Anniversary

Saturday was Ben and I's 6th wedding anniversary. We have really needed a night away, with all the stress that has been on us the past year and a half with Ben's thesis, graduate school, working in Loa, meeting deadlines for his thesis, starting two different full time jobs. Needless to say we have been in desperate need of a break.

I was able to get my Aunt who lives in West Valley City to watch my girls overnight. The great thing about asking my aunt, is she is thanking me profusely that I would ask her to watch my girls, and she takes really good care of them, so that is such a relief.

I had never been to Park City, and Ben had only been there for a conference, so it seemed the perfect place to get away to within an hour from us. I really wanted to stay at a bread and breakfast. We found one and Ben did his Ben magic and got us upgraded to a suite, that cost $100 more a night for free. Ben is amazing. It was super nice and we had such a nice time.

Washington school Inn (one block off of historic main in Park City) (Pictures taken from their website )

Here is a picture of our room taken from their website

We went out for a really nice dinner on Friday night. We went to an Italian restaurant called Grappa . It had a really nice atmosphere, it was so fun to go out to dinner just the two of us.

We sat upstairs looking down towards the fireplace and these tables.

We had talked about doing a lot of special stuff, but we ended up just hanging out watching a lot of cable tv in a really nice room, which is a treat since we don't watch tv (just movies) at home. Then we just wandered around main street and really enjoyed all the small art stores and stuff.

So we had a nice weekend, and we knew it was good because Saturday when we were walking around looking at all the shops we were listing off all the things we were missing about the girls.

Movies

So I guess my sister expected me to post a lot more videos once she moved to Texas. The other day she said, weren't you suppose to start posting a lot more videos, now? Well I guess I will have to start taking video of the girls. Anyways, these aren't anything out of the ordinary, these are just the girls playing this morning, because I know Jennie would want to see them, I don't really expect a lot of people to watch these.




Prairie has started this thing where she likes hers and whoever she is doing it with their chin to touch. So I was putting on her diaper to go to bed, and she acted like she wanted to do chins, but then she started biting me!





This is just Autumn playing on her stairs with her stuffed dog that she named Igloo. She is really into Igloo right now. She has packed a little diaper bag for him, had him set up at a table this morning with some of the play food. Last night she took Igloo to bed and needed a play bottle for him so he had something to drink too. (That is Prairie in the background looking for the other stuffed dog named Michael that she was playing with a lot yesterday)






This is Prairie digging through all the stuffed animals looking for the stuffed dog Michael.

???

So I didn't realize that it had already been over a week since I posted, but I guess my sister has. So I was trying to think what we did the last week, and I totally had a blank. So finally I realized that we have been spending a lot of time playing the backyard, and I don't usually bring the camera with us, so we have been just playing and having a good time.

We are now getting ready to plant our garden today and tomorrow, so maybe I will have to post some pictures. Me and my neighbor ripped out some more rose bushes for vegetables, hopefully our landlord won't notice. We are really excited for all the fresh produce.

So I haven't been taking a lot of pictures, but here are some cute ones of the girls from this past month.

Prairie in the new glider rocker that we found out on the street for free

Prairie asleep in the crib (this is before she moved to the bunkbeds)

Prairie walking Autumn to preschool

Autumn eating cereal in her new clothes

Autumn being silly in her new play dress

The Big Present

Prairie on her tricycle

A couple of people have asked me what the "big" present was. Prairie got a tricycle for her birthday. This is great because Autumn has a little bicycle with training wheels, and Prairie has been trying to climb on it and ride. She LOVES the tricycle. She wants it everywhere with her, when she is eating dinner it is next to her chair, when she goes to bed it is next to the bunkbeds, even when she goes potty she wants it in the bathroom, so I did very well for her birthday.

Prairie with her chocolate birthday cake, that is pizza sauce all over her face

On Saturday Ben watched the first 4 horatio hornblower movies while he finished up paperwork. Autumn watched part of one with him and asked tons of questions. So yesterday she built this with stuff she found around the house. She told us it was the boat, and she tried to even say horatio's name. The flag is the mast. She was very excited about her boat, then she started yelling, shoot, fire, because she had seen a battle seen. My friend Fred would be so proud, he was the one that introduced Horatio Hornblower to me, and in turn I introduced it to Ben.

Autumn in her frigate

I worked hard yesterday!

Ben and I worked really hard yesterday. I worked hard to get my sewing room organized and back in order, and Ben worked really hard to finish up all of his old paperwork from his old job. Ben got everything done, and my sewing room is enough done that I can sew again, yay! So I still have to figure out what to do with some boxes that had been in the closet, but they are just stacked neatly in the corner until I figure out what to do. I am so glad I worked on the sewing room this week, because I got 200 lbs. of oats delivered yesterday, and I was really glad that I had cleared out the closet for food storage, so I had a place to put them.

What I have been up to

The Host was released on May 6, 2008

So now everyone knows what I spent that last 48 hours doing. I read the twlight series for the first time in January, and as soon as I finished them I read them through again because I like them so much. I am really excited about the fourth book coming out in august. I love libraries, and I have been checking the library catalog a few times a week to see if the new book is in the catalog yet, so that I can get one of the first reserves. So while I was checking for the fourth book, I started checking for The Host, a new series by Stepehenie Meyer. Well I felt really cool because I was the first person to place a reserve once it was entered into the catalog. They bought more than one copy, so I wasn't the only person that got the book the day it came out, but I still felt cool. I checked today and the reserve list is 202 people long, so yeah I am pretty special.

Anyway I read it and I really enjoyed it. I am sold on Stephenie Meyer outside of the Twilight series. I will probably read everything that she publishes. So here is the real confession. Last saturday Ben and I bought a used futon off of craigslist to put in our guest bedroom/sewing room (we have a three bedroom apartment). I told Ben that I needed to organize, clean out, and rearrange the sewing room before I am ready for the futon in there. I have done a lot of work on it, but it isn't near being done yet, and you can scroll down and see the pictures of how it was while I was reading the host, oh well, i guess I know what I will do today while Ben is finishing up paperwork :)

the new futon (in the front room with both of our 7 foot couches), it is crowded

The current state of the sewing room: (I have gotten the closet completely cleaned out, and now it is all ready for our food storage, no more fabric in the closet)

Ben's Job

So I am going to brag a little bit. At Ben's new job he happened to get a corner office, so he has windows looking at south and west (if he got at the right angle he might be able to see us at the top of a slide at seven peaks during the summer). Also he has play-doh and a special table for it, a doll house, a cowch, tons of blocks, an easel and a lot of other misc. toys. Let's just say that playing at Papi's work is almost more fun than the toys we have at home.

Last week Ben took us to his office in the evening to show it off to us. The next day the girls were begging to go back again. We had to let him know that we can't go there everyday. Let's just say daddy daughter day at work will be very different than my memories of going with my dad. I had to just entertain myself with sitting under his desk and drawing pictures (ok but then my dad would take a 3 hour lunch and take me to one many museums in Washington D.C.) .

Prairie on the cowch

Prairie LOVED the easel, Ben didn't love how dirty her hands got :)

Autumn getting all the play-doh rolling equipment out (yes that is our stroller, Ben's work is less than a half mile away)

the girls rolling out play-doh

Emily sitting on Ben's extremely comfortable couch, and the girls having so much fun playing with play-doh

Happy 2nd Birthday Prairie!

Today is Prairie's birthday. Autumn has been so excited for Prairie's birthday. Everyday for the past week she will ask me how many days it is until Prairie's birthday. Then she will exclaim "I can't wait Mommy, I can't wait!" So Prairie has picked that up, but she has been saying really excitedly, "I wait Mommy, I wait!" Whenever she hears anyone talk about birthdays, that is what Prairie will say very excitedly. Autumn was very upset this morning with Papi when he told her we weren't going to open Prairie's birthday presents right now, she yelled out, "ob-scuse me!" (excuse me) She can have a lot of attitude when things aren't going the way she wanted. Autumn knows what one of the gifts are, but she doesn't know what the "big" gift is and she can hardly wait to know what it is, she keeps asking me tons of questions about what it is.

Prairie at the hospital - 12 hours old

Prairie one year old on her birthday

Prairie this morning - 2 years old

silly Prairie

In-Home Vacation

So my mom flew back to NY on Sunday, my sister moved to Texas on Wednesday, and Ben has been busy trying to get all the grades in for his BYU class, and finishing all the paperwork for his old job, so he hasn't been here much, so I decided I needed a little vacation. I had checked out the movie Ella Enchanted from the library. I haven't watched it for about 3 years. A family member saw the movie before I did, and they didn't give it that high of a review and I think it influenced my first viewing which I thought it was so-so, but this time I really loved watching it. Autumn also got to watch it and really enjoyed it, and has wanted to watch it a number of times and I have let her, and I haven't gotten tired of it, in fact I am excited when she wants to watch it. Since I was enjoying the movie so much I decided that I needed to reread the book. So this week has had a lot of Ella Enchanted. I just want to say that I really love the book too, it is so fun and so good, and a fun variation on Cinderella. Now I am in the mood to watch Ever After, it has been a while since I have watched that.