I'm Lame...Who's With Me?

I love watching the Olympics. But there is a drawback. It really makes me feel like a loser. Chelsea and I talked about this extensively after the summer Olympics. We both loved them so much but then we were like, "Oh man, why can't we be cool too?" Being a glutton for punishment, I watched the Winter Olympics too. Just when I was getting over my feelings of inadequacy, 5 time medalist speed skater Chad Hedrick comes to a Verizon store near our house. Reed and Andrew went to see him and had him sign our Salt Lake City Olympics banner. He wasn't in those Olympics, but it was the only Olympics thing we had. Reed and Andrew said it was really neat. They got to see all of his medals. He has 2 bronze, 2 silver, and 1 gold. They were excited that they got to meet him. Oh and don't worry, in a couple of days I will be okay with being mediocre again.

Quirky Boys

Our sweet boys sure do love each other.


Andrew took this picture of Eric. I thought he did a pretty good job.


A couple of weeks ago, Reed and the boys decided that they wanted to go camping. They decided to "camp out" in Eric's room. Andrew was so excited. He helped Reed make a list of everything that they would need. Then as we were saying family prayer that night Andrew prayed that I, mama, would not get scared out there by myself. It was awesome and sweet. Reed tells me that Eric woke up screaming in the middle of the night. When he finally settled down enough to talk he sobbed out "Mama drank my chocolate milk." All I can say is that I wish my nightmares were this mild. Speaking of nightmares...

...Eric's been potty training for the past few weeks. It actually hasn't been a nightmare. It was even his idea. He was helping me get Andrew's clothes one morning and he saw Andrew's Lightning McQueen underwear and said "I want to wear Lightning McQueen on my bum bum." Well I would have been officially a fool if I hadn't jumped on that opportunity. He caught on really quickly. We did have some poop issues at first, so we had to bribe him with Lightning McQueen cars. We finally told him he could get a Mac if he went poops in the toilet for a week. All we had to do was say "Mac" and he would run to the toilet. It really does help that he is obsessed with the movie "Cars." Ask him what any of the cars in the movie say and he will blast your eardrum with his response. The night that he earned Mac he wanted to sleep with it in his bed. He was so excited. He just kept calling us into his room to talk about playing with Mac the next morning. It wasn't until about 10:30 that he finally stopped calling us in. Pure excitement!

The boys were sitting on the hood of the car and wanted me to take a video, and this is what they came up with. Eric is in the mode where he copies almost everything that Andrew says. But this time, Eric can't get a word in. That is actually pretty typical. Maybe that's why Eric talks so loud...hmmm.

Cute and Talented...Some People Have All the Luck

First off, I do not know how to turn these video's. I'm sure someone smarter and more technologically savvy then I could do it easily, but alas...I am what I am. So that being said, you are just going to have to tilt either your head or your computer to get the full effect. Next time I will remember to take the video's horizontal.

So one of the drawers in the toy room was empty (because the contents were scattered to the 4 corners of the room) and Eric decided that if he turned it upside down it made a great stage for him to do some musical performances on. He did about 7-10 performances. He wanted me to film each one. After each one he would jump off and say, "I see it now." Then he would watch himself, get very excited and say, "I do 'nother one." This particular song is "Jack and Jill."

While Eric was performing, Andrew was in the bathroom getting ready for bed. He could hear what was going on though, and he decided to hurry it up because he definitely wanted in on it. So then they had to take turns performing, watching their video, and then performing again. Don't even ask what song Andrew is singing. It is one he made up right on the spot. And yes, he is crazy!

Favorite Holiday Moments

We had a great Christmas. A lot of family was able to come to visit us. Aunt Mer came and was a total hit with both the boys. Andrew wanted her to do everything with him. He thinks she is pretty COOL.

My mom and dad came too. It was great. Andrew and Eric always had someone willing to read to them. When it was time for them to go home, Andrew asked if everyone could just live with us. The day we took everyone back to the airport, he just cried and cried. It was so sad.

We had a great Christmas. Here Andrew and Eric are giving each other a hug to thank each other for their presents.

Me and Mer. Don't you love these pictures where you just hold the camera out in front of you and click. I love my sisters!!! Mer is awesome. She and I started the Jilian Michaels "30-day Shred" workout DVD while she was here. I'm not sure I would have had the courage to start this by myself. We had a good time laughing with each other as our weak, pathetic arms shook as we raised our little 3-5 pound weights in the air. It is just way more fun to work out with someone joining you in begging the TV for mercy.

Mom and Dad got this little 12 inch bike for Eric. He was the only child in the cul-de-sac without a big bike, and he just could not keep up on his little tricycle. So what he would do is just push Andrew's bike around the cul-de-sac. It was cute, but sad. He was so excited when he opened this. He has had tons of fun keeping up with the big kids. He calls it his "new, new bike."

My favorite holiday memory from this year is from Eric. He went with Reed to get a present for me. When he got back I said, "Eric, did you go shopping with Daddy?" And he said, "We bought you pretty, pretty necklace. I not tell you. It's a surprise." It was so cute. Everytime I wear that necklace Eric looks at it and says, "Eric and Daddy buy you pretty, pretty necklace. I not tell you. It's a surprise."

The Battle of the Card Stock

By now most of you should have gotten our Christmas letter. Some of you may be wondering why on earth our Christmas letter was printed on card stock. Perhaps you were thinking that we are just really stuck on ourselves and think that our letter is more important then most others that you will receive. Well that might be true...just kidding. To tell this story properly I have to go back, back, back...to June. We live very close to a Postal Copy Center. I needed to make some copies on card stock , so I went in and here is the conversation that I had with the lady.

me: "I would like 25 of these on card stock please."
lady: "On what?"
me: "On card stock."
lady: "What is that?"
me: Stunned silence, then "You know, thicker paper."
lady: "We don't have that."
me: Huh?!

Now fast forward to December. I try to find cute Christmas paper at Walmart, but let's face it, that store is just to big to find anything that you are actually looking for, so I give up and think I will just have them run it off on green paper. I go back to my special Postal Copy Center. I give the man my letter and tell him I would like it run off on green paper. After he gets the copies going, he brings the first one to me. Here is the conversation that I had with him.

me: "This is card stock. I didn't want it on card stock, I just wanted normal paper."
man: Comes over and shakes the edge of the paper as if to prove something to me and says, "This is normal paper."
me: "No, this is card stock."
man: "Do you want me to stop the copier?"
me: "Yes."
man: "I can't. It would mess up all of my other copiers."
me: Huh? What? Why? What just happened here? (This was all said in my head. On my face was just a look of consternation and annoyance.)

So I get home and start trying to stuff envelopes with stupid card stock. The envelopes that came with our Christmas cards required folding the paper over as well as in thirds. Believe me, this is not easy to do with card stock. Well I get about a third of the way done and all of a sudden our Christmas letter is superimposed over someone's exercise schedule. I start flipping through to see if the rest are like this, when about 6 pages down, what should I discover but REGULAR PAPER. So apparently to work at a copy center you do not need to know the difference between regular paper and card stock. In fact, paper is paper...why don't we just stick all the green paper in one stack? Oh well. So if you got your letter on card stock, now you know why. You should feel lucky. Now you can treasure it forever without having to worry so much about it ripping. For those of you who just got normal paper, please do not feel sad. We love you guys too.

Sweet and Sour

Sweet: Last night Eric made up song for each member of the family on the piano. Each one consisted of him playing random notes, and basically singing the family members name over and over again. He would sing one and then say "Now I sing Andrew's song....Andrew, Andrew, Andrew...." You get the idea. We couldn't go upstairs to bed until we each had our song. Yeah, sweet!

Sour: Yesterday morning I got a bowl down for Eric's cereal. It is his favorite bowl. It is brown and shaped like a mitt. Well he sat down, threw the bowl off the table and said, "I not want brown bowl." He said this over and over for about 20 minutes. Finally he got interested in something else and I cleaned up breakfast. Not wanted to start anything, I picked up the bowl and put it back in the cupboard. Eric saw me. He went and got a chair, pushed it over to the counter, climbed onto the counter, got the bowl back out, went and sat back down at his seat, threw the bowl off the table and said, "I not want brown bowl"!!! Um...not so sweet.

The Spirit of Christmas

We had our ward Christmas Party a couple of weeks ago, and they told us to dress in time period clothes. Andrew decided to dress up as a wise man, and we had Eric dress up as a shepherd. They had a program where they acted out the Christmas story from Luke, but the audience was only involved in the singing. Andrew did not understand this, and all night he kept asking us when it was going to be time for him to go and give his present to the baby Jesus. We kept trying to tell him that we weren't involved in the program but it just wasn't sinking in. In his mind, he was a wise man so he needed to give a present to baby Jesus. The way they did the program was they would read from the scriptures, and then whoever they had just read about, e.g. Mary and Joseph, shepherds, etc would make their way to the stable while singing a song. Well when they read about the shepherds Andrew said, "Okay Eric, it's your turn." We kept trying to explain it to him that we weren't in the program, but he wasn't having any of it. He was just so excited in a sweet and innocent way to go up and present his gift. How could I refuse? So when they read the part about the wise men, I walked up with him so that he could set down his present in front of the baby. Luckily the lady who played Mary has a son Andrew's age and she was so gracious, and we got A LOT of "Ahh, isn't that just the sweetest thing you've ever seen" looks on our way back to our seats. I told Reed, this was one of those experiences that made me want to cry, and yet was pretty embarrassing too. I was proud of him. He is such a good boy. I love his innocence.

Last week we chose a name off the Angel Tree and we went to Walmart to get presents for a little boy. On the way there we kept talking about how we were helping this little boy have Christmas and how we were all going to feel warm and fuzzy inside for doing something good. Well after we bought all of the stuff Andrew asked why he didn't feel warm and fuzzy inside. So we tried to explain some ways that he could feel the Spirit. He said he didn't feel any of that, so we told him maybe he would feel it when we dropped off the presents. Well we dropped the presents off the next day, and he asked again why he didn't feel warm and fuzzy. Reed and I really wanted him to feel good about what we had done, so we prayed that he could have good feelings, and be able to recognize the Spirit. So the next day we had FHE. We sang Christmas songs and took turns telling each other some of the things we were most grateful for that Jesus has done for us. Well after we had each had a couple of turns Andrew said, "I feel warm and fuzzy now." That was one of the neatest experiences I have ever had. Reed and I both teared up and told Andrew that he was feeling the Spirit and that we both felt it too. Prayers are answered.