Apparently money does buy happiness!

10/29/10

You'll recall this post from a couple of months ago. We bought a 42" flat screen TV but had nowhere to put it. So we continued on with our ghetto set-up in the living room:

Let's not even mention those hideous plastic crates, shall we?? They were certainly not any of my doing. And don't you love how my 13-month old is glued to the tube.

...whilst the new TV sat mostly unused in our bedroom. We watched movies on it sometimes and Mark used it for the XBox, but we could never watch anything in peace if Luke was awake. He loves to play on our bed and would just flop around on it the whole time, climbing and trying to throw himself headlong off the edge.

FINALLY the day came when we had a few (hundred) extra bucks and instead of saving it for a looming student loan payment as so-called "smart" people would, we dropped everything and picked up our hutch at Walmart that we've been eying for months.

The kids were super helpful in getting it put together. Ha.

A few hours later:

*Sound of heavenly choirs singing*

(Coincidentally, they sound a lot like U2)

I LOVE IT!! I still feel a little unworthy to have such nice (to us) things in my living room. But I think it makes the whole room look MUCH better. Now to do something about all that rampant beige..........

Oh, yeah.

Mess of the Day

by Luke

I opened the lazy susan for half a minute to get out the cooking spray, and Luke swooped in for the cocoa while I was busy trying not to char his scrambled eggs. Thanks, son! But as a result, I got a hankering for brownies and decided to try my Ghirardelli caramel turtle brownie mix (I also added mini chocolate chips since it it obviously wasn't rich enough) so it turned out quite deliciously in the end. I just wish this kid knew how to do laundry.

Hope you have a Halloween-y weekend!

P.S. Our old TV us up for sale if any of you want it. Cheap.

Babies!

10/27/10

Everyone, meet

Maxwell

and Andrea!

Maxwell is my cousin Rachel Barton's new baby, born on 10/23. Rach and I share birthdays and anniversaries, and she and her gorgeous little girl McKayla and husband Mike live in Florida.

.........................................................................

Andrea was born on 10/8 and is my niece and nephew Alison and Mike Brown's first baby. Which has made me a great aunt!! (and Mark a great uncle, but let's face it, this blog is all about me...)

Seeing these two precious newborns got me all sentimental about having babies again. Then I remembered how much work they are and I'm glad I'm past Luke's first year. But y'all can keep having them--I'll sit back and enjoy from a distance!

UEA weekend (Utah's excuse to let school out for the deer hunt)

10/25/10

...is still going on. Madelyn is out of school today--five days in a row now. This was supposed to have been the weekend that we went to California, but Mark had training at work he couldn't miss (they're switching to electronic records) so we couldn't go anywhere. It's just as well, since it's been raining and chilly every day for a week now.

Forgive me for not being excited about the current 39* F temperature. And you can just imagine the mud! Of course Madelyn's not against mud in any sense.

She's been practicing riding her bike

Mark CLEANED THE GARAGE

We can park a car in there now! The goal is to get both cars in there by winter. But first we need a shed to get a bunch more stuff transferred out of there, put up shelving, and I still need to go through all my boxes.

We chowed on some chow mein

Luke has been a Panda Express connoisseur since he was en womb. Mark thought it necessary for me to go get some for lunch after his massive garage cleaning efforts.

Now, whenever Luke's done eating, smearing food everywhere and flinging some onto the floor, he just goes ahead and stands up. Straps are no match for this baby. He does this in shopping carts, too.

And now every time you look over, he's climbed into his swing. Or onto the couch, which he rolls and flops around on like it's a big trampoline. It's awesome. Now I can't sit down for more than twenty seconds without having to get him out of some precarious situation.

I have been working on several projects, which I am sloooowly making progress on and will include them in a separate post. The opening of Jo-Ann Fabrics here in town has been a vast improvement for my crafting needs. :D

And Madelyn (whom I should mention just gave a talk in Primary yesterday and referred to Alma the Younger as "Alma the Young Girl" and can now count to 100)

finally lost her second tooth! It was loose for months and her permanent tooth had already come up behind it and was pushing it out (which is why you can't see a gap). But she refused to let me yank it. She has a dental check up next Monday, so we're happy she avoided having it yanked there.

She says the darndest things. I was laughing so hard at her latest

Quote of the Day

by Madelyn

We had just finished reading this cute book and were talking about what "extinct" means. I said, "The dinosaurs are extinct because they've all died." Then Madelyn said,

"Just like Grandma!! She's extinct!"

Oh, Madelyn. That still makes me laugh. (Sorry Grandma Nora, up in heaven. I guess you just had to be there...)

Photos part III

10/22/10

I was hoping to have some earth shattering news to share with you today, but instead all I have is more pictures.

I need to go kiss those dimpled elbows...

Off to do rounds at the hospital

Hope you have a nice rainy weekend!

Photos part II: Madelyn

5 1/2 years old

10/21/10

After I took a bunch of pictures of Luke on Sunday, I decided to take some of Madelyn, too. We changed her outfit and she was excited, but Little Miss High Strung soon had a "moment" that needed to be addressed.

Sigh...

(pouting)

I think she kept getting madder because I was taking pictures of her tantrum. It was pretty funny. I am such a mean mom! Haha

She calmed down when I let her have a turn with the camera. "Do an arabesque," she said. Don't I look fabulous.

Luke trying to poke the lens

Mushrooms!

Back to normal...

She did a couple of poses

But she always looks much more natural when she's in motion

She got this little one during a kindergarten field trip to the pumpkin patch last week and painted it with watercolors. She has great artistic style.

I love my spunky little girl!!

Here's another gem:

Quote of the Day

by Madelyn

(after finishing a call with her friend on my cell phone and her friend hung up)
"She uncalled me."

I have one more batch of pictures, so bear with me. You know this comes over me every few months. You're used to it by now, aren't you??