Birthday Highlights

I know, I'm so creative, an ice cream cake!

Daddy licks off the candle, so....

Chloee has to lick off the candle.
She imitates EVERYTHING he does. The cutest yet is when she puts her hands in her pockets just like him!

See all the excitement!

My mom made this cake on a whim. I know, a total shock, not! Sunday Josh got called to be the assistant scoutmaster in our ward. We went up to my parents' to celebrate Josh's birthday on Sunday. It looks great. She did it all with stuff she just had lying around. She's so creative. Come on mom, couldn't you have passed some of that along to me????

Random Happenings

BOOK OF MORMON...We just finished Chloee's BOOK OF MORMON. Yea! The only one we have left for her is the Old Testament, before we start over again. We try and read a chapter a night out of her book. Her obsession in this book was seeing "the tree". There was a picture in there of Lehi's dream and she LOVED the glowing tree in the picture, she had to see it EVERY NIGHT!

VISIT TO GRANDMA & GRANDPA...

We went and visited Kathy and Stacie today. I took my sister to the airport at 6 am this morning so we made a visit a little farther south. Unfortunately for us but very fortunate for them, Kathy, Gary, Ty and Rach leave tomorrow for ITALY for 2 weeks so things were CRAZY there! Hope you have fun! Chloee, Chan and Rhyder went for a walk/bike ride together.

STICKERS ANYONE???

Chloee and I visited my family last week while Josh was on business in Canada. Chloee thought it was hilarious to decorate my mom's face with stickers and spare only a few for her own! You look great mom!

POTTY TIME...

Yes, we dare to enter the crazy world of potty training. My mom gave Chloee this adorable book about "Zoe's Potty". She loves to read it and talks about the potty so we decided to go buy her one. As you can see from the first picture that things were good, happy, as the face shows. Only seconds later, the second pictures says it differently. "No potty, off!" she demanded. Oh well, when she is good and ready, she will do it, ON HER TIME. I know it will not work any other way. She's all too strong-willed and stubborn, so until then, it will sit as a reminder and decoration in the bathroom. GO CHLO!!!

Never a dull moment

I was upstairs putting laundry away. I had left Chloee downstairs and I knew she was tearing everything off the fridge on the chair. I thought she'd be fine for 5 minutes. NOPE! She decided she was BORED with the fridge and moved the chair over to the cabinet drawer with all the tupperware lids in it. She threw them all out on the floor and hopped inside the drawer and was screaming for me, "Kimmy, come here, see me!". Yes, you read right, she calls me Kimmy and she is extremely demanding, but that part is no shock. I come downstairs to find this!

She thinks that everything is built "Chloee stable". I don't think that drawer is supposed to handle 30 pounds but I HAD to get a picture of it! Oh the joys of my not even 2 year old daughter that keeps me on my toes 24-7!

Happy Birthday Josh!!!

Today is my sweet hubby's birthday. He is turning 27! In honor of the birthday boy, here is a list of 27 things you may or may not know about Josh. Thanks Amy for the idea, I totally stole it from your post on Micheal's B-day!

1- Middle name is Dean, which covers him being named after 4 different people.
2- If he is really tired, you cannot chew around him. He can hear every last bite like you are eating in a megaphone in his ear. Thanks Kathy, jk!
3- Talks in a little girl voice to Chloee. If you have been lucky enough to have heard him do it, you know how adorable and funny it is!
4- Hates black shirts on himself.
5- His parents were divorced when he was only 10 years old.
6- Crapped his pants on a news paper route when he was little! So funny, I had to put it in.
7- He served an LDS mission to Sao Paulo Brazil.
8- Speaks Portuguese and Spanish.
9- Has 23 brothers, sisters, step and half, including himself.
10- Was very close to his grandpa Jones, who died while Josh was on his mission.
11- Has eyelashes so long, thick and beautiful, they go all the way up to his eyebrows.
12- Hates fish, seafood, etc.
13- Has an incredibly strong testimony.
14- Played soccer 1 year in high school.
15- Is OBSESSED with airplanes and has been since he was a little boy. We get to hear all the planes from HAFB around here. He always tells us what they are. I don't know how he can tell, they all look the same to me.
16- He works on landing gear for the F-15 at work. LOVES THAT!
17- When he was a kid he wanted to be an F-16 fighter pilot.
18- Had only dated 2 other girls before me. One was for over 2 years though.
19- Loves to cook and is AMAZING at it!
20- Eats ice cream with milk in it.
21- Went on a 21 day church history tour when he graduated from high school.
22- Loves Star Wars and Star Trek! Yes, that's right, my husband is a Trekkie. Not a freak Trekkie though, he didn't dress up like the characters when he saw the movies in the theater.
23- Forgot to get down on his knee when he was proposing to me.
24- Is extremely determined. If he wants to know how to do something, he will work on it non-stop until he knows how to do it! Not joking, will not stop, many late nights!
25- Favorite color is blue.
26- LOVES DARK CHOCOLATE!
27- Can't do a cartwheel. Remember Mom and Amy when we were dating! Oh, so funny!

Love you Josh, hope you have a great birthday!

A-Z Tag

I have seen this tag floating around lately. I was tagged by Andrea and I am just getting around to doing it. Looks fun, here it is:

A - Attached or single?
Attached - Married for 5 years this summer.

B - Best friend?
Josh, obviously... I miss my best friend, he's in Canada now on business! :(

C - Cake or pie? Pie!

D - Day of choice?
Saturday. I love Saturdays when we can just do anything we want and especially when we don't have to travel anywhere. It's nice to just stay home once in a while!

E - Essential item?
My blue sweatpants that Josh hates but they are so comfortable, I'm constantly wearing them.

F - Favorite color?
Green, all shades.

G - Gummy bears or worms?
Gummy worms.

H - Hometown?
Hyrum, Utah

I - Indulgences?
Pinching your pennies, blog hopping and NEW YORK BAKED CHEESECAKE!

J - January or July?
July. I love celebrating the 4th of July and I just love the feeling in the air in the summer. January is gloomy and depressing.

K - Kids?
Chloee, almost 2 years old.

L - Life isn't complete without?
Josh's homemade sticky fingers, or pretty much anything he makes and my Chlo and Josh.

M - Marriage date?
July 29, 2003

N - Number of brothers and sisters?
2 sisters (Amy & Annie), 2 brothers (Jordan & Matthew) And all the great bro and sis "in-laws". I won't even attempt to name them all because there are WAAYYY too many. If you count all of Josh's brother's & sisters and steps and halves, it amounts to 23.

O - Oranges or apples?
Oranges, hands down. I love oranges especially after they have been chilled and in the summertime.

P - Phobias or fears?
I am so superstitious, I don't even want to write it. It does have something to do with dying! Must be something in the blood, you read Amy's and she had said dying from a brain tumor. Weird! I also hate mice and spiders! Blah!

Q - Quote?
I was blog hopping one day and found this on someone else's blog: "The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only-and that is to support this ultimate career." - C.S. Lewis

R - Reason to smile?
Josh's birthday is on Saturday, which means that neither of us have to cook dinner that night!

S - Season of choice?
Fall! I would love to see NY in the fall!

T - Tag Seven: Maren, Stacie, Mandy, Krysta, Jen Burbank (Jer's wife), Kimberly and Sandstone Writings!

U - Unknown fact about me?
When I met Josh, I was not active in the church.

V - Vegetable?
jicama, sooooo goooood!

W - Worst habit?
Saying a naughty word when I get scared!

X - X-ray or ultrasound?
Ultrasounds. After last month with Chloee when they did ultrasounds and x-rays. The ultrasound was much less invasive for her and didn't make me bawl.

Y - Your favorite food?
Pasta, especially Josh's pasta, so yummy!

Z - Zodiac sign?
Gemini.

Seriously... SHOUT?

I was doing laundry this morning, as I do every Tuesday. Of course I had to scrub Chloee's shirt from yesterday. If there is one thing I can never let us run out of here, it is SHOUT! It is the only thing that saves Chloee's clothes from not looking absolutely disgusting.

I was SHOUTING her shirt and I hurried and ran downstairs to the laundry room because I had remembered that I didn't put the detergent in. Coming back upstairs I see Chloee holding our SHOUT bottle with the nozzle in her mouth spraying it. I said, "Chloee, did you drink this?". Her response was, "Yeah, nummy!". What? What kind of a kid drinks SHOUT and LIKES IT!

Immediately I called my mom and asked her if I should call Poison Control. Well, just so happens that my sister, Annie, her little girl did the same thing a little bit ago, so my mom told me to call her. I got a hold of Annie and she said that Poison Control contacted the SHOUT company and they said that it is majority water and perfume so she should be okay. What? 2 comments here.... If that is all SHOUT pretty much is, I need to start making my own. Also, of course, I was relieved that it wasn't harmful in the amount she took either. She just said I need to put lots of fluids through her and food and the most that will probably happen, if anything, she will have a little bit of some diarrhea.

Obviously, I need to not leave the SHOUT on the counter in the bathroom. Chloee gets into everything and she's sneaky at it too. Yesterday, she was drinking out of her cousin's glass when Josh told her it wasn't hers and to put it down, she said, "No". He started walking towards her to take it away. Chloee, knowing darn well what he was going to do hurried and got some more swigs in before he could take it away and just smiled at him like, "I got the last laugh and it was on you daddy".

...AND THE ANSWER IS YEAH!

Chloee's new thing is to say "yeah" to EVERYTHING, excluding anything I ask her to do. You just never know what to believe. Take for example these two recent stories.

I was at Arctic Circle with a friend this week and our kids were adventuring the playground inside. We were minding our own business when a little girl (not mine, shocker) started screaming. The parents went and grabbed her and asked her if someone hurt her. She pointed right in the direction of my child and someone else's was standing next to Chloee. I shouted from the bench, "Chloee, did you hit that little girl?" This was her response, "Yeah". I haul my rear end up there, grab her and take her over to the little girl to apologize. I asked, "Did she hit you?". The little girl looks at me and says, "No, it was that one" and pointed to the other child that had been standing by Chloee. Why, Chloee, Why? Why would you say that you hit someone when you didn't? I just don't get it.

The 2nd story was today when we were riding home from church and Josh was asking Chloee questions to which the answer was always, "Yeah".

Josh: "Chloee, did you have fun in Nursery today?"

Chloee: "Yeah!"

Josh: "Did you get a cookie in Nursery?"

Chloee: "Yeah!"

Josh: "Did you have beer today in Nursery?"

Chloee: "Yeah!!!"

To sum it all up, Chloee will take the fall for you if you beat up another child and the nursery leaders need to stop sharing their therapeutic drinks that help get them through 2 hours of Nursery with 12 toddlers!

Selfless

Do you think Josh looks comfortable? Your answer is probably, NO! Not true, as sad as that is. When I was pregnant, I pretty much slept on the couch because the water bed (yes, you heard right, we used to have a water bed) made me sick. Josh always let me sleep on the bigger couch because it was more comfortable to me to not be scrunched up on the little couch. I know this doesn't really make sense because he is an entire foot taller than me. Poor guy, he pretty much slept like this for 9 months and for some reason it is now comfortable to him. He found how to make a very comfortable position out of a love seat.

I took this picture a few weeks ago. It was about 7 pm on a Friday night, Amy and her kids were visiting and he was exhausted. I found him sleeping like this through complete chaos, with the big couch completely UNTOUCHED! It was so funny and he slept like that for 2 hours. Notice he has his cell phone in his hand? It just reminded me of all the sacrifices that Josh has made and continues to make for me!

Our Little Fish

It is really hard to go from using my super nice camera to using my old digital camera that is like 5 years old. I obviously didn't want to take my expensive camera to the pool with me but nothing ever looks as good. I feel like these pics are such bad quality, I almost didn't want to post them. Oh well.


We went to the Clearfied Aquatic Center tonight for our outing we always have before Josh goes out of town the following week. Chloee loved her water wings!

There was a little kiddie slide that she walked up by herself and went down like this, yes, backwards, on her tummy. She made probably 25 trips over and over! She was so big!

Josh caught this awesome picture of her coming down the slide. I made her go down on her bum so we could see her face. Oh, it's priceless!

She had to do everything "herself", or in her words, "myself". She didn't want either of us to hold her, "Duh, mom and dad that's what the wings are for". It was a really neat pool that had a little kid area, a "river" as Josh called it, it has a current like feel to it that takes you around in circles.

Josh took Chloee down the "BIG SLIDE". It was really fun to see her enjoy the water so much!

Isn't this place awesome? She DID NOT, I repeat, DID NOT want to come home or get out of the pool. We had a blast! Josh is leaving us to go to Canada next week so we had our party tonight and then went and ate at Burger King after.

P.S. The binki thing is NOT going well, AT ALL. In fact, that might even be an understatement!

Am I CrAzY???

Am I crazy? Because I feel crazy... We finally have decided to bite the bullet and get rid of the binki (insert scream here)!

Yes, I know we should have gotten rid of it a long time ago, she is going to be 2 in June, blah, blah, blah! Well, my friend Maren talked me into doing it this weekend. Oh, the drama. I remember her saying how bad it was for her little boy but then come to find out, he had an ear infection and that was what was making him so bad.

Call me attached, in fact I am probably more attached to it than she is. OK, I don't know about that but I feel bad. I feel like I am being mean by taking away something that she loves so much. "Awan my binki" or "Where binki go". I can't handle it. She has become especially attached to it the last little bit. She wants it everywhere when it used to only be at naps and bedtime. When she goes to bed she always has the 3 "B's". Her binki, blanky and baby! I guess we'll see how it goes. Any extra advice would be great. Thanks Maren and Mandy for all your help and ideas!

Transformers B-day

Chandler's birthday was actually yesterday the 15th but his birthday party was on Saturday. We had cake and ice cream at Josh's mom's and then went to Boondocks afterwards. Tim is an amazing artist and did such a great job on Chandler's cake. Did I mention that Chandler LOVES TRANSFORMERS?! It was an all decked out Transformers theme party. Very cute!

I can't believe he is already 4!

We played a game like pin the tail on the donkey but it was putting stickers on autobot and decepticon posters with the decepticon mask on. Pretty cool!

Stacie had the cutest little gift bags for everyone. Can you see how excited Chloee is in this pic? Look at that huge tub of cotton candy!

Chloee with her decepticon mask on. Maybe she's Megatron. I can't keep them straight but she looks cute in it.

Oh yes, inside the bag of goodies there were some Transformers tattoos. Chloee wanted this one put on her tummy. Once it was on and she realized that it WASN'T a sticker, this was the face we got which was accompanied by a whole lot of screaming as she tried to peel it off!

100th

This is my 100th POST! Josh didn't think that I would keep this going when I had started it up back in August of last year! Well.... Look at me now! I love to blog. I love using my blog as my journal. After the day's events I just really don't want to sit down and write but I love to blog it. It feels different somehow! Thanks AMY for showing me this and getting me into this fabulous outlet! It will be especially wonderful once you move, Amy. Then I can keep up on the daily happenings of your family! Sob, cry... It makes me not even want to think about it!

Our SG Trip

Chloee and I went to St. George with Josh's Mom and his sister while Josh was out of town in Georgia this last week. It was a packed car of 8. Kathy (Josh's mom), her 2 kids, Tyler and Rachael, Stacie (Josh's sister), her 2 kids, Chandler and Rhyder and me and the Chlo. We went Monday to Wednesday and had a blast. Here are a few of the highlights!

I didn't want to take my nice camera to St. George with me and chance having it get stolen or something so LUCKY for me, Stacie let me download some of her pics off of her camera. Thanks Stacie!

The kids went swimming, except Rhyder and Chloee. Rhyder was too content in Grandma's arms as you can see. Chloee just plain and simple wouldn't get into her swimming suit because it involved doing something I asked her. SHOCKER!

We ate at The Pizza Factory / The Pasta Factory the first night. It was good but we made a wicked mistake of going there again the next night and NOTHING was good, except the bread sticks. I think we all walked away from that place sick!

In the downstairs of the restaurant it was neat. We sat in a patio like thing and birds were flying around. The kids LOVED that. You can kind of tell the atmosphere in the picture above of Stacie and Chandler.

We went to the Fiesta Fun Center on Tuesday. It was so much fun. Chloee wasn't tall enough to go on any rides and the stupid girl at the ticket counter was... well, words can't explain how much I wanted to deck her. Let's just put it that way. The guy over these cars said she could ride if i rode on back with her. Whahooooo! Chloee and Chandler had a lot of fun. We tried to pass up Chandler but he was TOO fast for us. I don't even know if these things went a whopping 1 mph.

Ty, Rach and Kathy went on the water bumper boats.


Inside, Chloee played on the "soft fun play". She was FREE, YEAH! She also played on some other fun rides and she LOVED to put the token in the slot, it was way more fun to her than playing any game or ride!


Sure, why not smile Rhyder? After tickling him, NOTHING, not one smile cracked! Stinker!


Oh, yes! Tyler was playing a game where something spins around and you hurry and hit the stop and it lands on how many tickets you get. He was trying for the 50. Chloee and I came up and played it once and totally his the jackpot. Sorry Ty, but GREAT for us! She's my little gambler at heart. Ok, so maybe me but it felt so good! I should NEVER go to Vegas for that very reason.

THERE WERE 3 THINGS THAT HAPPENED THAT ABSOLUTELY MADE ME LAUGH SO HARD ON THIS TRIP THAT I WAS ACTUALLY CRYING AND I WAS TOLD THAT MY LAUGH SOUNDED LIKE A CASH REGISTER... GO FIGURE!

#1: While we were at the Fiesta Fun Center, Stacie was on her knees trying to find something in her purse with Rhyder in her lap. All of a sudden she was like, "Oh my gosh, he just pooped on me". Oh, I can hardly even type it. Rhyder had just pooped on a 2nd pair of her jeans since the trip started. Kathy and I stared at each other and about lost it, it was way toooooo funny!

#2: We went to see Horton Hears a Who in the movie theater. That was my first experience with Chloee at a movie and I have to say, she was pretty good, as long as she had Grandma's popcorn to eat. It was nothing like poor Jamie's experience.

As we are walking up to the booth to buy the tickets, Kathy and I were behind everyone and we were like, "Do we have everyone" and we noticed Tyler wasn't out of the car yet. He hopped out and we were up paying for our tickets and Stacie noticed she didn't have Rhyder. Oh, you would have had to have been there to truly appreciate how funny this was. She was thinking about how happy she was that she wouldn't have to pay for him when she realized that he was still in his carseat in the car. Now, before you think we are a bunch of neglectful people, he pretty much slept through the entire trip and sometimes we forgot we even had him. Oh, I don't even want to think about what would have happened if we had actually got into the movie and never noticed, but we didn't so that makes it funny!

#3: Stacie is sooo skinny and we were commenting on how she has no butt! We were at a stoplight and this extremely skinny guy that had no butt walked across the crosswalk and Kathy exclaimed, "Hey, Stac, that guy looks just like you, he walks like you, he's got no butt" I don't know why that was so funny to me but it was.

I cried on every one of these occasions. Oh, I'm assuming most of you didn't laugh as hard as I did. HAD TO BE THERE MOMENTS, gotta love them.

So... when Wednesday came, we went home. I love this picture of Chandler hauling out his luggage. I can't even remember it all. Just a few more memories.

* Chloee imitating Rhyder by putting her fist in her mouth and sucking on it like Rhyder when he was hungry.

*Chloee imitating the older kids by putting ice on her forehead for no reason known to her, just that everyone else was doing it because they were hot.

*Searching for Chloee's binki for about an hour in the hotel room.

*Kathy taking the wrong exit twice. One time at night when Chloee and Rhyder were screaming their heads off. Oh that fun loop!

*Enchanted soundtrack stuck in our heads ALL DAY!

*When I got hit by a double swinging door at The Pizza Factory.

*Rhyder gulping his food in the middle of the night.

*Kathy letting me drive the Tahoe. (She was almost asleep at the wheel, other than that, it never would have happened.) Have to give you a hard time!

SOOO many and I can't even remember them all. I had a blast. Thanks for driving Kathy and for the hotel. It was fun to get away. I will always remember this trip and cherish it for years to come!