More Ants

So this is the most recent picture of the sno ball. The section on the left is where the ants have really been putting most of their efforts. The have excavated out along the entire inside of the marshmallow shell, down (technically the top of the sno ball) to the cream filling. On the right hand side they have been eating along the surface on the edges of the marshmallow shell. I really need different photographic equipement to get the depth perception, and really get the effect of what they have eaten.

Update on the ants for those of you that are interested. Last night we cut the sno ball in half, so that we can see their progress. They still don't seem that interested in the marshmallow filling, the purple coconut, or the whip cream center, but they love the chocolate. They cleaned out the chocolate in a small section, so that you can see the inside of the marshmallow layer. This is a very interesting observatory experiment. Autumn loves checking it, she will say things like, "oh, yeah i forgot to check the ants".

This picture is a little over exposed, so that you can get a little bit better idea of the depth that that the ants of eaten and taken the chocolate cake part away. Ants are really amazing creatures.

Also our landlord was having the house appraised, because the family might be selling it, so we decided to move the ant experiment temporarily while the appraiser was here. Autumn wasn't happy about us moving the ants, so we told her Cherie (our landlord) doesn't like ants. When I was putting Autumn down for her nap, she told me that Cherie was afraid for ants, because one day she ate some food that had ants on them. Autumn is very creative.

Autumn ready to take her turtles for a walk (there is 6 turtles in that stroller). Also she said this was her number shirt and pants, for basketball because there is a number 5 on her shirt. She thinks the boxy S for Standford on her shirt looks like a number 5.

Autumn seems to be interested in death. The other night, she was swinging something around, and I told her not to hit me.
A: why not?
E: because you will hurt me and I don't like being hurt
A: how about I hit you and you be dead
E: that's not very nice, please don't say that
A: why? then you be with heavenly father in heaven.

She is a smart one.

Autumn and her Papi

Autumn and I have been having more clashes. I don't really feel like I experienced the terrible twos, but I feel like I might be experiencing the terrible threes. Autumn has always been pretty well behaved, and pretty obedient, or atleast I can talk her into it, well she is getting to where she will just flat out look at me, and disobey. The usual tactics of time outs haven't been working. I have been feeling a little bit at a lost. so the other day, after spending almost an hour discplining her, taking away toys, and her crying uncontrollably like her heart was broken because I took some of her favorite toys away, we had a talk about time outs. It was actually really cool. I just explained to her why we needed punishments, and she suggested that we do stool time-outs, where she sits on a stool and I set a timer. I told her that was a great idea except for when she is kicking and screaming, she needs to be somewhere we can close the door, so we decided her sitting in the laundry room on the washer was a good idea.

So the next day, she was doing a potty dance, and I asked her if she needed to go potty, she denied it, I then told her that she should go, she refused politely. I told her if she peed her pants she would have to have a time out. Well a little while later she goes in the bathroom, and she has been gone for a while. Then she is yelling at me, and I don't understand what she is saying, so I tell her to come to the front room. She still doesn't come and she continues to yell. Then I finally realized and understood that she was asking if her time out was over yet. She had had a little accident in her panties, and once she was done going to the bathroon, she got clean panties and then proceeded to put herself in time out in the laundry room, and I was completely oblivious. She had been patiently waiting in the laundry room, for me to tell her her time out was over. It is hard to get mad at her when she is so good.

my sick baby girl

Prairie has been a little sick the last couple of days. She is pretty cute, she is so content to just sit in your lap snuggled with a blanket. It is fun to have a snuggly baby.

Prairie enjoying some homemade roasted butternut squash and red onion pizza, yum.

This is a picture of Prairie that Autumn took, and she was very proud of it.

Prairie wearing Autumn's special autumn dress, and she is reading books by herself, it was really cute.

Autumn pretending to be asleep on the stairs with some of her friends.

New York

Grandpa and Prairie hanging out

Bath time at Grandma and Granpa's house, yeah, they actually have a tub, what a treat for our girls

After we were in Idaho, Autumn got to fly to New York with Grandma. Autumn was soooo excited. She got a new purple suitcase to go to New York with. Autumn has flown a number of times before, but this time she was so excited. She couldn't go to sleep. Ben was up late, and at 2am she went in the girls room to check on them, and Autumn was still awake, because she was so excited about flying with her grandma. If you want to see pictures of Autumn in NY go to my mom's blog, www.maryanneciccotelli.blogspot.com

Autumn was playing with these dolls, and she liked the jumpers that they were wearing, so she told me that she wanted me to make her one, so I said okay. I went into my mom's studio, found fabric, made up a pattern and violia, Autumn has a jumper like the "girls", that's the magic of being at Grandma's house. I also made one for Prairie. I will have to get a picture of both of them wearing them.

Autumn with all of her "friends" from Grandma's house

Prairie and I followed 5 days later to go to NY and stayed there for 10 days. We had a really good time. We sewed, even Autumn. She started some surprise pillows for me and Ben, which she kept telling me about. I went through a lot my boxes in the attic, and I still have more to go. We took Autumn down to the city and went to the American Girl Doll Store. I thought she might be old enough because she had been playing with my American Girl Dolls, but I don't think she was really old enough to really like it. My mom and I had a much longer attention span for things than she did. She did really enjoy the hot dogs that we got outside of the store on the corner. It was a lot of fun, and my mom had never been to the store. It is a pretty wild place, with a Doll salon and everything.

Prairie at Grandma's house

Autumn really enjoying crackers at Grandma's house. Everything is better at Grandma's house.

When it was time to fly back to Utah, Autumn didn't want to go. She missed her Papi a lot, but then she had the great idea that he should just come to NY. She kept telling me how much she liked Grandma and Grandpa's house, and she was going to really miss them. When we got back to Utah and I made some comment that next day that it was nice to be home, and Autumn said, yeah but Grandma and Grandpa aren't here and that is sad.

It isn't really a trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house if you don't go to the train room. Autumn got to sleep in the train room, and couldn't wait for Grandpa to get home from work so that she could push all the buttons and see the trains go.

Prairie and Autumn were so tired from flying back to Utah, they both fell asleep in their carseat. Prairie woke up before I got her picture. Autumn actually fell asleep while eating a french fry, and she ended up just dropping the other half on her carseat.

Hodge Podge

First off I am going to say how excited I am to see the cover of the 7th Harry Potter book. I really like the orange, it seems so different from the rest of the books. I just hope that Ben has defended his thesis by July 21st, because then we wil really be able to enjoy the book.

So I am not exactly sure what I have been filling my time with, I don't really feel like I can say "this is why I have been sooo busy", yet I have felt really busy, and blogging has not been a priority. We have had nice weather, and I have been taking the girls outside almost every single day... actually I guess that is what I have been doing, that is why my bills aren't up todate, why my carpet needs to be vacuumed, I was actually feeling kinda discouraged, like I can't get anything done, but just typing this made me realize what we have been doing. We have been having a great time in our fenced backyard with the swingset. I am really excited for Prairie to start walking, I think we are going to have a blast this summer.

A package similar to this is what Baba Russ got to share with Autumn

So an intersting experiment that we have going in our household is the snowball vs. the ants. While my dad was here a week and half ago he bought Autumn a purple hostess snowball. Autumn felt a little sick while here Baba Russ was here, so she didn't eat it, but he wrapped it up in a ziplock bag and put it in our window sill next to our kitchen table. Two days ago (Monday at lunch) I asked Autumn if she wanted to eat her snowball. Well, with further inspection, I noticed that there were quite a few ants around it, and then noticed that they had chewed holes through the ziplock bag and were eating the snowball. I thought Ben would be fascinated, and he was, we have now taken it completely out of the ziplock bag, and are leaving in the window sill as an experiment (seeming very much like what my dad would do) and watching the ants devour the snowball. So far it has been really interesting. Autumn loves jumping on a chair and looking at them. It seems that they dont' like the purple sugar coating, or the marshmallow, they love the chocolate, and are going to town excavating it out of the snowball.

The sno ball as of yesterday, the 27th of March

Autumn enjoying her new head bands

So a week ago, I felt pretty rotten. I was trying to get all the dishes done one night, but I was feeling so sick. I really just wanted to finish them. Well Autumn seems to be in her own world, playing with her "friends" and staying busy doing whatever. She notices that I am having a difficult time, and asks, "Mommy, do you need a break?" and I told her I probably did, she then instructed me "put down the dishes and sit down mommy, and take a break." I followed her advice, but dang she is so cute.

The cute Prairie, getting more self enertained. She is now standing up on anything, and getting into all of Autumn's set ups

So a few days ago I was helping Autumn and Prairie into their carseats. Autumn all the sudden says "I see daddy hairs". I was really confused, and then I finally realize that she can see in my shirt sleeve and is pointing at my arm pit hairs that I have been very neglectful of shaving :)

A very lousy crop job of some of the friends. This is only one side, and this sleepover took over our entire large front room.

This morning we had the biggest "sleepover" with all of Autumn's "friends". This wasn't just the spanish Harry Potters, this was the english ones and the Emily of New Moon series. We also had two boxes of soap, along with every single stuffed animal in the house. Also the two unopened flour sacks and sugar sacks were invited. They were all neatly placed on "beds" and Autumn systematically went around the house finding blankets for every single "friend". It took about 20 mintues clean up, but it was really fun to see her set it up.

Prairie getting a bucket bath

If you ever think that I post more pictures of Prairie, it is probably true, because I probably take a lot more pictures of Prairie. When Prairie sees me take out the camera, she freezes the position she is in, and holds a smile on her face, it seems like she know how to pose for the camer. Autumn on the other hand does this when I pull out the camera. You can only have so many pictures of arms, because it gets pretty old.

Ty Jason Ciccotelli

the little Ty guy himself

My brother (son of my step-father) and his wife had a baby on March 10th. They had a baby boy and named him Ty Jason Ciccotelli. We went over on Sunday night to see all of them. He is really cute. I forgot how not careful Autumn is with infants. She said she wanted to hold Ty, and then she would almost immediately swing him back to her Aunt Jennie, because she was all done. Prairie looked huge next a 2 week old. She got really excited about seeing Ty. The only problem is when Prairie gets excited she starts flailing all of her limbs, and so she would nearly hit Ty as soon as he was close by. It was a lot of fun to see Ty. It became really clear to me that my baby isn't going to be a baby much longer. When Autumn was this age she was one week away from walking. I don't think that Prairie will be walking that soon, but I think she could still make it before her birthday. When babies start walking, they don't seem to be babies anymore to me, so I guess I get to have a baby a few more weeks.

Jennie with Ty

Autumn with a forced smile holding Ty

Ben holding Ty

Emily holding cute baby Ty

Ben and Prairie holding Ty

Laura's 21st Birthday

Laura tipping back on the forty, okay it's not actually a forty, but it is a root beer

Lisa (Ben's sister) and I wanted to do something special for Laura's (Ben's sister also) 21st birthday. Laura wanted a Mormon style 21st birthday party, with all the stuff that is off limits until you are 21. We tried to have a casino night. We had glass-bottled root beers, gambling, with skittles being the chips, and a really big game of tripoly which has poker and michigan rummy in it. Then there was some "night" enertainment by Lisa's brother-in-law. He danced around with a broom to a song from the Newsies soundtrack. It was a really fun evening, and Laura had a lot of people show up, especially guys.

Everyone putting their "chips" (skittles) in for tripoly

Laura's gambling face

Lisa, Vaughn, and Brian with a root beer

Laura about to blow out the candles

So I have two little stories to share from the evening. Lisa's brother-in-law, Bob, who came to perform the evening enertainment, had never played poker before, so I was helping him out. Also the idea of bluffing was something he isn't used to. He kept calling me over to look at his cards when they were garbage. Everyone knew that I was helping him out, because he knew nothing about poker. Then I had the great idea that he should bluff, because everyone would buy it. So we arrange it, and tried to keep my voice quiet, but loud enough that some people would hear, say yeah you should definitely bid on this hand. So he was one of the last people to bid, and so he raised it a lot, and it went around a little bit, and he raised enough that everyone folded, and then everyone was excited to see this amazing hand that Bob was so confident to bid on, and it was a pair of 2's. It was a lot of fun, that was probably my favoritie round.

So the other story is about the last round of the game. Because I didn't know exactly how many people were coming, or how we should schedule stuff, we decided to make a time limit on tripoly so that we could move onto other festivities like cake and ice cream. Aslo tripoly is less fun when a lot of people are out of chips, so we decided to just make it end at a certian time. Well the timer had 4 minutes left, so everyone was putting everything in the pile, so that they could hopefully get it back, so there were two additional pots, because some people didn't have enough skittles for the original pot. Anyway, people started laying down their cards, and Ben gets really excited because he has two pairs, and they are higher than anyone else, he begins to gather his skittles, and then Lisa, he has been busy the whole time mult-tasking, taking care of Vaughn and playing the game, asks when she is suspose to lay her cards, completely oblivious that everyone else has already laid their cards down. She lays her cards, and it is a two pair, and it is higher than Ben's, and Lisa wins the whole game, because there was enough in the pot to make anyone win. This is another piece of information to prove the theory that seems to happen with me and Ben, whenever we try to play games, and I take care of the kids while we play, and Ben doesn't help out at all, I always win, It's great being a mom.

February Trip to Idaho

Prairie sitting on her Great-Grandpa's lap. Autumn calls him Grandpa Thumb-stump because he is missing the tip of his mouth because he cut it off a number of years ago with a saw.

Grandpa doesn't talk much, but he really enjoyed when we brought a ball to his assisted living center and played with him.

This is kind of exciting, because I started my blog last year when I got home from Idaho, and that was the first blog entry I did. I went up to Idaho with my mom to visit her dad, my Grandpa Ricks along with Autumn, Prairie, Jennie (my sister), Janardan (my brother-in-law) and Ben came for the weekend. My mon rented a van, and we were able to all drive up together, which was a lot of fun.

Usually we spend a lot of time doing sewing projects, but this time we spent a considerable amount of time watching the TV show The Pretender, which my sister owns on DVD. I really wanted to make blankets out of polyester for the bottom of my tent, because that is what my mom did when we were growing up for our tent, and it works so well. My grandma, has tons and tons of polyester hanging around her home, and she also had a bunch of polyester 9-patch quilt tops all made, so we just had to piece some of them together to get them the size that I wanted, and then we set them up to tie them, while we watched The Prentender of course.

This is m mom getting the bottom of the quilt set up for tying it. We had lots of crazy polyester in the quilt.

It was so much fun to have Jennie and Janardan up for the whole week. This time we decided to divide up meals and meal plan for the whole week. It made the whole week run so smoothly, and we ate so well. Jennie and I commented how we were going to be sad when the week was over and we had to cook every meal again, and that we don't have as many people to cook and clean up together.

Jennie working on her sewing project and Janardan playing the new Sonic game for the Wii.

Autumn was her creative self as usual, and just played and played with all the toys, and in general just enjoyed being spoiled by Grandma. Autumn was army crawling herself around and into everything.Prairie getting into the yarn while we are tying the quilts.

Cutie Prairie having so much fun with being mobile and getting into everything!

I forgot to mention that Prairie has started signing back and we are so excited. She has started doing the more sign and she started it around the middle of february, probably 3 weeks ago. It was so aparent how excited she was, she was communicating. Ben and I were so excited. The next day my sister came over, and Prairie was showing off for Jennie, you could just see it in her face that she was so proud of herself, and so pleased that she could communicate. While we were in Idaho, she would get so excited when she started doing the more sign, that she would start flailing her arms and legs, it was so cute. We look forward to her learning more signs.

Jennie Weinheimer Yri

Happy 21st Birthday little sister

Mary Anne still pregnant 14 days after her due date, in labor at the hospital

Jennie Weinheimer was born 5 March 1986 at 9 lbs 6 oz.

newborn Jennie

Jennie being washed off

nurses doing normal baby stuff to Jennie

Mary Anne holding Jennie after being cleaned up

Russ holding his new daughter

big sister Emily holding her new baby sister, "We won we got the right baby!"

Jennie's first home in southern Provo