Being Grateful

Having an attitude of gratitude is one of the things I am not wonderful at . . . yet. I am working on it. There are so many things to be grateful for, even when not so great things happen.

Yesterday my fabulous cousin, Kim, took our family pictures. Just as we left the house to meet up with Kim, I discovered my car had a completely flat tire. I am grateful that Jules was here and we were able to just swap the carseats and get on our way. I am thankful that we have roadside assistance that came and towed my car to Les Schwab. I am not as thankful that every time any mechanic looks at my car they find about $250 worth of work to do on it. Sigh. But I'm working on finding the positive in even that.

Here's the sneak preview of our family pictures! You'll just have to wait for your (practically free) Christmas cards to see the final pick. If you want to get on my Christmas card list, but I don't have your address, please leave it in a comment.

I hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Look How Far We've Come

Yesterday seemed like a pretty ordinary Sunday. I was up early and out the door to a meeting. I scrambled to get the kids and myself ready for church on time. We made it. We made it all the way through the 3 hour block with minimal crying and lots of toys and snacks. Typical. This Sunday was special though. It was 6 years ago that Ian and I got married in the Los Angeles Temple. We didn't do anything remarkable to celebrate. We didn't get each other gifts. But as I thought about our life together I couldn't help but count my blessings. 'Tis the season for that anyway, so here's what I came up with.

It was amazing that I met Ian when I did. I was not looking for a boyfriend, much less a fiance, but that's what I found the summer of 2003. Our first picture. We weren't even really dating yet.
We got engaged at the end of the summer and were sealed in the temple on November 22, 2003. It was a gorgeous California day. I loved my princess dress and my new husband.
We honeymooned then headed back to BYU to finish school. We made wonderful friends and enjoyed married life. Here we are on our 1 year anniversary at Bear Lake, UT. It was freezing and we had to do a project for a class during our weekend away, but it was still lovely.
In our second year of marriage we locked up our apartment and spent a summer in New York. That was such a fun time. About 2 weeks after getting there we found out I was pregnant. It was perfect timing.
We both graduated from the Y in December. In January Weston debuted a little early and we became a full-fledged family.
(Christmas right before Weston was born)
January 29, 2006-Weston's birthday.
The next year of our marriage was the toughest yet. I had a hard time adjusting to motherhood and our marriage had a difficult time adjusting to our new roles and balancing everything out, but we worked through it. Ian had his grown up job and I was spending most of my time with our sweet baby and the rest working at a job I loved. Life was good.

We bought our first house and a few months after moving in found out we were expecting baby #2. Almost exactly one year after moving into our house our family of 3 became a family of 4.
Davin is such a wonderful addition. The adjustment from one kid to two was much smoother than I anticipated. Things have really been great. We have such a blessed life. Sure, we have problems just like anyone else, but you know what, we love each other, we love our kids, and we love our Savior. Things always seem to just work out for the best. Ian has been working hard at Verite for almost 4 years now. He is such a good provider. He loves to be home with us though and is a wonderful father and husband. I'm thankful every day for him. I am thankful for our romance, our marriage, and our life together. I look forward to eternity together, and I'm sure that then we will really know the meaning of "look how far we've come."
We did actually get to go out on a date this weekend. We doubled with our friends, Tara and Justin, and went out to dinner and to see New Moon. I was very impressed with the movie. I really enjoyed it. It moved along better, the effects were better, and the script was better. I don't know if I can say the acting was all that much better, but overall a better movie than the first one. Go see it!

One of our favorite columnists, Eric D. Snider, did a rejected New Moon screenplay follow to his rejected Twilight screenplay. Pretty amusing. Check it out HERE.
My favorite Eric D. Snider lines:
BELLA: Edward! Stop! Put your shirt back on!
EDWARD: You don't want people to know I'm a vampire?
BELLA: No, it's just that after spending so much time with Jacob I'm embarrassed for you.
Seriously, Jacob was ripped and when Edward took off his shirt my friend Tara leaned over to me and said "Why couldn't they use the same trainer for him as they did for Jacob?" It was funny.

Yesterday evening my women's choir did our recording session for our CD. It was a much less intense process than when I recorded Simple Gifts (a CD) with the Southern California Children's Chorus, but still a long 3 hours. When I got home Jules and Ashlee were here! I'm glad they made it here safely because we got about 3-4 inches of snow yesterday evening/night. It was fun to visit, but we stayed up way too late. I will have to get myself to bed early tonight so we can play again tomorrow! I am so excited this week for Thanksgiving, to see my family, for our family photo shoot, and for my concert.

What are you excited for this week?

PS-Check THIS out to get you in the Thanksgiving spirit!
PPS-Isn't this the cutest thing you've ever seen? Apparently running errands wore the little man out. I sure love him.

Child Genius

I always knew Weston was a smart kid, but last night's parent-teacher conference allowed it to be confirmed. He is miles ahead of his class on almost everything. Before you praise my parenting skills, let it be known that Weston goes to public preschool at West Kearns Elementary School. There are a couple kids in his class that don't even speak English. Things Weston is not a genius at:
-He was unable to tear a piece of paper in half (one of the motor skills tested)
-He was unable to turn the pages of a book one by one (and yet who knows what book they used to test this one. As Ian mentioned, even he has trouble turning pages one by one sometimes)

His highest scores were on Oral Proficiency and Vocabulary. Surprise, surprise. He's such a chatterbox. Anyway, I was mostly interested to hear how he was doing socially. His teacher said that he plays well with the other kids and doesn't isolate (like I thought he might do). She also praised him for being able to calm down and be on task when he needed to be. He is good at focusing on what he is supposed to be doing. Hooray! It was kind of fun to hear about what he is learning in school. I decided that we will tear up some paper to make a mosaic one of these days as a craft and we will start working on holding his pencil correctly. That will probably help him with his fine motor skills.

In case anyone was worried Weston has zero self esteem problems. If I comment that he is funny or cute or silly he immediately (and irritably) counters with "No! I'm cool and smart and I can do tricks and I can do science." Those are his preferred complements. Here he is showing off one of his "tricks."

The Fun Winds Down

Saturday morning we all moved a little slow. When we finally got ready for the day we all went to the La Habra Children's Museum. I LOVE my hometown's children's museum. It is so much fun and just the right size to see everything before the kids are ridiculously tired and done.

The kids and Grandma thought the dinosaur bones exhibit was pretty cool. Davin hopped up there and started brushing away sand just like a big boy. He also roared the entire time at the dinosaur skull hanging in the corner above Weston's head. And look what Weston unearthed!
Grandpa helping Davin spin the tube of silt and water and watching it all settle.
This is in the preschool room. Weston was a little bit old for this room this visit, but Davin really liked the play kitchen, the giant tree house, and of course the rocking horse. This expression pretty much sums up Davin's visit to the museum. He pointed and exclaimed and babbled about everything he saw.
There is one room in the museum that changes every couple of months, so whenever we come it is different. This time is was about conservation and nature. Weston got to dress up in a pith helmet and explore the jungle. He found an iguana! (not real thank goodness)
Weston did the caboose tour for the first time. There are real (not working anymore) trains at the museum, so they take people through the caboose. Weston and Daddy climbed up to the seats to look out the windows.
Davin was a big fan of the carousel. He didn't even need me to hold onto him this time! He waved at everyone and cried when his ride was over, even though he did get to go twice.
In this room there were all these conservation displays. This one showed all the different kinds of fuel cars can use and how environmentally friendly they are. This is the only time all day that Weston would really smile for the camera.
Your Mission: pile as many fake foods as possible onto the hanging scale.
Status: Successful.
After passing quickly through the model train room we ended in the animal room. There are tons of taxidermy animals in here. Davin was overwhelmed and just went around and around pointing and saying "wow" and jabbering. This picture doesn't do it justice, so there's a video too.
It was a great trip to the museum, but we were hungry and sleepy by the time we were done. We had In N Out again for lunch because we could. Mmmm. While Davin napped my mom and I went and picked out ribbon for my Christmas tree, then we came home and she taught me to make bows for my tree. I am so excited to decorate for Christmas! After naptime we all went in the spa. The kids loved their big, long bath, especially Davin. He is just so much fun right now. I think Weston misses being the center of attention a little.

That night after dinner we cleaned up our colossal mess, put the kids to bed, and played Bananagrams with my parents. Ian and I packed up and then went out and sat in a much hotter spa for a little bit. It was just so fabulous. I was really missing living in California. Sigh.

Sunday morning we got up early early and hit the road for home. It was a long day. We drove from 5:30am-5:45pm (with an added hour for UT time) with stops in Baker, St. George, and Fillmore. I was pretty stoked that we made it with only 3 stops. Not too shabby. The kids were great for the drive, but we were all happy to finally be out of the car at the end of the day. I quickly unpacked everyone and then rushed off to my choir rehearsal. When I got home everyone was in bed and I crashed too. SO worth it.

Now we are back to our routine: school, cooking, cleaning, naps, bedtimes, outings, meetings, etc. We are looking forward to seeing family again though in just another week for Thanksgiving. I love it when there's not a huge gap between visits.

Tonight we have parent teacher conferences for Weston. He also had his first book order this week and school pictures. It all feels so grown up! I'm interested to see what his teacher has to say about him. I'll keep you posted. I'm also getting excited about seeing Twilight this weekend!

Surprise!

After picking up the kids from my Aunt Amy's house we decided that instead of doing another night in Vegas we were going to drive the rest of the way down to my parent's house in California. As soon as I explained that to Weston he started asking to go to Disneyland. Complete with "please, please, please, please." I diverted him by offering a beach outing instead. He seemed pacified. My sister, Jules, knew that we were coming, so she did her best to prep the house without letting Mom know anything was up. She did a great job because here is my mom's reaction when she answered the door to find her favorite grandsons on the doorstep.

We spent that evening visiting and playing with all of Grandma and Grandpa's fun toys. They got a train table since the last time we were there, so that was a big hit.

My parents both had to work on Friday, so we packed up the car and went down to Long Beach to pop in and visit all my grandparents on our way to the beach. First we stopped at Grandma Snowball's house. It was nice to see her and visit. The boys raided the Jelly Belly's and gummy bears, and Grandma was nice enough to loan us a couple beach towels since we had forgotten to grab some from the house.
Next we drove over to the Cal State Long Beach Institute, where Grandma Olson works. Sadly she wasn't there. Their house is only a few blocks away though so we drove over, but it was deserted. Luckily we got a chance to see them post-beach when the kids were pantless. We forgot to take a picture with them. Darn.

Finally it was beach time! We swung through In N Out and picked up lunch and then headed to Pooh's beach. A family friend (yes, her name is Pooh) lives right on the beach. I had called her in the morning and she was so sweet to let us eat at her house and use her bathroom. It was really fun to chat with her too. She has the greatest house right? (this past summer episodes of NCIS and Numbers were filmed at her place).
This was Davin's second time at the beach, but last time he was only 6 months old. He LOVED it. He wanted to chase the water the whole time. He stood on the shore throwing sand at the ocean and exclaiming at the seagulls. He particularly enjoyed destroying brother's sand castles, so Daddy made him some of his own to knock over (see video).
The weather was just gorgeous. Sunny and fairly warm for November. We eventually put on our jackets (only because of the ocean wind), but it was a far cry from the snow in Utah and we loved it. We had the beach completely to ourselves too.

Dad made the most amazing salmon for dinner when we got back. When the kids were in bed we went with my mom to Happy Feet for our 60 minute $25 massage. Ahhh Happy Feet.

Stay tuned for our fun-filled Saturday!

Vegas!

Long long ago Ian and I went to a timeshare presentation. We did not buy a timeshare, but we were rewarded for our 2 hours on a Saturday with a free trip to Las Vegas. We scheduled it in November so it could be our anniversary trip (actual anniversary is 11/22). In the end we decided to take the kids with us since it's just too hard to find someone to watch them for 3 days in the middle of the week.

My Aunt Amy generously agreed to keep the boys overnight so Ian and I could spend one of the nights we were going to be in Vegas on our own to celebrate our anniversary. Wednesday morning we got up, packed the car, and headed down the road to Vegas. Weston was excited for his sleepover with his cousins and we were excited for our night without kids. We got to Vegas in the afternoon after only 1 stop! Go us. We dropped the kids and their stuff off at the Overson's. There were no tears when we left either.

Ian and I went and checked into our hotel. Let's just say it was at the ghetto end of the strip. We stayed at the Sahara. After dropping off our stuff and changing out of my sweats we drove down to the Mirage and parked there for our evening out. We wandered the strip a little before heading over to Ceasar's Palace to eat at the Planet Hollywood restaurant. We got a gift certificate with our "trip package." The food was only ok, but hey it only cost us $10, so no harm done. After dinner we walked down the strip to the Bellagio. I love seeing what fun display they have in the lobby. This time it was the Fall one and my favorite part were the full size dripping trees. Gorgeous.
On our way out of the Bellagio we were just in time to see the dancing water show. It was kind of fun to watch it from the back.

We walked across the street to the Paris and put our names in at the restaurant there, Mon Ami Gabi, to get some dessert. We got to eat out on the patio across the street from the Bellagio. It was really nice and had a great view. It was a fairly warm evening, so we sat and people watched and ordered our traditional anniversary creme brulee. It was delish. They also brought out a warm French baguette with butter and this weird carrot slaw. It was pretty spicy and was apparently to cleanse the palette. We also caught two more water shows. By 9pm we were exhausted and went back to the hotel to get some sleep.
In the morning we grabbed some (free) breakfast at the diner and went to pick up the kids. They were good as gold. I am so grateful to have such sweet kids who behave well for others. :) I am also so grateful to my Aunt Amy for being so willing to watch the boys for us!

Day 2 to be continued . . .

Happy Weekend!

While baking brownies this afternoon . . . "Mom, you're really good at making treats. (pause) I like you. I also love you." --Weston

Me, happy to be out on a date with my favorite guy.

There's no denying treats are the way to our hearts. :) Last night Ian and I went out for a real date night! We tried a new (to us) restaurant downtown called Settebello. It was yum. I did prefer Ian's choice of pizza to mine, but both were good. Adjacent to the restaurant is a little gelato shop. I couldn't pass that up, so we got some after dinner. I had to try a bunch of flavors before deciding. I ended up going with Crema Baci. Next time I want the Ricotta. Mmmm . . . gelato.

After our dinner we went a few blocks south to Kilby Court to see the Headlights play again. They were fabulous, as usual. The crowd was smaller this time though, so we were front and center. They played a lot of my favorite songs too. It was good times.
Today was Fall Cleanup Day! I'm making that sound much more fun than it really is, but we have been having really beautiful, sunny weather this last week, so we figured it was a good day to clear away the mounds of leaves that have fallen. We filled up 8 giant trash bags with leaves, mulched the ones on the grass with the lawnmower, and Ian trimmed the overhanging tree branches that he could reach from the roof and blew out the gutters. Yeah, we're both pretty sore now. Massages are on the agenda for tonight.

During Davin's nap time I ran a bunch of errands with Weston. He was actually better than normal and I got grocery shopping for the week done! When we got home Davin was up, so we all headed over to the park to play. Have I mentioned we have had amazing weather this last week? Seriously 74 degrees on Thursday. Today was a little cooler, but still around 60 and sunny. Good enough for me.
I just recently started giving Davin real time-outs in the corner. He is so funny about them. Whenever he's in trouble, even if I don't say "go on time-out," he will run to the corner in the kitchen. Sometimes he cries and sometimes he totally doesn't care and laughs, but he sort of gets it and it's super cute.

Surprise Day Off

On Monday Ian's hard drive crashed on his work computer. Bummer. The good news is that his computer is still under AppleCare, so it can be replaced for free. The bad news is that they didn't have the part in stock when he took it in, so he didn't have a working computer. He didn't even have his laptop because another employee's computer is being worked on and he is using it. Instead Ian got an impromptu half day off yesterday! He had to go into the office in the morning to return the laptop that he had worked on late into the night on Monday night, but then he was home and hanging out with us.

We didn't do anything too exciting, but we took my car to the shop to get a part fixed and then took the boys to the park to play since it was such a nice day. For those of you who think Davin is never happy (based on the fact that he is rarely smiling in pictures), this is to prove you wrong. Yes, Davin is my whiny child, but when he's not whining he's so stinkin adorable. He grins and makes funny faces, roars like a dinosaur to scare me, copies his brother incessantly, and love his movies. He also loves to play outside and is definitely my adventurer baby.
Playing peek-a-boo with mommy on the playground. We kind of have the same goofy face going on. Eek.

This playground has a lot of spinning things. Weston hates them all, but Davin didn't seem to mind. I spun him pretty fast after this and he didn't fuss at all. He did fall over when he got down though. I imagine he was quite dizzy.

Needless to say I had a hard time remembering that yesterday was Tuesday and not Saturday. Luckily the part came in and Ian was able to pick up his computer last night and is back to work today. Weston is in school, Davin and I are reading books in between my typing sentences and Claire (my neighbor's daughter) is napping. I got a ton done on the house yesterday and it looks so clean with all the Halloween stuff taken down. I still need to mop the kitchen. I am just procrastinating. I hate mopping, but maybe during Davin's nap I will be able to get it done. In the meantime I will enjoy my alone time with sweet Dav.

Halloween Weekend '09

We had such a fun Halloween weekend! It started off with our ward Halloween party/trunk or treat. I was in charge of the games and so it was a little stressful, but still fun. I also made chili for the chili cook-off dinner. It was yum even though it didn't win. I think that the party was a success and I hope that my ward decides we should do it again next year.
***Little background info, in the past, the ward activities committee has planned a chili cook-off dinner in October, but put the YM/YW in charge of the trunk or treat as a separate activity. This year the activities committee had the chili cook-off scheduled for the 30th of October with no plans to make it a Halloween party. My YW President convinced them to combine it, so the youth still did the games part of it.

Weston loved all the games and trunk or treating, but his favorite was just running laps around the cultural hall with Davin while everyone ate (I fed my kids before the party since there's no way they would eat chili). Here we are before the party. I dressed up as a Cheetah, sort of. Davin was a puppy and Weston was Mike Wozowski.
Saturday morning we went down to the dinosaur museum. They were having a special activity called "Pirates, Pixies, and Pan." I didn't have the kids put on their costumes, but we brought our pirate gear. It was really very cute. First the kids got their faces painted. Weston was perfect and loved his pumpkin.
Davin was not happy about getting his face painted. This is the only picture of the mostly complete skull and crossbones before he smeared it and ran away.
Next up was some archery. They had a big picture of a bear for the kids to shoot at, but our wandering Davin tried to be the target a couple times. Oops.
After shooting the bow and arrows the kids made Indian headbands. Davin decided he liked wearing that better than his pirate hat.
Finally we went for a tour of the pirate ship. The captain was pretty good. He never broke character and used lots of bucaneer-y words that Weston didn't understand. It was kind of a long tour that mostly included standing around, so by the end the kids were bored, but I still thought it was a great activity, especially since it was free with our Thanksgiving Point membership. Love that pass!
After all the pirate fun we did a quick wander through the museum before heading home for lunch and naps. Amazingly enough both boys took great naps! Finally, after a Halloween picnic dinner of mummy dogs we got the kids in their costumes and headed out for some trick or treating! Weston was so excited. Davin had no idea, but was a happy camper and lasted for about an hour. He didn't want to be left out so he knocked on the doors and then had a hard time backing up so the people could open up and give him some candy. Amazingly the weather was very nice considering we had snow earlier in the week, so I didn't have to stuff coats on underneath the boys' costumes. :)
When it started getting dark Davin and I went home to relax and give out candy while Ian and Weston kept going. We didn't get as many trick or treaters as I though we would, but we almost got rid of all our giveaway candy. I was surprised though at how much candy we ended up with between the 2 kids! I consider it a successful Halloween.

Sunday morning was kind of a bummer. Daylight Savings time is great in the Fall . . . if you don't have kids. Mine didn't get the memo that they could sleep in an extra hour, so they were up at 6:45. Oh well. The problem is that today they were up even earlier than that. What the?!? Hopefully they will settle into the new schedule soon. We had a busy Sunday. They reorganized the bishopric in our ward and Ian has a new calling. He is the 1st counselor in the bishopric. Pretty crazy.

So after the block he got ordained as a high priest and then set apart for his new calling. We are excited about the call. It will be good for our family. I'm sure I will have my moments of being annoyed that I don't have my husband to help me out with the kids during Sacrament meeting, but overall I know that it is a blessing.

I think life will be a little different from here on out. I'm sure I will be released from Young Women's pretty quickly, which will be bittersweet, but necessary. Today's the day to take down Halloween and put up Thanksgiving because it's November folks! Wow. This year is flying on by and I am loving this Fall holiday season!