I'm back...

I know, it has been forever. So here's what we've been up to.

I got released as Primary President. (Woohoo!) Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved this calling but it was a lot of work and after 3 years, I was starting to feel pretty burnt out. After some friendly suggestions to the Bishop, I got my wish to be the Primary Chorister. I love it! I still get to be in Primary but when I go home on Sunday, I'm done until the next Sunday.

We had our annual New Year's Eve party. This time we made it to the New Year without stitches or a trip to the ER. So our year started out better right away.

We had a fun and busy Christmas. Most of Robby's family was in town so it made for a crazy and fun Christmas. The boys were thrilled to have Kelsey, Tommy and Maya stay with us. As usual the boys got nearly everything they could possibly want for Christmas. We spent a whole evening the next week cleaning out their room to make room for the new ones. We nearly filled out entire trash can but at least now they can find their toys.

Even our neighbor Margaret got them a present. Margaret, who is 83, came over on Christmas Eve and asked Robby if he would come and help her bring the boys' present over. This is what he brought back:

Yup, that's right, the present was bigger than them both put together. Here's what was inside:

They LOVE it. The only problem is where to put it in the house until it's warm enough outside to put on the patio.

Sadly, Jack did not get the real puppy he asked for. Instead he got a toy puppy that does all the stuff a real puppy does, just minus the poop. He seems to be satisfied with it for the most part. But if he ever finds money lying around he tells us he's going to use it to buy a puppy. This phase will end soon, right? Because seriously, it's not going to happen.

A couple days before Christmas the boys got together with their cousins and made Gingerbread (graham cracker) Houses. If you know my boys their houses say everything about them. Owen's is nice and neat, the sides match, etc. Jack's is crazy! My favorite part is the huge cookie he slapped on the roof.


Last week my parents came to visit. They came this same time last year and the weather was sunny and beautiful. This year they came and it was like a hurricane! It rained every single day and the wind blew like crazy. The boys still had a blast with Grandma and Grandpa and as usual my parents help us fix things around the house. My dad fixed our doorknobs, installed a new doorbell, helped Robby fix the bathroom faucets and hung a new towel bar. Here's Jack "helping" my dad.


My mom and I spent most of our time making Valentine decorations and sewing. Owen was thrilled to have her sew his Webkin some clothes. Here's Shaggy in his latest getup.


Owen's requests while my parents were here were to 1) go to McDonald's for breakfast, and 2) go to the train museum. Luckily, we were able to do both. The boys had a lot of fun at the train museum. We had never been before and the boys loved getting on all the old trains and then playing with all the toy trains. I'll add pictures when I get them from my dad.

December Craziness

Yup, it's that time of year again. No, not Christmas. Primary everything! It was nice to get the Primary program over, but then comes all of the end of year stuff that has to get done. Parent folders (not done), teacher binders (not even started), birthday gifts for next year (barely started), Santa's Breakfast (done!), Teacher Board Meeting (almost done), etc. I'm very much looking forward to a December when I will no longer be Primary president. It will be nice to enjoy the holidays without all the Primary stuff. Don't get me wrong, I love being in Primary. I just don't like everything that has to be done at the end of the year.

Needless to say, I haven't had much time to blog or even take pictures. We did get a chance to put up Christmas lights and even got a tree - from WiseBuys, $9.98! The boys have had so much fun helping decorate. Jack likes to continually remove the Christmas tree ornaments and rearrange them. Thankfully, I put all the breakable ones out of his reach.


On Saturday, we had our ward Santa's Breakfast. It was a lot of work but a huge success. I miraculously guessed right and bought the right amount of food and we had well over 100 people show up. Santa came, and the boys got to tell him what they want for Christmas. Owen asked for a scooter and skateboard, and at the last minute a red dinosaur! Great, that was not on his list a week ago. He is constantly adding to his Christmas list, so I hope he is not disappointed when he doesn't get everything he asked for.

Jack told us he wanted to ask Santa for a puppy. That's right, a real puppy. Thanks to the Walmart ad that showed kids opening a box with a real puppy. Unfortunately, Santa is not bringing a puppy this year, or any year for that matter. Jack says it so cute though I seriously thought Robby was going to run out and buy a puppy. (Sorry, but I no longer have any kids in diapers and I'm not going to clean up after a dog!) Jack screamed as soon as we sat him on Santa's lap so he never got to tell him what he wanted. I'll add the picture on the blog as soon as I get it. It's pretty funny.

Catching Up

Seriously, I don't know how you guys keep your blogs up! It's 10 o'clock on Friday night and I finally have a few minutes to put up a few pictures. Can we just say Primary Program?! And yes, this is my THIRD primary program as primary president.

Anyway, here's a few pics of what we've been up to lately. Halloween costumes took up a big chunk of my time this month. The boys decided (with persuasion) that they wanted to be bicyclists. Here are their very authentic-looking Tour de France jerseys . Owen's is the green one and Jack's is yellow.






All ready to race!


We've been so busy this month that I finally got the Halloween decorations out on the 29th. When I got them out I found a couple of kits that I had bought on clearance last year to make spiders and a pirate ship. So we had a Family Craft Night to make our Halloween decorations. Even Robby got in on glue gun fun.


Here are some of the finished products.


On a rainy day this month I made play dough and let the boys go at it. They had a blast and probably played for a couple of hours. Jack especially loved it since play dough is something we usually do while he is napping. Surprisingly, the mess wasn't too bad. Homemade play dough is way easier to clean up than the store bought stuff.





Finally, Owen started a soccer class this month. Several of his friends are in the class and so far he loves it.



Hopefully, things will slow down soon and I can do a better job of posting. But I'm not getting my hopes up.

Good kisser

Beware those with young daughters! Jack is quite the kisser these days.

Ocean Isle Beach

We spent the last two weeks of August at Ocean Isle Beach, NC. It was amazing. My parent's have an awesome beach house and we had so much fun with them and my oldest brother and his family. We had two whole weeks with nothing to worry about except putting on enough sunscreen. I even learned to knit (so fun!) while I was there.

Here some of the pictures from the trip.


Can you see a theme to what Jack's favorite thing to do was?

Owen discovered the boogie boards. We were surprised at how brave he was.

This is Owen making sand angels. And yes, this is the same kid that doesn't like to be dirty and won't even finger paint. Go figure.

The whole family in the water. Even Jack loved the ocean this year so it was fun for all of us to get in.

Family picture. My hair is crazy because it was so windy that day!

All the kids hanging out on the deck, eating Otter Pops.

My dad took tons more pictures but I haven't had a chance to go through them all yet.

Big News

Woohoo! Jack is potty trained. We were mean and started potty training him the day before his 2nd birthday. I wasn't planning on it so early, but he started telling me he needed to poop and would lead me to the bathroom. Needless to say, I wasn't going to miss this window of opportunity. I had an awesome picture of him on the potty wearing all his bike gear but I can't find it anywhere. When I find it, I will add it to the post. Something to embarrass him with later.

Happy Birthday Jack!

Last Sunday we celebrated Jack's 2nd birthday. He was clueless about the whole thing. It didn't start out well when he was terrified of his cake and then he got a toy that he was scared of. Poor kid. Eventually he got into everything once all the cousins got there.

Here's Jack and the "terrifying" cake. He kept crying and saying, "Away, away!"


Grandma and Grandpa got a pinata for Jack's party. As you can see Jack wasn't thrilled about it.


Owen and the other kids loved it!

Jack opening his presents.


One of Jack's favorite presents was Mr. Potato Heads that have animal faces. Once he opened this Owen tried to take over opening the other presents.

Here he is with his Mr. Potato Head.

Jack's big present from both sets of grandparents was a Skuut bike. It's a pedal-less bike. It is supposed to teach kids how to balance on a bike so they never have to use training wheels. We'll let you know how it works.

Of course, you need safety gear to ride a bike. Thanks Tommy and Kelsey!

Here's Jack blowing (spitting) out the candles. Happy Birthday Jack!

Just for fun, here's a couple pictures from Jack's past birthdays.