Enjoying

I recently read the blog of a friend whose new year resolutions all revolve around the word ENJOY. Instead of focusing on things she doesn't have or isn't, she is going to focus on enjoying all the things that make her life beautiful. Her son, her hobbies, her role as a homemaker, etc..

I was really impressed reading that and thought I could use a little dose of that attitude. Right now is the perfect time in my life to be able to sit back and ENJOY. I don't have a lot of commitments or know many people yet so I can really just dig into my life at home and enjoy every part of it. We're not in a hurry to be anywhere or do anything, so instead of rushing my kids from one activity to the next, we're just trying to enjoy each job, chore, game, story, and moment that comes into our day. Here are a few of the simple things that highlighted our week. ENJOY!

We pulled out an old ball pit that the girls haven't seen for almost a year. Now that Brinley is big enough to play in it the two of them went wild!

I love the static hair action that's going on with Teya and Brinley in the background.

I was actually going to give this away because Teya didn't play with it much before. Guess having a little playmate makes it much more fun!

Seriously entertained them forever!

On Wednesday we woke up to find our driveway covered in heavy soggy snow. Normally I would've dreaded shoveling that long steep monster, but I decided it needed to be done, and we were going to enjoy it!

I bundled the girls up, armed them with their own "shovels" and we got to work.

Teya loved being the big helper and even Brinley was putting her back into it. I love how she's squatting down and digging in in the last picture.

And last night I decided to make my normal chore of cooking a little more enjoyable by doing a kid friendly meal the girls could help with. We made homemade pizza and they were SO into it! I need to get them their own little aprons and make cooking together more routine!

Brinley prepped the crust with a little brushing of olive oil.

Teya carefully layered on the sauce

Then it was time for the cheese! Brinley took several hands full but I don't think any of it made it onto the pizza ; )

Teya put the toppings on the pizza, and Brinley continued to put them in her mouth (that's her sinking her teeth into some pepperoni in the background ; )

Happy Faces with their finished product, ready to go into the oven!

I know our schedule will pick up and things won't stay simple for long, but I still hope to follow my friends example and make this years theme all about enjoying the journey.

Making Friends

Before we moved I tried to prep Teya on making new friends. I told her she needed to smile and introduce herself in a clear voice, then ask the other person's name and invite them to be her friend. We practiced it quite a bit.

Teya:(Smiling) Hi my name is Teya. What's your name?
Me: My name is Mommy
Teya: Do you want to be my friend?
Me: Yeah!
Teya: Okay! let's play!

I figured she would be dealing with other 3-4 year olds, so this little formula would be pretty fail proof.

On Thursday, after 4 days of setting up the house and no sign of any of the neighbor kids, we set out to the indoor playground at the mall. There Teya found a little girl exactly her height and decided this was going to be her new friend.

Teya: (Smiling) Hi my name is Teya. What's your name?
Little Girl: Blank stare
Teya: Come on, let's go play
Little Girl: Ignores Teya and goes off to play somewhere else.

Teya looked confused but was determined to make a new friend so she started following her around the playground. The little girl made NO interaction with Teya, and watching this unfold I started getting a knot in my stomach. I never told Teya that maybe someone wouldn't want to be her friend. I didn't know how she would handle the dissapointment.

Luckily Teya seemed oblivious to the fact that the girl was ignoring her. She just kept following her around and when she saw me her face broke into a giant smile and she shouted, "Look Mom! This is my new friend!" I gave her a nervous thumbs up as I watched the little girl escape Teya again. "Where'd my friend go?" She would ask every few minutes when she lost sight of her. "Mom, where's my friend?"

At this point I just felt sick. Moving is hard enough, we'd been here for 4 days (an eternity to a 3 year old) Why couldn't she just meet one friendly little person? My mother bear instincts wanted to shake that kid and say, "Why don't you play with my daughter!?"

Then I noticed that the little girl was wearing a diaper. I heard her call to her mommy, she didn't speak very well and still had that baby talk voice. Her mom was sitting near me so I asked her, "How old is your daughter?" "almost 2 and 1/2" she responded. Suddenly I felt relieved. 2 and 1/2? No wonder she wasn't responding to Teya's fast paced dialogue. For all I know she could just be learning to talk! Teya is almost 4 but she is pretty tiny for her age, and this girl was pretty tall for her age. Teya just assumed that same height meant same age, and so did I!

When Teya came back over to me and said, "My new friend is kinda shy." I pointed out that the little girl was wearing a diaper and was still little and probably didn't know how to talk really well. Teya seemed to be happy with this explanation and said, "well mom, we need to find a friend who's my age!" I laughed, where did she learn to say "my age?"

The next day some people from our ward came over and introduced themselves. They have 5 kids including a 4 year old, and Teya was a pretty happy to meet them. We went to their house on Saturday and another family with 3 little girls ages 5, 4, and 18 months was there too. It was great to see Teya glowing as she interacted with all her "new friends."

Making friends can be scary and hard, but it's amazing how it helps us to go out of our comfort zones, stretch, and grow. While I was so stressed about that little girl not talking to Teya, she was completely unaffected by it. Whether that girl talked to her or not, in Teya's mind, they were friends! I love watching her go out and without making any judgments, unconditionally invite and accept people as her friends. She doesn't have insecurities or wonder if people will like her, she just assumes they will and goes for it! I'm trying to follow her example and even got brave and took the family with Taber to introduce ourselves to the neighbors. They were wonderful and so nice, giving us their phone numbers and inviting us to call if we ever need anything. Just like Teya, I'm excited to make new friends and I know that with the right attitude, we're going to have a great experience here.

Trek East

We did it! We made it to New Hampshire and survived the car trip. Here are some fun facts, highlights and survival secrets.

Random Facts about our Trek East:

Miles driven: approx. 145o
Days in the car: 3
Stops per day: 1
(except on day 3 when Brinley went on car seat strike, then we had to stop twice)
Happy Meals purchased: 6

Chicken nuggets consumed: 24

States driven through: 9
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire

Hours I spent behind the wheel: ZERO
(Taber drove the whole thing, what a stud!)


Hours I spent going back and forth between the seats catering to little peoples needs: approx. 3, then I gave up and just sat back there with them.

Meanwhile Monty enjoyed Gold Medallion status in the front seat. Lucky.

Other highlights:

Driving through States and parts of the country we've never seen before

Making it the whole way with NO MELTDOWNS from Teya
and only one minor come apart by Brinley

Stopping in Chicago to stay the night with Naomi and Kevin.
They hooked us up with a and a car charger for our DVD player (priceless!) and an I-pass so we could cruise through the billions of toll roads without stopping. As if that wasn't enough, Kevin even made us a pancake breakfast! We love those guys!


Survival Aids:

-Stickers: We must've gone through at least 500. Kept them both busy for decent stretches of time.
-Play-doh: Makes a mess but that's all part of the road trip right?
- New coloring books and markers: When they were bored with their coloring books they did some nice artwork on their faces.
-i-Pod holders that attach to your window: Thanks to my sister Sarah for the idea!


- Sun shields for the windows
- GPS
-i-Pass (thanks again Kevin!)
- binky, toys, treats, and MOVIES!!!

Everyone did great for such long trip. Now we're just trying to hunker down, unpack and get settled in to our new life as East Coasters! : )

Friday Foto: Strong Gene Pool

One last post before they turn off my internet.

found this old picture while packing.

Guess we know where she gets her smile from now : )

Some Final Farewells

Thanks to our wonderful friends, the moving process this time around has been the easiest we've ever experienced. So many have people reached out to help us. At least 7 different people asked if they could watch our kids while the movers were here. We had meals lined up for every day of the week, several people asked if they could come help clean and we even had friends offering to let us stay with them after the movers came. While this made the moving process easier, it makes moving a lot harder. Leaving behind such an amazing network of friends is going to be tough. I'm just thankful that the internet makes it so much easier to stay in touch, otherwise I'd be a little emotional right now.

The packers came and boxed everything up on Tuesday, and the movers came on Wednesday to load it all up and ship it out. Something about seeing that big moving truck pull up made it all feel very final.

Luckily we got a chance to have a few last farewells before we leave town. On Tuesday night our friends, the Cunninghams, had us over for dinner. We had a great night chatting and reminiscing, then they sent us off with some Minnesota souvenirs (so we'll always remember where to come back to ; ) and a yumm-a-licious turtle ice cream pie.

Through out the week we had similar get togethers with friends (although I wasn't smart enough to bring my camera!) and then tonight our awesome friends the Parish's threw us a going away party so we could say goodbye to everyone one last time.

We can't thank John and Jamie enough for putting such a great evening together for us. Thinking about it I guess I am going to get a little emotional : ) It just really meant a lot to be able to see everyone, give them hugs, and say goodbye before we go.

I love these people like my family. I seriously couldn't ask for a better group of friends and I hope they all know how much we will miss them!

Closing out 2009

Best part of the holidays: Having Taber home from work for 2 weeks! The girls relished all the extra attention from Daddy and everyday Teya asked "Are you going to work today Daddy?" and when he'd say "no" she'd jump up and down and shout, "YAY! DADDY'S STAYING HERE! OUR FAMILY IS ALL TOGETHER!" Here are some of the fun things we did as a family to close out 2009.

A trip to the Mill City Museum with the girls and Taber's parents

At the top of the museum I tried to get a picture of the girls with the great view of downtown Minneapolis. Teya wasn't being cooperative with the camera however, every time I told her to smile she just closed her eyes. So this is what I got. Life with a 3 year old ; )

It was so nice to be able to take Taber's parents and grandmother along. We are so glad they could come out one more time before we leave!

On New Years Eve we took the girls to the Children's Museum in St. Paul. This was the first time we've been able to navigate that place without a stroller! It was awesome not having to wait for the elevators or push through the crowds with that thing. Nice perk of the girls getting a little bit older. Here they are painting their faces at the Spark Cart.

They loved all the hands on activities and I loved having a place for them to make a mess that I didn't have to clean!

This is my favorite picture because I think Brinley looks like a little baby Avatar on her Banshee dragon ready to go to war or something. If you haven't seen that movie, GO! it's amazing.

After the museum our New Years Eve was really low key. We colored signs with the girls and cut out 2010's to tape up around the house. Then we had root beer floats, counted down to "midnight" (8pm for the girls) and shook our noisemakers and danced around.

A picture of us taken by Teya.
Her photography skills are improving, this could be quite useful in the future...

Once the girls went to bed Taber and I talked about and wrote down our goals for 2010. I plan on starting to work on them as soon as the move is over ; )

On New Year's day we spent the morning sledding with our friend's the Ayllons. They have a great hill in their back yard and even though it was only 6 degrees outside the girls were so bundled up that they did awesome!

If you're wondering about the blue tape on the girls' wrists, it looks kind of funny but it keeps their gloves on and the snow out, meaning we can stay outside for much longer periods of time : )

Sledding was awesome! Visiting was friends was so nice too.

And that's it! Goodbye 2009! Goodbye Minnesota! Can't wait to see what the next year brings!

A Minnesota Christmas

This year was the first time we've spent Christmas with the kids in our own home. It was so wonderful not to worry about shipping out presents, catching planes and living out of suitcases for the holidays. Instead we had family fly to us! Taber's parents and his grandmother came to town and enjoyed a beautiful white Minnesota Christmas, the first and last we will celebrate in our Maple Grove home.

The night before Christmas Teya wrote a final letter to Santa and left it by a plate of cookies. When I asked her how many cookies we should put on the plate she thought about it for awhile and then very seriously said, "Well, how about 3. We don't want him to get sick." I thought that was pretty sweet and thoughtful of her : )

On Christmas morning the girls went downstairs to find that Santa had come.

Teya rushed over to her note and plate of cookies and sure enough, the cookies were gone and Santa had written a long letter that had an interesting bias towards her Grandpa and how she should come visit him more often. hmm.... ; )

The rest of the morning was Christmas magic. Teya was so excited about every gift she got. From the goodies in her stockings to the littlest toy. She opened each one exclaiming "Thank you Santa!" and "Oh I love this one!" Her gratitude was so genuine and sincere, it was the sweetest thing to watch.

She even did well when she opened a package of clothes. Instead of tossing it aside or getting mad she smiled and laughed and said, "This is a silly present!" But she was still happy and grateful just the same.

The girls in their new matching outfits from Grandma Karen

Brinley was thrilled with everything too. She just kept bringing presents to me and saying "Opig, opig!" (open open!)

After opening up a few stuffed animals she pulled them all into her chest and just sat there cuddling them and zoning out into her own world.

It's funny because I was kind of sad when Teya asked for more big girl things this year like princess stuff, Polly pockets, Ariel dolls etc... But at the end of the day it's not uncommon to find her sleeping with Brinley's elephant and piglet. I'm glad she's not quite out of the stuffed animal phase yet ; )

As you can imagine with two little girls in the house we had an explosion of girlyness! Pink fairy wings, sparkly crowns, princess dolls, bows and pink clothes.

Still, we do have one little boy in the house, and he was quite thrilled to have his very own brand new Mighty Bone to chew on to his hearts content.

Everyone enjoyed the morning opening presents and just hanging out together in our jammies. When we were done with gifts Grandma Karen made us her famous Christmas rice pancakes, something that Taber always talks about from his childhood. I've actually never made them for him so I was glad she was here to do it and teach me how.

Later that day we bundled up for some fun in the snow. We had quite the storm the night before and there was tons of sticky snow, perfect for snowman making!

Teya really wanted to make a snowman family so she, Taber and Grandpa dug, rolled, patted and sculpted until 4 happy little snowman stood in front of our house.

It's crazy to think that that next week we'll be gone and starting a new chapter of our lives. I'm so glad we got to spend a Christmas here before we left. Minnesota is an amazing and beautiful place. I never imagined I could love it so much but I do, and I will miss it. A lot.