My Buddies and Me

"While we try to teach our children all about life,Our children teach us what life is all about."~Angela Schwindt

Time flies when you are having fun. I hear this a lot and it is so completely 100% true. I got these cute pictures courtesy of Erica Horihan. These are our boys, Simon and Tyler. They are best buddies, born only 2 weeks apart! We always say that they look like brothers. They are the same size and both have bright blonde hair and blue eyes. We met Erica and Tyler over a year ago when they moved into our neighborhood. I had the priviledge of watching Tyler one day a week until I got pregnant again and was too sick to watch him anymore. It is amazing how much one year can change a little person! These pictures were taken in September last year and October this year. Look at the difference! The sweet little girl in the pictures is Cameryn Long. She is like the Third Musketeer in this toddler clan. She is a couple months older than the boys. We love when little Cameryn and her mom Danielle come to play.

I learn so much from my amazing little boy. He teaches me patience (as anyone with a 2 year old knows), and he teaches me to enjoy the little things in life. I love to see how much excitement he can find in the sound of an airplane, putting a puzzle together, tummy tickles, and driving his choo-choo trains on a new adventure! (Today it was "over the big, big bridge"). I look around my caotic, cluttered house and can't help but think of this quote: "Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing." ~Phyllis Diller

I'm starting to get the big picture. Enjoy the days when the floor is covered in Hot Wheels and you can't see through glass door becuase of sticky handprints. Learn to love the obstacle course of trucks and trains and balls. Someday I'll look back and shed a tear or two because I miss all of this. Time is only a blink of an eye. Treasure the sweet innocence of youth!

Proximidade Award!

Thanks Melesa! This is my very first blogger award ever! I am still so new to blogging but I love, love, love it! I want to pass this award on to my favorite bloggers (in random order).

1. Nic and Shelly Finch Your blog makes me miss the mountians! I love Shelly's wit and you can feel how much she loves her family!

2. A little slice. . . This is one of my favorite sweethearts and her kids! She is so clever and always has interesting and fun posts!

3.The Allens I am so glad Chantel keeps a blog. Her life is as crazy as mine is! She always has fun stories and pictures about her 2 cuties.

4. Mele and Makani This is the blog that I anticipate reading! My sweet sister is so far away and through her blog she feels so much closer. And like she said, we are like twins in more ways than one. She gave me this award but her blog deserves it more than mine!

Congrats to all you winners! Now send this award on to the blogs you love!

Thrills and Chills, (and Candy too!)

When I was a little girl I loved Halloween! I remember making decorations for the house, throwing Halloween parties with my best friend, listening to our only Halloween cassette tape with scary noises over and over, and going through the costume box to find my Halloween costume. For some reason I always ended up as one of three things, Cookie Monster, Dracula, or a "Punk Rocker". I didn't even know what a Punk Rocker was back then. The only reason I wanted to dress up like that is because my sister Melesa thought is was cool (that meant it was cool!) Ahhh, memories. ;o)

It has been so fun to have our little 2 year old Simon get excited about Halloween this year. He still doesn't know what it is but he loves to get dressed up and he especially loves the candy. And to add even more fun, we get to dress up little Ryan too!

I don't have a costume for Halloween yet. I was thinking about being a bear. . . Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my! ;o)

Last night we went to a Halloween party at Dana's house (Jeremiah's sister). We all brought spooky food for a potluck and there were some really fun ideas. There was spider pizza, snake sandwiches, ghost cake, and a really amazing watermelon brian! Jeremiah made root beer witches brew (with dry ice) and I made a "dirt" graveyard. After dinner all the kids gathered around and painted pumpkins. I wish I would have taken pictures.

P.S. You can see a watermelon brain at http://www.boingboing.net/2008/10/24/howto-make-a-brain-o.html

Prayers and Pinatas

Our precious baby Ryan Kelly was blessed on October 12, which just happened to be Keaton's birthday too! It was a very special weekend. We had quite a list of visitors, including Ryan's Great Grandparents, his Grandma Udall and Grandma and Grandpa Hall, most of his aunts and uncles (and great uncles) and a few cousins. We had dinner at our house after church and we all had a great time enjoying each other's company.

During Sacrement meeting I looked back at my beautiful family, all of them. All I could think about is how I am so blessed beyond words. I have 2 beautiful sons, a loving family, and an amazing husband who was able to bless our sweet baby. I was so glad that Grandma and Grandpa Udall were able to make it. It means the world to me, and someday I'll be able to tell Ryan that his Great Grandparents were there to see his baby blessing.

Here he is in his white clothes. Okay, it took grandma's touch to calm him down. Maybe he didn't like the outfit afterall ;o).

The day before was Keaton's birthday party. We met at the "Airplane Park" by Falcon Field and had lunch and yummy chocolate cake! The kids had a great time beating up the pinata. It took about 5 little kids and one teenager to break this one open!

Here is Keaton stepping up for his turn at the pinata. For all he has gone through he is always so happy! We love you Keaton. Happy 5th birthday.

Now it's Simon's turn. Maybe he will be a baseball player someday. Show it who's boss Simon!

Silly Halloween Fun

Last year I made Simon a little Lion costume for Halloween. I found it just the other day when I was getting out Hallween Decorations. I knew I made it a little bit too big for him last year but I was amazed to see that it still fits him! I couldn't get him to wear the "mane" for more than 2 seconds last Halloween but this time he loves it! He wore it around the house and playing in the backyard. He makes such a sweet little lion.

Now, this was fun. Jeremiah wanted to do a craft project with Simon on Sunday and so he told him to pick out a rock outside. About an hour later we had these.

Simon made a Butterfly, he colored the wings. The other one is a bee, Simon helped color those wings too. Jeremiah made that one for Ryan. Simon loved his. He really enjoyed "flying: it around the room and letting it eat his food. ;o) These ones are Jeremiah's and mine. Jeremiah made the clown and the funny face. Mine is a rock monster. Roar! OK, they are silly, but we had so much fun putting them together.

Stencil Obsession

Bleach stencilling is my new obsession.
These are my most recent creations. I love that I can buy a shirt for like 3 bucks and turn it into a personalized, one-of-a-kind creation. The best part about it is that Simon loves his new shirts! I call this an obsession because this morning I pulled a sweater out of Simon's closet for him to wear and it was just a plain ol' gray sweater. The first thing I said was, "We can't just leave that plain, we have to put something on it." I'm working on a couple more that I will post here when I'm done.

This is Simon's Halloween Shirt. The color turned out just how I wanted it! It looks more orange in real life. I

Next time I post shirts I will do a tutorial to go with it so everyone can make cool shirts!

In our own backyard

I've been feeling a little cabin fever lately with a new baby and all. I am wishing we had means to go on Vacation far away from the heat and predictability of life in Mesa, Arizona. Our only outings lately are grocery shopping and an occasional trip to the library or the mall. Now that our Arizona weather is finally feeling a little bit like fall, meaning below 110 degrees, I decided to take the boys somewhere new today. This picture is Freestone Park. It is only a few miles away from our house and everyone I know has been there before. I finally got brave enough to take my boys there today instead of going on our usual library run. It was beautiful! There are lakes with ducks and huge fields of green grass. Simon took his tricycle and I put the baby in his sling. We all enjoyed being outside. As I walked along the bridge and past the waterfalls I thought to myself, "This has been in my backyard this whole time!" My new goal for this next year is to find out what amazing and exciting things are around us here in Arizona. No vacation fund needed. I think next week we will try the children's museum. . . maybe.

The incredible difficult job of being a working mom

So, my old boss called me up and wanted me to go back to work for him. Not permanently, just for 5 days while he went out of town. Business has been slow and he told me I could bring my kids along, so I said yes. Wow, I have new respect for any mother who works, especially if she takes her children with her. I spent 5 days trying to juggle a 2 year old and a 3 week old while anwering phones, faxes and emails. I think I got a few wrinkles and a couple gray hairs from all this. I was sooooo grateful when the last day come.
Little Simon had been an angel every day. Ryan, on the other hand, decided on the 2nd day that he wanted to act like a colicy baby. He cried and cried and cried. I got almost no work done.
I have the oppurtunity to go back again next month if I want to but I think I am going to turn it down. This is why. . .
On the last day of work, we had about an hour left to go when Simon came into my office with the saddest look on his face. He had tears welling up in his eyes and he said "Mommy, go get mail?" He was trying to tell me that he wanted to leave because he was tired of being stuck inside watching movies. After he said this he broke down and started to cry. It was at that moment I realized that my conviction to get my work done was forcing me to neglect my sweet boys. And to make things worse, when Simon turned around to go back down the hall, he tripped and fell, hitting his cheek on my desk.
I felt like a horrible mother and I sat in the back office and cried along with Simon. In the end we were all ok, and I made up my mind that no amount of money is worth missing precious time with my kids!