Kansas City Temple

Laura, Eric, Trey and Ramona came to visit us and we had so much fun together.  One of the days (Sunday) we visited the Kansas City Temple to get pictures taken in front of it.  The Watsons are creating a temple journal where they are visiting as many temple as they can and taking pictures of each of them in front of the temple for memory books.  It was nice to have Eric there with an awesome camera to take pictures.

 More of our adventures with the Watson's to come!

I Have a Picture...But Don't Know Why

I realize that its probably ridiculous to TRY to take a picture of our fish...cause they are TINY.

But our tank is overrun with guppies.  The fish keep having more and more and more babies.  We currently have our original fish, our medium sized fish, our small fish, and our ultra small fish.  Oh boy...and it just keeps going.

But our girls love it.

And I admit, I kind of love it too.

We know that we need to start getting rid of them...but its heartbreaking for me to think about...

"Which ones should stay and which should go?"

"Rid of the males?"
      "But they are the pretty ones."
"Rid of the females?"
      "But we LOVE our original girl fish with boy names! Can't rid of BRUCE!"
"Rid of the babies?"
      "But they are so cute and tiny and don't deserve to die!"
"Rid of a few at a time?"
      "But how I decide which go first?"
"Do a mass flushing?"
      "A little Holocaust right?"
"Set them free in a pond?"
     "They probably would be eaten as soon as I dropped them in."

It all just makes me sad and Tyson may have to do it without me knowing because I don't think I can get rid of my little fish.

Happy Birthday Eden!

I can't believe my little Eden is six...

We made sure to decorate the house (unfortunately there aren't any pictures) with Elsa/Frozen colors of white and blue and a special birthday sign.

Since dad had work early in the morning and didn't want to miss the celebration, we woke the girls up early to give her the presents early.

She LOVES the bike.  And she was even so excited she wore the helmet during breakfast.

 Later in the day we had a "decorate your own cupcake" party with neighborhood kids.  It was a little crazy and there were PLENTY of candies to put on our cupcakes.  We also had a special guessing game with different colored boxes filled with different "Frozen" items and whoever guessed the closest got the prize.  There were two "princess necessities" packages filled with rings, bracelets, mini crowns, etc.  There was one filled with "Olaf Snowballs" or mini marshmallows.  There was one filled with "Sven droppings" or chocolate covered peanuts.  There was one filled with "Gold Bars" or Hershey's chocolate nuggets.

 This is the beginning of the party...which started nice and calm.

 Later we decorated a leftover cupcake with this number 6 candle that she REALLY wanted me to get.

Here's a little about Eden:

• She's my little princess who loves make overs, dresses, and anything pretty.
• She's a really good reader and can read most things.
• She loves to draw and says she wants to be an artist when she grows up.
• She's still my social bunny, making new friends and talking to everyone she meets.
• Her favorite breakfast is oatmeal.
• Her favorite lunch is macaroni and cheese.
• Her favorite dinner is clam sauce pasta and corn on the cob.
• Her favorite desserts are cupcakes.
• She loves her new bike and rides is everyday.
• And she has a HUGE imagination and creates endlessly.

FREE CAR WASH!

*Note:  This may be constituted as a "bad mommy moment" by many....I was a little nervous myself...

The girls has a great idea to do a service project (Eden recently decided she wanted to do more service for others).  After playing outside I realized they were going in and out of the house with a little bucket of water.

"What are you guys doing out there?"
"Washing the car."

I went outside and sure enough they were washing the car...even climbing on top.  After snapping a picture I did have them come down because it was getting slippery and didn't want them to fall.  Then I'd have to write ANOTHER news article post about another terrible accident caused by poor parenting.

But even Molly loved washing the car.  The car was....improved (for the most part) except many window streaks.  But they had fun.  That's what mattered.

A Little Something I Forgot to Mention

Leila Before...

Leila After...

Notice a difference?

Bangs.

I was SOOOOO excited to finally get rid of her bangs once and for all when she asked me to cut her hair short.  THEN, not too long after she came to me with a chunk of hair.

Leila:  "My hair just came out!"
Mom:  "WHAT?!  Where did your hair just 'come out'?"
Leila:  "Behind the chair."

There wasn't sign of tons of hair...but I could definitely see the missing chunk right in front.

*Sigh* Bangs....again.

I thought, "At least they aren't super short."

Little did I know that I could only see the outer self-cut bangs.  As I pulled her hair back later to chop bangs...I found it.  The SHORT layer.  Clipped RIGHT to her head with about a quarter inch left to spare.

Now I'm just praying for these strange looking group to grow back as quickly as possible....

Cinco de Mayo Fiesta

I realized that I like to celebrate the "often overlooked holidays".

At the last minute we planned a Cinco de Mayo party with a few friends, the Drus and Ellsworths.  It was seriously a BLAST.  We had a pinata with candies, bubbles for each child, and squirt guns...which ended up QUITE a water fight (the husbands being 100% to blame).  And we ate our own version of Cafe Rio pork salads, and tres leche.  Delicious!

Molly cleaned up everyone's plates.  She ate her own and several leftovers from kid's Cafe Rio plates as well as her own and any leftovers found from kid's tres leche left behind.  She was a happy girl. She has a new favorite holiday.

Washington DC

Tyson had a radiology conference in Washington DC.  I had never been...so decided to join in the fun.  Nana and Aunt Lydia came to watch the girls for the six day trip.  I had never been childless for so long.  I must admit, the "me parties" were pretty awesome (although I did miss my kids).  Tyson had a few days of conferences to go to, so I trekked on alone for a few days.

The weather was AWESOME.  It was either sunny or down pouring rain...which I LOVE.  I'm a rain girl.  Thus, the second picture of me happily smelling the wet cement, listening to the rain hit my umbrella, and enjoying the sites.

I took the subway everywhere.  It was quite an amazing site in and of itself!

Here we are visiting the monuments.  I guess Tyson and I don't take as cool of "selfie" pics as the couple in back of us...

We attended a service and listened to a bagpipe band at the National Cathedral, which was incredible.

The National Zoo was definitely one of the tops on my list.  Then again, I love the zoo in general.

(This HUGE spider was a part of the zoo in an OPEN cage.  There were a few of them with MASSIVE spider webs.  They said that they are good spiders and stay in their webs, but they keep it under control by watching if their webs start to stretch out too far our of their corner, then they'll get rid of those webs right away.  Creepy.

 And this was the final picture we took before we left for home.  It was a wonderful trip!

The Terrible Train Accident

There was a terrible wagon train accident on Platte Purchase Drive several weeks ago.  Able to admit her mistakes, Mom confesses.  "I had my three children and a neighbor child sitting inside the three person wagon.  They asked me to go faster and when a turn came there simply was too much weight in the wagon.  So we tipped over." says Mom.

And who was to receive the worst injuries?  The youngest of the group, 17 month old Molly Finlinson.  When the other children could use their reflexes to stop the blow with their hands, Molly stopped the blow with her face.  She had bleeding on her forehead, nose, mouth, and chin.  It was a tragic day.  The other children also suffered minor injuries that required band aids, ice packs, candy medicine, and love.

Below are pictures of the injured child. The injuries took several weeks to heal.  But there were few complaints from Molly, simply childlike forgiveness.

Molly Meets Molly and Other Silly Stories

Story #1

Molly Meets Molly

Once upon a time, a girl named Molly moved into a new neighborhood. Come to find, there was another girl in the neighborhood named Molly.  THEN to find there is also a dog named Molly in the neighborhood.  That's when Molly realized...she has friends.  The End.

Story #2

"Selfies"

One dark and gloomy night....strange things began to happen.  Mysterious pictures started to appear on my phone.  These mysterious pictures are known as "selfies", pictures that one takes of oneself.  HUNDREDS of these pictures have taken over my phone.  But I keep them around (talking about the pictures, not my children although I'll definitely keep them around too)...because they make me smile.  The End.

 

Story #3

Sisters Need to Be Silly Sometimes

There once were two sisters (actually there were three, but this story is about two of the three) who were silly.  Extremely silly.  They were good friends (most of the time).  They loved their mother to take silly pictures of them.  They loved to perform silly songs and dances for anyone who comes to listen.  They simply loved being silly.  And they had a special bond...called being sisters.  Sister are awesome.  The End.

Story #4

The Other Sister

The third sister, not noted in the above story, was equally loved...and equally silly....if not, MORE silly.  She LOVES hats and shoes...but HATES wearing clothes.  She always seemed shocked an amazed at the world often pronouncing "WOAH!".  Her sisters love her and each have a different kind of bond with her.  Her sister, Eden, likes to play with her and be silly with her.  Her sister, Leila, will often do many things to help out Molly and look after her.  The End.

 

And that concludes this silly post with random pictures of the three most adorable kids in the world.

Easter "EGG"stravaganza!

(I needed to write that title because all Easter long Eden was trying to come up with new "pun"ny ways to use the word "egg" in her everyday language...she LOVES a good pun!)

In the "non-commercialized" side, we did a few fun activities the week before Easter to talk about the week before Christ's resurrection.  We did a play (which those pictures vanished somewhere...) on the triumphal entry of Christ starring Leila (as Jesus Christ), dad (as the donkey), and the rest of us as the people who lay the palm leaves and shout "Hosanna!  Hosanna!  Hosanna!".

We mostly just read the rest of the stories in the days prior and also watched the end of The Testaments.

But as for the commercialized side of Easter...man, my girls made out big-time.

The town homes we live in had an Easter egg hunt with TONS of eggs as well as some children's books.

Before the baskets were filled, they made LOVELY hats.

 

 We got home, the girls got a package from Grandma and Grandpa Sakamoto with goodies, clothes, hair pretties, etc.  The girls instantly had a change of clothes.

 In fact, they changed several times....and probably got a little crazy with the candy overdose...

The Easter Bunny left them baskets, of course, as well.  The girls all got the same thing, except Molly got a stuffed animal bunny and Leila and Eden got a small "girl" LEGO set (that they played with for hours and hours and hours during the next few days).

(Note:  Molly's morning hair...awesome)

 Then we had another older lady in our neighborhood who gave the girls EACH an Easter basket with several candies (including large chocolate bunnies), hair bows, and a few other gifts.

Then we went to play at the park on Easter Sunday (because Tyson had to work...) where we ran into a neighbor friend doing an Easter egg hunt.  They invited (begged) us to come gather eggs.  They seriously had HUNDREDS of eggs for about 10 kids.

Then we walked home to our next door neighbor who said, "Hey!  We tried to knock on your door because we wanted you and your girls to join us in our Easter fun!"  So, we joined in again and got more eggs with more candy and they also had a larger egg filled lots of goodies for each of my children.

Luckily, Luisa, my neighbor also has a nice camera and took several pictures of the event.

 The best part of the party was these hollowed out egg shells (they had collected since Christmas) that they filled with confetti and cracked over each other's heads!  We had a good time and even took some home to crack over dad's head after work.

We have awesome family and awesome neighbors.  It was a great Easter!