My Life as Alicia - Part 2

Although I didn't have to play the roll of Alicia today, I did get a kick out of listening to Rebekah watch Dora. She's only 18 months, but she loves "Dowa" so much she will sit and interact completely with the show. When I hear Dora ask, "Can you help us save the pigmy marmoset?" Rebekah will say, "Yeah!" Or she'll answer "No" if she has seen the episode before and knows the answer is no. It's too funny! The funniest part to me is when she tries to repeat the Spanish phrases, especially since she can hardly speak English! Dora will say, "Can you say 'arriba'? Say 'arriba'!" And here's little Bekah repeating, "Iba".

Also, I have to publicly thank my sister-in-law, Jeannie, who took BOTH of my girls all day today! She was even willing to take them overnight, but I figured having them gone all day would be enough. It was nice to have the day to myself, but when I saw their cute little faces when they came home, I realized I had missed them.

Back Home and Adjusting: My Life As Alicia

Whew! The rush of July is coming to a close, and it was definitely an eventful month. We got back from our North Carolina trip a week ago today, but it really does feel like we were there a month ago. I listed a lot of our plans in a previous post, but just for fun, I made a list of everything that happened in July:

• Week 1 - Went to Pinetop and Snowflake for 4th of July! Girls got to ride a horse for the first time. Bekah loved it!
  
• Week 2 - Visited with my parents who were renting a house in Gilbert - did Swim Class and Dance Class for Maija - my parents left town - I was called into the Primary Presidency as 2nd Counselor (basically, I'm working with the children at church and overseeing Cub Scouts)
  
• Week 3 - Flew to North Carolina to visit my parents - Kent golfed every day - I enjoyed my mother's help with the girls & got a shopping day with my mother and no children!
  
• Week 4 - Flew back to Phoenix on a 6am flight (we left my parents' house @ 3am...not fun!) - Maija & Bekah rode their 1st train at the Atlanta airport - I jumped right into Primary work - Maija finished Swim Class for the summer and started another session of dance classes - Kent took his final exam in his summer class - On the weekend, we rested & caught up on housework
  
• Week 5 - Celebrated Kent's mother's birthday with the inlaws - got my hair colored for the 1st time in years (that was today, so that's where I'll end.)
  

Click on this link to see pictures of our fun and crazy month - http://picasaweb.google.com/farnies4/July2008

My Life as Alicia - Episode 1

As a final note, I often find myself being assigned the part of Alicia, as in Diego's sister Alicia. Maija will tell me at the beginning of the day, "You are pretending to be Alicia, and I am pretending to be Diego. OK?" That "OK?" is not really to secure my approval because this is really more of an order than a negotiation. For the rest of the day she will refer to me as Alicia: "Alicia, I want juice!" "Alicia, I'm hungry." "I hurt myself, Alicia." And if I don't refer to her as Diego, she often will not respond. Today was one of my Alicia days, and at one point after I helped Diego, oh, I mean Maija, put on her pants, she hugged me and said, "That's my girl, Alicia!" So funny!

95 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

I'm not sure what this says about me, but the test is pretty funny.

Tuesday Is The Day

Maija has become particularly attached to Tuesdays this summer because that's the day she has her swim class. The best part of swim class for her is not the class itself. It's getting to go to her cousin's house where we have the swim lessons. Amazingly, she often knows first thing in the morning if it's Tuesday and will tell me excitedly, "Mommy! Today is Tuesday! What do I get to do today? Go to K's house?" Her cousin, K (I'll just use the initial here), is her favorite person in the whole world, which is really sweet, especially since they were born close together. Maija was actually blessed in church right as K was being born.

This Tuesday is another special day for her, and all of us, because we're headed to North Carolina to visit Mummi and Grandpa. Maija keeps asking me, "What day is it today? Is it Tuesday? Can we go on an airplane?" I'm excited for our trip once we get to NC, but not so much for the actual trip there and back. We usually get to fly direct, but this time we've got layovers both ways, and Rebekah is also MUCH more difficult than she used to be. It should be interesting. We'll be bringing plenty of books and toys and blankies and sippy cups and snacks...whatever we gotta do to keep the girls from wigging out on the plane. That's got to be a parent's worst nightmare. There's no escape when you're on a plane. Everyone has to suffer with you regardless. So, avoiding a meltdown is paramount.

I'll post pics of our trip, plus a few video clips I've been meaning to upload.

Our Crazy July

I haven't blogged in a few weeks. There's been a lot going on, mostly revolving around family events. My parents flew in in mid-June to stay in the area for nearly a month. This has meant that on top of living our normal lives, we've been doing a lot of visiting between their rental place and our house. Frankly, I'm exhausted. It's great to have them close by, but the running around is tiring. Although the girls are in seventh heaven having so much attention and a great pool to swim at whenever they want.

In the midst of all of this, we've also been trying to get to swim class and a summer dance class for Maija. Both classes are almost over, and I think I'll give a sigh of relief when we can just "be" again, whatever that means. We also drove up to Pinetop to be with some of Kent's family for the 4th of July. It was so much fun to be with everyone, and the girls played and played and played! After 3 days, we were all worn out by the time we got home. We have 1 week at home, and then next week we head to North Carolina to ... visit my parents. Originally, my parents were not going to be coming here to see us this summer, so we had booked airline tickets for the four of us to go see them. Then all the plans changed, but we were still locked into the airline tickets...so we'll be heading out that way for a week.

By the time we get back from our trip, it'll be nearly the end of July!!! Kent's night class (he's had a class until 10:30pm on Mondays and Wednesdays) will be over, Maija's classes will be over, the summer will be almost over. Then the next big event for our little family will be when Maija starts preschool in early August. Whew! It's like an endurance race sometimes.

I hope everyone else's summer is filled with fun, too.