"Oh, The Places You'll Go!"

Something about these pictures of Tali playing in her pink hamper, reminds me of the title of that Dr. Seuss book, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"

Tali's been really using her imagination a lot lately and Dr. Seuss is all about imagination to me. Tali likes to pretend that there are imaginary lions and dragons after her. First she'll hide from them and then goes and fights them and then locks them in her room. She also likes to pretend that she found a whole bunch of bunnies or birds and takes care of them.

Sometimes I miss being a kid.

One of my favorite Dr. Seuss stories is, What was I Scared of? It's one of the stories in, "The Sneetches And Other Stories"

Got to love Dr. Seuss!

An Aquarium

I can't remember the exact name of the aquarium (Living Water's Aquarium, maybe. Or maybe I just made that all up. I donno.) I'm feeling too lazy to look it up, but we went to an aquarium (in Sandy... I think). James' family came down for a visit and we had another packed-full day of fun.

This place was crowded! But even for it being so crowded, it was still a lot of fun (unlike the Discovery Children's Museum).

This place is seriously cool. And I know about cool....

Okay, so I don't know a lot about cool, but I think you could trust me on this one.

My favorites were the penguins, the otters, the sting rays (that you can touch! though.. I didn't), the really big fish and eels, and jelly fish. What? Did that sound like everything? Cuz it wasn't!

So, where you can touch the sting ray's as they swim by, Atalia and I were standing next to Brig and she kept putting Brigs hand in the water to touch the sting ray, when he was clearly not ready to. It made me laugh so hard how she was clearly picking on him/trying to make Brig do something that he wasn't comfortable with doing just yet. I don't know if I explained that right, but it still makes me chuckle when I think about it.

Also, I can't remember if Brig went to touch the sting ray or if he got freaked out right before touching it, but pulled his hand out suddenly and drenched the front of his shirt with water... oh man... also funny.

lol two pictures and not even any fish in the background... What was I thinking?

You can just faintly make out the jellyfish. They are the blue circular things.

I thought these were pretty cool with how they change color and all.

Do you know what's in there? Because I don't.

Large frogs to climb are always fun, I always say.

These were all the pictures I got of that day! I know, fail on my part and I didn't even get anyone else! Double fail, Laurissa, double fail!

We also did other things like go to the DI, checked out a Scottish store Downtown, the mall, and finishing up with yummy pizza! By the end of the day, we were all pooped.

Discovery Gateway Children's Museum

I have been dying to take Tali to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum since we have moved to Salt Lake! It's a hands-on museum with tons of things for kids to do and for a variety of ages too. I was so excited to finally go!

My parents came down for the day and we were naming off things we've done and experienced in Salt Lake and talked about how we haven't tried this Children's Museum yet. So, we decided to go! Yay!

We got there and it was really expensive for 4 adults and an almost 3yr old.. I think $8.50 per person, including Tali. Purtty expensive, especially when all the adults are just there to watch Tali play. It was a really neat place though, with SO many cool things.

We started off with the grocery store area.

Tali loved it, but it was hard for the rest of us to enjoy it with her because it was SO crowded and SO loud. They do have really neat things there, it was too bad we couldn't enjoy it as much with her.

I would love to go again, but during the morning on a week day, while the older kids are at school.

Restaurant Hopping On A Budget

So, we've done this restaurant hopping before, with my parents and brother here. I wanted to do it again with my little family. The nice thing about it is that you can make it to fit your budget, with either adding more or less entree's or going to more expensive or cheaper restaurants. We also shared a lot, making it not as expensive.

We started off with "drinks." We shared an Orange Julius Smoothie at the mall (we were already there.)

Next, we got appetizers at Millie's.

Fried Zucchini's (one of our favorites) and french fries (not really thought of as an appetizer, but it works for Atalia).

Then we each got a slice of pizza at Pier 49 Pizza. Yum. Yum. Yum.

I got the spinach Alfredo pizza (For free! Supposedly it had been sitting out longer than the rest lol Score!). It was AMAZING! I would like to get some more of that and soon.

We finished up with dessert at TCBY.

There is something exciting about restaurant hopping (Kinda perfect with Easter coming up! You know, since bunnies 'hop' and all? Never mind).

I suggest trying it!

Our Love Day 2012

I'm a huge believer in Valentine's Day being a day not just for couple's, but to celebrate all the love you have in your life! I'm very blessed with lots of love in mine :) I have lots to be grateful for.

If you haven't heard, my daughter loves robots. I found these V-Day robots that she was super duper excited to put on her window. We put these up the same day we took the Christmas tree down lol.

Us girls getting ready for Valentines Day! I used my new Paul Mitchell straightener, my V-Day gift from James. (He stepped on my nice Paul Mitchell one a couple years ago and broke it. I guess the floor wasn't a good place to keep it. I had been using this big, clunky, old one that I had. You know how big and clunky the cell phones were in the 90's? That's how this straightener was.)

Daddy wearing his V-Day gift, a Jazz t-shirt. Atalia took this picture of James! Not bad!

Our cards that we made.

It was Atalia's first experience with pop rocks. It was pretty hilarious. She was unsure about all the popping.

We got Atalia a stuffed Valentine's dragon. She loves it so much! I thought it was cute how she had her arm around it while watching a show.

While daddy was at work, we made love day gelatins. We used some cookie cutters and decorated them with icing. Here are some of them. Beautiful lol.

She loved them.

I loved them.

I don't know why, but I feel like this is an awkward picture of me, like my head is on the platter too... weird.

I made a special dinner.

I made lasagna. I decided lasagna takes too much time and energy to make. See the heart? lol After cutting one serving out of it, you couldn't tell it was a heart anymore. Not worth it lol.

It was really yummy though.

I decided that next year we are going to do take-out.

We did fondue for dessert. Our favorite is the strawberries and angel food cake :)

James and I snuggled and watched a movie after getting Atalia to bed. Pretty nice love day!

Christmas Till February

I didn't get around to taking down the Christmas decorations till February (At least it was before Valentines Day!). As I was taking down our Christmas tree, I looked behind me to find Tali taking what I had just taken off the tree to putting it on a smaller tree.

I was UN-decorating while Tali was decorating.

Tali's tree that she was decorating :)

I think I should start leaving all the decorating to Tali from now on.

Merry Christmas in February!

Performing

When Atalia is not being shy, she is performing.

She is so animated in all her facial expressions, it cracks me up. She is always dancing and singing and... karate chopping... Maybe she'll go into Theater like her Grandma and Grandpa :)

Here we are, in the kids section, at Barns & Noble, watching Atalia on stage.

In this picture, I feel like I see more Prescott in her (my mother-in-law's side of the family).

Thank you, Atalia, for keeping us entertained!