Random pictures of Cheyenne

I think I've mentioned Ayva's nickname before-EE OW, she gave herself that nickname. And of course she gave Cheyenne a nickname- Bee Sen, it's actually Ayva's version of Baby Friend, it just kind of turned into Bee Sen. Why, I have no idea. Oh and she answers to Bee Sen too.

Bee Sen loves standing at the tub and especially when Ayva is in there.



She was actually standing in this position for a long time just playing with the pillow so I had to get a picture of it.

This is a video of Bee Sen running in place.

A B C D Eedle F

One last camping trip for the year.

Since we started camping here in Colorado we've been wanting to go through Rocky Mountain National Park, so we camped at Granby which is just outside the entrance to the park. Apparently, you have to reserve a spot in the Park several months in advance and we were even lucky to get the spot we had.

We set up camp, Josh went fishing and the girls and I chatted with the host of that campsite. Did you know that the hosts live there and take care of the campsite for several months? Well I didn't until we started camping. And the host couple at our site were an adorable older couple. He is from Indonesia and she is from Holland and they are hosting there from May to September. They had a very big black dog there and of course Ayva loved her and the dog loved the girls.

The plan for the next day was Josh getting up before the sun comes out to go fishing, the girls and I hanging out in the tent until mommy feels like getting up and getting us ready for the day, Josh comes back, have lunch, go for a drive through Rocky Mountain National Park (stopping where ever Josh sees a stream to fish), go back to camp, dinner and then the typical routine of getting the girls to bed.

Well the night didn't go so well. The girls were constantly waking us up, if it wasn't one it was the other and then through the process of getting the one back to sleep the other would wake up and it just went on and on until Cheyenne decided she was going to be up for the day at 5am. There was no stopping her, if she's up for the day that means we are up for the day. So Josh decided to forego his fishing in the morning to help me out, wasn't that nice! He's so sweet.

So we got ready and went for our drive through the Park. It was beautiful!!! We saw a moose, herd of Elk and a deer. The highest peak is about 14,000 ft. and the road goes up to about 12,000 ft, past the tree line. The Park, unfortunately, has a beetle infestation and is killing the pine trees but at the same time I thought it looked beautiful (only because of the variety of colors, it looks like fall).

It's already a long story but long story short we were in the Park all day long. We stopped at Estes Park, cute little town. I dropped Josh and Ayva at Estes Lake to do some fishing and Cheyenne and I went into the town to do touristy stuff. Picked them up, had some lunch and on our way back stopped at Bear Lake which is a very touristy area. They even shuttle people there because there is not enough parking. Beautiful lake!!! They have a trail that goes all the way around, pictures don't do it justice. Started back to camp and decided to take a scenic route. This road was scary but again... beautiful! The dirt road was narrow in some areas I was terrified!

We are such campers (haha), we were gone from our camp all day and ate out for each meal that day. Plans were just changing by the minute so I wasn't prepared for that drive through the Park, but I guess that's just an excuse.

Oh, the title of this post. Ayva decided she was going to start her ABCs and that's the way she sings it...A B C D Eedle F. She sings it over and over again.

Anyways, here are some photos of our weekend. Majority is of the Park...

Animal shots...

A daddy moose

A mommy moose

All the elk shots...

Ayva Singing

She is so funny singing this, thought I'd share it with you all.

Her current favorite cartoon right now is called Little Einsteins. For those of you who don't know this cartoon, it's just these 4 little kids and go on missions in their rocket ship. They use classical music and sometimes she'll sing along with them and this one just cracks me up, enjoy!!!

One day we were in the car and I was flipping through the radio stations and landed on a classical station and the song playing was one from this cartoon. When she heard she shouted, "Little Einsteins!"

The Olympic 8's Tag

Thanks Leisel, that was a fun one!

8 TV shows I like to watch:

24, Lost, Heroes, Prison Break, Design Star, Project Runway, The Office and pretty much any show on HGTV (Does that count?)

8 favorite restaurants:

Panera, Chipotle, Red Lobster (wishing I could frequent this place more or ever), Outback (again, wish), Moonlight Thai (excellent Chinese), of course Del-Taco and my husband would probably laugh if I didn't include this one-Taco Bell

8 things that happened today:

I woke up (that's always a good sign for any day, ha ha), changed diapers, fed kids, went to story time at the library, did some blog surfing, changed more diapers, did some more cleaning, talked to my mom, cleaned the bathrooms (I love the days when the bathrooms get cleaned), the continuing cycle of laundry (I just hate the fact that we all have to get dressed for the day sometimes because I know I'm just going to be seeing them real soon in the laundry, ha ha), made dinner (hot dogs, how exciting! What a good homemaker I am), changing more diapers and getting kids ready for bed. What a fun and exciting day!
Ok so that was more than 8.

8 things I am looking forward to:

Bed, getting out of apartment life, Christmas (love Christmas time), all our shows starting in September, getting student loans paid off, a date with my husband (any offers for a babysitter, just kidding), the olympics to be over (so I can get some sleep) and taking the girls to the zoo (I think Ayva would love the zoo).

8 things I love about summer:

Believe it or not, I'm not a fan of summer (don't like being hot all the time). I could tell you reasons why I don't like summer but that's not really the point of this tag. I'll just say that the previous "8 things that happened today" makes up for this one.

8 Olympic events I want to see:

Gymnastics, track, gymnastics, swimming (but that's over), gymnastics, diving, gymnastics, soccer...did I mention gymnastics.

8 things on my wish list:

to be a skinny mommy, to design plans for our future house, a Mac computer, a new wardrobe (for when I'm the skinny mommy), to go on a cruise, to visit Venice, Italy and Hawaii, to start on the girls scrapbooks and get them done and to be organized.

8 people to tag:
Merrilee, April, Jenn, Natalie, Janelle, Janae, Jerianne and Verlinda

On a positive note!

It seems like my posts of the Olympics have been pretty negative. Just so you all know, I do love the Olympics. I love watching the athletes do their events and see their faces when they win. I love it!

So last night Josh and I were talking about the Olympics and what event we would have been in had we dedicated our lives to it.

Lacey's-#1-gymnastics
#2-figure skating
#3-soccer

Josh's-Baseball

It was fun thinking about it and finding out what your spouse would have wanted to do.

So, if you could start your life all over again, what Olympic event would you choose?

AND THE US TRIUMPHED!!!

The girls did it for America!!! GO Nastia and Shawn!!!

They made me so proud last night!

Anybody else watch it?

Chinese gymnasts age

article

This just fuels my annoyance! If they won the gold with age approved gymnasts that's one thing but to cheat to get the gold, I think their medals just lost their value and significance. I kind of feel bad for them.

Beijing Olympics....Fraud?

Ok so I'm getting more and more annoyed with the China and what they are doing. Sorry for venting about all this but I think people should know about these things.

First off, the opening ceremonies...Granted it was spectacular and the performances--amazing! Don't get me wrong I love watching the events and especially this year with Michael Phelps and all his wins and the first relay--awesome but I have some issues with how China is going to all these lengths with trying to prove themselves to the world and spending way too much on everything Olympics. I don't know if you have heard but the little girl who sang the "Ode to the Motherland" song was actually lip-synching to another little girls vocal track. And the reason for this is read here. The girl with the voice wasn't pretty enough. Not earth shattering I know but that's just one issue.

Another issue with opening ceremony... the firework display. Again not earth shattering but just another example of how China is trying to justify themselves to the world. Apparently the firework display was not completely real. The fireworks shot out away from the stadium and for the people that were there of course they had a big moniter so the people could watch the show but the images they saw and what we saw on TV were digitally enhanced. They prerecorded some fireworks and added it to the footage of that night. I don't have an article for this one but Josh's reads the Drudge Report everyday and that is where he got this information. If I can find it again I'll post it for you, those interested.

#3...What China promised to the Olympic committee.... So the Chinese promised all this stuff to the committee so they could get the olympics but went back on their word when it was all said and done. Did you know that the media covering the olympics over there are not allowed internet access (or it's extremely limited) so they cannot report on protests that are going on and anything negative about Beijing's Olympics (minus the stabbing of the American). Internet access is blocked off from not only the media but from anybody in the olympic area. Again, I don't have references to this right now but when I don't I'll post that as well.

#4...Womens gymnastics (girls gymnastics). This is where it really starts to drive me nuts because gymnastics is my absolute favorite thing to watch. I love gymnastics! Now we all know about all the judging problems there have been in the past but this year, come on. How many countries can't stand Americans? And how bias is this judging? Ok, so maybe it's not as bad as I'm thinking, maybe I'm over reacting. But Shawn Johnson does an almost perfect beam routine and her score doesn't reflect that at all and several Chinese girls do all these balance checks and gets better scores then Shawn, maybe I don't know everything about the judging process but when you do an almost perfect routine and get a crappy score, that doesn't make sense.

So there was a battle between USA and China for the gold. And as we know now China got it but come on, how old are those Chinese girls, did you see any of it. I'm sorry but most of those girls did not look 16 and there are so many people who are not believing it.

And so they showed their passports, OOOOOOH, and who gives those passports to the girls? The Chinese government, the people who want to prove to the world that they are now a world power and will do anything to prove it. Did you know that they take these girls at 3 years of age? They take them out of the home and are only allowed to see their family once a year, 3 years old! Who does that?!!! I guess they do.

Don't get me wrong, the Chinese were amazing and they certainly deserved the gold. I just don't like all the cheating, and you know what maybe they really aren't cheating, it just feels like it. Something is not right here.

And how can it be when we are dealing with a country like China (communists, maybe).

But the timed events, how can you really fix those? Maybe there's a way, I just don't see how. So as of now, don't really have any issues, it's the judging and all these little secret tricks the Chinese goverment is doing.

Anyways, sorry if this offends, just venting.

If I'm wrong on any of this and you have some proof please just tell me. If I am wrong then I'd feel better about it all.

Beach Volleyball???

I apologize in advance for those of you who enjoy watching beach volleyball....but come on, does it have to be an Olympic event?!!!

I mean they have a volleyball event, do they have to have a "beach" volleyball event? Is it not the same thing as regular volleyball?

OK so there are some difference...They play the game on sand and they are in very skimpy uniforms, if you can call them that and there are only two players per team. I guess that makes it different enough to have their own event.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate volleyball I just don't understand why the two different events. I guess it's getting more popular now because the girls are wearing band aids for uniforms and hence the distinction.

Can you tell I'm a little annoyed? Sorry, I just had to vent and I'm sure Josh is getting sick of hearing it from me.

Downpour!!!

So tonight we went to Cherry Creek Reservoir to do some fishing. When we got there, there were people out on their boats skiing and tubing and people on the shore fishing and some swimmers at the beach. So no big deal, we found the place that Josh likes to fish and set up shop. Ayva was playing in the water and Cheyenne sitting in the stroller watching everything. Josh rigged up his poles and had them in the water for a little bit when I noticed a big black cloud behind us. At first I thought it was going east and we'd have no problem. Boy was I wrong.

So after a while I figured there was no threat from that cloud so Cheyenne and I left to get us some dinner. We were driving down the road away from the cloud and got to McDonald's (so healthy, I know), got the food and headed back to the reservoir and was faced with this "torrential downpour" is what the radio said. I couldn't see two feet in front of me. Remember Josh and Ayva are at the lake still and tonight I decided to put Ayva in her swim suit. Usually on other fishing trips she would just play in the water in her clothes and get all wet, so this time I decided to put her in her suit.

As I was driving back I felt helpless, my poor family is at this lake in this downpour and I can't get to them fast enough.

When I pulled up to the area I found them running out of the mens bathroom (the bathrooms were the only form of shelter in the area).

I found out from Josh that not minutes after I left it all started for them. At first Josh just held Ayva under a tree and she was upset from all the thunder and lightning. Then it started hailing, all this and my poor baby was in only a bathing suit and Josh said she was shivering so much he got scared. At this point he ran up to the bathrooms to get out of the hail and cold. Mind you I'm just driving down the road, no rain and no dark clouds in my view and those two are in this torrential downpour.

So we got Ayva in the car and cranked up the heat and Josh running back and forth to get all his fishing gear. Ayva calmed down within minutes.

I thought you only find those kind of storms in Kansas.

Oh and no fish tonight!

They grow so fast!!

Cheyenne had her 9 month check up yesterday.

She is 20 lbs (big baby) and 29 inches (big, big baby).

Doctor said she's off the charts on length and in the 75th percentile on weight.

Doc said she's a very healthy baby!

Leisel, does that dress look familiar?

No teeth yet but I think the bottom ones might be showing up soon.

She's crawling around like she owns the place now and pulling herself up.

She loves pulling Ayva's hair, course Ayva doesn't like that.

Sometimes I'll notice it's a little quiet in the living room and I find the two of them in their room just playing with toys.

***warning: Ayva has a loud scream so beware and it is a little lengthy again, sorry.***

HELP!!!!

I'm a little embarrassed posting this picture but I need a little help. That shelve unit has looked like that since we moved in here in January. Talk about procrastination. I know this sounds stupid but I need help with what to do with this area. How do you decorate this? I've never been very good with that area of decorating(shelves). When we moved in we just kind of threw things on there that I thought would go there.

So any suggestions would be awesome! Even telling me how retarded I am for not having this done yet. Actually that's nothing, you should see our dining room. I'm so embarrassed with that, I don't really have people come over because the dining room is the first thing you see when entering our apartment.