My grown up little girl

Those of you who know Savannah know that she is a pretty quiet little girl. Whenever other people are around, she is usually content to play by herself and she doesn't say hardly anything unless she is really warmed up to the people who are there. Lately she has really been into talking to herself (and her dolls) and singing to herself as well which has been so fun. Whenever we are at home and she thinks no one is listening she will just burst into song, sometimes the songs are real and sometimes they are completely made up of sounds/words? that are completely made up as well! Lately Savannah has become quite the little mother to her dolls and spends a good amount of time changing diapers, putting them to bed, standing up with the dolls swaying back and forth saying "Shhh, shhh, shhh." It has been so fun for me to watch her and see all of these cute things that she has been doing. Right around the time she turned 3, she started throwing fits which is something that she has never really done and I began to believe people when they said 3 was worse than 2! However, that only lasted for a couple of months and I think it probably had more to do with the fact that we took her binkies away around that time. The last few weeks, Savannah has been so good and so sweet and I've been having so much fun having little conversations with her. Her memory never ceases to amaze me either...she is constantly bringing up things that happened months ago that she still remembers every detail about.

So last night, I put Savannah to bed and was doing some things around the house when I heard her talking....a lot! Instead of immediately going in and telling her to go to sleep, I stood outside her door to listen. I'm assuming she was talking to one of her dolls and this is how the one-sided conversation went. (I don't think it will be as cute typed out as it was listening to her, but I wanted to record it since this blog is pretty much our family journal these days)!

"Do you wanna go to the mall and see Santa Claus? He just sits there all day. Would that be fun? He is really nice. He's not scary, he just has lots of hair on his face-it's called a beard. But he's not scary, he is really nice. Ok? And there is a choo-choo train by Santa and it goes around and around. Would that be fun? Let's do that, ok?"

I was cracking up outside the door but I was also amazed because I have not even mentioned Santa Claus anytime recently so I was surprised she even thought about him, but I was even more amazed that she remembered going to the mall 9 months ago and seeing him there...and yes, at the Provo Mall there is a choo-choo there as well! How does she remember this stuff?!!!!

Then her conversation became a little sillier as she got sidetracked with the choo-choo thing....

"So you wanna go on the choo-choo train? We go on a fish choo-choo? That's silly! We go on an octopus choo-choo? No, that's silly! You wanna go on a turtle choo-choo? That be fun? You're silly!"

After that she was pretty quiet, but I was thoroughly entertained by this little girl of ours...she is so sweet and imaginative these days and I love her so much!

Bountiful Rec Center!

Last weekend we went up to the Bountiful Rec Center for a mini family reunion with some of Bubba's family that was here from California. The rec center had an awesome play area in the pool and they also had a big play area outside as well so the kids had a great time swimming, especially with all of their cousins. Bubba's cousin Tiffany brought her camera (something I have not yet been brave enough to do when we go to the pool) and she got some great shots of our family. As you can see, Bubba was having a good time there too!

Utah County Fair

A couple of weeks ago, we took the kids to the Utah County Fair in Spanish Fork and had a great time. There were a lot of pigs which the kids wanted to look at for a very long time...too bad it was really hot and stinky so we moved them along much more quickly than they wanted! We let them go on a few rides-I was a little nervous about Paris sitting still (I thought for sure she would stand up in the middle of the rides and try to bail out), but she did a great job and both girls had fun!

New York!

Last week I was finally able to go with Bubba on one of his trips for work and we went to New York City! It was my first time going there and it was definitely a crazy city but we had a great time while we were there. My parents were wonderful to watch the girls for us while I was gone so that we could go alone and I think the kids had a great time too! I just went for 2 days and then came home while Bubba stayed for a few more days to actually get some work done. The highlight of the trip was going to see Wicked which we had never seen and we both agreed that it was as good as everyone has told us....we loved it! We also got last minute tickets to go see The Little Mermaid musical while we were there-it wasn't as good as Wicked but it was still amazing to see all of the special effects and sets-it was pretty amazing how they did it all. We did a lot of walking all over the city, got to go up to the top of the Empire State building and we took a boat to see the Statue of Liberty. I had a wonderful time there and hope I get to go back to visit sometime-the city is so different from anywhere else in the U.S. and there is so much to see there!

Star Sighting!

Bubba was at the airport in New York today, and was going through security at about 5 am when he happened to look at the line next to him and saw..........David Archuleta! He looked a couple times to make sure it wasn't just someone who looked like him, but then he saw that his dad was with him too and yep....it was him!!!!! He got through security at about the same time and so he went up to him and said that his family would kill him if he didn't get a picture with him. David's dad wasn't too thrilled but said he would take one as long as it was quick since he didn't want to draw attention to them. To try to keep it less conspicuous, they turned the flash off so the picture is kinda blurry, but clear enough to see that it is indeed David!

Dinosaurs and Fishies!

When Bubba is out of town, we try to stay really busy so that time goes by faster and so last week we ended up going to the Thanksgiving Point dinosaur museum one day and then went to the Aquarium in Salt Lake later that week. We went with lots of friends and had a blast! The kids absolutely loved both of them and have been talking about all of the dinosaurs and fishies ever since. Savannah was even brave enough to touch a starfish and was so proud of herself. It's so fun to be able to take the kids fun places and see them experience new things for the first time. At the dinosaur museum they have a couple of spots where the kids can play in the sand and my kids could have stayed there for hours-definitely beats staying at home all day! I took tons of pics and here are a bunch....I really have tried to narrow it down but so many of them are so cute that I couldn't just pick a few.