My New Skills

Hi everyone. I know it's been awhile, and once again, not a whole lot beyond the normal has been happening. We've been seeing a lot less of Josey with him coaching basketball now. He is the girl's JV coach, and I think he is enjoying it so far. They have just had one game, which they lost, but by a much smaller margin than they did to the same team last year. He thinks they will continue to improve.

I guess the only thing new in my life is that I recently started a workout from my fitness magazine (using weights and a stability ball) that's supposed to "tone me all over" in 15 minutes a day 3 times a week. Yeah right, especially with all of these holiday sweets I've been devouring. But so far I've found myself a little sore and we'll see how it goes.

Every night Jordan asks me if Santa Claus is coming tonight, and I have to tell him "no, not tonight - not until we go to Montana" (I'm so excited!!). He has a few interesting things on his wishlist, including a self-flushing toilet like the one at the store he was fascinated with. I told him I don't think Santa can fit a toilet in his sleigh. I know, it's the same thing every parent tells their child, but I know Santa's not going to be able to bring one this year.

Jarrett's favorite new phrase is "No way Jose" and he repeats this (although sometimes without the "Jose") approximately 500 million times a day. This boy has a major attitude and loves to see what he can get away with. Good thing he's so stinking cute when he says it, though he's been spending much more time in time-out lately (both for this blatantly opposing mommy and daddy when it's something serious we're telling him not to do, and for finally starting to stand up to his brother and whack him when he's being annoying - I can't say I blame him much for this, but you know the rule - no hitting.) Unfortunately, I still don't see too much what the experts see in time-outs, as they seem to have basically no effect. He is still really little though, and it gives him a break to scream in his room with the saddest of cries for a minute and come out with huge tears covering his face, resulting in me smothering him with kisses and feeling a little guilty for torturing him so much. Such is life I guess.

Anyways...about my new skills. I'm so excited about a project I just did yesterday. True, I spent the majority of the afternoon ignoring my kids and coming to understand why Josey wants a new computer chair for Christmas, but it was worth it in the end. I've been wanting to get some pictures of the boys, but they are so difficult! We got family pictures, and managed to have one turn out where both boys weren't leaping off our laps, but we couldn't get one good shot of the boys alone. It is impossible to get Jordan with a natural smile. So yesterday I had my own photo shoot and did some editing, and this is how things turned out. I'm just excited because I actually did something that I'm happy with. Thank goodness for Photoshop.

Before the edit...

After the edit...

Handsome Boy

Just wanted to post Jordan's first ever "school" picture. Isn't he handsome? Looks a lot different from that orphan boy from a few weeks ago, huh? I know it's just because he's my kid, but I think he's so stinkin' cute! I still kiss him all the time, and luckily he still likes it.

Not a whole lot has been happening around here. Last weekend, Josey and I left our kids with my parents and we drove over to Glenrock, WY (5 hour trip) to watch Kemmerer play in the state championship football game. They had gone undefeated all season, but they lost the game 18-0 against a tough (also undefeated) team. So that was a bummer, but it was fun to have just a little break from the kids. It's the first time I've had a night without Jarrett and the boys did great. Jordan did call my mom a "mean grandma", and she got a real kick out of that.

This weekend we get to go to Bozeman, MT to watch Josey's sister Arielle play in her state volleyball tournament. The boys are very excited to see their other grandma and grandpa. A few weeks ago Jordan told me, "we haven't seen our Montana grandma for a very long time" so I decided to push Josey into letting us go watch Arielle play. He started coaching basketball this week, and he's very busy and already starting to feel the stress. He's also working on his master's degree and trying to implement some new things in his teaching, and I think he feels he's being pulled from all directions, so hopefully this will be a little break for him and not just a time when he's worried about everything else. Sometimes I wish I could do more to alleviate his stress, but I'm thankful he loves us so much and does so much for us.

By the way, does everyone else see this little Photobucket icon on my blog? Does anyone know how to get rid of it? And where did my background go? Probably the virus that I downloaded a couple of weeks ago (that Josey is still really mad at me about) has something to do with it.

Happy Halloween!

Here are some pictures of our cute little dinosaurs. A few people thought they were dragons, but they were T-Rex's. A really sweet lady in our ward made the costumes for them. I wish I could say it was me, but I'm not quite so talented. The boys had a great time trick-or-treating, but they were really worn out. As soon as we got home and took off Jarrett's costume, he ran into his room to climb into his crib.

Before trick-or-treating, Josey carved some pumpkins with the boys. As soon as they started cleaning the 'guts' out, Jordan covered his nose and ran into the bathroom and barfed. Gross, I know, but he has a really weak stomach, and the smell of the pumpkins made him sick. So he missed out on a little bit of the fun, but he still loved his daddy's BYU pumpkin. (And wasn't that game on Saturday a little bit too much of an emotional roller coaster? I said some not-so-nice words to Max Hall, and then they turned around and amazingly pulled the win from somewhere.)

What kind of mother...

...actually lets her son go out of the house looking like this? It seems that I used to care a lot more about what my kids looked like when we left the house. When Jordan was a baby, I would always dress him in the cutest outfits, but when Jarrett came along things must have started to go downhill. And ever since Jordan started picking his own outfits, things have apparently gotten way out of control (judging from this picture). But at least he's happy, right? And we were just going to Artic Circle for some ice cream. He fits right in with the Kemmerer crowd that hangs out there, I think. (Notice his socks - one is inside out. And his shoes are on the wrong feet. And his shorts don't match his shirt. And he's got an orange mustache...)

Eights List

My friend Audrey tagged me, and I don't think I've ever been tagged before, so I guess I'll give it a try. (And just for fun, here is a picture of me when I was 8.)

8 TV Shows I like to watch...
(I used to watch TV a lot more than I do now, so it's kind of hard to pick 8)
1. What Not to Wear (I usually watch this when I run on the treadmill)
2. American Idol
3. The Biggest Loser (I haven't watched it yet this season because I keep forgetting it's on)
4. The Price is Right (I occasionally fold laundry to this one)
5. 48 Hours Mystery (This one kind of freaks me out so I haven't watched it in awhile - and this is the reason I gave up watching all other crime shows - CSI, Law & Order, etc. - they were giving me nightmares)
6. BYU Football (Although Josey informed me today that I'm not a very good fan because I don't sit glued to the TV the whole game - I think he forgets we have kids!)
7. Oprah (Maybe once a week she has a show I'm interested in)
8. Rabbi Shmuley (This one's an XM Radio show, but I think it should count)

8 Restaurants I like to eat at...
1. Olive Garden
2. The Brick Oven (Mostly because it's where Josey & I went on our first date)
3. Tucanos
4. Ruby Tuesday
5. Chili's
6. Jacinto's (Or any good Mexican restaurant because I'm not sure Jacinto's exists anymore)
7. Applebees
8. Wendy's (for fast food)

8 Things that happened today...
1. The kids got to eat popcorn for breakfast (I didn't put it away last night & it was the first thing they saw this morning - even better, it was caramel popcorn)
2. I ran 5.25 miles on the treadmill
3. We went to storytime at the library. Jarrett sat on this lady's lap for 10 minutes straight - he has NEVER sat on my lap for that long.
4. Jarrett got his binky at naptime even though I swore I was throwing it away (I decided I'm going to wean him off of it at bedtime first. He didn't even miss it last night.)
5. I vaccuumed my house for the first time in a week. (My vacuum broke last week and I was supposed to get a new one this weekend, but then we didn't go out of town, so finally I had to borrow a friend's because I'm not getting one until Saturday.)
6. I swept the floor numerous times (after breakfast, after playdoh, after lunch...). I'm sick of sweeping!
7. The snow melted a lot.
8. The boys actually ate their dinner, & it included 3 vegetables.

8 Things I am looking forward to...
1. Halloween (Can't wait to see my kids in their costumes & eat their candy)
2. Running outside again
3. Refinishing all of our basement
4. Having another baby (I don't think it will be for awhile, but when the time comes, I think I will be ready)
5. Spending Christmas with Josey's family (I hope everyone can be there)
6. Josey being done with his master's degree (He just started & he's got 3 years)
7. Christmas shopping (as long as I have a little money to spend) & wrapping presents
8. Our Relief Society Super Saturday to be over (Sorry about adding this one, but sometimes putting these things together can be stressful - thank goodness Carolyn has pretty much been doing everything & is doing an awesome job)

8 Things on my wish list...
1. A new car
2. A vacation with Josey...
3. And a trip to Disneyland with the whole family (but Josey has to be excited & happy about it)
4. New clothes (I always love new clothes)
5. Patience
6. A cute haircut
7. Nice skin
8. The wind to stop blowing in Kemmerer (except in the summer when it feels nice to get cooled down a little)

8 People I tag...
Natalie, Megan, Sarah, Christy, Carolyn, Rachel, Panda, & Aimei.
Anybody else that wants to give it a try I would love to see it! This was a lot harder than I thought. I'll be checking to see who does it!

At least we got SOME fun out of it...

Here's Jordan and his daddy with the snowman he's been begging us to help him make since the snow started falling. Glad he's having fun. I just can't wait until next week when all of this melts!

Bummer

Last night it was fun; today, not so fun. I'm talking about our first snowstorm of the season. That gives us three months out of the year with no snow. Last night the boys were excited for the snow and wanted to play in it so they made a few snowballs before their little hands were freezing off and they wanted to come inside.

Today, we were supposed to go visit my parents and spend the night because my brother's new baby is getting blessed tomorrow. The day looked okay starting out, but by the time we were ready to leave it was really windy and snowing. For those of you not from Wyoming, the wind can be very strong and cause a whiteout quickly, even if it's not snowing that hard. I had to take some papers to a friend, who lives just around the corner, and we thought we'd see how bad it was. It was bad. I slid off the road and almost hit a stop sign, and Josey was yelling at me to hit the gas, not the brakes. I am really bad at driving in the snow and the roads were pure ice, so I was really scared. When things were under control, I let him drive us back home. In Kemmerer, it is really hard to get back to our house in a storm because the roads are so steep and our car does not have good traction so we have to go all the way around the town just to find some roads that we won't get stuck on. The boys were bawling because they really wanted to go to grandma's, but we just had to tell them that we'd have to come home and have hot chocolate instead. Luckily, they got over their disappointment quickly. Sometimes the weather is a bummer.

Here is a picture from our front porch last week:

And here is a picture from our front porch today: