Birthday Girl

Lindsey just had her 2nd birthday. It was lots of fun and she got spoiled and felt special. We had church on her birthday so she decided to open all her gifts first thing in the morning. Please forgive Whitney's hair in the picture. She was in the middle of getting her hair done when the birthday girl woke up and started opening gifts.

 It only took a couple of minutes and here's the aftermath:

 She loved her big baby that's basically as big as she is:

 I attempted a first and made her birthday cake. As you can see, not too professional and it was my first time decorating a cake, I hadn't practiced or anything so don't judge too harshly!

 On a whim I decided to do a zebra print cake. Yes, I know they are black and not purple, but I only had purple food coloring and I didn't want to use a chocolate cake because we didn't need two cakes made.

 She insisted on going to bed with many of her new toys, not sure where she fit :-)

I just love this little girl. She is so sweet but also keeps me on my toes! I'm very grateful for her and the addition she is to our family.

Sea World

If you follow my blog, or know me at all, you know I love animals. Well, last year we got passes to the San Diego Zoo. They expire at the end of this month so I wanted something new to try while we are down here. Ty surprised me with Sea World passes for the girls and me! Yesterday I decided to try it out. I was nervous to go by myself to somewhere new. (I have a small comfort area down here and I don't like going into uncharted territory) It was actually super easy to find and the girls and I had a blast and can't wait to go back again.

We walked in and just started exploring and the first thing we see are flamingos right off the pathway. No gate, no fence, nothing. Just them standing and walking around, it was awesome to see them that close:

Then we walked over to the dolphins where we got to see them do tricks. We didn't make it to the dolphin show that is later in the day, so we are excited to watch that next time.

 Here is a trainer "surfing" on a dolphin:

 Lindsey and I got to touch this dolphin. Whitney had no interest doing that.

Here she is after she touched it, so thrilled right? :-) No, the camera was right in her face actually. It's hard to hold your almost 2 year old right over a pool to touch a dolphin and try to take pictures at the same time so no judging!

The bat rays were way cool to see. They are in the sting ray family. They were so big! Lindsey and I touched those also. You can buy food and hold it in your hand at the bottom of the pool and they will suck it off your hand!!! I don't think I'm that brave, but cool for some people I'm sure.

My little bottle nosed dolphin:

Shamu time:

I don't really know if I was expecting anything from the shows, but it was really cool. There is something really amazing about seeing an animal that big jumping out of the water and doing different tricks. I was very impressed.

We also went to Sea Lions live they did different spoofs on tv shows like CSI, Survivor and Dancing with the Stars. It was actually really funny.

 I didn't get any good shark pictures because it's dark in the exhibit, but it was really cool!

It was awesome to see the polar bear so close. It is a smaller enclosure than the zoo so we saw it pretty well. It walked right past us so the girls were really excited.

The walrus was awesome and SO massive. I felt that the enclosure is a little small for such big animals, but I can't really complain, I was so excited to see it.

This was an accidental shot but I really love it. I didn't know about the orca in the background until after I took the picture:

I'm so grateful to be able to be down here and experiencing all this. I feel like a tourist on a very extended stay. :-) I live down here but also take advantage of all the amazing things southern California has to offer. Oh and btw, our Christmas was awesome and we're happy to start a new year!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

 So to continue to kick off this wonderful holiday season I decided to scan in all our past pictures with Santa. Clearly St. Nick doesn't make my kids too jolly. I haven't taken them yet this year, so we'll see how it goes. I just thought I should prepare you if it doesn't turn out too well.

This is the only one where Whitney isn't crying but she's actually sitting on Ty's lap, not Santa's. So it doesn't count. (this one is for you Ash)

Christmas Fun

I started our Christmas season a little early this year. Maybe it was because I was almost done with shopping by Thanksgiving. Maybe because we only had 3 weeks down here after Thanksgiving before we go home. Either way, we really love Christmas around here. Here we are decorating the tree. Forgive my pictures, my camera is about to bite the dust. :-(

 I think they are pretty happy with how it turned out:

I saw this awesome tradition and had to copy it. Instead of doing 25 days til Christmas I did 18 days til we go to Grandma's house. I know it's kind of a weird number of days but I had to wait til I could get enough books and it just fell conveniently on family night when we decorated the tree so we just started then. I had a few books already and at our library there is a non profit bookstore so I got most of the books for 25 or 50 cents which was awesome. The most expensive one was $1.50. I was super excited to be able to start this tradition at such a low cost. The girls have really loved opening something every night and we love books around here.

 We got invited to have dinner with some ward friends and also to decorate gingerbread houses. She made little individual graham cracker houses for each kid and it was a lot of fun. I think more candy got in my girls' mouths than on their houses, but that's the point, right? :-)

Have you started any traditions this year? What are your favorite traditions? Hope your holiday season is going splendidly and that you can spend time with those you love (or at least like a little bit)

Thanksgiving

So today is Thanksgiving. Of course we all have a lot to be thankful for. But mostly my top thing is life. Yesterday I went to the Library and on my way there, on a residential street, there was a pretty bad accident with a car upside down and people on stretchers on the ground. I had been really depressed about being away from family for Thanksgiving but instantly I wasn't so depressed anymore. I'd much rather have miles between us versus the veil. We are all happy and healthy and you can look at the positives in any situation.
Today was really special. I'm pretty much done with Christmas shopping (super early for me!) so I've been dying to listen to Christmas music. I refuse to before Thanksgiving, so the first thing I did was put on my favorite Christmas music and my Christmas apron and got to work. Tyhad to work at 4 so we decided to have dinner early. We got multiple offers to eat with other people but we decided to stay with our little family. I knew it'd be weird and probably feel more homesick to be with other families. Plus with Ty working we didn't want to travel and worry about being back on time. I've been sick the last couple of days and by this morning, I had almost lost my voice completely. It made it hard for me to bark orders at request help from Ty, but everything went really well and I thought the food was pretty good. I went pretty simple but did stretch myself to make Ty's mom's sweet potatoes and my mom's gravy. The only thing I regretted was making refrigerated rolls. My sister and MIL always make awesome rolls so I missed that.
I'm sorry my data limit is reached on blogger so I'm not sure what I'll do with posting pictures, but I'll figure it out soon!
Like I said I'm thankful for a lot of things. When I first found out Ty had to work today, I was sad and upset. But today I was thinking, I'm grateful he has to work because I'm grateful he has a job. How many people across the country are unemployed and would jump at the chance to work, even on Thanksgiving, if it meant having a job? I'm so grateful for the experience we had to have Thanksgiving with our own little family. It'll probably be the only time we do it. It  was so special and I felt so much love from across the country. I hope you all enjoyed the time with loved ones and got some yummy food. Whitney told me this was the best Thanksgiving ever and I was very touched. (even if it's the only one she remembers)
How was your holiday?

Halloween and Hobbies

Back at the beginning of October I was feeling a little unfulfilled. Life as a stay at home mom is important, and can be busy but you don't always have something at the end of the day that says "look what I did." I decided to start making hair bows. I knew some basics so I bought a few supplies and got started. It is lots of fun! I especially like that it #1 saves us money and #2 if I need something specific to match an outfit, I can just find matching ribbon and make it myself! I haven't made too many but I'm glad I started it. I made Halloween bows and here are some bows I made for the Utah game:

Now that it's Thanksgiving I guess I should post about Halloween! We had such a crazy day! We went to storytime and trick or treated at the library, lunch with friends, drove in crazy rush hour to pick up Ty from work, dinner with more friends, then trick or treated for real this year! It was a super crazy day but lots of fun. We all slept good that night! I didn't take many pictures I was too busy I guess. :-)