Mother's Day Bouquets

At preschool the girls made handprint bouquets for me with a note saying why I was the worlds greatest Mom. I loved them!

Kaitlin said My mom is the World's Greatest Mom because...
She is nice
She takes us to Boondocks
She helps me make paper snowflakes
At night she sleeps with me in my bed
She loves me!

Cadence said My Mom is the World's Greatest Mom because...
She has been so nice to me
She gives me kisses and hugs
She takes me to get ice cream
When something is really tall she helps me get it
She loves me with ever her heart!

They were such great reminders that its the little things that are important.

Easter dresses and 5 year photo shoot

Oh how time flies! I can't believe my girls are almost 5! When I saw these pictures I couldn't believe how old they looked. It seems like it was just yesterday when my days consisted of nursing and changing diapers. I miss those days, but then again I don't. I get much more sleep now.

Our Trip to Playa Del Carmen

This is the entrance to Grand Velas Resort. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it looks pretty impressive when you first drive up.

Below are the beautiful views from our suite.

The greenery and flowers throughout the resort were so beautiful.



We spent the majority of our trip playing at the beach, collecting sea shells, and swimming.

This is Steve building his dam or "damage" as the girls called it.

Cadence getting her daily dose of sand.

Kaitlin working on her "damage"

A kind couple passing by offered to take a family picture for us.

We spent 1 day at Xel Ha; and it was beautiful. It's where a fresh water river and the ocean combine. They have so many activities that you could easily spend a couple days there. While tubing down the river you can stop and cliff dive, rope climb, and go on the zip line. I was proud of myself for being brave enough to zipline into the water. I'm usually such a wimp, so I'm trying to be more brave so my kids won't grow up to be wimps.

Kaitlin loved holding the inuana. She did it a few times. Cadence was content to just be next to it.
We wanted a family picture with Kaitlin holding the parrot, but the photographer talked me into holding one also. Once again not something I would usually do. I must be getting more adventurous. The big parrot was kinda heavy for our little Kaitlin so he decided to put it on her head. I thought that was pretty cute. We tried to get Cadence to hold the iguana, but it didn't happen. Our next adventure was swimming into an ocean cave. They had a photographer taking pictures in the cave and one taking pictures from the hole above the cave. Then we swam out and spent some time playing in the warm turquoise water. We tried to take a little hike to a cenote, but Cadence decided she needed to go potty so we had to turn back. It was so pretty and just a fun, relaxing day.


While shopping at downtown Playa the girls each got a dress and a necklace, we had ice cream then walked to the beach and were surprised by a topless woman. Needless to say we didn't spend much time there, but we thought it was funny and thankfully our girls weren't aware of it


Cadence had a sinus infection while we were there and we had to get an antibiotic for her. You can tell she if feeling better at this point...

Meanwhile poor Little Kaitlin was starting in on a cold which turned into a sinus infection. Her sad tired eyes and rosy cheeks make me feel so bad. When she is sick she is so sweet and cuddly, quite opposite from the fiesty girl she normally is.

Taking a break from the hot sun. It was around 90 degrees that day.

Cadence gets her ears pierced!

On March 4th Cadence whispered in my ear that she wanted to get her ears pierced. I was kind of surprised and told her I would think about it after their nap. When she woke up she told me again. I told her I would have to talk to daddy about it, but she wanted to surprise daddy. So secretly I called Steve to make sure it was okay. He said it was. I decided I better make sure she was ready, so I pinched her ears pretty tightly with my fingers nails. She didn't even flinch, so I tried it on myself, and it really hurt. Judging by her reaction I decided she was ready. Kaitlin on the other hand didn't like her ears being pinched at all. When we got in the car Kaitlin was so excited, but still couldn't decide. She wanted to watch Cadence first and then decide. We got to Claire's and Cadence chose a cute pair of Hello Kitty earings.

It took forever to get the placement of the dot correct, but finally it was satisfactory, and the first ear was done. Cadence's eyes got big and I could tell she wanted to cry. I asked her not to because Kaitlin was watching, and I reminded her that we still had to pierce the other ear. So she pulled herself together and didn't cry for either ear. She is such a brave girl! She was so excited that we had to call every girl we knew on the way home to tell them. Everyone we talked to then told Cadence how old they were when they got their ears pierced. I guess it's a right of passage that no woman fogets.
On the way home Kaitlin decided several times that she wanted to go back and get hers done, but ultimately decided to wait until she is 5.

Talese aka Kaitlin

One day Kaitlin asked me what "t l e s e" spelled, so I said "Talese I guess." She then said I don't want to be Kaitlin anymore I wanna be Talese. So for the next few weeks she insisted on being called Talese. It made Cadence pretty upset that Kaitlin wanted to change her name. One day Kaitlin asked Cadence if she wanted to change her name. Cadence responded "no, I just wanna be plain old Cadence." The whole situation made us laugh. Thankfully she got over her Talese stage and is back to being our sweet little Kaitlin.

Tubes Again

Little Miss Kaitlin got her second set of tubes in her ears on Feb. 25. When I woke her up that morning she asked where we were going. I told her we were just going for a ride. "Are we going to Disneyland?" she asked. Instantly I felt horrible and told her no. She then said this is what we do when we go to Disneyland. She kept wondering why Cadence wasn't coming and said "Mom, just tell me where we are going!" I kept it a secret, but as soon as we pulled into the parking lot she started crying and saying "this is the doctors office, I don't want to go to the doctor!" She calmed down until I had to put the hospital jammies on her. She thought they were silly looking and didn't wan't anyone to see her in them. Then the nurse told her she could watch a Barbie movie and she was okay. Next came the Versed. It's a drug that makes them loopy so they aren't scared when they go back. She was hilarious! They also gave her a doll to color, so here's my 4 year old acting drunk and trying to color a doll. It was so funny. We had it done at Primary Childrens in Riverton. They were so great to her. Her laughing gas was cotton candy scented and she got root beer slushies afterwards. When she woke up she was really mad and wanted to watch the Barbie movie.(that was the last thing she remembered) Our awesome nurse had a tv rolled into her post-op room so she could watch Barbie and calm down. It helped right away. As we were getting her ready to leave she kept saying "I like this doctor, I always want to come to this doctor" Needless to say they won her over too. They let her take her oxygen mask home and she told me that whenever she wants to go to sleep she just needs to put her mask on. When it didn't work she got angry at me for not asking the doctors for some sleeping medicine to take home. She had a couple rough moments once we got home and threw up twice. She made it all the way to our garage before she threw up in my hands, but that's better than on the car! Hopefully this will take care of her ear infections once and for all.

Cadence got to stay home with Grandma Judy who took her to preschool. She told Kaitlin that everyone missed her, and she even asked Miss Tanya if she could take a snack home for Kaitlin. While Kaitlin was in bed that night Cadence came in and gave her a big hug and kiss and told her she was sorry she had to go to the hospital and that "I love you with ever my heart". She is such a sweet compassionate girl. It was pretty obvious that Kaitlin felt so special that her sister cared about her so much. She didn't want to let Cadence go from their hug.

Swimming lessons

We enrolled the girls in swimming lessons and they are having so much fun! They are learning to blow bubbles, kick, front and back float, open their eyes under water, and they even jump in the deep end (with assistance of course) They loved their first teacher Diane. She was so great with the kids. Their current teacher is a man I don't think they are as comfortable with him.

Kaitlin is a little fish and loves going under water and never wants to leave the pool. She goes down this little slide and never gets tired of it.

Cadence is usually too cold to go down the slide, but I talked her into going down once so I could get a picture. she has learned a lot and is getting more comfortable in the water. I think she would do better if it was a little warmer.

This is the class taking an airplane ride on the teacher. This is how she transports them from the deep end to the shallow water. They even go under water. The girls think it is a blast!

Everytime we take a bath now they want to use their goggles, float on their back and blow bubbles under water.