ProBLeM SOlvED!

Haha, funny thing about Saige and Savannah! One night, I thought everyone was asleep. But Savy came to tell me she needed to go potty, so I said ok, go! A few minutes went by and I assumed that Savy had gone back to bed, but then Saige asked me if she could go potty, so I said yup! All the while, not thinking about much, I just went in to check on the girls in their rooms, but no one was there. Went to go find them and checked the last place I knew they were, and there they were............

I guess, when you gotta go, ya gotta go...no matter what the obstacle!!! Problem SOLVED!!!

I just laughed my head off, that is why they are smiling because Mommy thought it was funny. Otherwise, when I first found them, they looked rather sleepy!!!! Funny Funny Funny!!!!

Years of Birthday Cakes

I thought it would be fun to post Saige and Savannah's birthday cakes from their other birthdays! So much fun!

Lady Bug Cake: 1st Birthday

Pink M & M Cake: 2nd Birthday

TWins are 3: Despicable Me!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saige and Savannah are now three! Crazy to think that only 3 years ago, these sweet little tykes joined our family only to bring us JOY! We love them to death!

For their birthday, we started out by celebrating on Saturday, by making their birthday cake. It has become tradition for me to make their cake and they help me make it! They have so much fun! This time, I decided to make an ice cream cake so the process took a LONG time! Here are some pictures of the process. I didn't take as many as I wanted to, I was so worried about getting the cake done in time, that the camera was the furthest from my mind, but at least I have these!

Here we are making the Minions!

The girls picked out the color of the cake.

Despicable Me cake...Tada! Me and the girls made all but Gru and the moon. Thanks to my friend Wendy...you are the best!

There were about 55 people that came that night. A lot more than I anticipated. But we are so glad that so many people came to support Saige and Savannah on their special day! Needless to say, I was very busy and not even sure who gave them what. It was a mad-house when they were opening presents!!!!!!

SO Here they are, they have gone from this:

To this:

This was our very first family photo. Please don't mind me, I look like I just had two kids!

I just thought I would share how cute my kids are! There is a tradition in my school that each class will "heart attack" another class. So on the big heart they write their names along with a Valentine Message and then decorate with other hearts too. Well, one of my Kindergarten classes attacked my door! I just thought they were cute and how much it meant to me to be remembered, even though I am not a "classroom!"

Attitude

Its amazing how one minute you can feel absolutely great, fabulous and wonderful, and the attitude of another can change that in a blink of an eye.

This week has been a very busy week. With sick kids and juggling work...it seems like I am damned if I do and damned if I don't, but with a positive attitude, I have seemed to accomplish more than I expected to...Until just this very moment. All the hard work I have put in this week seemed to have just crumbled just by one person. Its amazing that no matter how hard you do try, its not going to be good enough somewhere or with someone.

Listening to feelings...interesting concept. It is interesting how everyone expects to be heard, but not willing to listen to you. I ask myself, "Why do I let myself get bulldozed and then when I finally do stand up to it, I am the problem?"

Expectations...another interesting thing! What others expect of you are obviously not what it seems. Sometimes, it can come back to bite you in the tush, or just completely level you to the floor.

Body language....speaks 1 gazillion times more than actual verbal communication! Witnessed it first hand and never has been more clearer to me than just now!

So my question is, how do you know when you are being absolutely, positively what everybody wants?

Answer, never! Attitude says everything.... I am who I am and I am sorry you had a bad day, week or month! Get over it. What you will never know is how it has affected me, positive or negative...that will be up to me, NOT YOU!

Too Cute To Not POST!

I thought this was really cute. Today I went into one of my classes and for Counselor Week, they had prepared for me a book with pages from each child of the reason they like me. I couldn't help but to not laugh at some of these because they are just so cute! I love my kids, they are the reason why I love my job so much! Really, there isn't a better job!

This picture was drawn by a boy who loves sports and is a well liked kid! He drew a picture of me, and said, "Sorry I messed up your face!" LOL, but most importantly, he drew a picture of a lesson I did on Anger with Hershey Kisses. I am sure glad someone is listening!!!!!

I thought this one was also very cute. The girl who did this picture is very quiet in class and never makes a peep. You would never know that she was even there unless you know to look for her! After I came back from China, I did 2 lessons about it. The first week I showed them all the pictures and taught them what I had learned. The second week, I taught them how to speak and write Teacher, Principal, Student, and Class in Chinese. They had a blast with it! I think that was their favorite lesson so far, that and the Hershey Kiss lesson when they all got Hershey Kisses from me!

I love and care about each of my students, they are like kids to me! Here is something I found, that sums up what it is like to be a counselor or a teacher! Today, one of my kids nearly broke me! It is amazing to hear their trials which have happened in their short life. Far more than any of us will go through in a lifetime or more! Please watch....

http://www.heartofateachermovie.com/

The LOVE of Making Cookies!

The girls are "kind of" sick so we just decided to stay home from church today. Instead, we decided to occupy ourselves by making cookies. I used to do this with my Gram, since, well, the earliest I can remember is before Kindergarten. I will have to go find a picture of me making cookies at Grams house and get it on here. That was the greatest and I wanted to make sure I passed this nice little treasured memory down to my kids!

I forgot to take pictures while we were making the cookies, so I got them when they were putting icing on them instead! But we made nice and delicious sugar cookies, some with white icing with purple sprinkles, some where dark pink, and some light pink.

Reagan enjoying her cookie....ok, the frosting!

Future Olympians: Part II

This day was sooooo much fun! At first I was a little sceptical about the whole thing, but you never know how things will turn out unless you try. So, we tried and it went better than I could have imagined. Two summers ago, Bryce and I bought ski equipment from Snow Basin's rental shop. I happened to score some great ski's for half the cost along with boots, too! Bryce was able to get boots and ski's and we bought the girls their very first pair of ski's because, WE HAVE TO GET THEM STARTED NOW. So, we took the girls on the little majic carpet up with Uncle Ty in the ski school area. You can view that post here.

The girls did great. The night before I told the girls we needed to get to bed early because we are going skiing in the morning. Saige's face just lit up and she said, "[gasp], Skiing? Ohhhh!" So we got up early, Grandma came to watch Reagan, we made our lunches, and we headed to the slopes. It took us about an hour between getting up to the resort, take the shuttle, corral the girls to the rental shop, try on boots, fit the boots to the ski's, buy the tickets, get them in their clothes, put their gear on, and finally, attach the skis to them.

Here are the girls, ready to go. Heading towards the lift for the first time!

I explained to the girls that they need to walk and move their skis. Just by watching Mom, they caught on real quick.

First time on the lift.

Right after getting off the lift. Heading down for the first time.

After the first run down, Savannah says, "I wanna do it again!" YAAAAAAAYYYYEEEEE! I was shocked, but not completely because she just was grinning from ear to ear on the way down.

Second run.

Daddy and Savannah making their way down the hill. The girls were pretty dependent on us, but that is ok by me since it was our first time. I didn't want them to get to the point they hated it by falling all the time. The did fall a couple of times, but for the most part, we would hold on to them so they didn't go too fast. I tried to explain the pizza pie, but they both refused to do it. The most common thing I would hear is, "I don't wanna do the pie!" That will come in time. I just kept reassuring them how great they were doing and explained to them why it is important to do the pizza pie! Eventually they will get it!

We plan on going again on their birthday, February 16 if anyone would like to join us!

Dance, Like No One is Watching...OR Not!

Saige and Savannah have been asking for dance lessons OR Tumbling lessons. Last summer, I got them into a me and tot tumbling class and they loved it. I decided to try a dance class since technically I can teach them tumbling.

Here is a picture of Savy before the class began and she just was so happy and excited to have shoes on that made so much noise! And, she loved ALL of the mirrors!

So, we did a trial class and Saige absolutely had the time of her life and just, JUMPED right in! Savy on the other hand, was excited at first when there wasn't anyone there, but then when the teacher and other girls showed up, she hid in her shell!

For the first 15 minutes, they do tap. So when the girls got their tap shoes on, they ran around like crazy. Then the last half of the class, they take off the shoes and do some stretchy stuff and more jazzy stuff. It was cute.

Saige is the second from the right.

One of the pictures I was able to get Savy in when she wasn't being a little stinker. But she is the one facing the camera because she was worried about where I was. Half of the problem is that I was holding Reagan! Typically, I think she will be just fine after a couple of times, but we will see! Now it is all about just begging Daddy and batting those pretty little eyes at him to get them to actually be IN the class!

Saige, dancing her heart out! Love it!

Savannah, being a little shy stinker!

FiNaL-----EEEEE!!!!!

My dearest little Savannah has finally decided that it is time for her to be potty trained. I began potty training the girls last June and it took Saige about 3 weeks. Savy had a different schedule, she decided to take 7 months. Yes, she went through the first couple of weeks ok, but still had a lot of accidents. Then, after a couple of months she decided she wanted diapers on again, so I decided to just do pull ups. I really didn't want to do that, because I believed that it was going to be all or nothing, and not any of this in-between stuff! Nope, had to do the in-between stuff. I could get her to pee in the toilet, but I couldn't ever get her to poop. Finally, about a week ago, she had pooped and it was a stinger. Her poor little bum got so raw because she was playing and didn't come tell me that she was poopy, like she normally would.

All the while, I kept reminding her at bedtime, bathtime, etc. that if she would just wear panties and go potty in the toilet, she wouldn't have the diaper rash stuff anymore. I think it finally paid off because she started requesting to wear panties and I haven't had a problem since! However, my next issue will be getting her to the point that she doesn't need a treat anymore. See, she gets one skittle or M & M for going pee and/or two treats for going poop in the potty. In addition, to my current problem, Saige runs to the potty then requests a treat once Savannah gets one, even though she is already potty trained. UGGH, oh well, at least Savy has made it!