What's up with us

Actually not much, which is why I haven't written in a while. Things here are going on in a little holding pattern.... Preschool 2 days a week, Jacob is working in Cali at the mine, just past state line. I'm doing Young Women stuff. Life is.... ya know going....
So I thought I would just talk about some pictures we have been taking lately.....  Here is a new hair style we tried on Kira a couple of weeks ago... her hair is LONG... super LONG!!! And it has to be done every.single.day So we are trying new things..... This one didn't stay in very long but she liked it. I think I need to get better bobby pins.....

This is a picture of one of Kira's favorite shows, the Backyardigans... but it is ALSO a picture of my picture wall. I finally did it when I realized we were going to stay here and it was worth doing.... only to realize a month later that we're probably NOT going to stay in this house.... it's a long story and there are a lot of factors but we're looking into the possibility of buying. It's not 100% yet but we are starting the search and looking into all of our finance options. 

So, I'm sure you have heard of pinterest.... I know I enjoy it. A couple of weeks ago I decided to try something I pinned --- Our fridge was getting kinda gross, so I thought since I'm going to clean it, I'm going to REALLY clean it and so with my laptop playing Doc Martin on netflix I attacked it.... and I mean ATTACKED it!!! I took it ALL apart, cleaned every part of it. Took apart every part of it and then added the cling film. I LOVE it. I love how festive it is every time I have to go in the fridge.... I love that when it comes time to clean the fridge again, all I have to do is pull off the film and put on a new layer of it and go.......

Here is a picture of Jacob and Kira on February 1st. This year I had fun doing 14 days of Valentines. They each got a little something special every day.... Nothing too fancy, just a little something cute to make their days better..... AND notice Jacob's beard, or lack there of. He had to shave it for work at the mine. He did it in steps, first a goatee, the just a mustache {that looked like it was from the 1980s} and then finally the mustache.... It's kinda weird for me and Kira since she has really only ever known him with a beard/facial hair. It's still waiting to be determined if the beard is coming back... I'm guessing yes. I think the benefits outweigh the negatives on this one........ 

That's about all that's going on here. Kira is loving school! She LOVES school! Jacob is enjoying his work still... which is good. I working on focusing on my Weight Watchers (down 7.2 lbs in 7 weeks) and I have some craft type things that need to be finished so I'm working on that stuff too.
Still no news on the baby front. I have had to change doctors so hopefully I can get into see them and work on getting a baby to join our family......

Next post... hopefully soon.... about ?
till then

Preschool

It's been a month since I posted anything, maybe you all think I have forgotten but in reality with school, preschool, and my calling at church my blog seems to have really suffered. Things have been pretty busy around here, and for the last 3 weeks I have taught preschool.
We have 5 little ones, 4 girls and 1 boy - who doesn't seem to mind being WAY outnumbered. The rotation we have set up is each mom does two weeks at a time. So every Tuesday and Wednesday from 9:30 - 11:45 the 5 of them are at some one's house being taught whatever is on the curriculum that week. My two weeks was interrupted by a week of a field trip and the Halloween Party.
Almost every month (at least every 6 weeks) we have built in a party (usually Holiday related) and a field trip, so the kids can learn new things and so us adults can have some fun. This month we went up to Calico Basin, it's on the way to Red Rock, the local national park but Calico Basin is FREE and CLOSE, two very good things it has going for it.
We haven't been to Calico Basin before so it was all new to me and I for one, will go back anytime the weather permits it. They have a nice little hike in the mountains up to some rocks the kids had fun climbing on, V, the boy in our class was a pro, having been there lots of times with his dad and was showing the girls how fun it was to jump from one rock to another which made a lot of us moms in the group a little nervous. But they had a blast!

Views from on top of the hill - I want to live in one of those houses, away from the craziness of Vegas but close enough to go to the store if needed. They are about 10 minutes away from Costco and assorted groceries stores.

The kiddos "jumping" on the rocks. 

After our hike we stopped for lunch, watched a couple get married and headed off to the boardwalk. The boardwalk was SO FUN! They had built this boardwalk to protect the meadow lands up there. I guess sometimes it can be quite wet up there so the boardwalk also allows pedestrians to walk around up there without getting wet. I would have taken pictures but my camera batteries died. 

Also had a little brain fade at the Halloween Party and we took NO pictures of all the kids together but I did get some from this weeks class. They have been learning about dessert animals and so I decided to make dioramas. They didn't quite turn out like I envisioned (you know something off Martha Stewart's magazine page) but the kids had a great time.

Here is Kira's

This is the back of her diorama. She loves it! I'm so glad that they love learning as much as they do.

SO, that's what we have been up to lately. I'm hoping that after school is done and I take another semester off (I keep saying I'm on the 50 year plan) it will be easier to keep up with everyone!!!

Sports Class

I have been trying to get Kira into dance class for a while now and I just can't seem to make that happen and so when the classes filled up before I got to the website a couple of weeks ago I signed her up for Sports Class. She has been talking about playing soccer for about a year now so I thought Sports class would be just the thing.

We didn't know what quite to expect when we showed up Wednesday morning but she jumped right in with the warm up, was all about "running the bases" and had fun kickin the ball. Week one was kick-ball and she can't wait to see what this week will bring.

My House Guests

Being a Mom, or a parent really is an adventure. It's an adventure that while I believed I would have, I never understood until now, and I'm sure there will be more understanding yet to come.

Life around my house is definitely an adventure. Kira is a precocious kid, she is obviously an only child and get's a lot of our time. And while she gives me a lot of grief she also brings me a lot of joy. The main one lately is her imaginary cousins.... well that is to say, she has cousins, they are not imaginary in the general sense,they are just imaginary here, in Las Vegas. Cousins Natalie and Kyla have been here at our house for about a week now. So far they have also gone with us to the library for story time and our walk today.

Imaginary friends are pretty common amoung young kids. But I still think I should find her some real ones but while we are working on that (with some community groups and such) the imaginary cousins may stay ..... cause I love them as much as she does...

"Mom MOM!! I want to make Orange Juice!"

I am a Disney girl. I grew up watching Disney Channel, I love the Disney Junior now. Mickey Mouse Club house is a staple in the mornings and I LOVE Kira yelling "OH toodles!" I like Jungle Junction and even Chuggington is kinda fun. The only one I'm not really a fan of is Special Agent Oso.... it's just kinda silly and Oso is portrayed as kinda a dumb little thing, but it's in the mix of all the other ones and Kira likes it so it's on.

So the other day after Oso got his digi-medal Kira runs up to me and tells me that she wants to make Orange Juice. I told her we had Orange Juice in the fridge but she said, "NO, I want to make it like Oso does" and then explained to me how to do it. Then she told me in "3 simple steps!"

1! - Cut the oranges in half

2! - Twist the oranges on the juicer

3! - Pour the Orange Juice in the glass

I thought okay...... she wants to make Orange Juice but I don't have a juicer. I don't even have the little old school one where you twist them yourselves. Then the other night on our rare date night Jacob and I found ourselves in front of Sur La Table - aka kitchen heaven and so we went to check them out.

Our options were

- the Kitchen Aid electric juicer for 59.99 (but 50% off so 29.99)

- an old school glass one that either she or I (most likely me) will break within about 5 minutes for $7.00

- an OXO good grip manual in plastic (which is more practical but double the price of the glass one) $15.00

And then we thought, 15 bucks isn't going to break the bank but this is Sur La Table - maybe they would be cheaper somewhere else... then I thought as we drove back to Henderson to pick Kira up that I should ask our friend Shelly if she has one - because what if I buy one and then Kira doesn't like doing it and I have been married for almost 6 1/2 years and haven't needed one so why spend the money on something I don't need - and she did!

So tonight before bed we made real Orange Juice -

I tried to get some before and "in the process" pictures but I think my camera may have died... (back to Sams Club it goes)so all I got was the finished product and it was WAY super yummy but I'm glad that I didn't add any sugar like Kira insisted.

And that was just one of our weekend adventures - I'll post about our Saturday when Jacob loads the pictures from his camera...

'til next time

Happy Valentines Day and other stuff....

Valentines Day is often fun for me. In addition to normal Valentine stuff it is also my aunt and dad's birthday (they're twins!) This year it was fun for me because this is the first year Kira really knows about Valentines Day. It's been on sprout and she was very excited about making a card for her daddy. We started out at the Dollar Tree - may favorite store for kids crafts and we bought two pieces of poster board, I cut one in half, gave Kira some paint I had laying around and let her go to town.

And above is what she made for her daddy. She spent 3 days over all on it.... part of that was because of drying time. Then she added some foam stickers and some doilie hearts and she was ready to go! She was so excited to give it to him and he loved it! She took the picture too!




This year I got some flowers from Jacob as well as a Kitkat (my new favorite candy - again) a cookies and cream hersey bar and 4 - YES 4 2 liter bottles of Mt. Dew... man does he love me or what?

No dinner, we had plan on Saturday but they fell through. We're hoping to go this week maybe. Jacob got a gift certificate to I {heart} burgers. They are located in the Palazzo on the strip. Check out their menu. I can't wait to try it!!!

We also received some pretty good news, I haven't let a lot of people know recently, and even when I write here not a ton of people will know because only like 5 people read my blog but we decided last year that it was time to grow our family. We were planning on June to start but when my birth control pills went up to 60 bucks a month in April we decided that 2 months wasn't going to make that much of a difference. Well things haven't gone how we planned and after some testing it was determined that I have PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). Which I know a lot about since a lot of my friends have it in varying degrees. Anyway, along with that the dr. was concerned about some of my hormone levels and ordered a Cat Scan to see if I had any unusual things going on. Turns out I do. They found something on the 4th and on the 14th I had my appointment with a specialist. He seems to think that it's just a fat deposit on my adrenal gland (which sits on my kidney) this is good news because as any of you who know me well, my brain went all over the place and was imagining that I was going to have to go the rest of my life without my kidney (cause I am an over-exhadurator). Anyway, he wants to do some follow-up things but I'm hoping that we can get on with the baby part of this plan instead of the "figure out what's wrong with Tennille" part of the plan.... because as it turns out I'm not super interested.

So with this PCOS diagnosis I have started to do a lot of research about how to manage this syndrome and how I can make myself be the best "ME". Turns out I may not EVER be a good weight, at least the weight I want to be. Part of PCOS is an insulin resistance. There are things I can eat that make it easier for my body to more efficiently use the "sugars" I put in my diet but being the size I was 8 or 10 years ago probably won't happen. As it is my blood pressure is excellent and with a lot of work on my part i should be able to at least feel better if not loose a little bit of weight. I'm lucky that I have a husband who likes a little "meat on my bones" and he has NEVER EVER made me feel bad about myself, which is good since i do enough of that to myself. SO, my goal is to just be healthier and if the weight goes down, then it's just an added bonus (which probably means I should give my "skinny" clothes to the DI/goodwill)

I'm doing a lot of reading to find out what those foods are and how to find a good balance. Turns out that it's not as restrictive as I thought it would be. It's really about making better choices with what I buy for my family so I have good choices in my home. It's not even a "low-carb" diet. I'll be focusing on the low GI foods... They look something like this. So places like I {heart} burgers would be a once in a while thing. I'm hoping that the new eating plan (since it won't be a diet) and the exercise I get with walking 3-4 times a week and the wii zumba will help my body start to feel better. I'm hoping for the wii fitness soon so I can start adding that to my routine too!

The reason for the sharing I guess, since it's not really what this post is supposed to be about is that if you all know (yeah, all 5 of you) then I hope I'll be more accountable for it. So anyway, that's what's going on here. I'm off to get ready for the puppet show at the library and saying Hi to the cow/bull/bovine in the lobby!

'til next time

Christmas at the Andersons

Christmas is my second favorite Holiday, my first being Thanksgiving. (I love that you only have to buy good food for Thanksgiving, cause I stress out about what to get almost everyone except Kira and my mom) We spent this Christmas at our home here in Vegas. It's the second year we have done this and I have to say that I LOVE IT!

I don't want any of our family to take this wrong because we love them A LOT but I love how quiet and low key our Christmas' have been these last two years. We have been lucky to have GramJan and PapaMike (my mom & dad) to come up and hang out with us. Before they got here though we decided it would be a great tradition to go to Buzz BBQ for a Christmas Eve lunch. Then we took Kira to the park to play to make sure she got nice and tired for Christmas Eve.

This year GramJan and PapaMike got here earlier than last and after some internet searching and a making a couple of phone calls we decided that In N Out was a great place to get Christmas Eve Dinner (cause other than McDonalds and some places like that it was the only place open) So off we went for our Cheese burgers and Fries and had fun catching up. Once home, Kira got to open a gift from Grandma Jetta and Grandpa Alan so she could call and let them know how much she liked it all




My mom and I decided we needed to get a gallon of milk but before I left I wanted to get Jacob all the stuff that Santa dropped off early... only to slowly realize that I couldn't find it. Then I had this awful flashback that I threw a Target bag away and even though I thought it was trash in there that maybe it wasn't trash after all and I threw away ALL of Santa's stocking stuffers... OH NO! So we were off to Walmart anyway, I'll just pick them up for Santa... we drive to Walmart only to find it has been closed since 8 (it is now 9:15) I call Target (since I know it's Santas FAVORITE place to shop for those sorts of things) they are closed. So we end up at Walgreens, cause they are open.... well the rest of Vegas was there too. Only one parking spot open and it was shear craziness inside. But we managed to replace all of Santa's gifts and buy some necessities for the weekend (i.e Mt. Dew and Dr. Pepper .... oh yeah and some milk) We got back home hung out and watched some tv and went to bed. Santa came and we woke up about 8:30 and came out to this...

Kira got a Monkey Pillow Pet and LOVES IT, it has slept with her every night so far. (his name is George)

She got some other cool monkey things and was so excited about everything she opened.

We tried to follow the Anderson tradition of one gift at a time in order of age (youngest to oldest) but Kira's gifts outnumbered ours about 6 to 1 so Kira opened like 3 or 4 and we opened one and so on.

She got some cool dress up stuff like butterfly wings and tutus.

She got a really cool Belle costume, i need to hem it but she loves it.

I got this super cool jewelry box that I'm excited about... it's all ready to be hung up and be put to use (hint hint honey)

Kira in her glasses from Santa

After we opened gifts, our family is so good to us, we had breakfast and started on Christmas Lunch. We made the same Ham recipe as last year, Turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls and other great stuff. As we were pulling together dinner I found Santa's stash hanging out in a kitchen cupboard, right were I left it, in an effort to not wake up Jacob, I hid it there and since it's a place I hadn't used before I couldn't remember where I put that stuff...

It was a great Christmas and we are so blessed to have everything we were given and everything we have. We wish you all the best for 2011 and look forward to reading about your families this year.

'til next time

A Walk About

You probably can't tell by looking at me but I try to walk every week day. I don't get to do it everyday BUT like I said, I try most days and today was no exception. What makes today special is that Kira asked to bring my camera along. Now, i don't normally like her to use my camera. We got a good deal on it but I still don't like the idea of it breaking... so I told her she could use it IF she kept it around her neck. She agreed, so I made a make-shift necklace for her and off we went. Kira usually talks almost the WHOLE WAY...sometimes she sings, usually the ABC's or some not quite right version of "Give Said the Little Stream" or You are my sunshine....but today she took pictures... and I'm going to share them with you...





On the way down.


On the way out.

Her very first pair of Chuck Taylors.....

Her steering wheel... she does drive sometimes too



Walking down Patrick

I'm not sure these walks are really helping me.... but even if they don't.... I'm glad that I do it everyday... cause I get to spend time with my Boppa and THAT IS DEFINITLY ACCOMPLISHING SOMETHING!!!

Cousins

I have said this before but one of the things I love most about being part of a good sized family is that Kira has cousins... and she has a lot of them! I didn't have cousins growing up not really. Had some step-cousins who were fun but we didn't get to see them much and then no other cousins until I was 17. So the 3 cousins I do have are more like nieces and nephews. On the Anderson side she is number 7 of 8 so far and on the Winfrey side she is 3 of 4. She has 3 cousins that are less than a year difference in age, two who are a bit older and 1 who is 9 months younger.


She loves all of her cousins but is great friends with her cousin Mikey who is 5 months older and she is close to her cousin Corrinne (Rinny) who is 9 months younger.

Recently with the wedding and some other things thing going she has been able to see alot of her cousins. And I got lucky with some camera shots! Uncle Wade brought Rinny and Garrett with him up to Utah and stopped her on Sunday and I got these fun pictures.



You know how kids are, one thinks something is fun and the othersw join in. Rinny thought it would be fun to play in the tub so Garrett and joined her....



....and made silly faces


and other silly faces



Then on Tuesday as Wade was coming back through town they stopped in Vegas again so we could go see the Lions and the MGM. A popular stop for us, I have showed you pictures of this before but this time was different, this time we got to see some cubs... Not itty bitty cubs but cubs all the same AND we got to see them play!!!

I had a great video of the lions playing but google reader is taking FOREVER, so I'll try again later!

I got these on the way back to the car.... aren't they too cute?!

Makes me wish I had cousins........ we sure are thankful for them!

Halloween in Vegas

This year Kira picked Ariel. This was the first year she was old enough to realize what "dress-up" was and what "trick-or- treating" was. We talked it over with her and she decided she was going to be Ariel... her favorite princess, because "we both have pink hair" (or so Kira says)

On Friday night we went to our wards trunk-or-treat/soup potluck competition. She had a great time going from car to car and getting some candy (her favorites are the suckers) and then once she went around the one time she had fun handing out candy to those who "re-visited' or hadn't come around yet.

(This is her handing out candy)

On Saturday we were supposed to join a friend in their trunk-or-treating but they came down with colds (they are all on the mend) but we already had Kira dressed up and ready to go so I looked on-line real quick to check out some free options and we decided to hit the government building in Las Vegas. Kira had a great time moving from table to table collecting candy AND someone was even handing free trophies. Like real trophies... below is the only picture we could get of her with her trophy which she thinks she won for being Ariel. (Anyone else have a 3 year old going on 16?.... the attitude of this girl amazes me!)


All in all it was a great Halloween. On Sunday, actual Halloween, we hung out with cousins and she got to give out candy to the 8 kids who came to our door. We may try real trick or treating next year, when it's not on a Sunday and she isn't wearing plastic heals .....

'Til next time....