What Can I Do?

I am at a loss. I brush Zoe's teeth. Regularly. Not too long after I get them all shiny and pearly white they get really orange. ORANGE! What is that about? I have to scrape them with my fingernail to get them completely clean. I hate it. It's gross.

Has anyone dealt with this before? What can I do? My Mom's helpful advice when I asked her how to get the orange off: brush her teeth. Thanks Mom. That was clever!

My Gorgeous Girl

Since the day she was born she has had the most beautiful eyelashes.

I haven't been able to capture Maggie's long lashes on film yet, but she has the same ones.

I wish I could say they got them from me, but no. They get them from their Dad.

*SIGH*

Just a little blogger gripe. I get so frustrated when I try to adjust the spacing between my pictures and accidentally delete one. It happens to me frequently. When I center them on the page I can't tell exactly how many spaces are between them. I like them to be close together and usually delete one too many spaces and then my picture goes bye bye. ARRRG! (that's my impersonation of an angry blogging pirate!)

My Two Deleted Pictures

So here you go. These are the two pictures I lost from my last post. I didn't want the hassle of editing that post so they get their own showcase. You are all excited I'm sure!

The girls had fun playing with Aunt Shirley. I think she enjoyed them as well. Thanks for letting us hang out for a few minutes.

Yucky Rash & April Snow

So for the last couple of months I have been dealing with a lovely red, itchy rash on my face. It has been driving me crazy. I have taken Claritin and Benydril as well as put on a topical ointment that is supposed to help with the itch. No relief from any of it. So while we were in Utah for Spring Break I called my Cousins husband who is a dermatologist in Logan and they squeezed me in to check it out. He thinks it is an allergic reaction to something so I got the pleasure of wearing three large stickers on my back that had 29 little squares with different ingredients in each. If I reacted to some of them they would know what I was allergic to. My appointment was on Wednesday and had to wear the patches until my next appointment on Friday. My Wednesday appointment was at 8:30 in the morning. Logan is just over 2 hours north east of Provo. Glenn and I had to leave around 5:30 so we could for sure be on time. We planned to leave the girls sleeping and then Mom would take care of them when they woke up. Both of them woke up before we left so Mom had the pleasure of listening to Zoe cry uncontrollably for about 45 minutes after we left. Sorry for the unpleasant experience Mom, but thank you for taking her on!

So the real point of this post is this...on our way up on Wednesday we had some nasty weather just outside of Logan. Then on our way home this is what we drove in all the way back...



Are you kidding me?! It's April! Where are the flowers? The green grass? The blooming trees? Thursday morning we woke up to this...

It was really cool to see how winter and spring kind of collided here. The blossoms were so pretty and the looked like they had been sprinkled with sugar. Very pretty.

So my Friday appointment was late in the afternoon and Glenn had left the afternoon before to get ready for a weekend camp out so Mom and Dad decided they would ride with me to Logan. Our weather was beautiful. It finally looked and felt like spring. I love spring! Warmer weather, pretty blossoms and new life. Mom and Dad's neighbors have sheep and there are a couple of new babies that are so cute and energetic.

Test results: apparently I had some kind of reaction to every patch. Not cool! Now we have no idea what is causing the rash on my face. Super. They gave me lots of samples of things to try and if it doesn't get better in the next few weeks they want me to come back in. So far no luck with any of it. It swells up and itches like crazy every three or four days. Today was an itchy flare up day. It wasn't as red as usual, but it is itching like no bodies business. I hate to leave the house because I look hideous. I'm sure I've scared a few kids at Maggie's school by now. It is so frustrating to not know what the cause is. I have no idea how to make it stop. The next step is to go to an actual allergist and get more specific testing done. I can not afford the next step! I guess I get to have a red rashy face. Fun for me.

When we went back on Friday we had a few extra minutes so we were able to go see Glenn's brother and his wife. Bob knew that we were planning to come back and may drop in on him, but Shirley was totally surprised when we walked into her office. It was the first time Shirley had ever seen Zoe and she took right to her. Shocking, I know! Zoe doesn't take to people very easily. They usually have to work for her affection.

I'm having some posting issues. I just deleted two of my pictures. I'm not fixing it right now. I have a few minutes to myself so blogging is getting put on hold...AGAIN!

More Proof

Here is more pictoral proof that Maggie has earned her "Maggie Monkey" nickname...

She was so happy that she was FINALLY able to do it all by herself.

More Birthday Fun

Today we got to celebrate Landon's birthday. It's actually on the 20th, but since we were having Sunday dinner at Mom and Dad's, Starr decided to have cake while everyone was there.

I think Zoe was amazed at all the candles. After all her cake only had two.

Looking good birthday boy! Happy 13!!

Yum!

Homemade Strawberry Freezer Jam!

Maggie made some delicious jam. We even got to bring some home with us. Thanks Grandma!

After we made the jam Maggie & Zoe got to help Grandpa (or Kerpaw as he is known to Zoe) take the trash out to the burn pile.

They were returned without harm. They did not get thrown on the pile!

Sadie's Three!

Sadie invited us to party with her at the skating rink for her birthday. We had lots of fun. She got lots of fun toys and some very cute clothes. At this rink they allow the kids to bring their scooters. I thought that was a pretty cool idea. Since I didn't break out my camera during the entire party I had to steal this shot from Mandi's blog.

Happy birthday Sadie! We love you bunches and are so glad we get to see you more often now. We get the true real life Sadie experience now. We love it!

Maggie enjoyed the skating, but still has a lot of work to do on her balancing. She fell down quite a bit, but she got right back up and had lots of fun.

Zoe didn't want anything to do with the skates. I managed to get them on her feet and get her out on the rink. We made it around one time and she was done. I think Glenn took her out on the scooter a time or two. It's just not her thing.

On our way out the door Zoe spotted Cooper playing in this car and just had to join him. I couldn't get them to cooperate and look at me so this was the best I could get.

Thanks for letting us have some fun on your special day, Sadie!

Photo Session

The day after Maggie's first birthday I decided to have a black and white photo shoot with her. The pictures turned out really cute and I decided I wanted to do it every year around her birthday. In Houston it worked out well because, even though her birthday is in February, the weather was usually decent and we could do it outside. During our time in Utah I forgot to do it because the weather was less than desirable. This year was another bad weather year. I didn't think I would be able to get them done again. During our Spring Break we had a couple of days of really nice weather, but the sun was so bright I knew I would get a lot of squinting and complaining. Finally we had an overcast day that I thought would work well. We threw the kids in the truck and headed up to the "castle".

Just as we were finishing up and on our way back to the truck it started raining. Before we left our parking spot it was coming down pretty hard. Good timing!

I have not had a chance to do any photo shop work on these, but they turned out pretty cute and don't need much help anyway.

Maggie was my difficult subject. She used to love getting her picture taken, but now we have to drag a decent smile out of her. Most of her shots she had such a silly smile. Here are a couple that turned out pretty well.
I had changed the setting on my camera and didn't realize it changed back to color. Oops! I'm still getting used to my camera and all it's tricks and settings.

Camille came with us and got in on the fun...well silliness.

I love my silly girls!

Harley Davidson

We finally got the chance to go to the Harley Davidson store in Lindon. Last summer while Brent was in town we tried to go, but the only day we got to see him was on a Sunday and the store was closed. It was pretty fun. They have a restaurant in the store called "Marley's". They mainly serve "sliders", but hey also have salads and chicken strips. And the best part was the shoestring french fries. Those are my absolute favorite kind of fry.


They have a shop there also. I'm not sure if they make the cycles there or just do maintenance and repairs.

Zoe enjoyed the little rocking motorcycle. I want one!

She also had lots of fun playing peek-a-boo with us in this post.

This sculpture was outside the store so I stuck the girls up there to get a picture. It was a very bright day as you can tell by Maggie's expression.

I totally want to do this some day...
I bet you didn't know that I want one of these some day...

Not an orange one, but I do want a Harley some day. With this on the seat...

We had a fun time checking out all the stuff we could never afford to own!