showed me how brave she really is! Cora on the other hand finally loved the little kid rides...last year she cried throughout the whole ride. But the frogs were her favorite. They actually do jump really high for a little kids ride. After the ride was over, she kept saying "Jump, Jump!" and wanted to go back for another turn. She pitched a fit when we finally did have to stop riding it.

The first day we went it was nice weather, which meant a lot of people! So many people that the lines to catch the trolley were about a mile long...so Nick and I braved it and walked our way up to the park. (For those that have been to SDC before know that once you get into the park there is nothing to do BUT walk, so to walk to the park takes a lot more energy and you value those trolley rides for a good break!) But we survived and then realized that it wasn't that far of a walk anyway! Then the second day was overcast and boy was it perfect to be there! No lines! The girls had a ball being able to get right back on the ride right after they were finished...so did we adults!

Couple of notes from the pictures. The picture of Kayley with Cora below shows Kayley doing her cute little wave that just melts my heart when she does it! :) She would often wave like this all weekend on the rides and it was so cute! She also did this during her song debut at the ward talent show once she spotted Nick in the croud filming her. (Oh and for my followers...I'm sad to report that I don't think I'll be able to post that video of her until we buy a specific program to help put up a video from our camera. I know, I know...boo who! Believe me, I think I'm more sad you all can't see it than you guys are! I guess you'll just have to come to our house to see it!:)

Oh...and the other cute thing about these pictures. The collage of Grandma and Cora. A few days before going to SDC I pulled out this shirt for Cora to wear for the first time this season and I put it on her and she kept saying "papap" (This is how she says Grandma for those that don't know) But, I asked her "Grandma?", she replied with a big, enthusiastic "uh-huh!" Then she was pointing to her shirt and I asked her if this was a shirt like Grandma's and she replied with an even bigger "uh-huh!!!" So, we had to pack our "Grandma shirt" as we call it now and asked Grandma to wear her Grandma shirt. Cora picked this up all on her own that it was just like her...smart girl!! :) It was cute to see how excited she got to see Grandma in her matching shirt! Oh...and one more cute thing she did with Grandma that weekend. Grandma was riding home to Springfield with us from Branson and we had stopped to do some errands. The girls' carseats are next to each other with Cora's behind the driver's seat and Kayley's in the middle and then there's a spot behind the passenger seat, which is where Grandma was sitting. Well, we got back into the car after one of our errands and after a bit of driving, Cora says with fear in her voice, "Mama!! Papap?" I told her Grandma was right there, pointing to Grandma and she looked over to her and said very cutely, "Oh!" It was really cute! She sure does love her "Papap!" :) Well, sorry this post was so long, but as you can see I had a lot to catch up on!

Happy Birthday to Me

I had a good birthday that was extended into two weeks after the fact, which is always nice!! :) Anyway, my birthday was really nice and was very relaxing as the girls didn't argue or fight with one another and played well while I actually enjoyed, yes I said enjoyed doing some yard work on my birthday. But, the day before Nick had made me Cashew Chicken and we had my sister and her family over for their first taste of Cashew Chicken (Springfield style of course) and they loved it so much that Edward had like 3-4 plate fulls (he's 7 by the way). Then back on my birthday Nick came home from work surprising me with flowers and we went to Ruby Tuesday to eat dinner. We had a coupon because as you all know we are way cheap at times!! But we both got the steak dinner which included steak, mashed potatoes, onion strings, broccoli, AND the salad bar...which was great for the girls! Oh..and did I mention all for $17, including tip!?! Then we came home and just vegged. It was a good birthday until about 3 in the morning when I guess my stomach decided that I had had too much red meat and I lost my cookies and then again about 5:30. So, Nick stayed home half a day the next day which made my birthday linger even longer as I got to sleep in and my stomach ache went away and I was able to enjoy the morning with Nick and see him shortly after only a few hours of work. Then a week ago when we were in Branson/Springfield I got the rest of my birthday present as pictured above. The best carpet cleaner I've seen yet! I was so excited about it that I cleaned all but two of my mother-in-law's rooms in her house...as seen in the before/after picture. That machine picked up some nasty stuff and I'm not going to lie, it picked some nasty stuff out of our carpet too! It was cute because Kayley would run ahead of me to open the toilet lid for me just so she could see all the dirt come out of the machine...girl after my own heart...that's sadly the best part of cleaning carpets to me! But, that I guess officially ended my birthday surprises, but it was a good birthday! It's nice to have a day to pamper ourselves isn't it or...a few days at that matter!?!

Love Story

This last weekend was our Ward's Variety Show. Kayley agreed to sing a song by Taylor Swift, "Love Story." She was so cute and we were so proud of her. Nick didn't think she'd do it at all and would end up getting scared, but we practiced every night and then that day, she even took a nap with her dress in anticipation of putting it on and performing. She was so excited and then even at the show, she kept asking me when it was her turn. She got up there and did great! Nick did film it while I was mouthing the words to her at the bottom of the stage. However I have no idea how to put the video on the computer. I'll have to see if Nick can do it. But, I also had my camera on the wrong setting when I gave it to Jess, so the pics aren't that great either! So I had to get some pics afterwards and of course her hair was all falling out, but it looked really cute and I had a flash forward to my future of putting up the girls' hair for their dances when they get older. Sigh!! Oh...and a couple of cute things she did was throw her flowers to the crowd in the middle of the song (she did that all on her own without any prompting) and she also spotted Nick videotaping her and she gave him the cutest little wave. We were very proud of her and love her so much!

Elizabeth's Baptism

This last weekend we got to go down to Farmington to my brother Edward's house for our niece Elizabeth's baptism. I didn't get any pics of the special birthday girl, so thanks Stephanie for posting a cute pic of Elizabeth and Edward! We had a blast with family as you can tell from the pics! The baptism was on Saturday and was great. It was neat to hear Elizabeth sing with Dale or Grand-dad (Stephanie's Dad) and it was good to hear talks from both Mom (Jani) and Denise (Grammy). Then all the nieces and nephews on both the Felker and Wright side that was there sang "I am a Child of God" for the opening song and Kayley was the loudest! I was afraid she wouldn't want to do it cause she is shy about things like that at times, but apparently not, so I'm excited for the Primary program later this year!

Then we went to Ed and Steph's house for lunch afterwards and the kids loved being able to play like crazy in their great spacious backyard! They played until dark as you can see from our trampoline pics. Then it was time for baths and let me tell you that we did start with clean water for all the little kids, but it didn't stay clean for long as you can also see from the pics. Then, we all surprisingly had beds (the adults) and the kids loved being able to sleep with their cousins, so it didn't matter that half of them ended up on the floor. Then Sunday came and our trip had to be cut short as Nick woke up with one of the biggest headaches. He took some medicine that made him nauseasted and he ended up throwing up on the way to church and then we left after sacrament meeting. But we had a great time with family.

One of Kayley's highlights of the weekend was getting the Rainbow Brite doll from Grandma Jani, as you can see in the pics here. She would have taken a bath with her if I had let her. Mom brought the one from when Katie was little that still is in her basement and let Kayley have it and she has been indebted to her ever since. When she gave it to her, Kayley said "Well, I was waiting until garage sales, but they take too long." Needless to say Rainbow went with us everywhere and still does and if she's not with her, she tells everyone that she has one now. It's cute.

Once There Was a Snowman

Well, once there was a snowman...today anyway! This last weekend we were lucky enough to get probably what will be our last snow for the winter. It snowed about 3-4 inches...probably our biggest for the year that I can remember anyway. By the time we got finished with our errands and naptime on Saturday, we went outside to play, but the snow would not cooperate for anything to make a snowman. So, luckily it has stayed cold enough until today and there was still snow on the ground so we put on our gear and built a snowman before it all melts in a few days as it's supposed to get up to 67 in two days (that's Missouri for ya!) Anyway, as you can see, Cora's pants are actually a bit big on her as they are 3T's rolled up, but they worked ok. She and Kayley were both excited to go out, but once we got out, Cora did not like it, between Einstein trying to take off with her gloves and her trying to walk in the snow, Cora was not a happy camper by the time we were finished with our masterpiece. I have to say that I was pretty impressed that I was even able to lift the middle snowball onto the bottom one...it was a lot heavier than I expected and I wasn't about to have to wait until Daddy got home to get it up for me, so I pulled out all my muscles and finally got it up there. Kayley liked it a lot and had a lot of fun. Then afterwards inside the girls sang "Once There Was a Snowman" about five times to each other. Kayley was so impressed with the snowman that she is anxious to show Daddy when he gets home from work, but she made sure to ask me that it wasn't going to melt before he got home. It was cute. It was a fun day and now we can officially say we built a snowman this year! :)