I'm a blogger

I've recently given facebook another try, thanks to a friend from my ward informing me that I was missing out. I had signed up over a year ago when I received friend requests, and then I guess I really didn't get it, so I quit. I was convinced that there was something I was missing...there had to be something great about facebook to draw so many people to it.

I decided that this time I would give it a more whole-hearted try. After playing around on facebook for a while over the past couple of days I have come to a conclusion. The same conclusion. I still don't really get facebook. I guess I'm a blogger at heart. Blogs have been and will continue to be my choice for time wasting (not that reading about all of your lives, or writing about mine is a waste of time...but some days I get consumed. Like yesterday when I spent all afternoon reading this blog. THE WHOLE THING. I was totally consumed in her love story. Go read it. Start from the beginning. DO NOT read her last post. Read it in order. Okay, enough about that.) I think I will keep checking facebook so as not to be a total facebook loser, but in my heart, I'm a blogger.

He did it!!!

Here is Owen with his celebratory jelly beans for his first successful potty experience! We are still months from being potty trained, but today I managed to catch him 'mid-business', made him stop, and put him on the toilet...where he finished. Yay mom and Owen! (Jelly beans are okay at 8:30 in the morning for celebrating purposes, right?)

Esme?

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Does this mean I'm boring??? Who are you?

And now some words about this one...

Ainsley's Indian dictionary: (She made this with my sister while I was on vacation.) And I'm sure it had nothing to do with the little Indian skirts they made for a craft one day.

Pen-Giogiyo

Boy-Boilash

Water-Louve

Jet-Garange

Number-Jobiash

Halloween-Lashafice

Button-Pinos

Blanket-Aos

Book-Molashious

Necklace-Sedros

Snack-Watchboo

Clock-Abenios

Plate-Sinwon

Fridge-Griogga

Purse-Obutton

Fan-Bionostraws

Spooky-Gioso

Rock-Kabashoo

She 's very into making up words...as I'm sure many 4 year olds are.

John and the kids sat down and wrote out their Christmas lists while I was at work a week ago. It seems like John always has his Christmas list written by August, and he's encouraging the kids to do the same. I got a kick out of Ainsley's list...and John swears there was no encouragement from him.

1. Build a Bear

2. Mirror

3. Toothbrush (a play one)

4. Play sink (I'm not sure where to find one of those)

5. 5 pairs of new jeans (she must be anticipating the holes she will surely put in her jeans)

6. Tea party stuff

7. Missionary shirt with tag

8. Clown shirts/heart shirts

9. Books about worms and butterflies

10. Train stuff

11. Bath tub markers

12. Play flour that is mushy and soft

Ains is also showing signs of growing up. It's kind of sad. She now tells me that she is 4 and 4 year olds do not need to hold someones hand while walking in parking lots. I also walked in on her listening to Hannah Montana while playing in her room, something about watching her listen to that just made her seem so old.

A bit about this one...

You've just gotta love that face!
I haven't written much about Owen lately so I thought I would take a moment to jot down some of the 'highlights.' The past couple weeks Owen has become clingy and independent all at the same time. He wants to do everything by himself ("I do it!!!") and yet he has moments of clingy/cuddliness that he hasn't had for a long time. His independence reached new levels when I was cutting his hair the other day and he was fuming mad because I wouldn't let him do it himself.

He also has a new love for being naked. Unfortunately for us, this new love has been accompanied by the ability to take off his clothes by himself. We have a lot of afternoons where Owen is shirtless. In this picture he is hiding. He's starting to do this when he messes his diaper...could there be potting training in our near future? He loves to sit on the toilet but has yet to do anything productive.
Here is another example of Owen's self reliance. He is attempting to wash his hair with hair gel and hand soap. Lovely.

He is talking more and more (which is still not very much by Owen's standards), however I think I'm the only one who can understand him. For weeks Ains was 'Dee', while we were gone he started saying 'okay', but I still think my favorite is when I get greeted with one of his very excited, "Hello!" Owen's favorite word has to be candy, I have not met a kid who loves candy and treats more. The other night he refused to go to bed until he had his baggie of carmel popcorn with him. (I forgot to take it away after he went to sleep and woke up to him eating popcorn as he mosied into my room the next morning.) Halloween is sure to be a hit with this kid!

He is also decided that he is to mature for afternoon naps. I fought him for some time to try to convince him that he was still in need of a nap. But, with the freedom of a bed with no bars, came the end of nap time. Good bye naps, hello grumpy Owen. Good times!

Spendy

I just paid $135 for a bolt to be replaced on my car. A. BOLT. Just one. Why is it that no matter what car problem I have I always feel like I'm being ripped off. Not only that, they just happened to notice while diagnosing my bolt issue that some sort of gasket also needs replaced. That is a bit more pricey at about $700. I said no thanks. I'll wait for the problem to manifest itself. Why don't I have a mechanic in the family????

Fourth Photo

I've been tagged for this twice now, and I like the idea of it. The idea is that you go to your picture file and post the fourth picture in your fourth file. This is a picture that I took in the spring of '07. I was trying to get some cute picture of the kids in their Easter outfits and I wasn't having much luck. I was able to get several cute shots of Owen, but Ains was giving me some trouble. She was being silly and wouldn't look at the camera and show me a normal looking face at the same time.
I'm not going to tag anyone, but It's kind of fun to reminisce...so if you feel so inclined, do this on your blog!

I'm Baaaack!

I just got back in town today from an amazing trip. Amazing, because there were no children involved! John and his friend (Tanner) were going to a conference in Phoenix and they were kind enough to bring their wives along with them. John and I haven't gone on a trip alone since our honeymoon...8 years ago. So I think it was high time that we had a little break from the kiddos. not that we don't love our children, but who doesn't love their kids more when thinking about them from miles away???

We flew into Phoenix late on Sunday morning, got our rental car, and headed to Mesa where we stayed at the Arizona Golf Resort. After lunch the boys headed off to class and Danielle (Tanner's wife) and I ventured out around town for a nice Sunday drive. Later that evening, when our husbands were done learning, we drove into Phoenix and ate at some local restaurant. Without kids. It was awesome.

On Monday the boys has class again and so the girls got to have a leisurely morning of sleeping in, working out, talking while eating breakfast for 30 minutes(I can't remember the last time I did that), and then taking our time getting ready. We then spent time shopping at the mall. Later that day(although the pool at our hotel was as warm as a mountain stream, and the hot tub was luke warm), Danielle and I thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon lounging by the pool, talking, reading, napping, and soaking up the sun.

Our husbands joined us around 4:00 and then we headed off for PF Changs and a movie. Dinner was great, movie was awful (the creators of Nick and Nora will be getting a strongly worded letter from me for having the audacity to make one of the most vile and disgusting movies of all time and marketing it like a comedy...I've never come so close to walking out of a movie in all my life and regret not doing it, nuf said.) But once again, we weren't bickering with children, so the night was still a success!

Tuesday was my last full day in AZ. Luckily the boys only had a couple of hours of class that day. So Danielle and I were still able to maintain our lazy morning routine, but the guys were able to join us for afternoon festivities. I carried my camera around during the whole trip, but only got it out on our trip to Scottsdale, so enjoy the photos of our afternoon, notice there are no children in the pictures!

Here we are posing in front of Trader Joe's. We were under the impression it was more than a grocery store, it's not. It's just an organic grocery store. So we bought some organic enchilada sauce...why not?

We then headed to old down town Scottsdale and wandered through the little shops. John really wanted his picture taken by this Yankee's street sign. (I believe in Tanner's camera the picture is of John making an obscene hand gesture, but I waited to get a more "G" rated shot.)

Here we are holding our favorite pair of ridiculously priced cowboy boots. Who would have thought that a nice pair of snake skin boots would run you a good $1500?

John and I modeling some lovely pieces of cow furniture.

John hangin' with the locals.

????

Tanner sleeping in the biggest shoe store EVER!!! I guess he's not into shoes.I had done some research looking for some things to do in Phoenix and discovered that the city's tourist attractions pretty much shut down in October...odd, but true. Even the golf course at our resort was closed for reseeding during what I thought would have been ideal golfing weather. The weather was great while we were there. Lower 80's everyday. I was worried there would be nothing to do while we were there, but it was fun having another couple to hang out/goof off with. Four minds are better than two!

It really was a great trip. Especially since all we had to pay for was my airfare and a teeny tiny portion of our food. John's food budget paid for most of our meals AND fun. Now, that's my kind of vacation. I'm seriously considering making him find some sort of conference to go to every year just so I can join him. That is if I can convince people that babysitting my kids is awesome and they should want to do it every year! (Thanks to my parents and Natalie for taking the kids!)

The only reason I'm a little bummed right now is that I'm the only one that flew home today. That's right, everyone else is still vacationing! But I couldn't leave the kids any longer...not that I didn't want to, I just ran out of baby sitters:) Boy, I sound like a great mother don't I. I did miss my kids.....I did!

Ballroom Dance

Last night Ains and I got together with all of the girls in my family to go see the ballroom dance team. Here we are showing our bored faces (some of us) because our show started 45 minutes late. This posed a slight problem because we had tickets to the 8:15 show.
Ains did surprisingly well though for our night being so late. The dancers were great and Ains was enthralled throughout the whole performance. She talked through the entire show (shocker) pointing out the fancy dresses, who was her favorite, and talking about the dance in general. She was so cute to watch. Toward then end she got tired during the second to last performance, but as soon as the dance ended she was back on the edge of her seat clapping and cheering like crazy.

My favorite part of the night was when Ains met some of the dancers after the show. The dance team came out and stood by the exits after the show. Ains wanted to shake all of their hands but I told her to just choose a few. So she spotted a girl in a pretty pink dress and just walked up to her with her hand outstretched. Ains was so small that it took the dancer a while to see her. When she eventually did, Ains just looked at her in amazement an even got to feel her fancy dress. She continued to do this with a few other dancers. When she met a girl in a particularly fancy dress, she just looked at her with this big grin on her face and didn't say a word. I couldn't help but laugh, it was so cute.

I swear...

I swear I do my daughter's hair. In fact, I think I had done it twice already on the day this picture was taken. Unfortunately, her hair looks like this more often than not. Why????
I also swear that we give Owen naps, when he will take them. Apparently we forgot to give him one this day, and he was forced to sleep standing up.