Me Being Adventurous

I'm not a very adventurous person, especially more and more as I've gotten older. I like to play it safe and within my comfort zone. I'm the same way with my eating. I'm a picky eater and I don't have very adventurous taste buds. James says I'm boring, but I like think that I just prefer the classics.

On a boring Friday night, we decided to go the grocery store and pick up a bunch of fruits that we haven't tried and give 'em a try! Yay, for adventure! lol

Sooo it was the time of year with not many choices of fruits...

We got a coconut, a papaya, kiwi's, and a plum, I think? I can't remember.

Interesting innards the papaya has.

I know these may seem like boring choices, but really I don't think I've ever really given any of them a chance before, at least that I can remember.

I liked the kiwi and plum. Hated the coconut milk and papaya, though we may have not chosen them while they were ripe enough or not.. or something.

Atalia loved everything! She is a lover of fruits.

I think I might like to try this again, but with crazier fruits. Look at me, broadening my horizon and all. I think I'll give myself a pat on the back.

Nick And Tali

We had a quick visit from Nick and Heidi. It's hard, you anticipate it for so long and then it's over so quickly! But we'll take it!

Tali is blessed with a lot of great uncles and aunts that love her so much.

She is a well loved little girl.

Last Time Buying Diapers.. At Least For A While!

These were the last diapers we were buying for a while. As you can kinda see, they are santa diapers. They were on sale because Christmas was a few months ago.

Atalia was so excited for them. After putting them on her, she disappeared in her room for a while and came back wearing this Christmas hat lol.

Her Birthday was March 4th and I decided the week before to potty train her. Sometimes I get crazy ideas like this.

She was pretty much potty trained in 2-3 days! I don't feel like I can even really take any credit for it, she was just ready. The morning of the first day was hard, but then she just started to get it!

Things that helped us with potty training:

Waiting till she was ready was huge!

Rewards. Rewards. Rewards.

And when they run out, M&M's.

Lots of juice boxes to give lots of practice.

Having a portable potty to move to whatever room they are in for the first few days, making it easier to get to in a hurry. We now have transitioned to the ring that just fits over the big potty, which makes clean-up so much easier.

Getting an exciting potty.

The one we got plays music when they go (which was nice for me too, knowing when she went) and also turns into a stool. Having a stool is really nice to help them become more independent with being able to get up on the potty by themselves and wash their hands by themselves.

The first day, she went pantless, helping with when she was in a hurry.

Lots of positive encouragement and NO scolding with accidents, just matter-of-factly told that she only gets rewards when she makes it to the potty.

That's what I learned from this experience and worked for Atalia. Also, thanks to a lot of people's advice along the way! And a special thanks to my mom for sending more underwear and rewards when we were home-bound and out of those things!

"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!