Eden and Leila's Aquarium

The girls were upstairs playing when they rushed down to invite me to the GRAND OPENING of their aquarium!  After seeing what they had done, I had to get some pictures!

"Welcome to the grand opening of our aquarium.  Please come inside!" (Yes, they look a little possessed and crazy...Perhaps too much time with sea animals...)

"Here are our sea horses!"

 "Followed by our sea monkeys." 

"Next comes the tanks where you can touch our sea star, small fish, and sea slug."

 "In this tank we have our sea turtle, jellyfish, catfish, and sea glow worm."

 "And here are the sea cows!"

"And we even have a mermaid."

 

"These are few other animals we have, a frog, sea dog, sea duck, and sea chameleon."

"As well as our collection of sea bears."

 

Molly also enjoyed the trip the aquarium with me.  She fell in love with a sea monkey and requested to take it home with her.

And that was the end of the best aquarium I have ever been to.  And I LOVE aquariums....but this one tops them all.

March Madness

Alright, its about time I catch up on my blogging...

I plan to do a few posts (hopefully one a day) to get caught up on what's been going on around here...so nobody thinks "They went to Missouri...and died."  But that is pretty much what happened.  Sorry blogging world for having left you unattended and unloved.

I figure that we'll back up and work our way until the stuff that is going on NOW.  But this post will be a bunch of random things that happened in March.

St. Patrick's Day.  There are a few libraries close by with crafts and story time, the kids LOVE it.

 We got a zoo pass!  Seriously, we love it.  We went three times in two weeks and stayed from the beginning of the day until closing.  When we go to the zoo...we go all out!  See Leila in the picture below SO excited to be at the zoo.  She posed herself for this picture.

 We ended dance classes (for unfortunate reasons) and substituted with swim lessons.  The girls were THRILLED.  They had such a good time for those three weeks and we'll definitely be signing them up again.

 We go to the YMCA quite often.  I go there to exercise and the kids go to their child watch to play.  They also have a class for kids that my kids like to go to called "Totsercise".  They play music and play and do activities.  This is Leila on a little scooter for races.

 This is the little "family photo" with missing parents at the YMCA.  I love my girls.

 The weather going on and off in warmness (although, hopefully NOW that its May its warmed up for good....but these pictures were in March).  The girls LOVE the playground that is across the street from them.  I love it there to.  This is what they call the "Best Friend" swing because they can meet up with each other in the middle sometimes.

 And here's Molly.  She's just growing up so fast I don't know what to do!  She's just cute as ever.  I'm sure I'll end up doing a post about her later on this month because end of May..she turns 18 months!  WHAT?!?  Yeah.....time flies.

The First Stitch

...and I really do mean just ONE stitch.

Poor Eden got her first stitch a few days ago.  I have the girls take a kid's exercise class once a week at the YMCA and while running around Eden collided with a boy cutting the inside of her mouth.

I debated if she needed to go to the ER because I know the mouth heals super fast and often doesn't require stitches...but it was pretty big.  There was another mom at the YMCA who worked at an orthodontist's office and she looked inside the mouth and said, "she'll probably need one or two stitches."

Eden was frantic and I texted Tyson while at work.  He said to Truman (where he was working) first and he'd take a look at it to see if he thought she really needed it.  Sure enough, he said to take her in.  Children's Mercy Hospital is right next door to Truman where Tyson was working.  He even had a badge to get in and out of the hospital.  The doctors let him leave to be with us...which was awesome.

Children's Mercy was AWESOME!  Having a place that is dedicated to children made things go so much better.  Eden was scared but they had a team of people there whose entire job is to explain what's going to happen at the kid's level so they aren't scared and know what they can do to help.

She only had one stitch and since it was inside the mouth, they couldn't give her the numbing cream and didn't want to completely drug her just for a single stitch.  So, brave Eden took it on without any medication.  Tyson stayed to help out with Eden while I took Leila and Molly out to the waiting room to color.  One minute later, it was all done.

After it was done...Eden passed out.

Actually, Eden's version was "I just took a nap." and that she was very tired for the rest of the day.

Pretty normal for Eden.  She often gets light headed and/or passes out with needles around.  She woke up to a brand new teddy bear and popscicle waiting for her.  She sat and relaxed until she wasn't light headed anymore and could walk.  And we went home.

 For the last few days she's been swollen and talks like someone who just came back from the dentist with a cavity.  She can eat and drink like normal...with the exception she needs to use a baby spoon to get it in her mouth without bumping the stitch.  And the stitch already fell out like its supposed to.

The day after Tyson came back from work and said, "Eden!  All the doctor's at work were asking about you and how you were doing!"  Eden gave a strange look, "Why were they asking about me?"  Our reply, "Because they care about you and want to hear the story of what happened.  Wouldn't you be interested in hearing the story if you found out someone got stitches?"  Eden, "Yeah.  But I think they were asking because they are doctors and like talking about germs and stuff like that."

Probably true.

"I Want It Short"

I have been planning (and delaying) getting the girls a haircut for quite some time.

Eden was excited to go to our next door neighbor's little salon down the street.  Leila BEGGED for me to cut it.  I told her, "OK, I'll do it first, if it doesn't work out then I'm going to take it to Luisa's to get it fixed."  A deal was struck.

I put her in the highchair and she said, "I want it short."  She pointed to her chin....

...OK...

 (I love this picture...and also stand ashamed of my "less than responsible mommy moment" because Molly is on a regular kitchen chair where she easily could have fallen while bouncing, climbing, etc.  I let her stand and play on it while I cut the girls hair.  But it was so new and exciting to act like a big girl...that was possibly the only way I could get her to be happy when I chopped away.  I mean, look at her face!  She was one happy girl to be "big".)

Anyhow, I chopped and said, "oh dear...its DEFINITELY SHORT."  And seeing how much I had already cut and that it was a horrible hack job, I left it and said, "We're going to Luisa's."

Leila was making funny faces while taking these pictures, I couldn't quiet get a normal picture out of her....but she's still cute as ever.

 She LOVES her haircut and almost every day she looks in the mirror and says, "Oh, I am so beautiful!"  She thinks headbands are super cute and insists on wearing them...for about 5 minutes, then she insists on NOT wearing them.  But its OK.  She's super cute.

Eden wanted her hair cut as well.  She originally just wanted a trim but after seeing how brave Leila was she said, "maybe I want a few inches off...like this..." and pointed to about 3 inches.  So, I chopped three inches and then Luisa gave a few layers to her hair.

There's Something About Owning a Bathrobe...

...that makes you feel like you need a make over.

Take a nice bath...

Paint your toenails...

Put curlers in your hair...

You're own mini-spa really.

 Thanks Nana for the bathrobes.

While in the meantime, Tyson's working in internal medicine.

Wait, let me re-phrase that.

Tyson's working in the much anticipated and much dreaded internal medicine.

You know its lame when he needs to go to bed at the same time as the children every night to make sure he gets enough sleep and doesn't get to go to church for two months because "weekends" are a thing of the past.

Poor Tyson.

We're all lounging in bathrobes and he's working.

Poor, Poor Tyson.

Molly's 1st Birthday

She's one.  Time flies.  I don't remember my other children growing up this fast.

Molly is a ball of love.  It never ceases to amaze me how each of my children can be so different from one another.  She's been a joy in our lives, that's for sure.

A little about Molly:

• She's definitely got the lightest hair of all my girls
• Her favorite foods are lollipops. chocolate, avocados, and broccoli
• She doesn't talk much...
• Mom
• Dad (Da)
• Hello (Eh-Woah)
• Leila (Ya-Yah)
• Eden (Deh)
• Thank You (Day-Day)
• More (Mo)
• No
• Uh-Oh
• Banana (Na Na)
• Fishies (Shi)
• A few animal noises, mostly dog
• And maybe a few other words said here and there
• She thinks she's just as big as the other girls
• She's a REALLY good climber and LOVES slides
• She's under the charts on height and weight
• She gets really jealous if Leila tries to sit on Mom's lap
• She loves to pretend Dad's on the phone "Eh-Woah? Da?"
• She loves tubbies, being outside, and stroller rides
• She loves to give hugs and kisses and to blow kisses
• She's got 3 teeth and 2 more popping out
• She will blow her nose...unfortunately often on her own or other's clothes
• She loves baby dolls and taking care of them
• She loves peek-a-boo, reading books, and singing songs
• She loves sesame street songs with celebrities on youtube

Utah Fun

Although our little family is staying as a "little family" for Christmas this year instead of staying with "my parents" or "his parents" or, as often occurs, a little of both parents...we WERE able to visit for a few weeks during the holiday season.

Endless activities, snow play, and cousins accompanied by a serious lack of sleep.

No wonder my kids were so sad to leave and are currently suffering from "Utah withdrawals".

I had a great time as well...although, I admit that I definitely became sleep deprived (considering the first night back I slept in until 11...).

We were able to celebrate Molly's 1st birthday (for the second time...) with "decorate your own cupcakes and cake pops".

 Festival of Trees was lots of fun.  I thought Eden made an awesome choice to go inside the bubble machine. She thought that was pretty cool.

 Eden got her first "I miss you" love letter.  She went to visit Roman while in Utah and there was all sorts of boy-trying-to-impress-girl actions followed by lots of giggle-at-boy-trying-to-impress-girl actions.  She's just glad to be loved and missed.

 We went to Midway and did an early present exchange for the kids.  Leila got her first Legos and Eden and Eva both ended up getting each other the same gift, My Little Ponies.

 Then of course we were able to visit Santa (twice in fact).  Once at the JACL (Japanese American Citizen's League) party and another at my parent's ward party.

 Molly was a little worried when I handed her over to someone else to hold her...then she turned to see who was holding her and she was scared to death...*snap picture* then rescue the poor child.

There were several other activities that we did that were so much fun.  We went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert which was INCREDIBLE.  Eden and Leila sang a musical number for the neighborhood care center.  Alyssa and Ben hosted an AWESOME get together with family and friends where we sang Christmas carols and had special musical numbers and goodies to eat.  We were able to go see Frozen at the movie theater which they girls loved (they still dress up at home and play Frozen daily).

Oh, the activities seemed to go on and on.  It was such fun....the only sad part is that I'm not sure when we'll be back to Utah again....