Funny girls

Leila says, "I love you Mommy...Daddy." Then Iyla says, "Well, that is rude Leila. What about your sisters? You better love us right NOW!"

Me:  "Hey Iyla, come and cuddle with me in my bed!"
Iyla: "No, I can't because the air in your bed is too hot for me."

No idea what that means being as my room is usually the coldest in the entire house...artic!

Iyla:  "MMMMOOOOOMMMMMYYYYYYY!!!!!"
Me:  "What Iyla?"
Iyla:  "Chance said he is not my brother...he said he is just a chocolate LAD."
Me:  "How did he tell you that?"
Iyla:  "With his licking tongue."

I read an article that said as your child gets older (7-8) you have to adjust your type of praise for them. For example, I should not say, "You did a great job on your test"...Instead I should say, "I am really impressed that you learned all those spelling words so quickly." They say, as kids get older they can see through the "fake ness" of the generic praise statements like "your are so smart" or "I am so proud of you" or "this is really good". You need to be way more specific.

So, even though this seemed like a daunting task, I decided to try it with Nya last week. As I unloaded her backpack and saw her work I would say things like..."Wow, you must have been working really hard on learning all these math facts" or "I am pretty impressed that you cut this out so perfectly neat". And also with stuff she does at home like,  "that was pretty awesome they way you went and got Leila her paci and blankie when she was crying. You always know just what to do to help her feel better."

Well, after about a week of this "new praise" my perceptive little 7 year old says to me..."Mommy, why have you been talking like teacher to me all week...IT IS WEIRD!" I guess her teacher read the same article as me...thank you Yahoo news!

yes please

I love how she can just have an impromptu dance party...any time, any place!

Snapshots

Iyla and Lilly...best buds

Climber girl

She was so proud of herself

Nya's reward outfit for her perfect score math test!

I heart christmas

"Snow fall" at Sea World

Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutty Nutcracker

Another fun character from the play

A night out at the Attic Door

cutest kid EVER!

Osbourne family light at Hollywood Studios

Seriously...i love her! I love how she slipped one more gift request in there amongst all the other personal questions!

Some of our recent adventures!

Favs

I have been meaning to write these all down. Iyla mispronounces some words and I just want to remember her cuteness at this age. She has such an extensive vocabulary but some of the words are just a little over her head still!

Sunscreen = SUNSCREAM
Mucus = YUK-IS (we use this word a lot in our house with all the seasonal allergy suffers)
Sneeze = HA-CHOOS
Chocolate Lab = CHOCOLATE LAD (I love this one because I picture Chance wearing plaid knickers with a little golf hat and drinking a cup of tea)
Cupcake = PUPCAKE

So, what ever! She is so cute...I want her to be 3 forever!

Capture Video and Photo (photo shoot)

She cracks me up!

These are some more of the pictures from the professional photo shoot the other day. There are SO many good ones! Out of the 100 pictures he gave me...80 of them are PERFECT!

Pictures

A friend of mine took some pictures of the girls recently. I will post more when I get the disc. These are some of my favorites.

Isms

I like to write down the funny things my kids say so that I do not forget them all. Here are some recent ones!

IYLA-

Me: "Iyla, can you give me a goodnight kiss?"
Iyla: "No, I can't."
Me: "Why not?"
Iyla: "Because Mommy, I really did not like your behavior today."

This weekend we went to Stacy's house. Iyla was all lovey-dovey with Stacy the whole time. I got Iyla dressed the next morning and she had a shirt on that said "Sun Kissed". Stacy saw her and said, "Oh Iyla you look so beautiful...what does your shirt say?" Iyla looked at her with a cute little smirk and said..."It says I LOVE STACY!" She is such a little butt kisser.

NYA-

Me: "Nya, tell me what you mean when you say that you don't feel good. Does your ear hurt, your stomach, do you have a headache?"
Nya: "Ummmmm, I feel the opposite of how I feel when I feel good."

Nya: "Mommy, who are you going to go shopping with on Black Friday?"
Me: "Oh, just some of my friends like Isabel and Melissa."
Nya: "And who else?"
Me: "Maybe Colleen...why?"
Nya: "Well, you better bring Nana or Daddy or you won't even be allowed to buy anything because none of you guys are black."

Some of the costumes...

Faith

Ethan

Steven

Stefan

Daven

Suzie with Micaela's tutu on her head!

Aaron

Gianna

Nya's 7th party pictures!

Some of the attendees...(did I mention there were 100 people)! 

Nya playing "Pin the Smile on the Skeleton"

Their awesome cake

Justin Beiber

Love them

Birthday GIRL!

Iyla sharing with Ruby

Musical Pumpkins game

My favorite picture from the whole night! Go NYA!

Sweetest kid ever!

Not that we did not already know that Nya is the sweetest kid on the planet, but I have a story to back that up. So, the back story, there is a kid in Nya's class who must come from a really low income home (*which is super rare in her school but anyways). This kid has tried to steal Nya's hand sanitizer, her scissors, her pencils, etc. The kid always gets caught and gets a note sent home to her parents about the incident. So the other day the kid got caught trying to steal a pencil from Nya's pencil box. She goes when everyone is doing an activity and tries to put the goods into her pockets. The teacher called her to the desk (the teacher sent me a detailed account of the incident) and told her that she was going to have the principal call her parents and tell them what is happening. Nya over heard this and said to the teacher "It's okay Mrs. Kohmetscher...I forgot that I told her she could have some of my favorite pencils." The kid was crying because she was so afraid of getting in more trouble. The teacher said Nya comforted the kid (who was stealing from HER) and then offered her whatever pencil from her pencil box that she wanted to keep. Later in the day, the teacher asked Nya if that was true (about telling her to get a pencil) and Nya said that it wasn't but she did not want her to get in trouble over a pencil. The teacher explained to Nya that she was not worried about the pencil but that the kid had to learn that stealing was very wrong. Sooooo, guess what my perfect child said to her then....

"I know Mrs. Kohmetscher but can't she learn that lesson when it is not this close to Christmas?" Nya was worried that if her parents found out she would not get any presents from them or from Santa. Also, Nya told the teacher that the girl told Nya that she wanted her pencils because Nya has all the coolest pencils and she was just jealous. So, BAM....nicest kid on the planet.

Also, lets just think what I would have done as a child if I caught a kid stealing from me! I would have beat the kid up, told on the kid, made sure her parents found out and then made the kid buy me 20 brand new pencils because she got all her nasty germs on my other pencils. It is clear that niceness in NOT genetic...unless it skips a generation, in which case...Nya inherited it from my mom!

Nya tribute

I like to compose a video for my kids each year. Since Nya just turned 7, this is her 6 year old video! Enjoy...

Just incase you forgot...

PURE J.O.Y.

Love this pic of Nya, not Iyla's finest moment!

Little princess girl on her 3rd bday

Just incase you forgot how cute my kids are...here is a reminder!