Thursday, April 29, 2010

Macaroni Kid Mesa



For those of you haven't heard yet, I'm now a publisher mom for Macaroni Kid Mesa. Basically I do a lot of homework each week and find out about all the events that are happening around the East Valley of Phoenix (my area covers Mesa, Gilbert, Tempe, Chandler, Scottsdale, Queen Creek). I then post these events in a weekly newsletter and on a website and distribute to everyone who signs up for my free weekly newsletters.

You can check out my website at:
http://mesa.macaronikid.com


For those that don't live in the Phoenix area, head to the national site at http://national.macaronikid.com/ and see what it's all about. Then, go to "Find Your Town" and see if there's already a Macaroni Kid edition in your community. If there is, help a local mom and sign up to receive her weekly e-newsletter. You'll be the first to know about all the upcoming events in your area.

And if you know people in Phoenix, please encourage them to sign up! I'm trying to build up my subscriber base and need help spreading the word.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Chloe at 6 Months

Chloe Tenae turned 6 months old on April 14th. I seriously don't know where the last 6 months have gone! It truly is hard to remember what life was like before she arrived. We love her to pieces! And for my journaling purposes:

- Chloe got her first tooth right around 5 1/2 months (a big surprise to me when Ellie was well after 10 months before her first tooth came in). Her second tooth is coming in right now.

- At her 6 month appointment she weighed exactly 16 pounds, 26 inches long, with a tiny head (below the 25% percentile).

- She is still the most easy going baby ever. Just goes with the flow, sleeps anywhere, and will let almost anyone hold her (although she has started to become somewhat partial to mom).

- She is days away from REAL crawling. Right now she does the rocking back and forth and lunges forward, scoots backwards really well, and can scoot a few inches forward, or just rolls where she wants to go. She can push off her back legs really high and propel herself forward. Really funny to watch! She can also sit up by herself although she usually ends up leaning forward or balancing on one arm and looking around at everything.

- She will grab ANYTHING within reach and put it in her mouth. The other day she grabbed the Popsicle out of Ellie's hand. Very sneaky.

- Chloe loves that she can eat real food. So far we've tried rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, bananas, and carrots and she has loved all of them and gets mad if you don't feed her fast enough.

- Loves to play peekaboo. She will put a blanket or a burp rag over her face herself and wait for someone to take it off.

- Still laughs more for her sister Ellie than anyone else.

- Already thinks she can talk and will wake up in the morning just jabbering away at anyone and everything. Also likes to yell directly at you if you aren't paying attention or feeding her when she wants!

- Still doesn't have much hair. Hence - we don't leave the house without a bow on!

- Has the cutest "thunder thighs" and rolls on her body. We love our chubby babies!

- Finds her pacifiers and puts them back in her mouth on her own. (This is a favorite trick of mine since it means I don't have to do it for her all day long).










Sunday, April 18, 2010

Utah Trip 2010 - Take 2

Rob flew home on Monday morning after Easter but I stayed an extra couple days with the girls. That day my dad and Debbie took us to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum. It was a rainy day and spring break for most Utah kids but Ellie loved it!
There was tons to do but her favorite section was the balls area where you could stick plastic balls down different tubes and they went flying out all over. She collected and stuck them down different tubes over and over again and convinced Grandpa Snow White to help her a lot!




They had a great water playing section, a farm area with a huge horse and tractor to drive, a garden, and a rock climbing wall.





Ellie loved the little tree house with the teeny furniture and look out window and the real helicopter stationed upstairs on the deck.





We were finally able to drag Ellie away from the fun museum and ran over in the rain to Bear Country Cookies for a couple cookies to hold us over until we met up with my brothers Kory and Tysen for dinner in Provo that evening.

We ate at California Pizza Kitchen for dinner and then went over to Tysen's apartment to watch the NCAA basketball game final.

The next morning I was able to meet my old roommate Jen for breakfast at Magelby's Fresh which was fun to catch up for a little bit - even though it was freezing outside and had snowed the night before!

Debbie drove back down to Arizona with me and we arrived home about midnight on Tuesday night and she flew back to Washington the next morning. While I'm not a fan of 11 hour drives in the car with 2 kids - they actually did really well and we had no serious problems so I can't complain too much. Just took me a LONG time to recover!

Easter 2010

Yes Easter was a few weeks ago but I'm really behind on blogging so this is going to be a LONG post with lots of pictures!

We started off the Easter week with an egg hunt at the park with friends. Besides the fact that the kids wanted to help us hide and collect eggs - it was great. Lots of fun and a tradition that needs to be repeated each year! Unfortunately my camera was on a weird setting so my pictures turned out funny and I just don't have the time to fix them in my photo editing software yet.



On Thursday night/Friday morning of that week, we headed out to Utah. Rob drove the majority of the way and stayed up all night. We made great time and the kids slept for the bulk of the trip so that was the bonus! We got to Provo around lunchtime and made a quick stop at the BYU bookstore for a new BYU shirt for myself (anyone notice how ridiculously expensive the BYU baby and kids t-shirts are?) and some chocolate covered cinnamon gummy bears. We grabbed some lunch and met my dad and Debbie at one of their friends house. They graciously offered to take Ellie with them and Rob and I headed up to Layton to my grandpa's house to try and relax a little bit.

The weekend seemed to go way too fast! We spent lots of time at my aunt's house with all of her kids. And had fun on the trampoline, checking out the chickens, and seeing all the different colored eggs that come from their chickens:






Lots of time watching General Conference. And even went to the Saturday afternoon session and had great seats. I always love actually being there in person! And of course lots of time with my brothers (the Uncles) and Grandpa Snow White, Grandma Debbie and Great Grandpa Robins.





The Easter Bunny came to Great Grandpa Robins house and Ellie was really excited for the small things the Easter Bunny brought her and didn't really want to go on a hunt for eggs right away. After some coaxing, we were able to convince her that hunting for plastic eggs was fun! And she loved it of course. Chloe had fun putting everything in her mouth and rolling everywhere!




Old & New Friends

A few weeks ago my former roommate and friend Christina came into town with her girls and we were able to fit in a visit. We've managed to have both of our girls within a few months of each other - so we're of course already planning on them becoming roommates at college!

Charlotte and Ellie haven't been around each other since they were babies but after a short warm up period - they were the best of friends! We even took them to the Arizona Museum for Youth and out to lunch and survived (although we realized the importance of bringing multiple changes of clothes). Such is the life of a parent!


And it was great to meet each other's new little girls. Olivia has the cutest chubbiest cheeks and was happiest sleeping in the swing!

We tried to get a picture of all of us but it did not work! At least it was humorous trying to capture it....