Puerto Vallarta, AGAIN!!

For Christmas our family got some cold hard cash as gifts and that sealed the deal- we are going to Puerto Vallarta again this spring, either the end of April or early May. WOO HOO!! Thank you to everyone for the dinero to help send us on our way!  We will be planning our trip soon, so if anyone is interested in coming down there, now is the time to committ!!  I always think it would be fun to go to Mexico on vacation with a group of people, but it just seems so hard to get a group organized- we would love to have more so give it some thought!!
(i will post more about xmas next week- Jeff and I have been working all weekend and are exhausted, I am off next weekend!)

Why I hate fake butter...

1. It tastes bad
2. It smells bad
3. It looks gross
4. It doesn't melt
5. It jacks up your baking (still trying to make cut-out cookies that aren't rocks)
6. It is hard to find the dairy-free kind (basically because it sucks, who would want to sell/ buy it)
7. It is fake- got it? Fake is not good...
8. It has an expiration date of like a year (actually this is kinda convenient, but still freaky)
9. It separates into several layers if you try to melt it
10. It smells funny if you try to saute stuff in fake butter.

In summary, I crave good old fashioned butter. This is the single worst part of Lauren's allergies- the gross, fake, diet butter substitute, YUCK! Guess my cholesterol is like 80, so I should be thankful, but who wants to live to be 120 years old in a world without real butter??????

Wait! Parking Lady! I'm Coming!!

There is limited parking in front of Lauren's daycare- sometimes Jeff parks in the no parking zone, I always give him a hard time. Yesterday I was in a skirt and heels and it was COLD and I sneaked into the no parking zone, because I didn't want to have to park in the next block.  We were in the playground talking to her friends and teachers and I see the parking lady pull up to my car. Oh NO!! I yell, Wait! I'm coming! Please dont give me a ticket and we bolt out of the playground and run down to the car. I have tried this before, it never works~ they just make you stand there while the finish the ticket. Guess what? She smiles at me and says, "you dont have to run, I am not giving you a ticket" HOLY COW!! That never happens to me. Merry Christmas and THANK YOU to the parking ticket lady. Guess that means I have to "pay it forward" and try to give someone a big break today. I will keep you posted about what I figure out to do....

Princess Lauren

Christmas Decorating

Tonight we put up our tree and set out decorations. She LOVED this snowman guy, and had to put him in one of her chairs and pose with him.

I love this picture, but it is so blurry. More than half of the pictures I take come out blurry because of the automatic setting on my camera. I really need a new one, I miss so much!!

Cookies

I got these cool cookie cutters of the whole alphabet, and on Friday Lauren and I made her name.  Her favorite is the E.

Guess What?

Lauren is basically potty trained!! She has been in cotton underpants, no diapers for almost 2 weeks and is averaging 0 -1 accident per day. Most of her accidents are on the way to the potty and she just doesn't quite make it. I am a proud mama, and Jeff and I are believers in the "cold turkey" method.  A bit messy, but the girl was on board and committed so we went for it.  I guess this is one instance where her "I DO IT" attitude was helpful. Now if only I could find the bright side of her wanting to dress herself.

ps- not to mislead anyone, she wears diapers to bed because I dont think she is ready for that part yet. She will probably let us know when she is, but until she minds wearing the diapers at night we are planning on keeping them.

Disney On Ice

Yesterday we took Lauren to Disney on Ice. I bought tickets with my phone when I was bored on the long drive back to North Dakota last month- gotta love the smart phone. Anyway- it was a huge hit with her. Jeff and I were not quite so entertained, I could have used a cold glass of beer and some hockey players after about 15 minutes of it. However, it was worth every second to see how excited she was about it. When she went to take her nap yesterday I told her that when she woke up she could see Mickey Mouse and that Ash (her babysitter last night) could cover over. She woke up from her nap and I hear, " I wake up! Ash! Mickey Mouse! I wake up!" it was too cute, I am sometimes in awe at what she knows/ remembers.

2 years old!

My "baby" is 2 years old!! Hard to believe, she is growing up so fast! We had nice bash this weekend with lots of friends and kids over at our house. I didn't really take any pictures, too busy enjoying the moments.  Lauren was shy and clinged to my leg while the other kids played, kinda sad. Once most of the guests left, Our Lauren was back to her silly ways.  I love this little girl so much, my heart just bursts.  What a joyous day that was two years ago :)

Santa- Strike One!

Why are kids afraid of Santa? This wasn't a huge loss, we were at The Children's Museum to play, and popped by to see him. I didn't have high hopes of her liking him, she isn't really into strangers at all. And lets be honest, to a two year old - Santa really is pretty strange.

Potty Time~

I am here, just busy livin' life this week- so no time to post.  Lauren has been potty training, so my days are filled with laundry and sitting in the bathroom. We tried just cold-turkey off diapers and she was doing pretty good, but yesterday she got fed up and begged for a diaper (which she promptly took off during her nap and peed on the floor). This weekend is her birthday party and we will have a house full of people, so you probably wont hear much more from me. I am so wishing that Lauren was born at a slower time of year, like April?? You cannot change your kids birthday on them, right??

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you had a good turkey day. Ours was great- my dad and brother came to visit and we had a low-key time in Winter Park (yes, I made Stove Top, I like it better than home-made).  Lauren and I have had colds, and she was not her normal self this week, I feel bad for my dad and Gus that they had to see her so crabby.  It was a great time none-the-less and I have so much to be thankful for. :)

Let's Go Packers!

Gingerbread House

My mom was in town to visit this past weekend, and we made a gingerbread house. My mom was the perfectionist and wanted it to look professional, I just wanted to have fun and Lauren was into eating everything. She ate the chiminey before we could put it on the house, and she kept licking off the frosting and yelling "I tasted it!". It was fun and I think the house is super cute!! I know it is early, but it was a fun craft for the weekend.

You are not going to believe this!

We went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs this weekend and were able to feed and pet giraffes, isn't that incredible??? It was amazing, we are all still talking about it.

Best Buddies



She is obsessed with sitting on the step with Casey and getting their picture taken together. Casey typically turns out too blurry 'cuz my camera doesn't focus on his fluffy fur.



Yeah, my camera stinks and I need a new one. This is awful, but they are too cute I had to post it.

Brusy, Brushy, Brushy

Playground at Jeff's former school

weeee!



She loved the steepest slide the best, I thought it was kinda scary!



Trying to get a family picture at the top of the slides. Kinda hard to coordinate all 3 of us!

Playing at the Ranch

I always hear about how cold and windy it is in North Dakota. I am still waiting to see it.  Once again, it was sunny and beautiful when we were back there and Lauren got a lot of time to play outside (her favorite place to be, it seems!).

WOW! Grandma Grace and Grandpa Elmo have a playground in their yard!

Overdressed as usual. She LOVED the cows. We stood by the fence mooing at them and talking about them for a long time. Lauren and I like the brown ones best. (This isn't WI and they are not black and white, mostly they are pure black... who knew?)

Happy Girl!

Birthday Party... more pictures

So, Lauren isn't actually 2 years old yet, but we had a birthday party for her when we were in North Dakota so she could celebrate with family.  Here are some more pictures of her party (see the ealier post for additional pictures).

Family Shot. May be coming to you in a Christmas card... stay tuned. I love this picture though!

The pickle shot. See last year here.

Blowing out the candle- she did it all by herself (and is very proud and will re-inact on demand)

Red Frosting.... what a mess!

LOVES balloons!

Oh, here is Elmo!! She loves cards.

Elmo Cupcakes

Here they are, the Elmo Cake cups! I know I posted a picture already, but they need more press than that. I am super proud of these, they were a ton of work! I made 4 dozen of them, it took me at least 4 hours to frost them all. In the end it was well worth it to see how excited she was about them, and they were as tasty as they looked.

Lauren & I taught grandma the art of dairy-free, egg-free cooking

Yummy batter

Entertainment for the trip

This went on pretty much the whole trip, we didn't even need the radio!!  This is an unusual rendition of "Where is thumbkin?" I think. :)

Happy ND Birthday Lauren

 More to come later, this is just a taste of our trip. we are sitting in a hotel in Nebraska, thought I would share a few preliminary pics.

North Dakota here we come

Car is loaded. Kid is happy. Weather looks perfect. 12 hour trip to ND, here we go!

(Notice the forward-facing carseat Grandma!)

Happy Halloween 2010

What a fantastic weekend. After all the fun Lauren was having trick-or-treating at these events I convinced Jeff that we needed to take her to a few houses on our block. We hadn't planned on it, and he didn't want to because the Steelers were on. Lauren and I talked him into it and we went to about 5 stops on our street, she got some pretzels (yay!) tons more candy for Jeff (dairy and peanut items) and a zip-loc bag of cut vegetables.

Ready for more?

Charming this man with her sweet looks. He gave her at least 6 candy bars. I didn't have the heart to stop him although they were all chocolate. Jeff totally scored on this one!

See what I mean about the squirrels? My poor pumpkin!

Sorting and counting her candy. The smarties and lolllipops were the clear winners. She really wanted the candy bars, but was easily distracted with smarties. I sadly had to take away most of her loot- but lets be honest, I would have never let her have that much candy anyway.