Gettin' Busy

Well we finally put up our Christmas tree. I feared it totally wouldn't fit our house because our ceilings are a little over 7ft. and our tree is 7.5ft. We bought it on sale 2 years ago after Christmas thinking we wouldn't be at this house for long-and since there wasn't much selection--but it all worked out. I just had to fold a little bit of the tree over to get the star on but it looks really really nice. I mentioned to Brandon that maybe today we could put up the tree and he just couldn't wait-so I lugged it up from the basement-and it actually was a lot lighter than I thought--and since it's pre-lit and only has 3 pieces it was simple! Putting up the tree won't be such a chore anymore!!

Yesterday we went to see Santa-No pictures because we didn't want to pay and you can only take your own pictures on Monday evenings. But it doesn't really matter since Tyler only gave him a high 5 and Brandon wouldn't touch him at all. They enjoyed their candy canes though. Today Brandon says that he didn't want to tough Santa because he had gloves and not REAL hands. I don't think it would have made a difference--but it's cute anyway.

Oh when we got back from Thanksgiving we finally found and installed our new TV stand-it looks wonderful and it doesn't strain my neck to look at the TV anymore!

I'm almost as excited for Christmas as the boys are..Brandon keeps saying that we need more presents under the tree and that he wants to wrap some of his own toys-but I wrapped a few dinosaurs and I'm done with that. The first thing Brandon does when he wakes up is open another window from the Chocolate advent calendar-he is just super excited. I'm starting to realize that we won't be with Eric for Christmas and it's sort of sad-but we'll be with family and he'll be making good money..plus we'll see him soon afterward!

Tyler's Birthday

Tyler had a wonderful Birthday-even though I was unprepared as a Mommy. There was only 1 present for him to open on his birthday-but I made up for that later and he forgave me!

During the day the boys helped me make the Elmo cupcakes. They enjoyed that, then later we got to eat them. Tyler didn't know how to blow out the candles-he pointed and said fire. Ultimately as you see in the movie Brandon had to help. Tyler liked his Elmo cake and it was fun.

The boys jumped up and down in anticipation for Daddy to get the toy out of the box..it's this motorcycle race thing and of course Tyler can't do it himself--but between Tyler and Brandon they LOVE it. Later he got plenty of toys from Great Grandma and Great Grand Dad, Grandma and Grand Dad, Grandma and Grandpa and Nana--THANK YOU!

This is his Elmo Cake--I know not too much resemblance..but Tyler thought so!


The Elmo cupcakes-these look more like him, but they don't all have blue eyes--oh well!




SO happy-even if it's just ONE!

Chaos

Well not too much has been going on here-I've been exhausted..the boys have woken up before 6AM every single day this week and it gets tiring. I've been missing my morning prayer-so I don't get that extra strength from Heavenly Father during the day. Like Elder Bednar says in the conference issue-morning prayer is important in the spiritual creation of each day--so instead of more patience my patience is wearing thin, kids are starting to have attitudes and I just want a NAP! When #3 gets here all will be well because I'll have something to do rather than sit around feeling grumpy or tired. We do have some fun making tunnels, caves, coloring and today we froze our butts off walking to the park and playing (they FINALLY put swings in our park that's just down the road)!!! There is joy in this journey but this week joys are small and simple-which is good-but hard when you're so exhausted!

Small, Simple, Weird

Well I can't really think of much that's been going on. So I thought I'd share some weird things that are going on.

Brandon has finally figured out how to give a thumbs up and he's proud of it! Before it was lots of thinking and without help he ended up just pointing.

Brandon has decided when he sleeps he needs to be completely covered-the covers over his head, this week Tyler has followed suit..I know crazy.

Tyler has to say " I did it" every time he does something on his own, or "I eat it" when he's eating something-weirdo!

I don't know what we're doing for Tyler's birthday and it's in a little over a week-all my gift ideas are on his Christmas list--it's okay I'll think of something I just don't know what yet. I do know I'm making those Elmo cupcakes from Jessica Myrup's blog..those are easy and I'm certain yummy!

November 4th

I have a couple things to post. Eric and I both had the opportunity to vote and that was awesome! So that was a good experience and there were NO lines which was WONDERFUL! We each got a sticker and the boys wore it proudly!

Earlier that morning the boys were looking for me-and the first place to look these days is the basement..I went to see what they were doing they had a mop and a broom and were cleaning for me. That was so sweet of them! They enjoyed doing it too! I just had to post how thoughtful they were-then later Brandon had to tell me if Tyler wasn't cleaning-as if it was a chore I'd given them and he was slacking! It was fun and cute!

November 3rd

November 3rd I found out that I'm due May 25th and I was able to hear the baby's heart beat which was awesome. So I'm 11 1/2 weeks-which is a little sooner than I thought but the sooner they better! I like my new doctor-I feel like I'm in Logan again with a personal doctor just for me and I'm very excited. He's a family practitioner so I can switch all the kids to see him and I think I will -and now Eric has a doctor so it worked out great. The only thing is that he doesn't accept plastic--it just causes more planning ahead but I can do it.

Halloween Overdue

Well it's been almost a week since Halloween and I still haven't posted my pictures yet...sorry. It was a great Halloween-we did a combined 2 ward Trunk or Treat and there were so many kids we ran out of candy-unfortunately it seems like there was almost all chocolate candy so the mix wasn't great to raid from their bags..but each boy got almost a full gallon zip lock back there was LOTS. We knocked on 2 doors on the way home..one of them was the scary house we were addicted to looking at each time we passed in the car. They got a whole bag of stuff from there and they thought it was way cool.

After the trunk there was dinner and face painting so the boys really liked it. It was hard keeping track of 2 boys and a hurt foot when Eric was away in the HUGE line getting food--but it was worth it! I was pooped by the end of the night-but it was fun.

The morning of Halloween I took the boys to this new place called Hop2it
It has lots of blow up bouncy things for the kids and it was a discount on Friday-it was really fun! The very first part of playing I fell climbing up a latter and I hurt my foot. But I just kept playing because it wasn't that bad..later when I rested during Tyler's nap-I guess my foot decided it had had enough and totally gave out on me. That's why the picture of us sitting in our trunk I have ice on my ankle--yeah I think I sprained it-but by Saturday I was fine.

..........DRUM ROLL PLEASE...

Last night we set up our TV that's been sitting in our basement for about 10 MONTHS!!! Let's all SHOUT for JOY. It's sort of crazy because we set it ontop of our current entertainment center and it's too high but it works until Christmas or until I get get something super cheap or free. Never the less I'm super-super-super excited!

Also this is Eric's LAST day on phones. He got a new position-the position he used to have -Team Lead..it starts on Monday but I guess he gets to start setting up the rest of the week. We're all very excited for this! We're cool staying in Twin a bit longer and no longer want to sell our house.

Pumpkin Carving

Monday night for FHE we carved our pumpkins. Seems like this year it went really fast-but it was still really fun. Tyler wasn't so sure about touching the inside because we kept on saying eww..so finally he barely touches it and says EWWW--it was funny. This year we carved a happy pumpkin and a scared pumpkin. It was fun to spend that time together.

The boys are WAY more into Halloween than they've ever been. Brandon wants to look at all the scary houses-and when Tyler sees scary things he says scary and just loves it-for once it's good to be scary! They are getting so excited. Each morning Brandon wakes up he tells me how many days it is until Halloween I think we started Monday of this week-he's really excited and wants to trick or treat at the super scary house!

Everything Fun

Well we sure had a FUN week in Utah. Too bad Eric couldn't be there with us..but the boys and I had a blast! We started off going to Pumpkinland. Tyler sad by these HUGE pumpkins, I was very impressed by their size. Brandon loved the corn maze-I'm glad that we finally found the witch and the end-it took a while, and it was hard staying as a group with two running boys. It was a bit windy but of course Brandon and Tyler had tons of fun anyway.

There's a couple shots of us just having fun with Grandma and with cowboy hats. Brandon's really into them I learned. Brandon is playing lava all the time-a game he plays with Grand Dad when we're there..you can't put your feet on the carpet or the HOT lava will get you-or sometimes it's shark water-or snakes. It was really fun to visit-even though when we are down there Brandon and Tyler wake up SO early-it totally burns me out.

I did read an outstanding book while I was there. Moonraker's Bride. The author is Madeline Brent and I recommend it to all lovers of romance-but no yucky details-I just loved it! Thanks Linda for letting me get absorbed with this novel!

Our final stop was in Logan. We got to visit with Brett and Shanna and it was fun hanging out. Then we visited the Pumpkin Walk with Michelle, Barrett and Abbie. Some of those pumpkins were incredible-I'll post some pics of that too. It was fun to do that with family, and chat and just hang out.

Unfortunately on the way home-I went to Tremonton but I didn't know I was to get on south bound I-15 so I took a detour home..but we made it safe and sound.

It was a really fun week and the boys were good in the car-I'm getting ready for our trip down at Christmas time, because I know poor Eric will have to work.

PUMPKINLAND

GRANDMA'S HOUSE




THE PUMPKIN WALK

Potty Training III

Well Brandon is doing the same-probably less enthusiastic to pee, but I keep reminding him. The new exciting news is that Tyler is starting to go potty. He's excited to get a puzzle piece to his potty chart just as much as Brandon. And I think he knows how to push it out-I set him on there, he's got a certain face and it just spills out-way better than Brandon..the second time around is easier! So I'm getting VERY excited. We'll see if the kids hold up when we're at Grandma Myrup's next week.

Potty Training II

Just wanted to post an update to potty training. Brandon earned his Jazz Transfomer on Sunday..we purchased it and while he was on the potty he got to hold it in the box. I also made him a puzzle chart-I cut Jazz up into pieces and numbered them and when he went he got to pick a piece out and match it to the correct spot. This worked super well for us. However he still doesn't tell me when he has to go I have to periodically remind him that he needs to try.

Thanks for everybody's input and maybe this can help another. I made a chart for Tyler but he doesn't quite get it yet-but hopefully sometime soon!

GO BRANDON!! :)

FLASHBACK

The snowman pictures were on the camera's hard drive-not a SD card like normal. I'm doing a YCC CD thing for the youth and so my SD card is gone-anyway. When I got the pictures off there were a couple other pictures of the kids about 1.5 years ago--so I thought I'd post them just because I enjoyed the flashback..maybe you would to.

This is Brandon almost 2 years old-about the same age Tyler is right now..man he looks little.






Tyler is about 4 months old. I don't even remember him having a Mohawk! But he's cute!

Snowman-or woman

Today when the boys woke up..yep you guessed it it was SNOWING. They were so excited about 8am they just couldn't wait to get out there in the snow. After I dressed them all up Brandon said "Mom I want to make a snowman" so I decided I could get out there and do it.

It was fun-for a while but then nobody wanted to help anymore and I thought Tyler was going to destroy him.

When decorating him I didn't want to have to go inside the house to get anything because that would be a big snowy mess. When I decided to make the eyes flowers that's when Brandon asked me if it was a girl snowman..so I guess she is! The nose is a pine cone and the teeth are rose thorns put in the snow thorn first. The buttons are dark leaves...I thought I was pretty creative. I did have Eric get a hat and scarf from inside-and Brandon was so proud her name was Teesee or something like that-I had NO clue what he was saying.

It was a good morning-she's WAY leaning now and the rest of the snow has already melted-but it was fun while it lasted!

Eric was going to mow the lawn for the last time-and do some outdoor painting his day got ruined-but he's okay since now we can have a lazy day!

Conference Weekend

First off-Brandon would like to thank his cousin LUKE for sending him copies of his "totally wicked" dinosaurs! Remember totally wicked from The Incredibles--yeah it's a saying around here..Brandon thanks you and can't wait to play Transformers with you at Christmas!

Now for conference...

We had a fabulous time in Utah for Conference weekend. I LOVE not having to dress up and drive to the stake center to watch conference! I really look forward to seeing family and spending time with them..it's just wonderful.

To start off our weekend Eric and I went to the USU v. BYU football game. Holy cow I really had a great time-we had 3rd row seats on the 35 yard line so we were close to the action...closer than I'd ever dreamed being and it was really fun. There was this lady in front of us that kept asking questions that was a bit annoying and she had a cute little boy I couldn't help but smile at every once in a while-but all in all it was a super blast and an awesome date! Thanks to Michelle we were able to go without our kids--Thank You! Thank you Shanna for being our chauffeur to and from the game!

Saturday morning the kids actually slept in to 7:40am so we got a late start driving down to Orem--we left about 15 minutes into the first session, but we had it on the radio at Michelle's. We listened to conference on our way down and it was the most I've gotten out of conference in a long time-not reading it in the Ensign. The kids were happy and I got to listen intently! Loved it!

The ladies get together during the Priesthood session was a total blast this year! Linda made a Halloween BINGO that I think I got more excited about it than Tyler..and there were gobs and gobs of toys that my kids are still going crazy over 4 days later! Awesome idea! And that absolutely loucious cake from Magelby's..thanks Lisa that was to die for!

Saturday night I was able to sneak in a game of Settler's of Catan--man I love that game! Thanks to Brett & Suzanne!

It was just an incredible weekend! I really love spending time with family-and if we didn't see extended family at the Priesthood session I'd probably sadly never see them..so I'm very grateful for that!

Me and the boys are looking forward to spending some time with Grandma in a couple of weeks. We can't wait!

Nothing exciting

I'm boring-I can't think of anything very exciting to put on here..apparently me and the kids have been bored this week.

Today I bought Brandon a potty toy..don't get too excited he's not potty trained yet-I bought him a toy to hold while he sits on the potty and so he can really dream about playing with this Transformer. I also made him a new potty chart. This one has a picture of the Transformer we bought for him as the car and the Transformer and I cut him into numbered squares so when he goes potty he picks a number, matches it and puts it in the right spot-when Jazz is all together-hopefully he's going each time he needs to and we'll be on our way to success! Tyler's feeling left out-so I think I'll have to get him a toy too-that would be awesome to do 2 at once!

Eric & I are super excited to rent Iron man-(I think it's out this week), we haven't been able to see it yet but have heard only great things about it..I put it on Eric's Christmas list already-he never knows what he wants.

Jessica Myrup is sort of getting me excited to start a new sewing project on my sewing machine..which I appreciate. I'm going to see if I'm smart enough to figure out a way to sew zippers on my couch cushion covers I made so I don't have to take the seem ripper to them, wash them, then sew them back up--but who knows how it'll work.

Hope you all have a fabulous week..we'll see some of you this weekend for Conference-we're super excited. Brandon just can't wait-he keeps asking who he's going to see..it's everybody he wants except his cousins Jake, Luke & Bryce..but hopefully we'll see them soon...

Silly Things

Well this is just a bunch of silly things our family has done.

A while back I did the octopus lunch..Brandon was so excited to eat one that we had lunch about 30 minutes early because he kept asking me if the octopus was ready yet-and I was sick of listening about that. Brandon thought it was super fun-he said he was the shark eating the octopus and it just made lunch a lot more fun!

Saturday I got our Halloween costumes out-to see what Brandon wanted to be..and he's been trying them on ever since. For Halloween he's picked to be the Shadow Ninja but since then he's been obsessed with playing Spiderman dress up. Yesterday we watched Spiderman and he had to put his costume on, do everything he does, climbing the couch for the walls and shooting webs, every time Spiderman had his mask off Brandon took his off, every time it was back on-everything. In about 20 minutes I made him put it on and off himself, thank heavens! It was still funny..then today he asked where the outfit was and he just pretended without the movie.

The other night in the tub they were pretending they were swimming and I couldn't help but get a picture. They were actually having fun together and not splashing. I really need to get Brandon in swim lessons-but I'm a slacker Mom.

Update

This week my sister did an update on what's going on with her family and I really enjoyed reading it-so I thought that'd be good to do for us.

Eric-He's currently cutting down on playing WOW his computer game (yeah) however he's still way busy studying for more computer certifications-this one is MCSE..it's a bunch of tests! And still waiting to hear back..

Brandon-his favorite things are Transformers and Ninja Turtles. Today at church he had a bunch of toys--a space ship, a semi-truck, a yellow car, a helicopter and he was going ch-ch-ch and then they'd all be up like transformed people-then ch-ch-ch and they'd all be on their wheels or bottoms it was cute.

Potty training is NOT going good. I don't know what to do. He can't pull his pants down..today at church I just kept a diaper on him-I know that's bad but he wears them at night and we only have about 5 left so I was conserving. But during church he said excuse me but I didn't hear anything and he looked like he was concentrating. I asked him if he needed to go potty-he said no don't check. So I think he was peeing--so at least we're starting to get some recognition going!

Tyler-His favorite thing to say is FUNNY: if other people are laughing he'll be the first to say funny! It's cute. Also I DID IT! He says it in a way that he's so proud of himself-climbing up on something, opening a bag, doing a puzzle, clipping the top buckle of his car seat whatever--and it's just so fun to hear him so proud of the things he's doing.

Me-well the kids are dying to use the computer. I'm currently in charge of finding a place in Twin Falls to rent month to month so that Eric will be convinced to put the house on the market. I'm about 9 months behind on scrapbooking and very sad about that. I'm frustrated about the whole potty thing..and I'm loving the last glimpse of warm weather we've got left and enjoying my time home with the kids. I've had a great week trying new experiments and really bonding with the kids!

Little fun things

So lately I've fallen in LOVE with this site Makes and Takes

there are SO many wonderful crafts and ideas on this site I've just been addicted the past couple days.

I'd like to share a couple that we've tried. First ice cream in a bag. I've heard of it before but thought Brandon's old enough now he'll actually think it's fun. Which he did squish it up towards the end and in 15 minutes we had a pretty good ice cream-granted not that much ice cream, but that's besides the point.

Then this morning I decided to try her Semi-Homemade Donuts they were better than I expected-since they are made from biscuit dough-which just aren't my favorite (store bought). However some of mine weren't quite cooked all the way. But for 2 bucks and hardly any time they were great!

Sugar Cookies

Brandon's been bugging me for a while to make cookies--and not just regular cookies..cookies with shapes and icing. We've never done this before.

I found some cutters from a friend-there was NO way I was going to buy them since it's obvious I never make sugar cookies.

Then we just had fun-Brandon LOVED cutting them out-he frosted 2 and ate 2 and then he was done, but I had a fun artistic time!

Tyler-yeah all he did was sprinkle sprinkles on and eat them. He was so kind to offer his services to sprinkle some of my frosted cookies..thanks Tyler.