'Best Day Ever!' (for Ivy)

Ivy's big 3rd birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks...(2 weeks and 5 days to be exact...but who's counting down the days?)

She'll turn 3 the day before I get induced to have baby Scarlet.  But I didn't want her birthday to go un-done. Ives is totally into Ariel and mermaids this year, so we thought we'd take just her to Disneyland, go to the Fantasy Faire (which we never do with Max) meet some Princesses (hopefully Ariel), go on the new Ariel ride, and maybe even eat at Ariel's Grotto...My friend and neighbor Michelle had the day off of work, so she came with me to HELP this big-ole momma trek around the park.  (so glad she did!)

We didn't tell ivy what we were doing today, but just that Mom was taking just her somewhere really special for her birthday.  This morning, Max got to go to donuts with daddy, and Jeff took him to school, and then I spilled the secret to Ivy where we were going (this only so that I could convince her to wear Jeans, of course!)

She wore Ariel's colors...and her Ariel necklace.  

Here's happy girl waiting to get on the tram.

 Ivy and Michelle on the Tram.

 First thing we did was go to Fantasy Faire...We got Ivy an autograph book and pen so the Princesses could write to Ivy in a little special book.  She met Princess Tiana (all of a sudden, she became a really shy girl, and I could hardly get her to smile.)

 Then Ariel...smile a little better...and less reluctant to give her fav Princess her autograph book

 Then Jasmine..still funky smile, but knew to give her her book right away.

 Then we went on a few rides

 of her choosing...Small World was her first request (i love that ride), then the caterpillar ride (Alice in Wonderland) then the Teacups....yep, she spun Michelle, me and Scarlet (in Utero) around to her hearts content.  (luckily we didn't spin too fast!)

Then we headed over to California Adventure to get lunch.  We saw Mickey on our way...got his autograph (my camera had a weird switch flipped at this point...so my pics are now blurry), went on the new Little Mermaid ride which is FABULOUS

and then went to eat lunch.  Hello fanciest lunch I ever had.  I should have been in my Prom dress.  Ivy was in Heaven there!

 She did meet Ariel again, and mom and Ivy took our pics with her...(camera is really blurry for those pics, sad!)

But we got to meet Snow White: 

Belle:

 Aurora:

 AND Cinderella:

 Princess Sandwich...check out the smile after that!

 After lunch, we did a few more rides (King Triton's Carousel)

 and while waiting in line for a 30 minute wait, Ivy took a nap...do you see why I'm so glad Michelle was there?!?  

We had the BEST DAY EVER...except for not seeing "ra-tangled"  but it was an hour and a half wait just to see her.  sorry.

and i'm spent, in case you were wondering.  

Happy  {early} Birthday, Ivy-girl!

Max's Homerun

Saturday was another baseball day for us...Max got to be last in the batting order, which means that you get to hit a home run EVERY TIME!  woo hoo!

I'm loving this season even more than last year!
ps...please ignore that really annoying mom in the background!  I give her dirty looks every time, but she won't stop!

Devils vs. Dirtbags

This weekend, Jeff informed me that BYU baseball was in town playing the UCI Anteaters (Max's T-ball team is the anteaters, as well).  Rad match-up for our family!  Jeff played for the Y...Max's T-ball team...he could wear his jersey, fun!

I thought it would be so fun to take Max to a game (Jeff takes him occasionally, but I don't get to go, let alone Ivy!)

Irvine is in my 'safe-driving-zone' so I thought it would be perfect...come to find out that the Devils were also 'in-town' playing the Long Beach state Dirtbags.  Now, while Long Beach is a stretch for me to drive to alone (hee hee, I'm a total woosie) it is close-enough...and those darn Devils just have a soft spot in my heart (whether I know any of them or not)

We chose the Devils!

Max wore his Jersey with MOUSSER on the back that ASU gave him back when he was 1 and Jeff coached there (it was HUGE on him back then)  Unfortunately, we didn't have any Devil garb for Ivy...or me, for that matter (stinkin' tummy)

 we practiced the pitchfork the whole way there.  Max got it down:

 Ivy thinks she has it down:

They kids were soooo good!  I didn't expect to stay longer than a few innings (I thought I'd be totally uncomfortable in those hard seats, and that the kids would get restless and bored)

I stashed Popcorn, Fruit Snacks and their special coloring pages in my bag, and we stayed for 11 innings!

I couldn't get them to yell or cheer (they must not be related to me) until the VERY END.  Don't worry, I was hollering at that first-base umpired the whole time.  He was a total Dirtbag...no really, I think he was rooting for them 'cause he made some awefully bad calls!  Anyways, regardless of how much I hollered and cheered, my kids wouldn't do any such thing!  UNTIL...

The stinkin' pitcher kept trying to pick off one of our devils like 15 times in a row...So, I yelled: "Freaking Pitch it one time, Pitch!"

and then my kids were all about yelling that out...I didn't think I had that bad of a mouth...but apparently I need to watch it a little better.  

At any rate we had a blast, we didn't get home until 10:30 (not like me to let my kids stay up even 4 minutes past their bed-time at 8) and even though we left when they were still tied (but in extra innings) the Devils won...LOVE IT!

Thanks for the tix, Jeffer!

Ward Blog Spotlight

We got to be the first family spotlight on our ward's blog...

Since you have to be in the "in crowd" to read it, I thought I'd post it here as well!

Here's us:

Hi HB4th!

We're the Mousser Family!  We moved into the ward 3 1/2 years ago from Arizona where we'd lived since we got married.  Here's a little story about how our family got started:

Jeff and I met at BYU our Junior Year, weeks before he decided to transfer from playing baseball for BYU to playing for his home town Arizona State University.  We dated for 3 weeks before he moved to Arizona for his senior year, while I (Autie) stayed at BYU to finish my degree.  I graduated in April, and immediately moved to Arizona where I had a job lined up to be a Personal Trainer, and to live with his brother and his family.  Jeff was still playing ball for ASU and it was so fun to watch him pitch weekend after weekend!  About a month after I moved to AZ, the Major League Baseball draft took place...and Jeff got drafted to play by the Minnesota Twins.  Super cool, huh?  

Unfortunately for me, we weren't married yet, I had just moved to Arizona to get ready for our Wedding in July...and he was moving to Florida,( and then who knows where to play until September! (dang!) ) So, I stayed in Arizona, because I had a really good job, while he went and threw some K's in Florida, and then a few weeks later in Eastern Tennessee to play for the Twin's Farm league, the Elizabethton Twins.  (don't ever go there).  He got a weekend off to fly up to Seattle (where I'm from) for our wedding, and then the two of us flew back to Tennessee where we had our "honeymoon".  Haha.  (Rather, I watched Everybody Loves Raymond, and wrote ALL of my Thank You cards, while he played baseball all day every day!)  

Anyways, He did get released after that first season, so he came back to Arizona to coach at ASU, and I continued to be a trainer.  Max came along while Jeff was coaching, in 2006, and some of my favorite memories are sitting in the stands behind the dugout with my little Maxer-man, yelling at the ump, and watching some really good baseball in the good ole' desert!

After a few years, Jeff was finally offered a job as a part-time scout for the Arizona Diamondbacks covering the 4-corners.  He did so well, that after 1 season, the offered him a job to cover Southern Cal!  (woohoo...Max turned 2, we found out we were expecting Ivy, and we moved to big- bad-California all in the same month!)

So, here we are, I get to stay home with my two kiddos, which I love to do so much.  I also run a craft blog with Jen Schumann, which is so fun and allows me to craft to my hearts content!  {click here} to check it out!  Jeff has a job that he loves to go to every day, which is so important.  So, while he does work a lot, and it's mostly just me and the kids, especially during the baseball season, he LOVES his job, and enjoys doing it!

Max is 5 1/2 and he is in Kindergarten. He reads like a stud, plays T-ball with a couple of his friends, and is a really sweet kid.  He has a contagious laugh, is helpful around the house, and is so sweet to his little sister, Ivy (most of the time).  His favorite scripture story is when Nephi builds the Boat and loves to sing Primary Songs.

Ivy is turning 3 on April Fools Day (and that's no joke)...She is a little sassy-pants, girlie-girl who will only wear dresses by day, and nightgowns by night, and she loves to have her hair in braids.  She loves to 'read stories' by herself, and actually does a really cute job making stories up to go along with the pictures, she loves playing with Play-Doh and coloring, and anything Princess (hello...every other girl in the ward)  Ivy's favorite scripture story is, and I quote "about the mean guys and the nephites and Jesus in the scriptures."  She also calls the Book of Mormon, the Book of Stormin'...she's so fun.

AND, we're expecting baby Scarlet the day after Ivy turns 3!  I'm scheduled to be induced Monday, April 2nd, and we're so excited to see what she looks like, and to meet our newest little love!

We love our ward, and can't wait to get to read little blurbs about the rest of the families on this blog!

Tball strikes again!

Yay!

It's T-ball season for Max again...which means a whole lot of hootin' and hollerin' from me, and a ton of pictures on our blog of just T-ball.  :)

I might be a little like my mother-in-law when it comes to baseball.  haha

We have a really fun team this year, with a lot of friends, and some fun families that we don't know yet.  Our team mom is RAD, and totally on top of things.  love it!

Here are some pics from our first game!

The boy's banners:

 Max's Pennant:

 Warming up

 River, Talan, Max and Cade...It's so fun to have all four of these boys together on the same team!  (Fun for mom's at practice!)

 Jillonnie had this cute idea to put their names on their helmets with our Cricuts...i love them!

 Here's our Maxer before his first at-bat:

 and here he is with his tough-guy face on:

 First at-bat

 Sliding into home

 and playing in the field.  

Max did so good today, there is a huge difference between his first game last year, and today!  No crying, not pouting, no getting mad...just a big kid who's starting to know whats going on.  I love it.  There may have been 1 tackle involved...but it is the first game!  haha

We're so excited for more Ball Games!

ivy and naps

Poor Ivy.  She's deprived of naps a lot of days.  School for Max gets out at an awkward time for naps...too early to put her to bed before and have her wake up in time, and too late to really put her to bed afterwards.  So, most days, I just have to try to get her in bed around 11:30ish (super early) and then wake her up when it's time to go.  

The problem is that she's related to me, and waking up is just not our favorite activity.  (wish I didn't pass that gene along)

The other thing about Ivy is that she's really hard to get dressed.  :)

She insists on wearing dresses...skirts are unexceptable, jeans are abhorred...even leggings under a dress are shunned.  It's seriously war to get her dressed in the morning.  Then once she's dressed...she has to take it off to play dress up, and the battle has to be fought again in an hour or so.

I'm kind of over it, to be honest.  So, yep, I'm the mom that brings her daughter to after-school pick-up in dress-up garb (so tacky!) or her "Balle-ween-atard" (as she calls it).  I hate myself, but when I'm rushing to get her down for a nap early, I can't fight the fight then...and I certainly can't fight the fight immediately upon waking her up (she's ornery like her mom x 23).  

Reason for writing this down is this:  I told Ives that I needed her to test out Scarlet's crib for me (we had to MacGuyver the crib because we lost all the hardware to our crib (HAPPY!) and then had to use a few grains of rice to completely make it work...ps, how do you spell MacGuyver?).  I wanted to make sure that the crib wouldn't come crashing down with my brand new newborn in it.  So, she got to take a special nap in Scarlet's crib to make sure it was safe.  haha.  She was super excited.  (no fight going to bed) however, she was dressed like a balleweena, hair and all.  whatever.  But I walked in the room to wake her up so we could pick up Max...and her little bum made me laugh so hard, I had to take a picture.  She calls these Veggies...hilarious.

There's a random story for you.

Getting PItched to

A few months ago, when Jeff wasn't home, I was telling Max that Daddy could pitch a baseball faster than mommy was allowed to drive on the freeway.  He didn't grasp how fast it really was, so I told him about the time when Jeff and I were dating, and how I stood behind a fence and had him pitch it to me. (No way was I going to stand in front of a fence, no matter how good his 'control' was.)  Anyways, today, when I was picking Max up from school, Jeff called and wanted us to meet him at the tball fields so he could play ball with Max for a few hours before he actually had practice.  (super fun)

He bought Ivy her very own pink glove, brought me a camping chair and a DC, and all of Max's Tball equipment and we played for a couple of hours.  

And then...Max had the opportunity to see the wrath that Jeff delivered to many a batter in his day (only probably not quite up to speed, since he wasn't properly warmed up.)

Max loved it!
...ok, I did, too.

a couple shots from valentines day

I would have posted these pictures yesterday...but our electricity went out last night unexpectedly...haha, whatever.

I woke up this morning with this cute note on my door:

 Valentines day is Max's exact half-birthday...he was so excited that he was now a whopping 5 and a half!

The kids worked had on their Valentines to give to their friends and their classmates...we had them ready to go long before the big day.  Here's what we did:

 This awesome snack mix that I found on Pinterest with those little strawberry melt-away yogurt things for babies, yogurt covered-raisins, Frosted Cheerios and strawberry frosted mini-wheats...such a cute idea.  That was what Ivy gave her little girlie friends:

 ...and Max worked on writing 'from Max' 45 times, and punching out little circles on the back of these while I stapled...and then we both stuffed the pockets with Pop Rocks.  So fun to make, and he was so excited to bring them to school!  

 Anyways, we've been doing Valentine-themed activities for the last two weeks: don't eat Val, Valentines Remove and Roll, Conversation Heart counting, observing, graphing, etc...lots of fun activities...I wasn't really  planning on having my kids around all day today...especially Max...it was his Valentine pass-out party after all.  (idea from I am Momma)

This eye is brown:

 and this eye is blue:

but apparently somebody thought they looked pink when we took Ivy to the Dr for a little teeny rash on her cheek...good thing Max tagged along and we were able to get the drops right away!  So, Pink eye for Valentines day...so appropriate! 

So, we read all of our Valentine books, dressed in our V-day best...and because we have a common area and we couldn't really play outside, we watched movies!  woo hoo!

Luckily, Max gets to go back to school tomorrow!

Girls Day Out

Last Saturday, in between long trips, Jeff took Max to work.

(fun right?  I used to love going with my dad to work...but this take your daddy to work day is a whole different cup of tea, if you know what I mean!)

Anyways, that left me and Ivy with a fun day together!

So, we ran a couple of random errands, and then...for the first time in her life...went and got pedicures!

she loved picking her color...hot pink of course.

 She sat so still...loved every minute of it...and it actually convinced her to not suck her thumb...for a minute.

She got her fingers and toes painted, and I got the real mcCoy.  sigh.

Then we got heart-shaped pink bagels, and had a picnic on the grass dipping our bagels in pink cream cheese with pink milk.  

so fun!

Crunchberries

I set Max and Ivy up with their snacks tonight...and then walked into my room to put something away.  2 seconds later, I came back out and this is what Ivy looked like with her bowl of dry Cap'n Crunch.

Totally sick, right?  Especially considering that she wore flip flops all day and we went to t-ball practice, and who knows where else...the feet were not clean by any means.  But...all I could do was laugh.

She started laughing and told me that they tasted: 'Super Fantastic' and then continued to laugh like Mutley...do you remember that dog?  (she laughs like him all the time)

oh my gosh, she's funny

X day for Ivy's playgroup

The end of the alphabet is drawing closer...and X was my second to last playgroup lesson that I had to put together for the year.  (I'm copping out early... well, at the end of the alphabet...because I'm a weenie.)  Anyways, here are a few of the projects that the girls did for the letter X.

I decided that talking about words that started with X, like Xylophone, would just totally not make sense when they are trying to learn that the letter X makes the 'cks' sound!  So, rather, we did words with X in them...I made them a matching game/puzzle of words that had an 'x' in them...the sheet under was black and white of the same pictures, and they just had to match them to do the puzzle...when Ivy gets better, maybe she can do it without the cheat-sheet underneath.  

 We talked about X-rays.  I showed them a picture of Max's X-ray from when he broke his arm, and showed them which bones were showed on their arm.  Then we made our own X-rays with white paint.

 I printed out the block letters from confessions of a homeschooler and broke out some 'x' stamps, and the girls enjoyed filling the X with x's.

 And, lastly...we did a magic X project.  I put an X on a piece of cardstock with painter's tape...and then had the girls color around the edges.  

 When we peeled the tape off, they were left with the best X ever.  They loved that. 

We also read the book Fox in Socks...just the beginning....and they raised their hand every time they heard the X sound (which was like the whole book, cks and x's included) 

oh, and our snack was raisins and bananas on their plate laid out in x formation...so clever, I know!  

I just have Y and then I'm done!