What the Hecht

Skills

2011-05-23T19:03:00.003-06:00

You're going to want to click over from your reader. Seriously. Because I don't think you'll be able to see this picture from your reader (it's animated), and you want to see this:

Matt Nederlander to the rescue!

Are we still friends?

2011-05-04T14:32:00.005-06:00

Who stinks at blogging? (hint: me)

I wouldn't feel so bad for neglecting it, except that it's kind of the only way for our distant family to see pictures of the boys. So, um, whoops. Sorry about that!

Moving on.

I haven't told you about lots of stuff. Lots. Of. Stuff. For example:

Zach turned 1! Which resulted in some obligatory cupcake messiness.

His cupcakes weren't too shabby, either.

Matt played his first season of soccer, but as you can see from this extreme action shot, was less than thrilled with the sport.

For the record, that's because our city does it too early in the summer, so the kids spend their time begging to be on the sidelines, taking a drink of water. Now that's more like it.

Chris went to the Salt Flats (twice), which you can read about on his new blog.

Halloween fun:

Mr. and Mrs. Hecht rocked the costumes this year, for the first time in a decade, at least on my part. We also happened to discover the best thing ever to hand out to trick-or-treaters: glow sticks! Neighbors, I hereby proclaim that we'll be doing that every halloween, so no stealing my idea! You all just stick to the snickers.

The glow sticks also came in quite handy for our family New Year's Eve dance party. OK, OK, you can't really see the glow sticks too much in this picture, but it was too hard to resist posting a picture of Darth Jay (with glow stick glasses under his mask) and J.R. Or rather, J.R.'s pants. 'Nuff said.

It's pretty much ridiculous that I haven't found time to blog about our trip to Disney World. We loved, loved, loved Disney World. There are no words.

And no, I didn't have two more kids since I last blogged. Those are my nephews. Lots o' boys around these parts!

You shouldn't be that surprised that I didn't blog about Disney World, I guess, considering I never even blogged about our Disneyland trip of a year ago. Pathetic, I tell you.

Have I ever told you that Chris calls me Project Girl? He does, because of things that I make, like this:

Awesome, awesome homemade solution for toting around more kids than your stoller can fit. At Disney World, I heard a lot of whispered comments as we walked past people. They were A) Did you see that? They have FOUR BOYS!!!! and B) Wow, that skateboard thing is such a great idea! She should sell those.

It wasn't my idea, by the way. Well, at least it sort of wasn't. They sell a much more fancy version of this in Europe (it's called a Buggy Board), but I wasn't willing to pay nearly $100 to get one. So I jimmy rigged my own, made from a skateboard instead of a fancy plastic step stool on wheels. I'll have to show you how to do that some time.

Jake turned 8:

Got baptized:

And made an awesome Dodgers pinewood derby car.

Matt turned 6

Josh turned 4

I've been doing a lot of sewing. One owl for each son, awwwwwww. Project girl strikes again (and again, and so on and so forth).

We made some pretty awesome easter eggs.

Zach likes to get messy, and to bump his head:

Mmmmmmmmm, hot chocolate power (with head bump):

Oh, and Z also totally knows how one is supposed to use Tech Decks. He showed me:

That probably explains some of his head trauma.

Well, I suppose that's it for now. Perhaps I'll be back soon with elaborations on some of the above, including approximately 300 pictures of Disney World. Until then!

Cali Trip

2010-09-13T13:57:00.003-06:00

This past weekend, we took a blitz trip to California. 48 hours of traveling for a 24 hour stay? Yeah, not our favorite. It has solidified the notion that we will only make trips like that for A) weddings and B) funerals. Luckily, we went for A. More on that later.

Before we start with pictures, I have to tell you a story about my Mr. Matt. He is so exuberant. Yesterday we were playing a game in the car: I would play Disney songs on the iPod, and the boys had to guess what movie the song came from (gotta prep them for Disney World, right?). Matt wanted to win sooooooooooooooo bad, so he'd constantly claim to know a song, only to sit there in silence when we asked him to name the movie. But he really was trying. Here's how one episode went:

Ariel: Look at this stuff, isn't it neat?

[silence in the back seat]

Ariel: Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?

[crickets]

Me: Want a hint? This movie takes place in the ocean.

Ariel: Wouldn't you think I'm the girl, the girl who has everything?

Chris: It's about a mermaid . . .

Matt: I KNOW! I KNOW! I KNOW!

Ariel: Look at this trove, treasures untold . . .

Me: Matt, what movie is it?

Matt: --------------------------

Ariel: How many wonders can one cavern hold?

Chris: Is it called the big mermaid?

Matt: Nooooooooooooo (surely rolling his eyes here).

Ariel: Looking around here you think, sure, she's got everything.

Chris: The Tiny Mermaid?

Matt: Nooooooooooooo (now he's laughing at Chris).

I've got gadgets and gizmos a-plenty . . .

Matt: OH! I KNOW! THE MEDIUM MERMAID!

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha, Chris and I died over that one. Love that Matty.

Ahem. Moving on.

We did two things in California. The first was the beach in San Clemente (pretty much the only place the Hecht fam ever goes, beach-wise), which the boys of course LOVED.

Well, except for Mr. Z. It was not his favorite. This is as close as he got to sitting in the sand.

Jake was all about the boogie boards (that's what these are, right?).

Josh was all about the s'mores. He said he had one, two, three, eight s'mores. I don't doubt it.

Here's cousin Eli's special brand of s'more: Licorice and sand.

Despite the extra crunch, he loved it!

Lots of beach play was in order.

And when the sun when down? Lovely.

It was a really nice evening.

Next up on the agenda, and the real reason we came? Lexy's wedding! The sealing was wonderful, and totally worth coming to (of course), despite the drive. And Lex looked gorgeous:

Here they are, with all of the grandkids on Chris's side: 9 boys and 1 girl. Boom!

Aren't the boys' shirts cute? Jay and Lex are waaaaaay into pirates (they even got engaged next to the real Black Pearl, though they were not allowed onboard). Anyway, to follow the pirate theme, you can see that their ties have little skulls and crossbones on them. Darling. I found them here.

Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Merrifield!

And now, I am happy to say, our next trip is to Disney World. Can't. Wait.

ER Visit, again

2010-08-29T23:15:00.003-06:00

A few weeks ago, there was an accident at my house. It happened late on Sunday night, so my sister, who lives in Georgia, didn't hear about it. The next morning, my mom called her. Without telling her that there had been an accident, she simply said "have you talked to Christy yet?" By my mom's tone, my sister knew something was up. Her response?

"What did Matt break?"

Yep. That's my Matty.

Here he is, in his all of his post-ER glory:

So, here's the story. Matt had this huge pile of pillows in the basement. He was jumping like a hooligan onto said pillows. Oh yeah, and the pile of pillows was next to the stone fireplace hearth. Minor detail. Long story short, Matt ended up falling face-first onto the edge of the stone fireplace heart, and ripped open a big hole under his nose in the process. Seriously, so gross. I got really woozy when I saw the hole in his face, and had visions running through my head of the horrible scar he'd have for life.

In the end, he may or may not have broken his nose. The doctor did pull a bone chip out of the wound. He obviously needed stitches (5, I think), and lucky for us, the ER was competent enough to call in a plastic surgeon, who did a great job of fixing him up. See, look:

You can see that he's still got some red skin under his nose, but as long as we put sunblock on that for the next several months, it should look as good as new.

By the way, want some advice from a plastic surgeon? It's probably the exact opposite of the advice your mom gave you growing up, so listen up. Want to prevent scarring? Pick your scabs. You heard me. Where a scab forms, there will be a depression underneath when the scab comes off. For the new skin to grow in flush, you have to keep the scabs away with a) hydrogen peroxide diluted 1:1 with water and b) lots of moisture. Neosporin will do a great job of keeping the wound moist.

Need some help keeping the Neosporin on? Matt did. Here was our solution, which he loved:

Oh, yes. As long as you have to have a band-aid over your wound, which happens to be on your upper lip, you should definitely be allowed the liberty of fun mustache drawings.

Anyway, Matt is feeling great now, except when he gets kicked/hit/punched in the nose by his brothers, which happens pretty much every day. Holla.

One more tip from the plastic surgeon: scars will often be discolored (red, usually). If you want that skin to go back to flesh color, you need to put sunblock (not sunscreen, apparently there's a difference) on it, every day. For months. Or however long it takes to change color. If it gets too many UV rays, it might stay red forever. Good info, doc.

Pics

2010-07-20T14:08:00.002-06:00

Aah, my sweet Z Guy.

Our littlest man is 10 months old now. It took him a really, really long time to learn how to sit up, but now he's zoomed ahead (well, ahead in relation to his previous speed) and is crawling and walking along the couch. He wanted to hang out with yours truly the other day. I was on the couch. He climbed onto the ottoman, then onto the couch, then onto my lap. Uh oh, trouble.

In other news, Chris took a work trip to California recently. He had a regular rental car reserved, but when he went to pick it up, he found that all they had left was this cute little number:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, are you kidding me? Have you seen my husband? I laughed really hard when he told me. I wish he'd taken a picture of himself next to it just so we could get a real idea of scale, but this one is going to have to do.

Anatomy of a Haircut

2010-06-30T08:27:00.000-06:00

Josh and Zach have hair that, as of late, has been out of control. They both have curls, and since I have no girls, I am having a hard time letting go of them.

But for Father's Day, Chris made a request: hair cuts. WHAT? What's wrong with Z's hair being a little Trump-esque?

Josh's hair looks reasonably OK here only because you can't see much of it. His curls are fast fading.

So I busted out the haircutting kit. Thank goodness it comes with some fun toys.

Need more evidence that Z's hair was too long? Had I put a bow in it, hypothetically speaking of course, it would have looked really cute. Ahem.

Listen, for a long, long time, I loved Josh's hair. But hey, neighbors and friends . . .

Why didn't you tell me he was getting close to this, minus the Golden Ticket?

Sheesh.

So much whacking later, I ended up with this boy (who, for the record, is proudly wielding my iPod as a Light Saber):

And this boy, who is apparently less than thrilled with my handiwork.

I must say, Chris was right. Their haircuts make them look much, much better.

Sleepy

2010-06-29T15:52:00.001-06:00

Man, this carpet is cooooooooooomfy!

P.S. Thunder thighs FTW.

Body Armor

2010-06-26T22:09:00.001-06:00

Don't mess with this Storm Trooper.

Wildlife

2010-05-29T14:10:00.003-06:00

I promised you I'd blog about a frog, so here goes nothin'.

I don't know about you, but I think frogs are adorable. It's a good thing I'm a mom of all boys. I was outside last month, trying to show Chris something in the grass, when I practically squashed this little fellow:

How cute is he? I immediately scooped him up, and ran to show my children. Only in this situation, I'm sure it was me who looked like a child. What woman in her 30's squeals with delight when she finds a frog, I ask you? I had to apologize to my neighbor for being so immature.

Anyway, we kept him in the jar for a little while, but then he started getting antsy, so we let him go. I wish I knew what to feed him--I would have kept him!

Fast forward to last night. Jake told me he had something cool to show me outside. "Something cool" usually means, you know, like a stick stuck in the dirt or something, so I didn't have high hopes. But then he took me over to a plant in my yard, parted the leaves, and showed me this:

You'd think we live in a zoo or something. I mean, you do remember the post about the kittens last year, don't you?

For the record, there was only one egg last night, so imagine my surprise when I went to go take a picture this morning! The nest is amazing. So perfect. Now I feel this urge to keep my kids out of the backyard so they don't freak the mama bird out, causing her to abandon the eggs. Of course, they feel the opposite urge, namely of being in the backyard near the nest every waking second. I'll be sure to post pics if we get some cute little babies. I haven't seen the mama, so I don't even know what kind of birds we're dealing with here.

In other news, summer is fast approaching! Matt graduated from preschool on Thursday. Awwwwwwwwwwwwww.

But BOO! How can my 2nd baby be going to kindergarten next year? I tell him all the time that he's not going. He's smart, so he doesn't need to go. I need him to stay at home with me. He loves it when I say that to him, as it's his job to protest mightily and tell me all the reasons he wants to go to school. Darling.

And speaking of darling, check him out on this video, singing one of the songs at graduation. You'll notice, he's a bit ahead of all of his classmates. Ah ha ha ha ha ha! So cute.

Oh yeah, he's on the very right, in the red jacket (which he never takes off). Sa-weet!

Baseball

2010-05-26T14:57:00.002-06:00

I haven't written for a while. We've been just a tad busy. Despite having only 2 of the boys enrolled in sports, we've got games coming out of our ears.

Right now we're at baseball 3-5 nights per week. Wow, that's a lot. And that's only half of the boys! My life just flashed before my eyes.

But look how cute Matt is in his t-ball uniform. Makes it so worth it, right?

I have no pictures of Jake yet. Cause I'm awesome like that. And because every time he plays, it seems to rain cats and dogs. Note to self: is the area suffering from drought? Enroll Jake in baseball. Problem fixed.

Anyway, Matt. He pretty much thinks he's the king of the baseball field. You can see it in his face, right? Mr. Cool.

T-ball is hilarious. Chris is helping coach, and he often refers to coaching as "herding cats". Ha ha ha, anyone who's seen t-ball knows that's true!

Anyway, here's to hoping I don't go another month+ between posts. After all, I've got a picture of a cute frog to show you. Not to mention the cute kids, which are obviously more important. And more photogenic. The end.

Pulling Faces

2010-04-20T22:24:00.001-06:00

Dear Mom and Dad,

This baby food stuff is nasty. NASTY. Please remove it from my menu entirely.

Love,
Z Guy

Swimming

2010-03-15T14:36:00.002-06:00

My Mr. Jezho. He's huge. See?

The thing is, it's not like Matt's a shrimp. He's in the 75th percentile. So what in the world does that make Josh? He's got his 3-year checkup in the morning. I'll keep you posted.

On a related note, when you're that tall, you're able to go on all of the mountains at Disneyland, even if you still suck a binky and take regular naps. Boom.

Sewing

2010-02-27T16:59:00.002-07:00

About a month ago, I got this crazy notion to sew a cute handbag that I'd seen online. Now mind you, I'm a girl with my fair share of hobbies, but typically sewing isn't something I like to do in my free time. I'll address that more later, but for the record, it might be somewhat related to the fact that I have four sons. Not a lot of need for pretty around here. Anyway, I thought about it, and finally decided to order the pattern, hoping it wouldn't be crazy hard.

The pattern came in the mail, after which I hemmed and hawed (Get it? Hemmed? A little sewing humor . . . ) over fabric choices for like a week, proving Chris's point that I'm the worst decision maker ever. My mom, a good sewer, happened to come to the fabric store with me when I was picking up notions. I let her have a look at the pattern. "What do you think?" I said. "Can I do it?"

Now here comes the proof that I don't typically sew in my free time. She says to me, and I quote, "Well, you weren't exactly the Queen of Home Ec . . . "

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm, thanks?

Well, I've proven her wrong. See?

Now, seriously, I resize the pics on this blog, so don't even try to zoom in to see my not-so-perfect sewmanship (can that be a new word?). Just take a look at the pretty flower and pretend that this was sewn by some kind of expert.

Possibly best of all, it's reversible! Hallelujah! Unfortunately that of course means that there can be no pockets of any sort on the inside, but a girl's gotta sacrifice sometimes for cuteness.

Now for the bad news. Unfortunately, it's a handbag, which literally means I have to hold it with my hands! What the? As anyone with kids can guess, I don't have a lot of time where my hands are free. So in the end, I probably won't get to use it too much. Oh well, I'll be styling for my once-a-week Relief Society meetings, and that's what really counts. Right?

Shirts and Whatnot

2010-02-22T14:07:00.002-07:00

As you surely know by now, every year we go to Disneyland with Chris's family. And every year, we all get matching shirts in totally obnoxious colors. That way we can see each other if one half of the group is at Splash Mountain while the other half of the group is at Space Mountain. They're pretty much that noticeable, especially when you travel in a pack of 18 people.

We missed the 2009 festivities since Zach was born a few days later, but we didn't miss the shirts. Despite not going, we each got our own so that we could reuse them for the 2010 shindig. They're almost florescent yellow, and they have the wrong year on them, so I decided they needed a little spicing up, courtesy of a great idea that my friend Nichole had.

I headed down to Walmart, got myself some Sharpie Pens (super fine-tipped permanent markers), downloaded some coloring pages off of the internet, and started tracing:

Let me just toot my own horn here for a minute. They are su-uu-uper cute. The boys liked them so much that we had to break apart many near fistfights over who got to have their shirt done next.

Jezho is jumping for joy about his "hot dog" shirt! And yes, I am totally aware of the fact that his hair is struggling. Speaking of struggling, you should have seen him at Walmart the other night when we got the pens. Crocs with socks, pants waiting for a flood, this waaaaay too big Disneyland shirt handing out of the bottom of his sweatshirt that is ripped at the neck (creating a mock v-neck), a too small sailor hat, and to top it off, a semi-poopy bum from an accident at Joann's (we're potty training). Nice. Anyway, just look at the shirt, will you?

Matt might not take his shirt off until we get to Dland in a few weeks. Z gets the Mad Hatter. "MUSSSTARD? Let's not be silly!"

I have been scolded a few times for not posting any recent pictures of Z, so here you go. Recent-ish:

If you knew any of my other kids at this age (particularly Matt), you'll know that I'm going to be in serious trouble if I don't label their baby pictures. My kids are most assuredly cut from the same cloth.

Anyway, Z is 5 months old now (sniff, sniff). His bag of tricks includes rolling over both ways and drooling up a storm. He still has to be attached to a parent at almost all times, so we call him our barnacle. He's sick right now, for the 2nd time in a month. Poor little man. Get your rest.

In other random news, I would like to tell you that if you have a plant in a pot that won't survive the winter, bring it into your basement mechanical room, put a light on a timer so that it gets some fake sunlight, and watch it bloom. In January. Weird!

Finally, one tip. I don't necessarily suggest you let you kids get doughnuts with purple frosting. It will, in fact, turn them into Violet Beauregard.

Directions

2010-02-01T13:45:00.002-07:00

In case you ever come to my house, don't worry about getting lost in here. Jake's got you covered.

Service

2010-01-04T10:40:00.002-07:00

Have you heard of "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day"? Hello, so great. Disney is trying to encourage a million people to get out and volunteer their time and talents for various causes, and to facilitate that, they're offering a free park ticket to anyone (age 6+) who will volunteer for a day.

We're going to Disneyland in March, so I thought I'd check it out. Maybe Chris and Jake can take a day and go do some good, right? And did I mention the free park ticket? It's a win-win situation!

We decided to volunteer for Project Linus. They enlist "blanketeers" to make blankets for kids who are sick, traumatized, etc. It was great to let the boys help make blankets for other kids. We got a blanket that someone had made when Josh was in the NICU, so I was able to explain to them that we were doing the same thing for a little boy, just like Josh. They thought that was great.

They helped pick out the fabric, and then each had a job in the making of the blankets.

Their other job was making a card that would go along with the blanket to the child in need.

It was perfect, because we were able to make the blankets at home, which meant I could participate! Horray! I'm sure the kids will be talking about their "Disney blankets" for a while to come.

So, are you looking for a way to teach your kids to do some good for others? Check out Disney's site, and get out there.

Makeup

2009-12-28T21:12:00.003-07:00

Jezhy snuck away the other day. Apparently his destination was my makeup bag, where he found and then applied some mascara.

Should I take a hint that he used the mascara to create a unibrow for himself? Sheesh, maybe it's time for me and the tweezers to have a serious date.

Disney World

2009-12-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

Have you met me before? If so, you likely know that I'm into Disney. Not the movies, trivia, websites, weird facts, etc. Just the parks. I'm waaaaaaay into the parks. I've been dying to take the kids (and *ahem* myself) to Disney World for years. My sister lives in Georgia, so we got this idea a year and a half ago that we'd take a trip down there together. Fun, right? Yeah, we got it all booked, and I began my ridiculously long 500+ day wait.

Well, my wait was to end earlier this month. But alas, as you may have seen me mourning on Facebook, we had to cancel our trip.

Thanks, Z.

No, he's just a baby, it's not his fault. Even though it is.

You see, when we planned this trip, our family dynamics were such that I would have been toting along a 9-month-old, not a 10-week old. But as you probably know, that pregnancy didn't work out, and we got Zach instead, a little, er, behind schedule.

So anyway, we had to cancel because:
1) Zach is high maintenance. Seriously.
2) Swine flu. Blast you, swine flu!
3) The restaurants (and we planned to eat at many, as we had a killer deal with free *sob* dining) do not have any devices that hold babies who can't sit up on their own. Huh? Hello, this is kid central, people. Anyway, eating with a baby in my lap isn't my idea of a good time. When I was in the hospital after giving birth to Matt, I was dumb enough to eat with him in my lap. I spilled hot soup onto his face, which he promptly sucked up his nose. Yeah, having that happen once is more than enough for me.

So there you have it. The boys were quite bummed that we didn't get to go. I'm determined to go next December, however, so we're already on the countdown.

In hopes of getting the boys to be good/kick some bad habits/listen, I made them each a countdown chart to hang on the wall. They're each 16 x 20 and mounted onto canvas (we'll talk about that another day), so they'll serve as a souvenir once the trip is done.

Can you see that Mickey kind of has chicken pox? Well, the idea was that they would stick a sticker into each of those dots, and when they got all (185) of them, they had earned their way. Unfortunately, you could barely see them when I got it printed, and not at all after I texturized the photo. So we're just sticking stickers nilly-willy all over Mickey's head, instead.

Speaking of cool Disney stuff, if you have an iPod touch or an iPhone, check out the disney.com app. There's a character interaction section where you can put your kids onto pictures with tons of characters, and a few even offer personalized voice messages. I told the boys that Mickey and friends are reading our blog, which is where they get the pictures that they add themselves to before emailing them to me. And they are sure that the characters are sending them personalized messages for being good. It's great!

Anyway, we would have come home from Disney World yesterday, so now I can stop telling Chris where we would have been and what we would have been doing, each and every day. Now I'm looking ahead to the future.

Only 352 days to go. But who's counting?

Better

2009-12-14T13:20:00.002-07:00

After much hating of my blog design, I finally took some time to change it. What do you think? Better, I hope.

Tooth

2009-12-07T21:34:00.001-07:00

After a lot of wiggling and several yanks from Daddy, Jake lost his front tooth! I'm very happy that it came out on its own instead of with the dentist's help like the last two teeth. Way to go, buddy!

Smiles!

2009-11-16T08:00:00.005-07:00

I got a picture of Mr. Smiles!

I love how he went from not smiling at all to a stiff, mouth-only smile to a smile that extends up to his eyes, all in a less than a week.

That smile melts my heart.

I have to tell you a story about this boy. He's got a special talent.

It turns out that Zach should probably teach his brother Josh a thing or two about potty training. Why? Whenever we put Z onto his changing table (or "poop station", as we like to call it) he, well . . . poops! On command! Almost without fail! It all started when he was a day or two old. If you changed one diaper, rest assured you'd be changing another about 30 seconds after you strapped on the new one. Apparently he's way into messing up new diapers. Now that he's a little older, he knows when we're about to change his diaper, so he goes ahead and, uh, makes it more worth our while. I'm not saying that he doesn't still mess up his new diaper. Sometimes I have to change him FOUR times in a row. I'm just saying that he's got skills. Mad pooping skills. It makes us laugh, every single time.

Love

2009-11-14T19:26:00.004-07:00

Aww, brotherly love.

I think it's so cute when one of the big bros want to hold their baby bro. They don't get to do it too often, as Zach tends to cry when he's awake, and they are not huge fans of holding him when he's crabby.

Matt held Z for quite a while the other day , patting him and soothing him. And see the burp cloth on Matt's shirt? Yeah, that's because Z hurled. All over Matt's shirt (ahem, and neck). Ha ha ha ha!

For the record, Matt is obsessed with Zach, largely because he knows that Zach looks just.like.him. Seriously. I'll prove it soon with pictures.

As for baby news, after 8 weeks of waiting, Zach finally decided to bust out a smile for Mommy & Daddy! I haven't gotten a picture yet, but I'll post one as soon as we can catch it on camera.

Trouble

2009-11-05T21:46:00.002-07:00

I know, I know. I've had a lot of posts lately that include animals. Nevertheless . . .

Remember how I said Matt was hoping that a stray cat would adopt our backyard? Well, he's in luck.

See?

It is safe to say that my boys are smitten.

Wait, there's more.

This darling little kitten is one of seven that is calling our yard home.

SEVEN.

If you know me, you probably know that I'm allergic to cats (and dogs, and birds, and horses, and cows, and you get the point). Really allergic. Asthma-causing allergic. Problems! I have GOT to find a way to get rid of (most of) them. I wouldn't mind one or two sticking around to take care of my mouse problem, but I can't encourage one to stay without encouraging them all to stay.

Anyone want a kitten? Seriously. Call me.

Top 10

2009-11-04T08:25:00.003-07:00

You love Michael Bublé, right? Good.

Chris and I died laughing last night as we watched him deliver David Letterman's Top 10 list. Watch him after he delivers a line.

Watch it, you won't regret it!

Halloween

2009-11-01T16:49:00.002-07:00

Our boys had a fun Halloween yesterday. They dressed as:

A racecar driver (for the record, this is the first time since he was 2 that he wasn't a pilot)

Luigi

Mario (we lovingly refer to him as "Marey-eye", just like he pronounces it)

and a hot dog

Sad to say, this is the first picture of all of our boys together!

We of course carved pumpkins

We also got to go visit my Aunt and Uncle, who were passing through town after picking up a new puppy in Colorado. My boys fell in love with Cooper, which you can obviously see is a recurring theme. Seriously, thank goodness that I can't have pets, or we'd have a menagerie already. See, look how cute he is:

P.S. Jake was wondering why Cooper looks like he's about to cry. Ha ha ha!

Here, kitty kitty

2009-10-28T09:00:00.002-06:00

There is an ugly, wild mama cat that likes to hang out in our backyard. I don't blame her--we have plentiful mice, not to mention weeds that are 6 feet high (hey, I was pregnant all summer, so I let my weeds go nuts!).

Recently she had a kitten. Or kittens. Not sure yet. Anyway, we heard one meowing, so went to look for him, and found him at the neighbors' house, where he has decided to take up permanent residence (in his defense, the neighbors gave him salmon, so of course he wants to stay!). I am allergic to cats, and in general not particularly fond of them, but I just about died when I saw this tiny infant of a cat.

Cheeto didn't inherit his mama's ugly genes:

The boys just love him. (Obviously, Jake's had no practice holding animals.)

Matt is reeeeeeeeeally hoping that one of Cheeto's siblings will adopt our backyard.

I am not proud to report that when Josh was done holding the kitty, he threw him down. Oops, sorry about that.

1 month plus

2009-10-24T23:49:00.003-06:00

This is a bit late, but here's Zach at one month, starting to get some cheeks:

We don't see those eyes of his all that often, so consider yourself lucky!

Now, on to the obligatory story.

Around here, we call this kiddo some version of " Z". Baby Z. Z Guy. Z-landia. Don't ask. Anyway, the point is, we don't say Zach a whole lot.

So yesterday, Jake said hi to Baby Z.

"Hi, Jack!"

Huh?

Chris and I both stared, and tried to hold in our giggles as he denied saying it.

I guess we need to work on the correct pronunciation of his name?

Build and Grow

2009-10-12T10:24:00.002-06:00

I really shouldn't give away my secret, as I don't want all of my neighbors to steal the slots meant for my kids, but have you heard about the Lowe's Build and Grow Clinics? You (meaning the kids) get to go to these cute little workshops where they let you build some kind of toy, free! The boys love it.

And what's not to love?

You get to use a hammer with (somewhat) minimal supervision:

You become the proud owner of the coolest goggles in town (don't ask me why there are sweat beads on the inside of the lenses):

You get your very own apron (clearly Josh LOVES his):

Not to mention the cool toys you build, almost all by yourself:

To top it off, they send you home with a gen-u-ine certificate:

Like I said, what's not to love?

Now, did you notice anything strange?

I know you didn't. You weren't paying close enough attention. Admit it. So here, I'll give you a hint:

Can you read that? Yes, dear friends, my son did indeed bring home a certificate for a Truck of Fire rather than a plain old run-of-the-mill Fire Truck.

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

In defense of the worker (not really), Chris said that he messed up and started writing "Truck" first, so he just made do by continuing with "of Fire". Um, see, the thing is, he left a decent amount of space in front of the word "Truck", so he really could have gone back and added "Fire" in front of that. But I guess it just never crossed his mind. Which, I suppose, is why he's in charge of the kids crafts at Lowe's.

Speaking of employees who aren't thinking clearly, I have a side story. One day Chris and I went through the drive through at Carl's Jr. Just inside the window, there was a bottle of some kind of syrup, with the "use by" date clearly written in permanent marker on the outside of the bottle: "Use by February 31st." Nice.

Anyway, I am pretty sure that I am going to use the phrase Truck of Fire instead of Fire Truck for the rest of my life. Classic.

Birth Announcement

2009-10-05T22:03:00.003-06:00

My boys, aside from the new addition, are Daddy's boys. They only prefer me as long as I'm nursing them, and then they become severely addicted to Chris. Which of course, is great. But since I'm nursing Zach, he is addicted to me. The past few days he's decided that he can't be out of my presence. He'll wake up from a dead sleep if I leave the room. I'm not sure how he does it, aside from the obvious baby radar system that he's got. Last night he decided to stay up until 2 a.m. staring at me. I tried to put him to bed, but he'd have nothing of it. He ended up sleeping not only in my bed, but in my arms (yes people, I had to hold him while I was sleeping) all night. Two days in a row he's woken up just as I'm jumping in the shower. Ah, the days of having a newborn!

Anyway, I've gotten requests for more pics of Zach. So here you go: the birth announcement that I made.

(The swirls on the announcement are from 'I See Tulips' by Jen Furlotte www.pixelsandicecream.com)

I'll eventually post more of his newborn(ish) shots, but sheesh, can I tell you how stinkin' hard it is to take a cute (I'm talking about a lovely little posed shot, preferably naked) newborn picture? I really thought I'd get all sorts of cute naked photos and whatnot, but as of yet Zach goes crazy when I even remotely try to strip him down. And wedding rings hanging from his toes? He kicked them off. Gotta work on Plan B.

Family members, your printed version will be in the mail for you to proudly display on your fridge. Right? RIGHT? Thank you.

P.S. I do know that I have other children, contrary to how my blog appears since having Zach. They'll get some blog love soon, I promise.

Sun

2009-09-27T12:03:00.000-06:00

Aah, sunbathing to get rid of the jaundice. Feels nice.

Awake

2009-09-19T22:35:00.004-06:00

It took him a few days to wake up, but we finally got a few minutes of open eyes yesterday:You can sort of see that he has a mowhawk in this picture. That was courtesy of the nurses. They love to send babies who have long hair back to their room with hairdos. So handsome!

Mr. Zachary

2009-09-16T21:49:00.006-06:00

Here he is! Zachary was born at 5:44 this evening, weighing in a 8 lbs. 4 oz., with a length of 20 1/2". Big Man!

We'll of course post more later, but let's start with these.

Aargh, mateys.

Say Cheese

2009-09-11T22:21:00.001-06:00

Aw yeah, my boys sure do know how to rock their back to school photos.

Work it!

Coming Soon

2009-09-08T00:05:00.000-06:00

I hesitate to post a picture of me looking like an armless weirdo. Nevertheless . . .

8 DAYS AND COUNTING.

Hello.

We're excited to meet you, little man. Please do me a favor and stop wrenching your head back and forth. It feels reeeeeeeallllllllly weird.

On the flip side, I love it when you get the hiccups. Now that's just cute.

But anyway . . .

Dear readers, for the first time, we are undecided on a name (well, a middle name). So do tell . . . Zachary Charles, or Zachary Rodger? (For the record, I've listed them in alphabetical order.) Both are family names, and well, maybe if you vote my way (OK, or Chris's way), I (he?) can use that as ammo in the fight. I've put a poll on my sidebar.

VOTE FOR MINE! After all, I showed you my tummy.

Ha ha. I of course am kidding (sort of).

If I've told you which one is mine in real life, then use the anonymity of the poll to vote how you'd like. Blogger won't give up your secret.

Here's to hoping my next post will include a cute new face.

Car Shows

2009-08-28T11:56:00.002-06:00

One of the reasons Chris is sad that we don't live in Cali anymore is that the car scene there is much more alive than it is here. Consequently, he gets really excited when we can go see cars around here.

Chris got to spend a few days out at Speed Week on the Bonneville Salt Flats recently. He had the time of his life, as he was there with a press pass because he writes for a website. If you visit the website, please ignore the pinups section. We are trying to convince the site owner to get rid of that crap. Anyway, he was extra happy to be able to take the camera along, and took 700 pictures to prove his love for cars.

He got to ride this bad boy down the salt, and of course is now thinking maybe he should restore one himself.

Last Saturday we got to go to two (that's right, two in one day!) car shows. Chris had lots of fun at the VW/bike show, as he's into both. He had a sweet VW bug when we were dating that he sold for funds for our marriage. Aww, sweet. Now I owe him, big time.

Charlotte, this one's for you:

Unfortunately for Chris, so far most of the boys think car shows are, well, less than exciting. They spent their time at the VW show begging to watch/participate in the Hot Wheels Race.

Josh, however, seems to be Chris's hold out in the hot rod ("hot dog") arena. He always has fun checking the cars out. Not to mention he always has sweet hair.

By the way, you can always see more of Chris's car photos and whatnot on his blog.

Tomorrow we're off to an airplane/car show. Best of both worlds? We shall see.

Daddy Dollars

2009-08-26T09:57:00.002-06:00

I read a magazine article the other day about motivating your kids with "Daddy Dollars." My kids are obsessed with Daddy, so we decided to give it a shot:

Cool, huh? My boys think they are grrrrrreat. Now let's hope the Daddy Dollars can help keep them in line with chores, homework, etc. So far it's been pretty successful.

For the record, I haven't been left entirely out of the equation. The kids can use their Daddy Dollars to shop at the Mommy Mart. I guess it's time for me to decide what kind of things they can buy with all of their moola . . .

If you want to make some of your own, you can do it here.

Harvest Time

2009-08-12T14:47:00.002-06:00

Last night Chris went out to the veggie garden and harvested about 20 ears of corn. It's his favorite thing to grow, and this year it's probably the only thing we're going to get from our garden (besides weeds, of course).

The corn we grew is supposed to be red corn, but instead it turned out yellow with one red spot per kernal. Huh? We were suspicious about it being ready to harvest when it's the wrong color, so Chris took a little bite . . . and loved it! Of course his three little shadows took bites and concurred. They had some for an after dinner snack.

This morning I woke up to Matt, inches from my face, asking me to insert those little corn pokers into some corn for him. Turns out he and Jake each had 4 ears for breakfast. Not too shabby, right?

Lunch followed accordingly:

Now that lunch is over, we're down to 2 ears, and that's only by Supreme Mommy Mandate, as I want to save one ear apiece for me and Chris. My kitchen is an absolute mess of corn husks and silk. But thankfully, no one has asked me for a treat today. Not once. Miracle.

Curly Head

2009-08-02T22:42:00.002-06:00

I can't get enough of Josh's hair. If I can't have a daughter, I'm happy to have a son who inherited my curls.

I've cut Josh's hair a lot of times with no adverse effect to the curliness. It was getting a bit out of control recently, though, so I probably cut more off than I should have. Now it's not curling as well.

I think I might cry.

I am currently operating under the theory that it's just not scrunching as well because it's just a touch too short, but I know that I might be delusional. Let's hope not.

On an unrelated note, I am down to 6 1/2 weeks till boy #4 is due! Hallelujah.

Carpet!

2009-07-18T21:26:00.002-06:00

OK, if you're sick of hearing about the basement, feel free to skip this post. Unfortunately for you, we have family that's anxious to see the updates, and this is the way I notify them.

So, family, here you go! The carpet looks a little darker than this in real life, and we love it. It's going to be great for little boys with dirty feet. I picked up some mantel decor (who knows if it'll stay) and we brought our bookcases down just so we could start to feel like we're moving in down there. Love it!

Drat

2009-07-14T23:16:00.003-06:00

Sheesh, it's been one of those days. Exhibit A:

Like an idiot, I was trying to pour about a cup of primer out of a 5 gallon bucket (which, for the record, was not full). I of course fumbled it, and it splashed all over the floor and our workbench. Typical. I tried salvaging the primer by slapping a layer on the already splashed bench, but it took too long, so I just ended up painting the floor. Nice. Thank goodness the carpet doesn't arrive until Thursday.

We also went down to the basement tonight to find that, mysteriously, not to mention again, we are having problems with our electrical that's been working for weeks.

And did I mention that our water heater broke yesterday? Again.

Ooh, I almost forgot. I also had a pen explode in my pocket today, getting ink on one of my two (count 'em, two) pairs of shorts, not to mention my cell phone.

Ai yi yi. I think I need to get to bed before I burn the house down or something.

Fireworks

2009-07-12T08:00:00.001-06:00

Ooh. Taking pictures of fireworks is fun!

The Usual

2009-07-11T00:23:00.003-06:00

Mimi, this one's for you!

It's been a busy week around here. Yesterday the cabinetry was installed (and yes, that's our tile work on the floor):

Josh is in heaven, as he's decided that cabinetry is ridiculously cool (he doesn't feel this way about the upstairs cabinetry, thank goodness). He likes to sit under the desk, push out the drawers above his head, and then pop his head through the cabinetry. Weirdo. He's also obsessed with the little fridge. Who knows what I'll start finding in there once I plug that puppy in.

And today? Today was fireplace rocking day:

We are especially proud of the mantel, as that was our FHE project for Monday night (not to mention the fact that the whole thing cost about $40). We got a piece of fir at the lumber store and let the kids (and us, of course) go to town whacking it with hammers, shovels, garden implements, etc. Then we stained it. I put my wanna-be woodworking skills to work making the carpels (those things under the mantel) to hide the brackets holding the thing up. Turns out we didn't need the brackets, as we had to drill lag bolts directly through the mantel anyway, but we kept the carpels because I think they look cool.

The stone masons were really kind, and let me and the boys stare at them for hours this morning as they worked. The boys each got to lay their own stone, complete with a penny hidden underneath it in the mortar. They of course thought that was pretty amazing, and I'm sure they'll be telling visitors about their personal rocks for eons.

I can't remember if I said this in a previous post, and I'm too lazy to go back and look. I ordered carpet that's in the chocolate family (chocolate with taupe flecks). The sample looked great next to the walls--let's hope it stays that way once it's installed. I finally decided that neutral carpet had to go, as I am about to be the mother to 4 rowdy, dirty boys.

Gotta keep it real.

Let There Be Light

2009-06-30T12:33:00.002-06:00

Halle-stinkin-lujah. After months of slaving away, Chris and I feel like we're finally making some good progress on the basement. Last night we stayed up late doing all the finish work on the can lights. At least in the big rec room, they work! It's a sight for sore eyes, that's for sure. Now if only we can figure out all the problems with the rest of the electrical . . .

We're all done with the first layer of paint (yes, people, we have tan ceilings because we're trying to avoid at all costs the hassle of painting it separately from the walls), the tile is in the works, trim and doors go in this week, the fireplace is almost ready to be rocked, cabinetry will arrive next week, and if we're really diligent, we just might have carpet in by mid-July.

It's a miracle.

Working hard

2009-06-19T21:25:00.004-06:00

So pumped. Chris started painting the basement tonight. See?

So much for goggles helping a lot. Notice the white-ish eyelashes? Uh-huh. Anyway, we're pretty sure the paint sprayer we bought might have been our best basement idea to date, as Chris laid down the primer for about half the basement in 2 hours. That would have taken us 2 days by hand. Hopefully when we check it out in the morning everything looks great!

J&A: The cabinetry is coming in a few weeks, the tile is just waiting for us to install it, and the finish worker is just about hired. Maybe, just maybe, we'll have this thing (mostly) presentable for your visit.

In other news, after a rough first day without training wheels a few weeks ago, Matt decided to give his bike another go. He's doing so much better now! The boys could spend hours riding in circles around the chalk track that Chris drew for them on the street. This video is mostly for those of you who are bored, as it's nothing more than my kids riding in circles. But Matt really wanted all of our family that's far away to be able to see his new skills.

Car Show Trouble

2009-06-16T15:02:00.003-06:00

Last weekend we took the boys to a local car show. For any of you that know Chris, you know that to say he's a car nut would pretty much be an understatement. Unfortunately for him, his sons (well, Josh is sort of excluded, as he likes "hot dogs") think that car shows are just about as exciting as watching paint dry. They always say they want to tag along, but as soon as they get there, they always pipe up about how bored and tired and hungry they are.

This car show was no exception. We got there, walked 2 blocks, and then sat down for the parade. They were mad that there was no candy. They were fighting over the last stroller seat. They were starving to death. They were super de-duper thirsty. You have kids? You get it.

Fortunately for us, inspiration hit. Jake has been stealing our cell phones recently. Apparently some kids on his school bus have cell phones (WHAT?????), and he thinks they are great. So if I find mine missing, I can just check Jake's pocket or bed, and there it is. So I decided that I'd let Jake have my cell phone to take pictures. I know, I know. Some of you are scrolling down to the comments section right now to tell me what a dumb idea giving kids an expensive cell phone to play with is. But at least it kept them happy, OK?

So anywho, I gave Jake my cell phone and taught him how to use the camera. That of course progressed to Matt having Chris's cell phone, as it's all out war at our house if Matt and Jake do not have the Exact. Same. Thing. At. All. Times. Thank goodness Josh took it all in stride and didn't demand his own high-tech device.

See how cute? They took about a million pictures of whatever caught their eye . . .

Cobras . . .

Wheels . . .

Not-so-cool Hot Rods (Matt presumes that anything within a 2 mile radius is in the show):

Their Daddy's bum . . .

Some random Grandpa's bum . . .

Guy in front of us at the burn-out contest bum . . .

Girl whose bum I don't want my boys to stare at bum . . .

Um, non-existent bum (please, my sons, don't ever wear your pants like that when Mommy isn't looking) . . .

You get the idea. And no, these are not all of the bum pictures that graced our camera screens. Should we be concerned?

Matty Update

2009-06-10T08:00:00.000-06:00

Here's my big Matt. You can see that he's enjoying (despite the intense stare) a smoothie, which he of course always manages to get all over his face (outfit, whatever). Please, all of you technically proficient people, ignore his slightly blurry eye. One was in focus, so that's good enough for me. Note to self: keep practicing your picture taking.

Anyway, I wanted to give the update that he is finally, after months and months (and months) of being in a cast/walking boot, a free man! If I had my choice, I might have left him in it for another year or so, as I am seriously worried that he'll break his leg again.

But, being Matt, he had his own way of speeding things up. You see, Matt broke his walking cast. Yep, it's made of 1/8" thick, seriously strong steel (or something like that). It doesn't budge a fraction of an inch, ever. Yet somehow, my boy managed to snap the bottom of his boot in half. Yep, a nice, clean break right under his arch, allowing the bottom to flex when it's supposed to be rigid.

What the?

Now you can see how we got into this dual-broken leg situation in the first place.

Anyway, he's happy as a clam, and as of now, break free. Let's hope he stays that way.

Baseball

2009-06-09T14:31:00.002-06:00

Jake loves baseball. He's pretty good, so we decided to let him play up this year, opting for the machine pitch baseball league rather than tee ball. Here he is at his most recent game. He's obviously a huge fan of having his picture taken.

The machine is a lot harder for him than daddy-pitch, so he had his share of strike-outs and lots of wuffs (how in the world do you spell that?). But he's gotten much better this year, especially at catching.

Here's "Coach Chris". He'd better get used to that name, as he's going to be coaching approximately 1.1 million games in the next two decades.

Jake finishes his season this weekend, when his league has a big tournament. Jake's team has done, well, not so great (at least we think that's the case--we didn't ever keep score), so we don't expect them to win or anything, but he'll be happy when he gets his medal. And a Capri Sun to boot. Way to go, Jakey!

P.S. He also just graduated from Kindergarten. I think I might cry.

Draper Temple

2009-05-22T15:18:00.001-06:00

I totally forgot to post this a few months ago, so when I found it in my blog folder, I thought better late than never! This is from January, when we were able to go see the Draper Temple Open House. It was beautiful. Matt had just gotten his cast (ahem, for the first time), so he even got to ride in a wheelchair.

By the way, while waiting for the wheelchair, Josh went missing. I couldn't see him anywhere, so I pushed past the throngs of people until I found him, about 100 feet ahead, with his nose pressed to the glass of the baptismal font. Silly boy. The attendant he'd passed apologized profusely--she'd noticed him pass her up (he tried to get under the rope where she was standing), but just shooed him back into line without ever wondering where his parents were. Ha! Oh well, of all the places to get lost, I guess that's a good one.

On another side note, I wanted to use this picture to show you why, if you care about pictures, you need to get Photoshop (Elements will do), today. OK, maybe not today per say, but the next time Costco has it on sale for $50. I took this picture just after we'd gotten to the temple. I wasn't too familiar with my camera, the boys were backlit, people were waiting, and I just wanted to snap a shot, now! As you can see, it didn't turn out so well. But, dear friends, through the power of Photoshop (and I'm sure with the help of shooting in RAW), I managed to turn this dismal photo into the printable one at the top of the post.

Seriously, get cha self some Photoshop.

And P.S., for those of you who live by me, Photography Group in June or July is going to feature Photoshop tutorials. See, what a great excuse to get it!

Blue Beard

2009-05-17T21:23:00.002-06:00

Matty, Matty, Matty.

The other day he turned up looking like this. I asked him why he'd drawn on his face.

"Oh, I didn't draw on my face. Jezhy did."

Uh-huh. Too bad he failed to realize that Josh was napping when good old Blue Beard appeared.

Classic Matt. Well, at least he didn't use a permanent marker!

Mothers Day

2009-05-11T07:51:00.002-06:00

Jake made me the cutest Mothers Day present this year at school. He kept it hidden in his backpack all weekend, and was very proud of himself as he pulled it out from its secret hiding place on Sunday afternoon.

What was it?

A Kindergarten Recipe Book.

Huh? Where in the world do kindergartners get recipes?

From their ever-so-cute heads, that's where. They each got some alone time with a class helper, who asked them what their favorite food is, and how their mom makes it. The woman transcribing must have been Superwoman to have held in the chuckles while these little cuties recited their "recipes."

Jake's contribution?

Doughnuts: Make some dough. Make it into a fat circle. You put some frosting on it to decorate it.

Huh? Well, that explains why Jake has been pestering me recently to make doughnuts. For the record, however, I have never in my life made doughnuts, so I thought it was hilarious that he submitted it as his favorite thing that I make.

Here's some other good ones. Be sure to put these in your recipe books, ladies:

Corn: Have a can of corn. Put it in a pot. Eat it.

Chicken Nuggets: Put the chicken inside the crust. Put it in the microwave for 2.

Corn Dogs: Get a hot dog. Bite it. Put sticks in the corn dogs.

Crepes: You get a pan and some flour. You fold the crepe and it beeps. Then you get it out and eat it.

Spaghetti: Be a good cook. Cook for your family. Spaghetti is supposed to be red with red things on it.

Anyway, the whole thing was very cute, and I think I'm just going to have to keep it forever. I hope you all had a great Mothers Day!

Silly Sleeper

2009-05-09T20:56:00.002-06:00

This man. I can't check on him at night without smiling. I found him like this the other night:

Apparently he wanted "glubs" to keep his hands warm. As if it was cold, hello, it's May.

Either way, it's darling.

And, by the way, I am very happy to report that in the last week or so, he's moved from this crib into his big boy bed! It's a race car bed, and since he's pretty much in love with all hot rods ("hot dogs"), he ended up being happy giving it a go.

P.S. This was taken in the near dark (he's got a small night light thing), without a flash. Hello, I'm in love with my camera.

We're having a . . . . . . . . . .

2009-04-24T12:07:00.005-06:00

This morning I went in for another ultrasound. This was the big one at the hospital where they check all the organs, etc. I am happy to report that everything looks good!

So . . . then we got around to looking for the gender. The ultrasound tech found the area in question, and with a little searching, could not see any indication of a "kick stand" (we laughed at that one), but did see some little lines that she thought were indicative of a girl. She said "I'm pretty certain it's a girl", and then typed GIRL onto the picture and printed it up.

A GIRL!

Yeah, pretty surreal, because despite the fact that I am a girl, I'm fairly sure that I don't know how to parent one. And I'm also pretty sure that I'll have to come up with an entirely new parenting style just for her. I was also a little sad for the boys, since they soooooo wanted another brother. But how fun! Finally!

Anywho, there you have it! She printed us an "It's a Girl" picture, then dove back into the end of her ultrasound.

Then she said it.

"Uh-oh."

Yeah, you heard me.

You see, she changed the angle of the ultrasound wand thingey when she came back from the "it's a girl" printing session. And with said change, all the sudden, there it was: the kickstand. Yep, with the new view, she was certain that we are in fact having:

ANOTHER BOY!

Chris and I just laughed and laughed. The boys are pumped. And most of you are wrong with your predictions. :o)

NOT a joke

2009-04-01T21:57:00.002-06:00

I know that this is going to come off as unbelievable, particularly considering the date, but I assure you that, unfortunately, I am not kidding.

Matt broke his leg.

Again.

Yep, you've got it. Same leg, almost the same spot, but a spiral fracture this time, as he fell and twisted his leg while playing with a big ball.

I'm pretty sure that there aren't a lot of words that will correctly describe my shock, so I'll just leave it at this:

Wow.

Big Announcement

2009-03-31T15:27:00.002-06:00

Well, I know that lots of you have been waiting for this. Despite my recent threats to not announce until very late in the game, I'm here to announce that baby #4 is on the way! I'm 15 weeks along, due September 23rd! Chris and I went in for an ultrasound this morning, and were very relieved to find that the baby is growing well (in fact, the head is already a week ahead of schedule, which, if you've met my kids, you'll know is normal). Alas, as I predicted, this little person is rather shy about revealing his/her gender, and sat with knees clamped together. We'll try again for another sneak peek in a month, and maybe by then this little person will loosen up.

So what do you think--are we going to end up with 4 boys, or are we going to add a girl to the mix?

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

2009-03-18T16:11:00.006-06:00

Matt woke up from his nap today and got into the fridge. It woke me up (yes, people, if you put your kids in afternoon kindergarten, you can take a nap with your little ones--it's the best for tired mommies!), and I wondered what he was stealing (because he hardly ever gets into the fridge to get something good, like fruit). Phew, that was a lot of stuff in parenthesis.

Then he came into my room. Like this:

And here's our ensuing conversation:

Then I showed him his pictures, and he apparently realized that it was in his best interest to revise his story:

Oh boy.

By the way, if you're wondering what's up with his Beatles mop, there really is a (somewhat reasonable) explanation. The last time I gave everyone haircuts, he still had his cast, and I wasn't about to give a haircut to a boy who couldn't take a shower. I also am not about to give him a haircut out of sync with everyone else, as I'm just too lazy to cut hair twice a month. No way. So he'll have that mop for a few more weeks. Poor kid.

Spring, Glorious Spring

2009-03-05T10:10:00.002-07:00

OK, I must admit that there is a new layer of snow on my lawn this morning. But despite that, I'm about to declare that spring has arrived. Sort of, at least, because I found these babies blooming in my yard:

Aah, heaven. I can't wait for the rest (and by "rest", Chris might argue that the number nears a million or so) of my bulbs to bloom. I also can't wait for Costco to get in gear and stock this year's supply of trees and perennials so that I can go to town, just a little bit. :o)

By the way, did anyone take last year's advice to force some spring bulbs inside? I've got some daffodils blooming on my kitchen table right now, a few more on the windowsill that are almost there, tulips that are ready to go, and a giant pot of daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths for my porch. Seriously, try it. You'll love it.

In other news, we had our basement framed this week (how is it that I haven't taken any pictures of that?), so we are very excited. I can hardly walk past the stairs without going down, just for a little peek. We also got the fireplace installed down there, and it'll be beautiful when it's done (thanks to the inspiration of your fireplace, Cristy!). Next week: plumbing and electrical! Woo-hoo! We can't wait.

Sick

2009-02-26T23:05:00.002-07:00

Things have been rough around here lately. I've been sick for about 2 weeks with a nasty cold, and all of the kids have come down with it as well (but not Chris, lucky!). Last night Josh was up nearly all night crying about his "owie" and pointing to his ear. I took him into the doctor today, and he's got two very nasty ear infections, with his ear drums so swollen that the doctor told me not to be surprised it they pop. Gross. Anyway, she also noticed that he's wheezing, so my little man took after his mama and got himself some asthma meds. I just had to take a picture of his cute, sad little self with his "fishy" mask, breathing in his medicine. Thank goodness for M&M's, or he wouldn't have had anything to do with this thing.

In the good news arena, Matt got his cast off! He's pumped. He has to wear a walking boot for another month, but he's not really into it, so he keeps taking it off and setting out unassisted. Let's hope that little plan of his doesn't backfire. Sheesh, the independence! Matt also turned 4 this week, so I'll have to get around to posting about that.

Here's to hoping that Joshy sleeps better tonight!

Valentines Day Present

2009-02-15T09:08:00.004-07:00

For several days now, I've been noticing a funky smell in my laundry room. Matt has the tendency to take a dirty diaper in there and then just dump it somewhere other than the trash (in the laundry basket, on the floor, you get the idea), and it smelled distinctly like some sort of diaper incident, so I've been looking for the offending diaper with no luck. Yesterday it'd gotten pretty bad (Chris thought it was a dead mouse), but again we couldn't find anything, so we chalked it up to being some dirty dish rags that had stayed at the bottom of the laundry bin a little too long.

Then we decided to go somewhere. I don't get out much with a boy in a cast, so my purse had just been hanging on a hook in the laundry room for days. I unzipped it, and WOW. There are hardly words for the nastiness that emanated from my purse.

Turns out that Jake, ever so kindly (or something) had put not one, but two dirty diapers into my purse, then zipped it back up. Um, can you say nasty beyond nasty?

Happy Valentines Day to me!

And just because I want to, here's a picture of the man who provided the diapers. He's obviously ready for summer. Thanks, Joshy.

How to Keep Your Kids Entertained for Hours

2009-01-30T13:17:00.002-07:00

I know you have lots and lots of Elmers Glue sitting around your house. Right?

You know how I know? Because they sell it for 20 cents a bottle every August. So you all get some. Faithfully. Every year. Becasue it's only 20 cents. Right?

I'm not the only one, am I?

Right. Well, in that case, put Elmers Glue on your shopping list, because you're going to wish you had some sitting around just waiting to be used. Trust me.

The reason you need some glue is because you are going to get the "cool mom" ("cool dad"?) award when you make this for your kids. It's called oobleck (or at least that's what we call it becasue of the Dr. Seuss book that deals with said stuff). Or slime. Or gak. Or glurch. Call it whatever you want.

It's kind of, how do I describe it?, like jello meets silly putty meets play-doh. Or something. It's jiggley, stretchy, and you can also just rip it into chunks. It's a little bouncy. Best of all, it doesn't stick to hands, tables, and the likes. Unless your kids throw it around (and we'll get to that later), it doesn't make a mess!

OK, wait, I have to amend that statement. If your, say, 3 year-old son has a big "pizza" of oobleck on the counter and then he, for example, leans his chest onto the counter for a minute, planting his shirt firmly into the oobleck, then it just might (will) stick to his shirt. So I recommend you let the kids go shirtless for this one, at least if you have kids like mine.

Anyway, my kids love the stuff. They like to put big round blobs of it on the counter, with little tiny blobs placed on top of the big blob. They say they're making chocolate chip cookies (the little blobs are the chips). When you leave the oobleck for a few minutes, it begins to flatten out, just like a cookie in the oven. Good times. Though just writing about it makes me want some cookies.

Here's what our oobleck looked like after Jake made an 8' (or so) snake:

And remember how I said we'd talk about throwing oobleck? Well, please take a look at Jake's right elbow. See that green blob of oobleck whizzing by? Thanks, Josh.

Anyway, the stuff is great, so just get your shopping list already, and write down the ingredients:
-Elmers Glue (2 regular size [4 oz.] bottles)
-Water
-Borax

See, easy enough, right? Except your probably don't know what Borax is. It can be found in the cleaning aisle of whatever store (because pretty much every store that's not in the mall sells cleaning products), probably near the laundry detergent, since it's (among other things) a "laundry booster." Look for the brand "20 Mule Team."

And if you're wondering why I'm crazy enough to recommend that I let your kids play with something made of laundry soap and glue, I'd like to add a disclaimer that Borax is actually a mineral. It just helps your laundry, etc. So there. No harsh chemicals.

Blah, blah, I've talked forever, so here's the recipe:

In a small bowl mix:
2 regular size bottles of Elmer's glue
3/4 cup water
A few drops of food coloring

In a large bowl mix:
1 tsp. Borax
1/2 cup HOT water (stick it in the microwave for a minute just for good measure)

Now, pour the glue mixture over the borax mixture. Let it sit for a minute and then gently stir. Pour off any excess water. It's going to look weird and kind of stringy, but once the kids get their hands on it, it will come together.

Now go do your laundry. Because for the first time all week, your kids are going to be busy. Really busy. And plus, you have some borax, so you might as well give it a shot.

Car Man

2009-01-27T15:58:00.002-07:00

I think I've made it abundantly clear by now that I love to take pictures, and that I'm super excited about my new camera. But you know what? Secretly, Chris is very excited to have it as well, because he wants to take pictures of cars. That way if he can't own a cool one, at least he can drool over a great shot of it. Or a model of a cool car. Whatever.

So here you have it, his first attempt at taking nice pictures of his latest model:

Not too shabby, huh? I think we're going to be having a lot of fun around here!

Big Fall

2009-01-22T23:44:00.005-07:00

Poor Matt. He broke his leg yesterday.
{The good news, as you can see, is that he got a churro and Optimus Prime for being brave}

He had just finished lunch, and when he tried to push out his chair to get down, he instead ended up pushing it onto 2 legs and then pushing it over. He went down with a big thud, and somehow managed to hit the front of his leg really hard on the bottom of his shin. He cried and cried (and cried), but since he's my, shall we say, drama king, I just figured he was making a big deal out of not much. When it started swelling and I googled broken leg symptoms, I changed my tune.

I took him into the doc (though I almost turned around when he fell asleep in the car on the way there--I thought that was evidence of drama due to over-tiredness), and wow, the break is sooooo obvious on the xray. See?

So far he's in quite a lot of pain, and not too happy that he can't walk. He'll get a real cast sometime next week (they have to wait for the swelling to go down, apparently), so we'll see how that goes. I'm just hoping this extreme pain goes away sooner than later so that he doesn't yell at me every time I touch his leg. Even his good leg. Or his arm. Or his head. *Sigh* It's going to be a long few days (weeks?).

Ginormous

2009-01-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Why do boys have to do everything to the extreme?

Hmm. Hungry and ridiculously tired. And yes, of course he dished that out himself.

Cali Trip

2009-01-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

So the day after Christmas we headed out on a little road trip to see Chris's family in Cali. The freeways were really bad for the first little while, so we weren't sure we'd be going at all. Eventually the snow cleared, and we were on our way! I make this sound more fun that it really was, since let me be clear that so many hours in the car with the boys is not exactly what I'd call fun.

Anyway, we went down for 1) the family Christmas party and 2) This little man's blessing. Aww. He looks just like his big brother.

For the record, of the 8 grandkids on the Hecht side, there's only 1 girl (and she's the oldest). Poor Hannah! Good thing she likes playing with boys! Here they all are with Gma Flo and Gpa Chuck.

The whole fam stayed around for the party and the blessing. Here's everyone!

The next few days were spent just having a good time. Holding babies:

Playing Outside:

And please, no visit to Poppi's is complete without a ride on Andy:

Oh yeah. I bet your mother in law can't do this!

And of course I also had to practice a little with my camera.

After a few days we headed home. We stopped in St. George for the night, and it's too bad we didn't have our swim suits, because the pool was really cool. Oh well, next time.

Thanks for having us!

Christmas {for real this time}

2009-01-18T21:02:00.003-07:00

Finally, a real post about our Christmas. The boys were of course soooooooo excited about the big day. Jake was so excited, in fact, that he got up at 4am. Yep, we weren't into that, so we sent him back to his room. Matt slept till 6, and we sent him back as well since we assumed Jake was sleeping. At 6:30 I finally heard them playing, and it turns out that Jake had been up since 4 playing with his stocking stuff. We sent them both back to bed for the final time. Jake, Mr. Early Riser, was so zonked that he slept till 9:30! So we didn't get to start our day until then.

We read scriptures with the boys and tried to convey the real meaning of the day before the kids ripped into their goods. And rip they did! Here's some highlights:

Jake and Matt got these cars from Santa. They drive on the wall!

All the boys got Pigeon books from Mimi and Poppi, and love them!

And Josh? Josh didn't care what he got. He was super pumped all the same.

There was supposed to be a big (big big big) snow storm on Christmas day, which never actually materialized. But since it was supposed to come, we'd canceled Christmas day stuff with my family and moved it to the next day. So that day, before heading out of town, we went over to my parents' house for some breakfast and festivities.

We had a good time with Grandma. Her gift was a picture of all of her great grandchildren (on this side, sorry Tyne!) together, and it made her cry.

See what I mean about Josh being excited about everything he got?

My dad might kill me for blogging this, but I have to show my sister. My dad asked that my mom order this sign, and insisted that she get "Vances' Cabin" written on it. She objected to the placement of the apostrophe. So did everyone else in the room when he opened it up. Grammer nuts, feel free to comment here. Their last name is Vance. So Vance's cabin is correct, right? His argument is that they are "the Vances", so it's a plural on that. But hello, Vances is not your last name, Vance is. Anyway, we all got a really good laugh, and I had to record it for posterity.

A little snuggle time with Gma. Um, yeah, this huge boy is still several months shy of 2, but is well over half of his Grandma's size. Man, my boys are all going to outgrow her quickly!

And what's a family get together without a little reminiscing? Check out this baby. Turns out someone from my class posted that very picture up on Facebook, so as long as it's out there anyway, I thought I'd let you all get a good laugh. Oh, the hair.

Christmas and Stuff and Junk

2009-01-12T13:49:00.002-07:00

OK, OK, I am ridiculously slow. Every time I see someone post about their Christmas way after the fact I feel better about being so slow, but still, I'm probably the last person in blogger-dom to do it. So here we go!

We had a great Christmas season. We did our usual gingerbread houses (I use the term loosely, as we used graham crackers and didn't all make houses), which was a lot of fun. I helped Matt, Chris helped Jake, and they relentlessly fought back and forth about who was copying whose ideas. Chris made himself a nice hot rod truck, which he's very proud of. You can see more pictures of it over on his blog.

We had a fun ward Christmas party, complete with a visit from the big guy. I was sure that Jake was going to figure out that this "real Santa" was different than the "real Santa" he met the day before at school, but nope! He was very happy to see his friend again. For those of you who are wondering, Chris figured out the gig about Santa when he was about 10, and with his belief level this year, we figure Jake's following in his daddy's footsteps.

Sporting some reindeer antlers at the party.

Speaking of reindeer, we started a new tradition. Jake brought home a recipe for "Magic Reindeer Food", so we made some on Christmas eve. It's oats mixed with green and/or red sugar (make this by using your Kitchen Aid or hand mixer to mix white sugar and a few drops of food coloring). Rudolph and his hungry pals can smell it, so that's how they find your house!

Elf #324 (aka Ernie) was kind enough to drop off some Christmas Eve PJ's for the kids. Go Superman!

This post is long enough that I think I should end it here (plus, Matt just got up from his nap). I'll post about Christmas and our trip another time, hopefully soon (and here's your fair warning if this bored you to tears).

Bean

2008-12-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

I love my little man, even when he gives me attitude.

And even when he makes this face (I took some candy he stole, so can you blame him?):

But what I don't get about my little guy is why he's boycotted the word Mommy. Or Mama. Or Mom. Or Ma. Or anything that sounds remotely like one of those words. He's been slow to talk, but is now picking up about a word a day. The other day, as we drove and looked at Christmas lights, he was on a repeating spree.

Chris: Say Jakey!
Josh: Gakey.
Chris: Say Cow.
Josh: Cooooooow.
Chris: Say Fraggle Rock (I kid you not).
Josh: Fagga Wock.
Chris: Say Mommy.
Josh:
Chris: Say Mommy.
Josh:
Chris: Say light.
Josh: White.

And that's how it goes. Every day. Chris just yelled back to me that now he says Hecht. But still no mama. I'll keep you updated. But don't hold your breath.

Birthday Boy

2008-12-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

It's official, Chris and I are old. Our formerly tiny baby Jake just turned 6. Wow. He was so excited for his big day. Festivities began at school 2 days early, when I got to go to his class and tell them a little bit about him. I read them one of his favorite books. This one:

You have read this (and the whole series) to your kids, right? No? Run out and get them at your local library. They'll love them, particularly when you do the pidgeon in a funny voice and let them yell nooooooooooooooooooooooo through the whole book.

Then we took a picture of his class. He loves them!

He spent the eve of his big day watching your favorite and mine (OK, not really, but Chris loves it): Home Alone! The boys luh-uh-uved it.

His big day came with a big snow storm (Jake is convinced that Santa, who visited him at school that day, brought it from the North Pole), so we just had a few of Jake's friends over to share cake. For the first time since he was 3, I didn't do an airplane cake. This year we settled on a dinosaur cake, but in reality, it was a volcano cake. The dinosaurs were rather secondary, since he thinks volcanos are cool.

Then we moved on to presents. The two show stoppers were the Hot Wheels Stunt set and the Transformer. He got the same transformer from Grandma and Grandpa the next day, but insisted that he keep it, since he wanted twin Transformers.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. He also LOVED the long underwear that I got him, and refused to take them off for FOUR DAYS, whereupon I insisted that he have them washed.

One of Jake's friends brought him some of those little capsules that become little shaped sponges when submerged in water. The next morning, before I got up, he decided to try them out. And what does one need when dealing with 12 capsules? 12 cups of water, of course!

Jake also got a net that will help him practice his throwing and catching for baseball. He loves that too, though Chris is the one who really feels like he's scored with that present. I let everyone give it a try in the living room (with a tennis ball, of course).

Whoa! Watch out for that rebound!

Happy Birthday, Big J! We love you!

Mr. GQ

2008-12-22T16:47:00.002-07:00

My baby guy. Notice anything a little unusual?

What can I say, he loves "schooooo"s. And look at him go, even giving his shirt a little lift to show his "pockets" for the ladies.

High heels. Not just for women anymore.

Allergies

2008-12-17T18:26:00.002-07:00

You all know that I'm allergic to dogs, right? And cats. And birds. And hamsters. And bunnies. And horses. And giraffes. You get the point. If you know me, you likely know this, as my social life has revolved around whether or not a place has animals, and it's been that way since I was 7.

Jake, my only child with allergies (so far, that is) is allergic to dairy, which has been tough in an of itself. But the other night we went to a little party in a house that had a cat. I normally would not have gone, but it was a Relief Society Party, and I'm in the presidency . . . you get it. Then I got lulled by the fact that I was not breathing badly. I was amazed, and having fun, so we stayed for 45 minutes. I am REALLY regretting that today, as I can't breathe. Lesson learned.

But you know what else I learned? Jake is allergic to cats. Great. He had tons of fun jumping on the huge beanbag that the cat also apparently loves, so his face totally broke out in hives (hey, at least he was breathing OK). Poor guy.

So I guess I'd better get a sign like this. And one for every other animal in the world with hair or feathers. Because let's face it, this allergy thing isn't going in a good direction.

Don't be Jealous, Amy.

2008-12-15T09:44:00.002-07:00

White Christmas, here we come!

We're in the middle of a several-day-long snow storm (it's about time), so the snow is finally sticking around here. Ah, beautiful, though fffffffffffffffffffffreezing! Luckily we have neighbors with snow blowers who are kind enough to come do our driveway (our home teacher did it before 8:30 church. Thanks again, Wayne!). But we had a few more inches by the time we got home at noon:

The kids have been antsy for months to go sledding, so we finally let them have their inaugural run what with all the snow. They loved it, of course!

Oh wait, except Josh. He has a love/hate relationship with the snow. As far as sledding goes, he mostly hates it, unless he rides with Daddy, in which case it's upgraded to "OK". See the enthusiasm bounding off of his face?

By the way, for all of you photographers out there, I apologize for my cruddy grainy pictures. I was shooting at ISO 3200--whoops! Gotta check my settings next time!

All I Want for Christmas . . .

2008-12-11T22:18:00.002-07:00

*Sing with me now* All I want for Christmas is my two front (bottom) teeth!

Yes, this is in fact the only smile he could muster that would show his gap. Whoa nelly!

Last night as I was helping Jake brush his teeth I noticed something weird. Behind his most loose tooth, his permanent tooth was sticking out of his gums. It's totally crooked (rotated 45 degrees and leaning back into his mouth), so of course my first though was that we are going to have to start saving for braces. Great. Why he can't have perfectly straight permanent teeth (his baby teeth are very straight) is beyond me. But I digress.

I called the dentist this morning and found out that he needed to get that tooth pulled. After looking in his mouth, she decided that the tooth next to it was likely going to pop out in the same direction, so she yanked that one too (and for the record, she was right, it was on its way out behind his baby tooth as well). The dentist said that most permanent teeth will go back to their proper position once you get those baby teeth out of the way, so I'm hoping.

Jake did really great--no worrying beforehand, no whining once we got there, no pain afterward. He's very excited that he's the first boy in his class to lose any teeth, and showed off his gap to all his friends.

But most of all, he's VERY pumped that the Tooth Fairy is coming. When I asked him how much money she'd bring him, he told me that he thought she'd bring "one". One dollar, I asked? No, one penny. He says she doesn't have enough money to bring one dollar. I told him that maybe she'd bring a quarter for each tooth, and he was through the moon with that. Now let's just hope that Chris and I don't forget to swap those teeth out so he's not crushed in the morning.

Good Lookin' Kids

2008-12-09T22:41:00.002-07:00

OK, I have to post just a few more of the pictures from my photoshoot last week.

This is my nephew, Drew. What do you think, girls? Ladykiller eyes, I'd say. And I'm pretty sure his mother is happy that she forgot to wipe off the Fruit by the Foot drippings just below his lower lip. Hey, photoshop can only do so much!

This is his brother, Ty Ty. My kids are all in love with him. To show his love back, he learned to sort of inch-worm around our house so that he could follow them around.

This is Presley, who's going for the intense eye look. But again, the blue! My grandma was hoping that someone would give birth to a baby with brown eyes (like her), but I'm afraid to say that it's just not in the genes for this family.

And here's my little curly head. Awww. Today he snuck into my closet on three separate occasions and stole a cookie from the cookie jar (yes, in my closet, on the floor, I know). And Chris and I, being suckers for our baby, let him. Three times. Man, we're pushovers.

In other news, my camera and lenses arrived, so I am one happy girl! Please expect all my posts from now on to contain only fabulous photos. Not. I wish. But I'll do my best.

Aquarium

2008-12-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

Last week we took a little trip down to the local(ish) aquarium. I thought it would be pretty good (for a landlocked aquarium, at least) since it was previously at the Gateway and had upgraded/expanded/whatever to this new location. Yeah, that idea was pretty much shot when we drove up and I realized it was located in a strip mall. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that it used to be a grocery store or something, as it still had those old-school (though not working) pads in front of the door that are supposed to open it for you. Awesome.

Here, let me show you 25% of the fish:

OK, I am exaggerating, that's not 25% of the fish, but the place is very sparcely populated. At least we got to see an animal show--that was reasonably cool, though I was not a fan of the freaky tarantula.

Just FYI, Chris and I now lovingly refer to this place as the "ghettoquarium". Uh-huh.

Anyway, they did have a petting pool (is that what you call it?) with stingrays, and that was fun. Josh got really freaked out when one of them popped out of the water right next to him to say hello, but Jake and Matt both got up the nerve to pet one. Though it was small and not exactly up to par with the Long Beach Aquarium, we still had fun. I'm just glad we didn't buy a season pass.

Despite the small size, Josh and Matt still found the whole thing exhausting. Josh conked out before having time to put down his Cheez-it, as you can see.

Good times!

Y Follow-Up

2008-12-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

Remember the Y Chris mowed into our lawn for the BYU vs. Utah game? Yeah, I wanted to give you a follow up . . . it was OK during the day, but in the frosty mornings, it was amazing! The different lengths of grass held the frost differently, so it made the Y look like we'd painted it! I think we're going to do this every year just for all of our U-loving neighbors!

B-Ball

2008-12-05T08:34:00.002-07:00

Chris's boss gave him tickets to a recent Jazz game, so he decided to take Jake as an early birthday present. Jake's cousin J.R., whom Jake adores, also got to go to an NBA game for his 6th bday, so Jake was pumped. Here they are, on the 14th row, having a good time.

Jake is way into playing sports, but thus far hasn't really shown an interest in basketball. I asked Chris how much of the game Jake actually watched, and he said about 1/3. I asked what he was doing the rest of the time. Answer? This:
Sorry, I hate to post a blurry picture, but I thought this one was worth it. Yes, those glasses are made from licorice. He kind of reminds me on Napoleon Dynamite . . .

Picture time!

2008-11-30T23:14:00.004-07:00

My sister has been in town for a little while now, so we've been trying to get some pictures of all the cousins for my parents. I borrowed my mom's camera and tried my very rusty hand at the photography. It's my first time shooting (aside playing around at my mom's house) with a dSLR, and I know I've got a long way to go, but I thought we got a few good ones. Thanks also to my friend Nichole for sending me her unused Photoshop Elements! I am LOVING it. I am sure I'll look back and gasp at my bad editing (remember, I'm just starting!) in a few months, but for now I think they look pretty good, all things considered.

Wow. Shooting 6 kids, 3 of them under 2 years old, is really hard work.

No, I don't know what the deal is with Josh's puppy dog tongue, but he refused to put it back in his mouth, so there.

P.S. Great news. Remember my baby, named Nikon, that I reeeeeally wanted? Yep, she's on her way to me via FedEx. I am soooooo excited!

P.P.S. I obviously need to remember to shoot more shots with my subjects on the left rather than the right. Hmm.

Naughty or Nice?

2008-11-23T12:20:00.001-07:00

My kids think THIS video is amazingly cool (please watch it if you have kids). I know I'll be using this as leverage over the next month or so. There's a link just above my video to make your own.

True Blue

2008-11-22T14:04:00.002-07:00

You know who we're rooting for today! Go Cougars!

A few years ago our two immediate neighbors (both U fans) said they were going to mow U's into their lawn on the big day. They never did, but our lawn needed a cut today, so we stole their idea, and Chris cut a big Y into our lawn. It didn't turn out as visable as we wanted it to be, so we spray painted the edge. Then we invited our neighbors out to take a look. Let's hope we win!
And no, you should not take Matt's red clothes to mean that we really want the U to win. He just hadn't changed his PJ's from yesterday, when color choice didn't matter.

Like Father, Like Son

2008-11-20T15:44:00.001-07:00

My boy. He does whatever he can to be just like his Daddy. He even had to have his pillow folded in half (and looking not very comfy), because that's how Daddy had it.

Not that that's unique to just him, though, as all three of my boys waaaaaaaaay prefer Chris over me (at least when it comes to play time), and would definitely jump off of a cliff with him. Gotta get myself a daughter! Oh wait, I don't do girly stuff. Problems!

Oh so tasty

2008-11-16T22:49:00.002-07:00

I do believe this is the 3rd post in a row that has no pictures, which I'm sure is a new record for me. But regardless, this is too important (at least I think so) to pass up.

OK, important might not be the right word. But whatever.

My favorite restaurant is The Old Spaghetti Factory. I know, I'm sure many of you think that's crazy, but I am . . . how shall I say . . . not very adventurous when it comes to food [read: picky and unwilling to change]. I always order the same thing (chicken fettuccine alfredo, hold the mushrooms, extra broccoli--anyone else with me?), and I must have my salad with their creamy pesto dressing. It's the best (OK, it ties with Cafe Rio's special salad dressing that's to die for).

So that's what we have to talk about today. I found a recipe for that ever-so-yummy pesto dressing! If you're a basil lover (and who isn't?), then this is for you. I tried it out last night, and ooh la la, it's great. I can't be sure that it's an exact clone, as I haven't laid taste buds on the real thing for a few months, but it seems pretty darn close to me.

Try it. You'll like it.

And please, try to have a little dressing with your salad, and not the other way around (like my hubbie).

Ingredients:
3/4 cup oil
1 cup mayonnaise
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons grated Romano cheese
2 tablespoons crushed dried basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic, minced
Hot pepper sauce [Serve with at table instead of in dressing. Add 1/4 tsp.
paprika, if desired.]

Directions:

Whisk together oil and mayonnaise. Add buttermilk, cheese, basil, salt, garlic and hot pepper sauce to taste. Mix thoroughly. Cover and let flavors meld overnight in refrigerator. This also will made an excellent chicken marinade.

Thanks to cdkitchen.com for this recipe!

Date Night

2008-11-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

Chris and I went on a date night recently, which frankly, happens very infrequently. We're just slackers that way. Mostly because we feel bad leaving our kids with anyone, and I mean anyone, else.

So as we're sitting at a restaurant enjoying a nice meal, I asked him what we used to do for dates back when we were actually dating. We ran through the occasional bowling date, dollar movie date, etc. Then we continued:

Me: Did we go out to eat much? Because if so, I didn't really remember it.

Chris: No, we did lots of stuff like laundry, going to the grocery store . . .

Me: (Of course laughing at the pathetic-ness of that statement) OK, well, you can tell I'm not high maintenance if those were our "dates"!

Chris: Yeah, and if those things count, then I guess we date a lot now!

Yikes! We obviously need to get out more.

Recap

2008-11-11T09:59:00.002-07:00

Matt will do (or say) just about anything to get out of doing, well, just about anything. He is not exactly much of a helper most of the time. He still wears diapers when he goes to bed, but usually comes up with some reason why we should take it off for him so he doesn't have to do it himself. Here's a conversation we had recently:

Me: Matt, I need you to take your diaper off.

Matt: No! I'm not the one who put it on!

Who says girls are the only ones who bring drama to families?

Halloween

2008-11-04T22:27:00.002-07:00

We had a lot of Halloween fun this year. Lucky for you, though, of all the pictures we took, this is pretty much the only decent one. What the? I know, I know, that's very unusual for me. Anyway, here's our 3 little pilots. This is Jake's 4th year as a pilot. And yes, he is only 5. Fortunately (according to Chris, at least), we talked him into using last year's plane for his costume. Usually we have to make him a new one. For all you airplane lovers, Jake is Pug Sutherland, flying a Wildcat. Pug was a real pilot in WWII about whom we have a PBS show that Jake likes to watch. Matt is Edwin Vance, flying a Mustang. Edwin was my grandfather's cousin, and he was killed in his Mustang right after Normandy. I bet he's looking down and smiling at this cute little 3-year-old who decided to be him for Halloween. Josh was no one in particular, flying a Corsair, complete with bent wings.

As you might imagine, lugging around a box on his shoulders wasn't exactly Josh's idea of a good time, so he bailed out within about 4 minutes. And he only lasted that long at my insistence so that I could get a picture. Are you starting to see why I only got one? Matt lasted a little longer, but totally trashed his plane. We knew things were bad when, just after stepping into his plane, he totally crashed on our driveway and knocked off the nose cone/prop. Over the next 20 minutes he knocked off every other single "decoration" on the plane. At least the wings survived so people could tell what he was! But then I just had to resort to carrying it, anyway. Jake stayed a pilot all the way up and down the street before trading the plane in for complete freedom. Good thing, though, as the rest of the festivities didn't exactly go hand-in-hand with a 3-foot-wide costume.

Anyway, our neighbors really stepped it up this year with a haunted house (the boys dared not go twice), hay rides, and a bonfire complete with hot dogs, hot chocolate and marshmallows. It was soooo fun! We usually head up to my parent's house for a little fun in their neighborhood, but we made them come to us instead because of all of the festivities. The haunted house had one part when a loud horn honks at you. You could hear it all over the neighborhood all night, and Chris giggled every time he heard it as he thought of the poor suckers being scared at that very moment. Good times!

As for candy, I am happy to report that they boys didn't get tooooo much loot, and Chris and I were very happy to take Jake's chocolate treats off of his hands (he's allergic). My dad tried to buy their candy off of them (to throw away [or so he says, ha ha]), but they adamently denied. Really, what did he expect?

And yes, Jake already has his costume picked out for next year. At first he said he'd like to try something besides a pilot. Then we went for a drive, and a group of F-16's flew overhead. Without missing a beat, he piped up. "Ooh, I've got it. I want to be an F-16 pilot next year." We'll see.

Blog List

2008-11-03T15:19:00.003-07:00

After months of procrastinating, I have finally fixed up my list of blog links. Some were outdated, all of them had last names, and they all needed to be sorted. So! Now I've got several snazzy (OK, plain as can be) new link lists on my blog. Now, chances are that you use a reader and don't even see these lists, but in case you are still doing it the old-fashioned way (which I don't advise), now it's better. Sort of.

For those of you craving the anonymity that I wasn't providing, there. Now you have it. By the way, in my head that sounded sassy rather than snippy.

I sorted them roughly according to how we know people. I don't know about you, but when I come to an old friend's blog for the first time, I often wish that I knew if "Sarah" from "Sarah & Adam" might possibly be an old mutual friend from eons ago . . . you get the point. So, if you knew me in high school, now you can browse through my list of high school friends if you want to spy on someone you might also have known back in the day. Just a hint, if the girl is listed first, it's probably a friend of mine, and vice-versa for Chris's friends.

I know I should have more people on my blog list, too. So if you are a blogger that we know and would like yours (or you other 10 blogs, as the case may be) on here, then don't be shy! Seriously, feel free to be brazen and ask me to put you on. The more the merrier, right?

Happy blogging!

Ode to Photos

2008-11-02T18:11:00.002-07:00

So I have this friend, Jessica, who's a fantastic photographer. Every time I look at her blog(s), I drool. Do you live near me? Do you need a photographer? You should call her. Anyway, that's beside the point.

The point is this: I love taking pictures. My one and only photography class was in high school, but I loved it. I used my film SLR (code word for one of those cameras with the huge lens sticking out the front) until we had Jake and it just became impractical because I was talking approximately one million pictures per month (and because Chris had no idea how to use it).

As a result, my nice camera hasn't been touched for years. After seeing nice pictures all the time, and hating my not-so-fab point-and-shoot camera, I've recently decided that I really, really, really want to get a digital SLR.

But I can't.

As if the camera weren't expensive enough, that's not the end of it. You can't have a nice camera if you don't have Photoshop. You really can't. It's practically illegal. Well, not illegal, but it's not recommended. Digital pictures just need a little help to look nice most of the time. The cheap version of Photoshop (Elements) is $80, and that's relatively OK. But then I go to sites like Pioneer Woman Photography (again, thanks to Jessica) and drool over all the things you can do to make your pictures pop, and I know that I'd really, really, really like to have the REAL Photoshop.

Oh, did I mention that it carries a hefty price tag of $700? Yeah, give me a break.

But then, very randomly, I came upon a miracle the other day: GIMP. I don't know much about it, as I have had it on my computer for approximately, um, 1 day, but from what I've read and the playing I've done so far, it's meant to be a rough(ish) equivalent to Photoshop.

Only it's FREE. F.R.E.E. So exciting!

So who knows. Maybe I'll get a stream of emails telling me I'm insane for not using Photoshop, but until someone bestows and old copy on me (seriously, does anyone have an old copy they are not using?), I'll settle for GIMP. Because, after all, it took this lovely but oh-so-needing-help picture that my sister-in-law took from this:

To this:Now isn't that sooooo much better? I think so.

Now it's time for me to run to the store and buy myself another child, whom I shall name NIKON.

Welcome!

2008-11-01T08:00:00.001-06:00

We have a new nephew! Baby Bradley was born the day before Halloween. Despite being just over 8 lbs., his trooper of a mother only pushed for 5 minutes. Lucky! So far he's been angelic (a very good trait for a 2nd baby, as many of you well know), so here's to hoping that he stays that way. Congrats B&B (&B)!

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T08:00:00.001-06:00

OK, OK, this post has nothing to do with Halloween. I'll get to that sooner or later. But at least I'll present some photos that showcase a nice Halloween color:
See what I mean? We went up the canyon for a little leaf-gazing recently. Aren't they beautiful? Unfortunately, we picked the yellow side of the road. Huh? As we drove up, I saw lots of red leaves (my favorite), but when we picked our picnic spot and then went on a walk, we found hardly any red at all. Just yellow. Yellow. And more yellow. The reds were all on the other side of the road, which coincidentally had no picnic tables. Drat.

Oh well. We collected leaves, ran around, ate pizza, and had an overall fun time. Then Chris found these mega leaves:
Um, hello! My boys have (very) big heads, so let me assure you that the leaf is bigger than you probably think it is. Sorry for the funky coloring in the first picture, by the way. Note to self: get Photoshop.

See how big these leaves are against my (very) big 18-month-old? Yes, big is a serious understatement.
And of course, gotta take the family photos! Minus the camera person, of course. Guess I should have brought a tripod. Or a nice camera . . . sorry about my cyborg eyes.
Georgeous! The setting, I mean. Handsome! Of course here I'm referring to most of the men in my life. Matt wanted to hide instead of smile for the camera.
I just read that and realized you could take it to mean that most (but not all) of my boys are handsome. I of course think they're all lady killers, and instead meant that most of them are in the picture. I didn't quite know how to rephrase that.

Anyway, here's to fun in "maple treeway".

Have a fun time trick-or-treating! My little pilots can't wait to get out and fly from house to house. More on that later.

Little Cheerleader

2008-10-30T08:00:00.002-06:00

I know, I know, I've done too many posts about our Wii. You would think we're video game obsessed or something. Though, honestly, my kids wish they were allowed to be video-game obsessed, but since I only let them play a little bit every day, they're out of luck.

Anyway, I digress.

I've said before that we love Mario Kart. Josh apparently loves it too. While we play, he just does his thing. But without fail (except when I'm filming him), and no matter what he is doing, when he hears a race end (there's a little whistling sound that he's obviously attuned to), he looks up, shouts "yay!", and gives us a little touchdown sign.

See what I mean? By the way, yes, he's super sleepy here. And yes, he only gives a half-touchdown sign. Blame it on his beloved milk in his sleepy hand.

Mini Golf

2008-10-29T08:30:00.003-06:00

The kids have been begging us for months to take them mini-golfing. They see the course every time we drive to my parent's house, and they're pretty sure it's the greatest place ever (OK, the greatest place in the county). We finally decided to go the other day. It was all decked out for halloween, which made it so fun for the kids. Here's the spider hole, where amazingly, I scored a hole in one! I say amazingly not because of my poor golfing skills (read: I rock), but because of the spider. I hate spiders. But the boys liked this one, largely because of his resemblance to Mike Wazowski.
Here's big man, golfing like a pro. He actually did pretty well, especially for his first time. Can you see how his tongue is hanging out of his mouth as he concentrates? Yeah, he gets that from his Mama. And his Grandma. And his Great-Grandma. Runs in the family!
And little man, pretending to golf like a pro (notice the club meant to appease rather than actually work). This shot was taken shortly before he tossed his ball somewhere into the "rough" (aka bushes or ponds), never to be found.
Matt had tons of fun too, though he was a little scared of the decorations (largely because it got dark while we were there). He was certain that the alligator (it was really a dragon) was going to eat him along with his ball. What he really hated, though, was the last hole. It was an outhouse with a skeleton in it When you'd hit your ball into the bottom of the outhouse, it would light up and the skeleton would make some kind of remark. Not his favorite. At all.

Referring back to the "I rock" comment, I beat Chris by 7 strokes (or was it 11?), so I was a happy, gloating girl. My mother would be ashamed that I posted that . . . she said I was supposed to let Chris win. Hmm. Maybe next time.

Weird smells (not that kind)

2008-10-28T16:38:00.006-06:00

Yesterday morning I kept smelling something weird. No, not the same weird smell that comes from Jake and Matt's room (you might know what smell I am referring to if you have ever, say, even met a boy before). For one second I'd think it would smell like gas (natural, not boy), but when I'd go searching (yes, I even stuck my head in the oven), I'd lose the trail . The smell popped up in lots of random places all over my house, so I began to think I was imagining it. I carried on this way for a few hours.

Then I went down to the basement, where the air was fresher (who knew!). When I came back upstairs, I smelled natural gas the minute my nose hit floor level. But again, as I sniffed around the vents and other things in that immediate area, I found nothing at all. I finally decided I'd better call a friend and ask her to come smell my house (I bet you've never made that phone call). I was totally preparing to explain my crazy imagination while I waited for her to arrive.

But alas, as I opened the door, she made a face and said something along the lines of "wow, that's really strong. You need to get out of your house now." So I wasn't imagining it, but rather had gotten totally used to the smell of the bomb-to-be that was my house. Nice. Anyway, as I ran around gathering the necessities (and wondering if I needed to grab things like, say, my "important irreplaceable documents" folder), I ran outside and then back in. That's when I discovered that it was bad. Really bad. I cannot believe I got used to that!!!!

So then I called the gas company, who instructed me to leave, but not to use the garage door. Why? Because the spark from the electricity used to open the door can ignite the gas. That was great to hear, since I was talking on my house phone, and was thus using electricity. Too bad I couldn't back away from my house without losing reception. Also too bad that my cell phone was nearly dead, which is why I had to use the house phone in the first place. Note to self: keep your cell phone charged!

Anyway, after a little bit, a nice guy showed up from the gas company with his "sniffers". He went inside, and despite it being MUCH less smelly than it was before (I opened a few windows before leaving), his alarms sounded immediately. I told him I'd checked the furnace, water heater, dryer, oven and fireplace. I'd found nothing but regular-smelling air (though, my nose is obviously in question here).

Note that I didn't say that I checked the stove. Because, honestly, I didn't even think of it. Not even when I had my head in the oven. Blame it on the gas smell that was (obviously) rapidly killing my brain cells.

He nicely says "well, let's check the stove first." And then his expertise (which I obviously don't have) kicked in. As he neared the stove, he said "Oh look, you have two burners on, but there's no flame." Did you get that? Yeah, um, so if the gas is turned on, but it's not being burned, that means it's just freely flowing into my house, hence the smell. Boy, I felt stupid. Really, really stupid. But also relieved. He checked everything else out just to make sure, then told me not to worry about the false alarm. And one big bonus? They don't charge for the visit, even if it is your own dumb fault.

But speaking of fault, I would like to pin this on one of my sons. I'm pretty sure it's Josh, who just this week has gained a new love for the stove knobs. Gotta love that.

So to honor Josh's new found love of stove knobs, I have taken them off.
Ladies (gentlemen?), I know you probably don't love the above-pictured fashion statement, but if you have a gas stove and kids, I'd suggest that you too join in this new trend. I'm thinking that it just might save you a lot of embarrassment (or possibly death).

I'm also thinking that maybe I should invest in a safe deposit box so I don't have to worry about stupid things like papers next time my house is about to blow up.

Just Say No

2008-10-22T08:32:00.002-06:00

This week is Red Ribbon Week at Jake's school, which means they are promoting an anti-drug message. Jake came home with one of those plastic braclets (ala Lance Armstrong's "Live Strong") yesterday. It says "The future relies on your and me. Be drug free." I asked him what that means.

"Oh, it tells me not to do smoking or coffee."

Bingo.

Singapore Trip

2008-10-15T20:48:00.005-06:00

So, for work I got to go to Singapore and Indonesia to audit one of our suppliers. The flight was a beast, about 18 hours in the air, so about 24 hours total. Plus, its 14 hours ahead of Utah time, so you miss a day going and go back in time coming back home. ha ha The food is really good, there's Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian. The place is very clean, safe and small. There's 4 million people packed onto an island that you can cross in a car in about 1 hour on the freeway. It has one of the busiest ports. Chee Ming Tham was my excellent host, one of the Senior Managers at the company. He is 2nd gen Singaporean with roots in China. So, he took me to old Chinatown, he took me to experience the local foods. Of course there's lots of seafood, crab, prawn, shrimp, etc. There's tofu, noodles. The food was actually pretty spicy too.
There are lots of skyscrapers since the land is precious and expensive.
Then, we took a fairy over to Indonesia, where the manufacturing facility is located. Indonesia was kind of like Tijuana, Mexico, dirty, poor, etc. But the people were cool there too. They had really nice hotels and shopping malls right in the middle of really poor areas. Weird! Lots of little mopeds and scooters scurrying around with almost no traffic lights. I actually saw a family of 5 riding one of those babies, I wish I had a pic of that. Well, here's some pics of the place. Check out Hechtspeed for a couple of pics of some of the cars I saw there. They get all the JDM (Japanese domestic market) cars...oh yeah!!!

More Antics

2008-10-15T13:09:00.003-06:00

I can't believe that I have more antics to post.

I also can't believe I forgot to write about these two on the last post.

Last week, as I mentioned, Chris was in Singapore. If you've ever played single mom for a week or so, you might know that it's no fun (serious, serious, serious, serious kudos to those of you who are single parents). Matt, my little spitfire, was just as frustrated as I was with the whole one-parent situation. So he acted up a bit. And a bit more.

First, he flushed his toothbrush down the toilet. Was he being curious? Did he think it was a funny thing to do? No, no, nothing like that. He flushed it to get back at me for making him go potty before bedtime. Oh, the abuse. Thankfully, so far it appears that the toothbrush somehow flushed all the way out of the toilet. Phew, because I didn't need a $150 plumbers bill and/or a session of taking the toilet out of the bathroom. Nasty.

Early the next day, he got mad that I was being slow to refill his cereal bowl, so he dumped out a whole box of Grapenuts. Oh wait, I forgot one thing. It wasn't a regular box, it was a COSTCO box of Grapenuts. If you've ever purchased one of those babies (and if you're a Grapenuts eater), you'll know that Costco boxes last about 6 months. The good news is I got to put my new vacuum to very good use, and the grapenuts did not blow up the motor.

Maybe I should sponsor an antics contest on this blog. I bet you all have some seriously great stories to share . . . let me know!

Antics

2008-10-15T00:01:00.003-06:00

I have three boys. Three boys = serious antics. Let's talk about some of those.

Here's Jake. Jake likes to write and draw, and was very excited that his Kindergarten teacher gave him a pencil for his homework. Apparently, however, he operates on the more is more policy (not unlike his mother, as you might recall from my Disneyland posts). He somehow found a box of SIXTY pencils, and was in the process of sharpening each and every one of them to take to school. Do you think that would count as a weapon?

Because, let's be clear, I don't need that. Trouble at school, I mean. Within the first few weeks of school, Jake had to sit out three recesses for pirate and karate-ish behavior. Apparently there is a ZERO (and boy, do I mean zero) tolerance policy for flailing your limbs about in any sort of fast manner. BOYS.
So here's boy #2, Matt. One day I was on the phone with a friend, and he was supposed to be napping. 'Supposed' is obviously the keyword here. As I chatted away, little did I realize that he'd snuck out of his room. He couldn't find any treats to steal, so he settled for the next best thing (or rather, three things): straight sugar(s).

Notice that he is not a fan of me discovering his little secret. Apparently he thought I wouldn't notice if he went to bed and left all the canisters open (with spoons) on the counter. Matt is NOT good at cleaning up after his messes, which is how I know that he would've done that.
Wait, didn't we just see that face? Yep, caught again. This time he thought the side of the couch would be an excellent place to practice his drawing skills (with chalk, mind you).

Please don't judge me because my couch is filthy. I covet chocolate brown leather, but alas, our college couches are going to have to hold on for a while longer.
Oh yeah. Matt also recently dumped about 3 lbs. of raisins down the very heater vent he's sitting on in the picture above. Being the good mommy, I cleaned them up for him. I could see no other solution than to stick the vacuum hose down the vent to get the raisins. For those of you who are nodding your head because you also think that would be a good idea, trust me, it's not. Apparently the hose doesn't go directly(ish) to the vacuum bag, so that many raisins will of course (in hindsight) wreck your vacuum's motor. When explaining to my hubbie why I had to do it with the vacuum, he asked why I didn't just use a piece of duct tape wrapped inside-out around my hand. Hmm. Never thought of that. Then my sister, bless her heart (that's code for stinkin' smarty) asked me why I didn't just use my shop vac. After all, it's made to suck up SCREWS and NAILS, and would think raisins was some kind of warm-up exercise. Good point. So I guess you have to put a mark under my name on the 'antics' tally board.

On the plus side, I now have a new vacuum, which I like much better, and it's red. Too bad it wasn't free, or even close to free.

And let's not forget our little tiny man (in age, not size), Josh. In the 'nothing-to-do-with-this-post' department, I decided to give him a haircut while Chris was in Singapore (you didn't know that? He'll blog on that soon, he promises). The top curls just needed a little trim, but I of course ended up cutting the whole thing (yes, it was out of choice, not out of necessity due to mess up). I am happy to report that it is still curling, especially when assisted by a little 'product' (that's a salute to you, Lex).

Anyway, antics. As I speak he is playing. Playing. At midnight. Not my favorite thing ever, and it definitely counts as antics.

But most notable on Josh's antics list . . .

A few days ago we went to the dentist. By we, I mean the boys. They all did great, and I am happy to report that no one had cavities (a probable miracle if you'll remember the story about Matt and the sugar). Anyway, Josh spent the rest of the afternoon brushing his teeth, happy as a clam. Well, fast forward to that evening. Chris was playing with the older boys, and Josh was wandering, brushing. A few minutes later Chris noticed that he was quiet (and of course not present), so he went and found him. In the bathroom. Swishing his toothbrush in a toilet that of course had unflushed pee in it (moms of boys, you know why I say 'of course' regarding the unflushed toilet). I would love to give him the benefit of the doubt in the 'not-using-the-urine-soaked-toothbrush' category, but he's only 1 1/2, so I'm pretty darn sure that he used it on those pearly whites *shiver*.

Let's hope no one comes down with e. coli.

Looks Familiar

2008-09-30T12:18:00.003-06:00

[Click to enlarge]Does anyone else feel like this is their life, in a nutshell? I do, but in my case, I never get all the way to the perfectly clean house that I can take a picture of. I figure that'll come when all the kids are in school. So, let's see . . . I've got at least 4 more years to wait. Sorry, honey!

Art

2008-09-24T16:08:00.000-06:00

I've wanted a picture like this for years, and even took some of my own photos and attempted to photoshop a similar one, but I couldn't get it to look the way I wanted. Lucky for me, Costco had a special vendor selling these the other day (and if you live around here, they're going to be at Costco the rest of the week). I bought one and hung it over my stairs (it's large, about 4 feet wide), so you see it when you come into our house. Love it!

San Clemente Beach

2008-09-23T13:50:00.004-06:00

Phew, you have finally made it to the last post about our vacation. It's about time! For the last 2 days of our trip, we (meaning Chris's whole fam, minus Brent, Bobbye & Ben) stayed at a cute little beach house within walking distance of San Clemente Beach. Here's some of us, just chillin' (I have to use that word in a beach post!) in the front room.
The kids loved playing out in the front yard. Here they are, posing with the giant palm tree. I love Josh in this picture. So chill. And those legs!
The kids liked playing what I'm pretty sure it was their version of volleyball on the driveway. Amy (right?) came up with the idea of building a barricade so the balls wouldn't sail into the street so often.

We spent a good portion of Friday down at the beach. Jake and Matt loved it. In fact, much to my dismay, Jake said that he liked the beach better than Disneyland!! What kind of talk is that? Oh well, what can I say, he liked the waves. I was a total nut job, though, since none of the kids can swim (OK, Jake can swim a tiny bit, but he can't doggy paddle), and there were some pretty good waves crashing onto the beach. Anyway, the boys (Jake in particular) loved to brace himself like this for the waves to crash over his legs.
This picture was taken not too long after Josh got to the beach, which I know because he's standing somewhat close to the water. Once he got hit by waves a few times, he refused to come near them unless you were holding him (not his hand, him). He prefered to sit in the sand and dig.
Matt started the day off with bracing for the waves, but in the end would just try to run away as they got very close. He sometimes caught some of the foam, as you can see here.
Aww, an ultra-rare photo of both Chris and me. I'm pretty sure I can count the number of pictures that we have with just the two of us on one hand. *Sigh* . . . kids!
Here's our family photo. Not great by any means, as you can see the kids weren't really cooperating, and neither was my hair. Now do you see why my dwarf name was Fuzzy? Yeah!

Doesn't everyone write their name in the sand and watch it wash away? Yep, it washed away (partially, at least) about 1 second after I took this picture
No day at the beach is complete without burying someone. Chris was this year's victim. The kids were so proud.
No day at the beach is complete without Red Vines, either. It's a Hecht family tradition.
I asked Jake to take a picture of Chris and me walking down the beach. It ended up crooked, early, and with Matt as well, but there's something about it that I liked despite all that.

Before signing off, I have to tell you about the best story from the beach trip. We arrived Thursday night, got settled, and got the kids ready for bed. Amy (Chris's sister) put her kids to bed, and then went off in search of water (because whose kids don't request water at bed time?). She got some ice and tap water, and gave it to the kids. They passed it around, and each of them (three, to be exact) complained that the water tasted funny. She told them that they were just being picky (because they normally drink bottled water instead of tap water), but decided to give it a try just in case. Well, friends, it turns out that those "ice cubes" that she got from the freezer were more like, I don't know, "vodka cubes". Whoopsie! Guess that's a good way to get your kids to go to sleep, huh?

Anyway, that's it! We're very happy that we were able to go to Cali, and can't wait for our next trip! A big thanks goes out to Chris's whole family for showing us such a great time!

Disneyland Day 2

2008-09-22T17:00:00.001-06:00

You're in luck: this post will be slightly less huge than yesterday's. A few less pictures, and even less gabbing from me.

Day 2 at Disneyland is always my idea, because Chris is fine doing just one day per year at Disneyland, whereas I would prefer to do at least one day a month, as I did when we lived down there. Oh well, we compromise with 2 days, and that'll have to do! We were on our own, and without matching shirts (though you'll notice we did give the kids all Disney-themed shirts for fun). And though Day 1 wasn't too crowded, Day 2 was even better--hardly any waiting, which was fabulous. We started off at California Adventure, with hopes of sprinting (relative term when you've got 3 small kids and just had surgery) to the Toy Story ride. Unfortunately, it had technical difficulties and was closed the entire time we were in the park. I guess Chris will have to wait until next year to enjoy the fun! Instead we went to meet Chip & Dale. See what I mean about the boys warming up to characters this year? Looks like Jake and Chip are more enthralled with that pen and less enthralled with their hug. And here's our one family portrait from the entire 2 days. I'm thinking a cast member should have finished zipping the California Adventure sign onto the arch . . . whoops! Posing with Mr. Incredible.
First off, no, I don't know why Matt pulls this "interesting" face when he smiles. I also just noticed he's got dark circles under his eyes that I never noticed in person . . . maybe I was keeping them up too late for too many days with no naps? Oh well, that's what vacations are for. Anyway, this picture was intended to show the hats that he and Jake got at the pilot store in DCA. They wanted hats with propellors on the top, and frankly, they were totally lame, so we managed to make them wait until we got to the airplane store. Sure enough, though somewhat plain, these are much better than the other ones they wanted. Best of all, they are actually womens hats (the kind with the short front brim), and they fit me, so guess who gets them when the boys are tired of them? That's right, the only girl in the whole family, me!

Jake loves Grizzley River rapids, especially when he can avoid a good soaking by wearing a poncho. After seeing this picture, I had to question Chris about whether or not he had actually buckled Jake up--what was he doing? The bummer about this ride was that the geyser (you know, the huge one that soaks you) toward the end of the ride was turned off. LAME! That's the best part (again, providing you have a poncho. Otherwise, it's the worst).
Little Mister sacked out even earlier on day 2. Check out those tree stump legs!
Apparently his nap was not good enough, because this was the look that he held throughout the teacup ride. And no, that's not scared, that's super annoyed. Nice!
Fortunately everyone else had a good time. But again, Josh is still annoyed, proving that the previous picture wasn't an isolated moment in time. At least he's still fairly nice, even when he's annoyed.
After Matt got the hang of going on the big mountains, he started putting his hands up. Here they are on Gadget's Go Coaster--Matt had his hands up the whole time!

Driving Mickey Mouse's car . . .
Here's Jake and Matt meeting the Big Man on Campus (by which I mean the Tall Man on Campus). Matt had the chance to walk next to Goofy for a little while earlier in the day as he and I came back from the Tower of Terror. That time, Goofy was wearing surfing clothes, so this time, Matt was amazed that Goofy had changed his clothes. Around this time of the day, Jake started doing some really interesting poses for the camera. I have no idea what this one was. I guess this is the real Big Man on Campus.
Josh spent some time trying to escape from Toon Town's jail.

When we got on the Snow White ride, Matt asked to hold my hand, which the cast member overheard. He then whipped out this flashlight for Matt to hold and shine during the ride, which Matt loved!
We finished up the day with a ride in the wild animal cages on the Casey Jr. Circus Train.
All in all our days at Disneyland were tons of fun, and I already can't wait to go back next year!

Disneyland Day 1

2008-09-21T17:00:00.007-06:00

Um, you might want to give your computer a moment to load. I said I'd deliver ginormous posts, and boy, do I intend to deliver! This post has 21 pictures, a testament to my love for Disneyland, talking pictures, and my indecisiveness. On we go!

For the 5th year running, we took a Disneyland trip with Chris's whole family. Each year we sport matching shirts, and this year is obviously no different. The theme this year was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in honor of the 7 grandkids. We each picked our own dwarf names, and our shirts depict each of us with our name. Our family dwarf names (didn't I blog about this already? Too bad.) were Speedy (Chris), Fuzzy (me, for reasons you'll see in the beach post, if you don't already know), Pifty (Jake--Pifty is short for P-51 Mustang, his favorite airplane), Spunky (Matt), and Curly (Josh). Matt chose Spunky, but then later decided that he wanted to be called Trouble. He loves to be called Trouble, and that's just what he is! Earlier in the summer, I came up with the idea of making dwarf hats for each of the kids to wear for the picture. The idea morphed, and I ended up making dwarf hats for all 16 family members when we were all in St. George. Of course, though, in all the chaos pre-trip, I forgot to bring ours. Who knows if anyone else remembered theirs, but you can see that not a single one made the photo shoot. Oh well.

Here's Matt riding the tram (while talking to Grandma on the phone) bright and early Monday morning. You can see his hair was spiked really high. Why, you ask? Being a Disneyland freak, and knowing that Matt was really close to the height limit for all of the big mountains, we (meaning me) wanted to give him whatever height advantage we could muster. I know, I'm terrible. More on that later.

But speaking of hair, I have never adored Josh's hair as much as I did down in humid Orange County. It was soooo cute. How can you not love this face (and 'do), even if you're not his mother?
Kudos go out to Bobbye (though she's going to kill me for posting this picture) for being such a trooper at Disneyland. She was 33 weeks (ish) pregnant, so of course got all of the benefits (read: NOT) of hiking (waddling, she says) all over Disneyland with the added bonus of having to sit out most of the rides. Way to go, sista! Sorry I didn't end up being your bench buddy.
Poppi has a hurt foot, so he rented a "go-go cart" for the day. The bonus, of course, is that it comes with a the perk of admittance into the often much shorter, wheelchair-accessible line (see below). I also had my own pass (though no cart or wheelchair) to stand in said line since I was a whopping 72 hours out of surgery when we started our Disneyland escapades. Together, we managed to get the whole crew of 16 into the short lines, which was great.Here are some of the kids waiting to ride the Nemo subs. We are in the special line, which was great for the added bonus of being uncrowded--aka fewer people for the kids to bump into while passing the time. See the pins on their shirts? Those are Family Reunion pins that D-Land gave Jim on the way in (ask the ticket booth if you want some). Fun! OK, back to Matt not being tall enough for the big rides. Our first test of this was on Space Mountain. We used our special passes, and the attendants didn't even give him a glance. He says he loved it, though from his face in the picture (bottom left), you might think he'd just been forced to sit through a really boring movie. Next we tried Star Tours. Matt was rejected for being too short, so he did the rockets with Daddy instead.
How cute are Jake and J.R.? They love each other so much. I'm sure when they are teenagers they will they think were loving each other a little too much, at least in this photo. This was pretty much their stance for a good part of the 30 minute wait for this ride.
Here's Matt with Mimi, ready to ride Big Thunder Mountain. Wait, you might be saying, I thought Matt didn't meet the height requirements, even with his spiky hair . . . Turns out, friends, that Matt didn't quite know how to stand up nice and straight for the measuring stick. The nice woman at BTM showed him how: "feet together, stand up really straight, head out, arms up, and take a deep breath . . . you're through!" No, for the record, once he got the hang of standing up straight, it didn't even take hair gel or deep breaths or anything. He genuinely was tall enough (with shoes, that is). Thank goodness, because he loved all of the mountains. Space, Thunder, Splash, Matterhorn, even the Tower of Terror. That's my fearless man!
These 3 love this ride. At the end of the day, Jake, Matt, J.R., and I headed for one last run on BTM. We made it on just in time, and really enjoyed our ride in the dark. As we pulled into the station, the very last train was all queued up, and there just happened to be no one standing in line for our two rows. I asked if we could stay on, and the attendant agreed, which made the boys' day. Winner, winner, chicken dinner! For the record, the attendant shouted that out as a reply to my request. I shouted it right back! :o)
Here's our family shot on Pirates. We always get our own boat. Thank goodness, as an innocent bystander might not love our noisy, jokey, sing-along songs version of the ride.
The kids were happy to meet their first character, Br'er Bear. Last year my kids were terrified when they met Mickey and Goofy, but I am happy to report that this year was much better. The older boys even got their own autograph books. Luckily, they are not so obsessed as to wait in huge lines to meet them.

Nappy time for a tired boy.
And a tired Uncle Jim.
Hamming it up in front of California Adventure!
Two favorites: airplanes and cotton candy. Does life get any better?

Jake, Matt, and Hannah sporting their bug eyes before the Bug's Life show. My kids love this because the bugs tickle their bums. During the show, these huge, gross black widows hover over you. Well, a few days ago, Matt toddled into my room about midnight and said that there was a really big spider on this bed that was trying to tickle him. Oh-kay. Anyway, I wasn't sure if he was dreaming or if a spider had acually crawled on him, tickling his face or something. Honestly, I also didn't want to search for a big spider, since I hate them. So I just tucked him back in and hoped for the best. In the morning, I asked him about it. He said he'd had a dream that the big spiders from the Bug's Life ride were trying to tickle his bum. Ha ha!
Matt and Poppi having fun on the (previously) awesome Buzz Lightyear ride.
Did you wonder why I said that Buzz was previously awesome? Because of the new Toy Story ride, that's why. It is GREAT. It makes Buzz look totally lame. It is a DO NOT MISS ride at California Adventure. Chris missed it (as did most of the extended fam), but the boys and I got to ride it twice. Love it! Here's the 3D glasses you get to wear.
Then you sit in one of these bad boys. The cannon thingeys fire all sorts of computer-generated ammo: eggs, darts, baseballs, rings, etc. You fire at big 3D screens on the wall, and you pop balloons, break plates, knock over things, etc. It's amazingly responsive, and did I mention that it's so much fun? Oh right, I did. Don't forget it.
One more story. Near the end of the night, we decided to hit Matterhorn Mountain. I had Josh with me at the time, and Chris was gone with Matt. I had to get in line since I was the one with the special pass, and I didn't really give much thought to the fact that I had Josh with me. When we got to the front, they asked if Josh intended to go. I said they could measure him. Well, low and behold, he made it (35" requirement), so onto our bobsled we climbed. Let me tell you, I haven't been on that one for a while, and I forgot just how jolting it is. I had to brace his huge head for fear that his neck might snap. I got off and told everyone (in my party, not the workers) that Disneyland should definitely change their policy on the 35" height requirement, as 35" kids are not strong enough for the beating that ride inflicts. Fast forward a week. I took Josh to his 18 month well-baby visit this week. He measured in at 35 3/4" tall, which if there were such a thing, would be like 130-140% on the height charts. We are talking way off the charts tall. So it turns out that Disneyland isn't the dummy, I am. I am an idiot for letting my 18 month old go on Matterhorn Mountain! Disneyland is totally fine, as 35" is the average height for a 2 1/2 year old boy. My child is just a giant, and I should have known better. Oh well, despite the wild ride, Josh didn't udder so much as a peep.

Anyway, that's all for day 1 at Disneyland! Tomorrow (ish) I'll update you on day 2, which was just our little family.

Cali Trip 2008

2008-09-20T22:27:00.003-06:00

Let me forewarn you: You are in for several days of ginormous posts. I am a woman of many words, not to mention pictures, and I have a hard time narrowing things down. With that in mind, I'm going for the more is more philosophy. Happy reading (or skimming, as the case may be).

This year we decided to take our annual trip to California a little early so we could be there for our niece Hannah's baptism. Here she is with her dad, Jim, who baptized her. It was great, and we were very glad we were able to be there, especially since we were inches from not being able to go (as you know if you've read my previous but recent posts). This family picture (don't bother doing a Where's Waldo search for me and Josh, we're napping) was taken at the little(ish) party we had afterward, which was a lot of fun.
The boys (by which I mean my two older boys, plus Chris, his brother, and dad) all went for a nice morning of flying in T-town.

I had to put this one in just for Chris. On our way down to Disneyland, we stopped for food at In-N-Out (love it!). I don't know if it was the scent of the burgers or the lack of sleep or what, but Chris totally drove past the ordering station (even after waiting in line for a minute) when it was our turn. He had to motion rather sheepishly to the man behind us to please back up, and I'm sure was further embarrassed when he had to yell "I forgot to order!" out the window to the man. We had to take this picture to commemorate the event.
Mimi and Poppi's acreage is nothing if not a good place to get really, really dirty.
So, naturally, showers were a must. Cousin Ben (the blonde, in case you're not familiar with my kids yet) hates showers, but we decided to give it a go with my boys to see if peer pressure would work. Sure enough, he loved it (OK, maybe loved is too strong a word, who knows), as long as the water wasn't raining straight down on him. And yes, I had to edit, of course. Who knows who reads this.
Too bad the kids were sleeping for this bad boy. This raccoon (he's big!) steals Mimi and Poppi's cat food quite often. We caught him red handed, and he didn't even care one little bit. He would watch us, standing 4 feet away behind the screen door, as he stood on his back legs and picked up the cat food like a little person. Despite Poppi chasing him off in his underwear (classic!), he still managed to finish all the food. Little rascal!
OK, that's it for my misc. pictures from the trip. Next up: Disneyland (days 1 and 2 will be separate due to picture overload [for you, not the computer]) and the beach! Stay tuned!