A Stand-In

Tyler is working.
Today and everyday.
Yes, it is Sunday and no, accounting firms don't understand that a month without any weekend days off is not good for anyone. So while he is off working insane hours, his twin brother, Jon came to visit. He got to hang out with us a ton. It was awesome. I can't wait for them to get off the large island they are living on and move back to us.

Jon went to our ward Christmas party with me...without Tyler. It was the entertainment for the night. Jokes were attempted, people were fooled, and many laughs were had. Tyler made it to the end of the party...in the same hat :)

Jon was a big help to me while Ty was working. People even commented, "I thought he was Tyler, he was totally helping with the kids. Brother-in-laws don't help with kids." Well, folks, Jon does...I think he knew I needed it :)

Last year Christian got really attached to Jon while he was in town, being quite confused who was his dad. This year he had a little more confidence in who his dad was, but not quite enough. EAch time Tyler or Jon walked in he looked at me and said, "Mommy, is that uncle dog or daddy?" The second day we came into our room first thing in the morning, jumped up on our bed (seeing Tyler) and said, "hey, it's uncle dog!" When I replied that it was daddy he said, "Me have two daddies!" Awesome.

Another weekend activity was Santa.

We tried Santa last year.

This was the result.

My kids weren't fans of him. This year I knew it was going to be good when Ava started into one of her usual anxiety fits when she heard we were going to see him. She had absolutely no interest in sitting on his lap, or even seeing him for that matter.

Well it went better than expected. I had to start in the picture, but was able to sneak out for a few. After Ava had kept as much distance from Old Kris Kringle as possible she walked away and whispered in my ear, "Mom, does he know I want some Littlest Pet shop and a 2 wheeled scooter?" I assured her he did and she was satisfied.

Christian, on the other hand was thrilled to tell Santa what he wanted.

Not bad. Is that a smile I see on her face?

Anyone notice anything about our cute little "family" Santa Claus picture.

Thanks Sara and Kate for lending us your husband and father!

Vampires are in, right?

Bennett finally broke two teeth.
At 11 months.
They happen to be these two teeth.

Sweet.


So what does he do with those two teeth?
Crawls around our back yard eating every tomato he can possibly get his hands on.

Love this kid!

ps. he is currently breaking 3-4 more teeth...fun nights.

Joy of the Season

This could apply to many things in my life, but right now it is exclusively these delightful things:

I found these last year during Christmas and after I had Bennett I made my way out to find more and they were gone.
A Holiday Exclusive treat.
I learned this year.
I nearly bought Target out of them :)
I'll be eating these all year long in 2010.

Before I move on

Pretty sure I should document this before I move on with my life.

I had a pretty sweet Halloween costume this year (you know, Halloween-the holiday we celebrated about 2 months ago).

I was...a jar of hunny...Winnie the Pooh's jar of hunny to be exact. We all know he goes nowhere without his hunny.

So where did I find such an awesome costume? Tyler made it. Which really is no surprise to me, but apparently a very big surprise to most people we saw.

He happened to come across this on a friends blog (when I say happened to come across, I mean it popped up on his google reader-yes ashley, he is a follower, religiously.) I'm pretty sure it opened up a whole world of competition.

I went to bed that night to this...

And I woke up to this...

genius.

Out of Hibernation...

I haven't been hibernating.
But I do wish I had.
It has been 2 months without a post from me. I'm sure that is sad for you. What can I say, I've been busy. I thought about hiring someone to blog for me, but I couldn't even get around to doing that. So I am finally here. Tired, but here.
There have been many fun occasions in the last month. Let's see if we can create a sufficient recap...

meet kate:

After Tyler went to Spain, he stopped in London to meet his newest niece. While there he and Jon put their miles together to make each wife happy by sending me (and the attached child) to London. It was so fun to see Sara, Jon and Kate. We just relaxed, shopped, ate and saw a little of London while doing so!

Jon blessed Kate while we were there. Bennett was happy to be there and share in her day. He really enjoyed their first meeting and felt right at home with uncle gog, not to mention Kate let him sleep in her bed, what a nice hostess.

What a little gentleman.

We had a great time. Thanks for letting us come and visit. AND thank you, thank you, thank you for all the help I got with my 2 little ones at home/Utah. You know you are friends when someone will freely offer and take your 4 year old girl on a 14 hour road trip to get to her grandmas. Bless you Abby, bless you. AND when your 8.5 month pregnant friend or your mother-of-6-other-kids friend will gladly take your kid ALL DAY LONG.

Man, I have good people in my life!

Some recap-er I am. I got through one thing and I am pooped. I'll try again another time. Stay tuned, I'm sure there is some good stuff coming.

What I Know Now

Thanks for the birthday wishes. Ty is great, except for the fact that I feel...exposed. Very exposed. And slightly embarrassed, but heck, we're all friends right ;).

The week was crazy, so I was really looking forward to my b-day, but even more so to a 4 day weekend to spend with Ty. Well, expectations are Satan's tool. Satan's tool for making me one ornery chica. Does anyone recall this? Tyler's company managed to do it again, without me this time (not nearly as cool). Thursday evening Tyler called to "ask" if he could head to Madrid for 2 weeks for work...on Monday. He was super excited so I tried to be too (I love 2 weeks alone with my kiddos without the husb each night. really.) So at about 10pm that night we find out that his passport somehow expired a couple months ago (we both swear we checked this recently). So we then found out that Tyler would be spending all of Friday (my bday and the first day of our 4 day weekend) in San Francisco at the passport agency. But we did get to go out that night thanks to my AWESOME friends J&J and H&J for helping with our kids and for making me a cake. Ava was VERY concerned who was going to be making my cake. So the weekend continued with a jam packed saturday of preparing for international travel and a BYU football game, of course. Then I dropped Ty off at the airport early this afternoon. What an awesome 4 day weekend with Ty, thus I say, "expectations are Satan's tool!"




K- done with that. And my birthday wasn't so bad Ty gave me the cutest necklace that you can see in the pic below. Each charm has one of our kids names on it. i love it.

(phone pic)

Now, after a post like that I realized that thank heavens I have learned A LOT through those memories. Here are just a few things I have learned...
1. I really was a cute 4 year old.

2. Boyfriends are lame in high school. No one could have told me this then, of course. Uh, no offense, Mike and Skyler, since I am sure I am on your google reader, we had good times.

3. If you do have a boyfriend in HS (or not, for that matter) don't be so scantly clad.

4. Volleyball is not life, but it is REALLY cool. It did a lot for me:

• kept me out of trouble
• taught awesome lessons like commitment, work ethic, how to be a good competitor
• made me experience a smorgasbord of feelings: pain (physical and emotional), pressure, pride, success, nerves, stress, joy, excitement, accomplishment and it made me work through all of those feelings.
• it pushed me to my limits and when i got there it pushed me to find new ones.
• it gave me some of my greatest friendships. experiencing those feelings with other people can really bring you together.
• it is still a part of who I am. A part that I would like to find again.

5. Just because you are 18 and free does NOT mean you should wear a bikini. Next time around, listen to your mom when she kindly tells you that she thinks you look better in a one piece. (Note: Ava) But BTW mom, thanks for letting me make that decision, because even though I don't like the choice I made, I'm not sure I would have known that without making the decision for myself.

6. If you do decide to wear a bikini...BURN all evidence, unless you look REAL good, better keep those for your after baby goal pics.

7. Who came up with Glamour shots for your Senior pictures? This was never a good idea.

8. My wedding was complete awesomeness. I loved it.

9. My kids ARE beautiful.

10. I'm happy with where this life has brought me. I guess there were some good decisions along the way.

Blog hijacking by Ty - HAPPY B-DAY Lindsey!!

Today Lindsey turns 27 years old...two years past the blessed age of 25 and 2 years away from the immortal age of 29. Enjoy a walk down memory lane...

Lindsey has always been super cute

She has been through some boy years...

Some volleyball years (UVSC and BYU)...

Some scandalous years...

Some glamorous years...

She finally settled down...

Had some beautiful kids...

Started her own successful business...

http://www.ittybittyimprints.com/

and on and on!

Happy Birthday Lindsey!

Love, Ty

Too Early?

...for some Little Caesars??

Hey, I started with some crazy bread, but the next day Christian shared a whole cold slice. He loved it!
so many faces...one cute boy!

While the older two kids run amuck, Bennett and I have some nice bonding time every Friday night at Daddy's soccer games. Good times.

Dialogue:

Me: "Oh crap!"

Ava: "Mom, why is the police man stopping us?"

me: "Uh, mommy did something wrong."

Ava: "Is that why you said 'oh crap'?"

me: "yeah, i shouldn't have said that, huh."

Ava: "What did you do wrong, mommy?"

me: "I was talking on the phone while I was driving."

Ava: "But mom, you always do that."

me: "yeah, let's not mention that."

Ava: "okay. Next time he comes is he going to take you to jail?"

me: "Likely."

Hurdle: Cleared.

You may remember months ago when we attempted a little potty training with Christian. I wasn't ready. So we went back to diapers and finally mustered up the energy to attempt one last time. He was so ready, but still tested my patience for a while. As of the last week he has essentially been accident free. YAY! It is a day to celebrate!

Continuing on.

We spent the last week with my sister and her 2 girls in town. We had a lot of fun.

We had a few of these moments...

But mostly these moments...

And I can't get enough of these moments...

My type of Fireman

This picture makes me think of summer parties, which I Love . Nice pic Ty.

And my 3 favorite faces

We've been doing some serious scooter rides lately.

Now THIS is ART!

Ava's artistic abilities are really shining through lately. Not only does she ask to draw ALL-THE-TIME, but she comes up with some great wall art. Following each depiction of a family member, and a promise to give/mail it to them she continuously questions whether or not it is hanging on their fridge. So, jon, sara and "baby" is this hanging yet???

A few faves

Our month in Utah was fun, of course. The kids loved it. It is such a different life for them there. I didn't think Ava would notice. This comment tells me otherwise. "Mom, how come Heavenly Father and Jesus let Grandma and Papa live in Utah and not us?" Hmm. Answer that.

Here are a few of my favorite pics.

At the cabin:



I'm pretty sure I have a picture of me as a kid making this exact same face. Mom, what do you think??





I wish knew more about editing my photos or actually did it, because this one could be real cool with a good action. I just think it looks so old school. Love it.



The Arts Festival. Always a highlight.






I hope my kids stay good friends forever.

And giving Papa Jim his Father's Day present.