Guns & Mermaids

This past weekend Eric's brother Todd and his fiance Mallory came to visit. Somehow I made it through the entire weekend without a picture of them, but they were here! We went down to the Silverton to visit Bass Pro Shops and see the Mermaids.

Sade loved the Mermaid! She remarked to Eric, "I want to be a Mermaid when I grow up."

We also took numerous pictures with guns.

Future NRA members?

Thanks for visiting Todd and Mallory!

The Fever

Before posting this picture I had to PROMISE Megan I would make it perfectly clear that she is not a Justin Bieber fan. I repeat: She Is Not A Justin Bieber Fan. However, we have all had a little Bieber Fever this week when Megan discovered this cool wig in the garage and dressed up like you know who.

It was also talent night last night at Activity Days! To preface: Activity Days is a church related class that girls ages 8-12 go to twice a month. So this is essentially how the night went: Piano player, piano player, piano player, cello player, piano player, and now bar tricks from Megan McClellan. And I couldn't have been more proud. After all I am intensely jealous of her cherry stem knotting abilities.

To be fair there were also a couple of other non-traditional talents like paper-airplane making and origami. It was a fun night.

Sade's Update

Just a few things about Sade's.

She put on this outfit and called herself the, "Top Chef Cheerleader."

She was having a conversation (or fight) with Jackson over breakfast about who was more awesome. She finally won the argument by shrieking 3 times, I'M THE MOST AWESOMENEST!"

She also told me later in the car: "Mom I'm way cooler than Jackson because I can twirl."

I am loving this pic of Sadie looking a bit red-necked. Shirt off, tattoo on, hooded eyelids. Looks like that She must have snuck something into that Danimal.

A conversation we had:

Sadie: "Mom look how big I am." (as she was laying on the ground)

Me: "Wow Sade. Pretty soon you will be bigger than me."

Sadie: "Yep. And one day I will have really big boobs." Say What?!!

Gothtastic

If you have been a reader of my blog for a while, you may remember when Eric and I dressed up for standards night a while back.

Eric was Snake Felony and I was a 15 year old schoolgirl. It was quite enjoyable. So this year I was very excited to get the call to dress up again. And even more excited when I was asked to dress up goth!

 

The eyebrow ring, lip ring, and spiked dog collar were my favorite parts.

I am also partial to my purple Doc Martin boots, that I have insisted on saving all these years since high school. I knew I would have occasion to wear them again.

Sadie did not find my new persona likeable in the least. After seeing me in the make-up for the first time she said, "You look scary." She then ran out of the room and would not come to me for the rest of the night. As you can tell by the above picture, when she discovered she was going to have to sit next to me on the way home, she was not amused. She cried the entire way home. Poor Sade's.

12 X 12 - February 2011

Well I guess a 12 X 12 is as good a time as any to start blogging again. The last month and a half has been tough, and hence my blogging suffered.

I woke up Saturday morning to see my little Sade in bed with us. Lately she has been coming in quite often. Usually around 3 am. She comes to the side of the bed and asks, "Can I cuddle with you?" Neither Eric or I can resist her, so we of course say yes. Luckily she is a calm sleeper. I don't think I would be so accommodating if she was a kicker.

 Jackson was the only one awake when I walked out to the living room. I found him working on his Valentines. This year he chose paper airplane Valentines.

I left the house quite early (7:45 am!) to make it to a Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting. I do not enjoy early mornings, especially when they come on a Saturday. Nevertheless, I went.

I came home and was very happy to see Eric had made pancakes (with fresh blueberries). It almost made up for my early morning.

After he left for work, I didn't feel like doing anything (including cleaning my messy house), so I climbed under my covers and started a new book.

I was soon joined on my bed by Sade, who delighted me with a very special dance performance.

 My reading time ended up turning into a nap time for me. I knew better than to crawl into bed, but I was just could not help myself!

My kiddies spent most of the afternoon outside enjoying the 70 degree weather. Eventually they came back in, and I gave Jackson a hair-cut. He has literally been asking me every day for weeks to cut his hair, and I finally obliged.

 He needed it!

When Eric finally came home, we went to Macayo's.

I swear we have not been in over a month, although it seems like we go all the time.

 In this picture Sadie is sticking her "booty" out at us, and singing the ever popular "Shake My Booty" song. She finds it hilarious (and so do the rest of us).

After dinner, we went to Wal-Mart to grocery shop. It was painful. My kids were surprisingly good, even though it was late, but the lines were horrendous! I am talking about 10 people deep, backed up into the clothing section horrendous.

 We made it home, quite late. I took my pain pills and went to bed! I wasn't going to blog about the reason for taking pain pills, but it seems if I include them in my 12 X 12 some may wonder about them. So, for those that do not know, I had a D & C last week, and still have to take the pills for some residual pain. But I am doing much better now, and think the pain pills will be relegated to the medicine cabinet soon.

Red Rock

Monday was a perfect day. If you are reading this from a cold climate....I am sorry. We have had the most amazing weather this past week. I don't remember January ever being so nice. As luck would have it, Eric was off of work on Monday, so we were able to thoroughly enjoy the unseasonably warm weather at Red Rock. And to make it even more enjoyable, when we arrived we discovered it was a free day! Woo-hoo, I love going places for free.

Our first stop was Calico Vista. We have never hiked there before, and it was beautiful. We climbed plenty of rocks, and were able to hike pretty deep down into a canyon.

Jackson's naturally cautious demeanor surprisingly leaves him when we hike. He is a wild climbing man!

Megan is always fearless.

See the hole down there, by all the trees? That is where we climbed down. It looked quite scary from this vantage point.

And Sade's always does her best to keep up.

After we explored Calico Vista, we went to Lost Creek. This is one of our favorite hikes, and is perfect if you have small children. 

Especially if you have small children who still like to be carried. You won't tire yourself out too much.

While hiking we experienced quite the traffic jam. Although this is a fairly easy hike, if you have trouble walking on flat ground, walking uphill, over rocks is probably going to prove difficult for you. We were stuck behind a fairly old woman, who could not walk unassisted. I am shocked she did not fall in the river.

But we finally made it! This waterfall generally flows January through March.

Here we are behind the waterfall.

There was even a bit of snow.

Our view while hiking out. We came away mostly unscathed. Except for Jackson who ended up falling in the river on the hike out. Luckily he just laughed it off. It is a good thing it was Jackson who fell, because if it would have been the other two, you can't even begin to imagine the complaining about being wet and cold we would have been subjected to! And that is no way a judgement against my girls, because if I would have fallen in the river, the complaining would have been even worse.