'tis that time again. time to blog about the fabulous adventures that are my life. you know, sometimes when i read cjane i think, "she writes like i think! so smart. so clever. so witty." then i begin to write on my own little blog and realize oh, wait. i don't write (or think, really) like that at all. *sigh* someday, my friends. someday.

enough of that drivel. i know why you're really here. you'd like to read my thoughts on the recent holidays. how were they? what did i do? etc. etc. this is really why you visit this page... for my thoughts on all that is me and mine. with that said here are some favorites from the recent festivities:

thanksgiving:
 it was delightful, actually. the initial day was a bit quiet since there was the threat of a HUGE storm which never happened but consequently got all original plans canceled. so we spent it (the day) with B.'s mom and her mom. quiet but nice. the following sunday was a big broo-ha-ha with my familia where all, but my younger sister was present. we haven't all been together like that for a good three years. loved it.

ali's wedding:
youngest sis, alison (also known as louisa), married her bff (literally. at least he has to be now since marriage is eternal and all) on dec 3rd despite the warning of both her sisters and her mother that a december wedding may sound and be beautiful but it means years and years of lame anniversaries since you can't afford to do anything super fancy with Christmas being in the same month and all. but i digress. she got married and it was beautiful and she was beautiful (no really. she was STUNNINGLY beautiful) and the groom is a pretty decent kid whom i quite enjoy though always feel bad about teasing since he's so uber polite and not into giving people a hard time--how did he get in this family anyway? i kid, weston, we love you. not as much as al does, but we do love you.

my birthday:
woot. woot. pretty anti-climatic i must say but i did get some awesome chocolate cake (thanks, maida). next year's 35th birthday better kick some serious booty. i mean serious.

christmas:
 this year it was magical. H. finally was interested in the festivities and consequently little miss S. was too. she'd go around saying, "santa, santa. ho. ho. ho." from Mickey Saves Santa, a stellar film put out by the disney company (please read that last statement as if you can see the sarcasm as it drips from the words). my favorite moments from Christmas were: 1)  H. carrying around an advertisement from the store Lakeshore Learning for weeks  and calling it his catalog. he also insisted on showing anyone who would listen the toys mr.c would be bringing him from said catalog. 2) H.'s excitement about going with dad to cut down the Christmas tree 3) H. and S. finding a renewed interest in barbra streisand's version of  jingle bells. every day, everywhere we went there was the call for "bells! bells!" in the car 4) S. opening her presents and saying "oh, thank you! thank you!" it was a good year this year.

that brings us to the new year and our anniversary which haven't happened yet so i will update you after they do.

much love,
julia

ps: i'm pretty sure that as i type this i can hear my  one year old saying in the background, "dammit. dammit." does this mean i'm out for the nomination of "mother of the year"?
...of course i asked H. what S. is saying and he said,"she's saying 'puzzle'." ah, yes, that sounds very similar to "dammit".

Scout on Halloween

Scout on halloween. I forgot this in the last post. She was a witch. Yay!

Picture Catch-Ups

 Scout LOVES hats and anything can be used as a hat. A bucket can be used as a hat as you see here (though she is not seeing much here).

 Halloween pumpkin carving with David, Maida and Co. Nice work!

 Joy School Halloween party. Here we have Beck as Buzz Lightyear, Noah as Spiderman, and Hayden as Thomas--of course.

 Another hat pic.

Hayden loves "the marble game" almost as much as he loves trains. One morning he was creating different versions of the game and ran into the kitchen saying, "Mom, come look at my marble games. They're magnificent!" That's right. "magnificent".

I told H. the other day that if he didn't want to comb his hair then he had to wear a hat. "Which hat would you prefer?" I asked. "The 'woody' one, " he replied. And this is what he wore to run errands....the cowboy Woody hat.

Today Hayden was playing with play dough. While that is interesting in and of itself there is more to this story.
Here's the thing, I try to encourage my 3 and 1 yr. old to not mix the play dough colors together as this really bothers me. You can imagine how well that "encouraging" works. Long story short, too late, I glanced over at Hayden's creation and noticed it was color after color stacked on top of each other. My initial reaction was to reprimand him for mixing when a little voice said, "Don't squash his creativity! This is an opportunity! Question him. Ask him what he's created. Show pride in his work." So I did:

"Wow, Hayden! That looks fantastic! Is it a train?"

"Nooo."

"Is it a dragon?"

"Nooo."

"Is it a snake?"

"Nooo."

"Well, what is it?"

"It's a pile. A pile of play dough."

A bit deflated, I respond, "Well it's a very colorful pile."

"Yup."
***************

Another moment of great pride for me today was Scout walking around licking the glue stick saying, "Mmmm. Tasty."

I can't express the glow of love one feels when one's child eats paste at such an early age. Truly a great accomplishment.

to tide you over...

Actually, this is a grandparent or kids-look-at-this-later-to-remember-how-cute-they-are post so if you are not interested take a gander at another fabulous blog and read there to your heart's content.

Regarding H.

Funny things he's said:

mom: "Hayden, there is nothing better than a big Hayden hug."
H: "No, mom. My splendid ideas are better."
****
"All the bridges falling down, falling down, falling down. All the bridges falling down. Life is fading..."
sung to "London Bridges" tune
****
mom: "H. what would you like to be for Halloween?"
H: "Thomas."
mom: "Ok. What should Scout be?"
H: "Sir Topham Hat"

Basic stats:  38.5" tall and 29 lbs.
Loves: reading, Circle Time cd, Thomas the Train, his new swing set, his cousins and his friends, pancakes.
Hates: naps, other foods beyond pancakes, sharing, being told,"no".


Regarding S:

Little miss S. is ALL personality. She starts most tiffs between herself and her brother and rarely takes the blame. I did catch her head-butting him one time, however.
She says a variety of things. "here go, "please," "thanks," "cookie","plane" "outside""mom" "dad" etc. etc. etc.

Basic stats: 32" tall and 24 lbs. ("[a] perfect little girl. Tall and thin"--says the doctor. Take that!)
Loves: her brother, the dog, never stopping, reading, climbing, talking, laughing, and so on...
Hates: getting in trouble, nursery, playing by herself

so, yeah. we got a dog.

This, my friends, is Tuff. Or, as H. calls him: Tuff Enough. He's a Yorkie. A rat dog to some. Ridiculously adorable to others. Currently he weighs 2.5 lbs. and may just grow to be as big as

 6 lbs.

Oh, yes. It's true. Cute, eh?

These are eggs. Eggs that I collect in my very own back yard and from my very own chickens.

This is the father/son  track building team. A solid team, indeed.

Grumpy? Staggering Understatement

The title of this post was my facebook status a couple of days ago. That was the day I took a mental health day, which is kind of hard to do when your workplace is your home and your employers are your spouse and children, but I did my best. Since that mental health day I've been extremely unmotivated. Extremely. Hence, me, on the computer entering this overwhelmingly boring blog post. Deal with it, will you? I have to.

Things of interest in my life of late:

* the chickens have started laying eggs. three of them (chickens) to be exact. that makes three eggs a day. i love it.

* the garden has begun producing a variety of veggies. also love that.

* my body hurts more in the mornings when i get up now that i run than it did before i started running. how does that work? am i missing something?

* my 3 year old is hilarious and whiny and adorable and frustrating all at the same time.

* my 1 year old is hilarious, and fussy and adorable and frustrating all at the same time (she is the trouble maker--what kid wakes their brother up at 5:30 in the morning to play? --what brother will be happily awoken {a word?} to play at 5:30 am?)

* went to the demo derby. pretty much my favorite part of august.

* ended the wellness challenge with less than stellar results. i'm a slacker in the wellness area these days.

* have lofty goals of decorating my house. no really. i will. i've only lived here for almost 5 years. what's the rush?

* finally read Hunger Games. pretty decent read. though i thought the whole love story thing weakened it. i mean i can take falling in love with vampires and werewolves, but teenagers in love with teenagers? that's just ridiculous.

what? you're horribly bored with my blithering on and on about nothing? well. you may go now. i have to do the dishes anyway.

The Whole Picture

If summer had a picture by it's definition in the dictionary it would be my daughter's face. This face. The one you see before you.

Scout

 and the chickens

Hayden Likes to Say This:

Holding up two different things (two train tracks, two books, two pieces of fruit...) and asks, "Mom, which would you prefer?" --if you don't choose correctly he'll say, "I think you prefer this one."


When Mr. H does something that makes me happy (going numero two-o in the potty and not his pants) I tell him I am so proud of him and he responds with: "I'm so proud of you too, Mom."

love it. just LOVE it.

Hayden walking Tacie (the dog who lives in our basement and whom H. obsesses over). And yes, he's wearing john deere boots with shorts, and yes this is practically his uniform.

July, Where Have You Gone?!? Part 1

I have pictures for this post, but sadly when I downloaded (or is it uploaded?!?) them I put them in a mysterious folder titled "July" and am unable to find said folder in the computer, but I know they're somewhere in here because they are no longer on my s-card. Darn this fabulous technology. Or is it: darn my ineptness with this technology? Either way the pics to illustrate our July adventures will be making their appearance in a later post.

July 2: Potty Trained!! Hayden decided he was ready to wear big boy undies and he hasn't looked back since. Didn't I say it had to be his idea? And it was. I know that my mom was completely against changing diapers past a certain age and consequently had us all potty-trained by 18 months (and who can blame anyone for wanting such things with the diapers they had back in the day? cloth?!? ew!) but I'm not gonna lie, there was nothing to doing it this way (other than my almost year of stressing that it had to be done or I was a complete failure as a mother). It took like a day, maybe two, for him to get the hang of it. Sheesh! What was I stressing about?

July 4:   Celebrate Good Times, C'mon! Our 4th was just one awesome joy after another. It began with my normal 5:30am Saturday 6 mile run (yes, you read that correctly). I then went to pick my produce from the fabulous co-op at 7 am. I then went home gathered my children, leaving the man to work on the house because he is anti-holiday, and drove ACROSS the valley to Copperton for some fantastic chuck wagon breakfast. Why drive from one foot hill to the other in SLC just for breakfast? Because, quite honestly, the C-ton Lion's Club puts on one heck of a celebration and I like to be a part of such things. Also they have a great park and my kids like to be a part of those things. When this part of the festivities were over we (we being my parents, sister +bf, the kids and I) planned on going to a parade, but I was tired and my kids were tired so we went home to nap and await the fire works that evening. The nice thing about where we live is that we are able to walk down the street, sit in the park, and watch the Sugarhouse fireworks without having to worry about parking, crowds and other such madness. We allowed H. to stay up this year to watch the show, but the funny thing was he couldn't have cared less about the colorful explosives bursting in air. All he noticed were the planes and helicopters that would occasionally fly by. Ah, well. Maybe NEXT year.

** This concludes part 1 of this update. More to follow as soon as I can get another free moment, so maybe September? Ha ha. I kid. It'll be sooner than that. kiss kiss**

We Have a Good Life

last night, after we (b-rent and i) spent 30-ish minutes chasing chickens around the yard in an attempt to get them back into their coop and after listening to my almost three year old laugh hysterically as he watched us do it i realized (again) that we have a pretty good life. wish i had a picture that documented this event, but i don't . i do have a rather vivid picture in my mind though, as do my neighbors i'm sure.

what's that? these pictures have nothing to do with the moment shared? true, but they have everything to do with the title.

xoxo

time to buck up

recommitting. that's what i'm doing. i'm recommitting. i'm recommitting to the following:

* my wellness challenge. in about week four i had kind of a "screw-it" moment (sorry for the language, mother). and since that i have been , well, screwing it. that is to say not giving it my full effort. i find this a bit annoying because this type of thing used to be my thing. you know, making really highly aspired commitments for relatively short periods of time and sticking to them. yet, the past two such commitments i've made i've given up part way through. *sigh* i want to be better. so i will be.
buck up #1: wellness challenge.

* potty training. i know you're tired of hearing about it so i won't bore you with many details. just this one: the item in the toilet to aim at (in our case it is crunch berries) seems to have moved H. from not at all interested in the great porcelain throne to mildly interested in trying to sink  the red crunch berry, which is apparently quite difficult.
 buck up #2: train the boy in the art of pottying on/in the potty.

* enjoying my kids. this sounds dumb, unless you are the mother (or have been the mother ) of small children. see, it's a constant battle of trying to teach/entertain/love/discipline your children and keeping your own mind sharp, your house clean, your family fed with interesting and new and healthy foods, and making time for yourself. often in the midst of this battle the art of enjoying your children is lost, at least for me. i find myself thinking about when they are both in school and how much i'll be able to accomplish (don't judge me, please). the other day, however, i had an epiphany. with my children being the ages they are i am able to be a kid again. what do i mean? well, i get to play and go on field trips and look at things through small eyes again. i get to find the joy in making footprints on the pavement after stepping in water. i get to find excitement in seeing every blasted airplane and helicopter that flies by. i get to build and rebuild train tracks. i get to go to the zoo and the park and the pool and the aquarium (which is really lame, btw) and i get to find joy in all of this stuff, again. now that is a good thing, right? of course right.
 buck up #3 enjoy my kids where they are before they're in school or i'm taking them to 800 extra curricular activities.

i'd add more, but i think 3 buck-ups are enough to focus on for right now. until next time, i bid you, adieu.

Yellowstone 2010

This is how B. looked a good portion of the time. BUT with his mad glassing (looking through binoculars for wild life) skills we were able to see 19 bears. Including a mama grizzly with 4 (that's right 4) cubs.

How appropriate that the baby elk were at the playground.

Mama buffs and baby buffs.

Sorry for the fuzzy foto. I turned my camera to manual focus unknowingly and then, clearly, did not manually focus. The point of this fabulous pic is the hand mirror duct taped to the casing of the side mirror as a replacement. You can take em out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out o' them.

All in all we saw: bears, foxes, coyotes, antelope (and baby antelopes chasing each other--so blasted adorable), a ridiculous number of buffalo, elk, big horn sheep, mountain goats (the best was the mama goat and it's kid racing around on the cliffs--HOW do they do that?!?), bald eagle, snake, and pot guts. It was a fabulous time and couldn't have been done without my parents, who watched the children, Denise, who fed the chickens, and Crishelle who taught the primary class.

Kiss kiss to you all. --and to all a good night.

Thomas again and again and again

Since our visit to see the little train H.'s love of all things locomotive has been renewed. Monday and Tuesday he pulled out his train tracks, which I haven't seen in months, and built a variety of tracks for Stanley the silver and white engine. He did this all day both days (except for the moments spent in his beloved outdoors).

Oh, and here's a funny little conversation I overheard:

Lady at Costco:   Did you see Thomas? --she noticed his Thomas tatoo
Hayden:  Yes. And he was so happy to see me.
L at C:  He waaas? How exciting.
Hayden:  And I rode on Thomas. I rode in Clarabel (a Thomas passenger car)
L @ C:  mmmmm
Hayden: And I saw Topham Hatt.
L @ C:  You diid. That's very cool.
Hayden: And he was tall.
Lady @ C: oooh.

Cute kid.

Memorial Weekend Part 3: Evanston

Let me first start this post by saying: AAAAAAAAH. I've been fighting blogger and picture placement for several minutes and I'm tired of it so take it or leave it. I have to.

Every year sometime between the end of May and the beginning of July Brent and I (and often his mom) make a trek to the Evanston cemetery to pay a visit to his dad's grave as well as several of his father's relatives--including two  teen aged boys who were killed in a wild wild west shoot out (B's family has quite a colorful and fantastic history). This year we went in May, with his mom, and had quite a nice time.

Scout is picking up rocks along the Bear River walkway in Evanston where we stopped for some lunch.

Looks like they were having a serious conversation and neither of them were none too happy about it. Truthfully I don't know what they were talking about, or if they were even talking at all.

Hayden had just thrown some rocks and said, "SCORE!!" He also was the one to do up the clasps on his jacket.

Mimi, B and little S. taking a moment.

S. blowing at a pinwheel. She and her brother are obsessed with these things.

Memorial Weekend Part 2: This is the Place Heritage Park

Alex and Hayden on their way into the park. Alex is one fabulous older cousin. No one can make my kids laugh like he can.

A pony ride!! Why am I making that face? Your guess is as good as mine.

This baby goat loved Scout's stroller. Mmm.

Who's this cute kid? That's my favorite daughter.

Memorial Weekend. Part 1: A Day Out with Thomas (and Noah and Megan)

At the end of the day... a nice photo op with Gordon, Percy, and James.

Hayden wore his Thomas sun glasses most of the day. Thank you Thomas C. for re-gifting them to us.

The train ride, which was actually fairly lame, back up for 12 minutes go forward for 12 minutes at the awesome pace of 5mph.

Sir Topham Hatt ( aka: creepy large-plastic-head-man). Hayden just stared at him the whole time as if in awe that he was actually standing next to THE Topham Hatt.

...I almost forgot the best part. When we arrived Thomas was just coming back from a jaunt down the track and when Hayden saw him he said, "Mom. There's Thomas. He's been waiting for me all day." Adorable. Simply adorable.

A Little Bit o' This and a Little BIt o' That

A word about denim skirts on a one year old. This is how it SHOULD look...

This is how it most often looks.

Sassy or risque? You make the call.

The little man drew this the other day and said. "Hey. look at this 'H', Mom."

Clearly I was so impressed I took a photo and am now posting it.

My children have been finding and carrying around dollar bills for the last several days. I'm beginning to think they have access to a money tree they are not telling me about. I'm unsure as to how to get them to share.

I made this. No, really. I did. I made it in like 3 hours. I'm pretty impressed with myself.

Another thing I'm impressed with? I ran. Okay, I trotted 5.25 miles this morning. WITHOUT stopping. I know, right? You don't believe me. But I'm telling you it's true and hell hasn't frozen over. Just another bit o' evidence that miracles DO still happen.

Tactic #3?

Tired of hearing about my son's potty training woes? Thinking I should just get on with it already? Try living it and then we'll talk. Try knowing that his window of interest in such a thing was probably last year when Scout went through her screaming phase and the window was most likely three hours long. You ever tried finding/guessing when that window is? Kudos to you if you guessed right with your child because I have clearly guessed wrong with mine.

To all of those of you who potty trained your children pre-disposable diapers or pre-two car families and  who are horrified that my almost three year old is still in diapers I apologize (I don't sincerely apologize because I'm not feeling especially sincere about it). I apologize that my mothering disappoints you. And to those of you who have yet to embark on this wondrous adventure hold your judgement. I wish I had.

Why did I start this post? Oh, that's right our latest tactic: Bribing. This is a long used way to get children to do what you'd like. Bribing and guilt....LONG used in the parenting world. Unfortunately, H. responds to neither. I love when other parents suggest giving him an M&M when he uses the facilities appropriately or to encourage him to do so. Sadly, the little one couldn't care less. Candy? Yeah, that's nice, but does it compare to the convenience of the ultimate port-o-potty (my diaper)?!? I think not. Okay. Fair enough. Candy doesn't work. How about a Thomas the Tank Engine laptop? Or a puppy? Yes, we've tried both. When we discuss it with him he just pats his butthigh and says, "I like this diaper."

Just two days ago B. brought up the subject again, "Hayden would you like a Thomas computer?"
Hayden hops off his chair and says, "Yes, let's go to the store."
"Nooo. What do you have to do to get a Thomas computer?"
Hayden looks around the room and then changes the subject by picking up a book,"I like this story. Let's see what happens."

Are we at a loss? Yes, we are. Much like we were at a loss when our 18 month old was still scooting around on his rear end showing no interest in walking. Try as we might we could not get him to walk, until it was HIS idea. I'm assuming we're seeing the pattern for the rest of his life. -- he'll do it when he damn well pleases.

Wellness Challenge

Yesterday I started  a Wellness Challenge after my sister in law, Megan, told me I'd be dead to her if I didn't do it. In this challenge you get one point for doing 10 different things throughout the day. At the end of the week you tally up your points and report them and by the end of three months whomever has the most point wins 80% of the pot (every participant puts in $10), the 2nd place winner gets 15%, and the 3rd place winner gets 5%.  I'm doing this for a variety of reasons: 1) I need to be more healthy 2) I liked that this challenge includes physical, spiritual and mental wellness 3) I'd like to make a lifestyle change 4) I want to be a good example to my children of healthy eating, moving, and living. So there you have it, my latest bit o' nuttiness.

PS: If you're wondering about Race for the Cure. Did it. Didn't so much race, but I completed it and am still working on the RUNNING part (doing pretty well, I might add).

PPS: Megan never said anything about being dead to her. I just put that in for dramatic effect ( or is it affect? why can't I ever remember which is which?!?)

PPPS: If you're interested in following my progress for this little challenge feel free to do so here.

Smarter than I

"Hayden, you can either help pick this up or you can go in time out. Which would you prefer?"
"Time Out."

For Later Years

I suppose I should preface this post. A year or two ago I came across a section in the family edition of Real Simple magazine. The section was letters written by people to their children to be read at various times in the kid's lives: first heart break, first time you wrecked the family car, wedding day etc. I really liked this idea and decided to do it. Because I plan on printing my blog into a blog book it made sense to put such things here. Yes, I realize it may be a little weird to write a letter like this to a 2 and 1 yr. old, but that's how I roll...a little on the weird side.

Dearest Children o' Mine:

I just want you to know that eventually your heart will break and your insides will hurt with a pain you never knew could come from a non-physical feeling. You will tell me about the heart breakage and I will most likely cuss and offer unkind names for the individual (I am not a lady when my children's feelings are on the line--and probably not a model parent either). When we both calm down--a few days later--I will do my best to offer some sage advice. It might not be good, but here's a sampling of what I've learned from heart breaks:

1. Time does heal all wounds. The length of time depends of the depth of the wound.

2. You will learn a LOT about yourself during this time.

3. You didn't necessarily do anything to deserve this heart break (and if you did we'll talk about that later), sometimes people just don't work out as a couple.

4. Dating is kind of like trying on clothes in the sense that you should date a variety of people and perosnalities. Don't think you are stuck with the first thing you seeor "try-on".

5. Just because it didn't work out with this individual doesn't mean there is anything wrong with you.

6. Everybody, even the bold and the beautiful, have had their heart broken at some point or another.

7. You will one day be (if you haven't been already) the heart breaker. Remember to be kind.

8. Feel free to eat that gallon of ice cream or punch a (read: ONE) hole in the wall tonight, but for tomorrow it would be best to find a healthier outlet for your pain and frustration.

9. Refrain from spreading rumors or information that might be harmful to you heart-breaker to friends and associates. That can, and will, come back to bite you.

10. Remember that I love you, your father loves you, your grandparents love you and that can be enough for now. Just for now. Don't worry, you won't be an old-maid or old-bachelor.

With that said, I offer one more word of advice: Scout, be careful what you tell your father. The man has guns you know.

Love you both,

Mom

Notes:

Dear Mom,

I'm going to be honest here. I'm pretty sure that over the years you will see more notes like this. As my kids grow I will have the opportunity to experience all of the little things I did to you that were so very annoying, and I will then have the opportunity to ask forgiveness for them.

Listed below are a couple of things I feel I must apologize for now. Though, in my defense, I was unaware how completely obnoxious I was being at the time. With that said, I am so very sorry that I ever:

* hung around outside the bathroom door while you were in there calling your name or sticking my fingers under the door so as to get your attention.

* stood silently at your bedside in the middle of the night until you woke up. That's really creepy. Hayden does it all the time (only he's not completely silent--he sniffs until I wake up).

That is all for now.

Love always,
Julia
(as myself)

This is one of the newest members of the family. "Why chickens?" you ask. "Eggs," I say.

This is B-rent looking a bit scruffy and a bit contemplative. He's still a nice guy.

This is me hiding because whenever my sister Alison gets the camera I end up looking crappy in pictures

This is Scout and I. I was trying to take a self portrait of us. Fail. But her smile is cute.