Pine Cones and Ice Cream

Last night the girls both ate really good and were begging for snow cones...Well we couldn't go to the snow shack but we had ice cream and cones so I fixed them each a cone. I walked down the hall for a minute to help Cami and Taryn was still in the kitchen working on her cone. I heard a little Taryn voice yelling " Mommy I ate my pine cone. I finish!" I said what? And again "I ate my pine cone all gone. All done..." And sure enough her ice cream was gone....I love this girl and I love this age...

ode to a great daddy

Since it tis the season (of father's day) I decided to ask each girl what their most favorite things about Brent/dad are...here are their responses.

Cami


I like steamrollering dad.
I like Dad.
HE plays fairy computer games with me.
I like the world and I love him.
I miss him when he goes to work.
I love that he reads me stories.
HE takes good care of me.
I love him and I love him more than anything else in the world (she repeated this about twenty times)
And I happily pull off his socks when we play steamroller.
Horse rides of course
And tickling him


Taryn
reamrollerring (steamrollering)
Daddy silly
I like teasing him
Hiding socks
like typing for him
I like pizza


One morning before Brent left for work Taryn sweat talked him into reading her stories...Cami joined the party. These girls really love their Daddy and with good cause.

Brought to Tears...in a good way.

"The Dance Recital" was a new, hilarious experience for our family...After spending like over an hour wrestling the "twinkle stars" girls I decided that's it. We are NOT re registering for next fall. (I volunteered to help so I did ask for it.) Then it was their turn to dance and I was so proud of Cami. I knew she got nervous when she go to the floor but she sucked it up and grabbed Taryn's hand and walked out. She actually remembered most of the steps and really looked like a real ballerina. She could totally be on SO You Think You Can Dance. In the end Cami said she didn't like how the people clapped for her (it was too loud) and Taryn decided to do a solo most of the time....She got to the part where they have a floor move and just stayed down in the middle of the floor for an extended rest. Then by the end she just kept jumping and spinning in her own little world. At one point I was laughing so hard I was crying....in a good way. Girls you did great! I'm so lucky to be your mom!

Pre performance excitement (that went of for a month or two)

Taking the stage.

The beginning moves-the only place in the program where Taryn was actually doing the designated move at the right time....It got better from here.

Taryn going for the gold and kicking a poor little girl on the "aerobesc" move. I only know the name because the run around the house kicking and shouting "aerobesc! areobesc!"

The move that side tracked Taryn...

An extended floor pose for Taryn and Cami blowing a kiss to her "prince charming"
Taryn still on the floor and Cami working it on the last move.
Taryn realizing the dance is over and getting up to run off. Cami is holding the pose for just such a Kodak moment.

Memorial Day Weekend Trip

Brent finally took a day off on memorial day so we drove up to northern Utah and had tons of fun with the Weight family. The girls had so much fun with their cousins. We drove up Friday night and while we got there early enough to get the girls in bed at Carolyn's house. Taryn however didn't want to go to bed and I walked in at 11:15 to find her going strong on the top bunk bed (I don't know how her little legs actually climbed up) with her cousins Natalie and Jakob.

The next day we had a blast swimming at Lehi pool and both girls are significantly braver than they were last summer. After that I decided Taryn NEEDED a nap in a ginormous way. She I took her to the bedroom and laid her down. Usually this is all it takes and she goes to sleep. I went to check on her a half hour later. I opened the bedroom door and saw her holding an empty tic tac container in one hand and the last tic tac in the other. She hurried and popped it in her mouth and then just smiled sooo big knowing she was busted. She had obviously snuck out of bed, into my purse and gorged on a full container and loved every minute of it.

Later that we played at a park and had a picnic. The family game of soccer was all fun and games until Amy got burritoed by Fred and John. She retaliated by kicking their bums on the field. :) (nothing like smack talking when they can't defend themselves) We spent Saturday and Sunday with all the cousins and Ryan/Sharon at grandma and papa's which is always a blast. Monday after a little BBQ action we were all sad to leave. And yes we traveled safely.

Cami and Jake playing hide and go seek.

A very tired Taryn trying to play at a park.....

Amy just whooping it up and Fred trying to keep up... :)

Who needs a park when you have a sprayscape?

Now that it is consistently in the 80s everyday we have been having tons of fun at several sprayscapes. You might wonder what a sprayscape is...It is a park but better because all the toys squirt water. Cami loves dancing around in the ones that spray like a shower and Taryn gets a ginormous kick out of the toys you point and squirt (at other unsuspecting children....) Anyway this summer has all ready proved to be the kind that memories are made from...good memories...

Party Crashers or just bringing the party to the party?

A few Saturdays ago we crashed my mom's block party. She has a neighbor who's business is the blow up slides and jump houses etc so once a year she gets the city to block off a portion of the block and blows everything up. Taryn our no fear child all the sudden was unsure of the tractor train but Cami told her she would take care of her and wrapped her arms around her back. It was a very sweet thing to see. It is so rewarding to see them being the kind of buddies to each other that we hope they always will be. Cami was incredibly brave. She slide down the big mother slide with only screams of excitement and even asked to climb on the climbing wall. YEA!!! She's finding her guts!!! Anyway it was a fun afternoon.

Taryn nervous and Cami loving her. Good Girls.

The wind blown look of 2 miles an hour.

The jump house-but only without big kids in it....

The girls sliding with cousin Madison

Cami conquering the climbing wall and daddy assisting with encouragement.

Today as brent accellerated away from a red light Cami yelled "Daddy your speeding. That's illegal! Bad Daddy!" Nothing like a 4 year old enforcer...

Potty Potty Potty

So it is pretty common knowledge that Taryn likes to be naked, get naked, run around naked....So it has been normal for her to streak into a room without a diaper on for quite sometime. Lately she expanded her skills and has taken to taking it off when it is wet and she is
done with it...So Monday after a long day of redressing her many many many times I said "Taryn you have to let me put your diapie back on!" (Imagine WWF wrestling with a mommy and a two year old and she was definitely winning) She busted out with "No MOMMY!! No more diapers for me!!!" So ready or not we are now officially potty training....

Brent's been asking for a while why I don't just try potty training her. I kept telling Brent she does things her own way and I just want to wait until she is really ready to minimize my pain. So I guess this is her way of saying she's ready...no more diapers for her.....


Now if only she would make it to the toilet..... :) Just for the record though-She does give us many reasons to laugh....usually at ourselves.....what a joyful little spirit she is.

The beginnings of logic and magic

So the other night Cami asked "Why do unicorns have horns?"...I told her because they were magic...A minute later she asked "Mommy are rhinoceroses magic too?"

Sneaky...Very Sneaky...

Growing up in the Rice house everyone was familiar with the "End Cupboard." It was the last cupboard in the kitchen and my mom hid the school lunch food in there. No one was allowed to sneak in there because if we did there wouldn't be enough treats for school lunches without going to the grocery store. Well I don't make school lunches yet and the girls know they can have snacks out of the cupboard but they usually have to ask because they are on the higher shelves.....But Taryn has taken on a whole new level of sneaky and independence. She has discovered how to scoot chairs over and get her own snacks out. Her particular favorite right now is teddy grahams.....It is not really a big deal that she sneaks her own snacks especially since she is pretty careful and coordinated with the climbing and opening cupboard part but it does give me a good laugh every time I walk in the kitchen and there she is sneaking a little "snackie" as she calls them.

Strike a Pose

I promise we don't watch America's Next Top Model or the making of a top model or any such shows and we certainly don't inflict them on our children, but somehow Cami has learned how to strike a pose. She has always been easy to take to sears for birthday pictures because she cooperates with anyone but she has taken it a step further. A few weeks ago at a soccer game she said "Daddy take my picture" and then much to our shock and amusement whipped out some amazing hilarious poses. She just kept going and going until Brent told her he didn't have room for any more pictures. So we thought that was pretty funny until she did it again and again and again. We don't know where she gets it but she definitely comes up with some serious model moves. She'll out grow this I'm sure but in the mean time we will take a lot of pictures and have some good laughs.....

San Diego Baby!

Brent has had a few business trips to San Diego lately and this time instead of leaving us home to miss him terribly we all decided to go and play. We drove down on Thursday evening and came home Monday after Brent was done with all his meetings. As usual we packed way more into those few days than any rational person with two kids should. The trip was not sooo relaxing but it was really fun to build so many memories with the girls. All said and done they did really well considering the lack of sleep they got and we did really well considering the lack of sleep they got (and us :) ). Friday we went to Sea World. Saturday we checked out the San Diego Zoo and looked for a light house. We never exactly got to the lighthouse but toured around a very nice ocean side neighborhood despite stopping for directions. Sunday we checked out a local church, the San Diego LDS temple, and rode on a train in the Wild Animal Park. Monday the girls went shopping while Daddy worked and we headed home. As we were driving we became aware how desperately we need to replace our car DVD player and how much Taryn really likes Dora the Explorer and how insanely catching the tune on Dora is...It is finally fading a little from our memories after a week. Cami really loved the hotel and was so excited to check out every nook and cranny. Taryn slept in a sleeping bag for the first time and only got out once-not sure if that was because of the very serious way we told her "no way get back in" or because she was really excited to be a big girl out of the pack and play and have a princess sleeping bag. Anyway, it was really fun just to spend a couple of days with each other especially since Brent has been putting in some loooong days at work. Every day we realize how lucky we are to have our funny girls and to have each other.

Sea World

What they were watching

What I was watching

Taryn's favorite of the day...petting the rays and getting seriously splashed

Cami busting out dance moves all over sea world and singing songs about what a beautiful day and season it is....

If you know our children you know they are not big fans of loud noises or being scared. At first they liked looking then the next picture is Cami running from the Polar Bear exhibit after hearing a recording of Polar Bears growling....

So do you really think that removable fence thing is going to hold up against the hoof of a clidsdale? That is what was going through my mind as the guy told us to smile for our picture....

Zoo

There is nothing remarkable about this silly picture except they have these picture backboards set up all over all three parks we went to and the girls really wanted to take pictures in every single one...so to spare you all the pics I just added one...

The Zebra Exhibit (and the Elephants) won out for the coolest animals at the zoo...

By the end if the second day of animal immersion our tentative child was willing to touch goats...Amazing what a little exposure will do for a kid...

Cami busting out in random song and dance again but this time she was thankful the the beautiful beautiful animals...

One last favorite at the Zoo

Balboa Park

The Carousel and train were big hits despite the wind and rain...at least for Cami....Taryn was nervous at first but was yelling YE-HAW by the end so overall it was a success.

Wild Animal Kingdom

Unfortunately the camera was out of battery power by the time we got here....no surprise after all these pictures.....