Yay for Canada

My family has congregated in Calgary for a few weeks for my sister Jen's wedding. She's getting married in Vegas later this week and so had a pre-reception here in Calgary last Friday night. I grew up here and so it's so fun to be home again! I love being in Calgary. We miss Mike though, since he's home studying for finals :(

I survived a flight alone with both girls!!!!! Does this qualify me as a super-Mom yet (for the day at least)?!?

The girls were actually really great and other people on the plane were so helpful! Since we always take family to the airport after they come to visit, I think Elaina thinks that her extended family must live at the airport because the minute we walked through the airport door, Elaina had a determined look on her face and said, "Ok, let's find Nana." Then as I was guiding her to the ticket counter and on through security, she kept saying "where's Nana?....Nana, where are you?!?" Thank goodness we found her when we landed in the Calgary airport!

Happy Birthday Mike!

Where I Was...

I'm copying this idea from my friend Jenna's blog. I hope she doesn't mind, but I thought it was a cute idea.

One year ago (April, 2007): Very Pregnant (7 months). Very impatient. Very hot in the record-high Las Vegas heat...as a pregnant lady. Hanging out with my friend Heather (who was also miserably pregnant with me) and her daughter Hailey at the park every day. Babysitting two of Elaina's friends, Chris & James, every day. We decided this month to move to Texas for Mike's graduate school at A&M!!!

Five years ago (April, 2003): Engaged!!! I probably seemed to think the world revolved around us and our upcoming wedding. We went to California for me to meet my future in-laws, then a trip to Argentina for Mike to meet his future in-laws. Also preparing to graduate from BYU at the end of the summer.

Ten years (April, 1998): Grade 11. First boyfriend. First kiss. First Prom. I was living in Caracas, Venezuela and spending weekends at the beach. My friend Krista came down from Canada to visit and we went to Merida in Eastern Venezuela - they have an ice cream shop with more flavors than anywhere else in the world!!

Fifteen years ago (April, 1993): Oh dear. Sixth grade. I fell in love for the first time...with Michael Jackson. One memory I have of that year was that my friend and I wrote him a love letter and sprayed it with so much perfume that the words smudged. We still sent it though. Then my family went on a trip to California and took a picture of my sisters and I in front of his house.

Twenty years ago (April, 1988): This was soon after the Winter Olympics were in Calgary, and I had seen Elizabeth Manley win gold (maybe silver?) in figure skating. She was my hero. And since my middle name is Elizabeth, anyone with the name Elizabeth also became my hero that year: Elizabeth Manley & Queen Elizabeth were the only ones I knew of :)

Twenty-five years ago (April, 1983): Living in Calgary, getting ready for my new baby sister, Heather, to be born in May. I was a year and a half old, and since I now have kids of my own...I know I probably ruled the house :)

She's Crawling!!!

Erin's latest trick: crawling!!!! The first video was a couple weeks ago, when she still couldn't move...but was trying, with Elaina's help - if you listen, you can hear Elaina saying "come here...come on..." And I couldn't get her to crawl in the last video, but I thought it was cute enough to post anyway :)

Obsessed with owies

Two years old is a funny age. Elaina cracks me up every day with the funny things that come to her mind. The latest thing is her owies. She has a million of them and everyone in Bryan knows about all of them! We went to the mall the other day and since she's not the least bit shy, she confronted every person that passed us and told them "I got an owie" and then she tried to show them her two owies - one on each knee (and the scabs are almost gone because she fell more than a week ago!). I also found her at music makers a while ago with a crowd of toddlers surrounding her and she was walking up to them one by one and showing each person the (invisible) owie that she had on her finger. Somehow, they were all fascinated by it. She compares owies with each friend that comes over, and talks about them nonstop. I don't understand the obsession! Below is a funny picture I took - about a month ago, I walked into the bathroom to find band-aid wrappers scattered across the bathroom floor and then Elaina showed me her hands - apparently she had an owie on almost all her fingers! I just can't believe she was able to put these on by herself...but she did waste many band-aids trying too :)

Happy April Fools

So, since I have a prankster husband, I am smart enough to remind myself in advance: "tomorrow is April Fool's...don't get fooled!" But of course this morning when I started up my computer tried to open the internet, I got a warning saying that my computer had encountered a malicious virus (TROJ 143.ck.66) and that it was in the process of deleting all my files. And then an MS DOS window popped up which, to me, appeared to be deleting the files one by one. I was totally freaking out!! But then my internet opened as usual, which I thought was weird. So I googled the virus and couldn't find anything on this particular one (obviously) and so started reading about the Trojan Horse virus on Wikipedia. Of course it talked about how certain types of this virus can go in and get Credit Card numbers, bank account information, and all your passwords. So, I immediately had all my saved passwords deleted and began changing all my passwords on my different accounts. This is when Mike came in and yelled "April Fool's" and I of course am left feeling like an idiot. Fooled again!!!!

Happy April Fool's everyone! I hope you are all less gullible than I am.

An Easter Story...

Erin & Elaina had what I might consider their first "real" fight on Easter morning. Heather got pictures of how the fight progressed:

Little Erin was happily exploring the goodies in her Easter basket...

Big sister Elaina (my typical 2-year-old who is still learning that everything in the house does not belong to just her...) comes along and pushes it just out of her reach. Erin gets upset....

Elaina starts examining the Easter eggs right in front of Erin,
who is mad mad mad by now!!...

Then Elaina gave the basket back, said she was sorry, and Erin of course forgave her.

And they lived happily ever after.

(And will never fight again because they've both learned their lesson...right?!?)

Easter Egg Hunt

We did the Easter egg hunt Saturday morning since Heather was leaving that afternoon and wanted to be apart of it. It was nice to not have to have a hectic Easter Sunday. And we are so grateful that the Easter Bunny in California sent goodies and the Easter Bunny in Canada sent goodies as well!



Elaina had so much fun searching for candy and Erin was just as excited to watch Elaina collect all the candy. Who doesn't love to watch a 2 year old get excited about a room full of candy?!?



It took Elaina a while to notice that the room was full of candy - first she noticed a big pink egg on the back of the couch (it faces her room) and so she spent about 5 minutes looking at it, unwrapping it, and then start to open it and eat it. But then the look on her face as she noticed that the room was full of TONZ of candy all over the place was priceless...and then she just went crazy :)



Each of them got 2 sets of Easter headbands in their baskets which were a huge hit as well! So thank you to the Easter Bunnies who helped make this Easter so much fun!!!



And as you can tell, Erin was content to eat the tag on her new toy duck since everything ends up in her mouth anyway, whether it's edible or not

Easter Festivities

Easter was so fun this year with Elaina being a little older, and of course as we have Erin to enjoy it with us too! On Friday night we did dyed Easter eggs. While I was setting everything up, I stuck a dye tablet in each of the plastic cups but hadn't added water & vinegar yet...and of course my mischievous little Elaina discovered them while I had my back turned and she ate some of them!!! So you'll notice that her face, mouth & teeth are dyed pink!











Elaina just took charge and knew exactly what color she wanted each egg to be...most were a combination of every color.































And....the finished product!!!

I'm not sure why the grumpy face - we really were having fun. Maybe she knew we wanted her to smile so she did the opposite...she does that sometimes, she's two! :)

Shopping at San Marcos

While Heather was here I decided to drag everyone out on a girls-day out shopping excursion #1 because I LOVE to shop #2 because I always love girl time #3 because I needed a dress to my sister's wedding and the mall in College Station is pretty pathetic. So my friend Kristi recommended some outlets in San Marcos, which is 2 1/2 hours away. It was a really pretty drive out there and we were able to spent the WHOLE day out there. It is the most beautiful mall... (and yes, a mall can be beautiful!!!) consisting of 2 huge outlet malls side by side and some of my favorite stores in the world...and of course great outlet prices! Apparently, it was even rated as the third best shopping in the world by The View (not that I give much weight to their opinions, but if anyone is going to rate a mall that high, it's worth checking out, I think). I was in shopping heaven! And as a bonus Elaina and Erin even had fun and behaved so well all day. I was amazed at how well they did. And in the end, I left with a dress for Jen's wedding - mission accomplished.

On the way out, Erin slept, and Elaina sang. Everyone was happy :)

Time to stretch - on the drive out!

Thank goodness for these little rides all along the sidewalk...they were something for Elaina to look forward to in between stores, helping to keep her happy all day, which in turn kept Mommy happy too. Thank goodness Elaina hasn't learned that if you put in a quarter, they move up and down. We'll hold out as long as we can without telling her that.

Elaina definitely inherits the "Ames" genes in her love for shoes - just like her Mom, her Aunts, and her Nana. It was so funny to see her trying to put these on and then try to walk in them!

Aunt Heather Came to Visit!!

I didn't realize how long it's been since I've updated my blog and so thanks to my friends that reminded me that it's been a while (and it's makes me feel good to know that people read it!).

This last month has been kind of a whirlwind! My sister Heather came to visit for 11 days and of course had so much fun with the girls and they adored her. Elaina & Erin are lucky enough to have 9 aunts & uncles and none of them are married (yet) or have any kids of their own, so our girls get a lot of love & attention from extended family. I'm excited for April to when I get to go see my family in Canada and welcome a new brother-in-law into the family in the beginning of May!

Here are some pictures of our time with Aunt Heather.

Popping Bubbles

Making Cookies in the Chef outfit that we love :)

See the play-doh snowmen?

We love blowing bubbles!

Just dancin'

New stuffed animals - Erin loves her new pink puppy and Elaina's
already putting diapers on her new friend, Grover


Sidewalk Chalk!!

Lots of lovin!

This is how Elaina passes the time while we shop for shoes...