Whoville, who doo's, wew hoos!

Well it has been an eventful and emotional past week. We are on the activities committee of a ward that is almost too thorough in details and planning, so the meetings for our ward Christmas party started last February and for the past couple of months been doing things all along the way, but for some reason when the day came it felt like pure chaos and nothing had been done. Fortunately everything ended up going smoothly and was actually a lot of fun despite the craziness of every minute leading up to the party that day. We did a grinch themed party thanks to my sisters friend who came up with it for their ward 2 years ago and my family did it last Christmas. It really is so much fun. Although I was bugged that my ward, being the older retired ward was not into the who doo's and pj wearing, they preferred to wear their Christmas sweaters and normal hair. So seeing that I was in the play as a who and I won for the best who doo last year, I thought I would go ahead and wear my who doo and boy did I ever stand out. I've never had so many people compliment me before in my life, so maybe I should do this on a regular basis. Aaron was the grinch in the play and did a phenomenal job, everyone raved about his performance. After the play kids could go up and get a treat from the grinch and get their pictures taken with him. Well, even though Kamaile was well aware it was Aaron (she was yelling "daddy" the entire play) she was absolutely terrified. I forced her to come up and get a picture and the entire time she was screaming bloody murder and frantically yelling "take it off!!!!" over and over again. We didn't have our camera with us so I wanted to try getting a picture with the "grinch" again at home while we still had the costume. We set the timer and since Maile wouldn't let him put the mask on he would run behind the tree and put the mask on without her looking, but there was never enough time and she never wanted to take her eyes off of him in fear that he was putting the mask on. Anyways, I thought these pictures were hilarious cause she was so terrified and it looked like the grinch was sneaking up behind us. It was fun, but it's nice to be done with it all.

Emmy's hair just wasn't quite long enough for a who doo so this was the best we could do for her.

Another event that has drained us emotionally is that Aaron received his offer from the border patrol. They called Friday and said we could choose between these 2 little border towns in Arizona - Naco (population of 850) or Douglas (pop. 17,000) they both have walls that separate AZ from Mexico and of what we heard the Mexico homes look nicer than the Arizona ones. Yikes! and just looking at pictures they looked completely desolate with nothing but dirt roads, there isn't even a ward in Naco. AHH!! I had a really difficult time for a little while and couldn't talk about it with anyone or even think about it cause my eyes would start to water and I would get a lump in my throat. When I finally brought myself to think and talk about it I had my emotional break down. The thought of moving away from all my family and friends is hard enough, but to know that we were going to some place in the middle of the desert made it all worse. Anyways to sum it up Aaron talked with a couple of people who have lived out there and come to find out there is a nice city with about 60-70.000 people, surrounded by mountains (making it 20 degrees cooler than Phoenix), and a really decent looking area that is only 30 minutes from Naco and 50 from Douglas. So, yay! there was our solution Aaron accepted the job in Naco and we plan to move to Sierra Vista. Before that happens though, he has to report on January 3rd for a 5 month training. AHHH! So, me and the girls are moving in with my parents for those long 5 months. It will definitely be an adjustment and really hard, but it would be much harder if I couldn't live with my parents during that time, so I consider us fortunate for that. I thought I was mentally preparing myself for all this cause I knew it was coming, but now that it is actually happening I'm having a hard time being positive about this new situation that will take place so soon. Hopefully this will bring Aaron one step closer to reaching his career goal and it will all be worth it in the long run.

Update

I can't believe it has already been over 2 weeks since I last posted, these days are just flying bye! I really can't believe Thanksgiving is past and Christmas is less than a month away CRAZY! I think the weather has thrown me off somewhat because here in Utah November basically felt like October, it really was gorgeous fall weather for the most part. I feel like we had one less month of winter and that sure does make me happy. I knew it wouldn't be long before the frigid weather would start and yesterday was that day. It is now freezing! In the past 2 weeks we have had a few new things take place:
For me I started running with this running group here in So Jo. It has been so great running with a group again. Theres over 20 in the group not everyone comes all the time but there always seems to be at least 10 of us. It is a hardcore group, snow, rain, freezing wind doesn't stop them from meeting at 6 a.m. Tues and Thurs. It has been so good for me because they do a lot of speed work mixed in with long pace runs. A lot of them do the "grand slam" every year ( for those like me who don't know what that is it's completing 4 marathons between April and Oct) so they don't mess around. I love it so much because it has got me up and running out in this cold weather, I can run in the dark and not be scared, and they are always running in different locations so I don't get bored with the same old route. To sum it up I'm loving this running group! Also, I'm excited that I'm adding a Saturday aerobics class, boot camp style, it should be fun. They finally, after 3 months, took the band off of kids with swim diapers going swimming, so we've been doing that on a regular basis. It is so fun now that Emmy actually enjoys swimming, she could just sit there and splash all day long. I've also loved decorating for Christmas this year and getting new ideas for decorations and gifts. And another new and exciting thing is I'm prego! Yeah! I just found out but I can't keep it in, so ya'll are the first to know.

As for Aaron he completed all of the interviews, drug tests, background, and everything on his part for the application process for the Border Patrol. Now we are just waiting to hear back. yikes! He thinks it could be as early as January that he would leave for training. We still can't decide were we want to go: Texas (El Paso) or Arizona (Uma or Tuscon??) Any suggestions?

The Maile situation is getting better, I have tried a few different techniques and at least now she stays in her room and plays until she falls asleep in her big girl bed, however that creates a new problem of her pulling out every possible thing in her drawers and boxes, its a complete disaster every time I go to get her! As for the potty thing I gave up on it again and probably won't pull it out for a while. And for all those who remember me as pee my pants girl those days are past, it has honestly been a long time, probably months or even years that I've had an incident so back off.
Emmy has finally figured out the walker so she loves cruisin around. The crawling is still a work in progress, but I think it won't be much longer, she isn't content just sitting playing with toys anymore.
And now if you've managed to make it to the end of this long blog, jokes about the prego thing! I just wanted to get a rise out of ya'll and I feel like this is kind of a boring post so just wanted to spice it up a bit. he he he! I wish I were but no luck yet! But we just found out that both my sister Jenni and sister in law Jenni are and I'm so excited for them. We'll keep on "trying". jokes I hate that phrase

Here's just some of the pictures we've taken in the last little bit. Two sick girls that just wanted to snuggle (never happens) and sleep.

Me and all the sisters and one sister in law (we missed you Jamie) celebrating Justins 18th birthday

Enjoying the beautiful weather in November - parks and flying kites

Kamaile and her latest obsession - Prince Phillip. Ever since Aaron was Prince Phillip for Halloween she insists that she is a boy and wants to be Prince Phillip. She gets pretty worked up when I keep telling her she is a little girl, if she isn't a boy then she's either fa fa or a dragon. I don't know what her problem is with being a cute little girl but she hates the sound of that. Some of her latest sayings that I can't help but laugh at are "that's enough Mommy" if I start singing with her or doing something she doesn't like. Yesterday she got stuck between Emmys walker and the door for a minute and she said "oh crap". It may not seem that funny but I thought it was hilarious and made me realize that she picks up on everything I say.

Look it Mommy Wow! I'm a big girl now!

Well, the time has arrived, I knew both these days would come, but on the same day and so soon? I wasn't prepared and this past week it all happened. Kamaile has turned into such a big girl. For the past month we've been kind of off and on with the whole potty training thing because she seemed excited about it and our pediatrician said if she's excited then now is the time to do it before she gets lazy and uninterested, so we gave it a try for a couple of days and then it seemed like it was becoming a bad experience for her so we put the potty away and thought maybe it was a bit early. This week she kept talking about it again, so we gave it another try although this time we went to the library and stocked up on potty books and potty videos which she was extremely excited about yelling all through the library "potty books, potty video!" and telling everyone who looked at her (I was a bit embarrassed). So every day we've been watching "Once Upon a Potty" with Prudence and reading her books while she sits on her potty, but no luck. Now she associates videos with going potty, she always wants to sit on her potty. Oh great! Finally though, after sitting on her potty for 2 hours and drinking sippies like crazy she did it! Yeah! She was really surprised when her potty starting playing music so I ran over there and sure enough she finally went. She was so proud of herself, the second she realized she did it she jumped up and yelled "I did it!" and asked for her sucker which was promised to her if she went. That very day about a half an hour after I put her down for a nap she comes strutting out of her room giggling and dancing around, ummmm what??? she had climbed out of her crib. It was impossible for me to be mad with the way she was acting. It was like a now what are you gona do Mom kind of attitude. She knew she had just done a major thing and now had all the freedom in the world. Yes, it was pretty funny at the time, but this past week has really thrown me off. I used to feel in such control of her life and my life with having that 3 hour break in the day, now it has turned into a little game for her of me putting her in her big girl bed then her sneaking out until I look at her and then she runs back into bed. It is not a very fun game!!! Without my break I have become so irritated and just can't function normally, it has really thrown me off. Plus with her playing her little game she keeps waking Emmy up, which just adds to the irritation! My neighbor suggested I buy a net made to fit over the crib, at first that seemed too cruel, but I promise I actually considered it yesterday. Also, in the past week she has become a bit of a smart mouth. A couple days ago Aaron kept saying Maile, Maile, but she kept ignoring him until finally she said "what Aaron" in an annoyed tone of voice. Also her new come back when I say she can't have a treat or do something she's not supposed to is "that's rude Mommy". She really is picking up on a lot of things. So between washing out 4 pairs of pee underwear, playing this little "nap game", and dealing with a sassy girl I would consider myself a stressed out mom! Any suggestions for potty training or big girl bed???? Plus to top it off Bingham lost in the semi finals last Friday and I promise that has put me into a bit of a depression. It has been a rough week.

Fall days

I feel like we have kept pretty busy this fall and I've loved every minute of it. We've had our 2 vacation/wedding trips which were super fun, football games, family gatherings, hiking, biking, blading (just being outside adventures). Whenever Aaron has days off we like to go out and do something fun. With the weather being so nice and the fall colors so beautiful we decided to head up to the mountains for a hike, unfortunately we were too late to see all the colors, instead we saw snow (at least it wasn't cold). We did a hike up at Snowbird that wasn't too long, but it was really pretty and just fun to be up in the mountains, the air is so fresh and I always love being out away from everything. Kamaile had fun playing in the snow, she wasn't very interested last year, so it got me excited that maybe this winter we can try building a snowman or play outside a little more, that is if I can handle it too. yikes! For right now I'll just keep enjoying playing outside in this beautiful fall weather.

The annual Sorensen Halloween party, obviously we didn't manage to get all the kids and everyone there for the costume picture. Justin's costume was just one out of the 15 he modeled for us (I'm not kidding)

I don't know that I have ever bobbed for apples, but I always figured it would be pretty easy, especially after David got it in 3 seconds, I was sure I would beat him....nope! It took me over 30 seconds, it was honestly hard and I was ticked I didn't get it in 2 seconds. Aaron got really cocky while I was bobbing for apples, he said "let me show you how its done". Well, that didn't happen it took him double the time and probably triple the wetness, ha ha ha! He was up to his shoulders in the water. He did beat Jenni's time though, so maybe that counts for something.

Halloween party at Aunt Mary's

So Proud

Okay, I just have to blog about this and let everyone know how proud I am of my "little" brother, Justin. This week he became part of the Army All American team. Bingham had a pep rally basically to honor him and his teammate Austin Holt who will both be playing in the All American game on January 5th in the Alamo Dome! WOW! That is huge! I am so excited for him and can't help but feel a bit famous being his sister. he he he! They got off to a great start in playoffs yesterday beating Fremont 42 to 6. BINGHAM WHAT WHAT!!!!!

Dress Rehearsal

To go along with Kamaile's obsession with "fa fa" she also loves witches. This month with all the Halloween decorations around she is constantly talking about witches. She says their nice and funny but whenever there's one that laughs or moves at all she becomes terrified. At Gardner Village they have all their big witches on display and a ton of cute picture spots. We've been 4 times already because Kamaile asks to go to the "witches house" every day. Jodi and her kids also enjoy it so they come along as well. Today we decided to have a little dress rehearsal with our costumes. My visiting teacher just so happened to have this fabulous maleficent costume that she let me borrow -PERFECT! So, this is what we decided I am Maleficent and Kamaile is my little girl named fa fa, Emmy is the dragon, and Aaron is Prince Phillip. Halloween and any holiday gets more and more fun the older Kamaile gets, this month sure has been a lot of fun.

Grandma and some of the grandkids

"Kamaile Poo" "Witchy Poo"

I couldn't help but think they pictures were very similar except that Kamaile eats on the pot and Witchy Poo reads on her pot.

A Jewish Wedding

This past weekend was a new experience for us, we attended a Jewish wedding. Aarons cousins are Jewish and had quite the wedding! It was a lot of fun. I've been looking forward to being apart of such an event and it sure did meet my expectations.

There was a woman who sang most of the ceremony in Hebrew (she had an incredible voice) while John and Tanaya stood under a canopy that their parents held. Most of the men including Aaron wore Yarmulkes. Afterwards they broke glass and the celebrating began!

They were carried into the dancing and dining room on chairs with everyone singing and clapping. They did a chair dance while everyone linked arms and sang around in a circle. I just clapped and had a great time watching, although I was really trying to refrain from joining in the circle, it looked like a lot of fun. I later found out that I could have joined, I wasn't sure if I had to be Jewish or a close relative, so next time I'll be in there. They did there traditional dancing for about 30 min then we ate and after that is when we all danced to the music from a live band that was phenomenal. It was incredibly fun and I had whip lash for a couple of days from head banging so much, but I wouldn't trade that for anything. I had a great time. And yes, I even did the worm at a Jewish wedding. I was a bit nervous doing the worm in a dress, but I couldn't resist. I thought my dress flipped all the way up, so I cut the worm short, but fortunately for me and everyone else I had a slip on which stayed put. I think people were impressed for a moment, that is until Spencer showed me up with his flip and crazy arm dance - I loved it! It has been a while since I've had a good dance session, I sure miss those stake dances, stomps, and college bashes! I think I've been holding it in a little too long, cause after watching the video of the dance I'm a little embarrassed. I just couldn't help myself, I heard the music and my body just took over.
I felt like this picture captured the pure joy I felt during the dance, I was in the dance zone.

If you weren't there here's a condensed version that captures our favorite highlights of the night. We tried to put a little of everyone, so I realize I'm a bit of a spaz and a camera hog, but just look at the people all around. I've got to give a shout out to Harvey for bustin' a move even with everyone putting the pressure on him. We'll just have to work on the reeling in move. See if ya'll can guess whose nickname is crazy legs?

Here's a good picture of Aarons family. He's the youngest of 5, so all the siblings and their families were there except his mom. We were sad she couldn't make it, her dad passed away 2 weeks ago, so she's with her mom in Florida.

Pumpkin Carving

I never knew pumpkin carving could be so much fun until Allie and Matt Mcfarland introduced me to it this weekend. I also never knew how dang good I can be at it, jokes! But really doing these fun pumpkin carving patterns on a website http://www.pumpkinglow.com/ the final product made me feel like I was really good even though I had plenty mistakes and was made fun of the entire time for how thin I made my pumpkin. I was happy that Matt wasn't feeling the "pumpkin carving bug" as he described it, so that I could have him there to coach me through my hard times and I couldn't have done it without his encouragment thanks Matt - he was the only one who believed in my pumpkin before the candle was lit and the lights were dimmed. jokes! I was actually pretty intimidated being with Erin, John, Allie, and Matt who are all pumkin carving pros. They were nice to help me along For those of you have seen Allie's blog sorry I didn't have a camera so I'm just using all the same ones from hers. Here are a few pictures of the masterpieces in progress......Even though we were all out to have a good time, we took our work seriuosly and really got into it, there was no messing around

I was a first timer to this pumpkin carving art, so they advised me to really scrape the inside out and make it thin where I would be carving.... and thin is exactly what I did. I went a little extreme with the thinness which took a whole lot of skill working under such conditions, but I managed despite the mockings I took for it. When my pumpkin was lit and lookin good John even attempted to accidentally roll mine off the counter cause he was so jealous with how it turned out. jokes!!

Everyone's pumpkins turned out so good, it was really fun to light them up, cause its hard to tell how good it will look until the light is behind it. If you leave a comment you've got to put in your vote for your favorite of the 4 pumpkins

pumpkin #1

Pumpkin #2

Pumpkin #3

Pumpkin #4

Obsessions

Sorry, this is a long one

I feel like with a new season comes new excitment and brings out new emotions. Even though I hate winter, I must admit I feel a sense of excitment with the first snow (the only time I get excited for snow). With fall the first feeling of crispness in the air renews me and I get excited for a change in season and activities that follow. I've also noticed in the past couple of weeks I have developed some obsessions.......

1. I've loved my runs and bike rides in this beatiful weather. I think I've taken Kamaile and Emmy on bike or rollerblade rides to the park at least 3 times a week cause it is one of my favorite things to do in this kind of weather. Kamaile gets real excited for our rides too, which always makes it more fun for everyone.

2. Since Aaron started his night shift again I decided I needed some kind of project to keep me busy at nights so I don't scare myself crazy. I've taken up a new hobby, sewing, which I thought was near impossible for me to ever like or do on my own without someone constantly over my shoulder helping me in every way possible. Thanks to my sister Jenni who let me borrow her sewing machine just to see if I really could like it and actually do it. I decided to try out some matching dresses for Kamaile and Emmy and looked what happened.......... so, I got a little too carried away. I actually did get quite a bit of help with the first one and then was too scared to try a new pattern on my own, so I just tried adding my own little things to make them different somehow and to be honest I was extremelly happy and proud of how they turned out (as long as you don't look too closely). I've already made 4 sets of dresses (here's 2 of the sets) of the same pattern, matching skirts for me, and a couple slips. Its almost becoming too obsessive, I need to cut back. Thanks to Jenni for letting me try it out, so Aaron can get me one for Christmas. (I hope)

3. Jenni and David also introduced me to Colbie Caillat, I feel like she is the girl version of Jack Johnson. She is my new favorite singer. Aaron got me her cd, Coco for our anniversary, so every night as I'm sewing I listen to it over and over in fact I'm even listening to her right now. Just watch her Bubbly music video once and you'll be hooked. If I knew how to do a playlist on my blog I would put it on - everyone has got to check her out.

4. BYU and Bingham football. I absolutely live for the football games each week. My brother Justin is the kicker for Bingham (my high school) and is having a phenominal season. He was the Deseret News athlete of the month and he broke the field goal state record a couple weeks ago and I can't even tell you how excited I was. I really get into the games, sometimes I feel embarrased for myself by how into them I get. We have yet to make it to a BYU game but with my family so involved I feel like I basically get a play by play recap just being around them during the week. Hopefully Justin can hook us up when he plays for them next year.

5. Peaches, Plums, tomatoes, squash, corn - the fall harvest. Even though we don't have a garden or fruit trees we have benefited from many others who do. I became too obsessed with the peaches and plums , my digestive system took it pretty hard at times, but I still just couldn't stop. Both Kamaile and I probably ate at least 10 peaches and probably the same of plums every day. We only gave away one of these boxes and managed to take care of the rest. I love peaches!!!

6. I've always been obsessed with cereal and probably will be for life. I have to have my nightly cereal treat before I go to bed. I try to limit it to one bowl, but then there's too much milk so I have to add a little more cereal and then I put too much, so I need more milk, it's a vicious cycle that I can't control. This past week all of my favorite cereals were on sale, so of course I stocked up on over 50 boxes. It is a major obsession that I just can't get enough of.

Aarons has his obsessions too:


1. Can't wait for season 4 of Lost to start (not until February) he thinks about it constantly and tries predicting what the next season holds. He loves watching clips from previous seasons just to keep it fresh in his head.


2. Checking out all the new movie trailers, he knows every movie that is out at any given time and what ratings they got.


3. Checking the mailbox a couple times a day




4. He would play ping pong all day every day if I was willing or if he could find someone else to.


5. Coming up with new career paths especially ones that will get us to Hawaii.


6. Buying and reading books, mostly church, historical, science, biographies. He loves learning through books, documentaries, tapes, or magazines.


7. Making family videos with all of our pictures and home videos for anniversaries, birthdays, new years. They are always really fun to watch.

8. Playing with his girls

9. loves to tease me about my blogging yet he's the one obsessed with checking the blog for comments

10. Obsessed with Jack Johnson and has been since before we were married. It is a rare thing to find him listening to something other than Jack.

Kamaile's obsessions:


1. Everything "hurts" I go to brush her hair or teeth and haven't even touched her yet and she says " hurts" or I go to pick her up from nursery or off of the playground when she doesn't want to come and she says " no, hurts" of course she says it plenty loud to get everyones attention.



2. "Fa Fa" (Maleficent) she talks about fa fa all day some moments she is "scarey fa fa", other times she's "nice fa fa" and sometimes she is even "funny fa fa". I think she is going to be fa fa for Halloween if I can figure out the costume.


3. Her "B" (binki) I don't know how I will ever break her of it.

4. Her birthday presents- little flinstone car and playset

5. Getting together with the cousins. I can never mention anything about the cousins before a nap or she will not go to sleep. She gets so excited to do anything with the cousins.


























6. Singing - I have to sing 6 specific songs every night before she goes to bed and when she takes her nap. She sings gibberish all day long as she plays with her webbles and animals. One of her favorites to sing is Happy Birthday, she does this little routine with lining the webbles up to sing happy birthday to them on a regular basis, lots of times she'll put hats on each of them and won't start until everything is just the way she wants it. She was a little camera shy in this one, but I sure love the way she emphasis the "you" to make sure the webbles know she's singing to them.

7. I think this picture and her belly explains this obsession- she loves her food and has since day one.

8. Obsessed with sleeping with a ton of junk in her bed (includes about 10 stuffed animals/dolls, 4 blankets, fake spider, 2 balls, a million hair things, books, cars) I am constantly trying to get rid of some, but if she catches me or if she seems something in a different spot she immediately stops what she's doing and puts it back where it belongs. Because all the junk takes up her whole crib, she is never in a comfortable sleeping position.

Emmys obsessions


1. Milk



2. sleeping


3. exersaucer


4. she is now obsessed with sitting up.....yeah!


5. Dirty diapers