A Small Obsession I Have

And her name's Alyssa.

You love this outfit and you want it, too? I can tell by the look in your eyes.

Dress: Baby Gap handed down from loving neighbors - free
Mitten: Wal Mart - $1
Cow Bag: Grandma - gift
Sparkly Shoes: Wal Mart - $5
Hat: Rastafarian Specialty by Ben - gift

The fact that she puts this all together on her own? Priceless!

I'm trying some different writing out. I kind of like writing. It lets me express my inner most self and I aspire to have people read what I write and love what they read. So...here you go. I present to you my second public blog and my fourth blog that I am going to try to actively keep:

Living 2ndhand

Pancakes

We have an abnormal pride about our pancakes and particularly about Alyssa's involvement with making pancakes. Since you all can't be here every morning to make pancakes with us, we thought we should show you what it is like.

Please do not worry. Alyssa has not burned herself on the pan since she grabbed a hashbrown over 4 months ago. She's 22 months. She's a very responsible baby. Either way. I know you might feel just a little nervous.

We are preparing our pancakes for our gourmet pancake foodie truck. It may be coming to a neighborhood near you...once we have a set of gourmet wheels and we have perfected our pancake recipe. What flavors of pancakes and pancake toppings do you like? Have you tried any gourmet trucks? Did you like what they had to offer? Be prepared. We'll even be taking orders via mobile devices. It's going to be big! (And no, it's not a pancake version of the creepified ice cream truck. Weeee aren't creepy and our truck won't look like it fell out of the ghetto...cough cough Las Vegas cough cough).

Alyssa the Crack Up

Alyssa. Alyssa. Alyssa. She does things every day that keep me laughing. She has started to request outfit changes several times a day. I think our average is about 3 outfits.

She found her sunglasses and wears them with style...inside of her toy box.

She eats spaghetti with sauce now. This picture reminds me of one of myself. Mmm. She loves her noo noles. When I say it is time for lunch or dinner she asks for noo noles.

She's a marathon potty sitter, though she has yet to go in the potty. I think she thinks it is a special chair she can sit on without her diaper while she colors.

She sleeps wither blanket over her head...

...I wonder who she got that from?

She is very opinionated and has in her mind exactly how she wants things...funny, so do I. But she's still so fun every day of her life!

When Alyssa gets out of the bath tub she calls herself a baby and likes to be wrapped in her towel. One night after such an incident I thought she said she wanted her picture taken. (It is a little difficult to understand her words sometimes.) So we took a pictures...to reminisce from when she was a baby. 

We made cookies with our friends for Valentine's day. They were thick and yummy! The frosting, also, was to.die.for. The secret? Whipping cream...whipped. So good. So yummy that even seeing pictures brings back such delicious memories that I want to go make some more right now. Quick, you should try it!

So, yeah, that's our life in a nutshell. We keep moving forward and pray that the weather will warm up and some day we are all going to make it!

And finally Utah in February

(I've been building up to this post. Because once I have this recorded I may deem myself caught up.)

Our February was delightful. We took the longest plane ride of our lives (from PHL to LAS to SLC x 2...bad route) to Utah to see Grandma and Papa and Caire and Porpor and gah and Jacuh. It was such a fun week and I did not take as many pictures as I thought I did. But Claire. She took lots of pictures.

We did all sorts of fun things like go to the Church History Museum. The Book of Mormon exhibit there for children is quite fantastic. Also, there, they had the art work from the youth international art exhibit. The works were phenomenal and I don't take that word lightly. I was deeply moved by what I saw. The youth understand who they are and the light that we have as Children of God. You can see the work here. I particularly liked Cutting Wordly Ties, by Emily Downing and The Tree of Life by Chelsea Speirs. I felt great hope looking at the artwork. Wonderful and beautiful!

The best part was being home, together and enjoying friendly banter and laughing and watching movies. Alyssa loves everyone and enjoys her time with family!

One of the last nights Alyssa thought Jacob was HILARIOUS! They played together and she laughed and she took his bracelets and they had so much fun.

Claire and Alyssa and Grandma played with the kitchen and store. Alyssa always wanted to go "pay". 

And now I invited my familia to comment and add memories from the trip. 

Then Some Miscellaneous Stuff Happened

We went to Lum's Pond on a fair-weathered day. I thought it was only 2.5 miles around the pond but we decided to turn back, and good thing too. It was actually over 7 miles around the pond!

Alyssa loves her boots. She likes to puddle jump and they are so easy to take off!

For my birthday we went to Longwood Gardens. It was beautiful! Alyssa brought her purse and wore her ruby slippers. She was just all that and a bag of chips!

In the grapefruit trees we found grapefruits as big as Alyssa's head!

Alyssa loves her ruby slippers. She wears them with everything. They are quite scratched up with all the love she gives them. I think I will have to replace them with a bigger size every time her foot grows.

Updating Regularly + Texas in January

So I told my dad I only like to read blogs that are updated regularly. He laughed...probably because it's been ages since I updated mine.

Even though I was not planning on doing this today, I figure there is no time like the present!

Let's start at the very beginning...a very good place to start!

We went to Texas in January. (The Zoo) A fantastic time was had by all. We spent the first day there at a pretty park near Dallas central that has a wonderful bike trail and a decent-sized lake. We rode bikes and fed birds and picnicked. We saw some parrot type bird, which was exotic in Dallas. And we flew Sponge Bob, the kite. We flew him near a tree and when Alyssa was given the reigns, we flew him into a tree. Poor Sponge Bob. He's probably still there today! My favorite part of that experience was the man with the really nice kite who offered to let us fly it AFTER he watched us fly a kite into a tree. We kindly declined. Losing a Dollar Tree kite was not a great loss. Losing his kite would be detrimental.

Yes, Alyssa is drinking out of the non-working doggy fountain. She was very fascinated with the wind and her shirt.

I like this picture. Alyssa is flying the kite while JL watches on. So trusting... 

This picture is pretty much hilarious!

We went to church. Alyssa went to nursery!! !! !! After church we made sugar cookies and decorated them. Quite pro, are we! And then the next day...the zoo.

Tuesday we went kite flying at Lewisville Lake. It was my first successful kite-flying endeavor to date. I flew Raphael, the shark. He was a great flying mate.

Alyssa was more interested in throwing rocks in the lake. She and the lake were good friends.

 And then we went home and we were sad. It's always so disappointing...that going home after fun days with family. I'm getting really excited for the day we can all apparate where we want to go.