Ben turned 50!

Ok I totally should have done my post before reading Rachel's because now I'm being forced to feel a tiny bit of guilt for yet again having no pictures with cute little captions about how perfect and adorable my kids are. Oh well such is life.

Last Sunday I forfited my beloved computer to Mike and Lindsay to hopefully find a cure for the fact that it's running painfully slow and is suffering greatly from the excessive use of a stay at home mommy. (Thanks to both of them for being willing to try and salvage the thing!)

We've been pleanty busy all week.
Monday I had a presidency meeting... it went well outside of the excessive trips to the potty for Eliza in the middle of my meeting, I think that I might have to push to have our meetings in the nursery so I have a potty closer to the meeting with that many trips!

Tuesday I had a doctors appt with my wonderful midwife (she is so sweet and I always enjoy my trips into the office because of her!). But due to my appt. Grandma Merritt was sweet enough to keep both girls for me (thankfully!) so I really got to enjoy my appt. and the kid free time.

Wednesday I went and did my visiting teaching (I'm very proud of this because in general I'm terrible about getting it done every month!) Eliza thouroghly enjoyed the time to play with the other little kids that came along too. Although she was VERY angry with me when we came home and they didn't come with us.

Thursday my visiting teachers came to visit me. We had a great visit and made plans for me to teach a group of people how to make 'crochet flower bows' for all these little girls pretty hair! Eliza yet again got to benefit from the time to play with some other kids her size and I was reminded how much she loves to socialize (on her own turf) and I really need to have more play dates at my house! After that I went to Loveland to run some errands and visit with my mom for a little bit of the day.

Friday was the only day I didn't have anything set in stone. We ended up going and celebrating Ben's 5th aniversary at work with him and his coworkers. I really enjoy the time I get to go visit Ben and work, partially because I like seeing Ben, but mostly because I enjoy watching Ben's coworkers razz him about stuff. Speaking of Ben's 5th aniversary their IT guy at work congratulated him on his 50th birhtday and told him that he only looked 45 (HAHAHA!). The poor guy had misread something and thought they were celebrating Ben's 50th birthday. The best part is that Ben isn't even 30 yet!! The guys at work spent the rest of the day reminding Ben how old he 'is'.

Saturday Ben got new tires for the cars, I did some grocery shopping and we had the missionaries over for dinner. The end.

PS on my honor I will do everything in my power to have some new pictures of the girls for you next week! maybe even before then if I get motivated this week.

2 months!

Can you believe that Alayna is already almost 3 months old. I finally got her into the doctor for her 2 month check up and shots. Mostly it was uneventful she's supprisingly big but very healthy overall. Eliza went with us to the appt and she did very well but wasn't very pleased when the nurse gave Alayna shots (she got a seriously evil eye from the two yr old!). Normally I wouldn't take Eliza to these appts but I wanted to take advantage of being there and not paying an extra copay for them to look at her newest rash... turns out its eczema and so we're treating it with fewer baths and more lotion! But back to Alayna... Her current stats are:
Height: 2' 0.25'' (95%)
Weight: 12lbs 4.2oz (75%)
Head size: 15.75" (73%)
So she is proving herself to be above average in all kinds of things! She's got incredible head control (so much so that the doctor was very supprised!) As for the shots it took her about half the time of Eliza to recover from them (I think it's cuz she never stops moving so she forced it through her system faster!).

Other things this week... I got a little bit of me time on thursday when Grandma Merritt took the girls for me! That was awesome!

Friday Ben took the day off from work before his vacation time renews next week and so we went to Loveland and set up the banking stuff we needed to get done. I was really really really angry with our other bank so I finally went in and closed everything I could and now refuse to deal with them anymore unless I have to. Grandma Merritt brought Eliza a new book to read (it's a monster book, soo cute!) and then ended up taking Eliza home with her. Ben and I took advantage of the time and played some video games while Alayna slept.

Saturday Ben helped a lady in our ward move and I took the girls to the mall to play on the playground for a little while. Eliza loved it of course and didn't want to go home. I was even brave enough to take her in panties and we didn't even have an accident, she willingly stopped her playing long enough to tell me she needed to go! I think we're finally breeching that point of regular accidents everyday! It makes me very very excited! That afternoon Ben built his gun chest that my mom gave him a gift card to Lowes for. It looks really good so far and it isn't even stained yet! I worked on a pair of crochet booties.... sort of. They kept turning out to be too small or so huge they were ugly so I have yet to finnish a set yet but i've almost figured out how to alter the pattern I'll show you pictures when they're done! wish me luck until then :-)

Eliza Turned 12

Today Eliza turned twelve... I was getting ready for church therefore I was putting make up on. I only wear make up on Sundays and special occasions because I don't care to take that much time on my face (basically I'm lazy). So Eliza is sitting on the sink admiring herself in the mirrior and watching mommy get ready. Make up is an extra facination for her seeing as how I wear it so rarely and because she isn't allowed to wear it! So in her begging to wear some make up too I kinda laughed and told her that she can wear makeup when she turns 12. So Eliza sits there watching me, thinking and trying to figure out a means of getting what she wants. After a minute or so she turns to me and tells me "Turned, me" (translation: I turned 12, NOW can I have some!) Man I knew they grew up fast but that was the quickest 12 years of my life!

funny story over.

This week was fun! Monday was the best day of the week because my mom; being the She-Man that she is, came over to my house and helped me clean and move furniture around in my basement and now we have the coolest play room ever! There are some things that still need to be done (like organizing the toys and clean/painting the bathroom) but It has already been a heaven send to have somewhere to take the girls that's NOT my living room!!

Outside of all the slave labor I took from my mom on Monday I have been able to enjoy lots of time in Loveland doing things with her that don't involve me utilizing her incredible muscles! What exactly all those things are I can't recall... We did get some Christmas shopping done for next year too thanks to Craigslist and my mom watching it on a regular basis! She has also generously been willing to hide stuff at her house for me (very handy!!)

Tuesday night I taught a budgeting class (don't laugh.) hehe. I was the youngest person in the class, married for the least ammount of time, and have the least ammount of experience of everyone there so in the end I went home feeling like I didn't teach them a thing they didn't already know but they taught me a TON about how to improve my own budget. So it was a success.

Thursday Eliza spent the day with Grandma Merritt, they went shopping and Eliza somehow came home with new shoes (SOOO adorable!) and a tinkerbelle flash light that goes just about everywhere with us. (thanks grandma!)

Outside of that our week has been full of the norm. Oh and I chopped my hair off, As you can tell from the pictures. I really like the style and it's incredibly easy to fix so for now I'm very happy with it! I hope everyone had a great week!!

Potty Training Round 2!

Well the holidays are officially over... you wanna know how I know? My couches are again covered in blankets, my laundry has doubled, my basement often smells like urine soaked cloths (I swear it only takes an hour of them being down there for it to smell and I'm NOT washing one outfit at a time!), and my carpet is often damp in random locations. BUT we have made some seriously good progress in just a few days with the potty training!

That being said my week was good. Eliza had a sleep over at the Waite's house on Sunday night and therefore got to go swimming Monday morning with the family. (for those who don't know my family 'swimming' translates to getting up at 5am going to the rec center and playing in the water for an hour or two) She loved it of course because she IS a little water baby! I had a meeting monday morning so I came to get Eliza after my meeting. I am working (relativly successfully so far) on keeping my new years goal of having dinner planned, cooked and on the table by 6 every night... so far so good, wish me luck. So in an effort to keep this goal my Mom and I have made menus for a few weeks (thanks to Rachel's pre-made list this wasn't too hard)

Tuesday I made a somewhat failed attempt at going to the library for story time. It had the potential of being really fun but instead Eliza was just so excited to be out of the house that she was really naughty and I had one of those wonderful parenting learning experiences... I don't enjoy those. I don't know who does.

Wednesday we headed back to Loveland to play at grandma's house... much to our dismay Nana (my grandmother that used to live with us) ended up in the ER and my mom didn't find out about it until we were almost at her house so the girls and I played at Grandma's by ourselves while she spent the day at the hospital.

Thusday Grandma Merritt was my hero! She took both girls for me for a few hours so I could run some errands child free! It was incredible. I got a whole bunch of meat from the grocery store (all a good deal of course!) and spent the rest of the day packaging, cooking, and freezing meat!

Friday was deticated to potty training more. I made a new chart to help motivate that process and so far it's helping! WaHoo!!

Saturday Ben became my hero yet again! my laundry usually sits folded on the bed in the spare room until we have guests... therefore Ben's work shirts (who am i kidding, all the stuff that goes on hangers) gets very very wrinkly sitting on the bed. SO Ben built me a hanging rod for folding my laundry. It looks great and is nice and sturdy to hold all those cloths!
That's basically my week. I have a few beautiful pictures of Alayna in her new little crochet dress from Cindy Lewis but they are on my mom's computer so you'll have to wait for those until I've got some time there to copy them! Hope you have a fantastic week!

A Blessing of Health!

Grandma and her Babies! Alayna, Eliza, Hailey (yes Hailey was the good one that didn't cry about taking pictures)

Look at these adorable babies! (Alayna, Hailey)

Can you tell that Alayna doesn't like being on her tummy... tounge out in effort to get turned over!

Alayna and Hailey

Beautiful little Hailey... I'm a proud Auntie!

Finally. We have gone almost a whole week of being heathly in my house! Eliza had one more incident of puking in bed but it was because she was coughing so hard that she caused a gag reflex resulting in some vomit.

Monday Ben headed back to work (poor guy) and got a little bit more into the routine of normal life. Eliza, Alayna and myself all went to my parents house to spend the day with Rachel, Bruce and Hailey. Mind you upon arrival we discovered that Rachel was sick with that stomach bug that Eliza and I had on Christmas eve. Alan and Lindsay got it Sunday evening, Rachel and Heidi got it monday, Bruce and Heather got it Tuesday, Dad and Eric got it on Wednesday. So by the end of the week everyone in the Waite family except for Mom got sick and spent a good 12-24 hours throwing up.

Tuesday I spent the morning running errands. I aquired a new toy... a plasma car (kid powered car built to support the really big kids). It was in Boulder so I took the girls to go get it. Alayna had a tummy ache so she was really grumpy about being in the car and after 30+ min of listening to her sister cry Eliza totally lost it and started 'shushing' her very loudly, at which point I gave up and stopped at Ben's work to feed the baby and try to get her to sleep. Ben, Eliza, and myself had a blast riding the plasma car around the store I wish I would have had the camera for pictures of it especially considering how funny it looks to see a full grown man on that little car!

Wednesday I went back to loveland to enjoy one last day with Rachel and stuff before she left. I also captured some really cute pictures of Hailey and Alayna. I got some of grandma and all her grandbabies but they didn't turn out real well thanks to my uncooperative children. We got mom's Christmas stuff all taken down and a menu idea list made thanks to Rachel's incredible orginizational skills. Someday when I grow up i wanna be just like her!

Thursday Ben went skiing with his dad and Eliza and I had aunt Hailey, Abby, Jackson, Grant, and Ellie over to our house to play for a little bit while I taught Hailey how to make hair bows. She's quite the perfectionist so her bows looked incredible by the end!!

Friday we hung out at the Merritt's house with the cousins and did the normal huge lunch of incredible food for our New Years celebration. As for staying up all night the night before... YEAH RIGHT! I opted out of it seeing as how i knew I'd see those early hours of the day anyway and my sleep was MUCH more valuble!

FUNNIEST STORY OF THE WEEK: I almost forgot to add this part! Monday when I was at my mom's house Eliza wanted to play with Heather and Heidi (who usually get suckered into dragging the adorable two year old everywhere with them) But the twins wanted to watch a movie. So in our resoucefulness we pulled out a tea set for Eliza to play with. I sat and played for a while but then got busy doing other thing so Eliza went seeking a playmate (H&H of course!). They were still watching their movie so the tried talking her into playing with someone else, like grandpa or someone (anyone really) else. Finally in desperation Heather tells Eliza that she can have Yogi (their new dog) go play tes party with her. At which point Eliza brightens up and has the dog follow her into the living room to play tea party with her. Now Yogi is a very mellow kind and loving dog who is also very obedient... to people who are bigger than him. Eliza is significantly smaller than Yogi so he doesn't exactly do what she says. So she keeps asking him to come play (it sounds more like 'pay' than play but oh well!). Finally in her irritation she gets grandpa to help her have him lay down so he can 'play tea party'. Mind you this whole time Mom, Rachel, Grandpa, and myself are all sitting there so very confused as to WHY she would think the dog could play tea party with her. When we found out it was the twins who told her he could I nearly died laughing and told them that they were not allowed to tell her the dog can do stuff that isn't really possible!