Pumpkins and the Secret Stash

Last week Chad and I headed to the Temple and the girls got to spend the day with Grandma Clayton. They had a ton of fun and when I asked her how Lydia did she said "she was great" I had to pause and make sure she was talking about my Lydia, you know the one that likes to whine and test the limits.

They did some cute crafts. I forgot to take pictures but they made chocolate Halloween characters on pretzel sticks. And they got some pumpkins. She cut out the faces they picked out in vinyl and they put them on...

Because we live in Arizona you cannot carve your pumpkin until the day before Halloween because it will not last. So when it comes time we will carve them.

A couple of  weeks ago every morning when we would go in to get Lydia she would be eating a vanilla wafer. I laughed and asked her the first morning where she was hiding her stash. She responded with "ummm..." Then I said "Oh is it confidential?" And she said "um yes..." We could not figure out where she was hiding them and she would never tell us. Then this morning when I was cleaning I saw that their car toy needed to be cleaned and I opened the trunk and it was full of vanilla wafer crumbs! It had been in their room the sneaky girl.

I took the car to her and opened the trunk and asked Lydia if that is where she hid her cookies. She looked at me smiled and said "noooooo." Then she looked in the trunk and said "Oh their all gone." Oh Lydia.

Chad's Birthday

Last Thursday was Chad's Birthday! We started the morning off with fresh cinnamon rolls. The girls had each written him their own cards. Well I wrote them they told me what they wanted to say.

When Chad headed to work we got to work too getting the house ready. The girls helped me decorate the house with lots of balloons and they colored a banner...

You will have to ignore the black blurr in all of our pictures. Sadly our camera is dying.

The girls helped me make Daddy's favorite...pumpkin pie...

When Dad got home we surprised him by spraying him with silly string as he came in the door. I tried to video tape it but I didn't realize the girls moved the camera so you can only see half of it.

He had to find the secret message we wrote on the balloons. "We Love you the Most" and sang Happy Birthday to him of course...

We were going to have him pop all of the balloons with his blowgun...

But when we brought the cardboard outside with the balloons it was so windy they blew everywhere so he just popped a few of them.

A Little Addition

Labor Day on the Mountain

Yesterday  we headed up to Mt Lemon with the girls. They were very excited. Sophie was not a fan of the drive though she kept asking us why it was taking ALL day to get to the mountains. But once we got up there we had fun! We started with a picnic...

The girls were in heaven being outside and loved looking for the perfect pine cone....

Then we went for a hike. They thought it was so cool to drink out of Daddy's hiking backpack...

We wanted to hike down to rose canyon lake but didn't realize how far it was. The road just kept going so we decided to stop at the next best thing. A tiny creek that the girls could throw rocks in...

It was a fun day in the outdoors. Somehow Sophie started asking about bears and what they ate then she decided it was time to go before it found us. Silly girl she would get really concerned every time we stopped. "We need to go before the bear finds us." I am happy to say that the bear never did.

Shoes are a Girls Best Friend

After a month of chores the girls earned their money for new church shoes. They were pretty excited! Lydia had fallen asleep on the drive over to Payless and I could not get her to wake up until I carried her into the store. Then she excitedly said "Down mommy! shoes!!" They tried on almost every pair in sight. I think they thought they were in heaven...they have never seen that many shoes before. (we usually go to target). After trying several options on they finally decided on the winning pair. Oddly enough they picked the same ones.....

Of course pink sparkle shoes with jewels! Seriously can my girls get any girlier?


We have discovered they have expensive taste though...which isn't good for us. They picked the most expensive shoes in the store. Thank you Disney Princesses. I am pretty sure we spent more on one pair of these then I have spent on any one pair of my shoes...but they are happy....

But Chad and I have agreed that if we do this again they are going to have to work longer.

Archers in Training

For family home evening we took the girls out into the desert to shoot our bows. We have had them for 5 years but sadly have not pulled them out since Sophie was Lydia's age. Sophie was beyond excited to be like Merida from the movie Brave.

 

 

She loved putting the arrows on too...

 

Lydia really enjoyed it too. She helped Daddy pull the string back...

 

 

And they were excellent arrow collectors!

(For the record they picked out their own outfits..I had no choice in the matter)

Lil Miss Stubborn

Lydia has all by herself gone in the potty several times just randomly. So we thought it would be a good time to potty train her. I borrowed a book from my friend in the ward on how to potty train in less than a day. Honestly I had my doubts but after reading the book it seemed logical. So after studying the book for a week I decided to do it. I dropped Sophie off at Grandma Millers so it could be just me and Lydia. I was prepared with snacks and drinks and even a doll that peed. What I wasn't prepared for was Lydia's stubbornness....

I know she is stubborn but because she loves to sit on the potty all of the time I figured she would enjoy this especially with all of the snacks the program included. But she would constantly answer questions wrong on purpose and smile at me. For example "Lydia when you need to go pee pee where do you go?" Lydia's response "outside!!! (giggle)" Me "Lydia feel your pants. Are they wet or dry?" Lydia "Wet!!" me "No Lydia they are dry. See feel." Lydia "wet!"

The doll itself did not cooperate with me eiether. I had filled it with water in preparation and knew that it leaked when it was sitting up so I laid it flat on the counter. When it came time for Lydia to teach the doll, the crazy thing had already wet its pants!! So I had to skip to what we do when she wets her pants...I asked her "Dolly wet her pants, but we still love dolly. Lydia do we love dolly?" Lydia: "No!"

Then when she had an accident we are supposed to practice but all she did was scream "no I don't want to! " and then run away from me. She is supposed to sit on the potty for at least 5 minutes but I could not keep her on there past 5 seconds.

I know that she can do it and she knows she can do it. But apparently we need to wait until she wants to do it. So our diaper free home is just going to have to wait...sigh.