The Tale of a BOY and His POTTY TRAINING

On Monday I left the kids with Mike to run some errands. When I came home Christian came down stairs and told me he was wearing his underwares and he got candy from the trick or treat bowl cause he went poopoo on the potty. And sure enough he did. Mike said he found him in the bathroom with his diaper on the floor and he was getting off the big toilet cause he had just gone poopoo. So after cleaning up some poop smears on the toilet seat from Christian trying to get off it Mike put him in unders. And he's been wearing them all week. We give him a piece of candy from the trick or treat bowl every time he goes in the toilet and so at first he would tell us he had to go and sit there for two seconds go tinkle tinkle and get a candy. Then after a minute he would tell me he had to go again and sit there for two more seconds, go tinkle, tinkle and get another candy. Then on and on. He's a smart little man, he knows how to score the candy!! It's gotten a lot better now and he only tells me when he actually has to go. Another good news, our trick our treat candy is almost gone. HURRAY

I can't believe how easy it's been. I was scared to death of potty training Christian because I've always heard boys are harder to train then girls. And I had come to terms with the fact that it would probably be another year before he was ready. But we've gone all week with only two potty accidents. Next thing is to try taking him out with unders on. We haven't done that yet and hopefully we get that down before our drive to Cali next week :)

Doesn't he look like he could be an under-roo model with that Ethiopia belly!!

Also this week, Kathryn has been improving her walking and talking skills. She started walking while I was in Washington and she's gotten real good at it since. Her vocabulary has gotten bigger too. She can say Mama, Dada, uh-oh, bye bye, Nigh nigh, Lola, no and some version of Christian that I have no idea how to spell, so you'd have to hear it. She also models the Ethiopia belly really well. What can I say it runs in the family.

Christmas pictures

I took a trip last week to Washington for my niece's baptism. It was just Lorin and I. Christian and Kaki stayed home with dad for 6 whole days. It was so nice not to have to change a bum for that long. I'm so proud of my niece, she looked so cute in her white dress.


My mom flew up too, and hung out with all the grand kids. My older brothers kids were getting over the flu so we didn't really get to see them.


My brother took this picture, none of us knew that Justin was standing behind us. And after David took it everyone was laughing and we didn't know what was going on. David was all "um that one came out fuzzy, we should take another one". Not until I downloaded them did we know what was so funny!!



One of the things we did was a gingerbread house contest. My mom and 3 of the cousins did one house while me and 3 of the cousins did the other. They turned out looking the same because we just followed the picture on the box :)

This was our great excuse for going to Washington, then it wasn't so bad to drive just the couple extra miles(3 hours) to Forks.

FORKS FORKS FORKS = Fun Fun Fun

First I have to say Thank you to Alli for giving us a reason to go out to Washington, then I didnt feel like such a huge dork making a trip to Forks, since we were already in town :-)

Where to start, fun stuff!!! It was so much fun, just the girls taking a road trip through some of the most beautiful scenery in Washington to end up at this cute little town, in the middle of no-where. But it wasn't just any town, it was the coolest town of population 3,175 you could go too!! There was only one main street, which was the highway and only one street light in the whole town. Of course it was overcast and a little rainy because Forks averages three hundred and twenty something overcast days out of the year. We were fine with that because that increased the probability of us meeting one of the towns hottest (no longer bachelor) vampire. Because everyone knows, they dont come out when it's sunny outside. Something to do with their sparkly skin. :P

So like I said the scenery was unbelievable. Tons and tons of huge trees, foggy freeways, lakes that sneak up on you after you turn a bend on the highway and no civilization for miles(besides the trucks carrying huge logs.)

We passed some other cute little towns, but we really had no interest in them, so we drove by while taking pictures. It was so quit and peaceful. The cutest thing was seeing these little houses on the other side of this lake that had the smoke coming out of their chimneys. Totally a place I would love to take a nice vacation away from the busy everyday world.

The best part was coming upon this beautiful sign welcoming us to Forks. So we had to pull over and take a picture in front of it. And yes people were driving by looking at us funny. Like what the heck are those freaks doing on the side of the freeway!! Amy said she had come to be the picture taker so she didn't want to come and stand with us in the picture. She's such a punk.

The first place we went was to see if Bella was at work. JK, this was pretty much the main grocery/hardware store, and we wanted to get some snackies. I guess with a town of only 3700 people it would make sense that you know just about everyone in the town, and everyone did know each other.

After a quick lunch the first thing we found was the Hospital, it's right off the main street so we had to track down the parking spot reserved for Dr Cullen. Laura had to get out and take the pictures because I was driving :). But he has a spot reserved right next to the ambulance cars.

On the other side of the main street was Forks High School. This was about all there was to the high school.

This was a Bed and Breakfast that was dubbed the Cullen house by the city. Esme keeps an update on the porch of what each of the Cullens are doing that day. It's a really cute BandB, I think it would look better in the movie than the house they used in the movie.

Next was Bella's house. There are actually people that live here, and they must constantly have strange wierdos driving by their house and taking pictures of it.

Bella's car is parked at the City of Commerce building. If anyone is planning a visit there, I would definetely make this your first stop. They have maps of the town with all the Twilight spots marked. We didn't do that, so we spent more time driving around the little town looking for the places.

Charlies cruiser is parked at City Hall, there was a guy sitting in his undercover car watching us take these pictures and laughing at us. I don't blame him.








La Push and La Poel(pull). La Poel is right before Forks and La Push is right after Forks. We didn't have time to go to La Push, :(. That's ok we can make another trip. We wanted to get back to Port Angeles in time to watch the movie.

Port Angeles was pretty much as scary as I thought it would be. Especially the main strip where all the shopping is. After dark I wouldn't want to be there by myself. This was the theatre that Bella and Jacob go to the movies in the second book. We had to take my older sister there to watch the movie because she's never seen it before. It was so cute and old. And the movie was still really really good.

This would be the resturaunt that Bella and Edward ate dinner. They've changed their name but it's really cute. We didn't eat there, it didn't fit into our schedule.
That was pretty much our trip. It started really early in the moring to drive the couple hours from my sisters house and it ended a little late. But it was so worth it and so much fun to just spend a day with my sisters.

Here are some out-takes of our Forks trip.

The new Twilight store that just opened in Forks.

My sister is such a dork!!

A weird but funny sign.
Camera wars!

Me multi-tasking, taking a picture while driving.

Coming Home

After Mike picked us up at the airport we were pulling into our driveway and he's all, "whats that on our garage door? what the heck is that?" So I get out and this is what I find..... Pretty much summed up the trip!! Thanks babe.

The Weather

You would never believe, even with pictures, how changing the weather is at our house. I don't know weather to get out an umbrella, snow suit or a strait jacket. Yeah the strait jacket would probably be the best to prevent everything else. This morning it was hailing in our hallway, bath salts. The cause of the hail, my lovely adorable boy!! So I sent him to his room so I could vacuum it up. When I came back with the vacuum I saw snow flying all over his room. This time baby powder from the same lovely adorable cause. That won him a first class ticket to the tub. While the tub was filling I went back to vacuum the hall and hose down his room when Lorin starts yelling "mom come look what Christian did in the tub" . The boy (that's what he gets called when he's in deep deep dodo, which this time he literally was) pooped in my tub!!
Now the hall needs to be vacuumed, his room needs to be hosed down and my tub needs to be cleaned. Add that to the fact Mike's mom comes into town tonight so I'm frantically trying to clean the whole house and do the laundry.
Christian chooses the most opportune time, don't ya think.

This would be his "uh-oh, I just got caught face"

And this would be his, "mom's taking a picture of me, that must mean I'm cute" face.

On the good side, my hall now smells like lavender, and his room is clean and smells like fresh baby powder. And my tub is sparkling. Two rooms down, the rest of the house to go.

Twilight the movie (no spoilers)

I just got back not to long ago from watching the midnight showing of Twilight.(Yes that would mean it's real early in the morning) Unfortunately it got me worked up I have to find a way to get tired again.

At first we I decided to go I felt like a giddy 16 year old. It has been a lot of years since the last time I went to a midnight showing, but this one has been worked up so much I thought it was worth it. I went with a friend and we ate some food did some girlie things and then went over to the theater. And when I sat down in my seat, there was a giddy 16 year old sitting on one side of me intensely reading her Twilight book with her Twilight shirt on. And on the other side of me was an older mid 40's woman. So I was a good median.

I'm only going to say one thing about the movie

"It wasn't long enough."

In a week or so when just about every one's seen it then I'll go into it more. But for now that's it. Hope you enjoy it.

Neverland

A little while ago our friend, Lia, told us about a play her daughter was going to be in called Peter Pan. Well we know a little about that movie in our house. I think we have 4 different versions of it, and the new Tinkerbell movie. Lorin LOVES it. We knew we had to go. So we bought 4 tickets for closing night(usually the best night) and hoped for the best. The show was at 7pm and that's usually bed time for Kaki and almost bed time for Lorin and Christian. We packed a backpack full of snacks, because that's the best way to keep 2 year olds occupied and off we went.
I thought it was going to be a cast full of grade schoolers but when we got the program it ranged from preschoolers to high school drama teachers. And it was sooo good! It was longer than we thought, but the kids did really good. The snacks worked great, and after the snacks were over, Christian was still really interested in it. That is the best comment, when we're talking about a 2 year old. Kaki fared pretty well, I had to stand up in the back for about 10 mins till she fell asleep and then she slept for the rest of the show. Lorin absolutely LOVED IT. She was completely plugged in, she laughed her heart out, and cheered for Fairies as loud as she possible could to get Tinkerbell better.
The kids in the show did so good. They were so cute, Tinkerbell had to have been in 1st grade and she was so stinkin cute. Lia, Kowhai did so good too, she was a great Indian. And she looked like she had so much fun. Christian's favorite, was Nana the dog. He wanted to go pet the guy that played him after the show.
At the end Lorin asked me if we could go touch them, meaning the cast, and if they were real like us. She was completely dazzeled. She loved to see Peter Pan fly.
My only issue, Peter Pan was played by a woman. I know that on broadway and in an old movie that we have a woman plays him also. But why, peter pan is suppose to be a young boy, why do they have women play him? I just think thats wierd. Maybe it has to do with the voice. Who knows.
Anyway, it was such a great show and it was a great family activity. Thanks so much for telling us about it Lia. The theatre that put it on is called The South Jordan Community Theatre and they are getting ready to do Aristocats next. I'll have to talk to Lorin to see if she would be interested in being apart of it. If not at least going to watch it.

My new FAVORITE music video.

Paramore - New Music - More Music Videos

CZR iNK

We have decided to open up our own family TAT shop. So we've been practicing on each other our tatting skills. Kaki, by far, has the best tallent out of all of us but Lorin comes a close second. Here is some of Kakis work, she practiced on Lorin and Lorin did such a great job holding still while Kaki did her work.

Kaki's penmanship is amazing considering she's only 12 months and can only say a few words.

We had to sneak up on Mike and tag team him. But you know he love's them. He said he was going to show everyone at work because he's so proud of them.

If the tattoo's look a little familiar that could be because they came from my New Moon book in the Twilight series. Lorin found these tattoo's last night and we had to tattoo everyone. We tried to put Edward on Mike's other calf but it didn't come out. So he's just team Jacob. He wanted me to make a special note that in no way does this lessen his manhood. JK

Never ending Halloween

This year Halloween seemed like it was weeks long instead of just one night. It started with Lorin's class Halloween party two weeks ago. And barely ended on Saturday, after we had recuperated. It didn't help that on Wednesday night Mike came home early from school not feeling good. And when he woke up Thursday his throat hurt so bad he went to the Dr's and came home with Tonsillitis. It was perfect timing because Thursday night was our wards Halloween party and the young men were in charge of a booth. Mike could barely talk to he asked me to delegate it to anyone. Luckily I was able to find someone who was willing to do it. He spent all day Thursday and Friday in bed, once when I was taking the kids in the office to get stuff Mike had gotten out of bed for something and Lorin said "look mom, Daddy moved". It was classic Lorin!!

So I took the kids to the Halloween party and they had so much fun. Around 8:30 pm when Lorin was eating her second iced cookie after two cupcakes, and so much candy I can't mention I was feeling sick. Lorin has the cutest little girl friends, they all looked so cute in their costumes. And Christian, well let's just say, boy's will be boys.





Halloween went the same, get the kids dressed up, try and feed them some healthy food before we load up on all the sweets you can possibly get. This year was the first year I can think of since we moved to Utah that the weather wasn't horribly cold. I was OK wearing a short sleeve shirt when we went trick or treating. Usually it's a game of how many layers can you put on under your costume, and then another layer or two on top. We met up with some friends and just went around the neighborhood. Then came home asap so we could pass out the candy. Mike was completely out upstairs so we turned out all the lights while we were gone. And then Lorin passed out all the candy till it was gone.



Kaki even got in on the action and dressed up. Our little cow was more than happy to just sit in her stroller and suck on a sucker while Lorin and Christian ran from house to house. But it didn't take her long to figure out what it was they were collecting in their buckets. So when we got home she moseyed on over to their stash and invaded when they weren't looking.


Even with Mike being incognito through some of the activities, this was the best year so far. Christian gets it, Lorin loves it, and Kaki lived through it. Christian constantly asks me "Can we go trick or treating again". But now that it's over, it's time to put it all away and really count down for Twilight!! That's the next adventure. CANT WAIT, I'm reading the book one more time before the movie.(maybe two) :)

Hubby Tag

#1 Where did you meet?
He was dating one of my best friends and she hooked me up on a blind date with his brother. So we went on a double date, me with his brother and him and my best friend. We got dinner and and then went back to their house and watched a movie. (I know I have a picture of the 4 of us that night, but it is filled away somewhere) At the end his brothers on-again/off-again girlfriend called(nobody told me there was one of those) and my friend was going the other way to do stuff. So Mike ended up taking me home.
*quick note, I am not a boyfriend stealer, My friend broke up with Mike and she told me I should date him because we have a lot in common. And we do.

#2 How long did you date before you were married?
We dated for 2 1/2 years, after that long we decided we should get married or move on. We decided to get married and we started planning our wedding. Mike had my ring special made and we got it 5 days before we got married. And the day he got it we went out to dinner and he officially proposed. So we always joke that we had a 5 day engagement.

#3 How long have you been married?
9 years on Dec 23. And holy cow did it go by so fast. Since having kids it's gone by so much faster.

#4 What does he do that surprises you?
Mike is pretty predictable, that or I'm really hard to surprise. He always surprises me with his persistance. I think if I had going on my plate all the things he does I would give up. But he does really good at balancing and keeping his priorities strait.

#5 What is your favorite feature of his?
I love his smile. It's so full, and when he smiles his eyes are real chocolately brown.

#6 What is your favorite quality of his?
It's a tie between his caring and his humility. He always puts everyone before himself. That one I learned really quick when we were dating. He is so likable too, I am constantly being told how much people like my hubby. And its so true, he is so kind to everyone.

#7 What is his favorite sport
If you would have asked me 10 years ago it would have been golf, no questions. But he hasn't been golfing much lately. what he loves to do now is, target shooting. We use to go all the time while we were dating and then a lot before we had kids. Now he goes more with his buddies. He's so good at it too, I remember one time we went and did a lot of shotgun shooting, my shoulder hurt so bad the next couple days and I complained that I was never going to shoot a shotgun again, and he got this big bruise on the front of his shoulder and went shooting again the next weekend.

#8 What is his favorite color?
Airforce Blue!! He likes it so much he got his car that color.

#9 What is his favorite food?
Anything pasta. Poor guy has suffered since I got diagnosed. So we started adding more pasta to our menu's.

#10 Does he have a nickname for you?
Babe, but owe the nicknames that we have for him....Herb, guido, handsome, uncle monkey, and more that I cant really say or he would kill me!!

#11 Do you have any children?
Ya, 3 kiddies, that everyone says look just like Mike.

#12 What do you like to do together?
Pretty much everything.

#13 When and where was your first kiss?
I think it was our second date, he'll have to correct me if I'm wrong. It was the 4th of July, we went on a double date with his best friend and they took us up in the Corona hills to watch the fireworks with some sparkeling cider. It was really good.

#14 Does he have a hidden talent?
He is great with kids, he likes to pretend that he isn't but he is.

#15 Who said I love you first?
I dont remember, I'll have to consult him on that one.

#16 What is his favorite type of music?
Rock and he will listen to country when I'm in the car.

#17 What do you admire most about him?
He's great at just about anything he tries. Even if he's never tried it before, he will give it a try and usually do pretty good at it. I wish I was like that.

#18 Do you think he’ll read this?
Oh yes, and expect a comment from him. :)

I TAG:
Lea, Rebecca(I told you I'd get ya), Kathy, and Barb.

Momma Dont Allow

The time you are all awaiting is here. I had to upload the video to YouTube to get it on my blog. I really can't believe I'm putting this out in the blogingworld. But because it's not just me make the fool, I'm ok with it. JK
The funny thing was on Sunday when the Stake representative got up in our ward and talked about it and then said we'll have to schedule us for some ward activities. So Anne, it's not over. We need to keep practicing. ;)

Sexy Swingin Mommas

I had the opportunity(we'll call it that) to be apart of a group of women to sing in our stake musical night. Our ward music director picked out this cute folk song that none of us have heard before, but said it was an easy song. When I was originally asked, it was just us singing and maybe making some hand movements. Well then Kara was brought in to "choreograph" our dance. And, Kara, thats what you get for putting out in the blogworld that you use to be on your high school dance team. She came up with some real cute moves and by the time we learned them I thought what the heck am I getting myself into. I dont sing, I dont dance. So after lots and lots of practice we had our performances the last two nights. A women in our ward sewed us the cutest cosumes and after we assocorized with the right boots and sashes we looked so perfect. The first night we totally tanked. We were so nervous most of us couldn't sing, so you couldn't hear us. Mike came the second night and recorded it and we did so much better. And we had so much fun!!