Snow White with my girls!

Last Saturday morning I got to go out with these two cute girls. And I know I say this all the time, but I've very grateful to have girls to go do fun girly things with. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE my boys too. It's just so fun to have both! 

I tried to round up some friends that have girls similar ages to mine and that I thought might enjoy a play, and we had a mommy/daughter morning out. I really just love this little homey feeling theater in Glendale. I've been going to it since I was 13 when I first came out to CA to stay with my Aunt for four months to be her "nanny". 

Saturday was their "children's theater", so there were tons of moms and daughters everywhere. They did a rendition of "Snow White", and even though it got a bit cheesy in the second act, it was still a lot of fun and the girls totally ate it up. Afterward we walked down to Islands Restaurant for a burger and fries. 

This summer the theater is doing "The Frog and the Princess" and I hope to be able to take them to that also. It's a fun outing with them and really it's not much more than the price of a movie ticket. 

Ashlyn and Leah with one of the "D.Warfs". Ashlyn was so excited and wanted to get all of the actors autographs. She got most of them, but Snow White and the Prince had TOO long of a line. 

Not such a great photo, but it's the only one I got at the restaurant. 

After we left the restaurant, I met Paul in the parking lot and he scooped the girls up to take them and Brandon to a screening of "The Croods" down in LA. Spoiled kids I tell ya. I took Carter (since he's not much of a movie goer) and we headed to the mall to walk around for a bit. He got to ride on the carousel so he was a happy boy too!

She did IT!

Let me start with a little background info. I am in no way opposed to getting my kids ears pierced. I don't make them wait until a certain age or anything. In fact, I had Ashlyn's ears pierced when she was just 9 months old. It was quite traumatic though. She SCREAMED her head off while having it done and then continued to scream for hours afterwards. People in the mall were looking at me like I had just done the most horrible thing. I should have known better. She's so sensitive to things. But she was a pretty bald baby and I was so tired of people telling me how cute my little BOY was. I thought it would help (It didn't. People are idiots. She could be in total girlie clothes with earrings and they still thought she was a boy). Anyway, I didn't mess with her earrings too much besides making sure they didn't get infected. She ended up keeping the same earrings in for over a year because I was too afraid to change them out. When she was a little past 2 years old I thought it was time to finally get some new ones. Well, that was a BIG mistake. Not only was it a huge ordeal getting her stud earrings out, she would NOT under any circumstances, let me put new earrings in. So I gave up. She hasn't worn earrings since and doesn't seem to have much interest in having them. 

In the meantime, I had Leah. After the whole ordeal I had with Ashlyn, there was no way I was going to pierce Leah's ears as a baby. I just told myself I would let her decide when she wanted them.  When she was 4 or so, she decided she did. We almost went to get them. And then she got nervous. So we waited. She kept going back and forth, so after a while I told her if she was serious about wanting earrings, she had to save and help pay for them. Well, she finally decided her hard earned money was worth it and handed over $10 to help pay for them. Naive me thought that would pay for almost half of them. Boy have prices gone up since Ashlyn was a baby. It was closer to $50 to get them done, but oh well. She was too excited. And besides, we had already agreed on $10. I couldn't go back on it.

Here she is getting ready. Very curious about the "gun" that was going to pierce her ears.

Side number one. She was super brave. Didn't move a muscle. Just said "ouch" when it went in.

Second time around she knew what was coming, so the look on her face says it all. But all she let out was one more "ouch" and it was done.

And doesn't she look so happy?!

 She chose her birthstone for her first pair and I think she looks beautiful!

Afterward we took a ride on the carousel for Carter and then got some pretzels for the girls. (Brandon was at preschool so he missed our big outing.)

In retrospect, I'm glad I waited. Not only is she old enough to take care of them pretty well (with my supervision of course), I'm glad it was her decision. Plus, I'm pretty sure she'll remember this day as a good one!

It's warming up

The weather has been getting warmer and warmer. I'm afraid a tiny bit TOO warm for March (for my liking anyway), but it's still been nice to be able to get outside and enjoy the fresh air.

I took the kids to the park earlier this week. Leah is quite the poser. I did not tell her to do that.

 Brandon was a bit bored. We didn't come with any friends. (how dare I?)

Leah could have had me snap pictures of her all day though.

Carter has been LOVING the electric car from Grammy and Pop Pop. And no, I do not let him drive by himself. He at least has to have Ashlyn or Leah sitting next to him. But he does pretty well with them helping steer a bit.

He's getting big and starting to out grow his baby swing, although he still enjoys me pushing him in it from time to time. 

I haven't started my (tiny) garden yet, but I figured it was about time to plant some flowers in the front yard. The kids "helped" me so I can't say they are perfectly positioned, but oh well. Carter also had fun finding worms and lining them up on the sidewalk. I "think" no worms were harmed though and hopefully he got them all back into the dirt. 

With Spring, I have decided it is time to get busy on one of my New Year's Resolutions and get the kids more involved with helping around the house. They've always had little chores here and there and have had opportunities to earn money, but now it's in WRITING. You see, my kids were starting to pretty much walk all over me. Ordering me around, yelling at each other (and me), and leaving messes everywhere (especially in their rooms).  I had pretty much had enough. So I texted my SIL who sent me a pdf of the chore chart she uses and I got to filling it out. Everyday the kids have to complete their chores before they can watch TV or do anything fun or extra. We are only two days into it, but I'm hoping it will help. If they don't complete all of their chores each day, not only do they not get TV, but they also don't earn any money. The kids seem excited. Ashlyn said she is a bit nervous. Claims I looked pretty "serious" about it all when I explained it. And she's right. I am serious! I'm sure there will be some tweaking of assignments and such, but I'm hoping that after a while we'll get into a good rhythm and things will go more smoothly.

Ironic

This is what you call complete irony. The boy who refuses to dress properly during the daytime hours, wears long sleeve shirts and long pants to bed almost every night.

Why? I DO NOT KNOW!

The Ellen Show

So my friend Tina is a huge Ellen fan. A few years or so ago, she started getting tickets to go to a show once a year. I couldn't go the first year since I had a nursing baby, but made it last year and this year. Last year was hard but fun. We had to be there SUPER early (like 6 am) to get in line for standby tickets. So literally by the time we got in the show (which we thankfully did) I was so beat, it was hard to yell and scream and dance for a solid hour. This year was SO much better. Tina and I both got 4 tickets each and GUARANTEED seats, which meant no getting up before the crack of dawn. We were SO excited. Our group of awesome girls included Tina, Beth, Brooke, Becky, Mindee, Brittany, Lisa and myself. We left around 1pm and got to the show and checked in by 2pm. Then we sat around and chatted for a while. They brought us in around 3:30 and the show starting taping at 4. It really only takes an hour to film, but by the time we got out of the studio and got our totally random $700.00 air purifier that was given to everyone in the audience, it was close to 6pm. We headed to the Americana on Brand for some dinner at Cheesecake Factory and to celebrate Brooke's birthday, which is next week. I could have sat and chatted, laughed and ate until the restaurant closed, I was having so much fun! It was the best day! Can't wait until next year. I hope we get guaranteed seats again. That made all the difference.

Date Night

If I had my choice, Paul and I would go out once a week (maybe more). But at this stage in our life, with young kids and such, we are glad to be doing well to get out together twice a month. Paul picked our date this time, as he REALLY REALLY wanted to go to this art exhibit at Pepperdine University. All of the art was from the early 1900's and were original pieces. They were AMAZING. I'm not sure I've ever seen too many original pieces of art like this. And while I'm no where nearly as educated about art as Paul is, I really had a fun time looking at everything. After the exhibit, we went out to dinner and of course ended our date at Target picking up a few needed items before Sunday. Isn't that where any good date ends? Haha...ok, not really, but I know I'm not the only one that does this.

I don't necessarily love what this artist decided to paint, but what caught my attention when I saw it across the room, is that I literally thought it was 3D. It was only as I got up on it that I realized it wasn't. It was incredible how the artist was able to bring so much depth to a flat image. I had to show incredible restraint to keep from reaching out and touching every painting I looked at, most of which had slight line cracks from being so old.

A lot of art in the early 1900's were for magazines and advertisements. This one was for a "no run" pantyhose. Pretty awesome huh!

This one was entitled, "Secret Admirer". I thought it was so endearing.

Mary washing Christ's feet. 

This artist's story is so sad. He is the brother of a very famous artist who never felt like he was as good as his brother. He ended up dying a tragic death (from an overdose). It's incredible to me that he somehow looked at this painting after he was done, and felt like it wasn't "good enough". 

The next several pictures are from JC Leyendecker and are quite amazing. 

He's one of Paul's all time favorite artists. Norman Rockwell has been said to pattern his artist style after him. So that tells you a bit about how talented this guy was.

This was probably my favorite one though. It's a painting of a first flight in an airplane. It's just beautiful to me. And really, these pictures just don't do the real things justice. I'm so glad we were able to go. 

Isn't this the cutest thing ever? I wanted to reach out and kiss this adorable baby Cupid myself!

The Count of Monte Cristo, for all my friends who "recently" (okay, it's been a couple years probably) who got together to watch this movie one night.

And of course, the very typical photo of me and Paul when we have no one to take a picture of us together. Love you honey!