Vacation

We just returned from a week long vacation, a much needed vacation.  We had a great time.  We spent time in St. George with Corey's parents and in Las Vegas (with all but Phoebe, she stayed with Grandma and Grandpa.)  I decided to spend my time enjoying things and not taking pictures so I only snapped a few pictures with my phone but they're still cute.

Fun in Vegas, these aren't the glasses the originally wanted to wear for a picture John wanted beer bottles and Bella wanted the boobie ones!


The Coke store enjoying soda from a bottle


M&M World






Caesar's Palace


Then we went bowling in Vegas, tons of fun








Enjoying a good buffet, Bella LOVES buffets


Hazel leaving the hotel


And hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's

Shirts

I've had the urge to do some crafts lately so I bought some iron transfers.  We finally got a new ink cartridge for our printer after not using it for over 2 years so I figured now was a good time.  I'd never used them before and had read mixed reviews but figured we give it a shot.  So far they've worked really good. 

I made John and Bella each a soccer shirt with their names on them.





A Spirit shirt for Bella. She has been begging for a horse shirt for a long time and loves Spirit.



And made made John's old cheap backpack into a Turtle bag

A pink bike

Lately Bella has wanted to be more girly.  She's quite happy to play in the dirt with trucks with the boys but slowly she's wanted to wear pretty things and have pink stuff.  I myself am not a girly person, and I hate pink but I love seeing her happy.  So when I found this pink princess bike at the thrift store for $5 I had to get it for her.  And the look on her face when I told her we could get it and watching her push it around the store was priceless.  The tires had to be fixed and the front wheel was a bit bent but after about 3 frustrating hours working on it Corey and I got it into working shape and she LOVES it.  And Corey surprised her today by getting her a new pink helmet to match it.

Hazel

Our little girl is 5 months old now.  The last 5 months have really gone by quickly.  She's chunky, smiley and happy.  In the last week she has gained a lot of head/neck control and actually enjoys a little tummy time now as well as a few minutes in the exersaucer.  I can't wait for her to sit up on her own, that's when the real fun begins and Phoebe is going to love playing with her.  She's still waking up to eat every 2-3 hours at night (that week of 6 hour stretches at 2 months was just a fluke I guess) but she eats quickly and goes right back to sleep so I really don't mind.

Quote of the Week

Bella:  Mommy John says I'm only pretty sometimes

Corey:  Bella, don't listen to him

Bella:  Well I don't want to listen to him but he talks loud

Oh the drama

Lots of drama around here.  Phoebe has definitely become a 2 year old and throws lots of typical 2 year old tantrums.  Mostly over being put in the cart at stores or when her drinks aren't just the way she likes (what exactly is the right way I still have not figured out.)

Plus John, he's quite dramatic.  Well so is Bella but she's really toned down quite a bit in the last year.  So here's some video I got of John being dramatic.  The first is of me trying to get him to ride Bella's bike.  It's a little too big for him but that bike had gone on sale and I wanted to see if he could do it (this was before we got his new bike.)



And the second is him after falling off his bike.  I'll preface this by saying he was NOT hurt, not even a little.  He had a tiny scrape.

Pop a wheelie

So the kids have been riding their bikes constantly the past few months.  And hanging out with tons of kids from the neighborhood.  The other kids all like to do bike tricks and Bella and John wanted to learn to pop a wheelie like the other kids.  Bella can't do it but John caught on quickly.  So I pulled out my camera and got some pictures.  It was all fun.

A few minutes later John fell off his bike so I went to help him up and as I did I noticed he wasn't wearing his helmet (I'm VERY strict about wearing a helmet) when I asked where it was he got a horrified look on his face and clearly had no idea he wasn't wearing it.  So I looked at my camera and to my shock realized he hadn't been wearing his helmet the entire time I was taking his picture (you know while he messing around on his bike doing tricks.)  And Corey had been standing right there watching and didn't notice either.  It's crazy how we got so distracted.  I wanted to delete all the pictures because I hate that he's not wearing his helmet in them but I couldn't get any good ones later so here they are.

None of the other kids in our neighborhood wear a helmet ever.  Makes me mad/disappointed.  If I could buy them all helmets and make them wear them I would.  And it makes it hard to explain to my kids why they have to wear them and no one else does.







We also got John a new bigger bike this weekend, an orange one which is totally his favorite color.  I cleaned out the rest of our old baby clothes and took them to the consignment shop, then used the money we got there to get the new bike.  We funded Bella's bike the same way.  A new bike and a cleaner house, a very good win.

Our first injury

So yesterday morning we were getting ready for the day, Corey and I inside getting the babies ready while John and Bella played out front on their bikes.  I heard a crying that seemed weird and didn't know if it was one of them.  Then it got louder and I knew something was definitely wrong, this was not a normal cry at all.  I came down the stairs and saw Bella standing at the open front door screaming with blood pouring out of her mouth and all over her hands.  Scared the crap out of me.  Corey came running and of course freaked out, he doesn't handle such situations well and his freaking out only scared Bella more.  So into calm mode I went.  Turns out she fell off her bike and landed on her face.  She broke her front tooth and ripped a big gash into the inside of her lip.  After seeing the broken tooth and such we took her over to instant care and got her cleaned up.  The ride there was so sad with her wailing in pain, but shortly after we got there she started to feel better.  And she was so brave and proud of herself for not crying at all at the doctor.

And I have to say we have great neighbors, as soon as we got back home three kids ran up to our van to see if Bella was okay.  They had seen her fall and were worried.  Today she looks much better already, the swelling is pretty much gone from her lip and her scraped chin is what looks the worst (and according to her hurts the most.)  Still have to take her to a dentist to check on the tooth but it looks pretty good so I'm hoping we'll be able to just leave it alone.  A chunk of it was hanging off originally and the doctor said "I'm just going to leave that alone because I honestly don't know if it's better to leave it or take it off... oh never mind it just came off."

And she was of course ready to jump back on her bike as soon as we got home.  Anyway this was our first real injury.

Week 8

It's back to school shopping time (although I don't need anything I still enjoy looking at stuff.)  Anyway that means that Target has workbooks in the $1 section.  I got a bunch last year that the kids really liked.  This year we didn't really need anything but I found math books with simple addition in them that looked good.  They're nice because each equation has pictures so the kids can count them.  I also got some little foam blocks in the $1 section that are great for math.  Both kids really love doing math so far, I hope it stays that way.