12.24.2009

Merry Christmas!

We are thankful for a great life and are enjoying the season. I am trying hard to make sure that my children remember why we are celebrating Christmas and I feel more thankful than ever this year for my little family and extended family and also really great friends! We are so excited for Santa to come to our new house tonight... I hope he can find us!
********Merry Christmas!*******

12.19.2009

Are You Serious Isaac?

This will be especially enjoyable for Natalie....
We all know that I have 3 children, but only one does such crazy things that they end up as "stories". Well, the two older boys were doing jobs this morning, and I was getting ready. When I came out, I started looking for Isaac so I could "check" on him. He had locked himself in Bennett's bedroom and would not unlock the door. I kept asking him to unlock the door and after about 5 minutes of him refusing, I told him to do it now or I would call the police and they would break the door to get in. Finally he opened it, but he was screaming and crying... no, he wasn't hurt. He was scared and guilty. I looked over at Bennett's bed and saw two tootsie pops half eaten and wrapper pieces everywhere! Deja vu! Hasn't this already happened before? Apparently Bennett had been saving these two tootsie pops for a while in his drawer and Isaac found them. Bennett was really sad and Isaac had a nice long time out.....

12.17.2009

Removing vaseline from hair

Does anyone know how to do this? It was hilarious tonight when I discovered it... and I hesitate to tell the story because this post could be titled "neglect". I am of course in the middle of unpacking and settling our home (which by the way I LOVE) and so the kids are all doing their own thing quite often. Isaac got tired of all the usual things tonight and decided to go into the bathroom and "wash his hair".
I assumed, wrongfully, that he was in his room playing peacefully, and specifically did not check on him because if I opened the door, he inevitably would want me to stop working and play. Anyone who thinks this is wrong of me has not had a 3-year-old, or it has been 20 years since they had little kids and they have re-made their memories to perfection. :) I knew he was completely safe in there since there are no chords, choking hazards, water, etc... After about 40 minutes of this, I went into the bathroom to put something away, and as I opened the door I smelled something wonderful... like fresh and clean soap. And, I was right! Isaac had unloaded about 1-2 cups of vaseline and about 1/2 a bottle of hand soap into a wonderful smelling lather that covered the mirror and his head.
I laughed SO hard (not a good reaction as far as teaching goes) and I went to go get my camera only to realize that I had no clue where it was... still packed somewhere. Darn it. He was so cute and messy and I thought it was funny until I put him in the shower and realized it would NOT come out for anything. Also he was screaming because it was in his eyes by now. I combed out as much as I could and was prepared to cut all of his hair off when Adam said it would ruin the clippers.... so what are my options now? Well, I googled it and got lots of crazy ideas including coke, Tide, eggs, etc... has anyone solved this before?
On an unrelated note, I love it when someone has a great playlist on their blog, and I found one on my friends blog this week... hope you don't mind Erin if I put a link for your music! It is all Christmas music and there is some that the kids love and some that I love... nice variety. They are our good friends that moved last fall from Las Vegas. Enjoy!

12.08.2009

Today Was A Good Day






It was Isaac's birthday...



... and we bought our first house.


12.07.2009

Don't Kiss Me I will Die


This is what Isaac said tonight, on the eve of his 3rd birthday. He was crying at bedtime because he was too tired, and I was leaning over his bed kissing his puffy cheek, and he said between cries: "Don't kiss me, I will die."

11.20.2009

On Being "Busy"

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I hate "busy". When there are people that are just generally busy and will make life busy when it could be otherwise are usually not my favorite people to be around. This past month has been maybe the busiest of our little family's life and I am against busy-ness, so I have not blogged in order to cut out something. Being busy is bad for everyone. My life's goal is to push away from being too busy. How many times have I used the word busy? I am trying to make you hate "busy" too. This word sounds stranger the more you say it. Let's all avoid being too busy when we can help it... okay?

10.26.2009

Our mountain and tootsie pops






This is the view I had a few days ago from my driveway... I love it when we get a little variety in the weather.







Imagine the two pictures above together. Here is the story.... Isaac was sleeping in my bed one morning recently when I woke up in the morning. It was time for me to get up and get the day going, so I snuck out of the room and downstairs with the other kids. I was so happy he had slept in so he could be happy all day! So, about 8:15 am (which is really late for him), he came slowly down the stairs. He looked really dirty, so I threw him in the tub really quick before we went on with the day. The day was busy, and I actually did not go back into my room all day! That night when I went in my room to sleep, Adam was staring at the bed. I walked over and saw three sticky sucker sticks stuck to my pillow, little pieces of torn up wrappers, and colorful spots all over the sheets.

It turns out that Isaac had woken up at some unknown time and spotted a little bag of 3 tootsie pops on the night stand next to him. (They were his big brother's from a party.) He then thought it would be best to lay on his mom's pillow and eat ALL THREE IN A ROW! --during which time he slobbered when his mouth was too full (hence the colorful spots) and then just simply left the chewed up sticks on mommy's pillow!!!! Why not, right?

10.20.2009

Idaho/Utah Trip

The Greene's had a nice sacrament meeting we attended and a really good lunch at their home afterwards. We love visiting Idaho!
Here are the boys in front of Grandma and Grandpa Greene's house. We also got to be with all of Adam's siblings and their families, and we got to visit my Aunt Nancy and a couple of her cute girls. We stayed with Adam's sister Rachel and had so much fun at her house with her family. It was a great little vacation.


On the way up we stayed with my Grandma Hill (who refused a picture) and she is doing really well! She has been sick for a while and is improving. I had fun talking to her and meeting up with Ash and Ben for lunch.

We also visited my Grandpa Hawkins. He is sweet and getting very old. My Uncle John Hawkins was there with him and we had a great visit with him. We always love to see him.

I could not get enough of the beautiful scenery in Utah and Idaho. I had to keep reminding myself that they will have snow soon and I will not... otherwise I'd pack up a truck and move to these beautiful places!

Me and cute Grandpa.


10.14.2009

COVERED

This is the Dexcom diabetic sensor: It is the world's best invention. It has a little tiny piece that attaches to your abdomen with a remote sensor (the size of a quarter) attached to it. Then this device above is kept in your pocket or on your belt loop (if your into that:) and it gives a blood sugar reading every 5 minutes.
And, it plots those readings for you so you can see exactly what your body is doing.
And, you can set a high and low number that will sound an alarm if you reach it. (The alarm sounds like a cell phone and you can even turn it to vibrate mode like a phone.)
We love this thing!
We bought it about a year ago and Adam has been using it on and off. The only problem was that the part that is attached to your body can only be in for a week, and they were $75 each... so he wasn't using it constantly because of cost. His control is amazing with it, though, so it was important to us.
We just found out that our insurance covers most of it now! I am SO excited. They don't have a great one for children yet, but they will and I get one for Jackson too. I love advances in technology.

10.13.2009

Adventures in Motherhood

Just to give some background.... I am NOT a shopper. I almost never go shopping for clothes for myself, and not for some noble reason, just because I feel stressed the whole time. Well, out of sheer need, I had to go shopping for clothes yesterday. The need being that I have not been exercising for a couple months and so my clothes have gotten a little tight and I hate that. So, I took my two younger boys and went to get some new clothes. It started off okay, but then progressively got worse. As I was trying on clothes (and not looking great in anything) there was cute Bennett YELLING at the top of his lungs "Mom, you are size __ (fill in the blank with the size you would hate to be)! That's a big number! What size am I, cause you're a size __!" Over and over again. Well, whatever. I didn't care too much but it was stressing me out a little. Then, my chapstick was used to write on the mirror when I wasn't paying attention. Isaac proceeded to do a huge poo in his diaper, followed by Bennett saying he needed to go potty. We had just gone (for him I might add) and so I knew it couldn't be that bad... so I did something I usually don't do, and I told him to hold it for five minutes. I had 2 more things to try on then I was done. As I took off the second-to-last pair of pants and shirt, Isaac started crying. I looked down and saw him with the 6 card (my number of items, not my size unfortunately:) on his finger like a ring. It was so tight and his finger was already swollen around it. I tried to keep him calm and just slide it off, but it was STUCK. So, I got the ruined chapstick and tried to lube it up. No luck. By now it was bright purple with veins and what not and so I took him out... had to pause to get some clothes on (!!!) and then ran out to the woman at the front desk to ask for lotion. We used that and it didn't work, so I grabbed the scissors (to the horror of this woman) and cut it off his finger. He still has a red ring around his little finger.... so sad. So, I went back to the dressing room feeling relieved only to see that Bennett had also relieved himself... darn it. I got my things, checked out and left with a kid covered in #1 and another with #2. Sorry this is gross. By the way, I am never going shopping again with little kids. :)
Now I remember why I never buy clothes.

10.11.2009

Game Day

I never usually blog about the kids sports because they are always in some sport and it seems boring for other people... but this is ALL we are doing lately so I figured it's better to blog about this than nothing:)!
We put our cute boys in the same league this time, but different sports, and they both ended up being the orange team... total coincidence! Both of them did well and had a lot of fun for the most part.

Bennett before the game. He was REALLY excited.

Jackson before his game and he was excited too but playing it cool.


Here is Bennett in the dugout waiting to bat. His main concern was the snacks... they had orange slices in the dugout and suddenly he LOVED oranges. Ate like 50. At home, he complains if I cut up an orange for him.

Here is Jackson's team after the game. There is one person missing because they left right when the game was over. Jackson did so well for his first real basketball game ever. Adam was his coach and he did a great job. All the team members were happy and had fun and they actually did a lot better than Adam and I had expected! I took pictures during the game but they are all too dark since we were in the gym... I guess I had the camera on the wrong setting.

Here is Bennett running in to home plate. They had the coach pitch to each player and if they couldn't hit in 4 tries, they got the T out and used that instead. Bennett smacked the coaches pitch every time. He did great!


10.09.2009

I would blog but....

.... there is nothing to blog about. Life is good and the boys are cute. Adam is coaching Jackson's basketball team and so we have practice a couple times a week. Bennett is playing coach-pitch baseball this fall and he is cute and very entertaining. Isaac wishes he could be on a real team and loves to go to practices. Isaac finished his bowl of cereal this morning and then took the leftover milk (while I was upstairs showering), and his watercolor paints and did some nice artwork. I guess they can be milkcolor paints too. It was disgusting to clean up... smelled lovely and it turns out that milk turns into glue when it dries! We went to Target and it is all I can do to not buy every Halloween product available. I love Halloween at Target. That is all.

10.04.2009

IDAHO!!



I really love Idaho in the fall and can hardly stand to NOT hop in the car and drive up there. The weather is unpredictable and the trees actually change colors, and it reminds me of college. Well, you can imagine my excitement when my in-laws got a mission call to Taiwan and told us that they would be leaving in October! Yep. That means a trip to Idaho in the fall. I am SO excited. It should be great! There is always that chance that it would snow, and my kids would be in heaven. We haven't been up to Idaho for almost 2 years, only because Adam's parents are so great to come here, so this trip is long overdue!

9.29.2009


I love the show "The Biggest Loser" and I especially love this contestant, Allen. He is by far my favorite so far.

9.22.2009

Adam and I went upstairs to go to bed the other night and found this cute surprise. He was asleep at the top of the stairs! I was so glad that he hadn't rolled in his sleep and gone down the 17 stairs below him.



That's how close he got. He is such a sweet boy. I love it when my boys are this age... it is so precious. The other day I asked him what he wants to be when he grows up and he said "a baby." His brothers laughed so hard and I told him he couldn't be a baby when he grew up, so what else would he like to be. And his new answer was "a garbageman." Is it bad if he idolizes the local garbagemen?
He also said last night when we were outside, "I want to go in a hot air balloon..... someday..... and go up to the moon." I was totally shocked at how old he sounded, and the fact that he thought of that on his own! And he totally stopped and thought of the word "someday".
Another cute thing from Isaac lately was this morning. I had on some brown pajamas with little, white butterflies on the pants, and he came up to me and said "those are the clothes that grandma and grandpa hawkins gave you?" He was totally right! My mom got these for me a few weeks ago. Then, later, he was sitting on my lap eating teddy grahams and he was setting a cookie on each butterfly and then picking it up and saying "thank you for helping me eat these cookies," to each butterfly.



Bennett arranged his MANY animals on his top bunk and asked me to take a "family picture". I asked him if he was in the family, and he said "of course I am! I am the dad of all of them!" When I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up (the same time as Isaac) he said he "wants to be air... so I can help people breath and live." He is sweet and hilarious and everything he says is even cuter because he can't say his R's yet. I should put him in speech, but I will be sad if he starts speaking correctly. He is like a cute, little british boy.





Jackson is out of the phase of accidentally saying cute things and into the phase of asking deep questions and being responsible. He is great!



9.17.2009

Obsessed

It's kind of embarrassing to admit that you are hooked on a kids TV show, but I like to reassure myself by remembering that some women watch soap operas and desperate housewifes, etc. That will be my rationalization... putting others down:)! So if you have not caught on to Arthur, it is on PBS a couple times a day and it is great. I tivo it and my kids are tired of it, but we watch it daily.

9.13.2009






















First Day of 2nd Grade






First Day of Preschool







Today, Jackson asked how babies get in a mom's belly, Bennett communicated mostly in sign language (his own version) instead of talking, and Isaac kept saying "hey- let go of my blouse" with a funny accent (courtesy of Nacho Libre). Fun Sunday.

8.23.2009

Cute Talking


I love the ways my boys talk and get words mixed up sometimes. I never correct them because it is too precious.
Jackson had a friend in our ward whose parents got divorced so he learned about that last year. Then, through the elections for president last year, he heard (somehow) about abortion (kind of bugs me that he heard that at school I think). Anyway, we have discussed both and taught him how we feel about both. I guess he just associates them with eachother because he now calls divorce- "divortion". It is SO cute and I love how innocent he is. He just said last night that he thinks someone got a divortion (referring to a married couple). I love it.
Bennett can't quite say his R's yet and so weird is "wee-ode" and my favorite is "weed me a stowee". I know he will get over it for his own good in the next couple years but I will secretly be so sad when he sounds grown up.
Isaac is the cutest talker of all, of course, because he is 2. He says "woo" for you and that is my favorite part. He always says "woo want wour shoes?" and brings me my shoes. He also still is obsessed with birthdays and when I made a cake for an enrichment activity last week he was FREAKING OUT about whose birthday it was. It was totally precious! I told him it was a lady's birthday and I was making her a cake and he went around talking about "happy birthday to the lady" and "where are the lady's presents" and "who took the lady's balloons". I felt sorry for him by dinner time and thought I should not make another cake in our house until it is for a real birthday he will get to see! He is totally obsessed.

8.19.2009

Have you ever lost your wallet or something important? It is the most annoying thing to me. I hate errors... and that sounds like I am a computer or something, but I really do hate small mistakes that cause lots of trouble.

8.15.2009

Things are a little WILD here....

The end of summer, before school starts, is a little dysfunctional over here. The boys are all acting like little animals in their cleanliness and fighting habits, and to top it off we have some animals here! The animals are the highlight these days....

This is our favorite dog of all time! His name is Digger and we babysit him for our friends pretty often. He is the best, most patient with Isaac, sweet, little dog.

Here is Bennett a couple nights ago ready for bed. He has on his way-too-small for him Super Mario Brothers pajama shirt (with long sleeves for those cold Las Vegas nights), a musket of sorts, and a coonskin cap he got from Grandma and Grandpa Hawkins for his birthday.


This is our new pet! And there is another one that was hiding so I couldn't get his picture. Our friends were moving to Washington and gave us their tortoises, and I must say they are the perfect pets for Las Vegas. They are small, live outside in a little habitat area that we (Adam) built for FHE on Monday night. They just eat minimal food, drink a little water, and hibernate all winter long. So, it is like having pets only 1/2 the year! They totally entertain the boys and give them something to do. So far they have been named: Sandy and Snippy, Sandy and Shelly, Sandy and Spongebob, and now apparently they are Sandy and Patrick. Like I said.... it gives the boys something to think about.



8.14.2009

The Snake Pit

I have been reading a couple of stories every night to my boys from this little book that my Grandparents gave me called "Guess What Grandpa Saw," and they LOVE it. This is their favorite so far, and I actually read it last night for the first time too. Here it is as told by my Grandma Hawkins about Grandpa:


In Ruby Valley, Nevada we had a small ranch. It was beautiful but had one problem- snakes. Often when Grandpa would go out in the yard or into the field, rattlesnakes would be there. Our neighbors were Shoshone Indians. Near their homes was a den of snakes. The Indians worried that snakes would bite their children as they did bite cattle, horses, sheep, and dogs. Grandpa was a young man with small children too. He looked carefully down into the snake den and saw hundreds of rattlesnakes in balls and crawling all over eachother.
Grandpa and the Indian men packed four hundred pounds of T.N.T. explosives on horses and went up to the snake den. They lowered the two and a half pound blocks of T.N.T. down to the snakes. They taped a blasting cap on the prima cord with a twelve inch fuse. Three of the Indians ran away. The chief stayed to help Grandpa. Then Grandpa got a match and the chief said "I tink I go." Grandpa lit the fuse and ran after the Indians to a big boulder they had chosed for shelter. The blast went off and hundreds of snakes and rocks flew high into the air. Most of the snakes were dead. Thise in the snake pit were dead too. The Indians thanked Grandpa. They felt much safer.

8.10.2009

Picture Overload!!!

Adam had 2 1/2 weeks off work so we filled it with vacations... and here are the pictures:

Bennett fishing with Grandpa Greene in Pine Valley, UT

Isaac reeling in a big one.... or just casting over and over again and getting caught in the weeds over and over again.

Jackson waiting patiently.


Grandma Greene and I relaxing on the blanket.








We also camped at Mt. Charleston here in Nevada. Here is a little boy SO excited to sleep in a sleeping bag!






We went on a nice hike.




Finally asleep....


Jackson late at night.


Sweet Ben.



Adam just a little annoyed at setting up the entire camp in the wind. It immediately died down when all the work was finished. He wasn't actually as mad as he looks.... I just got a picture at the right moment. Hilarious.




We stayed up late playing war with the kids. It was the easiest game and they LOVED it! Even Isaac got into it and he had the most fun. By the way, I won.


This was Isaac's reaction to the cards every time we said 1-2-3 and put our cards down. This cute face and jumping up came with screams and laughing. It was so cute and fun to watch him.








The first trip we took (these pictures are backwards) was to the LA area where we stayed in a couple different hotels, took Jackson to his appointment for the month at the hospital, went to an Angels game with some of my family, and crashed my parents anniversary celebration in Newport Beach.

Here they are with Grandpa Hawkins and cousin Zac Buck at the baseball game. They had a great time and Adam said it was a nice stadium and very cheap and family-friendly.



At our favorite beach, Newport!


This boy spent hours playing in the sand without stopping. He LOVES the beach.



Isaac playing with Grandma Hawkins. She was happy to have a playmate and we were happy she wanted to play with him. :)



Jackson did a lot of boogie-boarding and made me nervous with how brave he is now that he is 8. He would go way out where the waves started and he did great.
It was a really fun 2 1/2 weeks and today I got us all unpacked, laundry done, and back to normal. Adam went back to work and the boys played legos ALL day long.