I was tempted to title this "May and June Photo Dump," but I just couldn't do it. The phrase "Photo Dump" sounds so...something you should always do by yourself. It just brings to mind other types of dump. "Update" will suffice.
It has been a good long while since I have used my blog to record the happy part of my life rather than the nitty-gritty depressing stuff. So, for this entry and this entry only, I am going to tell everybody how blessed I am. Seriously.
Miss Daisy is 11 months old. I KNOW. That was the fastest year ever in the history of fast years. She has teeth and everything, and today (sob) we bought a new car seat and turned her around. But, she's still bald, so at least she still looks babyish.
Alice has always been a good show-monkey. "Hey, Alice, go give grandpa puppy kisses." And she does. "Hey, Alice, shake your butt." And she does. Daisy, however, is not one to perform on command. She has a very small collection of tricks, and will only perform when food is involved. My all-time favorite trick is "Oh, No!" As demonstrated below:
Even though we have no hopes of one day selling her out to Disney, we still love her, and have decided that we will be irresponsible with Alice's performing funds alone.
Alice is in that age where she will only do the opposite of what I say, or do only as much as she can get away with. I am told that this will last another fifteen years. Lately, I have been telling Alice to Look At the Camera. What I get is a head turned toward the lens, but eyes defiantly averted. "Alice, look at me."
"I am, Mommy":
Whatever. You have to admit, though, that my girls are SUPER CUTE. Award-winning cute. But we'll get to that later.
Alice has decided that since Daisy doesn't just lay around and poop anymore, and since Daisy follows Alice every where she goes, and since is seems that Mommy and Daddy love her just as much as they love Daisy, and since Daisy doesn't seem to be going any where any time soon, Alice might as well try to play with her:
The cute factor lasts about three seconds. Then Alice decides that the best thing to play is a game called "Don't Let Daisy Move" and proceeds to grab her legs, body slam her, head-butt her, or lock her out of rooms. Alice usually ends up with a spanking (gasp! I spank my kids!) and Daisy is usually crying far more dramatically than necessary. Ahhh. Love at Home.
In other news, last week was the annual Lehi Roundup Rodeo, and it was the 75 year anniversary. This is a tradition that I love... in theory. In reality, this week is filled with tired kids, depleted funds, and A LOT of sweat. Roundup week is kind of like being pregnant: it seriously sucks and is a huge inconvenience, yet you seem to forget the sucky parts and look back on it with fondness.
This year, we entered Daisy in the baby contest. I thought she was the cutest baby there. I mean, c'mon. This kid could make the Gerber baby look like a troll.
She did not win, however. I think the whole thing was rigged. The contest claimed it was just a beauty thing, but I think it was decided on costume and talent. And as I said before, Daisy doesn't perform if she doesn't want to. Even though she was in great spirits, Daisy just didn't care. But I have proof that this little gal is the cutest on the block.
We took Alice to the Rodeo last year. I thought it was a colossal failure, due to the fact that Alice was so little and the rodeo STARTS way past bed time. As not-fun as it was last year, Alice tended to remember it as the highlight of her life, and she has been talking about the Cowboy Show, the Horsey Show, or the Cowgirl Rodeo (they are all the same event, but periodically go by different names) for about six months now. I did not have the heart to disappoint the little stinker. And we had stellar tickets. When I say "stellar," I mean stellar if you have a toddler. Front row is probably least desirable for real Rodeo Aficionados, but for us, it was perfect. Alice could see everything, and she could get up and walk around without bugging people in front of us. We caught her off guard for this picture, hence the actual looking at the camera.
Alice did really well for the first hour or so, but once it started getting dark, she was done. She persevered, though. She was not going to sleep, boy howdy. The girl refused to sit down. Instead, she ran between the fence and our seat, played in the dirt, danced to the music, and cried whenever you looked at her cross-eyed.
A little off the subject: look at this awesome picture. It has nothing to do with Alice, but Joe was quite pleased with the performance of our camera
About halfway through the show, we realized that my sister and her family were there, too. They had okay seats, but not as good as ours. We had lots of empty space around us, so they came and joined our little par-tay. Alice and cousin Taytum are great chums. They play well together...when they're not fighting. I love this picture for a couple of reasons: one, it's further proof that Alice refuses to look at a camera if she is told to do so, and two, these two little girls' personalities are told perfectly through what they chose to wear that evening:
On Saturday, it was the famous Mammoth parade. For some reason, Lehi has the knack of choosing the hottest weekend of the year for their Roundup Parade. This one was by far the worst in recent memory. For some reason, heat has no effect on children. We stayed long enough for Alice to see the floats and the princesses, but when it got to the part with the business owners in fancy cars, I was done. We left a half hour early and spent the rest of the day recovering by laying in front of the air conditioning vents and eating watermelon. Alice loved the floats and the princesses, especially the princesses in the cowboy hats.
Daisy just loved the hats.
Our Fourth was spent at a BBQ at my Aunt and Uncle's house. It was great company, great food, and a great load of whining and crying. Around eight o' clock, we toted two ornery babies home, both of whom fell asleep in the car. After we got them all tucked away (still in their clothes) Joe and I spent our Fourth of July playing Ticket to Ride and Life. No fireworks here, but a very pleasant evening with my boyfriend all the same.
See, even when a lot of things suck in life, there are always one or two things that make the rest of it totally worth while. I am Seriously, So Blessed.
