Puzzles

 After trying to ignore the fact that I was sick for a few days, I finally took a sick day a couple of Fridays ago. 

We stayed home and did puzzles all morning!

Aubrey was able to do the puzzles all by herself and she was so excited!

Brookie did the cut out shape puzzles and was happy that she could do those all by herself.

Since we were staying at home all day I decided to attempt Brookie wearing underpants. Look at those cute panties peaking out!

After they finished their puzzles they would do a little "I did it dance."

During quiet time I gave Aubrey some jig saw type puzzles without a board to show the shapes. She was able to do those as well all on her own. She sure gets excited whenever she does something new. I love it too! Such fun!

Random Stuff

 I've been busy for the last couple of weeks with the Primary Program, doing fun things with my girls, planning my next preschool and being sick. (I just got a cold on top of another cold. Seriously lame.) Anyway, I have several blog posts to catch up on, but I thought I'd start with a few odds and ends.

The girls have been really into building with their blocks again. They both asked me to take a picture with them and their creation.

Aubrey really wants to make a goal during a soccer game, but she is just not aggressive enough. She is one of the few on her team that actually knows which way to kick the ball at any given time and can totally do it in practice or at home, but once you get 8 kids around the same ball she retreats. It's hard to teach her that generally it's good practice to be polite, but not when you're playing sports! So, I've been taking pics of her getting goals in practice to help her feel a little better about not getting one in the games.

She sure is having a fun time though, and is super sad that this week she has her last game of the season.

 

Here's Brooke getting a goal too!

These two looked adorable cheering for Aubrey together! (I think it was especially cute to me because generally she is all over me. I LOVED that she was finally snuggling with her daddy!)

 Brooke is so ridiculously picky with what she wears. She has like 4 favorite outfits that she only wants to wear. I only do laundry once a week, so the other days she goes looking for her favorites and gets upset when I tell her they are all dirty. Anyway there are several adorable outfits that she has absolutely refused to wear this spring and summer. The one in the pic. below is one of them. One day a few weeks ago, I had it, with her refusing to wear her cute clothes. So, I pretty much forced her to wear it. She was mad as all get out and cried all the way to the library. After the library we went to Walmart. While there she had the worst blow out ever. I would go into detail, but it's really gross. Basically there was yuckiness all over her, the cart and the groceries in the back. So, of course we had to change her outfit and she could no longer wear it out to dinner with my family, which was one of the main reasons I insisted that she wear it. I wonder if her blow out was sort of on purpose! "I'll show you what happens mommy when you don't let me pick out my own clothes!"

Here are some quotes from my girls over the last few months: (If you read my posts on Facebook, they'll be redundant. I put them there to remember them before I get a chance to blog about them.)

One night Brooke and I were talking about something she had done naughty earlier. Brooke said, "You were so mad, like a monster." Sad and kinda funny at the same time.

Brooke had been crying herself to sleep every night. I didn't know if Aubrey had even noticed. One night when Aubrey said her prayer she first asked that she wouldn't throw up (like she did many times the day before) and then said, "Please bless Brookie not to cry while she sleeps." It was so sweet!

Aubrey asked me one day, "Mom, when am I going to get married?" I told her it would be in a long time. She thought for a moment and then asked, "Is it when I am old enough to live on my own and I can go out and find my Prince?"

The first words out of Brooke's mouth one morning were "I was naughty yesterday." I replied, "Yeah, but usually you are a nice girl. Will you be nice today?" Her response, "Yeah I want Santa to come."

Brooke loves her "yellow hair". We watched Tangled one morning and at the end when her hair gets cut off and turns brown, Brooke was really disturbed. She kept asking over and over again, "Where's her yellow hair?"

The next day we watched Tangled again. Towards the end Brooke looked over at me and said, "I love you most." Totally made my day!

This is a conversation I have with Brooke daily, "Brookie you are such a cutie." Brooke - "No I'm not a cutie". Me- "Then what are you?" She usually responds, "I'm just a Brookie bug." One day however she said, "I'm a child of God."

Aubrey asked me, "Do you put your ear to your tummy to listen to the spirit?"

At breakfast one morning Aubrey asked, "Will you be the Grandma to Brookie's babies too?" I responded that I would. She then got all teary eyed and said, "But, when you're the Grandma to Brookie's kids, I won't remember Brookie." I assured her that she would remember Brookie and be her sister forever - and she felt much better.

Every morning Brooke wants to share my eggs with me. So one day I made her her own. She threw a huge fit saying, "I don't want my own egg, I want to share your egg!"

As I was looking for Aubrey's lost ring, Aubrey dropped to her knees and said, "Heavenly Father help Mommy find my ring. Tell her where to look for it. . . " So sweet!

Aubrey was upset and crying. Brooke heard her and said, "Heavenly Father wants us to be happy. I better go check on sissy." So sweet!

Aubrey asked the question I knew would eventually be coming. "Mommy where is our chimney?" My response, "We don't have one, because we don't have a fireplace." Aubrey then asked, "Then how does Santa get into our house?" I think I'm going to have to be a lot sneakier this year!

Yesterday Aubrey asked me why we are born as babies and then get bigger. I explained that it's the way Heavenly Father planned, that parents have babies to teach and take care of. She then asked, "But how were the first people born?" I seriously never knew 4 year olds were capable of thinking that deeply! I reminded her about Adam and Eve and we had a good talk about it. I never knew these types of questions would come this young!

Week 15

I lost 4 lbs this week!! I am thrilled! It certainly helped that I was sick and nothing sounded good to eat - but I will take it any way it comes! Now my total weight loss is 30 lbs! Yipee!

I am only 7 lbs away from my pre Aubrey pregnancy weight! That's the first tier of my weight loss goal. After that I'd like to shoot for my pre-wedding weight, that would be another 30 lbs after that. Then who knows, maybe I'll try for another 10 lbs and get to my pre college weight. The skies the limit!

Mommy and Me Time

 Our local Trampoline park has a special Mommy & Me time during the school year. It's super affordable and it's just for young children. It's great because it's never very busy and there's no big kids making it scary for my little munchkins.

Aubrey could NOT wait for Mommy & Me time to begin. When I finally found out the day it was going to start, Aubrey started counting down the days. Brooke remembered it from last year too and was also very excited!

First item of business was the big slide.

Last year I hiked up with Brooke over and over again. This time she was able to do it on her own. I missed out on some really good exercise!

Every time we go Brooke talks about wanting to go in the Monkey bounce house. And every time she gets in there, she gets really scared. What a funny kid!

I love that the girls get some really good exercise and get to jump out a lot of their pent up energy!

Aubrey has gotten so much braver. Here she is leaping off this big block with no fear at all. Yipee!

The new addition was this foam pit. Once Aubrey got up the nerve to try it, she loved it. Here she is leaping in. I love to see her hair flying in the back!

Brooke would only try it if Sissy held her hand. Too sweet.

Aubrey's friend Keagan and her fam met us there.

Here's the cute kids begging us to put money in the rides. Sorry kids, no quarters.

I loved Brookie's flying hair.

And hey I was there too!

We'll be making many more trips to the trampolines this school year!

Fall Activities are in Full Swing

During one of our last visits to the water park a couple of weeks ago I was feeling sad about Summer ending and told my girls that the water park would be closing in a few days. My sweet Aubrey replied, "Yeah but so many fun things are starting, "Preschool, Story time, Jump on It & Dance class." So I decided to try and take on Aubrey's good attitude and move full speed ahead into our favorite Fall/Winter Activities!

First was Preschool that I already posted about. Since Aubrey was soooo excited for it, I finally got excited to plan for it!

Aubrey's dance class began last week and it was fun to see my little cutie dance again!

See the teachers arm pointing at Aubrey, she was telling the class to look at Aubrey and do it like her. Proud momma moment!

Aubrey showing us the curtsy that she learned to do in class.

 Story time started up again at the library. (I only had my cell phone so the quality is really bad.) Brooke stays with me for the 2 year old story time while Aubrey goes to another room for the "Big kid" story time. Thus no pictures of Aubrey. Brooke has been so interactive at story time. Last year she was timid but now she calls out the answers and gets into the songs and movements. I LOVE it!

 

We even got to go with cousin Isla to the baby story time, so we could show her how much fun it was!

  

 Mommy and Me time at the trampoline fun center finally began this week! (More pictures to come) It's a good thing that it started because Aubrey may not have made it waiting another week. She asked me on at least a weekly basis all Summer if Mommy & Me time had started yet. Both girls were thrilled to go jumping around on the trampolines and bounce houses!

 

 We went to see Winnie the Pooh at the dollar theater. Now that both girls are old enough to sit through a movie we will probably do this more often. Plus we discovered that it's only .75 on Monday nights. I knew Aubrey would not be happy if we skipped FHE, so we did that on Sunday night and then hit the theater on Monday night. Super fun and definitely a must do again! Oh and the girls absolutely LOVED Winnie the Pooh! They can't understand why we can't watch it at home now. They are much to used to Netflix!

 

 

Aubrey has had more soccer games for us to enjoy.

One time we got there before most of the team had arrived, so I let Brooke go out and kick around the ball. She was thrilled. However, she was not so thrilled when I told her she was done :(.

Look at those cutie little soccer buddies! We have to remind them every game that once the game starts they cannot hug each other any more. The coach finally caught on and no longer puts them in the game at the same time!

Finally getting to play on the playground that's been beckoning my girls each week.

Aubrey finally braved hanging from the monkey bars. She has been really wanting to attempt the monkey bars but has chickened out every time. There were kids there around her size doing the monkey bars, so she finally attempted it. Now the next step is to swing onto the next bar! You can do it Aubrey!

  And since the weather is still nice we've been able to continue our picnics at the park. And I have to admit that with the weather cooling off a bit, our times at the park have been much more pleasant!

Look at all these cute little kids!

Brooke and Clayson were there too!

I am totally in love with this picture that Esther took of Aubrey swinging and Isla at the park. So cute! I'm pretty sure that Aubrey wishes we could take Isla home with us and she can be her mommy!

Both girls insisted on wearing their Minnie Mouse attire when went on a picnic with Esther, Isla, Summer & Beckham. (I didn't bring my camera and so don't have any pics of Summer & Beckham.Esther took these photos with her iphone) And since she looked like Minnie, Brooke had to bring Minnie along for a stroll.

Me and my sweet girl!

We've also visited a natural history museum, a dinosaur museum and a museum of people's and cultures. I failed to bring my camera on those outings.

I have to admit that Summer ending and Fall beginning hasn't been nearly as depressing as I thought it would be. Although when we have to bring out the coats and the snow starts to fall and it feels like it will never be warm again, then that depression will most likely come back!! But, for now I will follow my Aubrey's example and look forward to all of the fun things to come. After all the holiday season is just around the corner, starting with our family favorite - HALLOWEEN!

Little Ladies Looking Lovely

 In an effort to pretend that my Summer is not ending, I dressed my girls up in their Easter dresses on Sunday. I thought they looked like such pretty little ladies!

Here's my Baby (she'd be so offended if she knew I called her that!)

 Here's my Little Miss.

 

. Here's the sweet sissy's

 I Love my little sweethearts.