Prayer

The other day Braxton was saying the dinner prayer which usually consists of thanking for the food, bless the food and the end. He decided to go on and on by saying thanful for animals, our house, our cars, all the food, cheetos, hum, dum, dub, wab, (we had no idea what that meant) and please bless mom can take my bye bye to jumpin jacks so I can play, and please bless mom can get me air buddies to watch on the TV."

I admire his faith. Poor thing though will have to learn that not all prayers are answered like you want and if they are eventually answered like you want it may take a while. I'm sure we will go back to jumpin jacks someday but I am still deciding on the movie.

He has his cute moments too!

Just a few pictures of Peyton being cute. He loves when I take pictures of him with my phone.

Oops, he did it again

One of our favorite things in our house is hot chocolate. Peyton requests it several times a day and sometimes tries to help out by getting a cup and the hot chocolate mix all ready for me. He took the lid off the hot chocolate before putting it up on the counter and completely dumped it all over. I was downstairs and heard him yelling "Help Mom, Heeelp!" When I got upstairs he was already starting to cry but I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Dentist

Braxton had his first trip to the dentist this week. Thanks to his school field trip the day before to the dentist he was very excited. He loved the suction tube (I hate that part) and really loved the TV on the ceiling he was able to watch. He could not quit smiling because he was having so much fun. The dentist was great too! If anyone needs a great dentist I have a great referral for both children and adults. I am sad I forgot my camera. All I had was my phone.

Public Apology

I will have to publicly apologize to Peyton. After letting my make-up dry out, everything is fine with it. In fact-the colors have gone on more vibrant than they did before. He made my powder eye shadow into a creamy eye shadow. I am thinking of calling Mac and telling them what a success it was and having them bring back this compact in creamy!

Make up

I set a bath up for the kids and then took all the dirty laundry downstairs. I came right back up (I know it's bad to leave your kids in the tub). When I walked into the bathroom Peyton had my make up in the bathtub with him. He had taken my favorite compact of eyeshadow and was painting his face and Braxton's face with it. It was soaking wet. When I stopped dead in my tracks and gasped Braxton looked at me and said, "Peyton did it!" I wasn't surprised. I was sad however because he ruined about $50 worth of makeup that I can't really replace right now. I know not to leave them in the bath anymore. I will have to admit he was onto something though. The colors that came out when it was wet was really pretty.

Peyton, Peyton, Peyton

My cute little Peyton has so much fun. I am having a hard time leaving him alone at all. He is in this stage where he likes to throw EVERYTHING! I'm not sure what to do about it. He as thrown remotes, phones, makeup and really whatever he can lift and throw. If he notices that I am looking at him he will bring me the item so he can still touch it but doesn't get in trouble for throwing it. This past week while driving on the freeway he rolled his window down and threw his shoe out the window. I didn't notice until I was getting him out at the grocery store. I asked him where his shoe went. He said "I don't know." I looked everywhere for it. Then I remembered he had rolled his window down. I asked him if he had thrown it out the window and he got this big grin on his face and said, "Ya, WHEEEEE!" I loved those shoes.

This is also an example of what can happen with 5 minutes of unsupervised Peyton. I made a batch of muddy buddies (which have powdered sugar all over them). I let him and Braxton eat them while I went downstairs to clean. I was gone for only a couple of minutes when Braxton came downstairs. I heard something dropping on the floor above me. This is what I found.


He would not look at me when I came into the kitchen. He just kept saying "No Mom, go out!" After saying that a couple times he tried a new approach by looking at me with a huge cheesy grin. There was powdered sugar all over the walls, chairs, microwave, fridge and table. It took a while to clean up. I am still finding traces of powdered sugar.

A couple hours later he found my purse and ate the rest of my gum. There were 6 pieces left in the pack. He was so excited. I was not so excited. My credit cards, receipts and everything else that was in my purse was everywhere. It did force me to go through old receipts though. What do you do? He is so cute.

Cute Things

I am going to start posting more of the things my kids say for my record. I have wanted to do this for a long time and will be printing my blog at the end of the year for a journal. Sorry if it bugs you but just skip over what you don't want to read!

I took Braxton to the doctor yesterday. About an hour after picking him up from school his eyes started to get really goobery. After the doctor checked everything out he looked at Braxton and said "your eyes are really red." Braxton responded "No they aren't, they are blue."

Another thing I know I will forget if I don't write it down. Braxton refuses to call string cheese, string cheese. He insists it is called Spring cheese.

Dino Museum

Sarah, Randi and I went to the Dinosaur Museum last week. It was a lot of fun. Braxton kept showing me the bones that I needed to take out and throw for the T-Rex to come alive. (He loves "Night at the Museum")

I was a little mean and put Zander in the sand thinking that if he went all in he would like it. Not so much. He later decided he had to slowly make his way in.

Braxton enjoyed making Sand Angels.

Tanner's hat kept shifting on him poor kid.

Sarah, Zander, Laura, Braxton

Sarah, Zander, Randi, Tanner

Hidden Talents

One of Brian's many hidden talents is to "suck flan". This is one of those things he learned while on a mission. He was able to line these up and make 12 disappear in less than 22 seconds. I didn't discover this hidden talent until after we were married. I'm not sure if it would have made a difference but I do think it is pretty sick/amazing.

Happy New Year

We had a great Christmas. We celebrated Christmas Eve with Brian's family at Becky's house. Mike and Michelle, Becky and John, and Jennifer. It was a lot of fun. Becky and Jen cooked us a great Turkey and Ham dinner. It was great. After Becky read the kids a story about Christmas. The kids were so excited to open presents they could barely consintrate on the story. We let them each open the presents that the families exchange. Mike and Iva gave us all 72 hour kits. I was really excited about these. It has motivated me to do better with the ones that I have. After opening presents the kids went downstairs to the basketball court and played while the adults played some board games.

Christmas morning was a lot of fun with the kids. Braxton was so excited to get his Spike the dinosuar. When he turned it on it scared him. He wanted to watch it but was too scared to go near it for the first 30 minutes. At one point he went running into the kitchen because he thought Spike was chasing him.

Peyton loved all his presents but loved Spike. He wanted to rip open his presents as fast as he could. It took a while for Braxton. He enjoyed playing with each gift as he opened them.

We have 2 family traditions during the Christmas break. Going Skiing and snowboarding with the adults that want to go and to meet on New Years Day and go sledding with my family. There is a great hill by my parents house that goes on and on. We pulled the kids up the hill with the four wheelers then let everyone go crazy. Once all the kids make it to the bottom of the hill we go back down and get them. Thanks to the nice weather we were albe to stay for 4 hours.

Night skiing with Kerrie at Brighton the day after Christmas.

Part of the clan waiting for the rest to make it up the hill.

The kids started to get a little tired on the walk back to the car.

The twilight before Christmas

I stole this from Niesha's blog. I thought everyone should be able to enjoy this. Merry Christmas!

http://www.take180.com/s/The_Twilight_Before_Christmas/ep5l7

I cannot figure out how to upload it so just click on the link.

Candy Cane Ball

Brian and I were able to go to the Candy Cane Ball (a fundraiser for literacy). Sadly we did not get pictures with Jenn but here are some with Brian's brother and his wife and then his sister and her husband. We were able to enjoy a great meal and a night out.

Seeing Santa

The kids love riding the train in the mall but I love the Santa better in the other mall sooo....we have to go to both each year. Here are a couple photos of the fun. Braxton is very concerned Santa is going to forget his Spike the Dino. He has been waiting so long and still at night Santa forgets to leave it. Santa's Elves come and visit a couple of times a week to make sure the kids have been good and leave a little treat in the magic box. The other morning when Braxton woke up he looked in and sadly looked at me and said, "He forgot Spike again. All he left was this little candy cane. Can we please go tell him again." We made our last trip to the mall so Braxton could tell Santa what he wanted.

Happy Birthday Peyton

Peyton celebrated his 2nd birthday this week. He did not have a hard time figuring out that all the presents were for him and none were for Braxton. I usually have things all prepared and told myself that I would never minimize his birthday because of the holidays. The day before his birthday I was frantically looking for a cake pan to make a cake for him but could not find the one I wanted. I resorted to using a old one. I showed Peyton the cake pans and asked him if he wanted a choo choo or elmo. He loves both but was hoping he asked for Elmo because it was less complicated. He of course picked the choo choo. At 9:00 pm and very tired I decided to do Elmo instead. The next morning when Peyton woke up I showed him his cake. He was very excited and yelled "ELMO!" Then looked at it and asked "Where's the Choo Choo". Ooops. Luckily he was very excited about his toys. He enjoyed not sharing his Diego Rescue pack, Block Train set, counting numbers bear, block puzzles, books, some sort of Rainbow scribble egg thing (it's way messier than they say it is).

Winter Fun

The kids are so excited there is snow. Braxton loves to go outside when it's snowing to try and catch snowflakes in his mouth. He told me the snowflakes were "very delicious and tasty". Each time we are out there the kids ask me to make snowballs so they can throw them at me. I love how excited they get when I agree and let them hit me wherever they can. I forgot how carefree it was to be a child and the snow brings back so many memories to me of my childhood. I was lucky enough to live on acres and acres of land with nobody living behind us for miles and miles. My home had a huge hill (I thought...now I realize it is not so big) but perfect enough to go sledding with my brothers and sisters. My dad would hook a sled up to the four wheeler and pull us. As we got older the game turned into jumping on the sled and trying to push the other off while still holding on. This game has gotten much more complicated as we have gotten older. The sled has now turned into a very slick piece of roofing material used to repel water with next to nothing to hold onto. My brothers will stop at nothing to get me off.

Catching Up

I have been a bit of a slacker and have not posted anything in months. Here is a quick update.

We did the Halloween thing. It was great and the kids loved it. If you can't tell-Braxton is a dragon and Peyton is a monkey.

Kerrie, Jennifer, Mom and I went to Grand Junction to see our adopted sister and her new baby. We love it and wished we were closer to Mirabella. I already miss her and her baby.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Noorlanders at my parents house. Even though we had a house full we were still missing so many people.

We went to Temple Square to see the lights. For those of you who know Mark that is his little boy on the end.

The following week we had our Christmas party with the Noorlanders. We visited old friends and neighbors, decorated gingerbread houses, played games, exchanged presents and had a surprise visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus.

Brian and I celebrated our 5th anniversary in Park City. Thanks to our Mom's who took turns watching our kids we were able leave for 2 nights. We went skiing on Friday and Saturday. I have a really funny post later...I'm still not quite sure if I should share it with the public yet. I'm not good at skiing....not even a little. I should have worn a less noticalbe jacket because people really knew me up there. I think I was the only one on the slope with a pink jacket. Everyone else had black, white, or red. I really stood out. We did have a lot of fun though and really enjoyed the break.

I really cannot believe it has been 5 years. It seems like we are really just starting to get to know each other. We have now made it one year for every month we dated each other. We met July 13th, were engaged October 5th and married December 16th. Thank you to Britt...you are responsible for all this. I know you have heard that before but really. This is all your fault! We have had a lot of fun and have been very blessed to have our boys and each other. He is my best friend and I love him so much.