Shower Time

 Lately the boys are all about taking showers instead of baths.  Tyler likes to try and drink the water and they like to pretend they are playing in the rain.  I couldn't help taking a few pictures of Ty in there the other night. He wouldn't get out!

Weekly Thoughts

• Tyler at least 10 times a day will come up to us and tell us he wants "food." The problem is what we don't know what "food" means to him. We go in the kitchen and literally name off everything we have in there until he finally agrees to something. It's always like the last thing we name off every time. Or what's worse is when we say everything we have and he says "no" to all of it and starts getting mad. He just wants FOOD....Ahhh, what is that exactly???  Oh my gosh, it drives us crazy!

• My new favorite thing.  Brayden trying to give Tyler horsie rides.  Tyler will climb on his back and Brayden will make it one or two steps before he's flat on the floor, squished like a pancake by Ty.  They think its hilarious.

• Our GPS for the car has this feature on the right bottom corner that tells you what the speed limit is on the road you are on and then it tells you how fast you are driving. If you are going under or right at the speed limit it shows up in black. But if you go over the speed limit, even just 1 mile over, it shows up in red. We made the mistake of explaining this to Brayden awhile back when he asked us what it was and now we are regretting it big time! I don't speed too much, but I pretty much always go 5 over so those little numbers are always red. And my little backseat driver is quick to notice and let me know. "Mom, I think you are speeeeeding.  You better slow down or the police are going to come get you." So I try to slow down to make it black so the back seat will be quiet, but it's hard to not even go over by 1.  And Brayden watches it like a hawk. So Guy and I go crazy and have started just holding the GPS in our lap so no one else can see.

• Brayden and I sorted through all their toys and books last week and got rid of a ton of them.  It's dorky but I really do love organizing and getting rid of stuff we don't need. It just feels so good. Hopefully this will make it easier for the boys to keep their toys picked up.  Probably not though since Tyler's favorite game is to just dump out all the bins!

• Lately Tyler hands me 5 legos and says, "Make wegos a birdie, make a dog..." So I do my best to stack them up until he is satisfied. How on earth do you make things like that out of legos??? What happened to just making towers!

• Brayden loves mayonnaise.  It's sort of gross how much he loves it. Whenever we eat at Subway, he'll press his sandwich down until the mayonnaise squeezes out and then he'll lick it off.  I don't put that much on his sandwiches at home, which is one reason he loves Subway.  He also calls mayonnaise "man-eyes" which makes me smile.

• I've been working hard this year, making our old blog into books by year.  Every time I have seen a groupon for blurb, I get it because without those deals the books can be expensive! They've done them twice this year so if you want to make your blog into a book, be on the lookout cause I bet they'll have the deal again.   Blurb makes it really easy to download your blog onto their site, but it takes forever to change all the layouts.  So it's been a process, but I finished my 2007-2008 book earlier this year and just barely finished our 2009 one on Monday.  I can't wait to get it in the mail and see it.  Now I just have to finish 2010 by the beginning of August (that's when my groupon expires) and I'll be all caught up.

• We saw Cars 2 last weekend.  Oh man, Brayden was excited.  He loved it....I thought it was slow in the beginning, but the end was good.  Really it mostly has Mator in it the whole time since he's the spy (I love how both my kids call him "Nator.")  Tyler did really well and slept for most of the movie which was a gift.  My other trick to get him to sit through movies is to buy ring pops.  They are like yummy pacifiers and they keep both my boys plugged up and quiet!

• Tyler has just started to bring us diapers and let us know when he wants his diaper changed.  I am so happy because it's the first step of potty training! I don't think I'll even try it with him until maybe this fall when Brayden is in school and hopefully he'll be as easy to train as Brayden was. I'd love to only have the new baby in diapers!

How's the View Down There??

Butterflies

Brayden used some birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa Hill to buy this butterfly kit.  We had so much fun getting the caterpillars in the mail and watching them turn into cocoons and then butterflies.  Brayden did a great job finding them fresh flowers and we fed them oranges too.  He even made an observation journal, like on Sid the Science kid (tv show), and updated it every time he saw them change.  

We let them go last night in our neighborhood because Brayden wanted to be sure he would see them again sometime.  Who knows, maybe we will :)

I'll Miss Ohio

There, I said it! My parents are in the process of moving out to Utah right now. My dad and sister just drove out there over the weekend and my mom and brothers are staying in Ohio until the house sells and then they will join them. I am excited about their move, but I can't help but feel a little sad too. I know it doesn't affect me directly since I am "grown up" and not living at home anymore, but it does mean I probably won't be going back to Ohio anymore.  With Guy's family in Oregon and mine in Utah, we will be heading out West to see them all now.  And the more I've thought about it, the list of things I will miss in Ohio just keeps growing.  I think it's just the memories of the place you grew up. The familiarity of everything every time you come home to visit.  Here's my list of a few of the things I'll really miss....

Ohio State Football
Graters Ice cream
Ohio State Fair
Hocking Hills and Ash Cave
The river where we'd feed the ducks with my grandparents
Castle Parks
Our house and all the memories in it
The people in our ward
The zoo
Donatos pizza
Der Dutchman
My Grandma's house
Amish country
COSI
Cedar Point
Lining up Christmas morning on our stairs
Zoo lights at Christmas
Fall in ohio and jumping in my Grandparents leaves
Kirtland and church sites close by
The columbus temple, right by our church building
Red, White, and Boom
Aunts and Uncles who still live there
Buckeye stuff in all the stores
Friends
Our backyard

Ahh, I could go on and on I feel like. But Utah really will be a great move for them and I'm hoping that someday we'll be able to settle down out West too. I think so many of the things I'll miss in Ohio are because I have the memories of being there with family.  I know that's whats really missing in our life right now. Living far away is just tough! I want my boys to have the same memories growing up with Grandparents and cousins close by that I have.  So we'll see what happens the end of this year and who knows, maybe someday we'll make it back to Ohio for a visit :)

Good luck with the move Family!

Kelly & Kyle Come to Play: Part 2

We had some fun at Disney in Orlando.  It was SOOO hot and humid, but we managed to survive it and make some great memories!

 Mickey and Minnie

We stopped to see a lot of the princesses because Kelly and I are still like 5 years old. Brayden is a good sport, but he gets mad because they always call him a little prince and kiss him on the cheek. Seriously it happens almost every time! So I told him she wouldn't do it, but well....

 He was SOO mad!

 Poor Brayden

But we had to see Belle for Kelly. I need a girl! 

They do a really cool show at the castle now where they use it as a screen and project all kinds of pictures and things on it. The best part is where they make it look like a rocket that is going up into the sky. 

 Thanks guys for coming to see us! It really was such a fun trip and we miss you like crazy now! Hope you guys have a great rest of the summer :)

Kelly & Kyle Come to Play: Part 1

We had so much fun with my brother and sister here to hang out with us.  Kyle came out first and Kelly joined us once she was done with her finals at Ohio State.

 Mini Golf with Kyle

Brayden got a hole in one!

 Tyler was into the golf at first but then it was all about his bag of chips

 We got a groupon awhile ago for a movie theater by us and seriously it was the most ghetto movie theater I have EVER seen. Oh man, it was bad. But we had it all to ourself and both the boys thought it was great to run around like crazy through the whole movie since we were the only ones there.

 Florida is SO hot. I am dying. But the boys found a way to cool off and had a water balloon fight one evening.  I thought I was safe just taking pictures and by being pregnant and all, but Guy and Kyle showed me no mercy.

 A guy that Guy works with owns a condo just a few minutes from Clearwater beach at Sand Key and he let us stay there for free. Seriously it was SO nice and since their is no public access to that beach (all hotels and condos off of it) we practically had the beach all to ourselves. It was heaven! His condo faced the ocean and the view was just amazing.  It had a pool too so we had fun swimming in it when we got tired of the sand.

They had these big areas roped off so these birds could nest there.  They were pretty cool looking but SO noisy!

 Random pile of bones we found on our sunset walk

 Oh man, the sunset was gorgeous! I could get used to watching it off that balcony every night!

 Kelly and BB

 Views from the condo...it was on the 18th floor so you could see everything!

 Kelly was nice and helped the boys build a sandcastle

 Kyle discovered skim boarding and got pretty good at it by the end of the day

 Their sandcastle

 Cool seashell Guy found, but we threw it back since there was still a slimy thing inside.

 Ok coolest part of our beach trip was that 2 manatees swam so close to the shore by us. Guy, Kelly, and Kyle swam out to them and literally were swimming right next to them. Kyle even got to touch one of them because it got so close. It was pretty awesome to see them so close and see how friendly they are. They also saw a few little stingrays and a some pretty big fish.

 This little fountain at the pool plus a cup equaled pure entertainment for my boys! They loved it.