Silly girls and a Princess Party

Sometimes I just have to laugh at the things my girls do. The way their little brains turn just cracks me up sometimes. Like today we sat down to dinner and Dave wasn't there. (He went fishing with is dad in Idaho/Montana for a few days.) I told her dad was gone for a few days and this was her reaction, "noooo... wait! I know, I can save daddy's spot in your bed and sleep with you for 3 days!!!" Haha, cracks me up! She is always looking for ways to stay in our bed. It only took her a split second to realize that there would be an empty place in my bed and that neither Dave nor I like to sleep alone, so she always gets to fill that spot when one of us are gone.

Earlier today she took her birthday balloons outside and accidentally let go of them. She came in crying that they were floating away. I looked out their bedroom room where I was cleaning and sure enough, they were way high in the sky. I told her, "Sorry hun, there's nothing I can do." At first she asked me to get a ladder. I said that wouldn't work. She suggested a few other things, and I just told her nothing was tall enough to reach them. Then she said, "Well Heavenly Father is up there, maybe he can bring them back to me."  :)  So cute.  I told her that maybe there was another little girl who didn't get birthday balloons and she was really sad, so since her birthday was yesterday, maybe Heavenly Father was guiding the wind to take the balloons to her. Her sweetness thought for a minute, then she decided against it, "Nope, I just want them back." Haha, so sweet, but yet, she knows what she wants. I thought she had forgotten about it, then tonight in our dinner prayer, she asked Heavenly Father to bring them back to her.

After dinner, I was cleaning up, and of course, toting Ella around on my hip. This little girl has caught on to where things go and what to do when she wants something. Lots of times when I am cleaning up and find a binki, or if we are in public and she drops hers or I just want to keep it in a safe place and don't have my purse, I will just stick it down in my cleavage. I know, I maybe should not be sharing this online, but any mom out there I can guarantee has done this at one time or another. So tonight we are cleaning up and she wants to spit our her binki so she can put a piece of candy in her mouth that she spotted on the counter, so what does she do? She takes it out, pulls my shirt out and stuffs it IN MY BRA!!! I busted out laughing!!! I couldn't believe she did that! But hey, I do it all the time, so why not her right?

Seriously, I don't know where they get it! Actually keep a list of quotes they say in my phone and periodically email them to myself in case anything happens to my phone.  I'll post those another night.

Yesterday was Peyton's 4th birthday. She has wanted a Barbie Jeep FOREVER. I never had one as a child and always wanted one, so I swore that my kids would have one. They are expensive though! (I understand why I never got one!) So I found a used one on KSL that had only be used a few times. The little girl couldn't figure it out and refused to try anymore, so her parents sold it. It seriously looks brand new and we got it for half price. Dave and I were so excited to give it to her. After I got my new computer for my birthday, I wanted the 8 days between my and her birthdays to be skipped so we could go straight to her present. :) We gave it to her before preschool. We went into the garage with our phones and called for her to come out. We recorded her response which was PRICELESS! She she stepped out and screamed with excitement! It was the reaction I was hoping for. She ran to it and so did Ella from the other side. Ella tried climbing over the side and almost fell. Dave caught her and Peyton said, "Ella, you open the door silly!" So she opened it for Ella, she climbed in, and away the went all over the driveway. It was not warm this morning, may I add. But nothing was going to stop those girls from playing with their new toy. We had to basically drag them into the house, Ella crying because she wanted to ride still. Since then that things has been all around our house and in everyone else's driveways too. They love it. I searched and searched for this specific one so that both of them could ride in it. Good things I did. 

Peyton had a Princess Party yesterday with all the neighborhood girls and some cousins. It was a hit for sure. We had all the princesses come in their princess dress-ups, decorated the house in princess decorations, and went on a treasure hunt through the house to find the pink treasure box full of necklaces, bracelets, crowns, and ring pops. We also did a castle piñata in the garage. We had princess cake and ice-cream and added some princess fruit snacks and homemade fruit kabobs with butterfly watermelon cutouts. It was pretty cute. It was really fun. At this young of an age, a lot of the moms stayed (and a lot of them with younger siblings), so we actually got kicked out of the living room that we had decorated to play games in since it was full of moms and babies. We did all the activities in the garage and upstairs. It worked out though. It was way fun. I think next year when we have grass and a backyard, it will be easier to push some of the activities out there too. (I'll post pictures of all this too.)

Well, I better get to work. Since Dave is gone fishing, I am spending my nights working late on my computer instead of hanging out with him. I hate it when he is gone. I sort of forgot he had this trip planned even though he talked about it almost everyday last week.  Last night when it was brought to my attention at Texas Roadhouse that they would be leaving bright and early this morning and probably not be back till Sunday, I got grumpy for the rest of the night. :(  It's only fair since I left him for 3 days to go to Vegas for the Shania Twain concert, but still, I hate when he's gone. Honestly, I don't even enjoy vacations very much when he's not there. Although he likes to complain about certain things, he is always really fun and adventurous when we go on vacations. Since he's not going to be here, I am taking the girls and going down to Aurora for the weekend. It beats being home alone. I'll miss that boy.

Baby Punishment

When I got back from Vegas on Saturday night, I expected Peyton and Ella to be so excited to see me. I expected screams, and running, and hugs, and all the excitement I was feeling myself. I have to say that I wasn't disappointed by my welcome home from Peyton, but I was completely thrown off by Ella! Instead of her usual smiles and funny personality she has whenever she sees me, she was completely cold to me.

So cold. :(

She was sitting in her carseat and when I said, "Hi baby! I missed you!" She wouldn't even smile. She just looked at me with her furrowed eyebrows like, "Excuse me? Who are you?" I was only gone two and a half days! Then Tasha got in the car with Cooper. Usually Ella LOVES Cooper, and Cooper right away started  gibber-jabbing to her telling her all about our trip in his little 10-month old gibberish.  Ella just gave him a look like, "You got to go? We are not friends anymore." Cooper just kept talking to her and usually she loves it, but she wouldn't crack a smile at him either. It was so funny!... and sad. All the way home I kept trying to make her laugh or even just smile at me and she wouldn't. The only time she did say anything was to say, "Dada." Dave thought this was all hilarious! I was sort of heartbroken. Really heartbroken. Not until we got home and I gave her a Barbie that I bought at the Disney Outlet did she finally decide that she would forgive me for leaving her for three days.  I will never leave her again. I was so heartbroken. She definitely knows how to punish me! Wow. I had no idea her little one year old personality could be so harsh! She's always so sweet and happy!

 

Upgraded Vacation

This vacation for Lauren's birthday has been nicknamed the "upgraded vacation" in my head. We began this vacation by upgrading the van we were supposed to rent to a Mercedes Benz SUV. It is sick! It's super fancy and we feel like the rich people rolling up in it. It's been fun. (Upgrade #1)

Then when we got to Vegas, we got general admission tickets to the Variety Show. When we got seated, there weren't enough seats in the back to seat all 6 of us together, so they moved us to the 3rd row.  :) (Upgrade #2)

After the show, we met Clayton at his apartment and got the key to Nell and Bob's condo. It's in a super-nice gated community right by Las Vegas Lake.  We got there around 12:30 or 1:00 and the key wouldn't work. Clayton's house was like 20 minutes away and we were exhausted, so we just got rooms at the Westin Resort. (So nice!!!)  (Upgrade #3)

Then here is the big one!!! We went to the Shania Twain concert and our seats were on the second to last row on the very top of the Colosseum.  Just before the concert started we were making jokes about why we didn't get front row seats and how Shania was going to look like a baby Shania from how far away we were. We were only two songs into the concert when someone from concert came and asked us if we wanted to move down. We excitedly followed him and thanked him repeatedly. We told him it was Lauren's birthday and that made him happy he chose us.  I thought we would be seated at the back of the bottom floor (there are three), but no! We were on the very front section!!! (Upgrade #4)

The concert was awesome. During one of her songs she started walking through the crowd and since I was only 3 people in, she shook my hand. :)  What was more impressive than that was the fact that two rows in front of me there was a down-syndrome boy standing up. She didn't just shake his hand, she went into the row a few people to give him a hug. Then two people down from me was a handicapped boy. He was her biggest fan at the concert. He was in a wheelchair, but knew every Shania song and sang them all at the top of his lungs. His parents on each side of him occasionally tried to quiet him down because they were worried he was bugging people, but I loved it. Special people like that are so touching to me.  Shania came behind him (we were on the last row of the front section) and hugged him. Then she let him sing part of the chorus with her. :)  It was so cute! I have so much respect for her. The concert was amazing. The stage transformed like 7 or 8 times. She changed her outfit probably 10 times. The lights and sounds were amazing. All in all, it was an awesome concert. Probably the best I have ever been to. I have been to Kenny Chesney and Tim & Faith in Utah (I even got to touch Tim's hand once too), but this was a show. It wasn't just singing, it was her coming out of the ground, coming down from the ceiling on a motorcycle, her bringing in a pure black horse at the beginning and a pure white one at the end that bowed down. It was amazing. Loved it!

We have definitely been spoiled too. We went shopping, had filet mignon, and all sorts of special things. What a trip!

Despite all that, I can't wait to get home and kiss my girls and husband tomorrow. Fun vacation, but I can't wait to see my family again.

Goodnight.
 

Family protection

We are on a Vegas trip for Lauren's 18th birthday. With us is Kirt, Lauren, Tasha, Cooper, me, Tyson, and Kiley. Between bathroom breaks, food stops, diaper change stops, etc. It took us till 5:00 to get here, but it was alright. Kirt upgraded our van to a Mercedes Benz SUV... ya we are totally rolling in style... except that when we got to Vegas we all rolled out with our sweats and messy hair, but whatever :)

When we arrived Lauren, Dad, Tyson and I all went on the New York, New York roller coaster. Kiley is pregnant and she and Tasha don't like roller coasters anyway. It was way fun/scary! I loved it! Then we walked across the street on the strip to buy cheap tickets to The Variety Show and for dinner. The Variety show was great. It was a family-friendly (well, besides the immodesty) acrobat, comedian, juggler, magic, dancing show. We all really did enjoy it except for the parts that made us uncomfortable because of their clothing... or lack thereof. 

The trip has been fun and all, but the details of the trip are not what I wanted to focus on tonight. It is family protection. With poor, innocent little Tyson with us, the strip in Las Vegas is not the safest place. Well, it's not for anyone, but especially for a 12 year old boy who is (hopefully) just learning about the dangers of pornography. I guess when McKay was little sometime they were in Vegas and he thought the pornography cards that people were passing out were Pokeman cards. He excitedly grabbed one and said, "Pokeman cards!" So since then it has been a family joke that that's what they are. So tonight as we first started walking on the strip Kirt joked, "No one pick up the Pokeman cards!" So of course Tyson's reaction was, "These are Pokeman cards?" As he bent down to pick one up, we all screamed, "No!" We put our arms around him and explained what they really are as we giggled at him. Throughout the rest of the night we served as Tyson's personal bouncers. Tasha, Kiley, Lauren and I all surrounded him (while dad pushed the stroller with Cooper in it--as long as he was pushing the stroller no one tried to hand him the cards) and warned him to not look down, to look left, look right, wherever it was that pornography wasn't. He is amazing how many people are just handing it out! You can't go 20 feet without someone else trying to shove it in your hands! By the end of the night Tyson was joking about how he had been smacked in the face by each of us throwing our hands at his face to cover his eyes, and how he had been shoved between each of us like he had his own body bubble of protectors around him. He thought it was funny, perhaps kind of annoying, but I kept thinking about how wonderful it was to have a family who surrounded you to protect you from danger. It made me appreciate how family really should be that for each other. How we should point out the dangers in our lives and surround one another to form a defense against the adversary or any other dangers. I know it sounds silly to say that on the strip in Las Vegas I was feeling a spiritual lesson being taught in real life, but that is how I felt. I love my Bailey family and how we are always there for each other. If something tries to break in to one of us, we all jump on board to protect that person. I have been on the protection side and sometimes it feels a little annoying to always have people up in your business, but what a sad life it would be if I didn't have that.

That is my ramblings/testimony for the day. Goodnight.

I'm a little OCD

Today we got our cement patio poured in our backyard. I tried hard not to let my perfectionist side come out as they did their job, but there were a few times when I had to ask them to pour more cement against certain areas so there wouldn't be a lip where the cement that already exists hits the new cement. Then the curve on the one side seemed a little crooked.... seriously, I'm sure they hated me. We paid them $900 to do it though, so I wanted it perfect! When Dave got home, I was certain that I had made sure there were no flaws... then he found a big one. While I was looking for tiny imperfections, Dave stepped back and saw the big picture. They slowly angled it. So where our previous cement was and where our new cement ends at the edge of our house, it is off like 6 inches! Grrr.  It's too late to fix it and Dave thinks no one will notice, but I will.

I sometimes hate my OCD side. In my closet I have my shirts organized from long to short sleeves (think long sleeved sweaters, to light long-sleeved shirts, to 3/4 shirts, to short sleeved, to sleeveless, to camis). Dave's t-shirts are color coded. I'm seriously crazy I think! Sometimes Dave moves a yellow shirt into the middle of his black ones to see if I'll notice... like I won't! I smile and resist the urge to move it back for a few days, but then when I am putting away a batch of laundry and I naturally hang them up organized, I have to move the one he changed. Another weird quirk is light switches. If a room has two light switches to the same light, I can't have some of the switches on one side be up and some be down for all the lights to be off. I will literally walk to the other side of the room to turn them off so that when all the lights are off, the switches are all facing down. Do I need medication? Organized is one thing, but light switches? That's just weird. Sometimes I make myself ignore it, but after a while, I go fix it. I'm not like one of those crazy people who check the locks 7 times before going to bed or leaving the house, but I definitely have some quirks.

My sister Kami has been diagnosed with OCD. While mine is sort of funny, it's under control. It just makes me an organized/silly person. I'm not crazy when things are disorganized, I just feel more at peace when they are. Kami on the other hand can't handle if things are out of her preference.  If things don't go the way she thinks they should, she freaks out. What's bad is that it's with people too. If people don't act the way she thinks they should, she can't handle it. She's getting better though. Her OCD is detrimental to her in many ways. If she messes up on an art project, she rips it to shreds and starts over--even if it means she is way late or missing assignments because they weren't perfect.  If her room is messy, she can't clean it because she doesn't know where to start because things are too out of hand for her to cope with. So while I know I have some major OCD tendencies. I watch myself to make sure I only allow them to be constructive for me. I hope Kami figures that out too. She has come so far in the last year that I know she will eventually.

As a mom, I can't expect things to be perfect. I used to organize Peyton's bookshelf from tallest/thickest books to shortest/skinniest, but now Ella pulls them all out so they just get thrown in however. Sometimes you just have to do the best you can and not sweat the small stuff.  If I were to expect a clean house and healthy dinners prepared every night, I wouldn't do anything else during the day but that. But I have kids, and a job. So leaving the house a little messy so I can get caught up on work or ordering pizza so we have more time to play at the park or with dad in the evenings works for me. I used to try to be perfect more. I worked out almost everyday, I made weekly meal plans, I had reminders set on my phone to read my scriptures, I would stay up late to work so I didn't have to work when my kids were awake. But after so long, I started to just break down... frequently. My poor husband thought I was psycho I'm sure. So I've learned to let things go at times and hire a babysitter when I need some time to get things done. Perhaps I'm not a perfect mom/housewife by doing so, but it keeps me sane.

Well, enough of my crazy confessions of an OCD/imperfect mom. Goodnight.