I'm dyin' here!

Ameri ordered our new camera about 10 days ago and at about day 7 we were wondering where in the heck it was. He called the company we ordered it from and they said it was on backorder. Of course there was no notification from them AND their website said that it was in stock.

Ameri dropped the bomb on me and told me that it could be a couple more weeks before we get it. AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!! Doesn't he realize that a 11 month old changes daily? That my 3 year old has a Thanksgiving feast at school that needs to be documented? That Thanksgiving is here and so is my family? THAT I'M GOING TO UTAH FOR A WEEK WITH MY SISTERS AND THEIR KIDS AND I HAVE NO CAMERA????? How can he just give me the news so calmly? My blog is suffering here.

So, today I went to the feast and brought a disposable camera and prayed I got a few good shots. Thanksgiving is tomorrow and I leave for Utah this weekend. I'm going to try to find my old film camera and I'll probably have to get a battery for it. PLUS, the girls and I all have colds and we're all grumpy.

Fester, fester, fester. Whine, whine, whine.

On a positive note though: It rained in SoCal!! Buckets of beautiful rain!

We say "Oh my goodness" right?

You may have noticed the lack of pictures lately. We still have not received our new camera yet and since putting non-digital pictures takes more work to put on the blog, Halloween pics are slow in coming :)

In the meantime, Another random blog entry! Charley heard someone say, "Oh my G . . " on T.V. the other day and, of course, had to say it. I told her that we don't say that phrase. There are a lot of people out there who use it, but we believe that it's disrespectful (a big word for a 3 year old!) to our Heavenly Father if we say it. Instead we should use the phrase, "Oh my goodness."

Little Charley must think about this a lot because she's asked me about it 5 or 6 times a day since our conversation. This could indicate a couple of things:

1. She's still trying to wrap her little head around it
or
2. People really take God's name in vain A LOT.

Probably a little bit of both, but I'm thinkin' it's more the 2nd than the first. So sad. People don't really think about what's coming out of their mouths these days. Even my religious clients take God and Jesus' names in vain on a regular basis.

So, I love that Charley thinks about it often. She keeps saying, "We don't say THAT we say 'Oh my goodness' right Mommy? We don't want to hurt Heavenly Father's feelings do we Mommy?"

It's a good reminder to watch what we say around our little ones!

From Michele's blog

A few more Charleyisms

Yes, we all know that kids say the darndest things, and Charley is no different. Here are a couple of her recent pronouncements:


Me: "Charley! Stop that! That's very naughty!"
(Of course I can't remember what she was doing at the time!)

Charley: "Mom. I'm not being naughty, I'm being difficult!"

Oh, the political correctness that preschool teaches :)


When Charley gets in trouble she will never look into my eyes so that we can, shall we say, have a "heart to heart". I often say to her before we have our little chats, "Look at my eyes Charley . . ."
Yesterday she must have seen me do something she felt I needed some discipline on and she said the following:

"Mom! Look at my blue eyes! They're very dangerous eyes!"

I guess that's all she has to say because aren't "dangerous eyes" enough to get the point across?


P.S. Our sweet Madeleine is not to be out-done! She can now emphatically say, "Momma", "Daddy" and "Hi".

Tag - You're It!

I never do these tags because I'm WAY too lazy, but I can do this one because no pictures are involved!

1. Where is your cell phone? On the counter - it's an old crappy one because my new one died a watery death . . .
2. Where is your significant other? At work downtown.
3. Your hair color? Fading blonde, waiting for a highlight from my stylist on maternity leave
4. Your mother? in Orem, UT
5. Your father? Same as Mom.
6. Your favorite thing? A good book
7. Your dream last night? A weird one . . . can't remember the details
8. Your dream/goal? all kids married in the temple and active - ditto Cheryl! And a house of course!
9. The room you're in? Living room/office/dining room - still in an apartment!
10. Your hobby? Reading, working out, blogging
11. Your fear? Too many - I just don't want to realize that I will NEVER catch up.
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? In a house and "settled".
13. Where were you last night? Home watching "Eli Stone"
14. What you're not? Skinny
15. One of your wish-list items? Real Estate!
16. Where you grew up? Montana
17. The last thing you ate? PB&J
18. What are you wearing? Workout/work clothes. The usual black Equinox shirt.
19. Your TV? Love it, Ameri hates it.
20. Your pet? Don't have one, probably never will - Ameri's not a fan. I'm workin' on it!
21. Your computer? Dell
22. Your mood? So/so. I gotta clean up.
23. Missing someone? Family
24. Your car? In the garage downstairs.
25. Something you're not wearing? Shoes
26. Favorite store? Target and Pottery Barn Kids
27. Your summer? Short and busy.
28. Love someone? Family, always family.
29. Your favorite color? Lagoon blue. Makes me relax.
30. When was the last time you laughed? Today - Madie was being hilarious
31. Last time you cried? A while ago
I tag anyone who wants to play...it's kinda fun!!

The Ripple Effect

I'm not really sure what the pebble was that got the ripple going today, but whatever it was caused a nice little wave of chaos for me this morning.
My day was supposed to start at 4:30am so that I could train a client at 5am. Ameri rolled over in a panic this morning at 5:30 informing me that I had slept in. I had accidentally hit my 7:30 alarm instead of the 4:30 one. Not a great way to start my day, but I didn't think it would start what it did!
I had another client at 9:30am so I got the girls ready and got to the gym about 9:25 only to discover that my client wasn't there. I soon remembered that she had rescheduled for 8:30 tomorrow morning. I did a short workout and waited for my 10:30 client.
Yesterday I set up an appointment for my visiting teachers to come over at 11am today. I don't know why it didn't sink in during my down time at 9:30 that I wouldn't be home at 11am, but I just kept thinking that I would be home in time.
At 11:30 I was putting the girls into the car to go home and meet my VTs all the while promising Charley that she was going to be able to play with her BF Hadley who is the daughter of one of my visiting teachers. My blunder still had not caught up with me. It wasn't until I walked up to my door at noon and saw the note that my idiot brain caught on. So not only had I stood up the visiting teachers but I had to go back on my promise to Charley that she would play with Hadley today. She was quite cross with me!
In the end, I just had to laugh about it. Isn't it amazing how one small mistake can cause such chaos?

San Jose del Cabo - The Sea of Cortez

The beach in front of our hotel was quite beautiful. The sand was clean and the waves were huge! The thunder they made was oddly relaxing. It was not safe to go swimming in the surf right in front of the hotel, but thanks to Steve and Vicki we got to go out on a catamaran and sail a bit.

WAVES! Charley was NOT a fan!

Ameri's shots of "El Arco" at the tip of Baja were the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific meet.

All of us enjoying the Sea. I, of course, was the only one that got, shall we say . . . woozy.

Madeleine was an angel on the whole trip and Charley was brave and went with her daddy into the water. She was so proud of herself afterward! She kept saying, "I saw Nemo and Dory Mom!"

San Jose del Cabo - Our Stay at "Cabo Azul"

MEXICO! We had a great time in San Jose del Cabo at the beginning of October! Ameri and I invited my parents and my brother Steve and his wife Vicki to go with us. It proved to be very relaxing . . . well, as relaxing as it can get when you take two young children along! I KNOW, there are a lot of pictures, but I just couldn't help myself!

When we first arrived Charley saw the bathtub in our room and said, "Is that our cool (pool)?!"
She just had to try it out right away! When she saw the real "cool" she was in it every day for hours! Below are pictures of us enjoying the sun. We also have a view of the pool from our room and a view of our room from the pool!

Our rooms were absolutely gorgeous! We did have a few visitors of the winged variety. The moths down there are HUGE! The picture below does not do it justice!

Every night there were fires lit in the pools. Mmmmm . . . ambiance!

My Two Cents

I must tell you that I rarely write about anything political and I usually tend to be a turtle when things get ugly. I am not a Republican and I am not a Democrat. I tend to declare myself as an Independent because I don't think you should ever vote for something based on a word. It's like finding an answer to prayer. You have to STUDY every aspect of the thing and then make your decision and take it to God. I did not vote for Senator Obama for president, but I must say that I feel OK with the results of the election. I have many friends and some family who feel very angry/sad/scared about what we witnessed last night. I feel peaceful about it. I am not one to think that he is going to lead us to doom and gloom. You may disagree with me and I respect your opinion.

I think what our country needs right now is unity. I feel we can find it and we DO need to try. We need to give President-elect Obama a chance. There it is and that's how I feel. God Bless America!

I also voted "yes" on Prop. 8. Ameri and I have many dear friends who are gay. We love them and we respect them. Many people view a "yes" vote as racist or intolerant. I do not feel that way. I am a religious person and I feel strongly about God's Law. I would hope that many would respect my beliefs. I am not a bigot, I am not racist. I have to be on God's side and I believe that God defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. That is my belief.

That is all I am going to write about politics.

When it rains it pours.

Well, I've decided that Ameri and I are technologically cursed this week! The morning of Halloween I got up and got my girls dressed in Halloween atire and ready to go. My camera seemed to be having trouble focusing but I didn't think too much of it because I was in a hurry. I went to pick up Charley from pre-school after work, hoping to get lots of fun picks with her and her classmates, and wouldn't you know it? My camera gave up the ghost just then. Grrr . . . and right before trick-or-treating too!
I was supposed to pick Ameri up from the train and head to a nearby neighborhood for the festivities so I ran to Target to get some disposable cameras. After being spoiled with digital you remember how careful you had to be with EVERY shot - you don't want to waste film after all! Which we did of course!
Still feeling sad, though slightly elated (new one!) that my camera died, we went out to do some little errands today. We were quite excited because it was actually overcast here! It so rarely happens in SoCal that we were even taking the girls out shopping in the rain!
As we tried to get the girls into the stroller and under the rain cover in a torrent of rain I had forgotten that I left my cell phone in the top cup of the stroller while we were at Target (again!).
We went into another store and picked out a few things and as we were checking out I had my hand on the handle of the stroller. I said to Ameri, "Hey, put your hand on here. The stroller is buzzing!"
Ameri felt the buzzing too so I knew I wasn't going crazy. Finally we looked into the covered container in the top of the stroller . . . UH-OH! My phone was sitting in about an inch of water, buzzing away as it fried itself. Death by drowning.
What are the odds?? It never rains in this town, let alone a downpour! I rarely put my phone in that container but did today since Ameri and I needed to get in contact with each other at the store. It only rained for about 30 minutes and we just happened to be exposed in those 30 minutes. The heavens were aligned against us. Maybe it's a sign - of what I dare not think!

Rides, Games, and Winning!

After quite a few rounds on the bumper cars, a trip to the giant slide and one round of being a pirate, Steve and Ameri thought that they would use the left-over tickets at one of the game booths. We were skeptical as to what the outcome would be, but we were pleasantly surprised!

Charley and Emily take over the ship. They were very intent and much too busy to give us a smile full-on!

Madeleine's thoughts on the fair!

Steve and Ameri working strategy.

Darts in hand . . . wait, DARTS??

Look - we won!! Josh is behind the turtle!

Old MacDonald Had a Farm!

In September we went to the L.A. County Fair on my brother Steve's birthday. We had a great time with Steve, Vicki, Josh and Emily. It was, shall we say, different from my dear old memories of the Ravalli County Fair in Hamilton, MT! BUT, fair's are about food, animals, rides and pressing your luck at the game booths! Those elements were in L.A. just as they were in Hamilton. Here's a peak at our good time . . .

Madie's Movin'!

We're back! I know it's been a long while, but as blogging is my hobby, I had other things to focus on and my blog got the raw end of the deal! I've got some time tonight so I thought I'd share some pictures.

Madeleine is on the move. She is the cutest little crawler and she's started to pull herself up onto the furniture. A few weeks ago she was inching along the side of the sofa and she found Charley's dollhouse in her way. Rather than throw a fit she used it to her advantage!! She just turned her little bum around and sat down on the house! It was a great moment and I'm glad I caught it on film!

What?