Dinner is READY!

Come and get it!  Someone had fun playing dress up with a big pot and some wooden spoons today!!!  No - not Pepper, I did!  Well she had fun too, mostly, she didn't enjoy being stuffed into a very small pot but hey, it made for cute photos!

All Over the Place

Pepper is all over the place.  She can crawl across the room before a blink of an eye, and then she finds something she is not suppose to put into her mouth and puts it into her mouth.  She is also standing up on everything.  Today she discovered the outlets.  Luckily most are still plugged from Summer, but I had to go around and replug a few that we use on occasion.  She is not going to be as easy as Summer, at least it seems that way, maybe Summer was all over the place too but I sure don't remember it.  I was thinking that Summer had a plug err pacifier in her mouth more often so she probably didn't put as much in her mouth.  Around 8 months Summer had a nice rash from sucking on her pacifier so much.  Pepper pretty much uses her pacifier to fall asleep and really that is the only time.  

In two days Pepper will take her first flight to Oklahoma and I will take pictures of course.  Hopefully she does as well as Summer always did on a plane, sleeping during the flight, having fun, etc.  Wish us luck!

Swimming

Today we went to a friends house to visit, BBQ, and to swim.  Swimming is so much fun on a hot day in Las Vegas and both girls love doing it.  Summer is doing excellent at swimming, she is now able to swim all the way across the pool under water while wearing goggles.  She even comes up for air a few times and goes back under and continues going across the pool.  Pepper also had a great time swimming as was apparent by the big smile across her face today.  Strange random fact about me - I hate swimming.  I hate every bit of it from the getting changed, to getting in, to the chemicals, to the stringy hair, to pruning, to getting out, well you get the idea.  I hate being cold and I bet that is part of it, but being a self conscious normal woman probably doesn't help either, and the whole process of changing, being wet, drying off, does nothing for me either.  Oh well, you get the point, I much prefer sitting on the side taking pictures, which is exactly what I did!

Black and Pink

I love having the girls model, besides the fact that it allows me to take more fun photos, I get cute little outfits in fun colors, like these outfits, and mostly black, a color I never would have picked yet ended up loving on them.  They were both in a decent mood too so it made for a fun quick evening :o)  I can't wait until more outfits come in!

Oops

Since learning how to crawl Pepper has become quite the amazing little person.  She is so much happier and is into everything and goes everywhere.  Just this week she has fallen off the bed twice! And yes, both times Kris and I were right there.  Little stinker doesn't just fall off either she lunges for the edge.  The first time she fell flat onto her stomach, which tells you she had to lunge to pull that superman move off, and the second time she decided to try head first.  Needless to say now she is banned from our bed.

Summer is enjoying being 5.  We have had some annoying issues with whining lately, well by lately I mean maybe for the past year, so we are really working on correcting the issue.  I take the iPad,  movies and computers away if she whines.  She whines over the silliest things too like not being able to get her shirt over her head.  Yesterday was an excellent day without much whining so I hope she continues to think about it and I hope the taking away is enough motivation to help her out.  Today she whined and I gave in and let her play the iPad but I plan on being tough again tomorrow.

This week has been an odd week because we have nothing planned at all.  If you know me then you know how crazy that sounds.  I am always on the go, busy busy busy, but last week was so hectic with the birthday, dance recital, and birthday party that I decided to just take it easy.  The birthday party was a big hit by the way!

Looking ahead is always exciting, a trip to Oklahoma in two weeks (a little less), a trip to Texas in October, and Pepper's birthday in November.  Until then here are a few pictures from the birthday party madness.

Dance is over

Dance is over for us, at least for a week!  Summer had her dance recital last night - she did ... eh lol.  She looks great however!  These are the dance photos I took of her earlier in the day.  The good news is they look decent, the bad news is she has outgrown my white paper :o( she is just too tall now and I had to do major editing on the sides.  That means I have to shoot everything outside or get a larger background.  I vote larger background! Heck why not just get a studio while I am at it, for just my kids and my friends right?  Yeah probably not going to happen :o) so in the meantime I will figure something else out.

Today is her birthday party - please wish me a lot of luck!

She is 5!

Today is a lucky day, Friday the 13th and Summer's 5th Birthday !!!  She woke up to 5 birthday balloons above her bed (like every year, a guess a tradition I started), and she woke up in a good mood, tho kinda early.  We had cake yesterday and the party is tomorrow.  Tonight she has her dance performance so we hung out this morning and took a few pictures!

Today Summer weighed in at 48 pounds.  She was 45 3/4 inches tall.  Her favorite color is pink.  She likes most every toy they make.  Her favorite movie is Despicable Me.  She hates the heat lol, loves her friends and her little sister most of the time.  Hates having her hair brushed or pulled.   

Oddly enough it is raining outside.  For the past week we have broken heat records in Las Vegas and today the temperature dropped to the 90s which is wonderful.  I am also not doing good on my diet because cake and ice cream is a weakness of mine.  I will get back on track, probably after our Oklahoma vacation.  Ok gotta run and entertain the chubbs now!

Here we go again

Being healthy is never ending.  Once again Kris and I have decided to start eating healthy in hopes that we lose weight.  We bought one of those fancy scales (a fitbit) that, once stepped on, recognizes who you are, tells you your weight and your body fat percent, and rewards you with badges or something.  We are only on day 2 (or 3, it's all a blur now) and things are going.  We are trying to eat smaller healthier portions with lots of small healthy snacks.  For dinner tonight I made a crock pot chicken breast with spices, green beans for the girls, cabbage for Kris and I, two garden tomatoes and corn for all of us except Pepper.  Summer didn't really eat much of her dinner and two hours later decided she was hungry.  We told her to just finish eating her dinner (corn, green beans, chicken), to which she replied she didn't like it.  I know she likes everything I made.  I told her if she was hungry she would eat her dinner or would have nothing else.  I never make Summer finish her plate, she can eat what she wants but if she doesn't eat then she can't get anything else.  While I was feeding Pepper in the bedroom Summer came and told me she finished all her green beans.  I didn't really believe it but when I checked her plate they were all gone.  I knew she was lying about eating them so I asked her where her green beans were.  She said she ate them all.  I asked her again and again she quietly said she ate them while looking into the kitchen.  Once more I asked her what she did with the green beans and she finally admitted she threw them away.  I wanted to be mad but I couldn't help but laugh.  I remember doing things like that when I was a kid.  She was surprised I was laughing but I told her to never lie to me again because it wasn't nice and it isn't nice to waste food.  I gave her some ketchup and she finished her chicken and she had eaten most of her corn so I allowed her a banana for snack.  Such a cruel parent!  She is really a great little eater, she will try anything once, and usually eats a lot of healthy food.  Her snacks consists of yogurt, cheese, raisins, carrots, things like that.  Changing how we eat isn'g going to be easy for any of us apparently.

Because I don't like to blog without a photo - here is a picture of Summer just two or three days ago at Olive Garden, the same day (or the day before) we decided we weren't going to eat out anymore.

We are really going to miss that place, especially Summer, she loves the fettuccine alfredo, but we are doing this for all of us, for as long as we can anyway so wish us luck!

Summer's Fourth of July's

The count down begins!

almost a year old :o)

almost 2 years old

almost 3 years old

almost 4 years old - last year!

almost 5 years old - taken today!

my my my has she changed, 

and so has my photography skills!