rylee – Copper Acorn

by Alexis - November 22, 2011December 2, 2011

Christmas 2012 Cards

**Warning: tons of pictures comin’ your way. Cute ones, but a lot****

We took Monday to go to Mt. Hood to take some family Christmas card pictures. I love how they turned out.

I have learned that it is very important to keep the ‘kissy kiss’ as I call it, in a marriage. I really look forward to taking these type of pictures when we’re old and gray haired. Things get better with age.

Emma wasn’t having a great time. It was either one or the other extreme. Either she was so happy playing in the snow she didn’t want to take pictures, or she was too cold and didn’t want to take pictures. This is why there’s lots of Travis and I.

I cannot tell you how cold we were when we were done. The fireplace made all the females happier.

(aka: no more drama)

And of course, Emma and Rylee….

We went with some friends and got some good shots of them too.

Their last name starts with ‘G’, thus the G in the picture.

***Check out my blog tomorrow for the bloopers. Yes, Amy I said that. muahaha!****

by Alexis - June 9, 2011June 9, 2011

Summer=5K…good Lord help me

What plans do you have this summer? Zoo? Picnics? Library? Our house needs to make our summer list. But unlike most everyone else, I’m focused to plan for rest and relaxation. It’s not too hard for this house to find business and plans.

Summer is suppose to be about enjoying a LAZY warm afternoon right??

And in our family, we need to schedule these times or we will get busy doing tons of other fun things. And yes, we plan on being lazy with friends. 🙂 It’s totally possible. Is our family like yours?

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I am doing a couch to 5K with a couple friends and am excited and unprepared. One thing is for certain: I am going to lean heavily on friend support. Wish me luck! 🙂

However, I was reminded while I heaved, breathed sighs and almost passed out (kidding, drama makes everything more interesting) I had thoughts like, ‘Um, I can’t do this.’ ‘I’d rather be exercising another way’ ‘this is too hard!’

These are normal I think, but when I think about some of the stories of people who have overcome so much to do something like a marathon, Special Olympics or Hood to Coast (Portland race) a clearer perspective is in front of me and I have more determination. They are so insparational and their stories give hope to myself and Ibegin to say, ‘this is doable’, ‘I have friends who are doing this with me-I’m not alone’ and ‘I have a goal’

by Alexis - May 23, 2011

my great day

******written by yours truly. me. the one, the only- emma.*****

Monday morning:

my friend came to play today! and i was so excited to show my toys to her! the moment she came in i forgot about mommy. but she didn’t forget to document EVERYTHING in photos…how annoying!

we did our best to ignore her and watched strawberry shortcake in my bed together! all snuggled under the blankets. 🙂 lots of giggling and jumping. with the white princess drape thing over us of course. privacy mother…

afterwards, my mother tried a tactic to get us away from the tv: we smelled the sweet aroma of chocolate chip cookies. MUST. HAVE! the snack was apples and cookies with apple juice.

they were frozen. made a month ago and rolled into little balls. she randomly takes a handful out to bake. i’m happy when she does. we baked some extra for daddy.

we then went outside for a walk. hooray!! i liked rylee’s bright rainbow coat better than mine (softer) and rylee liked mine. so we switched.

i now believe that before you become a mommy, you must first take a poparotsy class. some lessons before graduating: 1. You must tell your child to smile no matter what they’re doing. 2. Take forever to take a picture and finally 3. Run after child with camera yelling, ‘look at me!’.

case in point:

i’m sorry rylee. so embarassed.

seriously mom. we’re done.

you have a photo problem.

maybe your church has a healing class for it or something. it should be called, ‘photographers anonymous’. i would sign you up. because i love you of course.

so back to you reader, while my mom was clicking her heart away we heard the train coming and ran to see it up close! it’s so loud and exciting and the driver man waves at us!

i liked waving to the people inside. it’s what we do in the zoo train too.

then my mom said something that made up for all the photos: ‘do you girls want to finger paint?!’ Yeah!!!! so on the walk we picked up our own rocks to paint when we came home.

it was so much fun! then we got to go into the bath and play together (t otake the paint off)

to top it off, we then had lunch and did some artistic interpretations in chalk up on our balcony. (we scribbled)

I hope you had a great monday morning too! and if you’d like me to write more, tell my mommy. she’s a blog hog.

by Alexis - February 2, 2011February 2, 2011

Pico Berry

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A group of friends and me went to try out a new frozen yogurt place in Fairview Village. That’s the east side of Portland. And if you’re in the neighborhood you should go and check it out.

You know those chic places that are very modern…and pretty…this one painted their walls lime green and bright pink…and serve treats? If not they’re all over Europe

. This was a little like that, or at least it reminded me of it a bit. The place was called Pico Berry which means ‘spend all your money here’.

OK, not not really.

It was actually really cheap and had tons of choices. peanut butter, white chocolate, cake batter and other fancier ones I can’t remember. Emma and my yogurt together was $3.50. Awesome. Emma was interested in the pink ice cream (strawberry)…surprise surprise.

Mine was the boring one. Cake batter and strawberries. Same thing I get at Cold Stone.

Why no, I’m not unadventurous…um, I’m consistent. Here are our creations:

Emma and Rylee decided about 2 bites into it that they would rather have the free tiny lollipop the register person gave them.

Which turns your tongue colors. Which they loved.

None

And lastly, the friend who organized it all. She is obsessed with frozen yogurt. Bless her heart. Thanks Amy for organizing this, we’ll all have to make this a summer ‘must’ .

by Alexis - November 10, 2010November 10, 2010

Donut World

I remember my dad and mom bringing donuts to Sunday school. They were my teachers in a couple grades. They were smart- the way to a pre-teen and teenager is through their stomach. Today, they have fancy dancy donut places that I only read about and am dying to try but sadly there are no fancy donut places near me.

Instead, we went to a huge red barn looking building that has a mega sign outside reading DONUT WORLD. Classy my people. Classy. They had the fake wooden siding, limited red vinal seating and cramped bathrooms. HOWEVER, they hand make their own donuts (you can watch the guy-which the girls liked) the most sweetest owner (yes I talked to him), cartons of milk, HUGE donuts the size of my head and honestly the best nostalgic feeling place. They had old pictures of Portland and it just made me smile. I just felt like I did when I would go with dad to pick up the donutsfor our Sunday class. Sweet memories.

Only it was 10am and the most liked donuts were gone. But there’s no way I’m waking up this little lady to pick up a few donuts. Hah. Unless we are driving to an airport, we’ll pick some up on the way. Yum. Hot fresh donuts. Great healthy breakfast.

My friend, Amy, and I went to Donut World with our girls. They got a little impatient waiting for me to fumble with the camera to take a picture of their donut they couldn’t eat. Hah. It’s not like they’re 2 yrs old with a treat in front of them.

Emma and Rylee (Emma’s best friend) had to have sprinkles. 🙂

Why do parents have the most boring donuts? I was looking forward to tryng some interesting ones but there were only traditonal ones. No Bacon Maple bars or Salted Apple donuts. Oh well. The girls didn’t notice.

Here’s Amy and Rylee. We’ll so miss them while they’re away! Her husband and her are looking into being missionaries to a country and are visiting this next couple weeks. Rylee is visiting Grandpa and Grandma in L.A.

And finally the after. Not much icing was left but a lot of the donut was. 😉

It seemed like the girls felt the sugar like imediatly! They were boinking off the walls! Here are some action shots 🙂

Then they crashed. Hahaha

Happy Wednesday Donut Day 🙂

by Alexis - August 31, 2009August 31, 2009

Portland Zoo

I love going to the zoo. Everything about it. Packing a picnic for lunch, looking at exotic animals and being mainly out of our house. But there is one thing I don’t like- all the crazy people (mainly unsupervised children) snuffling their noses against the glass to see a glimpse of a lion. Well today we beat the system and got smarter- we went way early! Like around 9:30 am. We met a friend who has a years membership and got us in free and we strolled our strollers around the empty paths and did whatever we wanted. It was really relaxing actually! (Let’s not get into me getting lost taking many wrong turns/exits on the way there) No it was a great time and even though I did talk yesterday about getting ‘unconventional pictures’ I wasn’t feeling super creative. I was more focused on keeping Emma entertained so she wouldn’t freak out wanting to walk around and snuggle with a lion or leopard. (yes mom, Emma is wearing the jean jumper you got her and it looks freeking adorable on her 🙂 )

I did, obviously, take some photos to post. ~Amy, thanks for inviting us today, we had a great time. I absolutely LOVE the cheesy smile Rylee gave me. I’ll have to e-mail it to you. Emma slept the entire way home and is now talking in her crib. Crap. Well, lets hope her second nap will be a long one.