Happy Birthday Jenny!

Jenny turned 3 this week! I asked Jenny what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday and she strongly responded that she wanted an ice cream cake. I let her pick each component and she picked out chocolate cake, rainbow sherbet ice cream, funfetti frosting with funfetti sprinkles and decorated with jelly beans and unicorns. It actually wasn't as inedible as I expected - not great but it kind of almost worked.

 Jenny was so excited to open her presents. We did it the first thing in the morning, in bed even.

Then she spent most of the day playing with her new toys. She really loved playing with her new legos and makeup especially.

When I asked Jenny what she wanted to do for her birthday, she said she wanted to make "bartlebiscuits." She got the idea from this show the girls like called True. In the show a character - a cat named Bartleby makes these sugar cookies cut out and decorated to look like his face. He gives the cookies to the namesake character - True - on her birthday.

Life Goals at 4

So since Tessa was probably 2 or so when she was asked what she wanted to be when she grows up she has consistently responded with "Princess" and occasionally "Queen." It's also been what she responded with on a handful of worksheets she has done for preschool and bring your child to work day type things.

We never told her that that wasn't a real profession or anything. We would just nod and say "thats's great" or "sounds good". Then in the last 6 months or so, she has started responding with real jobs. The first one she mentioned was wanting to be the worker at McDonald's who gives out the happy meal toys. That was her answer for a few months. Then a few weeks ago after starting swimming lessons, she started saying that she would like to become a swim instructor. Then most recently, she has said she wants to be a gymnast or a gymnastics coach when she grows up. It's fun to watch her come to understand what jobs are think about what kind of job she would enjoy.

Dinosaur National Monument

We had such a great trip to Dinosaur National Monument a few weekends ago. It was about a 3 hour drive away so not too bad. We had never been before and it was a super family friendly destination. The highlight might have been the girls getting to become Junior Park Rangers. They loved doing the little dinosaur educational pamphlets, recited the pledges with the help of the Park Ranger and were totally tickled to get their badges.

The National Monument was really neat. It has this exhibition hall which was this big building encasing this section of rock that had dinosaur bones exposed poking out of the rock. It was so cool. There were so many bones! And archeologist didn't even have to dig them out to put them on display. Tetonic plate movement lifted them to the surface and then erosion exposed them. It was so cool to see this two story tall wall of rock just littered with bones.

We went on a few hikes at Dinosaur National Monument. We went did Fossil Discovery Trail which was ranger led, which was cool because he pointed out fossils along the hike and talked to us about the plants, history, and geology. Then we also did the hike at Josie's cabin. That was a really neat hike. The hike started at her home she built herself in 1913 and lived in mostly alone for 50 years. The hike meanders along on her land and you can see the fences she built, the fruit and shade trees she planted, her chicken coop she built, and the canyon where she would let her cattle roam. She lived there all the way until the 1960's until she was 90 years old. It was really neat to feel like you were exploring this farm and getting to know this incredibly strong and independent woman and imagine what it would be like to live that Waldenesque life.

Another really awesome hike we went on was actually not inside Dinosaur National Monument but a little outside the Monument on an independently owned ranch. The hike is called McConkie Ranch Petroglyphs and it was really amazing. You hike uphill a little way until you come up on this massive shear wall and the wall was just covered with so many petroglyphs. It was so cool! You hike around the shear wall and just keep your eyes peeled and see petroglyph after petroglyph as you hike along the wall.

Then we also went to the Dinosaur museum in Vernal which was fun as well as two parks with playgrounds for the kids to play at as well as the hotel pool. So we mixed stuff David and I wanted to see with kid stuff and it made for a really nice Memorial Day weekend.

Record for Latest Ever Christmas Post

So ... Christmas in June. We had a really nice Christmas this past Christmas ... cough ... 6 months ago ... cough. We went to Mexico over Christmas so we celebrated a bit before going and then when we got back.

Per our tradition, we set up our tree the day after Thanksgiving.

Then also per our usual tradition, we did our annual gingerbread house making. It's a fun tradition that we all enjoy (especially the sneaking candy part of it).

This year we even did a little competition for best gingerbread house. Tessa was the judge and declared David the winner. He accidentally caved in the roof of his within the first 30 seconds of decorating but managed to turn it around making the house into a barn/farm. And here is a close up of the winning gingerbread house complete with cotton fields made from marshmallows and cornfields of of course candy corn, animals out of animal cookies, animal poop out of jelly beans, and a lasso out of a peach ring.

And a photo with the winner:

And Tessa hard at work on her house:

 And Jenny working on hers:

Then this year, we made some of our own Christmas tree decorations from cinnamon, nutmeg, and applesauce combined into a dough and then cut into Chrismassy shapes and dried. They smell lovely and were a lot of fun to make.

Then we got our pictures with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Jenny is still scared of them, but Tessa actually sat with them on her own this year.

 

The girls went all out with setting out the milk and cookies for Santa this year.

We made chocolate chip cookies so he had the traditional cookies and milk. Then the girls wanted to give the somewhat commonly left carrots for the reindeer. Less commonly left but done at our house, the girls wanted to leave Santa apple slices and water to give him something healthy since they thought he would like something healthy since he probably would have an upset stomach from having eaten too many cookies from everyone. 

And then Christmas itself was fun. Christmas with little kids is just a massive play day. They open one present and then want to play with it. So present opening lasts pretty much all day. It's really fun though. I enjoy it.

Junior Bucket Lists

These are some of the things the kids have mentioned wanting to do someday. Most are from things we've either done and they've asked if we can do it again or books we've read or things we've talked about.

Tessa:
- Go to the zoo inside Central Park and meet Tango.
- Go inside crown of the statue of liberty.
- Visit the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in southern France to see some of the oldest cave paintings.
- See the Eiffel Tower.- Go to Mini-City in Tijuana, Mexico again.
- Go to Dinosaur National Monument again.

Jenny:
- Go to San Diego and collect seashells.
- See a rainbow.
- See a bear in the wild.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things VII

Okay so I need to start this with letting you know that Jenny has this way of language acquisition very similar to an adult who does a word of the day. She'll hear a new word and latch on to it and attempt to use it in a sentence. The chosen word or phrase might just last a single day and she'll be on to a new word the next day or sometimes the selected word or phrase will be her word for weeks at a time.

One time Jenny's phrase was "my honor". That was a tricky one for a 2 year old. She would occasionally use it correctly in a sentence and say "My honor is at stake", but I believe that was the original sentence where she first heard "my honor" used and she was just copying the entire sentence. Most of the time she would use it more like "My honor! He is here." as in "my honor" is a person to be referred to with a male pronoun; I didn't try to correct her.

A few weeks ago somehow I used the word "poison" and Jenny asked what it meant. After that I knew it was liable to become a word of the week word. I heard about this exchange secondhand as it happened while I was at work and Allison was watching the girls. Jenny, Tessa, and Annabelle are having a tea party and Jenny leans over and whispers to Tessa, "Don't drink this; it's poison" and then the kicker - she passes the teacup to Annabelle! (I blame it on the word of the week).

Jenny's current word of the week is "of course" which is actually pretty nice. You'll ask her to do something like flush the toilet and her response is automatically "of course" and then she'll do it so that is pretty handy. The exchange tonight was a little silly though.

Mom: Can you please flush the toilet.
Jenny: Of course . . . young man.
(mom looks at Jenny funny)
Jenny: I mean sir.
(mom cocks head)
Jenny: I mean madam.

Then Jenny laughs and gives me a hug. What a silly goose. During this same bathroom trip Jenny told me that she wanted to use the entire roll of toilet paper. I was sitting outside the door and doing the typical mom "uh huh" but she was taking a long time in there and eventually asked me to help her unroll the whole roll for her. So I go in and she has unrolled about a quarter of the brand new roll I had just gotten her and it was all just in a big pile on her lap!

Life with kids is filled with so many of those silly exchanges. I wanted to write a few down because they honestly happen so often and it's impossible to remember them all but when I think about what "the good stuff" in life is and what I want to remember looking back those silly, little exchanges with my kids comes to mind.

Our First International Family Trip

For our first trip internationally as a family, this past Christmas we went to Mexico. It was really neat to see a place so different than any I have seen before. To see the poverty there was something I had never seen before. It was also really neat to be exposed to the culture there. I really enjoyed getting to practice my Spanish and of course the food was amazing! I also really liked exposing my kids to the different culture and language.

To save some money on airline tickets, we flew into San Diego, CA and then made our way to Mexico via bus and then walked across the pedestrian bridge. Here Jenny and I are right at the entrance to Mexico.

For the first few days, we stayed at Rosarito Beach. The beach there was clean and beautiful. We could see the beach from our hotel room, which was beautiful. We went spent most our time playing at the beach and eating tacos at the taquerias.

View from our hotel room window

We could also hear this lovely church bell ringing from our hotel room. So Tessa and I investigated it and found the church. So beautiful!

We got the girls matching Mexican dresses that the wore often throughout the trip. One time walking down the street wearing them, the girls got a comment "Somos Mexicanas?" which was cute.

After Rosarito Beach, we next went to Tijuana. We had a larger hotel room there with two bedrooms and a kitchen so the girls had extra room for playing, which was nice.

One of my favorite things was just walking around to get to know the city and just stopping wherever for ice cream or tacos or whatever somebody is selling at whatever random stand pops up near you. We walked to a local park and after playing a while a man wheeled the fruit stand up and we got mixed fruit seasoned with spices and limes. Mmmm. Delicious! Also my first real exposure to papaya. 

Then on the way back to our hotel after we were done playing at the park, we stopped at this random hole in the wall shop and had some delicious homemade hielo - or popsicles. PS - don't be alarmed at the giant bandaid on Jenny's face. She had the tiniest of scratches and a completely unnecessary (medically speaking) bandaid made her feel better.

Tijuana has a lot of museums. Tessa and Jenny's favorite one was Mini-city. The concept behind the museum is kids work jobs like adults and earn money and then with the money they earn they can spend it on fun activities or at the store at the end and get some candy. Here Tessa is driving the little car around the track - an activity that costs money. Another child is filling her car's gas tank and is earning money.

Then also in Tijuana, I wanted to see the wall dividing Mexico and the United States. It was crazy to see the wall extending even into the ocean. It was really neat to see how the wall has been colorfully painted on the Mexican side of the wall and the political statements and things up on the Mexican side of the wall.

One of the things that blew my mind the most was walking along the ocean boardwalk and you could look directly to your right and see the ocean and then if you look directly to your left, you could see completely dilapidated homes. The poverty right even along the ocean with an amazing ocean view, was just completely shocking to me.

Next after Tijuana, we went to Ensenada. I found it a bit too touristy particularly near where the cruise ships dock but the local parks and beach near our AirBnB were nice. When we went to this local park on a Saturday, a man had set up kid sized tables and chairs and paints and was selling plaster sculptures for children to paint. The girls had a lot of fun with it.

The girls had a lot of fun playing on the playgrounds and they even made some little friends. Tessa even learned how to say "Soy Tessa" to introduce herself to the other children. It was neat to see Tessa able to play with other kids even without really speaking Spanish and the other children not speaking English; it seemed the kids could play together and get along without needing to speak the same language.

In Ensenada we saw La Bufador - or the blowhole. It was this spot where during high tide, the waves from the ocean are forced to shoot up. It was fun and wet and overall more impressive than expected!

We did a walking tour at Ensenada, which was kind of a lot considering David and I carried the girls nearly the whole time as it was too much walking for them. It was really interesting to learn about the history of Ensenada though. The walking tour introduced us to a few museums. Here we are at one of them - an art museum. Tessa is lying on the floor here as that is the spot the artist designed her work of art to be viewed from.

Here we are at a historic hotel from the walking tour.

Antics at the place we stayed at in Ensenada because it can't be all museums and walking tours when you've got kids!

And then of course we also spent lots of time at the beach in Ensenada. Our place was again within walking distance to the beach for our time in Ensenada.

Then also while in Ensenada, David and I took surfing lessons. Surfing is as hard as it looks! It was fun though. It was something I had wanted to try for a while so it was really cool to get to do it.

And here we are on our way home in our matching Mexican sweaters. It was a fun but long trip. While in Mexico I think we most missed home, routine, family and hot showers. Now that were back from Mexico, I most miss the delicious food (especially the fresh tortillas and the pastelerias with shelves of delicious pastries I've never tried before for a few pesos each), getting to practice my Spanish, the warm weather, the beach, and all the unscheduled family time.