Aulani

Since Taylor had the day off on Monday we decided to drive out to Ko Olina Aulani Disney Resort. It was so fun, they have a great lagoon for beach time, and best of all free Character greetings. I think Madilyn was in heaven, she would get so excited to see Mickey or whoever it was that half hour, but then she would get to them and be so shy. Oh well, I think they had fun still. As for Eliza, she wanted to see them, but the minute we got close to them she would start bawling! Haha so funny!!! So here are just a few pics!

Special Blankie

Madilyn has what we like to call her special blankie. It is a receiving blanket that my mother in law made when she was a newborn baby, along with lots of other blankets. But for some reason she has picked this one in particular out to be the special one. We have tried introducing new blankets, but it still remains the one and only special blanket. It is a pale yellow blanket, so it almost looks like it is suppose to be white, and its just dirty. My sister actually saw it, picked it up and said, "eww, what is this."

She takes her blanket EVERYWHERE we go, and every time she falls asleep, she automatically goes to the corner of the blanket and starts stroking the corner. Its hilarious, because without fail she will stroke the ends. so funny.

So whenever I need to wash her blanket she throws a fit, i stick it in the wash and it magically disappears out of the wash. Needless to say I have been fighting her for over a month trying to wash it. So I have been saying to her, "Madilyn, your blanket is looking gross."

Finally today, while she was distracted, I stuck her blanket in the middle of the wash pile so she wouldn't see and hurry and ran to the laundry room to wash it. So once the wash was done, I handed her the warm clean blanket, and she started to almost cry and said, "I don't want it washed, I just want it to be yucky." Haha it was hilarious, she was so heartbroken that I washed her blanket!!

Christmas 2011!

Its been a long time since I have blogged, so it will take forever to back track a few months, so instead I will just start with Christmas in Canada!

We started the holiday's off with some good old fashion sledding. Madilyn was so excited to do it, and then she absolutely refused to go down the hill. But she found other ways of amusing herself on the top of the hill....she tried out eating snow for the first time, and she loved it! But Eliza on the other hand could not get enough of the sledding. She just kept going over and over.

This looks out over the frozen lake...wish we had skates, it would have been fun!

Then we played out the nativity with the kid lets. They loved being a part of it...I think.

Christmas jammie time!!

Love this picture of the kids together in the Jammie's, unfortunately Ellie didn't want to participate in the picture.

In the morning before church we let the kids open stockings, and then we got them all ready for Church, and after got them back in the pajamas, because that's only way to open presents on Christmas day.

Notice Eliza is dressed differently, well lets just say the flu was running ramped Thur the Burnham home, and this was the night of the diarrhea part. She blew out 4 times that night, fortunately we got it cleaned so after Church we were able to put her back in it.

I think this is the closest Ellie and Eliza ever got....ha ha.

That dino was a huge hit amongst all the kids. Eliza picked it out at the dollar store, and my kids have probably played with it everyday.

And thats a quick run-thru of our Christmas back in Canada. I will try and post more pictures from the trip when I get a few extras minutes!

Miss Bossy pants

Madilyn sitting down to watch Rio, she asked me not to press play yet because she likes watching the little introduction part. So this is after letting it run through a few times.

Madilyn: "press play."

Me: "Thats not how you ask me."

Madilyn: "Press play, Now."

Ummmm ya, not exactly what I was looking for. After saying to her again, Madilyn thats not how you ask me. She clued in and said, "Press play please." Much better! She is really good at always saying thank you without being reminded, but she really struggles with using her manners and saying please. She always says it once I remind her, but usually only then.

Kinda made me laugh. Miss bossy pants. Did I mention how controlling she is with eliza, I guess thats to be expected...but still.

Madilyn is obsessed with the word WHY. She asks me why about something, I will explain to her why, and then she says, "but why mom." Then I explain in a different way, assuming she didn't understand my first explanation, then she continues to ask why again. And so forth, and so forth. I love to see her curiousity, but it so hard always trying to come up with answers to everything, and explaining them 10 different ways.

Pumpkin Patch

Who knew that Hawaii had a pumpkin patch?? Well in all honesty, I am not too sure they grew them there. As we were exiting the area I spotted an area with crates and boxes full of pumpkins, so I am pretty sure they just scattered them everywhere. So only in Hawaii you will have the price of the pumpkin determined by who is working, and what they think its worth. No real system, just giving it a guess. So we would show them a pumpkin, and they would say, "Uhhh $7.00." or "for that one, 8...no $9.00." Drives me a little crazy, oh well that just how they roll in Hawaii.

So we made the mistake of forgetting cash, luckily we had our good friends Franco and Emma with us to spot us enough for a pumpkin for a least Madilyn. They were very generous, considering it made it so they could only get one too. Thanks Franco and Emma, you guys are the best.

They had a petting zoo, but since we didn't have the cash...we didn't get to pet. The girls were dying to get in there.

Madilyn Getting down to Business...we just bought her that hoodie because she has been cold. Yes believe it or not, we have been cold lately. I think we have definitely adjusted to the change in weather, because we now can tell difference in Fall weather here, whereas the year before we didn't really feel the change.

Only in Hawaii will they have a talking bird as you walk by...just hanging in the trees all by itself telling people hello and goodbye as the walk by. Super random, but I must say very entertaining!

When Eliza saw the pumpkins she ran to the first one she could get to and tried to pick it up, and continued trying for the next 5 mins before she realized there were more pumpkins.

Still trying...

Then I decided I needed some cute pictures of the girls in the pumpkins, it didn't last long...and they definitely were not going to let me get one of them together.

Cute little girls...

Madilyn didn't last long.

And off she went, isn't her hair beautiful?? I can't believe how long it is, I don't even notice how much its grown until I look at pictures of here a year ago.

Look closely my friends, that is Beautiful ocean on one side, and beautiful mountain on the other. Not a better place to have a pumpkin patch in my opinion! Great view, so much more beautiful in person!

The only picture I got of them standing by eachother.

Finally a pumpkin just her size to pick up.

And then it began, pumpkin sitting. I swear they tried to sit on everyone there.

If you sit on enough pumpkins, eventually this will happen...

Group shot, minus Eliza and me of course. With our good friends Franco and Emma

bye pumpkin patch!

Funny Girl

Madilyn has been really excited about letters lately. Yes I know, she is 3 years old and she is finally showing some interest in learning her letters. This is very exciting to us because we have tried for months if not years to get her interested in learning. She still has half the alphabet to learn, but its coming along. But today she was looking thru her journal and pointed out the letters which I explained to her, when you put a bunch of letters together, they make words, and thats what we use to talk. So this is the conversation we just had as she looked thru her journal.

Madilyn: Mom, did you do that?

Me: Yes Madilyn I did.

Madilyn: All by yourself?! (In amazement)

Me:Yep, I did.

Madilyn: Wow mom, thats really cool!!

She makes me feel pretty awesome sometimes...other times...not so much, like this time.

There was a beach chair sitting out on our lawn, she wanted me to sit on it, and then she wanted to sit side by side with me. Well this chair definitely wasn't big enough. So explain, "No Madilyn, mommy's bum is too big to fit on the chair with you." Which now has turned into, "Mommy has a BIG bum!" with uncontrollable giggles to follow. And she says it all the time too!

Or the time we dropped Celeste off at the airport, and Madilyn insisted that Daddy turn the car around to drop me off at the airport too. When I asked her if she wanted me to leave, she said, "YES" and then I said, do you want me to go for a year? Her reply, "YES." She loves me right????

And these other things are just for me to remember, I was holding her blanket and she ran up to me and said, "mom, don't let the blanket drag." This is funny only because I constantly remind her to pick up her blanket so it doesn't drag. It is quite amazing how much she listens to, and soaks up everything we say.

We also were driving by a boat, and she said, "look a boat" then with a short pause, "It's AMAZING." She sure is funny, I love listening to her talk!

Learning

My children are seriously adorable sometimes, as all moms will probably say about their own child. But seriously, yesterday Eliza did something that just amazed me.

We were all sitting down in the living room, and I had a picture of Christ. (the one where he is standing at the door knocking) Anyway, it was sitting on the floor leaning against the wall since we haven't hung it yet. Eliza walked over to the picture, looked at it for a min, pointed right at Jesus's face and exclaimed "jeeze." She was so excited with a smile on her face. I honestly wanted to cry, because yes it is a name we talk about in our home. But we haven't really stood in front of a lot of pictures and told her Jesus everytime, or even at all that I can remember. Maybe we have, and we can't remember. Anyway, it was so amazing to me that I little 15 month old that can barely say anything, can recognize a familiar loving face, and even attempt to say his name. It really was a precious moment. I love being a mom more than anything!

As for my other wonderful child. It is so cool to teach Madilyn something about the gospel, something I don't really think she will understand, but I explain anyway. Only to hear her talking about it days, weeks, months later. She is really into asking the "why" question. She really loves hearing stories about Jesus walking on water, or Nephi getting the gold plates. Life truly is amazing, and I am so grateful for my children and my awesome husband who also teaches them so much. They are all such examples to me. Love life!