The KAT's Meow

Mommy: I don’t like it when I lose my temper.
Nichole: Yeah. And Jr. took your temper. Daddy has your temper. It’s Daddy’s and Mommy’s to share.




Nichole was coloring on a paper plate next to an electric tea light that was turned on. I moved the electric tea light so it wouldn’t catch the plate on fire.



Jr.: Oh no. Winter is coming!
Nichole: Don’t go out! It’s Winter! It’s Winter! And the birds are going to eat your face!


Nichole: Can I have delicious food and not the one you fixed?
Jr.: I want the stuff that you made.



Mom: What do you want to eat?
Nichole: Parmesan Rice!
Jr. I don’t like Parmesan Rice
Mom: What do you like?
Jr.: I like Parmesan Cereal.



On a sunny day
Jr. (Running home when I called): Sun, I love you, but I have to go inside now.



Nichole: Daddy is so a genius.

A Superhero Birthday

click on it to make it bigger
(My talented husband put this together)

A Day in the Life

Just a day in the life of the mild-mannered Telford family:

Good Vacation

I've been wanting to say so much about our vacation to the Pacific Northwest that I've noticed I've been neglecting talking about some of the current things that have been happening. I think I'll still write from time to time about our vacation, but I also want to talk about exciting things we are going through now.
Let's just say we did have a wonderful vacation. We got to go to some neat places like the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Shore Acres on the Oregon Coast, and Spirit Falls near Cottage Grove, Oregon.

Jr. even had his first opportunity to get his feet wet in the coooold Pacific Ocean.

We visited with friends, spent time at home, and just got to be ourselves.

But the most important thing was being with family. Nothing compares to grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins- also known as parents, brothers and sisters, and nieces and nephews.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

It was a good vacation.

True Love

Catch of the Day- Cousins

I promise. It's not as bad as it looks.

Build A Bear

Jeremy's mom got Nichole a special book for her birthday called, "The Bear who went to the Ballet." In the book, the Grandma makes the little girl a special ballerina bear to take with her to the ballet.

Nichole's grandma then took Nichole to make her own ballerina bear at the Build A Bear Workshop at the mall. We'd never been there before but luckily Jeremy's sister had and was so helpful.
Nichole was looking all over for a bear with a ballet outfit already on, but we had to show her that you start with the bear and work your way from there. She wasn't so sure about having a flat bear.

Aunt Heather even went to find a ballet outfit for the bear to wear later and helped explain that they would put stuffing in the bear.

Nichole felt a little better when she saw people ahead getting their bears stuffed, and she cheered up quite a bit when she was able to help stuff hers and give it a heart.

She got to give it a "bath" to fluff up its fur.

Then it was dress-up time and the ballet bear was able to see how pretty she looked in the mirror.

By the end, Nichole's worries were all gone and she was so happy with her ballet bear.

Thanks, Grandma.

Nicholina Ballerina

We put together a ballet outfit for Nichole for her birthday. She's really enjoying being able to dance and look like a ballerina. Her dad is even able to help her out from time to time with her dancing.

Ballerina Birthday

While in Washington, we celebrated Nichole's birthday. She was able to have all of her cousins and aunts and uncles there- and Grandma and Grandpa of course. This trip was the first time in six years that Jeremy's brothers and sister and families were able to be together. It was fun.

Nichole decided earlier this year that she was interested in ballet and ballerinas. A wonderful lady at the library introduced her to Angelina Ballerina books, which we check out every time we go to the library now.

My sister-in-law and I put up decorations for the party

and my sister-in-law created a lovely birthday throne for Nichole out of a lawn chair. Nichole thought that was the greatest thing. That was her chair.

Daddy made balloon animals for all the kids,

and when it was time, he brought out a special balloon sculpture for Nichole- Angelina Ballerina.

My mother-in-law took a plain white cake and decorated it with a birthday message and a picture of Angelina Ballerina on it.

After eating and presents, music from the Nutcracker Suite was put on, and the littlest kids showed off their dance moves.

I have talented in-laws. I love being part of that family.

The Lost Cheeto

Speaking of barbecue, one day at Jeremy's brother's house, we were having... barbecue. Someone was nice enough to take my plate so I didn't have to get up. It was mentioned how I was done and Jeremy pointed out, "All except for that one Cheeto." Now it's true that my husband will say random things from time to time just to confuse me. This however was not one of those times. I looked down at my lap and saw no Cheeto.

Then I thought to reposition myself and look below my pregnant belly. Well, what do you know? There was a Cheeto sitting on my lap after all.

I believe that is the first time I've lost something due to my belly hiding it this pregnancy.

Barbecue

At my first prenatal appointment after coming back from the Pacific Northwest, one of the nurse widwives pointed out that I'd gained quite a bit of weight since my last appointment. Well, yeah, I was on vacation. And what do you do when you're on vacation in July? You barbecue of course.

We had barbecue at Jeremy's parents' house, at his brother's house, at his Aunt Becky's house, when visiting his friend from high school, when visiting my friends from high school, at the block party in my parents' neighborhood, at my parents' house- some of these places more than once. I ate a lot of hamburgers on that trip. And much of the time the kids were too excited about playing to eat so I finished a lot of hot dogs as well.

Not to mention all the birthdays that were going on with cake and ice cream- celebrating Nichole's birthday in Washington, Aunt Becky's birthday, visiting friends on their son's birthday, celebrating Nichole and Jr.'s birthdays in Oregon.

And the occasional "just because" ice cream.

So, yeah, I'm not surprised I gained a lot of weight. I was on vacation during my second trimester when my appetite was definitely increased and people were doing barbecue.

It was a good vacation.

License Plate Game II

I wanted to put this post up, even though it doesn't have to do with our vacation to the Pacific Northwest. Recently (since we've been back from the Pacific Northwest), we went down to Monticello, Utah, and like last year we spent some time at Arches National Park on the way. Unlike last year, we had no misfortune with hats flying away. Thank goodness.
We played the license plate game again so I thought it appropriate to share the license plates we saw on this trip. We didn't travel through 4 states this time, but stayed in Utah the whole time. I'll tell you. If you're looking for a lot of different state license plates, just drive around the parking lot at Arches a few times. This is what we got:
Alberta
and states:
Alaska
Arizona
California
Colorado
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Maryland
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Washington
Wisconsin
Wyoming

That's 32 states, compared to 34 from our trip to the Pacific Northwest. Crazy, huh? I just wanted to share.

License Plate Game

When we go on trips, we like to keep track of the different state (and such) license plates we see. This time before our trip I printed out a fun map/list at about.com. This way I didn't have to write all of them down, just the ones that weren't of the 50 United States. They were already written down in alphabetical order. We just marked them with a colored pencil when we saw them.
Anyway, here is a list of the license plates we saw on our Pacific Northwest trip (give or take- we may have missed some):

Arizona
California
Colorado
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
(My mother-in-law may have seen a Pennsylvania license plate. I thought I overheard her mentioning that state. Let me know if that's true, Mom).

and the non-state license plates:


Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, U.S. Airforce, U.S. Government

Blowing Bubbles with Grandma

Grandma taught the kids to blow bubbles with homemade bubble blowers.

They had fun and I even got involved a little.

How do you like my bubble blowing self portrait? Yeah, I took that picture myself. Yes, I know I'm awesome.

Here are instructions from FamilyFun to make these homemade bubble blowers.

Vacation Disappointment

One thing I was hoping for on our vacation to the Pacific Northwest was to see some really big banana slugs (Ariolimax columbianus).
Alas, it didn't happen.

The night we got to Washington, we got to see this guy.

Another day, Jeremy's mom moved a slug off the patio.

At the Pacific Science Center we saw some banana slugs behind glass, but they were disappointingly small.

And we saw a European garden slug (Arion ater) on my parents' walkway in Oregon another night. All were better than the non-slugs we have in Utah, but I was still disappointed. I guess it goes along with not getting rain while we were on vacation.