Word to the Wise...

Running across asphalt in just your swim trunks while looking up at your little brother in the window is NOT a good idea: 

Ouch!! Poor guy. As he's crying because obviously that hurts, my sweet boy who doesn't like to be dirty looked down at his chest and hands and said, "I DON'T like this!!" Not pictured are his skinned hands, elbows, and knees (one of which already had a big bonk on it from hitting it on the bottom of the pool). He really isn't as clumsy as this looks. He was just excited to be home to see his dad and talking to his brother through the window. On a better note, day 3 of swim lessons proved to be his best one yet. No tears and lots of kickers. Now if he'd only put his face in the water we'd be great :) Baby steps. 

Word to the wise #2:

Don't let Parker see you give another child a cookie and then expect him NOT to paint his face with chocolate all the way home from church. This child has zero problem being dirty. I need to buy stock in Shout.

Anyone have any suggestions on whether or not I should take him to swim lessons tomorrow? Do you think the chlorine is going to sting really bad? Is that considered an "open sore" that disallows him from going into the pool? Just trying to avoid further traumatizing. Thanks in advance!

Butterflies, Birthdays, and Boys

It seems like that last week or so has gone by in slow motion. For some reason it seems like ages since I made my last post even though I know it wasn't. Maybe it's just that summer is finally here and we're having too much fun! Part of my problem is that I've lived in fantasy land since June 1st. I started the Harry Potter books on that day and finished the 7th one this morning. I promised Jared I'd read them all before the last movie came out on July 15th. I've been telling him for years I'd read them and with some extra encouragement from my sister in-law I decided now was the time. I didn't think I'd like them nearly as much as I did. I know I'm WAY behind on this one but they are such great books!


I've also started training for another half marathon which is keeping me pretty busy just because my runs are longer than normal. My cousin Andrea and I are running the Pocatello half marathon over Labor Day weekend. I'm very excited! The boys are still troopers and let me push them while I run for long periods of time which I'm very grateful for. They usually require the occasional stop to throw rocks in the river, find dandelions, or go through the fish hatchery (which is right off the greenbelt so a quick detour) but they're good sports. Brody likes to get out and run with me sometimes to. We may have a runner in the making! 


We've been making a few trips to the zoo lately and they have this new butterfly pavilion thing. My sweet friend Lisa gave me a heads up to have the boys wear bright clothes. Brody wore this green shirt and it worked like a charm. You go through this little area that has tons of butterflies that land on you. 


He did really good at first...

...but when 3 landed on him at the same time he wasn't so sure about it. (the 3rd one is kind of tough to see, but it's on his shoulder)

The 3rd one flew away and for some reason he was just fine with these two. The one rode on him the whole 15 minutes or so we were in there. It really liked Brody! The zoo volunteer had to take it off his shirt with this little device before we could leave because no matter how much he shook or we shook his shirt it wouldn't leave!

I just like this picture because this is such a Brody face when he's telling you a story or about something. 

Parker mainly just watched the ones on Brody's shirt and tried to hit the occasional one that came his way.

This is one of my boys' favorite things about the zoo. The Snake Slide. Behind that tree is a cage of monkeys so as they go up the stairs and over to the slide the monkeys are right there swinging around. Someday I'll climb up and get a picture of them. I just wanted to add this in here because I was really proud of Parker's little perseverance. At first he was very nervous to go up there and kept calling for, "Mom-I!!" I went up there with him a couple times and then he'd stand at the bottom of the stairs calling for me. After a little bit of encouragement, though, he decided he was okay and did it all by himself. It's a big play structure and I'm just happy to see that he stuck with it to accomplish that task. It's the little things, right? :) That's little Parker walking up the stairs on the side.

Part of his success was because of the help of his "Brobo". Parker now calls Brody "Brobo" consistently. I love it because it just so happens that Jared's nickname in his family is "Bobo". I believe Katie girl gave him that name when she was trying to say "brother" and "bobo" just kind of stuck. So now we have a Bobo and a Brobo. Parker continues to idolize his Brobo. He liked catching Brody on the slide...

...and being caught by Brody. I hope you can see both of those cute happy faces. It definitely makes the times they have tiffs over toys worth it. I'm so glad they're becoming friends. 

One last picture of the snake slide. Parker has decided that he's big like Brody so he goes down every staircase forward making his mom pretty nervous. Thankfully he's very coordinated so he's doing well with it. He also has to balance one foot in front of the other as he walks along curbs because that's what Brody does. It's amazing seeing what this little dude can follow his brother in doing.

I also had a birthday last week. It was a perfect day. My husband spoiled me and I felt so very loved. Thank you to those of you that wished me a happy birthday (on Facebook). I also received some of the sweetest messages and came to the conclusion that I really do have the best friends and family. I'm very humbled and feel very blessed. Jared brought home these beautiful flowers and I have just thoroughly enjoyed them. Thank you babe!

I got some money for my birthday and got something I've wanted for the last 7 plus years of our marriage. I have wanted a nice picture of the temple for our home but have always had other things I needed/wanted at birthdays/holidays so I've never bought one. It just so happened that Deseret Book was having an Art Sale so I went looking. Since we got married in the San Diego temple I really wanted one of those. However,  I'm also practical so when I found this one 75% off I went for it. It was normally $250 and I got it for $63 (frame included!). It makes it that much better when you get that great of a deal to me because then I still have some of my birthday money I can save or use on something else.  This picture doesn't really do it justice, but it's a beautiful painting (or textured picture...whatever it's called) of the Salt Lake temple. It now hangs over my couch and adds so much brightness and happiness to our living room. It's amazing what effect a picture can have. It's now Parker's favorite thing to point out to us. He loves the "memple". I'm a happy girl! (You can click on it to make it bigger if you want to see it a little better)

Finally, just two last videos. I had a meeting last night so Jared was watching the boys. He took these videos for me as a surprise when I got home. I thought they were very cute so I had to share. Our boys are pretty tough on things but thus far we haven't had any problems with them destroying these blinds. Let's hope it stays that way. We had some family members comment on Brody's lack of upper body strength when we were in California so we  laugh that this is how he and Parker are going to build their muscles. :)

As I mentioned before playing catch is our boys new thing to do. They throw the football, baseball, and basketball a lot of the day. This time up and down the stairs with their cute Dad. :)

Well, I hope you're all enjoying your summer and staying cool!

Family Pictures 2011

When we were in Bakersfield this last time we had our pictures done by Jared's sister Bethany. Have I mentioned yet how much I love her? Not just because she takes great pictures either. I'm very grateful for her taking time to come do this for us. My family was a little tricky this time as I have two very active boys, Parker was NOT in a picture taking mood because he was teething and sick, and let's just say family pictures are not Jared's idea of a fun afternoon. Somehow Bethany managed to get quite a few great pictures. Thank you B so much! I tried to cut it down, but these are my favorites.

Brody thankfully was cooperating great! I think he looks a little too grown up in these:

 I love that every time we take pictures of Parker there's a least a couple with him pointing up at airplanes. He doesn't miss much!

Love the hands in the pockets:

 I believe this one as also looking at an airplane and a motorcycle:

Maybe we've been around Boise State too long but I really like orange and blue together!

My handsome boy:

 ...who gives VERY big kisses.

 The best one of me with my boys. Parker was really getting tired of all of this picture taking business. 

 Again with the airplanes: 

 Parker cheered up a bit and I love these expressions: 

 Where'd Parker go?

 Maybe my favorite one:

 Even though he looks less than thrilled, I'm happy B caught this one. It makes me laugh :)

 I'll be very sad when he looses those kissin' cheeks

 Finally, a happy one! I believe Uncle Sam and Jared were doing their best to make fools out of themselves and get a smile. It worked!

 Finally some of Jared and I :)

 Jared may or may not kill me for posting these, but I think they're too funny not to share. Lately Jared has been pretty stressed, busy, etc. I think it has accentuated his introvertedness and not many people have been able to see how funny Jared is. In case you were wondering if he lacked in personality, I give you Jared taking family pictures. There were a few more, but these were my favorites.

 He thinks he's funny :) (B--I actually LOVE this picture!)

Well, that was a lot of pictures, but it's not very often that we get them done. We'd been trying to do them since Thanksgiving and either the weather wasn't cooperating or Jared was having to get out of town to get back to school. Thankfully things worked out this time with the exception of a pretty cranky Parker. Thank you again to B! 

Timeouts and Wedding Bliss

First just a quick picture from last week. This is a very common occurrence. Brody was put in timeout for hitting Parker and since little brother does whatever big brother does (including hitting back nowadays) he went over and sat right next to Brody on the stairs. He kept him company for the duration of Brody's timeout probably defeating the whole purpose of a timeout but I thought it was pretty cute. Yes, it's June and they're in sweatshirts.

This past weekend we got to go to Utah to attend the wedding of Jared's cousin Rachel. We were going back and forth about going since they'd been sick, but the runny noses had stopped, they had been on antibiotics for a few days, and the moods were up so we decided to give it a shot. Jared had a little trouble breathing on the way down but other than that it went pretty good! It was such a fun weekend and I'm so glad we went. Rachel looked absolutely beautiful and Manti seems like a great guy. We loved seeing all the family we got to see and spend some time just having fun! 

Newlyweds :)

She may be the tiniest bride I've ever seen!

Are those shoes not amazing? I love this picture! Rachel is adorable.

Loral, this one is for you. You girls are seriously beautiful! These are all of Jared's cousins in that family plus the newest member. L-R: Matt, Loral, Manti, Rachel, Steve, and Nathan. They are such a fun group and we love it when we get to see them (their spouses also!) Aren't they an attractive family?!

  The whole family picture plus the photographer's elbow. I tried to be incognito and not get in the photographers way, but it was just too great of a picture to miss. The fact that I had a crying child trying to get free may have given me away. Click to make bigger...

Brody had more fun than anyone this weekend. He LOVES being with everyone!

The Salt Lake City Temple. We haven't been there in a long time and I forgot how pretty it was. 

Brody liked all the waterfalls

We were having so much fun at the reception that I didn't take very many pictures. It was at the Gateway and it was beautiful! Not sure what this says about me, but I think this is the only picture I actually took at the reception: (I think this was the groom's cake :) Manti played rugby for BYU so that topper is a bride wrestling her rugby player....so cute) These donuts were some of Brody's personal favorites of the night. 

Brody make up for my lack of picture taking. Most of them were on Cathy's camera so she'll have better pictures, but these three were good. Again, photography by Brody. This is Sammy and one of their favorite cousins, Joel.

Sammer

G-gma and P-pops. Two of Brody's favorite people. When he sees them he says, "My friends!" and gives them big hugs. He did this with Joel and Jessica also. He really is such a sweet boy.

You may have noticed there aren't many pictures of Parker in this post. Somehow every event that we were trying to go to coincided with when Parker wanted to be sleeping. This is literally the only picture we got of Parker. He was having a fit and I gave up on pictures after that. :) 

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was watching Brody be a dancing machine. He was hilarious. As soon as the music started he wanted to get out there. He danced the whole time and got rather upset when the band had to take a break. He was in the middle of everybody doing a "boogie shake" as he calls it. He thinks he can break dance so he'd turn around on the floor occasionally. He also got VERY upset when I tried to dance with someone else. It was cute to see that he actually does like his mom! I'm never quite sure :) I took a short video but it really doesn't do it justice. This is when not much was going on so he was just sort of grooving. Half way through he sees some other kids and tries to pick up some new moves. This really is just a snippit of what he was up to. He was cracking me up! He danced with me until about 10:00 and then he got to hold a sparkler with everyone else outside to send off the happy couple. He really was in heaven! Thank you Rachel and Manti for allowing us to be apart of your special day!

I'll end with one more quick video. It's a pretty bad video, but it's just to show you one of our other favorite parts of the reception. They had these little flipbooks that you could make. It was 6 seconds of something fun and for us that meant just jumping/wiggling around. We saw some pretty clever books that absolutely cracked us up. Ours isn't terribly exciting, but my boys just love it. Here it is:

Do you see why I didn't take many pictures? We were definitely having too much fun. Sort of makes me want to get married all over again. :) We also got to see Jared's best friend growing up, Saul, and his little family. Apparently I didn't remember to take pictures of that either. We loved seeing them, though! In other news, I think our 6 weeks of fun is finally settling down some. Jared's classes started today, we have Dr. appts 2 days this week, and Brody has a little summer day camp tomorrow. We're getting back to the daily grind and I'm definitely getting excited for warmer weather and summer fun! The sickness seems to have finally left our house. Hooray!