SON?!

is what Tyler said when he found Hayden like this.

The Waterfall

Now that summer is basically over, I'm having regrets. Such as, I was going to take my kids hiking all the time this summer, but we did go at least one time, to a waterfall in Pleasant Grove that I had heard about all throughout my High School years of living there, and so we finally went. It was easy, and it was fun, and it was dirty, but the boys were troopers.

Then the boys found a cave. On a completely Random note, Jackson informed me today that he was smarter than me. At 4 1/2, he's already convinced I know nothing. I told him that may be proven true later on in life, but as of right now, no he's not! And he looked at me like, "Wow, you really are clueless Mom." He just shook his head and said "Yeah, I am." Like poor me, poor unintelligent Mom. She really doesn't know anything! I thought this wasn't supposed to happen until later, like in the teenage years. (It was all I could do not to say, "At least I'm smart enough not to pee my pants." But he's been doing really well today, and that might come across as immature, which I totally am not, most of the time.)

Help.

You Volunteered?

Last Sunday Jackson had a piece of paper in his hand from primary. It said he was supposed to give a . . . TALK. When I saw it I thought, "NOOOO." Jackson is always, always coming home with these pieces of paper, for the scripture or for the prayers. I've felt so lucky that he hasn't had to give a TALK.

He told me that he volunteered, VOLUNTEERED, to give a talk. "They asked who wanted to give one and I just raised my hand." He said it so casually. Granted, yes, it is just a primary talk, it has to be like, a paragraph, but you don't understand. Not only do I have irrational fears about speaking in public, but I have a history, and so does Tyler, and it involves public speaking, in primary. Let me explain.

I think I was five years old. I had to give a talk. I still remember how it was about Joseph Smith's leg (and how it was hurt). My mom helped me all week. We went over and over the talk. I had pictures. They were awesome pictures. I even helped to color the pictures. I was prepared. I was more than prepared. My mom had no reason to worry. Then it was time to stand up and give my talk. I remember standing there and thinking. I do NOT want to do this, and I couldn't speak. I couldn't make a single word come out of my mouth. I remember thinking in my head, I don't have to be the one to say the talk. My mom can say it. She knows it better than I do. She'll even do a better job than I would. I just wanted to hold the pictures while she talked. So I just stood there, and I shook my head no. My mom came up and tried to get me to do it. I just kept shaking my head. There was nothing in the world that was going to make me speak in front of those kids. NOTHING. So then my mom gave my talk for me, and I held the pictures. As soon as she started speaking I felt SO MUCH BETTER. I was even happy. My mom felt like a failure. For years she wondered what she did wrong. It was only recently that we had talked about what happened, and how I told her that I just didn't want to do it. She could do it better, and she felt a little better. She understands me now anyway.

Moving onto Tyler and his first (or one of them) primary speaking experience. I'm not exactly sure if he was in a primary program, or if he was giving a talk, whatever the situation I believe he was about 5. He had his part memorized, and he had a picture to go with it. When he got up there, he did NOT want to say his part. There was no way anyone could make him. So his mom said it for him, while he turned around around and put his back to everyone, while holding his picture. But not only was he holding his picture. He was holding it upside down, ON PURPOSE.

So when Jackson showed me his paper, I thought, "And it's all coming back to bite me in the, (well you know where)." But apparently Jackson is a happy child and doesn't mind speaking in front of people. He's the kind of kid who volunteers. Sometimes I can't believe he's related to us. And he did a great job. My favorite phrases of his paragraph long talk included words such as, "Heavenly Fada, "and "live togeda foweva." I'm so proud of him.

Michigan part 2

I have a million pictures of Michigan that I love and want to post for my blurbing purposes, (Kristin took most of them) so here they are. The boys had so much fun swimming, doing sparklers, playing in the sprinklers, eating ice cream, going to the gardens, and dipping treats in Grandma's chocolate fountain. The funniest part of the trip, for me, was Jackson and Alexis making up a game they called "Calico." Calico (Sp?) is the bad guy from the movie BOLT. Grandma Jones gave all the kids their own flashlight. They went downstairs and made up a game where the uncles were Calico. The uncles had to hide in the dark and then the cousins would come find them. All the little kids had their flashlights on and if they shined their light on "Calico", he would die, dramatically. They LOVED this game and wanted to play it over and over. The uncles gave a very impressive performance. Uncles are awesome.

I'll also never forget Lincoln playing Calico and becoming very concerned when, "Uncle Nick found poop! Why?"

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Michigan, part 1

We had so much fun in Michigan. The boys had a blast with their cousins and they behaved themselves so well and I will tell you why. They just need fun activities to do everyday with their fun cousins. Grandma Jones had something fun to do every day and she had surprises for all the cousins every morning. So that's it. No down time. They just need to have fun all day while I neglect all household duties, which sounds like a good plan.

Anyways, the first day we were together we went a cute splash pad/lake/park called Hawk Island and the kids loved it.
Their cute cousin Alexis. Ty with Jocelyn and Hayden.There were actually 3 kids trying to get Ty, but I didn't get them all the picture.

St. George

Talk about family activites, we were on vacation for almost two weeks, and it was heavenly. My family had a familiy reunion, and then Ty's family had a family reunion, and I have so many pictures, I don't even know where to start.

We went to St. George with my family for 3 days. We had a lot of fun with all of our cousins, and there are a lot. Because my dad is a history worshiper and becuase he was in charge, we went to the temple and the tabernacle. We did a couple little tours and learned about some of the historical sites of St. George.

Here's Jackson going down the sprial staircase right before he fell and went down the rest of them on his back. I hate those spiral stairs. I ALWAYS fall down them, every time. This was one exception. Somehow I ran down them to get Jackson. So I guess that's the key. Have no fear for your own life and run down.

Anyways. We had fun swimming at Veyo and going to Tuacan. Look at my cute sisters and my nieces. Could me and my sisters be any more different?And, I can't believe I am posting a picture of me in a swimsuit with my hair matted down, but there you go. You should all feel better about yourselves now. On our way back from swimming, we stopped at the entrance of Snow Canyon and Ty got the boys a volcano rock. We're going to go back to St. George just so we can go back to Snow Canyon and Zions and places like that. I can't wait to go explore. It looked so pretty. Footloose was playing at Tuacan, and if you didn't know, which most people don't unless you're my friend Eryn, (and I might have borrowed her copy of footloose and lost it. SORRY!) footloose is one of my favorite movies. It has been since I was really little. Don't ask me where I first saw it, I couldn't tell you, but I've had it memorized for a long long time. Needless to say, it was fun to go see.

Here's a more typical picture of me. I'm sure I was saying "Whah?" That's right, without the T. I am from Utah. We don't have T's at the end of our words. And here's Amanda and Tyler being Amanda and Tyler. And where were Steve and Amy? Steve was getting a migraine and throwing up Cafe Rio in the bathroom. I felt so bad for him, but I was glad he left the show as he was sitting right behind me and I really didn't want vomit all over my back, but I did feel really really bad. :) He felt better in the morning.

We had a great time and then we drove back home and flew to Michigan where more family reunions continued.

Family Activities

Ty is home for the summer. I'm really loving it after not seeing him much for 15 months. So we're trying to do family activities together before Ty goes back to school. Did I mention that he's going back to school? Probably not. I was hoping I wouldn't have to mention it. I have been planning a blog post in my head that says something like, "Introducing the new Assistant Principal at (insert school here)." But alas, the economy has forced us another way and now Ty is going to BYU again to get his Ph.D. in the EIME program. EIME stands for Educational Inquiry Measurement and Evaluation. Anyways, before that happens we have actually been trying to do things. And since we have no money, we wanted to do something cheap.

Last week's cheap activity was going to the Kennecott Copper Mines, or as Jackson calls it, "The big hole." The boys loved it actually. Hayden couldn't get over all the dump trucks. The whole time I heard him say, "There's another one! There's another one! There's another one!" Which is what he was saying right here:

While looking at all these:

The boys loved the dump truck tire. (At least I think that's what it goes to.)

Something like this typically happens when I want the boys to take a picture with me:

Yay for family togetherness!

The END!

Complain, Whine, Blog

The boys have been doing pretty sharing a room. No problems sleeping usually. It's been pretty smooth, except yesterday. Neither one of them took a nap, so I tried to put them to bed early. Like 8:00 early, which for some people is normal, but for my kids, in the summer, it is not. They don't like to go to be until the sun is down, so even if they're extremely exhausted as they were last night, they were not going to bed. So after almost an hour and a half of screaming and fighting, they went to sleep.

You know when you wake up in the morning, and your kids are whining at you, and you just didn't get enough time away? Ya, last night I did not get enough time away, AND I stayed up too late. Way too late.

So of course this is the day, out of all the days this week, that both my kids wake up at 7:15. I'm exhausted, to say the least, and annoyed and angry. So I try to hurry and get up because husband was up even later than I was and I'm trying to be nice and less selfish, bla bla. (I'm really much happier this way, can't you tell?). So I race to get up. I get the kids breakfast and decide to use the trick that I haven't used for a while now, (since my kids have been going to bed late and waking up late - like 9:00, 9:30 HEAVENLY!) I turned on a show and laid down on the couch.

As soon as I was asleep, I was forced to get up again. The smell of poop was everywhere. You know when you are trying to wake up, but it just hurts so bad? You know if you could lay back down you would have the best sleep ever! That's what I wanted to do, but I couldn't because the poop smell was overwhelming. So I sit up in a fog and I see what appears to be poop on Hayden's hands, and arms, and legs. In my fog like state I'm rushing him to the bathroom. It hurt to get up. It hurt so bad. It hurt to clean the poop off the bike on the deck, and the poop off of the deck itself. I just wanted to lay down. But I couldn't unless I wanted to lay down in poop. I wanted to pass out cleaning it out of his clothes.

By the time his bath was done, I was finally awake. But it's the kind of awake where I'm not getting anything done, hence the blogging, and complaining and wasting my day. Jackson's whining in my ear, husband is still asleep, and now I want to do some retail therapy, but that means I have to do my hair. Whine whine whine, I know. Life is so hard. Yesterday I complained about my weight at the Dr.'s office and the medical assistant lady from South America reminded me that we are so blessed to actually have food here to eat, etc. That should have put things in perspective right? Nope. I'm still complaining.

At least this guy is dressed and ready to go and I think he's feeling better.

This one on the other hand, better take a nap today. At least they're still cute and funny. Good thing.

Tyler's Birthday

Ty has always been one to downplay his birthday. I should know that after 8 years of knowing him, so I should have known that he wouldn't really want to go to Sundance overnight and go hiking all day for his birthday. He would rather stay home and get the house really clean. I mean really clean. Like, he cleaned the oven on his birthday clean. In his defense he let me take him to Transformers the night before and he really liked it. He let himself have a little fun.

I should have known this would make him happy. I was thinking of his birthdays of in years past. The first one I ever spent with him was low key at his house in California with his family. His next birthday he was not so happy, even though I was. I made him to go Vegas for the weekend. We stayed at the Luxor and went and saw "O" by Cirque de Soleil. Heavenly for me, not so much for him. Travel + spending money = not his forte. I don't expect big productions for birthdays, I just like to plan them every once in a while.

His next birthday we were in California again. He had a great time cleaning out his parent's attic all day long. And when I say he had fun, he really did. He loved organizing the attic and seeing all his stuff from when he was a little kid. Fun for him. Anyways, I should just learn to always play it low key for him. bla.

Anyways, the kids spent the night at my parents and we had most of the day to ourselves. At night we went and had dinner with my family at Brick Oven and then we went back to my parent's house for cake and ice cream.

Happy Birthday Ty! We love you and your very unique self.