November 16, 2009

Lil' Thug



Check out my cute little thug in his new Star Wars apparel. He also insisted on weapons for his Jedi utility belt and discovered my gym lock and the fireplace key (not near as dangerous as it looks). He really just wants to show the "bad guys" (aka Sith Lords) his new gear, not destroy them. He was inspired by Darth Vader's final turn-around from the dark side to the light and now maintains the hope that all "bad guys" can be "turned" if motivated by the proper tools, or in other words, cool weapons.

                                                 





Oh, and the lines on David's face aren't cuts from his last gang fight... just chocolate from an ice-cream sundae. They sure add to the look though. When David overheard me complaining to Rich about the mean girls, he said, "Mom... come here for a minute. I need to talk to you." I knelt down next to him and he maturely took my hands in his and said in a serious voice, "Mom, that girl is bologna and you need to fight her." Well said my young Jedi.


November 8, 2009

Halloween Wedding Trip

                                        

My little brother Daren has met his match... in a good way. He and Noel got married last Friday, sealing the deal with a warm exchange of vows among a few friends and family, followed by a chilling reception Halloween night that proved there is no limit to what two morbid minds in love can create.


                                      


 It was, by far, the most gruesome and ingenious wedding reception in Halloween history. I'm convinced these two should be making horror movies in Hollywood. There were giant spiders, severed and bleeding corpses, a blood-sucking baby and a foggy laser tunnel Daren designed himself.


                                     
Rich and I joined the party as Aristocratic/Victorian style vampires. Due to a quick make-up job and adhesively-challenged teeth, I named us Dusty and Lone Fang. The favorite costumes of the night were Aunt Karen and Uncle Wayne as Adam & Eve.

                                                 
                                     

Lone Fang was pleased to find the wedding cake dripping with blood. The food tasted much better than it looked, and I eagerly wolfed down my tapeworm sandwich. Congratulations Daren and Noel!! I'm so glad these two found each other and added two adorable kids Jessica and Joshua to our fun family.



Before the reception party, we took the kids trick-or treating with their Sorenson cousins who just bought an awesome home in Bountiful. Rocky adores his cousins and its easy to see why. Jeffery helped the kids put on their costumes, then Gabriel had his arm around Rocky's shoulders nearly the entire trick-or-treating route. Once, while the other kids hurried to grab candy from a neighbor's bowl, I caught Gabe patiently putting Rocky's fallen shoe back on before claiming his treat. It was ironic that Rocky chose to be Dash from the Incredibles, since speed running is definitely not his forte. Jack, caught up in all the excitement covered the terrain quickly with his one leg happy skip. He impressed us all by consuming 4 lolli-pops in mere seconds. He has yet to learn the art of savoring.



                                                

Beyond the wedding, a highlight of our short trek to Utah was our date night on Friday. My high school buddy Julie and her husband Spence joined us with Rich's high school buddy Clint and his girlfriend Bethany. We had dinner at the Skybox at the Gateway Mall, then hit the arcade for some competitive air hockey and other games. It was the most fun we've had in ages with some of our favorite people.



                                                  

                                        

                                        

We're so grateful for Momma C, who watched the kids during all the festivities, and enjoyed every minute of it.
                                                        

October 28, 2009

Jack-O-Lantern



There are two reasons that there is such a large time gap between the last few posts.
#1 - All the pics I took the last month got erased from my camera. No pics, no posts. You don't want to hear about Jack's toothy grin, you want to see it. And the chance of capturing it twice is unlikely. I'm no photographer. It requires yanking that binky out of his mouth and trying to get him to smile, instead of screaming for it back. No easy task.

#2 - We have been crazy busy. Between teaching preschool, Real Estate classes, and livin' it up this October, there has been little time left for blogging. But I will do my best to catch you up with the pics I attempted to take yesterday.




Since his surgery this summer, David has morphed into an active, reasonably daring boy. He announced one day, after seeing a clip of it on Playhouse Disney, that he wanted to "do gymnastics." This is perhaps the last thing on earth we ever thought he would want to do seeing as until recently he was still crawling up playground equipment steps and deathly afraid of the "playcenter" at McDonald's. He begged us daily for two weeks until we consented to sign him up. We were elated to discover his best friend Silas in the same class. It's been a month and he is LOVING it! He refuses to participate in half of it but has mastered the somersault, which he proudly demonstrates every opportunity he gets.



Jack clutching his beloved blankey that my brilliant friend Jaime gave him and reaching for his binky that I popped out of his mouth momentarily in attempts to catch a photo of his toothy pumpkin grin. This is as close as I got. Wait... I found one taken a while ago, I will post it at the top!


Jack often imitates his brother's gymnastic skills, already being an equally fast runner and nearly as physically agile as David. He spends the time during Dave's gymnastic lessons yelling "DAVID!" and attempting to break his way into the class. Jack is nearly always dancing, swaying back and forth as he walks and giggling. He is a silly one. Unless it's nighttime, then he is screaming. The kid has never been much of a sleeper. He now has 4 teeth, which he is quite proud of, touching them often and attempting to bite you with. All he wants to eat is cheese and his favorite phrase is "All done!"Yesterday he started saying "Hot dog!" He is always mumbling something seemingly serious and important with great hand gestures, though we are yet to decipher any one these messages. If he wants something he gets it himself. He has the strength of Bam-Bam from the Flinstones (which happens to be one of his nicknames), opening the fridge and hoisting out 2 gallon cartons of milk. The other day, he brought me an entire unopened box of Capri-Suns. His little arms were shaking! I was shocked. Those things are heavy.




Rich is awesome. He continues estimating with accuracy with Sorenson Moving & Storage and has become quite efficient at eliminating the enemy on his XBox games. He supportively cares for the kids and home while I am out on my "Bucket List" adventures and inventively solves every mechanical problem we face as well as cleaning up the messes of my frequent Amelia Bedelia moments, like last week when we ran out of dishwashing tablets, so I poured in a hefty amount of dishwashing soap and watched as piles and piles of bubbles oozed out of the dishwasher onto our lovely rented kitchen carpet.






Jodi completed another item on her "Bucket List" a couple Saturdays ago when she got certified as a Zumba aerobics/dance instructor. If you haven't heard of it, it is the latest craze in fitness, combining latin-based and international dance with aerobic moves to create the ultimate body shaping work-out. I discussed it in greater detail in an earlier post. I'm addicted to it and have gone to so many classes this past year, my gym instructors have encouraged me to start teaching my own. Maybe they were being sarcastic (I've never been good at catching that) or it was a collaborated joke, but I took them seriously and traveled to Redding for the day to get certified. It was intimating, since most of my classmates were fitness instructors, dancers or both. I am neither. But I passed! Now I can start putting together choreography for my first class... I plan to integrate my high school group's signature moves: the Russian, the Skankin' Step, the Floppy Arms and The Lumber. If LuAnne Preston could see me now!

(I had some pretty funny pictures of this endeavor as I never miss an opportunity to dress up silly, but unfortunately, they got erased with the rest. You'll have to use your imagination).