Beauty Shop

Huntley hates having her fingernails clipped.  She screams and wails and it's quite the dreadful process.  Paisley on the other hand could care less.  Luckily as Hunt has gotten older I've been able to turn it into an endurable experience by making a game out of it.  We get to go to Mommy's beauty shop where our nails our trimmed and then painted any color we like.  She still cries but at least now she actually lets me do it instead of kicking me in the head.  A little tears beat having to cut them in the middle of the night with a headlamp. 

 

A few weeks ago we were visiting the "beautyshop" and had pretty much finished up our pedicures when Huntley asked if she could finish painting her own nails.  They were almost done so I figured why not.  I sat her down with some newspaper and tried to keep an eye on her while I washed dishes.  Apparently I'm really crappy at keeping an eye on my children while cleaning because she soon announced she was finished and don't her and Pais look beautiful.  Not only did Pais have her nails painted but she also had lipstick and blush applied as well.  I'm thankful she stopped before she got to the eyeshadow!

Easter

Last year for Easter we went to temple square and LOVED our experience so much we decided to make it a tradition.  For some reason Easter weekend is actually pretty quiet there and since temple square equals vast amounts of flowers it will automatically be a winning place for our family to go.  Also now that Hunt is actually getting older and understanding more concepts it's a great place to go and have a great Easter experience that is more than just bunnies, eggs, and candy.  The most surprising part of our day was finding out flowers have been replaced by water.  So instead of beautiful picture of my girls with flowers I got five million shots like this:

 Crappy pictures but we had a great time!

 

We also had our neighborhood Easter egg hunt.  I love taking a picture of all our neighborhood friends and seeing how much the kids have grown and all the new little faces that are finally big enough to participate.  Our neighborhood may be a little on the ghetto side but we have some great friends.

 I love having two kids and watching the different ways they grow and learn.  At age 2 Huntley would find an Easter egg and immediately stop to eat the stuff inside refusing to find more eggs until she ate every bite.  She only found three eggs that year.  At age 2 Paisley found an egg and also started to eat the candy inside.  Halfway through the candy a lightbulb went on in her head and she immediately started running and picking up all of the eggs she could find.  After no more could be seen she stopped to finish eating the candy in all the eggs.  She is definitely the candy lover of the two.  We also found out this year Hunt doesn't like jellybeans because they have the word bean in them and beans resemble deer poop.  Sometimes I miss the non-talking days when she would be happy with anything.

To end our weekend we went to "our" temple and walked around the grounds.  What a great day to be thankful our family can be together forever.

Grandpa's Letter

As fire season is coming upon us Chris has been working out constantly to get ready for life in the woods. Tonight when he got home from training he asked us if we wanted to go on a hike and of course the answer was yes. Huntley picked the place and was so excited to finally get to touch grandpa's letter. I on the other hand hate the hike to the G with a passion and hate it even more so when it's done in super fast get in shot shape speed. Currently I'm in pretty good shape but Chris left me in the dust and so poor Pais didn't even get to touch grandpa's letter before Chris and Hunt came bounding back down the trail. I definitely wasn't made to be on a shot crew.

Dive

One of our favorite things to do at night is put the the kids to bed and watch weird documentaries on Netflix. After watching them I always feel passionately about whatever I just watched and try and convince Chris to go on a juice fast, become vegan, and on and on and on. You'd think he would put an end to our documentary viewing but he still keeps watching them with me. A few weeks ago we watched one a friend recommended called "dive." It's about dumpster diving and all of the food that is thrown away that could be saving poor starving people. I loved it but shockingly so did Chris who immediately set off to start diving.

I haven't actually been with him but based on the amount of food he brings home I can't believe how much grocery stores throw away. We've been able to really stock pile our food storage the past few weeks and we get to eat lots of food I'm too cheap to buy which is pretty fun. In the movie the guys wife talked about how sometimes she dreaded waking up in the morning because she was scared of what lay ahead of her based on last nights dive. I am starting to relate.

Today I spent half the day washing, cutting, and preparing food to be dried, frozen, and canned. I'm grateful for this weird way to store food but I was really enjoying my break from canning season. I'm also a little nervous for this summer. Last year while I canned Pais was either sleeping or stuck in her exersaucer and Hunt would help me or watch a movie. Now that Pais is older they play and entertain each other which is nice but usually ends up looking like the picture below. I think I'm going to have my hands full this year.

8

Eight years ago I officially became Mrs. Harvey. It feels like yesterday but then I think about my two kids, several moves, a few job changes and realize a lot of life has happened during those eight years. I've loved every minute if it and I'm so glad I get to experience the rest of eternity with my Mr.

I wanted to publicly tell Chris how much I love him. A few days ago it was "one of those days" and I kind of exploded on Chris about how I don't feel loved. After my explosion I immediately felt better but the poor guy has been working really hard lately to make me feel loved. On our vacation we went out and celebrated early so today was kind of low key but because a Chris is so amazing I think it was even better than our date. I was given breakfast in bed, a trip to the swimming pool, some time working on remodeling the living room, a great workout, and a dinner at the grilled cheese place. He took us to the grilled cheese place because he knows how much I love it and its cheap but 9 years ago I was treated to a candle lit grilled cheese dinner right after he popped the question. Chris didn't actually remember this detail but I sure did and thought it was the most romantic thing ever. I'm a lucky gal if my husband can pull off sentimental without even meaning to.

Happy Anniversary Chris!

Spring in Monterey

At the end of February Chris and I were sitting around one night and suddenly realized winter was almost over and fire season was almost here and how unexcited we were about that fact so we decided to avoid life for a little while.  Two days later we found ourselves in Monterey doing just that and it was probably one of the best weeks of our winter.  Pretty much every week of our winter is amazing because we get to spend time together 24/7 but being able to go away and really focus on only our family instead of the house projects, church, school, and that dreaded fire season was really nice.  I'm so glad we have awesome parents who helped us out by giving us a place to come crash and a car to get there because I'm sure looking back on the memories of this week will be what gets us through the next six months.  Scott, Linda, Mom, and Dad consider 5 hundred million pictures of your adorable (and some not so photogenic) grandchildren our thanks.  We love you!

Jess's really long list of favorite vacation memories:

1. Playing "I spy" for 5 hours straight across the state of Nevada.  Yes bush, dirt, road, clouds, and sky were the only answers.
2. The blessed hour when it got dark and we could no longer play "I spy."
3. Showing up on Poppy's doorstep and watching him try and figure out who we were.
4. Smiles on Chris and Hunt's face when Linda bought them their favorites at the candy store.
5. Watching Paisley frustratingly try to walk on sand.
6. Huntley calling grandpa "scott" the entire time and the fact I no longer can wash her hair without having to be told how scott does it better.
7. Quick morning walks that turn into entire day's adventures chasing seagulls and grunting at sea lions.
8. Watching my little animal lovers baby their favorite doggies.
9. On Demand and catching up on Duck Dynasty and Yukon Men.
10. Building sand castles on a freezing cold windy beach.
11. Lots of alone time with my favorite person in the whole world.
12. Really crappy weather so it felt like I had the entire Monterey Bay to myself with my favorite person in the whole wide world.
13. Celebrating 85 years of life with Poppy and my kids actually sitting on his lap for a few minutes.  That may have had to do with the fact he had a giant cake with candles in front of him but hey, I'll take it.
14. Death marches to the top of Jack's Peak pushing 70 pounds of weight in a stroller.
15. Naps, glorious afternoon naps.
16. Hiking through the redwoods.
17. Plenty of park time; Pais is a crazy woman when it comes to slides but not a big fan of the swings. Hunt definitley doesn't have a future in climbing but sure can make friends with anyone at any park.
18. Taking the aquarium at lightning speed and only stopping to view things if they can be named from Finding Nemo.
19. Learning that Paisley sleeps horrible on vacation and that such a tiny little thing can take over a queen size bed in nothing flat.
20. Watching the girls have to walk up Nini's stairs and run down her driveway everytime we left the house.
21. Picking flowers and watching spring start blooming.
22. Playing hide and seek all over Nini's house.

We're off

Can you believe it's March?!?! I sure can't and although I'm excited for spring it also means our wonderful daddy filled winter is almost over and that makes me sad. So in a lat minute attempt to make time stand still we left the county while we could. Here is to a week of quality family time.