February 2011-2nd Half w Video

Justin left us for two weeks! He had a business trip to Houston and was able to pick up some stuff for us. You can see all the bounty we got in one of the 365 pics with the girls. We got stuff like goldfish, hair ties for the girls, crafting supplies, video games (that you can't buy here-different region just like with DVDs), books, new suitcases to put all the crap in, clothes for all of us, ingredients and food products you can't buy here, etc. Pretty much, we made out like bandits. Too bad he's not going back for at least 6 months so we've got to make it all last!

Solia:



*She's starting to get up onto her knees and onto her feet-we had to raise the crib bars so she couldn't fall out.

This is the "nursing mother's room" in our ward building-the building is so small that there are no empty rooms to nurse in, and since I'm (at the moment) the only nursing mother, I get a storage closet with a chair in it. And it's freezing.



Some pictures of the girls that didn't make the 365 cut:



365 1st Half Photos:



365 2nd Half Photos:



Amaia:

(Bracelets on her ears as 'earrings', a balloon man, silly string, making the "welcome home" sign for Justin)

*When we read scriptures, Amaia starts yelling for us to say "and it came to pass" if the verse doesn't start with it.

*When we pray at night, she'll always tell us we need to "say it at Spanish" (not in Spanish).

*Justin likes to call Solia "Soliloquy"-Amaia tries to say it but it sounds more like "So-wuck-wee"

*Amaia's learned the phrase "I no mean to" and likes to say it every time she does something she's not supposed to, regardless of wether she 'mean to' or not.

*Amaia knows all of her letters, uppercase and lower case. She'll go around spelling everything she sees

*Since she doesn't know what she's spelling, she'll see a box of cereal and say "c-r-u-n-c-h-y--dat spells 'Amaia'!" Apparently, everything spells Amaia.

*Did I mention that she actually knows how to spell her own name-but for some reason still thinks that everything spells Amaia, even when they don't begin with an A.

*If I say: Amaia don't hit Solia (i.e.), she'll say "My can hit Solia ever my want!" (whenever she wants....nice)

(You know, I still havent' figured out when she says "my" if she's doing the whole 'improper proper noun use' thing, or if she is abbreviating Amaia...)

*Apparently when Justin was younger, when Joey would sing to him, he would tell her to stop-apparenly he didn't think she was that good of a singer. Well, Amaia likes to tell me to "please stop" (with the sweetest voice) when I try to sing.

*For a couple weeks now, everything has ben "so so feeking (blank)": It's gunna be so, so feekin' yummy; I so so feekin' tired; etc.

*When Amaia is doing something she knows she's not supposed to be doing, the second you confront her (no matter what way you do it), she'll yell "what, em?!" all defensively

*She's starting to do things only because I said not to, just to spite me-she's also gone from tantrums when she's mad to physical violence-pushing Solia over (which smacks her head on the not so soft floor), scratching, throwing toys, kicking, etc.

*If she needs something, instead of asking for it or saying she needs it, she'll say "I forgot a (get my blankie)!" and then make this look that says "what in the world was I thinking?" It's hilarious.

Here is the link to the video uploaded on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsR17WF0QWM

February 2011-1st Half

Solia:

*Solia can go from laying down to sitting up on her own
*When I feed Solia, she'll remover her fingers long enough to shove the spoon in there, and then she'll stick her fingers right back in and 'suck' her food down (works great when I had to give her tylenol and stuff)
*Solia's started the finger foods-Rice Krispies cereal. Did you know the "regular" Cheerios here are like Honey Nut Cheerios-maybe minus the 'nut' part-yea, definitely not plain cheerios. Hence the Rice Krispies.

Girls Non 365 Photos


365 1st Half



365 2nd Half

Amaia:

*She has to have a small towel every night. I usually give her one of the ones I use for Solia's spit up (a clean one, of course). She'll use it to repeatedly dry off her thumb, then suck, dry, repeat. If I forget to get her one, she'll get into the little closet in her room and grab one of Solia's blankets (lowest shelf) and use that.

*We have a GPS in our car-and we paid like 10 bucks so that it was the voice of Snoop Dogg telling us where to go. It's tight. Amaia calls him "snoop Gog" :)

*She likes to tell us that she'll needs to go upstairs (or go/do whatever) for "a couple whiles"

The ducks out back-Justin playing "neerom bonk" with Solia like he used to play with Amaia-the view out of the girl's room window (towards the back of the house)

Spot the Difference {4}

Crackers = Savoury Biscuits

Cookies = Sweet Biscuits

Chips = Crisps

Diapers = Nappies

The # symbol is called a "hash"

Z = Zed

H = Haych

Stroller = Pram/Buggy

Kids Say the Darndest Things {5}

*So one day I had to go numero uno really really really bad-and of course Amaia was tagging along. I made this face and Amaia says "you can't make that face-that face is only for going stinkies"*



*Solia was trying to get Amaia's cup of milk, so Amaia says :You can't have any milk, Solia-you only have milk in Mommy's boobies!"*



*Amaia: YOU forgot to do your make up!
Me: Should we go do it?
Amaia: No-you need to stay scary! (gee thanks)*



*Me: Amaia, if you stop crying we can be happier
Amaia: I no want a be happier-I want a be 'saddier'*



*Stop freaking out Solia-calm down and take a big beth!*

January 2011 2nd Half w Video

This month we went to Stonehenge for the first time. It was cool and all, but you can only get so close, and it was FREEZING. Like, probably literally, except our stupid car had the thermometer in C and I'm useless with Celsius. Anyways, we went in, paid, pretty much walked around it as fast as we could manage, and left. We didn't even bother pulling the girls out of the stroller for a picture-it was that cold.

Amaia took a nice fall. She decided to wear her plastic princess shoes down the stairs-not a good idea. I went and picked her up and she cried for like 2 seconds before calming down. I was resting my face on her head while hugging her (in front of a mirror we had in the hall) and when I lifted my face off, it was covered in blood! Amaia had a huge gash on her head and she didn't even notice. I was going to go clean it off and I almost got sick when I moved her hair and saw how deep it was-you could see all the fat under her skin and it was all bubbly and gross. Anyways, Amaia acted like nothing had even happened. I called Justin and made him come home and take her to the ER. They just superglued it all up. And the surrounding hair-like it looked like they just took the bottle and squeezed it on her head-it ran all the way down to her ear almost. Ugh. According to Justin, she just sat there completely still and calm and quiet the whole time. She cried right at the end, though, becuase she wanted the doctor to not stop and keep fixing her up.

The scary part about all of that, though, is Justin had his first visit to the ER when he was 2, and he also apparently just took it all in stride like a tough macho man. And then he was in and out of the ER like a motorcycle dare devil the rest of his life (up until he got back from the mission-hasn't had any accidents since then). I'm hoping this isn't some sort of sick omen.


Happening with the girls this time around:

*Every time I am holding or hugging Amaia and Solia at the same time, Amaia will say "Two cute little girls!"

*When Solia spits up or poos, Amaia tells her "Dat's just nasgy, Solia"

*Amaia will always say "It's a good idea (fill in the blank)": to go to the store; go eat dinner; get her teddy; etc.

*She also says "I'm pretty sure (fill in the blank)": I hungry; Solia has a poopy diaper; etc.

*I'm pretty sure that Amaia has finally made the connection that Solia is the 'baby sister' that was in my tummy for so long

*Amaia's learned how to answer "why". She can actually give me reasons for things now.

*Solia is super terrified of strangers and freaks out when I leave her line of sight.

*Solia started scooting! or the army crawl, whatever you want to call it. But either way it means she's mobile.

*If you tell Amaia a secret, she'll want to tell you one, too, so she'll put her ear on your ear and whisper something that you can't hear because she's talking to your hair :)

*If you call Amaia a name, she'll respond with "I'm a big giirl!". IE-Amaia, you're such a fruit: My not a frooot, I a big giirl!

*We try and teach her new words all the time, we always says "Amaia can you say (applesauce, ie); she'll say "No, I can't say applesauce!" It's really funny.

*Amaia calls Solia a 'little goobie goobies'

*When she says 'color' it sounds like 'clud or'; when she says 'yellow' sounds like 'led-o'; silly sounds like 'sliddy'

*When she wants to suck on her thumb while cuddling with her blankey, she calls it 'sucking my blankey'

*Amaia has started singing (mostly nonsense) all the time

*And to end on a not so awesome note, Amaia is officially back in pull ups full time. Ugh. At least it means less trips to the bathroom, and less laundry. For now.

Top: Picture of the harbor on our little island; and a picture of the lights switching from red to green Bottom: how much we paid (in pounds) for our first tank of gas; the speed lines on the road; and a manor/house thing that was converted into an awesome looking McDonald's


Solia




365

365

Amaia, including a nice shot of her head wound.

Small disclaimer: In the video, Amaia demonstrates her anatomical knowledge of the human body parts (in the nether regions), so if you are easily offended you might want to plug your ears, or just not watch, or get over it and watch it anyways. :)

*UPDATE*

There is no longer a video in this post-follow the link to my video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDPdRZkJm9w

This is so you can actually watch the full HD version of the film, instead of a 4in square box with super terrible resolution so I could upload it to the post...

Spot the Difference {3}

See those lines in the road? They are for that little yellow box up in the top right corner-a speed camera. They record how long it takes you to cross all the lines, and they can tell how fast you are going-it also, of course, catches your license plate on the backside in case they need to give you a ticket. These things are serious-people will slam on their brakes and go under the speed limit just to be safe.


Yield sign-except it's called Give Way instead of yield




The lights here go from green to yellow to red, then they do red and yellow at the same time (above), then back to green. That way you know it's getting ready to turn green. Technically you can drive through them but most people just let off the brake and drift until it turns green before stepping on the gas.






This was the price of gas at a station in January. It's in pence (so 129 pence is 1 pound 29 pence) and it's per litre, not gallon. So....that's 2 ish bucks per litre, but there are about 3 3/4 litres to a gallon, so that comes out to over $7 per gallon. Ya. You thought gas prices were bad where you were. Oh, and that was the regular gas I just did-most cars run on diesel which you can see is more expensive.

This sign says "wait here until green light shows". There was construction, and there was only one lane open. Instead of having some poor guy with a flag stand there all day deciding when to let people go, they set up these traffic lights. It's actually pretty cool.

Kids Say the Darndest Things {4}

*Stop crying Solia. I'm trying tuh eat dinner, and it reedy hard when you crying like that.*

*I'm trying to clean our new house before Daddy comes home-Daddy can't see this big mess*

*I'm stuck-you gunna pick me up or what?*

*(after I got on her case about something) "My six-two years old-I not a child, Em!" (bonus points if you can tell me what disney movie she is trying to quote)*

*One day she was playing with my elbow (arm straight) and thought the wrinkles were goosebumps. I told her that my elbow was just wrinkly and she says "It just wrinkly cuz it just had a shower"*