Time With Daddy

Its starting to get a little rough for the girls having Justin gone for most of the week while he is on temporary assignment in Palmdale, CA. The one nice thing that has come from this is the girls treasure every moment he is home now. Friday night they had a "sleep over" with him in the loft and I woke up Saturday morning to giggles and pillows everywhere.

Doing her own Hair

Alexis is growing up so fast. On Friday she got up on her own and was taking a really long time in the bathroom. I went to check and see what was taking so long and found her doing her own hair in half up half down piggie tails. She has watched me put pony tails in but I have never taught her how. It took twenty minutes but she did it all herself and picked out and added hair bows with it. I still am a little shocked. Its made me really think about how big and independent she is becoming. (I made her take these pictures during a very rushed breakfast because we were running behind on getting to school because of this hair style. Her cheeks are full of cereal.)

Happy Birthday #29

Friday, January 21, 2011 I turned 29

I had such an awesome birthday this year! It was just perfect! I got to go out to lunch at Cafe Rio with some of my friends to chat and enjoy yummy food. When I thought about it this is all I really wanted to do for my birthday. I so rarely have time to be out with my friends and have my own "girl time." Justin was amazingly sweet and to help this happened watched not only Ariana but a few other children as well so we could all enjoy our time out. (Isn't that the nicest present ever!?) We then as a family went to a matinee showing of Tangled and once we got back home I went over to my neighbor and friends house Kim for her Scentsy party. Sweet Kim even made me a chocolate cupcake and Angela let me have the prize "because I needed a present," she said : ) It was such a stress free perfect celebration day. Saturday my birthday date night Justin and I picked out new recipes to try. It was fun cooking together. We made homemade toquitos (that are actually quite healthy and involve now frying or oil) and a tress leches cake (the funny looking cake next to the candle cake). Thinking back on my birthday weekend makes me wish it was my birthday again. It was wonderful! Here's hoping that 29 will continue to be a great year for me.(my hair is getting so long that I caught a little piece of it on fire when I blew out the candles on the yummy triple chocolate cake Catrina made for me!)

Creative Pretzels

Alexis LOVES play dates. Last Saturday Mijia came over to play and the end of the play date turned into silly snack time.

Allowance

Almost a year ago we started allowance with the girls and while we are not always consistent with it, it has finally turned into a great teaching tool. Just before Christmas we were finally able to get Alexis to understand that if you save your money you can get some pretty neat stuff and not just junk from the school store. Alexis first big purchase was her own set of roller blades on Black Friday. She had been saving for these for a little over a month at that point and thought she had another month to go when I got to teach her the lesson of waiting for the right sale. Black Friday was the day. The roller blades where half the original price! Her next big purchase was just a couple weeks ago when she bought a cake decorating set on clearance at Wal-mart. Ariana also saved up so she could buy a new my little pony set. The cashier was very impressed with them and expressed that she wished her 19 year old son would learn what they have already at 4 and 6. It is so nice being able to tell the girls when they want things that they can have it if they decide its worth saving up for.

Alexis reading the directions

Mixing the cake

Rolling, cutting and covering the little cake in fondant

Cutting chocolate fondant to decorate the cake

The finished product!

Happy little baker!

She Sat on Me?

Alexis: "DADDY, Ariana SAT ON ME!" (very upset voice)
Daddy: "ok"
Mommy: laughing uncontrollably

Ariana's Joke

Ariana likes to try and tell jokes. They never make sense. Then on Friday without even knowing she was doing it told a really funny one:

Driving home from school we couldn't turn down one of the roads in our neighborhood because a large truck with a trailer was completely blocking the road. On a bike ride a few hours later with Justin Ariana was trying to explain the situation to him about how a big truck was blocking the road so we couldn't use it.
Justin: "Was it a moving truck?"
Ariana: "No it wasn't moving! That's the PROBLEM!"