St. George

Last weekend we planned on going to a funeral in Littlefield, AZ. If anyone is familiar with the area, this is the church that seems to be in the middle of nowhere on the way to Utah. We figured that since we would only be 20 minutes from St. George we would take the kids along and make a weekend getaway out of it.

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The funeral was very nice. The music was beautiful. The kids were fantastic. What more could you ask for. They did so well sitting through the service. Clara only spilled ALL her fruitloops twice and Thomas only asked if "this was the last talker" every 4 minutes instead of every 2.

After the service was over we reconnected with old friends while the kids tried to pull us out the door. They were so excited to go to a hotel.

The whole purpose of the trip to St. George was to be together as a family, swim and eat hotel Belgian Waffles. Nothing else. We got into town around 2, had lunch, and then made our way over to the luxurious Comfort Inn (really, it is nice. It's one of the new hotels in town.)

We were all in our suits within minutes and ready to hit the pool.

I don't know how many times Steve threw the kids. He was a machine. They kept asking me to throw them, but when I throw them it's more like a push. Pretty lame. They are so lucky to have him as their Dad.

I have been trying ALL summer long to get Thomas to take off his life jacket. He never wanted to. Steve taught him a few tricks and he was swimming within 10 minutes. I was so proud of him!

We swam all afternoon and then took the kids over to Pizza Factory to introduce them to the famous bread twists. We figured we should probably call it a night when Clara made me scoot over on the bench so she could take a nap. After waking them up early so we could drive to the funeral, playing in the pool and a late dinner, I think we had officially worn the kids out.

The next morning we went and ate our waffles and then went swimming. Clara only lasted about 20 minutes. I think it may have had something to do with me rubbing sunblock in her eyes. She kept asking to go to the "office" and go to sleep. I have no idea why she called our room the office, but I knew what she meant. We're tight like that.

While the boys swam, Clara and I played with Foofa. I taught her the skill of using her dress as a baby blanket.

After we checked out of our hotel, we made our way over to the antique fire truck in Ancestor Square. The kids were in heaven. Something like this would last 2 minutes in Las Vegas!

See, I was there.

Did I tell you the kids were loving it?

That is until I made Clara get off so I could take her picture.

After the firetruck we went to the temple. We quickly walked the grounds (it was SO HOT) and made our way into the visitors center. Steve and I found a soft spot to sit and cool off while the kids had a blast watching videos and using the touch screens.

We all had a great time. The kids didn't want to come home and neither did I.

(Courtesy of Thomas)

What a $5 pool gets you.

Nothing but joy.

Rainbow hunt

The heavens FINALLY opened up this evening. After about 3 weeks of clouds creeping in every afternoon only to tease us and then evaporate, they delivered a fabulous thunder storm.

We forced the kids out to to porch to watch the rain, umbrellas in hand.

After about 10 minutes, the clouds started to part and the sun began to peak through a few spots. We knew that it was the perfect condition for rainbows, so we tossed the kids in the van and started to hunt. I was really hoping for a double rainbow , but we only found a single one.

And guess who the first one to spot it was....

She kept shouting from her car seat, "I tee wainbow!" Sure enough, she was right.

We pulled the car over into a parking lot and started to shoot some pictures.

What? Is there something wrong with my child? Yes, he is only wearing his boxers. Yes, he is wearing my shoes. We didn't have time for minor details like clothing.

Thomas is becoming quite the photographer. I gave him an old camera and he loves it. He actually can work it pretty well.

Love. This. Picture.

No mom, Steve was not driving here. We were pulled over.

So intense!

Children can pick up on your feelings.

See. Proof! Told ya.

This is how I've been feeling lately.

Thomas starts kindergarten in a matter of weeks. He is thrilled. He can't wait. How am I? When I start thinking about it I feel my heart starts to beat a little faster and my head goes fuzzy. I know there are about a billion kids who have started kindergarten before him, but they weren't mine.

I need to grow up. I need to let him go and be a big kid. Ready or not, it's coming and I need to put my big girl panties on and deal.

Perks

I always knew that having children would be great. They love you unconditionally, they give great hugs, and you can train them to do some pretty neat tricks.

I would like to thank my husband for teaching our children this trick...

A couple months ago Steve taught the kids the proper techniques to a great foot rub and back massage. (He also taught them how to walk on his back, but thats not my bag.) I never really got in on the action, I figured it was daddy time. However, the past week or so Clara has become obsessed with rubbing my feet. Everytime I get out of the shower she comes running up to me and asks me to lay on the bed with my feet hanging off so she can give them good rub. Being the fantastic mother that I am, I let her do her thing.

Afterall, how can I say no to this face?

So I reluctantly lay on the bed with my feet hanging over the side and let her do her magic. She is actually quite good. She has great thumb placement and really works the toes.

Today I had just done my family room floors and sat down. She took off my shoes and asked me to "wait a second." I had a feeling she was going to get her foot lotion, so I grabbed my camera. Sure enough she came down ready to give me a nice foot rub.

As you can see, she is very thorough.

I really like my kids.

4 major food groups

Candy, Candy Canes, Candy Corns and Syrup.

Flashing a Moonie

Want to earn a dollar? All you have to do is tell me how to get my 2-year-old to stop mooning people.

This is not a full diaper that has been neglected. This is a spunky little girl who has learned to pull her diaper down and give a flash. If your lucky, she even adds her own version of "neiner, neiner." It's not the exact words, but it's pretty darn close.

I should have never laughed the first time she did it. Lesson learned.

July 25, 2010

Thomas has a young man that he looks up to. A LOT. His name is Steven and he just returned home from his mission in Taiwan. To say Thomas was excited would be the understatement of the century. For the past two years he has been asking how much longer until Steven gets home. He has had a picture of the two of them taped to the wall next to his bed since Steve left back in 2008. Lucky for us, we were able to use Steven as a way to convince Thomas to do certain things. We could always get Thomas to eat his cereal with milk (he likes it dry) if we said, "Well you know, Steven likes milk on his cereal." Or there were a handfuls of times that Thomas didn't want to wear a tie to church. Telling him that "Steven wears a tie everyday on his mission" was like magic. It has been nice to be able to pull our Steven Card out whenever we needed.

Yesterday we drove out to Logandale for Steven's homecoming. It was a wonderful day and we were able to spend quality time with family and great friends. Steven was such a good sport and let Thomas follow him around. Thomas took countless pictures of him and just basked in his greatness. It was wonderful to see our little guy have so much respect for such a great role model.

I took the top picture while we were waiting for Steven to speak. Thomas was so excited and on the edge of his seat. I know I shouldn't have taken the picture in church, but nobody saw me and I did it very discreetly.

Obligatory Blog Post

My mom has been hounding me to update the blog. No, she does not live hundreds of miles away. Yes, she sees the kids all the time. Yes, she is my biggest blog fan. And I love her, so I am fulfilling her request. (And I know that you should never start a sentence with and, but It's my blog and obviously I don't follow grammatical rules. Because I am rebellious that way)

So, these are the things I would have blogged about this week...

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-I have spent countless hours editing pictures from a wedding I shot last week. I am thrilled with the pictures. However, my mouse-arm-shoulder-rib is not. For the second time I have dislocated a rib because of my awful computer posture. Today it hurts. Bad. I am so glad I have a husband who knows a little about physical therapy. I love him.

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-The hours I have not been editing, I have been reading. I usually don't read. Not because I don't like to. I don't read because everything else gets put aside. In the past week and a half I have read over 1,000 pages. It's sick, I know. And guess how many loads of laundry I have done? one. Only because we wear underware. And guess how many times we had breakfast for dinner this week? three. That, my friends is honesty.

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- I did manage to take the kids swimming a few times this week. I like to go towards the end of the day so the lifeguard is the one telling us it's time to go. I like to make him the bad guy. This week while I was playing horsey in the pool with Clara, she kept calling me her "big cow". I didn't like that too much.

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-As far as the picture at the top of the post. That pretty much sums up the personality of my darling little daughter.

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Life is great. Seriously.

Guess who's in love???

Or should I say "wub."

To speak Clara's language, you must replace all L's with W's and all V's with B's.

And guess who wub's their new camera? Me! Thats' who!

9 hours and counting....

Thomas is having a sleepover with his cousins tonight. It's at Grandma Shirley's house and he couldn't be more excited.

-He has had his bag packed since Sunday night.

-He went to bed early last night so he would be rested for the excitement.

-He was up at 7:20 this morning so he could get ready and get his suitcase all set by the door.

-He may or may not have a change of clothing in the suitcase. From what I can see, he is all set with his camera (to take movies of Maverick and Jett), Clifford book, scrapbook, snoopy dog, and a clean change of underware.

Blessings.

Yesterday Steve and I took the kids to Costco. We needed to pick up a few things and were going to have hot dogs for lunch. We also needed to go over to Marshalls for some swim suit shopping - not fun. We decided to go to Marshalls first. We were there for about 45 minutes. We made our purchases and then started to walk out the door. As we were leaving, Steve turned to me and said, "I want to check on some shoes real quick. Take the kids to the car and I will meet you there in a few minutes." I took the kids to the car and buckled them up.

Steve came out to the car about 5 minutes later. We drove across the street and pulled into Costco's parking lot. It was packed. We found a spot near the entrance. Fortunately there was a family in the next spot loading up their stuff. Their cart was in the way of the spot so I rolled down the window and politely asked them if they would mind moving their cart so we could park. The mom then turned to me and said,"You may not want to go in. They are evacuating the store for some reason." Steve and I decided we would drive to the other Costco and not deal with whatever was going on at this one. As we were pulling out of the isle (facing the store), a cop car pulled up right in front of us. An officer got out with one of the largest riffles I have ever seen and walked toward the entrance. Shocked to be witnessing what we were seeing (at COSTCO - REALLY???), we just started driving around to the back of the store. As we rounded the side, we saw the side door swing open and about 6 people run out, they were all ducking for cover. We decided we didn't want to stick around to find out what happened so we drove off.

When we got home it was all over the news that there was a shooting. There are lots of conflicting eye-witness reports, but as far as the media is reporting a man was acting berserk and had a gun. When the police came they confronted him, told him to disarm, he didn't comply and was shot. It was near the entrance. Right were they were evacuating people to. Right where my family would have been. Nobody else was injured but there were many people standing around where this happened and many children witnessed this. I am so grateful that my children were not there. I am so grateful that we were not in harms way.

Everyday I pray. I ask my Heavenly Father to bless me and my family to be safe and protected. I know that my Heavenly Father was answering my prayers yesterday. If Steve had not decided to run back and check on the shoes we would have been right in the middle of all the commotion. My kids would have witnessed something that would have been imprinted on their innocent minds for the rest of their lives.

Today I am grateful for the many times my Heavenly Father has protected me and my family and I am so grateful to have a knowledge that prayers are answered.

A Happy Hooker.

Right now it seems the cool thing to do is knit. I'm not cool. I don't knit. I crochet.

I learned to crochet for real when I was 22 (meaning not just a really long chain that could be used for ...???). My friend Leah taught me how to do granny squares while we were traveling across the United States in the summer of 97. I finished my first blanket on that trip and I think I may have made one more for my parents the following winter. I haven't really done many other projects since then.

This past January I wanted to lose some weight. I decided I would take up crocheting again and use it as a tool of distraction. I searched the Internet trying to find a free pattern that I liked and could figure out on my own. I found a blog called Attic 24 and I was hooked. Lucy is a lady over in the UK who really likes to crochet. A lot. She doesn't call it crocheting, she calls it hooking. She makes everything with vibrant colors and it looks so cheerful. I also like to read her blog because of her writing. When I read it I feel like I am sitting down to a nice cup of tea and cucumber sandwiches. I should also mention that in my mind Lucy and I are both wearing really pretty dresses with empire waists, wearing bonnets and talking about Elizabeth Bennett.

So I took up crocheting hooking. It worked for the month of January. I lost 6 pounds and spent almost every night on the couch with my yarn (instead of chocolate) watching must see tv with my husband. It was really nice because I would actually stay awake and be able to have a conversation with him instead of falling asleep in the middle of a story. I worked on my afghan for about a month and a half and then lost interest. Not to mention fell off the dieting band waggon.

When we were heading to Washington I wanted to bring a project with me. Every year we go, I always end up at Craft Warehouse and spend a ton of money on new projects that end up in my "unfinished" bin. I decided I wanted to save the money this year. I planned on shipping all my supplies up to my in-laws house before we left but never got around to it. Instead I stuck all my yarn and my afghan in a space bag and sealed it up. It took up about half the space in my suitcase, but I didn't care. I was so happy to have it with me. It was nice to be able to relax and be a hooker with no worries.

We have been home for almost 2 weeks and I have continued to work on my creation. I love it. It is so soft and warm. I wish I would have chosen more colors and made it more vibrant like Lucy's, but I'll know better next time. I am almost done and can't wait to finish it so I can start on my next afghan. Who knows, maybe I'll even start dieting again.

Dear Clara,

Dear Clara,

I just wanted to tell you how much I love you. You are a charming little girl and so full of life. However, I do have a couple requests. Please don't pull down my bathing suit straps at the public pool anymore. Also, when we are in a restaurant, please don't yell "EXTRA BEANS!" at the top of your lungs when your brother passes gas. Other than that, you're perfect.

Love,
Mommy

It's always fun at grandma's house...

because she has really cool robotic arms. The kids have no idea that these things are really necessary to the senior generation and not just toys.

because everything is bigger there.

because Clara has extra people to hug and cuddle with.

because she lives so close to the coast and Mom is able to sit in chairs like this and just "be" while the kids are playing with their grandparents.

because the scenery is so lush and beautiful.

because Thomas can camp outside in the front yard with Granddad and and dad. Clara also gets in on the posing action, but doesn't understand the concept of standing within view.

because bubbles seem to be a little bit more fun.

because it's peaceful.

because she has a great attachment on the hose .

(it's granddad's house too, it's just not the name of the song)