I should tape these quotes to my forehead... Do you think then I would remember??

My dad loves to get quotes from the Church website and then forwards any that he thinks are applicable to the rest of the family. Since Shaun and I are the only ones with kids- we got the following in our email inbox today.

Elder Robert D. Hales said: 'If the example we have received from our parents was not good, it is our responsibility to break the cycle. . . . Each person can learn a better way and in so doing bless the lives of family members now and teach correct traditions for the generations that follow' ("How Will Our Children Remember Us?" Ensign, Nov. 1993, 10).

"Remember, 'the family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children' ("The Family: A Proclamation to the World," Ensign, Nov. 1995, 102).

Eternal families are made up of individuals. 'Do your part to build a happy home' (For the Strength of Youth, 10).

Establish patterns of righteousness in your life. And be an example of the believers. The Lord is depending on you to assist in the exaltation of your eternal family." Mary N. Cook

I will be the first to admit that there are days that I struggle and I would just as soon put my kids on eBay than fix them lunch or listen to anymore tears. But I am trying my best to set a good example for my little boys and to make sure that their childhood is a good one; one that leaves them with positive impressions and memories. Sometimes I feel like I succeed. And others... I just pray for more patience!!

Thoughts in the upcoming "Holy War"

The Sun is Up...

We have a strict rule at our house. Ty has to wait until the sun comes up before he can get out of bed. We tried a clock in his room- but that didn't work- he just ignored it. So- we went with the sunrise thing. However- this morning- Ty showed up next to our bed at six and asked me what kind of dinosaur I was going to be this morning.

Huh?

I should back the boat up for a minute... The last couple of days Ty has been a little bit obsessed with dinosaurs- and he constantly wants to play like we are dinosaurs doing different things. Originally- I went with the more traditional dinosaurs- stegasaurous, triceratops, brontosauraus- but that got boring because I can only name like four different types of dinosaurs and Ty always wants to be the T-Rex. So I started making up dinosaurs. Yesterday I was a Tickle-asaurus and the day before that I was a Kiss-asaurus. So- this morning at six- Ty wants to know what kind of dinosaur I am going to be today. Still though- it's a little early to put together a clever name of a made up dinosaur that I have to play for the rest of the day.

So I told Ty (after looking at the clock) that he needed to go back to bed for a little bit and wait for the sun to come up. He looked at me very seriously and said, "The sun is up Mama." I told him that I can see out my window that it was still dark outside. "Well... the sun is up somewhere Mama." How do you argue with that? Somewhere the sun was up and so that gave Ty all the justification that he needed to be out of bed and playing dinosaurs.

Tiggers or Tylers?

We love Winnie the Pooh at our house and rarely a day goes by that we don't watch the "Super Sleuths" or one of the Pooh movies. That said- it is apparently having a little bit of an influence in what Ty does and says. For the past two days- he has been "bouncing" around the house. I've got to hand it to the kid- I tried bouncing with him- and frankly- I only made it down the hall. Yesterday- dad had a late basketball game, so it was just me and the boys for the evening and we were making dinner for a sister in the ward that just had knee surgery. Ty had helped me make dessert and I asked him to put a chocolate covered spatula in the sink. He walked over to the sink and peered over the edge. I had dirty dishes stacked in one side, and bottles soaking in hot soapy water in the other. Ty immediately put the chocolatey spatula in with Ryan's bottles and started stirring them around... which resulted in chocolate all over the bottles. Not a huge deal I know- but I was tired. So when I saw what he was doing- I spoke a little sharply- and this was the conversation that followed:

"Tyler! What are you doing?!"
"Huh?"
"You got chocolate all over Ryan's bottles... Oh what a mess! Why did you make a mess?"
"That's what Tyler's do best."

How do you argue with that? I burst out laughing and gave him a hug. I asked him if he knew what Mama's did best. He shrugged his shoulders and I told him that we give the best loves. He looked at me for a second and said "You're right Mama- you do give the best loves. But so does Dad. And so does Ryan."

There's a chance that Heavenly Father gives us days like this so that on other days we don't kill them.

Thank-you Grandma Janet

Look at this face! He has like eight chins! This week has been such a blessing to me. My parents came up last weekend (they wanted to see the boys on Halloween) and my mom insisted on taking Ty home with them for a few days- which they did. And it is something for which I will be eternally grateful. When Ty was born- Shaun and I were able to sit with him and and laugh and play all the time because there wasn't anything else to do. With Ryan- because things are so busy with the house and with his older brother- he doesn't often get that same one on one that his brother enjoyed for three years. But that changed this week. Ryan got to be an only child for five days- and I think that everybody ate it up. Ty was having a blast with grandma and grandpa and I got to snuggle all day with my baby. When Shaun got home he would sit and play with him. We got to hear his first real barrel-roll of a laugh (he has giggled before- but nothing like this), he is almost rolling over and he LOVES to sit and splash in the tub. It's not like we hadn't noticed or done these things before- but it was also really nice to just sit back and relax. It was really nice and I am so happy that my mom cared enough to allow this to happen for our family. THANKS GRANDMA JANET!!

A Soapbox

I want to first apologize to those of you out there that read this blog for the explicit reason of seeing how cute our kids are. This is a family blog. But I'm frustrated and I don't really have any other outlet in which to vent. So this make me feel better- but if you all want to skip over this post- I'm just fine with that.

There has been a lot of controversy over this past election and it has been very heated between both the Republican party and the Democratic party. BUT... here today Barack Obama is the new president-elect. That's it. End of story. Many people are upset over this, and I am the first to say that I did not vote for Mr. Obama. I do not agree with a lot of his policies and frankly his lack of experience is more than a little bit frightening to me. That said- I am apparently in the minority. The local news station has a web page where people can post their reactions to different stories that are going on at the moment. Obviously this has been a huge story that has generated lots of posts. One woman said that she was absolutely furious that Barack Obama won the presidency and that she hopes with all her heart that he will fail and fall flat on his face. And when he does- she will laugh.

Let's get real here for just a second. Don't people realize that if the president of the United States fails... we fail too? Let's compare this whole situation to an airplane and Obama is the pilot. If he's flying the plane and you are in seat 11B... do you want the plane to go down?

Like I said- I am a little leery of what the next few years will bring- but I hope and I pray that we will come through with what can only be seen as a screaming victory for all of us. I hope that Obama proves to be a man worthy of the office of President of the United States.

Happy Haunting Everyone!

Okay- so technically Halloween is over therefore there is probably no more haunting going on in any of your houses. That being said however, we hope that you all had a wonderful holiday, and that, like us- you ended up with a fabulous stomachache. At the end of the night- Ty wandered into the living room and told us that he was going to throw up. He made a run for the bathroom, but it was just a false alarm. However- he hasn't asked for one piece of candy since- so maybe it was a good thing. Anyway- we really had a fun week leading up to Halloween. Since Shaun is teaching at an elementary school, we got to go over on Thursday for their Halloween Parade to see all the kids in their costumes. Ryan didn't get much out of it- he sat in Shaun's lap and drooled on his arm. But Ty thought it was great! He was not a fan of some of the scarier costumes, but loved the Darth Vadar ones. I wanted the boys to dress up- but not in their costumes since it wasn't Halloween yet- so I put them both in their skeleton PJ's (gotta love the GAP) and took a few pictures before we left. Ty is sitting on the front step next to the pumpkin that he carved (unfortunately the pumpkin was stolen later Thursday night... we were only able to recover half of it in our neighbor's front yard on Friday morning. Stupid kids.). Ryan didn't get it but was more than happy to have his picture taken after he woke up from his nap. Anyway- we went over to the school for the parade and afterwards we came home. We brought Ty's friend KC home with us to play for a few hours while his mom helped with a party at school. They were so funny the whole time they were at the house. Ty was upset that he didn't get to stay for the parties at the school, so when I got them home we made sugar cookies and I let them decorate two that they could eat (I only let them do two because when they got finished with them- it was more of a glob of frosting than an actual cookie... I didn't really want a bunch of them sitting around).

Halloween itself was a lot of fun too. Since it was on a Friday- we had dad home!!! We thought about going over to Logan for a few hours- but we wanted to make sure that we were home in time to go Trick-or-Treating before it got too late so instead, I spent the day trying to talk Ty into wearing his Bat costume. For a month he has talked about how excited he was to be a bat for Halloween. One that could "fly, fly, fly." I was so stumped about trying to figure out how in the world to make a bat costume. I tried to talk him into Batman, because then I could just buy the dumb thing and that would be it. But no. He wanted to be a bat. I showed him a picture of a vampire and told him it was a Halloween Bat and asked him if that would work and he said yes. So he's all excited about his Halloween Bat. Friday comes and he wants to be a pumpkin. It took me FOREVER to get him into the dumb bat costume. I had to threaten to take away Trick or Treating if he wouldn't put it on. Which I don't know why we as parents threaten to take away things like this- it's not like it's something that we'd actually follow through with. It's a hollow threat. Luckily for me though- my three year old doesn't know that yet. Once he does- I'm in BIG trouble.

Anyway- we got the bat costume on, and put the little brother in his puppy costume and away we went. Trick or Treating here is kind of strange. Where I grew up- Halloween was HUGE. Every house had a light on. Some houses did scones and hot cider, others gave out little goodie bags and you ALWAYS ALWAYS knew which house was handing out the King Size candy bars. It was such a kick. My dad loved to go with us and would even get dressed up (which usually earned him a few pieces of candy too). In this town however... most of the houses were dark. Granted we didn't go very far because our kids are little- but I thought it was a little disappointing. Oh well. Ty had fun and that's all that matters. Though next year, we'll have to either get some people to shape up or we're heading back down to my parent's house.