Daily Joys

Okay, just got off of work and I'm too tired to write any stories. Thought I'd just post some pics of our typical days. I love summer and I especially love kids in the summer. I love them running around with no shirt on, I love their little tan lines, I love watching them splash around in water. There's nothing sweeter than a popsicle grin while swinging on the tire swing.

Why work when I've got this kind of help!

We eat out here almost daily

The day's not complete without an Otterpop

Summer Fun



Brayden and his buddy Carson

I LOVE baby bums!

Ok, so while going through pics I came across this pic and had a random thought. Does anyone see any resemblance, I see it in Brayden and me but with Tavita, I've got nothing.

We're Alive, Just busy!!!

I can't believe it's been 2 months since I last posted. My biggest problem is we've been so busy I don't post because I have way to much to post about and it would be a novel to cover our lives in the past two months. So, I will post little stories here and there. Hopefully two a day we'll see how it goes. Here's a quick summary of what's been going on:
-Thanks to multiple LATE nights (acutally early mornings) from Junior our upstairs (3beds and 2 baths) we are now living upstairs. We still need to finish our master bath but other than that it's looking great.
-We've had my parents, brother and sister, and Junior's parents all in for a visit. Ryan is now living with us and Junior's parents are here for another month. We've been staying busy and loving spending the time with family.
-We took a week long trip up to the Uintas. Loved it!!! absoultely goregeous up there. Junior and the boys got to experience their 1st rodeo.
I'm sure more stories will come as I download pics and what not. Anyway, the boys are at the park with their Nana and Papa and I've got to get on a run. Hopefully I can get the first of the pictures up tonight.

Thoughts from the once pretty mom turned fat

So, Brayden loves to watch mine and Juniors wedding video, especially before bed. Last night after his bath he had about 1/2 hour before bedtime and he asked to watch the video. Here's how the conversation went:
Brayden: "Can I watch Mommy and Daddy's movie?

Me: "You mean the one where we get married?"

Brayden: "Yeah, Mommy you so pretty in there"

Me (Feeling flattered): "Oh, thank-you, do you still think I'm pretty?"

Brayden pauses to contemplate then says: "No, just in the movie, not anymore."
THen as if to make up for things, "But in the movie you sooo beautiful, you just look like Mommy now."

Now keep in mind that earlier that day he was trying on a pair of my pants and he said, "I can't wear them, they're too fat."
And a few nights ago I was laying in bed with him talking about his day and as he was getting tired and starting to drift of he said, "Mommy, go sleep in your bed, you''re too fat for my bed."
He always says these things so sweetly and sincerly. Normally I'd be crushed if someone said these things to me, but I can't stay angry at someone who after saying these things takes my face in his little hands to make sure I'm looking at him and says, "I love you Mommy, you're my best friend." Times like those make up for all his little stinker moments.
Tavita know how to soften me to. He's definetly my headstrong one who has no interest in listening to what I have to say. I get so frustrated with the mischeif he gets into then he turns to me with the full-faced grin that makes his eyes disappear (Reminds me of Grandpa Orme) and his teeth in full show (he also has Grandpa Orme's front teeth, we named him well). When he gives me one of those smiles, my heart just melts and I don't care about the trash strewn around, Brayden's toilet dumped all over the place or anything else he manages to get into.
These two little rascals bring me so much joy.

Mother's Day

So as Mother's Day approached I had immages of me doing a lot of this:

And my angelic children spending the day doing this:

This is just how my day started. My wonderful husband let me sleep in while he made an amazing breakfast of Orange Pecan French Toast (seriously delicious, if you want the recipe let me know). I was awakened to Brayden giving me a card and hug while saying, "You're the best mom!".
However, as time went on mmy perception of my boys was more like this:

And I looked like this:

Here's a few highlights from things that happened in a matter of just over an hour before church:
-Brayden escaped to neighbors
-Tavita refused to take nap and was screaming the whole time
-While trying to calm Tavita he pulled down a picture and shattered the glass
-We heard Brayden say "Look" turned around and his brand new outfit we were going to use for pictures next week was COVERED with nail polish
-I got a half eaten worm (yes a real one) stuck to the bottom of my foot
-Found chewed up apple all over the bed with brown staings from the juice everywhere
-The pictures for my primary lesson wound up crumpled and strewn across the house.
The list goes on and on.
By the time we were finishing dinner at almost 8 at night (a very delicious steak dinner by the way) we were laughing about the whole thing. I just want to thank my boys for reminding me what it really means to be a mom! Hope all you moms had a wonderful mothers day.

Conquering the Elephant

So at the local zoo here (Hogle Zoo) there's this huge fake elephant that makes noises and occasionally sprays out a mist of water. For some reason Brayden is deathly afriad of the thing. You can hear the elephant throughout the majority of the zoo and whenever it starts making a noise, Brayden keeps one eye in the direction of the noise. My parents have a video of Braydens first encounter with the innocent elephant. Brayden has his hands raised above his head, running and screaming for dear life. In his first two visits we've tried everything under the sun to get him to touch the elephant. He'll get close to patting it, then the elephant starts to make noise and he's off again. Funny thing is he has absolutely no fear of the real elephants, he sits there and watches them beat the tar out of their food pinatas and begs to go in there and play with them. However, the fake elephant evokes every fearful emotion in him. This past week we went to the zoo for the 3rd since moving here and after riding the train Brayden begged to go see the elephants, which meant having to walk by the fake elephant. We had my cousin Lori (who is 5)with us and she and Tavita immediately walked up to the thing and started crawling around and under it. Brayden was keeping his usual distance when I tried convincing him to go by Lori and Tavita so we could take a picture. His response was, "No thanks, I'll wait here" and sat down on the bench. We sat Lori and Tavita on the trunk and for some reason Brayden decided that it looked fun enough to overcome his fear and sit with them. He was so proud to have finally touched the elephant but wanted to get down as soon as the picture was taken. Bottom line is, the elephant has been conqured!!!

Happy Birthday Papita!!!

Well it's been forever since I've posted. I need to be better so that way my post aren't always a mile long. So I'm going to skip over these past couple weeks and will keep this as short as possible. Just wanted to dedicate this post to my half-pint Evil Kanevil. Tavita turned one on Friday, this year has flown by and he has kept things busy for us. I often refer to him as our dog beacuase there are times where I feel like I'm raising a puppy rather than a baby. He chews on EVERYTHING, loves shoes, always has trash strewn everywhere, drools like crazy, drinks from the toilet (finally bought toilet locks), eats off the floor (he was sprawled out licking the Wal-Mart floor the other day),and manages to get into everything. He truly has a passion for life. He has never been one to sit and observe. Since he was a newborn he always wanted to be faced out and exploring the world around him. He is one never to back down from a challenge, if he's trying to climb ontop of the couch, the counter, the bed, the changing table, up the slide at the park, or anywhere else most 1-year olds will leave alone he keeps trying no matter how many times he falls until he succeeds. We went to get his 1-year pics done and they asked me if he was okay standing if he had something to hold on to. I just laughed. And sure enough they could hardly get any shots in because he was running around everywhere. But him on a little ledge, he climbed down and ran to the computer, put him in a rocking chair, he climbed out and ran, tried sticking his legs through the back of a chair, got out of that too. Like I said, he's not one to sit around but wants to be out there exploring. You can't talk about Tavita without mentioning his incredible appetite. He eats more than Brayden and I'm not talking baby food: apples, steak, chicken, rice, EVERYTHING!!! Only he's taking after his dad and starting to refuse vegetables. I'm so grateful to have Tavita and all his spunk and character in my life. He keeps me hopping, no need for the gym when he's around, also keeps me laughing. He loves to dance (does the haka), sing, and sword fight (sound and everything included) The local grocery store here gives a free cake for 1-year birthdays and writes Happy Birthday with the childs name included. I told them his name was Tavita, the girl looked at me and repeated what I thought was "Tavita", I nodded, she gave me a funny look and started writing. I sat there thinking, "come on it's not that unusal of a name". With a few flicks of her wrist she was finished, handed me that cake, and I started walking out. I looked down and read, "Happy Birthday Papita" I started cracking up. I would've taken a picture but Brayden was so excited to show Tavita his cake that he flipped it sideways and the writing came off. Nonetheless, I love my little Papita! Here's a little slideshow, since I'm so bad at posting, I have to create these to put all the pics together so my post aren't any longer than they already are. Our camera is slowly breaking so the pics aren't too high of quality

Life in P-Town

So, here's a post I started Friday but just got around to posting.

Any of you that know me know that I am definitely much more of a warm weather person than a cold. I love just about everything about summer: the warm, the green, the activities, the BBQ, the water etc. However, I equally detest winter and just about everything there is about it. I do enjoy the cold and snow for the holidays because it adds to the whole atmosphere of things. However, if it's not Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve or Christmas Day than I expect it to be in the 70s or higher. I think I was the only one in the entire town, perhaps state, that never once grumbled about the abnormally high temperatures and extended summer we had this year. However, I was probably the #1 complainer about the cold. I grumbled about having to bundle the kids up to walk across the streed (we were ALWAYS late to everything, about being stuck inside all day, about shoveling my driveway, about having to wait for the car to warm up, about the lack of sun etc, etc. One could imagine my joy when I was able to take the kids out earlier this week and play outside without feeling the need to race into my warm and toasty house. Just as I was getting all geared up for fun filled days in the sun, Mother Nature decided to play a trick on me and give me a bunch of clouds and a forecast of rain/snow for the next three days. UGH!



Anyway, so here I sit on my comptuer instead of outside. I'm actually relatively caught up on housework and have both kids down for naps. Times like this are a true rarity. So what do I do with my few golden moments of freetime? BLOG! I knew there was a reason I never wanted to start this. So, since all you encouraged me to start one, you now get to listen to my random thoughts. Last night we had a Relief Society "Birthday Party". We had a speaker that was absolutely amazing. If I had to make a list of my top 10 favorite talks this talke would make it. I left feeling grateful for trials and ready to take on the world. She used quotes from the general authorities that really put things into perspective. One of my favorites was (paraphrased) "EVERY trial we have no matter how big or small is absolutely vital to our eternal salvation. The Lord loves us so much he would never give us an ounce of trial more than that which is neccessary for us to gain exaltation." She encouraged us not only to try and "survive our trials" but rather "not shrink from them" or in other words, when confronted with a trial (physical, emotional, spiritual) face it head on, allow for it to shape you in the way the Lord would have it. I truly enjoyed it.



Well, this blog is getting long and I've been meaning to post pictures for ever. Rather than post them individually, thought I'd just throw them all into a slideshow for you all to enjoy. For those of you that didn't know, Tavita was really sick the past couple weeks with RSV. Doctors considered hospitalization but luckily we were able treat it from home by giving him breathing treatments witih a nebulizer. He absolutely hated it but it worked wonders and Brayden thought it was hillarious. The first time I gave him a treatment Brayden looked at him with his mask on and steam billowing around his head and started laughing hysterically. I asked him what was so funny and he said (between heaves), "Tita's a cho cho train. A Gordon cho cho train." Why he chose Gordon I don't know but Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends is associated into every aspect of his life. That's how he learned his colors (Blue like Thomas, Green like Percy etc.) Anyway, some of the pics are of when Tavita was sick others are just some randoms from the past few weeks. The pics of Brayden boasting his potty training success and Tavita learning to walk are actually about a month old but it's been their latest milestones Enjoy!