Loving Life

The past few weeks have been super busy. Mostly because Geoff and I went out of town for a business trip and then I left 2 days later to go up to Idaho for 5 days to spend some time with my family because my brother got married, my sister graduated from high school and we had a baby shower for my sister in law. It was a fun, but very busy trip. I only took Camden with me, which was nice, but the girls were devastated that they didn't get to go. Anyways, here are a few random pics of some things that we have been up to. 

 Addie got in trouble one night and was sent to time out. She must have been exhausted because while there, she totally fell asleep. (It was bedtime though, so it was actually nice.)

 Here is the rest of the clan hanging out together and playing while Addie was in time out sleeping.

 The girls were posing on my bed  one day and asked me to take a picture of them. In the process, they fell over and I was able to capture it all! Saying Cheese!

 Oh no!! Falling over!

 Laughing hysterically at what just happened.

Helping each other up! They sure do know how to have fun together and love each other so much! However, they also fight their fair share as well!

Johnny Jump Up

This little guy LOVES the Johnny Jump Up. It is truly a life saver! It is the only way I get anything done!!! He is getting really good at bouncing in it and can control the thing to go wherever he wants it to go. It is pretty cute!

Fort Worth Stock Yards

Geoff's parents came into town last week. They were here right in time for Macie's birthday. We had a day for shopping and a day for sight seeing. It was a fun time. For the sight seeing we decided on the Fort Worth Stockyards and the US dollar mint. 

You couldn't take pictures at the mint, so all that we have is the stockyards, but the mint was so very interesting! It was so fun to see how the dollar bills are made! 

The Stockyards were fun. It was like being back in the good ole' Western days. The roads were all cobblestone and there were real cowboys and people on horses. Everyday at 11:30 and 4:00 they walk the longhorns through the street. Weird, but kind of fun to see. We got there a few minutes early so we had time to walk around a bit and pet some of the horses. Then at 11:30 on the dot, the cattle came down the street. It only took about 5 minutes and it was over. The girls really enjoyed it though.

 Petting the horses.

 The girls and their dad

 They got tired of walking around. So the stroller came in handy. Addie would have stayed in that thing all day and played. She loved it.

 Grandpa Barnum and the kids.

 Here come the cattle.

The one with the bell is the leader. I am not sure how many there were...maybe 15? The girls were impressed with how long the horns were on some of the cows.

Macie's Birthday!

On Saturday, Macie turned 6!!!!! CRAZY!!! She has been waiting for this day for a long time! For the past few months I have been hearing her say : "when is it going to be my birthday?", "Everyone in my class is already 6, I am the only one that is still 5!", "Is Tony 6, is Halle 6, is Trevor 6?", and so on.... She was so excited that her birthday week was finally here! She made sure to tell everyone she knew that it was her birthday on Saturday and even reminded us a few times that when she woke up on Saturday, that we needed to tell her happy birthday right when she woke up! She definitely had a vision of what she wanted and thought her birthday should be and what everyone should say or do and we heard all about it!

Here we are singing Happy Birthday (We sang it in Korean). She doesn't like cake and chose to go out for ice cream, so we improvised and put the candles in the breadsticks.

Blowing out the candles. They started to fall over, so grandpa is assisting in keeping them up and going.  Apparently candles don't do well in bread. That breadstick was full of wax and the bottom of the candles were completely gone.
She had a wonderful birthday and told me several times throughout the day that it was the "best birthday ever!" It was a very busy day. We started out the day with her soccer games. She had 2 right in a row. After the first one she was sooo ready to be done, but we told her she had to keep playing. After the soccer games, we went home and changed into swimming suits because the girls had a birthday swimming party to go to for a friend. After the swimming party, Macie was exhausted!! We ended up leaving a little early because she was so tired and just wanted to go home. We got home and set up a scavenger hunt for her to find her presents. (We did this because she got a new bike and it was hiding in our closet). When we told her what she was going to have to do to find her presents, she was sooooo excited! I am pretty sure that she loved the scavenger hunt even more then her bike! When she found her bike, she had zero reaction and was like.."a bike?" (made me want to take it back! HA!) She then opened the rest of her presents and loved them. She has not stopped playing with them for the past week. She has also been GREAT about sharing her new toys with Addie. After presents, we took her to the store to choose out one more from my mom and dad (they gave her money for a toy) and then came home and had her favorite dinner (chicken sauce with noodles), and then met my aunt Ann and Uncle Byron for ice cream. It was such a busy day and the kids were all asleep by 8:00 that night!

Here she is finding her first clue/gift. It is a frisbee!!

Her second clue sent her to the fridge. She spent a little bit of time here saying she couldn't find her gift. It was just sitting on a shelf. I guess she thought it would be in the door or something.

The next clue sent her to the "hut" in their room.

This one told her to go to the place where she plays school. She ran straight to the toy room and thought that it was so funny!

Then she was told to go the place where mom does the laundry. She looked and said "really mom?!"

It was FINALLY time to open all of the presents. She is sooo excited!

Here she is with her gift from Grandpa and Grandma Barnum. She got a lego set and she is studying it to see what it is.

Happy Birthday Macie! We sure love you and think that you are pretty special!

Puzzles

Sunday afternoon the girls decided to pull out some puzzles. They LOVE puzzles and so do I. If they are working on a puzzle together they will each hold their piece and just wait for the other to put their piece in so they can be the last one. It is something that they started out of the blue Geoff finds it annoying and always says to me "I wonder where they get this from....". I find it hilarious because when I was growing up and we would do those big 1000 piece puzzles, I would always take a piece and hide it away until the puzzle was almost done and then I would pull it out as everyone was looking on the floor or in the box for the last missing piece and I would slyly put it in its spot. I loved doing that every. single.time! 

This is the Hello Kitty puzzle that Macie got for christmas.And of coarse, once Addie saw what Macie was doing, she had to do her own as well. This was all her idea. She asked me take a picture of her and Hello Kitty holding hands.Addie with her little doggie puzzle. Goofy kids!

Soccer

The past few weeks Macie has been in Soccer. She likes it. She does not love it and is kind of lost when she is on the field. I am convinced that it is not her sport, Geoff says that it is her first time playing and to give it time. I think that I would rather just put her back in dance because she is pretty good at it. We will see what she chooses. She got to go to the store with me and choose out her own shorts and shin guards. She chose pink everything. It is her favorite color. I like it because I always know which one she is on the field! 

Her biggest fear when starting soccer was that she would score a goal in the wrong goal. That she would get a point for the other team. It was such a worry for her that she talked about it quite alot before soccer even started. 

Yesterday she had a game. I am pretty sure that she has never once touched the ball during any of her games. She usually just skips along following the crowd. She is pretty timid and doesn't want to take the ball from anyone or even try to get the ball at all. So...you can imagine our surprise when yesterday, out of the blue, came this great little soccer player, who for a short moment, stole the ball and whizzed past another player to score a goal....for the wrong team!!! It happened sooo quickly we were all in complete shock! Her face lit up! She was sooo excited! She looks at us, throws both hands in the air, and jumps up and down completely forgetting that the game is still going. It.was.PRICELESS.  Totally made the whole season! Her face was stinkin' happy and excited. I was hoping that no one would tell her that it was for the wrong goal just so she could enjoy this moment. When the game was done she came running over to us full of joy! We told her how great she did and how awesome her goal was. That was when she said "Ya, but it was for the wrong team."  She was still happy and ok with it, which was good since that was her biggest fear in playing soccer. But I still just wish no one would have told her. What a great memory that would have been for her. I am also sad because it happened so fast, that I didn't get a single picture!!! BLAH!!

 Trying to figure things out.

 Going after the ball.

She has played goalie at a couple of games as well. The first time, no one scored. The second time, the team was a little better and they scored 2 times. Luckily she is still happy and it doesn't seem to affect her attitude!

Caterpillar

Geoff was outside mowing the lawn yesterday. I was inside feeding Camden. The girls were "helping" Geoff. All of a sudden the girls come running inside carrying a piece of scrap wood. They were all sorts of excited and brought it right up next to me so I could see what the excitement was about. On the wood, was a nice, harry, fuzzy caterpillar. 

  

 He looked as though he was dancing on the wood. It was pretty funny.

 Macie stuck her finger out to see if the caterpillar would climb onto her hand. It did. And it left her a little present too. (Notice the little poo.)

 He sure was friendly and the girls loved him.

They played with him for a good while before it was time to say goodbye to the new found friend. We love bugs around here and it sure is fun when we can find a new one to investigate as Macie would say!

Naughty Jar

This afternoon the girls were playing...fighting. So, after asking them to get a long and them not listening I pulled out the naughty jar. What is the naughty jar you ask....let me tell you. A few weeks ago I was tired of all of the fighting that was going on in our home. It is just exhausting. So, we had a family night on fighting and how it ruins the spirit in our home and then I introduced my friend...the naughty jar. (I couldn't think of a better name for the life of me...ideas?)

This is the naughty jar. Inside of this jar are a bunch of  "punishments" for not getting along. Some of the things include: Stand inside of a hula hoop and hug each other for 5 minutes (Addie thinks this one is hilarious..Macie hates it!), Macie read Addie a story, Color a picture of a rainbow with your hands tied together, sit on your bed and read books for 10 minutes, do a puzzle together, Play ring around the rosie four times together, build a tower out of blocks together (see how high you can get it), Both of them pick a toy in the toy room to clean up together, color a picture while listening to primary music, and my personal favorite...

Clean the bathroom counter with your legs tied together!  They were laughing so hard!!

The girls have LOVED this! The fighting has definitely gotten tons better and I am one happy momma. Now when they fight and I pull out the jar, they get excited! They love the jar and even ask for it when they aren't fighting for something funny to do. When I tell them what they have to do, they usually laugh and love it. I am not sure if this is a good thing or not, but hey, at least it is positive reinforcement instead of negative, and it has worked. It distracts them from fighting and reminds them how fun it is to work and play together. The jar is loved by everyone. :)

Life

The girls and I did another little project this week .This time it was about clouds and how they work. So, we got a couple of mason jars, filled them with water and some shaving cream and went to work to see what would happen. I gave them both a squeeze bottle with colored water in it and they could squeeze the water out and see how it affected the Shaving cream "cloud". 

Here is Macie adding a little bit of color. Notice the pink?

Here is Addie checking hers out. Hers took a little bit longer to work...I might have had hers sit to long before we started...oops!

 Macie adding some more color. She really thought that this was neat. She did not want to stop doing it.

 Addie was getting a little frustrated that hers was not working as good as Macie's. Hers just kind of sat right underneath the layer of shaving cream and didn't really change all of the water.

I walked into the room one night this week and when I walked in... this is what I saw. The little guy, playing on the computer and watching tv!  Geoffy is soooo funny! I was laughing pretty hard.

I mean, it seriously looks legit! Such a cute little guy!

Rangers Game

Geoff got some pretty sweet tickets to a Rangers game this week. It was the same night as Macie's soccer practice, so we kind of debated going, but decided in the end that we had tickets for free with free parking....it was a no brainer!  The seats were pretty sweet. They were pretty close and in the perfect spot for all of the foul balls to come into the stands. It was a lot of fun. Plus they won!

 The ladies! Macie did get tired of the noise and was ready to leave way before we did.

 Addie enjoyed the game thoroughly and didn't want to go home. She was a little upset that we left one inning early. The girls did have school the next day!

This little guy hates loud noises! So....he did this a good majority of the time. I ended up being outside with him while he took a nap and then I think that he just got used to the noise or Geoff was able to distract him enough that he stayed pretty happy near the end.