Christmas Preparations

Here are some fun photos of us getting ready for the Christmas holidays. We went and cut down our own tree, that was really fun. The only problem was that the trees seemed so small out in the open!! Once we got the tree home, we had the height right but neglected to focus on the width, we have to maneuver around the tree to get to the foyer and stairs. We could always walk through the toy room instead but that is just too many steps. :) There are also some pics of Matt hanging the lights on the house. Take note that he is hugging the house with all his might while trying to hang the lights. Our ladder just wasn't tall enough to get to the eaves. I took two steps out onto the roof and decided to wait for Matt to come home. :)

For Thanksgiving Cricket was given a turkey bone that was probably 2/3 the length of her little body. I don't know if we will give her one while our Christmas guests are here because she became very territorial and there were bone shards all over the house, I don't think that would be good for little Jonas.

Brenden wouldn't look at the camera while sitting on Santa's lap until we told him not to smile and not to look at mommy!! What a stinker! Thank Heaven for reverse psychology.

We had a wonderful week and especially enjoyed having Matt home! We can't wait for Christmas when he has time off again.

13th month

So today Brenden was asking me when everyone's birthdays were. He told me his was in April, then I told him daddy's was December, then mine was in January. He then asked me when Cricket's birthday was and I told him it was in November. He repeated November and then said "Yes-vember." Who knew there was a whole other month in the year!! I had to laugh.

Halloween was a day of fun!!! We started it out by joining our friends Brin and Tommy and going downtown to trick-or-treat the stores. While there we met up with our friend Porter, and the party began. We were even able to take Cricket into the stores with us and some of them had treats for her too! After filling Brenden's Elmo bucket, we headed home for some dinner and the trick-or-treators that were coming to our house. Brenden would have gone out and done our neighborhood with daddy but Matt came home sick and went straight to bed. So to make up for it, I let him pass the candy out and some kids were given generous amounts of candy and others just got a piece or two. All-in-all, I think it was a very successful night. Brenden seemed very happy with the candy he received. Here are some photos and videos of the days events. Enjoy!!

Colorado trip 2008

So our trip to Colorado was awesome!!! Matt went up the Tuesday before for a conference in Denver, on Friday night, after the baby was picked up by her dad, Brenden, Cricket, and I jumped into the car and started driving. We spent the night at the worst Motel 6 EVER!!!! I don't think they knew what a vacuum was and the shower was a joke, there wasn't even a tub!! I barely slept because, well I was too grossed out to. I had us all out the door by 6:30am with no showers. We arrived in Castle Rock at about 2:30 and were very glad to be there. I let Brenden go wild while I took a shower and got myself prettied up. I left Brenden at his cousins for the night and I went to Denver to take advantage of a free hotel room, and a night on the town. After a wonderful dinner at PF Changs, we took a nice walk and returned to the hotel for a well deserved sleep. That was my very first night away from Brenden, and I slept like a baby. I had no one waking me up to let them out to pee or take them potty. It was reminiscent of the life I once knew, where sleep was my own. As fun as that life was, I still love the one I currently have way better. Saturday morning Matt was off to his last day of the conference and I was left to my own devices till noon. My phone had died and there was no way to contact me, it was weird. I did find a Verizon store where I bought a new battery and was having it updated. As I left the store trying to figure out what to do with myself for the next 45 minutes while they had my phone, I turned right and started walking. At the corner I noticed the shadow of a man following me, I decided to cross before the little walk light lit up and the man stayed in step with me. As I adjusted my purse, realizing that I had no phone, and no keys (to stab with) I decided to look for a store or the map to the outdoor mall, once I spotted the map I tried a sly look over my shoulder to see if this guy was following me and then discovered it was Matt!!!! Apparently he had walked out of the hotel at the exact same moment I left the store (the doors to both were directly across from each other), realizing that I hadn't seen him, he decided to follow me and see how long it would take for me to notice. Once I realized it was him, I punched him in the shoulder as hard as I could, my heart was racing!!! All he did was laugh. Once we were done with our errands in Denver, we returned to Castle Rock to enjoy our vacation. When we pulled up we found Marlin out front with the two little boys (Brenden and Dawson) and Cricket. When Brenden saw us coming he broke down and freaked out, screaming that he didn't want to go home and that we needed to go away. It took him several minutes of hysterical crying before I could convince him that we were all staying and sleeping there for more nights. Once the melt down was over we were then able to enjoy our vacation. While there, we were able to see Brynn in a volleyball tournament, which her team won, hung out with the kids, watched movies every night until 1am (older kids included), and the pinnacle was going shooting. We drove up a beautiful mountain and there was this range full of shell casings and shattered beer bottles, old printers, cell phones, computers, basically anything you have ever wanted to shoot or destroy was there. We brought along some pumpkins, eggs, and jugs of water and milk. Once all the targets were set up (we used some of the leftover junk too) I was the first one to take the gun and start shooting. We shot with about four different weapons, starting with a Glock, then the AR-15, then the 22 rifle. In the photo's you will notice I got down on my knees and was resting one elbow on my other knee, this is because I inherited the Poulton shake (thanks dad). I was being laughed at because I couldn't steady the rifle. I tell you that scope/sight was going all over the place. I am pretty sure the military would not take me for a sharp shooter, maybe not even to cover anyone, I would end up hitting them instead!! All-in-all I had a lot of fun. I think everyone else did too. Matt was so happy that the next day, I finally lost the battle (after nearly 9 years) of no guns in the house. I don't mind though, I always knew that it was a battle that I would eventually lose (thanks Obama for making it happen a lot sooner than it would have). Anyways, after several nights of "gonna get you" in his Halloween costume, Brenden was ready to go. We left on Thursday, after getting their first snow of the season, and were able to enjoy a couple of nights at home before Matt was back to the grind. We had a great time!! Thanks Steph and family!!

Farm Festival

So went to the University Farm Festival and learned all about farming in columbia. We painted pumpkins, planted grass, and saw all the bugs indegenous to Missouri. Our High Counsilman is the Entamologist for the University and had plates of flavored mealworms to eat. We did not eat any bugs! Brenden said it was gross and we very much agreed. He actually tried to pet the animals on this trip.

Funny story, after we had been to several stalls of horses Brenden said that we were looking at "Aligators." We kept correcting him that they were horses and as we got to the last stall we discovered that the horse's name was "Gator!" Dude our kid is a freaking genius!!!! (I'm sure he overheard someone say the horse's name, but still that is pretty amazing)!

It was a fun adventure, Matt even joined us after being On Call for the 34 hours with no sleep! What a dad! He didn't want to miss out on the pumpkin fun.

BEWARE OF DAWN

It was so fun to have Josh and Dawn come to visit us last month. Fun, until I realized that I left Dawn alone... in Relief Society... with the sign-up sheets.

She admitted to me in the car that she had signed me up to bring some stuff to the Ward picnic. After a few minutes of prying and informing her that I would not be getting a reminder call, she came clean. She had signed me up to bring a "Junk sculpture" and Brenden to bring a "Lego Creation." I laughed and decided that I would just not bring those items.

As time got closer I changed my mind and decided to be a good sport. Here is the "junk sculpture" I created. All it took was some of my recycling items, tape, and some permanent markers. Here is the finished product.. I was going for a car but as you can see, it looks more like a pig. And the only Lego's we have in the house are of Mack and Lightning McQueen from the Cars movie.

I was amazed at everyone else's sculptures that I thought about leaving mine in the bag and not setting it out. Basically, this one family all made sculptures either out of cans or junk food. They were very clever and looked really nice. The missionaries entered one that was a plaque with deer hooves coming out of it, a large tin can for a head with another for a robotic look. It has some missionary quote on the plaque as well. And then, there was mine. I ended up putting it on the table because, well why not. As far as the Lego's went, Brenden's was the most popular with the other kids, and not the only one that wasn't a true "creation."

I'd have to say that we did pretty well, I got a blue ribbon, the only one in the junk sculpture category and Brenden got a yellow ribbon. It was a pretty fun day. Everyone had a good laugh about my "pig car."



So the moral of the story is.... Don't leave Dawn alone with sign-up sheets!!!

Our First Camping Trip

So we had our first ever family camping trip!! We went with some of Matt's coworkers and it was so fun! We arrived at the campsite at sunset, and had to set up camp in the dark. Once all was set we finally got the fire started and enjoyed some s'mores!



Our friend Miles decided that he wanted to open his glow stick and was pleasantly surprised that it made his clothes glow! His dad wasn't so happy about it and was more concerned with getting a strange glowing chemical off of his child!








Our friend Adam was demonstrating how to be a messy eater. He has some strange mark on his stomach and marshmallow in the corner of his mouth. I wasn't paying attention to Brenden at that point, but as you can see in the background he is at the table with the "mo-mo's" (that's marshmallows for you lay people). I also noticed that he has one in each hand and is looking for something more, I wonder if he got was he was looking for.






Brenden decided that he wanted to see who could stay up the longest, and he won. He outlasted six adults, a five-year-old, and two dogs. He played steam-roller, starting on daddy's back and then rolling over to mommy's side giggling the whole way across, and then repeated it about 30 times. Once he finally fell asleep, it was probably close to 1am.

For me, I had another problem, I had to pee. I couldn't bring myself to make the hike all the way to the bathrooms for a couple of reasons, 1) There were huge spiderwebs with huge spiders in both doorways, 2) There were no lights in the bathroom, and 3) The bathrooms were about a 50 yards away. Before getting into the tent for the night I did take a squat just outside the tent circle and relieve myself, only to be awakened a couple of hours later with the urge to go again. I would have gotten out of the tent and squatted again, but after I had heard a pack of wolves howl at the moon, raccoons, an owl, and millions of bugs, I decided to do what any rough and tough girl would have done, I held it and didn't sleep.

The next morning Brenden woke up at about 6:30am, and we maybe stayed in the tent until 7am. I finally decided to make the hike to the bathroom, I let Cricket out of the tent (in hopes that she would be my trusty guard dog). She made it to about the 3rd tent and smelled the other dog and left my side to wake up that tent. I continued on until a huge bug decided to dive bomb my head! I tried to shake it off, and then started running thinking that would get rid of it. The bomber was still with me once I got to the potties and when I realized I couldn't stop moving enough to see where the giant spiderwebs and spiders were, I booked it back to the tents! I kid you not, that bug followed me to the tent and then continued to do a figure 8 around all the tents running into them from time to time, waiting for me to come out again.

Once it sounded clear, and Brenden needed to go potty, we got out of the tent. We had a hearty breakfast of fruitloops (the others made eggs and bacon over the campfire). There were also some banana's and strawberries (Brenden ate more strawberries than anyone). That morning Brenden decided that peeing standing up was not so fun and refused to pee for the entire morning.

After breakfast we all packed up and went to the boat. Here is Jeremy, Miles, and Adam (the captain) on our ride out to wherever.

Here is Matt and Brenden, apparently it was too windy for Brenden's eyes, but he did like sitting with daddy in the bow.











Captain Adam, the coordinator of all the fun camp outs at Mark Twain Lake.














One more of daddy and Brenden, he tried making an effort to look at the camera but still was not liking the wind. Once I was done taking pictures he moved back with me.











Ahh, no more wind!! Now he could look around and enjoy the ride.













We had a lot of fun on the ride out, Brenden was looking forward to getting on the boat for a couple of days. He loves being on the water.











While captain Adam was anchoring the boat, Brenden took his chance to captain and steer the boat, this is one of his favorite things to do on the boat, he asked the whole ride out if he could drive but he had to wait until we had stopped. He was really excited to drive.








I was the first one in the water, and it was not Florida water! It was probably 70 degrees and it was COLD! Okay, not really but it was not the bath water that I am used to. Once I was in the two boys quickly followed. With all of our practice at the pool this summer, Brenden is still a little nervous to swim on his own, he had to hold at least a finger at all times or he wanted to get out.






My life preserver was a little too loose/big and I was constantly pulling it down below my chin so that I could see and not drown. This made swimming a little difficult.










Finally, the doctors got in the water, we all washed our hair in the lake, and the guys just hung out and talked about work! Can you believe it! Here they are in this beautiful lake spending time with family and friends and they were still talking about work! I guess that is all that they have right now to occupy their time. So sad.







Once the boys had had enough of the water we got out and had a snack of 7Up and Twizlers! Talk about a treat! While we were eating Matt became a shark and would come up the the boat and jump up to scare the boys, Brenden kept asking "Again?" So Matt was a shark for about 10 minutes in between talking with the guys. I don't know who enjoyed it more, Matt or Brenden. :)
It was about this time that Brenden decided he could no longer hold in his pee. He finally let loose but unfortunately it was on the boat! The only upside was that he was standing over the slats where the anchor was stored so he did not pee on the carpet. Note to self--Never get a carpeted boat.

The last two of our crew were Adam (yes, there were two) and his girlfriend Christina. She was too chicken to get in the water so he didn't spend much time in the water so that she wouldn't feel lonely. Soo cute! I remember those days.









Finally we got the call that more campers had arrived and were waiting for us at the campsite. We had about a half-hour ride back so Matt and Adam hooked up the tube and we were off. Here is Matt waiting for us to lift the anchor, he was actually very excited to finally get to do some water sports.







And we're off! The little boys thought this was pretty cool. They laughed as Matt was swung to the side of the boat, when he jumped out of the wake, and when the water would get in his face.










An interesting side note--if you look at the base of the trees you will notice a strange line or lack of foliage a couple of feet up from the trunk. The picture of the boys eating twizlers is a better example. This line is where the water line was a month ago. This lake is a reservoir and they have been letting out about a foot of water a day, needless to say the shoreline was completely different when we were last here a month ago.





As I watched Matt on the tube I noticed at one point he was adjusting his wedding ring, I came to find out that it had almost fallen completely off! This was him saving it, and I didn't even know! He spent the rest of the time with his hands in fists for fear of it falling off!








This was a very long tube ride (about half an hour) There were times when Adam would make figure 8's and try to throw him off but Matt held on true. Amazingly, I never heard him complain about sore muscles after that ride.









After only about five minutes of watching daddy on the tube we had finally let go and fell asleep. For those of you who know Brenden's sleeping habits, this was a big deal, Brenden is not one to sleep in public. After a sleepless night I welcomed a quick power nap.

Freedom from diapers!!!

Brenden is now 2 years, 3 months, and 22 days old and is now potty trained!! I couldn't be happier (okay, if I were on the beach with Matt, I would be). His bribes were skittles for peepy and toy cars for the poopies. Now I have to ween him from getting a new car every day, there is the real trick. He is too smart for me.



In other news, I am plugging away at my training course, but getting a little burned out. I must keep on spending my free moments in front of the computer so that I can make it through the course. Once done, then I get to spend my free moments working. Maybe that is why I am getting burned out, realizing that there is no more personal Camarie time, it will be completely spent serving others and work. I'll have to start treating myself to monthly or weekly outings.

Anyways, Matt is having fun doing paperwork, getting asked stupid questions, and using the drills, saws, and wearing space suits. He is happy to be finally doing strictly orthopedics but looks forward to the day when he is not the low man on the totem pole. He is also looking forward to September when his call load is extremely light and we will actually have some fun weekends.

Calvin and Brenden... Best Friends

Here are the photos from our visit with Josh, Dawn, Calvin, and Jonas. We had so much fun!! We mostly went to the pool because it was so hot and humid this week. Enjoy!

I'm also going to include videos we took. :)

Feeling Sad?

Here is a video of Brenden and Calvin singing their favorite primary song. Enjoy!!

The County Fair

We just made our annual trip to the county fair, and it was definitely different than it was last year. Brenden is truly a big boy.


Last year he was too small for everything, but we did go to the petting zoo and he was very brave and pet most of the friendly animals. This year, he touched the Yak's nose and needed to be held for all the other animals. He did want to hold the weird rabbit/kangaroo looking animal just because they were his size, but other than that he wanted to just look.




We saw the pig races again this year and I am including a video of the first race. Brenden was acting a little shy when we first got there but after the first race he turned to me with a big smile and said "Again?" There were three races in all and he loved everyone of them, I think he even started cheering during the third race. Our pig won the second race and came in second by a snout in the third race.
Our pig's names were Arnold Schwarzenhoggin, Kevin Bacon, and Brittney Squeals.

After the pig races it was onto the rides. He was a big boy and went on his first carnival rides which he loved.

First was the car ride, he picked out the car he wanted and everything.




From the cars it was to the dogs which he watched while he was diving the car. Again, he picked out the dog he wanted. It took him a while to pick out his next ride but we ended up making the decision for him.
Once we told him we were going to the train he was very excited and I decided to ride with him so he wouldn't be alone. We sang train songs and waved at daddy, it was fun.
Last but definitely not least, was the Ferris wheel. This was his favorite hands down, Matt said it would have been worth it to spend all of our tickets and do the Ferris wheel over and over, unfortunately it was our last ride of the night.



Once we were done riding the rides we cooled off with some snow cones which Brenden was in love with. After we got home and all washed up we had our cotton candy, everyone was a huge fan, including Cricket!!! She was begging for more and more but I couldn't let her get addicted.

(Don't you love it when you go to take a picture and the kid keeps walking towards you like he has to be on the camera for a good photo?)

Overall it was really fun, can't wait to go again next year!

Reason for procrastinating posts

So the reason I have not posted anything in so long is because I have gone back to school, well online school anyway. I am studying to become a medical transcriptionist so that I can work from home and bring in some extra cash to be able to pay for groceries and gasoline, Matt's paycheck just doesn't cut it thanks to the great economy. So keep me in your prayers as I am trying to pass the grammar section right now and am doing poorly at identifying the different parts of a sentence. I knew my skills were sad but I had no idea that I couldn't even pass a third grade english class. It is very humbling.

Cricket and Dressing Up

Just so you know, Cricket is not a dog that likes to dress up. She gets very shy and just looks at you like "Why is this funny? This is extremely degrading. I want to curl up in a dark corner somewhere and never be seen again." This outfit is one of her chew toys, she takes this and shakes it like she is trying to break its neck. Poor dog.