Buzz and Scissors

We fulfilled Josh's dream and for his birthday he got Buzz Light Year AKA "The talking Buzz"And this was his face!


However a couple of days later this was his face. I asked him why he wasn't playing with his new Buzz very often and he replied, "Mommy-O I wanted a talking Buzz Like Andy has in the show that walks and talks all by itself". Understanding dawned and I informed him that the Buzz only walked and talked by himself when Andy was out of the room. Everyone knows your toys can't come to life while you're in there. This seemed to satisfy him somewhat.
Then today I came home from buying supplies for his Joyschool class and he spotted the kid scissors.
And made this face. He cut paper and "tickets" and "surprises" for us all afternoon. I'm pretty sure he would have slept with them if I'd have let him. I was also informed that since he had big scissors his was big and he needed to go to a big school like Uncle Adam. Hope he's not too disappointed when I teach him on Tuesday. Really no need to ever buy kids toys - don't know why I continue to do it. He's much happier putting on his pretend costumes.



Although for his birthday he also got this real costume and it's still a hit:)

Beach House

In an attempt to be somewhat chronological I thought I'd put up pictures of our fabulous beach vacation before doing the boys birthdays. And as lame as it is this is the only picture I have of where we stayed - downloaded from their website:) None of us brought our cameras to the beach ever so all my pictures are from one of the first nights were we threw Justin and Josh a little birthday party.
Grams trying to be fair and let everyone have a turn blowing out candles - I love the look in little Natalie's eyes.
What a good grandma - She liked to eat on the balcony with the little ones.
This random pictures is included because it was in with the beach house ones. Josh was using his underwear as a holster and it got "stuck" you can's see the total panic on his face. I thought it was hilarious.
Drove down to Sand Diego and saw a few sights - rolling down this fabulous hill was a must - especially when all rolled up with your dad or one of the uncles.



It was soo much fun! Would highly recommend it to anyone. Sleep was not in great supply but I've discovered with two children it's slightly over rated - only slightly though:)

Sweet Hour of Solitude

I have again rediscovered how getting up before my kids makes me a much happier person throughout the day. Not sure why I have to keep rediscovering it, it's way too easy to get out of the habit. I don't manage to pull it off everyday - but when I do I always find myself praying and thanking Heavenly Father for this time. I usually either read my scriptures or workout - and give Justin one word answers when he attempts to talk to me. I attempt to do both but my kids are like their Mom and like to get up early, let's be honest sometimes I only get 10 minutes, but every little bit helps.

So here's to alone time! I hope all of you manage to find some on a regular basis.

Coming soon: the boys birthdays!

Getting Married and Adam Visit

So I've been meaning to post some pictures of our fun visit from Uncle Adam for quite some time - don't want him to feel left out since I know he reads my blog daily. And here's my 365 pages from the days that he was here:) Kill two birds with one stone.


I also have an announcement. Josh has informed me that he's gotten married. He's been quite fascinated with the concept ever since I explained my wedding ring to him - he really wants his own ring. He began by asking me who he could marry since so many of the options are already married. He started with Auntie Jessie, but I had to kill that one fast since there's a good chance she'll be married in the next year or so and he would be crushed. Then he decided on maybe Ms. Natalie - don't ask me why he's not into marrying girls his own age. Then.... he saw the Little Mermaid. Really liked the show. Then.... as a special treat Justin and I took him to see Fantasmic at Disneyland (worthy of another post in and of itself). Ariel happened to have a small part in the show. The next day he informed me that they were getting married and he showed me his finger where his imaginary ring was. Depending on the day you ask him, sometimes they live in the ocean and sometimes they live on land. :) Cute kids!! What did I do before I had them to entertain me?

Best Buds

Anna completely adores Josh - which is why I think she started crawling so early - to follow him around. And he is loving his big brother role and is always ,"keeping Anna safe". by making sure there's nothing little on the ground, making sure she doesn't fall off stuff etc. I hope it lasts:)

Some Reccommendations

If you're trying to lose weight - and since about half my friends just had babies I know some of you are.... not that you need to:). There's a really cool website Justin found and that I've been using :
dailyburn.com. Basically you put in your current weight and your goal weight and then it gives you how many calories, carbs, proteins, and sugars you need to eat to lose a pound a week - without exercising or anything. It takes about 5 minutes to input the food you've eaten - the program does all the math. It's been really helpful for me to just be more aware of what I eat. I was really frustrated because I was working out everyday and not losing anything and when I put in what I was eating it became obvious why I hadn't made any progress. You can also use it to track exercise goals and... it's FREE:)

Also is you haven't seen Marly and Me yet I'd highly reccommend it. It's such a good, clean, uplifting show about a real marriage, not the courtship, not the break up, but a marriage:) - and the dog comes into play too:)

Aubree's Wedding

Fun although exhausting week with family. I honestly can't believe that Aubree's married, when I first started going to Justin's house she was in 8th grade, man I feel old now. This first picture is of Josh's new spiderman fishing pole from Papa and Grammy. Josh got super sick before we left but he still insisted on going to try it out for real. The second one is not the one I meant to upload but it's of the fabulous Sarah and Robby who kept my children happy and whom they absolutely love. Josh called Robby the "boy Robby all week" and Aubree the"girl Robby" quite entertaining.

Weddings always make me want to get married again - I have such wonderful memories of that day. We had a great time with cousins and family.







































It was crazy hot waiting outside the temple. I laughed when Justin's Dad suggested we bring umbrellas for the heat. I was soooo grateful he brought one.
















































































Fun at the hotel. The bottom pictures are pictures of the dress that Aubs wore in the temple - it was her Mom's wedding dress. Nifty huh.

And I have to say Aubree's reception was decorated gorgeously and the food was delicious!!

Chasing Dreams

Acck - so I haven't followed through with my promise of updates for a very good reason. I realized that Justin had the laptop with all the pictures on it at Scout Camp with him. So I promise I will follow through on that thought this week. Thinking of all the things that I want to blog about and never quite do such as:
Beach vacation
Adam's visit
Everyday things so that this blog can really become my scrapbook
Aubree's wedding
Importance of family's in general
Random things about myself
the temple
Thoughts on the future - seriously where will we be a year from now???
The hilarious things my kids do - such as Josh announcing he has hair on his chest and is now big like Daddy
Anna crawling - and her sunshiny personality
How much I love Los Angeles
How much I love my friends - even the long distance ones that I never call back because the only time I can talk without carrying on a conversation with Josh is when he's asleep and well... i usually fall asleep too - so know that you're loved
etc etc

Really it's quite a long list. Anyways, it got my thinking about my list of what I want to be. I'm a total list person. I seriously make lists in my journal of how I want to change and make lists everyday of what I want to do - it just gives me the illusion of being more together.

So here's my list of what I want to be:
seamstress
quilter
family historian
awesome mom
cook
volunteer
literacy activist
political activist - or at least know what's going on in more detail
missionary
international development person (my first major)
pianist - first goal is to learn all the hymns in the hymn book - one month later - still on hymn one.
speech pathologist
scriptorian - or at least study my scriptures more deeply - ok I want to be a spiritual giant why think small
anti-child prostitution activist
athlete
Student -Go back to school and get my masters - maybe several masters I seriously love school
world traveler
Totally involved YW leader whose girls cry when she gets released and activates at least 10 inactive girls
Linguist - I would love to be able to speak Arabic and Spanish
Hot Sexy Fun Wife - I think the athlete part might come into play a little more here
Amazing conversationalist
Great Blogger - People dying to read my blog, find it humerous, original and enchanting:) and leave me hundreds of comments
Financial Guru - or at least have a better understanding of the market


I'm sure this list will grow and change with time. I get really excited even just looking at it - thinking of everything I could do with my life. But how do you choose what to work on? How do you balance everything? any thoughts? Use nap times, early mornings, late nights? - the truth is I love sleep and I'm not so good at giving it up - and I've been working for Justin's company as well to try and get his dream off the ground.

I've actually been looking at the speech pathologist thing in more depth again lately. I revisit this question every 9 months or so. I quite my masters not only because Justin was getting a job in California but because I wasn't enjoying therapy. I absolutely love the subject matter though, I find it completely fascinating. Justin and I were talking about it recently and he pointed out that I've become a lot more confident and outgoing in recent years and a huge part of my dislike for therapy was the stressing over doing it right and the fact that my teacher and the parents were watching me. - so my guess is I'll finish it up eventually. I recently had a good friend mention that it's really easy to work very part time for the state in California and I've been looking into that as well. Somehow, I've been feeling lately that I should be more than "just a Mom". Although I feel like it's more what I feel like others expect of me more than it's what I really want for me at this time in my life. Do you ever hear yourself saying, "I stay home with my kids... but I do ____ too" when someone asks what you do? And while I do think that you need to take care of yourself as a person and maintain your own interests and goals if for no other reason than you'll drive your kids completely crazy if you can't let them go my testimony has really grown lately that being "just a Mom" and a wife is the most important thing so...

Here's the truth of the matter when I think of the time commitment that at least that goal would involve - I don't want to do it because honestly doing Project 365 has made me more sappy than usual and I don't want to miss a single minute of my kids growing up. So my conclusion is that life is exciting and wonderful and there is a season for everything - although we definitely shouldn't get lazy or let opportunities slide by - as with all things it's a matter of prayer. So as cheesy as it sounds, right now I'm pretty much living my dream.....

Playing Catch- up Sea World

So I'm really behind on our life. We've had company or been on vacation for two solid months. So over the next couple of days - While Justin's at Scout Camp I plan on catching up a bit. I'll start with Sea World - Toward the end of our adventures because I promised Jessie if she emailed me the pictures off her camera today I'd put them up today. ...

The pictures are slightly out of order and I'm too lazy to try and change them around. But here's how the day went. I found a killer deal for tickets on Craigslist. We take to the counter and.... we'd been scammed. The tickets were legit it just turns out the guy bought tickets, printed out multiple copies, and then sold all of them. Unfortunately one of his other customers had been before us so it was showing that our tickets had already been used. Major Bummer! They gave us 20% off but we still had to buy new tickets, and my sweet brother and sister (or actually it ended up being my Dad had to buy two sets of tickets too) - still feel awful about it. We do have the guy's phone number though so we'll see what we can do with it. .. I just found it yesterday so I'll keep you updated. So we're trying to shake it off and still enjoy our day without being totally frustrated and we decided to start with the Shamoo show. Justin and Adam went to save seats and Jessie and I took Natalie and Josh to the Kiddie rides/ play area thinking that would be a great way to start the day. (I took Natalie with me to Sea World while my sister Amy and Mom watched Anna for me). Natalie LOVES Elmo so we head for the Elmo rockets first. WE get on, Josh totally stoked - Nat looking pretty nervous. Then they made her get off of Jessie's lap. TOTALLY LOST IT. The had to hold the ride while Jessie and Natalie got off. Natalie was kind of hysterical for a little while, but when we got to the Shamoo show she calmed down a little. Although anytime we went back there she would moan, "No ride, No ride". I took her into the Elmo store while Josh went on rides, which made her very happy as you can see. She loved putting Elmo and Zoe in the double stroller. Our day got much better from there. The kids loved everything, the shows were great, Natalie got to see a dancing Elmo, and JEssie and Adam were sweet enough to watch them so Justin and I could go on the roller coaster. Don't think it was worth the hour wait but it was still fun, lots of chatting and observing other people in line time - Disneyland definitely has superior line management. The kids loved the sharks, and apparantly the penguins which is humerous since Josh had been saying all week that he hates birds - think he got that one from my Mom and her annoyance with sea gulls - not sure what he thought when he found out penguins were birds. Then both kids fell asleep in the middle of the dolphin show. I was holding Josh, Justin had Nat - Nat fell asleep sitting up and knocked her head on the railing, still didn't wake up, got them both in their strollers, and they still didn't wake up. All in all it was a fabulous day! Wish we had more pictures.

Oh I forgot to mention one more funny story, I totally had Josh pee in a bottle in the middle of the Shamoo show. He had to pee just as it was starting and I knew he'd miss most of it if we had to go find a bathroom, Justin, ADam and JEssie were not impressed.