I HATE good-byes

Well mom left this morning, and boy am I a crying mess. I hate good-byes soooo much! I had 12 years of good-byes living away from my grandma and I hated everyone one of them, they're so hard when you love someone so much.
It was such a WONDERFUL visit! As expected, she SPOILED the girls rotten, seriously! I had fun showing her around Castle Rock. We ate lunch downtown at the B&B Cafe- it's over 100 years old. It reminded my mom of a place in Rockford she use to eat at across from my grandpa's Motor Hotel. ( I love hearing her memories). We of course got ice cream at the Old Towne Creamery, and then headed to the outlet mall where Julia again made out like a bandit.

She spoiled Ryan and I with going out to dinners and taking us to the movies too. She took Julia to see Cars, so Ryan and I could go see Nacho Libre, our first movie since we can't remember. We really enjoyed ourselves, love the Nacho humor.

It was so nice to have another set of hands around here. I love how she talks to Lauren and plays with the girls. I love having her around. I got to paint our bathroom while she was here simply because I had someone to hold and entertain Lauren.
Mom was so cute to listen to, she'd sing "Wheels On the Bus", she would put Lauren in the little rocking chair and on the Princess horse and tell her what a big girl she was. Then I came out and Lauren was sitting in the kitchen sink having a bath! That is such a grandma thing! It's so cool how grandma's do things with our kids that we probably don't even think of doing. My grandma gave me a bath in her kitchen sink too, I guess I too will do it to Julia and Lauren's kids. I love the legacy of love that there is between mothers and daughters.

Mom got me this hanging flower pot, they're called Impatience (PERFECT flower for me), she told me as we were driving home from the nursery that my grandma always loved Impatience. It may sound silly, but I love that connection that's there between my mom and my grandma and me and now my girls. I guess that's part of why its so important to Heavenly Father that we be eternal families, there really is something sacred about these relationships.

GRANDMA'S HERE!!!!

My mom came in Saturday morning and we've been having such a fun time. We went straight to the zoo and LOVE it there! It is the nicest zoo. We saw a hilarious monkey that was rocking out and then did quite a trapeze show for us. That night mom watched the girls for us so we could go to the temple and out for dinner, that was our anniversary gift from her. It was a really nice dinner at Augustine's Grill, a cool little renovated house. We were finishing dinner when a summer storm blew in and Ryan about peed his pants. It was so funny! A huge bolt of lightning struck right outside the window accompanied by the loudest boom of thunder we've ever heard. We ran through the pouring rain to our car and belly laughed so hard the whole way home because the rain really couldn't come down any faster, it was great!

Lauren has come down with Julia's cold, so that's a bummer right now. Her poor little voice is gone and has the hardest cough. So sad. On top of that I think her second tooth is coming in, poor babe! What a toughy, she still has the happiest disposition.

Grandma Peanut is delighting us all, especially Julia. It really is so nice to have a family here, makes me a little sad that this will go by so fast. Now I really see the difference between everyday grandma and visiting grandma and I must say, everyday grandma would be my choice!

One Cool Daddy

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! Ryan got to open his presents a day early, we were all so excited to give them to him and he was excited to find out what I had been working on in the basement. He got a pair of Broncos pajama pants that I sewed and a funny Castle Rock shirt I found downtown. He was thrilled when he opened his gifts, I love how much enthusiasm Ryan has for life, and how easily pleased he is. He has always wanted me to sew him a pair of a sport's team pajama pants, I am so glad I finally did, it felt so great to use my sewing skills (husbands like wives with great skills) to make something for him. I was especially proud that I figured out how to do the pockets, because quite frankly, reading the pattern was getting me nowhere.

I think I'll take this opportunity to say what a GREAT DAD Ryan is. From the time the girls have been in my belly he started protecting them. He would jump out of bed in the middle of the night and "stop them from falling down the stairs or off the bed"- yes they were in my belly so there was no way they were going to take any spills, but he was always asleep when he'd do these crazy things, so who knows what was going through his subconscious. It does show from the very start he has been ready to protect his little girls and always be there for them.

I love to watch and listen to him and Julia play TACKLE! He loves toughening her up, it makes him so proud and amazed when she falls down and doesn't cry. The sweetest thing in the whole world though is when he gets Lauren to fall asleep on his chest as he dances to music with her or sings to her. She definitely has his love for music.

He is the most fun dad in the world! I am so thankful for him and the kind of dad he is. He is such a wonderful example to us, like yesterday when I let Julia eat a peanut from the produce section of the grocery store (which I do all the time), he was flabbergasted! He went and bought a bag of them just to put back so we wouldn't be stealing peanuts. He's crazy, but honest, and its such a good thing for our family!

I love him more than ever; he's one in a million and I'm glad he's ours!

Normal returns

It is official Julia has given up the Nuk! Hallelujah! Lauren however has gotten a hankering for one lately, so I'm sure we'll be going down this long road again. I'm terrible, but I think my babies look so cute sucking on one, so I'm not really against it, especially at night when it helps them fall back asleep.
Anyway, it has been an exciting week. We got our minivan, which we all love. It's blue so Julia has named it "Sally" after the blue Porsche in the movie Cars. Blue is as close to a Porsche we'll ever get! Yesterday she got out of it and said, "Thanks for the ride Sally." She kills me!
We got her bunk beds today, so we can put her bed in the basement as we eagerly await guests! It will be interesting to see how much she likes these bunk beds, I know as kids my brothers and I always wanted them, so we'll see.
I started and finished Ryan's Father's Day present, which I am sooooo proud of myself for figuring out. I can't say what it is in case he reads this before Sunday, but be looking for a picture come Father's Day- it's awesome!
I also made this cool wooden flag at Enrichment yesterday, I love being crafty!
Today its a chilly 62 degrees, which is so incredible to me. I LOVE COLD summer days, never knew such a thing existed! It's a far cry from last Friday though, which this picture shows. I stripped the girls down to their skivvies for a nap, it was so hot that day. They're so cute!
Julia and I have been scrapbooking, well I have, she's been singing at the top of her lungs silly songs, coloring all over my paper, and playing babysitter and making dinner at her Dora kitchen. I am so amazed by her imagination, it is adorable to behold.
That's the update around here. I fear life may be getting back to normal and the blogs may be boring for outside readers, but its life around here, and normal is feeling great!

The DaAdams Code

My husband is the BEST!!!! I woke up Saturday morning with nothing on my mind but getting our bedroom finished, (which I did and turned out FABULOUS!!!). He on the other hand had a whole scheme that was about to unfold. With just one more coat to go on the smallest wall he begun insisting that I go check the mail. Minorly annoyed and majorly starting to suspect something was up I relented painting and checked the mail. Inside was an envelope that was addressed to "The Mystery Solver" and was this HILARIOUS story about searching for the DaAdams Code. Now for a man who has neither read nor seen the DaVinci code, I thought this was extremely clever, and extremely sweet. It was all a big make up for dropping the ball on our Anniversary. I was lead to Safeway where a clue under a lid of Crisco led me to a Salon where I got to get a pedicure! YAY!!! I LOVE pedicures, especially since I get them like once a year! Then I was sent back home where he had a card and a gift- a new computerized die cutter for scrapbooking. I had mentioned I thought I would like one, but whoa, was not expecting one! I think I have talked him in to returning it, too expensive, and although I totally appreciate it and might like it a lot, I'm a simple scrapbooker, and it kills me when I think of all the other things we need. So anyway, what a wonderful guy and wonderful surprise. His creativity is BACK Jack!
We laughed so much this weekend! He is hilarious! We had to fill out our bios for a 10 year reunion book. His killed me. For family he put, "I consider the entire class of 1996 my family." Is that gold or what? It just got funnier from there!
We got a sprinkler for Julia and had fun running in the water. Lauren even got in on the action. We got her a more modest bathing suit, considering the amount of rolls she's got going. So cute!

House, Anniversary, & Minivan

So its official- the house is in escrow!!!! YAHOO! We got the offer last Friday from an investor. It wasn't as much as we would have liked, but it is still a huge blessing to get rid of it! Now we're looking at minivans. We spent last Saturday (our 6year anniversary) looking at dealerships. Let me give a word to the wise- don't spend your anniversary with your two little ones looking at cars you can't afford! Wow did that day end bad. Exhausted and frustrated I was pretty much hating the world. It is too bad to, because the day started out so well. We went to breakfast in downtown Castle Rock at this funky little place called the Crepe Cafe. It is the coolest! The food was incredible I had the "funky monkey crepe"- peanut butter, chocolate and bananas wrapped in a crepe. YUM YUM YUM! We then went to the temple and took turns watching the girls outside while the other one went in and did some initiatory work. It was cool to be there on a Saturday when there are so many weddings going on. Julia LOVED seeing the brides taking pictures. She is totally enamored with getting married. She already knows she's getting married in the temple, its so sweet. Warms my heart for sure!

So this week has been busy with having the family we bought this house from over for dinner. They are super cool people. We signed Julia up for preschool and had a play date at the park. I got a big order done of food storage and had to pick that up and get it organized. We have now begun looking for a minivan on the internet- heck we did great buying a HOUSE on the internet, how hard can a car be? And today I'm starting to paint our bedroom! I LOVE PAINTING! Right now our bedroom is a sage green so we thought we better prime it first- nightmare. I only did one wall and completely lost my patience, so today I'm just going full force with color and hope it works out. Looking forward to the weekend, I want to get a sprinkler and run around in it with Ryan and the girls! :)

LOVE MY BABES!

Museum Musings

This blog has a special guest editor today: Mr. Ryan C. Adams

Chanel and I wanted to do something educational with the girls last week, so we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (http://www.dmns.org/main/en/). Everyone knows that I'm a huge science buff (having scored an unprecedented "3" on the science portion of the ACT), and Chanel has an unusual fascination with gross body exhibits, so going to the DMNS was a no-brainer.

The museum is located in the Cherry Creek area of Denver, or so we think because everything around it had "Cherry Creek" in its name. Truth be told, we have no idea where we were, and probably couldn't find the place again without MapQuest. But that's the exciting part about being in a new town.

Chanel and Lauren went to the "Body Worlds 2" exhibit. It's basically an exhibit of dead bodies put in weird positions. Check out the photos if you have the stomach: http://www.dmns.org/main/en/General/Exhibitions/CurrentExhibitions/bodyWorlds.htm.
The line to get into the exhibit was very long, but Chanel didn't realize that, cut about 350 people, and walked right in. She was disappointed in the exhibit. It wasn't "gross enough." It didn't explain whether the bodies were real or fake. It was crowded. She "wanted to see some dead people." I love my freaky wife.

Julia and I looked at the animal exhibits. They have just about every animal known to man taxidermized and on display. We loved it. I was particularly fascinated by the huge moose, the wolverines (I didn't know they really existed), and the beavers, which really frightened me because I thought they were small and cute, but in reality they are huge and scary. The display showed them chewing down a gigantic tree. I have to stop typing about them now or I'll have nightmares of a family of beavers chasing me down Colfax.

Julia loved running around and pushing all of the animal noise buttons. She was my curator, and she told me where to go and what to look at.

We met up after Chanel finished the gnarly body exhibit in the kid section of the museum. We were treated to a puppet show and an interesting karaoke show by Jules. Lauren loved to watch her sister perform.

After the kid section we went to the T-Rex Cafe and had a nutritious lunch of pizza and about 3 pounds of greasy french fries. Then we had the brilliant idea to go to the health portion of the museum. Had we gone there before we ate, we would have shared a small side salad, no dressing. In the health section you can weigh yourself and test your strength. We discovered that I am way below average when it comes to strength. Duh. I went to the museum to learn something.

It was in this section that Chanel met her shadow: a 10-year-old Hispanic boy who just so happened to want to look at everything at the exact time that Chanel wanted to. Chanel was looking at an exhibit of the progression of childbirth. She was looking at a 26-week fetus when she felt the warm breath of the boy on her neck. Hello! Personal space! She became agitated, and the boy didn't do anything to alleviate her anger. For the next few minutes, everything she looked at had the shadow of this crazy kid on it. It was so funny to watch, but I bet so frustrating to experience first hand. "What's a young kid want to look at this birth stuff for?" she asked. I don't know, honey. I don't know.

For the most part, the museum trip was fun. We couldn't decide if we were too smart or too stupid to learn much while there, but it was a blast to do something new. I think the girls had a great time, but whenever I ask Lauren about it she changes the subject.

After the museum we wanted to go to the Tattered Cover bookstore (http://www.tatteredcover.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp), but the girls fell asleep in the car, so we went to a smothie store. Chanel ran in while I waited in the car with the girls. I had my Book of Mormon with me, so I began reading 1Nephi, chapter 1. I was in Ether when she got back, if that gives you an indication of how long it took her. Poor girl. She was stuck in a crowded room full of dead people at the museum, and now she had to wait forever for our smoothies. She again demonstrated her ability to be very smooth by talking herself into a free smoothie that was made on accident for no one in particular. The manager was going to throw it away until Chanel said "I'll take it."

So we hopped on the 25 and drove back to Castle Rock, all the while drinking our three smoothies. We love it here.