Aloha Friday #98

Welcome to this week’s edition of Aloha Friday hosted by An Island Life. In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is a day to take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So on Fridays we take it easy on posting, too. Therefore, we ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response. Visit the Island Life Blog for more Aloha Friday Questions

I’m so excited that Princess is finally 3 years old because now she can start dance lessons. She loves dancing and I hope she’ll follow the instructor’s dance moves. She’s told me she doesn’t need lessons so we’ll have to see how it goes. I enrolled her in a Jazz dance class for preschoolers.

My Question
What activities have you signed up your kids for? If they’re too little what activities are you looking forward to participating in?

Tricky Toddlers

My three year old girl, “Princess”, is generally well behaved but has a few tricks up her sleeve.

The other day I noticed her sitting in the pantry, I looked in but she didn’t seem to be doing anything. A little while later she went back in there and again I couldn’t see anything she was eating but thought I should investigate further. After some searching I found a hidden juice box that I almost missed because she had stored it behind some boxes. We then had a little talk about asking mommy’s permission. While one juice box isn’t a big deal there are things she shouldn’t be eating and if she hides more stuff from me it could be dangerous.

Sometimes when I’ll tell her not to do something she tries to get her 1 year old sister to do it anyway. While I try to be discipline them equally, I think Princess has caught onto the fact that Sweet Pea gets away with things because she’s too young to understand.

Sweat Pea can open our front door if it’s unlocked so we always keep it locked. But if Princess wants to go outside she’ll just unlock the door and tell Sweet Pea  to open it. When I get mad at her she tries to argue that it was Sweet Pea’s fault.

It’s not just limited to her sister though, we had a playdate the other day and Princess found another juice box (can you tell she’s not allowed to drink them very often?) to play with on her pretend picnic. I told her she could play with it if she didn’t open it. She then handed it to her friend and asked him to open it. I then asked him nicely not to open it either. Then right in front of me she whispers to him, “open it!” And now the juice boxes are going to be stored higher!

I’m not sure if I should take these sneaky tricks as a sign that Princess is a genius or future manipulative teenager. I can’t even imagine the trouble I’m in when Sweet Pea is old enough to be a co-conspirator!

Wordless Wednesday

My sneaky little three year old who is so cute I can’t stay mad at her for long

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

This is a picture of my girls in the matching pajamas they got at Princess’s 3rd birthday party. They don’t normally sleep together, it was just for this picture. I don’t think they would ever sleep if I kept them in the same room.

Aloha Friday #96

Welcome to this week’s edition of Aloha Friday hosted by An Island Life. In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is a day to take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So on Fridays we take it easy on posting, too. Therefore, we ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response. Visit the Island Life Blog for more Aloha Friday Questions

If you’ve looked at my blog, you’ll notice I have not been a good blogger lately. It’s not that I don’t have interesting things to say but all those interesting things take up too much time to blog about. I hope I have the time soon to blog about moving into our new house, what it’s like living in a bigger house, how our week long vacation in mexico was, the continuing job search and my daughter’s third birthday party. Until then I will be that blogger who only does quick weekly memes like Wordless Wednesday and Aloha Fridays.

My Question:
What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without updating your blog? What was the reason?

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

My daughter turned 3 when my husband and I were away for a week so my family was under strict instructions not to let Princess know it was her birthday. We celebrated her birthday this Sunday and she had a great time.

We rented a bouncy castle for the kids and they had a lot of fun

All that bouncing made her tired and thisty

Sweet Pea got dressed up as a princess too

She got tons of princess stuff and clothes

My attempt at making her a castle cake. My first attempt at using the cake form resulted in a disaster so this was my 2nd attempt

Planning birthday parties is so much for fun now that Princess is old enough to have favorite themes and looks forward to all parties. It’s still to weird to think of her as three because that means she’ll be going to school in 2 years. I know everyone says it but I really can’t believe how fast the last three years have gone by.

Wordless Wednesday

This is my husband and I at his brother’s wedding in Mexico last week. I really must get around to blogging about what it was like not to be with our kids for a whole week. And I will as soon as I have a spare minute from watching the kids, working, cleaning, cooking and writing.

Beach Ready Body Update

I’d like to lie and say I’ve been exercising and eating great while preparing for Mexico but that’s not true. I haven’t been exercising at all or even eating great. I’ve been busy moving and it’s been deathly hot outside so exercise has been moved to the back burner.

I went and bought a bikini for the beach today and I really wish I had stuck to my goals. But it’s too late now so I will exercise when I get back and focus more on overall fitness and eating healthier rather than looking good in a bikini.

Moving Update and Upcoming Trip

Hello. I haven’t been posting for the last week because I’ve been busy packing and moving all our stuff to the new house. There are still boxes of random things that need to be put away but other than it is finished. Moving took a lot longer than expected because we were supposed to have cleaners come clean up all the construction dust on Friday morning but they never showed up. So I had to dust down all the walls, vaacum and wipe down everything. The new house is great, it still hard to believe we are finally moved in.

I may not be posting for a while again because I’m leaving for Mexico tonight. My brother-in-law is getting married so we had to go. I’m excited for a vacation since it’s our first one together without the kids. But at the same time I’m nervous for how the kids will do without me for a whole week, especially the youngest. I’ve only ever left Princess twice overnight and have never been away from Sweet Pea for more than 8 hours at a time. Princess is old enough to understand we are coming back but Sweet Pea doesn’t talk or understand much yet. I’ve made little gift bags for them every day which will hopefully give them something to do and make them think of us. They are going to sleep in their own beds and will be with their grandparents.

I’m also curious to how my parents will do watching the girls. They see them almost daily but usually only for a few hours at a time. They’ve never looked after them for an entire day, much less a week. I’m sure they’ll do fine but they’re going to be tired.

I may be blogging while in Mexico but I’m not sure. I’ll be sure to tweet though.

Can A House Change Your Life?

Can a new house change your life? I’m about to find out. If you’ve been reading my blog you’ve seen me mention our new house a few times. There really is no comparison between our current house and our soon to be house. This current “house” is really a converted garage which is poorly laid out to say the least. Anyone entering our house walks into our bedroom, which could be awkward. The living room is narrow with not nearly enough room for kids to play in. The kitchen has a solitary counter and one drawer. We have been using the tops of the cabinets to store all the pots and pans that don’t fit into our cabinets. There is hardly any storage and our youngest sleeps in a closet, a large closet, but still a closet. The clutter and lack or storage has been driving me crazy and I’ve given up on trying to clean it since there’s not enough room to put everything away.

Our new house a huge kitchen, 3 bedrooms and a playroom. I’m hoping that having a designated toy room will mean less clutter in the rest of the house. There is more than enough storage space for everything. Our current house is cluttered so I constantly find myself redirecting our youngest away from stuff. The girls will have more room to play and explore now. Oh and we’ll have wireless internet so I don’t have to sit at my desk while surfing the internet. We also have a washer and dryer in our new home which will save me trips to my parents to do all our laundry.

Most importantly, we will now feel more comfortable inviting people over. We’ve wanted to entertain more but didn’t have the space. We can now take the initiative in starting friendships by inviting people over rather than waiting for them to extend an offer to visit them.

There are some things that I’m a little worried about with the new place. Since it’s so much larger I hope it’s not going to take forever to clean. I’m hoping that since we have the same amount of stuff and things can be properly organized it won’t take too much longer to clean. And along with a bigger place comes bigger expenses. This means that finding a job is more urgent. I don’t need a job immediately but soon I will.

So will having a new house help me more organized, social and happier? I’m going to find out and let you know.

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