The non tea tea party...

Liv loves tea parties. Actually it would be more accurately called a juice party.  I'm amazed how we can eat the exact same marshmallows, cheez-its, chocolate chips and sip the same apple juice every day and it never gets old.  I decided we should make it a little more exciting and have a legitimate non tea tea party and invite the other girls her age to partake in the festivities.

Liv did not like wearing her frilly princess dress so she decided to attend to party in a classy diaper. We never got to do the formal tea party at the table because it turned into a chaotic orphanage/garage sale like atmosphere very quickly but it was funny how the girls improvised and sipped cup after cup.

We had animal circus cookie, grilled cheese cut into triangles (because it tastes better that way, duh), string cheese, ring pops, cheez-its, grapes, cupcakes, and peach punch.

We attempted to do some pedicures. Too bad their legs were too short to reach the foot bath while sitting....

I think the best part of tea parties is getting to pour the apple juice with the tea pot.  It's all downhill after that. When each of them got their own tea pot, they were much happier.

This happy.

You can only pour apple juice for so long before the novelty wears off so the non tea tea party turned into a water pool party in the back yard.

Liv loves her friends.

 While the mess continued to explode everywhere, it was fun just to talk.

I think we should have non tea tea parties more often.

Cherry Dinner...

I love to have people over. It's not because my house is spotless and my catering skills are supreme. I just feel like the air in my house is happy when there are people inside that are laughing.  It's hard to find couples or families to hang out with because not only do you have to get along with the wife, but you gotta make sure that the wife of the family doesn't annoy your husband, and that you get along as couples, and then if you have kids you have to make sure that they get along with each other. It's really quite a process. It's like trying to line up a 6 person date and hoping everyone has a good time.  The Cherry family is a the family that every time we get together it is always a guaranteed good time.  They have had us over a few times for dinners and after a year of being here, we have never invited them to our place. That may or may not have something to do with the fact that Kim's husband is a professional chef for a career.  Can you imagine inviting someone over for the equivalent of cold cereal when they eat 5 star meals every night? I put my cooking insecurities in the disposal and we had fajitas and enjoyed the entire night.

Even though we are in full blown little baby nursing bra diaper stage of life and the Cherry's have mature grown up boys that are ready to walk into the MTC right, they are very patient fun teenagers so they put up with coming over with a smile.

Ashton got a little bored so he headed out to the pool. Since we didn't have a swim suit to accommodate his sold citizen body, I let him borrow my favorite t shirt...

There are some people you just want to be in your cul de sac for the rest of your life. The Cherry fam is one of them.

Triple Play Date Night...

 When you are younger, dating is one of the most exciting rites of passage right you anticipate right after you get your training bra (training for what?) and move on to grown up things like getting your braces off and driving. When you are a single adult, dating starts to feel like an awkward chore and a lot of free meals paid for with awkward door step scenes, analyzing useless details until 3 am with room mates and DTR discussions that are all completely pointless until you find who you actually want to marry.  After you get married, dating tends to go from exciting scavenger hunts in the park, fancy restaurants and anxious anticipation over if your shirt makes you look skinny and if they are going to kiss you or not to sitting in sweat pants eating a romantic bowl of cereal for dinner and looking over the new releases at red box to see if it's worth getting in the car and wasting the gas to rent.  No mascara, no door step scene, and most of the time we both fall asleep before the movie is over anyway so there's no concern about being out too late.... we are in stage four REM cycle before the holy ghost ever goes to bed anyway. Our other dating hub is Sams Club with the romantic hot dog combo which I'm not complaining about, but when we decided to get together with some fun couples in our ward, I was feeling a little more excited.

I admit I felt some giddiness picking up an official babysitter and I may or may not have changed my outfit more than once. We went to a fancy Italian place in Denver and RJ was re living his Italian mission dream with all the real deal options.  It was obvious that this play was not reheating Little Ceasars or some hyped up pasta roni in the back. They knew what they were doing.

It was so fun to be with these women. They are amazing and I felt like a big girl being out when it was dark.  Even though Grace was not 16 and did not have her own date, she did not feel awkward because she slept.  I've been on dates in college when I would have rather been sleeping so I understood. In fact, I was encouraging it the entire time.

After a delicious dinner we went to Krispy Kremes. I feel like people should not speak when they are eating a krispy kreme because they are so good it deserves to be eaten reverently.  I love, love, love (triple love typed for emphasis) doughnuts. Someday I want to have one of these machines in my house and have non stop hot krispy kreme doughnuts. I also want to have a drive through window so people can come get them whenever they need (yes, I believe having hot krispy kremes is a need, not a want).

There was no door step scene afterwards because we have the same doorstep but the date from beginning to end was such an enjoyable break.  It was a definite upgrade from cereal and a redbox and we will be doing it again.

Zoo time.

 Sometimes we do things like go to the zoo. This has the potential to be one of those things that sound really awesome until you have to do it.  It can either be a thrilling educational experience in the wild when all the zoo stars align or it can turn into staring at a boring sleeping lion's bum while you sweat on an anthill of millions of other children who are also looking at the lion's bum.  I try to do one thing a day with Liv outside of the house. One reason is because I don't want her brain to rot and for her to get bored. The second reason is so that I don't end up going mentally insane feeling like I am Edmund Dante and my house is the chateu d'if motherhood jail.  I need to be out of my house every day so that I love to be in it.  Motherhood is a fantastic profession but you have to pace yourself.  So, when my friend invited us we decided this would be a great outing for our daily adventure.

I decided that maybe Heavenly Father created flamingos really late at night because they are a very weird looking creation.  Think about it. A hot pink bird with a stretched out neck and backward knees that doesn't even fly. It's a weird combo no matter how you look at it. I wonder if they feel awkward when they see eagles or sparrows and know that that they are supposedly in that same phylum. On this zoo trip I just concluded to myself that flamingos are awkward. There's no way around it.

I always feel fascinated by gorillas after watching Tarzan.  Kercheck himself lives in Denver but was not in the mood to do any tricks. He was perfectly content to sit on his log raft (I have never seen one of those in the wild so I'm not really sure what the zoo keepers are trying to imitate) in the air and stare. 

We could have just saved our money and gone to the park by our house because Liv's favorite animal by far was the grumpy hissing goose on the lawn.  She followed it for a good 10 minutes all around the zoo.  I don't blame him for being a bit cranky but he should have appreciated the attention. I mean the average goose is competing with cheetahs and African elephants. It's not like anyone goes to the zoo hoping to see a goose.  

Goose chasing and gorilla staring can be exhausting.

Play dough beauty...

I have some very beautiful classy friends. I'm talking they have on a different coordinating nail polish color every time I see them and they look ready to go on a date any second even if they are only headed to the grocery store. I don't even think some of them own a pair of sweat pants. I don't even know if they know what those are. I feel like I could enter a beauty pageant and consider it a huge success when I have my teeth brushed and a bra on before 11.  In my mind, my house is so clean and beautiful and I have a french manicure and there are fresh flowers on my table and people knock on my door begging if they can take pictures of my beautiful home so that millions can pin their hearts outs and enjoy.  Unfortunately, that is only in my brain and no one sees that house or my mental french manicure. The reality is that sometimes I push the dryer button 4 times because I don't want to fold the clothes, and my living room usually looks like a garage sale gone bad.

It is true that life does not have to be perfect to be good. Pinterest only exists on my computer but what is real is the happy mess in my house, what is real is hitting balloons with spatulas in the living room with Liv in her diaper because it's too hot for clothes and laying outside in the grass getting cavities because we've had so many otter pops and the only exercise we get is our daily wagon ride and perhaps a run through the sprinklers if we are feeling athletically inclined.  I always think about beauty as the houses in parade of homes or chandeliers but I'm realizing that I do have beauty in my life that will never be in a magazine but it is beautiful to me.  Some of the beauty around me is Liv and I sharing a maple bar for breakfast this morning. (Maple bars are always beautiful to my eyes, less beautiful to my hips following the ingestion.)

Or doing chalk first thing in the morning because she's been dreaming about doing it all night and she can't even wait 3 more minutes to brush her teeth or tame her rats nest bed head:

I am learning that Anne Frank knew what she was talking about, and that there is a heck of a lot of beauty around me. I think there is beauty in the fact that there is so much life around me and that I have a faithful sidekick who wants to be apart of whatever I am doing and thinks I know what I'm talking about and when I say it's time for bed she says, "No thanks," because she feels like there is so much playing left. That's her full time job. Playing.

 I still don't like how play dough gets under my nails from rolling a whole family of snakes for Liv but today, I do believe there may have been some reptile beauty involved in that when I showed Liv that forks make cool designs on snake backs.  She was hooked. I can only hope she will always be that easily dazzled by my brilliance.

Think of a pet that requires a lot of work and then times that by a bazillion and that is what it is like to have a baby and I'm not going to say that I think white chunky spit up is beautiful, but on Sunday when the speaker may have been a little boring, Grace and I lingered longer in the 1990's ugly mothers lounge rocker and suddenly I just felt that she is one of the most beautiful parts of my whole life.

Just because I still have nail polish on from 2 months ago, shove all the toys that are vomited out of their bins in the coat closet when guests come over,  dyed all my white towels a hideous pink orange color because I still don't always separate my whites and colors in laundry, and there are crushed fruit loops under my rug does not mean that I cannot still see that my life has a lot of beauty going on in every blah ordinary day.

Yes I appreciate art and also find that very beautiful, but sometimes so are maple bars and play dough snakes with fork markings . Sometimes beauty right now, to me,  is in the form of good scripture study, sitting on the grass outside the mailbox, talking to my sister, the one shelf I in the pantry I organized 3 weeks ago, laughing so hard I sound like a barking seal/foghorn compbined, a bowl of cinnamon life at the end of the day, dandelion blowing with Liv when she inhales and sucks in all the dandelion instead of blowing out, getting a new air freshener for the van, side walk chalk murals so horrible that no one can tell what I even tried to draw, feeling understood by a true friend, the 42 seconds when all the laundry in the house is clean and put away, the growing peas in our garden, Grace falling asleep, the shelf display at King Soopers, overweight squirrels on the back porch, and people I know that are meant to be in my life.  There is a heck of a lot of beauty all around me if I decide to see it.
Forget pinterest. 

Bath babes...

 Those who know me know that there are few things I love more than taking a bath before bed. I have done it for years. Naturally I want to pass on my love of baths to my daughters so they can pass on the legacy to their daughters thus perpetuating generations of bath lovers.  We are a dying breed.  I find it tragic that there are so many unused bath tubs in America and if I ever mention baths people look at me like I must be mutant and never heard of showers. I believe in showers. I like them. I take them in the morning but they are an entirely different matter than baths.

Showers are for getting clean. It's like a car wash for humans.  A bath however is for relaxing, for thinking, for pondering on the day and being alone. It's the best. I believe in baths. I have a personal testimony of baths.  This week Grace started taking a bath with Liv thanks to the assistance of the bumbo. I think its going well so far.  Liv on the other hand hates baths because it means saying goodbye to sticky otter pop juice running down her face, dirty feet and summer play...at least for 8 hours when it starts all over....

Sushi Forever.

I love sushi. The thought of sushi grosses me out. It's like a raw fish burrito with sticky glue rice instead of a tortilla and weird seeds on top.  The taste however makes my tastebuds dance. I have found that every person is in one of four clubs in regards to sushi.

1. The ignorance club. These poor digestive tracts have never yet participated in the glory. This is not a problem as you can be released from the club as soon as you try sushi. Easy peasy. No one should remain in this club for long. In fact if you are over the age of accountability, you owe it to yourself and Japan to get out of this club as soon as possible.

2. The sushi haters. These are the people who when you mention sushi wrinkle their nose like they just smelled one of Liv's diapers and act as though even the mere mention is repulsive.

3. The liberal sushi lovers. These people are hard core and love slabs of raw fish that is still wriggling draped on their sushi with fish eggs and all kinds of weird things that I feel like only people who live in the orient should love.

4. The conservative sushi appreciaters. These people don't gulp down flying fish eggs for breakfast but love every grain of rice on a classic california roll and has ingredients you have heard of.  

I am the president of club number 4. I love sushi and Gar knows it so for Christmas he bought me a certificate for sushi lessons in downtown Denver.  We had a dang good time, let's just say our instructor could have been Mr. Miyagi's grandson. He was the real deal. I was loving it.

So if you would like to come to sushi class, Gar and I are now trained for all your sushi needs....

 Sushi appreciators need to support each other in loving this fantastic food, so when Kim Cherry said she loved sushi as well, I knew we had to partake together.  Of course we brought all our sidekicks....

Liv did not enjoy her miso soup. Personally I just like eating out of the ladle spoon. It distracts me from the fact that all the soup has is some floating green leaves and little dice sized flavorless sponges known as tofu.

We quickly realized that sushi is not a kids food and Ash and Liv were much happier once we gave up and just let them stick their fingers and eat soy sauce like a meal.

I don't know how pioneers every made it across the plains without DVD players in their wagons.  This was the quietest they were the whole outing.

Sushi is always good, so if you want some from the Seibold kitchen, or from East Moon Asian Bistro, I would be thrilled with either option....

Liv's dinner specs....

Summer means sun glasses because of the deodorant defying sun that can only be loved when air conditioning is an option.   Liv loves sunglasses. Loves. Like she wears them everywhere we go. Even at dinner time. This just happens to be her favorite pair. Kissing flamingos with ghetto bling fake diamond eyes. It is by far the best purchase I have made at Dollar General in awhile. Have you ever noticed that every dollar store you go in no matter where it is in America all smells different? It smells like cheap weird air.It's not bad or good, it just is dollar store-ish.  I can't describe it. I just know that even if I was blind I would know when someone took me in a dollar store based purely on the smell of the air. 

But I appreciate the dollar store because they bring me cheap dollar store laughs at dinner like the picture above. Liv shrieked when I removed her glasses and she put them on...upside down which wasn't a problem until she tried to eat.... 

Dreaming of sleeping in....

 A long time ago, about 3 B.C. (before children) I participated in this activity called sleeping in. It was one of the most magical delicious things I have ever done and sometimes I dream of doing it again.  For those of you who are not familiar with this glorious wonder, it involves just laying in your bed and sleeping until your inner body alarm tells you it's time to wake up.  No external stimuli (ie an alarm clock, screaming child, or phone) is utilized to force your eyeballs open until you wish.  Can you imagine such a thing? I cannot.

  I'm not going to lie, it is one of the greatest sacrifices I have grudgingly been forced to offer on the motherhood altar. I love to sleep. When I sleep I am nice and I am happy. When I do not sleep I transform into a monstrous mothering wildebeest running on pure inconsistent grumpy emotion and impatience.  It's like my heart shrinks similar to the grinch when I do not get enough sleep. 

 (Grace modeling her similarity next to a pic of Liv at the same age.... it doesn't matter what anyone says, I live with 3 Garretts, 2 of them are just in female form)

For some reason I have been sleeping extra bad the last few weeks and it is not pleasant. I can't fall asleep and when I do fall asleep I have horrible dreams and then the girls like to have a 3 am hang out which I would rather not RSVP to but my participation is mandatory.  I was at Target and over Liv weeping on the ground about not getting a pack of gum after she had already bitten a snickers candy bar at the checkout through the wrapper which was making brown chocolate ooze come out the bite marks I heard her say, "I don't have any kids yet."  I don't know why I felt the need but I looked at her in her nice red target shirt and said very sincerely and said loudly (it was hard to talk in normal tones over Liv's whinese that she is fluent in) "well you should enjoy every single day that you have to sleep in because it's all over once you have kids.  She said, "Um, yeah I guess I never thought about that." Well, she should think about it.

 The next time you get to sleep in, you should stop and before getting out of bed think to yourself,
"I am currently experiencing one of life's sublimest gifts and recognize that this is a morning privilege."  Then you should spend at least 5 more minutes in deep meditative morning reflection pondering that before starting your morning routine.

These faces show how I feel when I need a nap.  The thing is, as much as I love sleep (which is right up there with how much I love shrimp, my grandma's house and my nightly bath), there is nothing more worth giving up anything and everything for to have these girls in my life. They are my life.

There will be plenty of time for sleeping in when they are gone.  And then they will be dreaming of sleeping in as they get up with their babies, it's what we call the circle of sleep deprivation life.  It makes me want to sing Lion King. Or just go to sleep.