May 2012 FB Status

 d

strpooSen,l22f20f39uylm010g67m2817a9mMc1c0fa102 hith ah833u  · 

Shared with Your friends

I did it! I'm doing the novice tri this month. I'm financially committed.

eorspSnodtu2 9m2i3m5uim0 y1hu98Mhf273u5a2l435lft2t106th0cm2,  · 

Shared with Your friends

Josh has officially passed all of his classes and will be legitimately graduating on Friday!!! (I'm not even kidding - did you think this would ever happen? Because I certainly had my doubts.)

pootnsdreS0g71a3hm1i19i2mMl8h,06l25a2 lu72al9t 1y8uh3022l88f  · 

Shared with Your friends

Me: Hey Josh, the redbox is down at the pentagon. Should we go to the pentagon to fix it?

Tommy: No!!!!! Grandma’s house! No pentagon!

optrSdosne541ga920aM0t970 1ih1,21 cta5gfh3g37fgi3405gy1c403c  · 

Shared with Your friends

If I were my neighbors right now, I might call the cops based on the sounds coming from Tommy.... *sigh*

eontrodSpsf 4Mi721hc622y01l0fi0mc2alt25c21u1gm0amfgi9i al,0i  · 

Shared with Your friends

Dear triathlon,

Don't kick my butt today please, okay?

Love,

woefully unprepared and painfully nervous

pdooSrntsem22lug4i21lg80,8574u966Mfmt1 0t11817aa6219 y6a7151  · 

Shared with Your friends

Angies Pantry Restaurant in the neighborhood anyone? (We just got mail addressed to them at my address....)

dspreotnSo9m1a1lg1i04gu1l1h2 65t9h,c0884m1407ylatlga2hM6c lh  · 

Shared with Your friends

Johnny is moving like a mad man, but he doesn't know he has knees, so I can't really call it crawling.

npodtesSro4m7f70 h3270 260Muhah77511g4ct079h27g1t,l1tt20y2mu  · 

Shared with Your friends

mmmmm artichoke.

srpdootneS9g2l6ahmt62mulg25m1t04c56h9tlht2yMg30554,ti 916 gm  · 

Shared with Your friends

I'm curious - what kind of car seat is your 2.5 year old in?

I look at the official recommendations and they all say to leave them rear facing as long as possible, and only to move them when they've outgrown what they're in. But nothing says what "outgrown" means and there are no age/weight restrictions that I can find for moving from 5 pt harness to booster.

Tommy is in a 5 point harness big fatty car seat (forward facing) right now, but the shoulder straps on the highest setting are hitting him at the bottom of his shoulder blades. (he weighs 34 pounds) Time to move to booster with a back?

srpdootneS9g2l6ahmt62mulg25m1t04c56h9tlht2yMg30554,ti 916 gm  · 

Shared with Your friends

Tommy: "Cut a paper?"

Me: "Sure. You can cut a paper."

Tommy: "Cut a 'ove sac?"

Me: "Nope. we don't cut the love sac."

Tommy: "cut a oaf-a?"

Me: "Nope. we don't cut the sofa."

Tommy: Pouty face and forced tears.

Me: "What's the matter?"

Tommy: "waaa.....you said....'no!' I sad."

enoodtSrpsmc0ugg6200ic4753900i3ug64iuc9251,1u5M6450f2301 a y  · 

Shared with Your friends

Tommy has mastered the alphabet, but prefers to pronounce "r" like "ooh"

dotSpnosre,2ahM0h66 f5ihf1u3g11 78lgc2a015cahi108l2c1y289i24  · 

Shared with Your friends

Anybody close by have some leftover newspaper I could have for a painting project?

dnoretSsop4t8i302c946090m8,u3u37014274t259y1cai00 c84M8 1g07  · 

Shared with Your friends

do you cook with limes? All I ever do is slice and squeeze them into my water (yummy!) but are they good IN stuff?

Sugar Fast 2012

Sugar Fast (the sissy version) has been going on at our house for a few months now.

We modified our usual "there will be NO sweets!" mandate by allowing Sundays to be free days.

$50 on the table for the big winner of Sugar Fast 2012.

Every week on Friday I beg Josh to let it be over.  A truce. Please. pleaaase  Because our hot date will be so much hotter with M&Ms in our popcorn while we watch Jack Bauer save the world.

Every Monday morning I tell Josh that we should never eat anything sweet again. Ever.

But this week the Friday night begging started early. Tuesday morning to be precise. I blame the frozen cookie dough taunting me every time I went to get Johnny's food.

So I waited for him to come home, got right up in his face, and ate my frozen cookie dough ball claiming it was worth every penny.

If you want to know the truth it wasn't worth it. But I'll never admit that to Josh.


So now it's over!

And THAT is worth every penny.


As an added bonus, now I get to see what Josh would do with free $50.

$21 Flip Flops

Kohl's gave me a buncha free money. So obviously I went looking for shoes.

I happened to be wearing this year's Old Navy $2 flops. I have worn them so many days in a row that the souls are paper-thin and the buttons that keep the strappy parts attached to the soul are pinching my feet when I walk.

This happens twice a year, and I go spend $2 more on flip flops because I simply love them.

But there I was, standing in the shoe department and Kohl's and the $20 flip flops were STARING AT ME. Straight in the eye.

I rolled my eyes to Josh making some snide comment about "what kind of person spends TWENTY DOLLARS on flip flops?"

He nodded and smiled while I tried on a pair.

And now I have no reason to go to Old Navy.

I have officially joined the ranks of grownups who don't wear $2 shoes.

Josh Ran A 5k

One time I begged Josh to train for and run a 5k.

He agreed.

We found a deal and registered and gave ourselves just 5 weeks to train.

I had just finished Color Me Rad, so I was confident I'd be fine. But Josh has asthma and has never run a day in his life. I figured he'd be OK because he's sortof awesome like that. 5 weeks? Pshaaw, we'd be fine.

Then I rolled my ankle at the triathalon. And it looked like this for two weeks.

One of these ankles is fatter than the other....

Then Josh injured his foot.

So we didn't train for like 2 weeks.

And then we only had a week until d-day.

Oops.

Because of our serious lack of training and the fact that we both wished we were dead before mile 2 of our most recent training run we were both pretty confident that we'd be walking a couple of times during this race.

The weather wasn't supposed to be great, thunder clouds, rain, and overcast all day, but if you ask me that's the only weather worth running in, so I strapped on my new shoes (thank you Mother's Day) and we loaded the kids in the car anyway and headed North. (Did you know Ogden is still really far away?)

They're pink! Probably because I love Aundrea.

When we got there it was cold, but not wet, which we took to be a good sign, but as I started assembling the jogging stroller I started to get nervous. There was definitely something missing. Something important. 

The handlebar. 

When I take apart the jogging stroller to hang it from the ceiling of our garage, I stick the handlebar in the back. Saturday morning is when I learned that Josh doesn't. He puts it on top of the shelf right next to the hook. 

Obviously since I put the stroller in the car, we didn't have the handlebar. 

I made Josh push the stroller the whole way with no handle. Because I'm super-mean and he's super nice like that. 

We got to the beginning with plenty of time, so we drove the course. It was a lollipop course, and where the lollipop meets the stick there happened to be a big grassy area. Josh immediately figured out that we could just run to the park, sit down and wait for people to start coming back. We'd just join them on the way back and pretend we are superfast runners. Smart man.

Our goal was to run clear through the lollipop and back to the park. Then if we needed to we could walk for a bit before we ran again. 

At the park we high fived each other and kept jogging. 

I told him I was listening to a 30 minute mix (thank you RockMyRun) and I thought we could probably run for 30 minutes. So we were going to go to the end of my mix.

At the end of my mix we high fived each other and kept jogging. 

At that point we could see the finish line, so we decided we'd just power through and run the whole thing. 

Roughly 3 minutes after deciding we'd run the whole thing, the wind picked up and the rain started pounding down. Josh was still pushing the gimpy stroller and their screen was open. So I closed the window (which has been rolled up for roughly 18 months....) while we pressed on. I'd bat it down like a cat with a ball of yarn, and it would roll right back up like a cartoon window shade. I'd bat it down, it would roll up. 

Meanwhile John Boy started crying and Tommy really really wanted to share the almonds with him to make him happy. So there I was batting the window down like an idiot while my babies are crying and I'm shouting "No Tommy! He doesn't have any teeth!!! No teeth Tommy!" and running sideways. I hope that's where the photographer was hiding....

Right at the end the course went from a very open road to a very narrow sidewalk, since we were finishing in the 37 minute range, there were people around us walking and pushing strollers. We were coming up behind them on the sidewalk, but Josh took the opportunity to go "4 wheelin!" and we pounded around them so we wouldn't have to stop running so close to the finish. 

We finished in 37 something (no official times...) and both felt great at the end of the run. We were ridiculously proud of ourselves.

Our friends (3 other couples in the ward) also hit their goals and overall we did awesome on this run!

To top it all off we were big winners in the raffle. 

Seriously. I won toilet paper. I'm sortof awesome at winning race raffles ($50 at Masherz from my Tri this year!) and it was a small race, so I was confident I would win something. As soon as the kid held up the TP and everybody laughed I knew it was mine. All mine. And I was right. *sigh*

Josh won a pair of ladie's running socks, and I knew he would use my TP, so I figured I was justified in taking his winnings, but when a lady won the men's socks she immediately came over to trade him. Lousygoodfornothingmen'srunningsocks. So I really came home with nothin' but a 6-packa TP. 

Also a sortof firm commitment from Josh that if I find a supercheap race sometime in the near future he will possibly think about participating again because this was so dang much fun. 

I'm calling it a wildly successful race.

Soggy Zoo

When the Burches come to town we do fun things. No matter what.

Because the Burches don't come to town that often.

We planned a morning at the zoo for Friday, and although we woke up to rain we voted to power through and do the zoo anyway.

Which turned out to be awesome.

And cold.

Tommy rockin' a standard Utah Spring Uniform (shorts, flip flops, winter coat. that's how we roll.)

And wet.

But that certainly didn't stop us from taking pictures.

Cassidy's bum, Evie & Cameron

Evie in a turtle shell

Tommy loves this boring slide

monkeys watching monkeys

BUGS!!!!

Tommy thinks snakes are more interesting than cameras

We forced the Burches to take ape pictures in the rain. Because I think there might be someone checking as you leave to make sure you did. Like the Costco receipt guy, without the sharpie.

But watch this.

May 2011

May 2012

My boy aged from infant to juvenile ape height in a year. That's why they make you take this picture - so you can see how freaking enormous your child is next year. 

I sometimes forget how tiny that boy was. You know, now that he's all huge and man-like (and still wants me to hold him).

Feb 2011

Dinner

Scene: 9am. Sick and sniffly 2 year old is still in pajamas with all sorts of bed head happening. He has climbed into his high chair and is sitting at the table with a fork in his hand.


Tommy: It's dinner time mommy?
Me: No. It's 9am.
Tommy: I want dinner.
Me: Are you hungry?
Tommy: Yes. Hungry. Yes dinner. Yes fooooood. (excitement is rising)
Me: What do you want to eat?
Tommy: Uhhhh....uhhh......maca'oni! Annnnnnd.....uhh......uhhhhh....A'CADO! Annnnd.....uhhh....uhhh....a......snanwhich. And, a grapes. And uhhh....maca'oni more!
Me: You just ate 2 bowls of cereal and a kiwi. And you want macaroni, avacado, a sandwich and grapes?
Tommy: Yes. (with a decisive nod)
Me: OK.

And that's why we're having dinner at 9am. Heaven help us when he's a teenager and he eats us out of house and home.

In other food news.

Johnny B. (like a bat) prefers to take his meals upside down.

Date of the Month: Hiking & KFC

It's no secret that Josh and I love to be outside, so when I was planning the year of dates, OBVIOUSLY hiking (with just us) would be one of them.

But you might not already know that Josh has a secret love affair with eating fried chicken in the mountains. Specifically up Big Cottonwood Canyon.

I'm not even kidding.

So on Friday we dropped off our boys, picked up some chicken and headed for the hills.

We thought we'd go to donut falls (one of our favorites) and to be honest I was sortof wishing that the rules (the ones I invented) of these dates didn't always exclude the boys. But the rules are the rules, so we left without them. And I'm glad we did. Family time is fun, I like hiking with the kids, I like spending time with all of us. But Josh and I dating is different. And this is often the only time during the month we are without them. So it's an important rule to follow. Even if it sounds like a fun thing to do with the kids too.


The gate leading in to donut falls was closed, and we could have walked around it, but we were feeling (a little) pressed for time and (a lot) lazy and wanted to get straight to the hiking.

So we found a new (to us) trail across the street and hiked it instead.

It was beautiful. I remind Josh on a regular basis that this canyon is where we fell in love. We used to take long drives in the canyon, and since he drove a stick and not holding hands wasn't an option, I'd shift for him while he drove. I hope that when we're old and wrinkly we drive up that canyon and he lets me shift for him.  He did this time.

The view was beautiful. And since it had been raining all morning, the air was cool (freezing!) and clean and soggy. There aren't many things I love more than soggy air.

It was seriously cold. Let the record show that our May date probably could have included snow had we driven 10 more minutes up the canyon.

Then I discovered that my camera has a panoramic function - and it was even MORE beautiful.

But then we had this great idea where Josh would run around while the camera was doing it's panoramic magic.  We may or may not have 13 pictures just like this, with various body parts missing.

When we got to the top (aka the place where we decided to turn around) one of us noticed that one of us seriously needed a bathroom FAST because one of us has given birth and one of us now has a basically useless bladder. So both of us jogged down the hill praying for a close restroom the whole way. 

As it turned out Josh's siblings were probably glad that we jogged because John was apparently a weepy whiny mess the entire time we were gone. Poor siblings. I'm glad they survived.

When we got back we looked at the sign, and now I'm hoping we make time this summer to go up to Desolation Lake - 3.5 miles is all. 

(Do you think we could carry the kids the distance they don't want to walk of that?)

Man Funny

The men in this house have a way of making each other laugh that I simply can't comprehend. 

Maybe they're telling each other fart jokes....

Snoozing

After partying all night long with some friends, our boys were (rightfully) exhausted. Johnny had a bottle and immediately fell asleep afterward. 

Tommy snuggled up on the couch with me, turned on a batman (which he is convinced is "sip-der-man!") and promptly fell asleep. I had no choice but to join him in the napping.

Will you get a load of these eyelashes? 

My goodness I love this boy.

My Mother-In-Law Hates Me

I know it.

She used to like me, I could tell because she is always nice to me and never makes my child MORE obnoxious than his nature makes him.

But something changed and now she hates us.

I can tell because she bought Tommy golf clubs. Or ninja throwing stars or one of those old lady reach higher or lower sticks they sell in Sky Mall Magazine (but not today) as Tommy seems to have decided they really are.

He has yet to hit the tiny golf balls with them. Much less into the tiny make-shift "cup" because he's far too busy whacking stuff with is "Lightning McQueen STICK!!!!"

Poor boy got tired of hearing me tell him to "knock it off or I'll take it away." so he set up his little brother to take the fall.

Too bad within 12 seconds of my taking this picture Tommy got too close and got beat up by a baby.

I almost felt bad....but......he sorta earned it. You know?

What's proper etiquette here? A thank you note expressing just how much Tommy loves it? Or a snarky blog post whining about just how much I hate it?

*Surely you've noticed that I'm kidding, right? I mean he really does go around hitting stuff with it all day, but I don't think my MIL hates me (right Meleta?) and I certainly don't really hate her for giving it to us. In fact when Tommy saw me writing this, he said "only hit the balls. right mom?"