It's been a busy week, and I'm not complaining! On Thursday, we went to see "Teeweesa" and baby Oliver. What a cute baby boy!


Then on Friday morning, we met up with Aunt Mary Ann and her girls, and the Whites. Sorry about posting this pic, MA, but it's pretty funny. Are we mean that we got a kick of out terrorizing Maesa with the automated puppets?


After dropping the kidlets off at home with Daddy, my mom, Kandis, and I made our way up to Park City to shop at the outlets and kick of my mom's 60th birthday celebration! You know it's a bunch of moms shopping when the biggest chunk of change we dropped was at Carter's! We shopped for a couple of hours, then met Janet, Marinda, and Mary Ann up in Midway. We ate at Tarahumara, a Mexican restaurant. I'd give our entrees a B-, but the desserts were a definite A.


Hello, gorgeous.


...And then the crazy Broadhead antics began. For some reason, they usually include terrible table manners.


Janet was unimpressed with our behavior. Cue the upturned nose. :)


Grandma got a little bit crazy with the desserts! You only turn 60 once!


After gorging ourselves at dinner, we stopped at the grocery store to punish ourselves further! I'm sure Mom's blood sugar spiked just standing next to this stuff!


We stayed at the Zermatt in Midway! What a beautiful resort! I wish we could have stayed around a little longer to take full advantage of it!


Nothing says 5 star like jumping on the bed! If you haven't noticed by now, we are models of exemplary behavior.










We stayed up until the early hours of the morning, laughing, talking, and stuffing ourselves. It was so nice to have some girl time and we had so much fun that we are already planning our next trip!


Bwahahaa!


Mary Ann compiled a book of our favorite memories of Mom. I think it was a hit! Heavy Heavy Hangover Grandma's Poor Head!
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Of all the things that we laughed about that night, Kandis' baby legs on the huge chairs were definitely the most hilarious!


We awoke the next morning, ate more sugar, got dressed, and toasted to Mom's wonderful 60 years.






Happy Birthday, Mom! We hope you enjoyed our little trip as much as we all did! We love you!

Lots to catch up on! First of all, happy late St. Patrick's day!




Last week, Anthony drove the kids to Colorado to visit the Dietrich side of the family. I stayed behind to work, and when I wasn't at the Cheese, I got lots of cleaning and catching up done. I slept a lot, a washed every fabric in our house, I caught up on photo books, and decorated Alaina's big wall (pictures to come).

On Thursday of last week, I caught an early morning flight to meet them. (Thanks, Grandma, for waking up so early to take me to the airport!) Bye bye, little house! We live right by those white squares in the center.


No need for the personal flotation device instruction on this flight.


As soon as we surprised everyone with my arrival, we loaded up to take the kids to Cool Beans, a little cafe with a really fun playground for the kids. We got to spend some time with this little cutie, who we haven't seen since Thanksgiving.


What a looker. :)


The excitement of the day took its toll on Connor, so we had some outside time-outs. He wasn't too big of a fan of me documenting this, but I managed this shot while he was distracted by a passing car.


Saturday was Anthony's parents anniversary, so we celebrated by going to lunch in Old Town Fort Collins. Alaina wasn't feeling her best, but she was okay as long as she had her Papa and Bootsie, her latest love.


After lunch, we spent some time throwing pennies into the fountain.



Twins.


Okay, okay, she needs a haircut. :P

After a run-in with an unfortunate doorknob, Papa deemed it best that Connor have ice cream in bed, just like last summer. Connor was so excited, he had to run and show Nana his cone.



No ice cream for you, Hannah!

This last photo was one shot by accident as my flash was recycling, but I love it, so forgive the noise.


Some fun memories from this trip:
*We recorded a 15 minute Q&A with Connor in which he told us that his favorite thing about Papa is that he plays with him and his favorite thing about Nana are her hugs and kisses.
*Alaina is officially a television addict. I posted the picture of her at Thanksgiving where she was wired and staying up all night because of the tv in her room there, but this time, she just whined that she was tired all day so she could go lay down and watch tv.
*Connor was drawing on a piece of paper and said, "This is for Daynarae. 'I love you, Daynarae.'"
*Alaina said, "I'm heavy, like Papa!"
*Papa asked what was up with Alaina's hair when she woke up in the morning, and she said, "No, Papa! It's down!"
*Connor's old bike got mauled by the "Big Red Truck", so he got an upgrade!

So far, March has been rainy. Really rainy. While I would rather hole up and hide from the elements, the kids just get cabin fever. Anthony has been such a good sport to take them out on bikerides in the rain.


We decided to hit up our local Boondock's the other day. Alaina was sleepy when we first arrived, but when her eyes opened slightly, it quickly registered that we were somewhere fun. "WHAT'S THAT?!"


Both kids were naturally drawn to the arcade games that had money or candy. Yes, they are my offspring.




Connor is so eerily good with video games already. He takes them almost as seriously as his daddy.


This photo makes me a little bit sad. Doesn't he look ten years old?! I've seen this look of utter concentration on my beloved's face many a time. :)


Fortunately, Alaina is still at the wonderful stage where pressing the buttons on all the games is just as, if not more fun than actually playing them.


Anthony was pretty excited to see this giant claw game. After playing it, though, I believe his exact words, said in a happy and sarcastic voice were, "It's just as crappy as the regular one!" (But more expensive at $1.50!) :)




Then we moved on to Rollerball, which is like a kiddie-version of bowling. There were only four lanes, and actual bowling across the room, so we had that area all to ourselves. The kids loved it and were not so good at playing by the rules, but it was the happiest we had seen them all day. Gotta love Alaina's perpetual bum crack. Now that I think about it, this day was the first day that we stayed out for hours while in undies! Both kids did great!


Every time Alaina would throw the ball down the lane, she'd wait in anticipation with her hands on her head and tongue out. I thought it was so cute that she was taking the game so seriously.


...And here's where our Boondock's visit took a turn for the worse. The ball return shot a ball right at Alaina's wrist, and while she was fine, it was the end of Alaina's "bwacewet" from Tori that she's been wearing for months. She was a sad, sad little girl.


So we made our way over to the giant playplace. Both Connor and Alaina were having a blast...it is seriously the most fun jungle gym I have ever seen, and they were burning off some serious energy. I almost don't want to write down the rest, because I am seriously traumatized by the next bit of the story, but it's kind of funny...in a way. As Anthony and I were sitting on the benches, watching our kids play happily, I saw a little girl come out of the playplace with something on her leg. Her mom rushed over and whisked her away. I faint flicker of recognition went off in my brain, then in cinematic slow motion, I looked up to where Connor was playing. In my head, it was still slow-motion with my mental voice screaming, "NOOOOOOOOO!" as he looked at his hands in disgust, then wiped them on the structure and his clothes. Still hoping that I had interpretted that wrong, I told Anthony that I thought that little girl had pooped in there, just as a little boy came out with poop all over his socks. At this point, Alaina was at the top on the gym and couldn't get down, so I had to go in there. Sure enough, near the top, there was a pile o' poop, then smear marks from other kids unfortunately coming across it. I'm so bummed about it all. The kids were so sad that we had to leave, and I had been so excited to have found a place nearby that we could play in, but I just don't know if I can bring myself to go back. Anthony tries to reassure me by saying that any playplace we've ever been to has had poop and pee in it, but the image of that lone turd has been permanently etched into my brain.

What a day!

Who else is completely, utterly, wholly ready for spring? My bones ache to go outside comfortably. I so badly want to go spend the day at the park with a picnic and spring flowers and WARMTH. I don't think I've ever wanted spring to come this badly. I've always been a "cold person", taking showers that turn my skin beet red, longing for summer, enjoying flannel sheets in August, and I'm absolutely ready for winter to end.

In an effort to trick my seasonal affected disordered self into thinking that one day it may be warm again, I planted some tomato seedlings a few weeks ago. I did this a few years back, and I was totally proud of my tiny seedlings until I went to the store and saw that huge tomato plants were only $2 and the things I had been growing were only a couple of millimeters thick. Oh well, I thought I'd get an early start this year and see what happens. I don't have high hopes for these babies, but it makes my soul feel better to see them growing every day. The kids run over to them and yell, "THEY'RE GETTING BIGGER!"


I think I may be giving my kids a big head with all my picture-taking. I asked Connor if I could take some pictures of him today. I got MANY dramatic model-esque poses out of him, but I think my favorite is this VERY serious picture where he's contemplating the meaning of life while sipping a Capri Sun. The world is a confusing place for a three year old.




One project that has been keeping me busy and my mind off of the late-winter doldrums has been redecorating our room on a strict budget. It's been a fun challenge to find decor that completely transforms our uninspired bedroom into a nice oasis while repurposing, recycling, and pinching our pennies. There are a few things that I have left to paint, arrange, and find before I want to showcase the room, but here's a sneak peek at our color palette! So nice and cheery, especially since our room faces north and doesn't get any direct sunlight.


I've been killing it with the couponing for the past couple of months. Walgreens really is a girl's best friend, but you have to have a thick skin and be prepared to be treated badly when you have more than three transactions. I used to feel really guilty when the employees would treat me like I was doing something wrong when I'd walk out with $100 worth of stuff for $30, but hey, I'm not the one that decided on the sales. I'm buying their product, and they get reimbursed for the manufacturer's coupons, but I still have to give myself a pep-talk as I'm walking up to the register. There's been a month-long deal on trail mix, and we are burning through a bag a day around here.


Those eyes. She is never allowed to date.


I'm still keeping up my effort to get some good, simple portraits for my mom. These are always the types of photos I get. :P Gotta love 'em.

Our Valentine's Day was great! Anthony and I have still yet to officially celebrate, since Valentine's Day is a very busy night in the restaurant business. He surprised me with flowers and chocolate when I got home from my long shift! It was my first time getting a traditional valentine, with roses and candy, so I was a happy girl!




I took these photos the morning after, and the kids were just beside themselves at the sight of all this candy! They had to touch every one over and over again, and I had to let them, since they were doing it under the guise of practicing counting. :)


I love how much Anthony knows me. I've never understood spending 5 bucks on a card that has impersonal sentiments and ends up in the trash, so he made me a custom card out of the kids' construction paper. I love it.


My gift also included a bath set. Very exciting, since I had been using shampoo as bubble bath. :)


You would be proud of me! Usually I am THAT mom whose kid trick-or-treats with a bucket from McDonald's instead of a hand-made bag with their name on it that matches the costume that they will only wear for one year. I always feel bad about this, but I'm still learning how to keep up with the Momses (a very difficult task, especially with all these Utah crafty moms). I knew that Connor's class was doing a Valentine exchange, but the flyer said nothing about how we were to transport them. I ALMOST sent them in a grocery bag, but, refusing to be the lazy. uncrafty mom, transformed the box they came in into an understated but cute valentine box! Yay me! However, I was the only mom who made one. So much for fitting in. Oh well, at least I was on the other side of the fence this time!


And now for the yearly heart sunglasses photos. First one: 2009. Alaina just liked sucking on them. I don't have a photo of Connor with them, because if my memory serves me right, I had just given these glasses to Alaina to keep her quiet while Connor napped.


Last year:




This year:

I had to share that one so that you can see the difference in her hand. Much less baby-like, but still hanging on to those "edamame" fingers. I will be crushed if they slim down in the next year.



Much more attitude than last year! :)


It's fun for me to see the difference in my photography from a year ago. Last year's photos were the first time I broke out my 35mm 1.8 lens, and I had no idea what to do with it. I actually put away the lens for a couple of months after that because I was so clueless as to how to use it and how to achieve how my photos were "supposed" to look. I look at the older photos and see too slow of a shutter speed, weird color casts, too much post-processing, and it makes me happy that I'm progressing. Until next time!