Backpack, Backpack

You know you're a mom if you are singing the Dora the Explorer song in your head right now because of this title.

Way back in October my husband's work called me and said that they wanted to have a surprise baby shower for him and could I make it to the party. He was a little annoyed because he had a lot of stuff to do and they kept bugging him about coming to some luncheon, until I showed up and he found out it was really a luncheon and baby shower for him. He wasn't annoyed anymore after that :) They wanted to do something more for him as a dad so they got him this really cool backpack that the baby goes in. Devyn is so nonchalant that she just goes with the flow. She was just chillin in the backpack as we took Dante out on a walk.

I have been trying for some time to capture Devyn's total admiration for Ari in a picture. She idolizes Ari. Devyn does not smile easily. She's a good baby and perfectly content, but she doesn't tend to smile for just anyone, but Ari can always make her smile. She has this look of complete admiration that she gets when Ari walks into a room. Well Ken bent down to pet the dog while Devyn was in the backpack and she caught sight of Ari and just smiled and laughed and looked at her with that look of awe in her eyes. Boy does Ari have a big job ahead of her being a good example for her little sister who obviously thinks she can do no wrong.

Seriously?

I know it’s a little cliché to complain about the price of gas, but seriously, $2.85 a gallon for regular unleaded is a bit much I think! It’s getting ridiculous. Who can afford this? Are you changing your driving habits because of fuel prices? We sure are. We consolidate our trips and plan out where we need to be and when in order to keep the trips to the gas station to a minimum.



Oh, and I must be getting old if I’m complaining about the price of fuel!

When it Rains it Pours…

That is oh so true for so many aspects of my life and should therefore probably be the title of my blog, but it’s not it’s the title of this post instead. For now it is referring to my lack of posting for so long and then posting multiple times in one day. I do this often because I have so many things I want to blog about so when I get a minute and start blogging all those things come to my mind.

This is just a random post so I can unscrupulously post pictures of my baby. Devyn is getting better and better at sitting up by herself. On Sunday she was wearing Ari’s first Easter dress and we wanted to get a picture of her for comparison (note to self, find old pictures of Ari wearing the same dress). We had her sitting up and she was doing such a good job (as she was trying to reach for the camera) and then after a while she just toppled over. Not much fazes her though and she was perfectly content on her back after her fall.

Best Game Ever!

Have you ever seen Sponge Bob Square Pants? DH and Ari are both huge fans of the show and therefore Sponge Bob has a prominent place in our lives. When Devyn was only a few weeks old DH coined the term "square head stinky pants" for her because of her big square head, and yes she takes after me in that respect, the square head, not the stiny pants part. Sponge Bob also sings a song that has a chorus that is impossible to get out of your head. The song is called “It’s the best day ever” and I’m included a YouTube video of it for your viewing and listening pleasure.



However, this post is not about Sponge Bob or Devyn’s big square head (sorry sweetie), but about Ari and the best soccer game of her entire life that she had last Friday night. That song started playing in my head when I was thinking about this post, hence the title, so I had to share the previous information for those of you not lucky enough to be forced to endure Sponge Bob! As you listen to the song insert “it’s my best game ever” where he says “it’s the best day ever” and you will be right there inside my head thinking what I’m thinking. So now onto soccer…

As I have mentioned before Ari loves to play soccer, but more for the social aspect then for the game itself. She’s not a huge fan of running up and down the field so when the coach asks who wants to be goalie Ari always volunteers, and surprisingly enough not that many other kids want to be goalie so she always gets to be goalie for at least a quarter of the game. DH and I are always a little concerned when she wants to be goalie because she’s also a little afraid of balls flying at her and as goalie you’re supposed to stop those balls, not run in the opposite direction. Well, on Friday, in Ari’s usual fashion she once again volunteered to be goalie and was up first. The other team had an amazing offense and spent a significant time close to our goal, not good for Ari who doesn’t really want to stop the ball. Well the ball came flying at her and she ended up stopping it with her eye! Luckily she didn’t get a black eye, although I told her that was too bad because at least she’d have something cool to show when she told the story, but I digress. She ended up coming out of the game at that point and DH and I just thought, well this may be the last time she volunteers for goalie, but nope. At the next quarter her coach asked if she was ready to go back in and did she want to be goalie? Yep! So out she went. We were so proud of her for getting right back up on that horse but waited with anticipation to see if she would shy away from the ball at that point. Nope, not one bit. She had not less than 14 saves and did an amazing job. The other team actually won the game, but it wasn’t because Ari wasn’t doing her part. Her defenders were nowhere near for the majority of those saves so she did it all on her own. I was kicking myself for not having the video camera that day! We took her out for ice cream that night to let her know how proud we were that she was willing to get back in there after getting hurt and for doing such a good job. So congrats Ari on your Best Game Ever!

Ari with her game face on :)

One of her saves.

The other team getting close to the goal.

A little bit of Ari

The other night as we sat down to dinner Ari asked “why don’t you guys ever ask me any questions?” We were a little perplexed by this because we do ask her questions everyday like “what did you do today” or “how was your day” to which she usually responds with answers like “nothing” or “fine”. So on this particular night we started asking her those types of questions and that was not what she was looking for. We asked “well, what kind of questions do you want us to ask?” “Just questions” was her response. Not knowing what she was looking for from us at that moment DH and I just started asking a bunch of random questions and she was answering them so I grabbed a pencil and started writing them down on my napkin. (Crazy I know, but I couldn’t be bothered to get a piece of paper.)I thought it would be nice to have a record of some of Ari’s favorite things at this age and since she was so willingly answering here there are.

Favorite Food:
Taco Soup
Cheeseburgers and fries

Favorite Drink:
Rootbeer

Favorite Cereal:
Captain Crunch
Golden Puffs

Favorite Snack:
Fritos

Favorite Dessert:
Vanilla Ice Cream and Brownies
Chocolate Carmel Crunch Cake (better known to most people as Better than Sex cake but we renamed it when she was little!)

If you could travel to 1 place where would it be?
Kenya, because of their wildlife parks.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
“You already know the answer to that one mom, a Veterinarian!”

Favorite Movie:
Remember the Titans or Radio

Favorite Book:
Harry Potter Series

Favorite Band:
Daughtry
Plain White T’s
Lifehouse

Favorite Hobby:
Soccer

Favorite Color:
Pink
Purple
Light Blue
Black
Lime Green
Maroon
(I guess she doesn’t really have a favorite after all)

Favorite TV show:
Animal Cops
Suite Life of Zack and Cody
Dirty Jobs

Favorite Subject in school:
Math…it used to be science but science isn’t fun anymore

Favorite Flower:
Roses because they’ve got pokey things that hurt people
(nice attitude huh?)

Favorite Animal:
Tiger
Husky

We still don't know what she was going for when she asked why we didn't ask her questions, but this seemed to satisfy her and now we know a little bit more about Ari.

School Projects

Ari had a huge project due on something that had to do with California since they study California history in 4th grade. It was kind of a challenge to get started on this project as Ari wanted to just do a posterboard with brochures for a bunch of different famous sites in California. Finally after all of us going in and talking to her teacher she decided to focus on Monterey Bay Aquarium (probably because we had just visited there).

They had to have their projects done by today and no late work was accepted. It was the school open house and the projects were to be on display so if they were late they weren't graded, harsh, but a good reality I think. I'm pretty sure they all got them in on time though.

I am a big believer in letting the child do their own work, therefore Ari's project isn't as elaborate as some, but she put in a good effort and I think she did a really good job. I especially like her diarama as she did it without any encouragement or suggestion on what fish to make or how to make them.

These are a few of the other projects that I got pictures of:

They also had artwork on display in the gym. Ari's class had a professional artist come in and work with them on these pictures and she was pointing out to me that her cupcakes looked "just like" the professional artist's the second picture) :)

Value of a dollar

Grandma and Grandpa sent Ari this cute purse with the $20 dollar bill inside it that had a note attached that said “for a top at your favorite store.”

Now that the weather is warming up Ari has been needing some new outfits because a lot of her clothes from last fall are starting to get a little small (I very lovingly refer to them as hoochy momma clothes, you know the kind you see on plenty of girls that should not be wearing such tight, short things, DH doesn’t think that’s very appropriate term however). But I digress, so she needed some new clothes, and with DH still out of a job, this gift from Grandma and Grandpa couldn’t have come at a better time.

Ari does not like to shop (she takes after me in this way), but she was excited to have money of her own to spend, so she asked if we could go on a shopping spree on Saturday. Ari added $20 of her savings and then I gave her $10 allowance, so she had a total of $50 to spend. Now as I’ve mentioned before Ari loves the clothes at Justice, but I suggested to her that we could look there along with a few other stores like Old Navy because Justice is kind of pricey. She agreed, so we went to Old Navy first and she was realizing that with shorts being $19.50 a pair her $50 wasn’t going to go far. Then she started looking at shirts and they were $10.50 each. When she saw this she decided she didn’t even want to go and look at Justice because their clothes are even more expensive. I steered her toward the clearance table and she found a few shirts she liked from there and they were only $4.99. Once she saw that she was appalled at the $10.50 price of the other shirts and said “this is one of the expensive one’s Mom.” I explained that $10.50 was not bad for a shirt, but wasn’t it so much better to get two shirts for that price rather than just one? She ended up getting one pair of shorts and four shirts, three from the clearance table. I bought her another pair of shorts and one more shirt. She really learned the value of a dollar and came home with some very cute things. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for giving her the money that started this wonderful learning experience.



Here she is before school today in one of her new outfits (did I mention she’s somewhat of a tomboy?)