What we've been up to...

Well lately we've been up to a lot of cleaning, laundry, and dish doing. This was actually enjoyable, well appreciated at least, maybe not enjoyable. It's the first time in months thatmy kitchen, bathroom, living room and well all the rooms have been clean at the same time in MONTHS. Dang tax season makes it hard to keep up on well anything let alone everything. Last week we were outside at least for a few hours every day, this week, not so much. Refer to picture 1, the view out our front door, well not directly but you get the idea. Does it ever stop snowing here, I am SO ready for summer, well at least warm snow free days for an extended period of time. We've been having friends over to play more and now we can either play in the bedrooms or watch movies, not the most exciting tasks but better than nothing I guess. My boys LOVE to be outside and track in all the sand they possibly can. Pretty sure I empty about a cup of sand from every load of laundry their clothes are in.

Picture 2 is to show you Connor's new hair cut, I'd show you Tyler's but the computer won't load the pictures from my phone for some reason. I took Tyler in to have it done by someone else in hopes it would make it easier to spike, but alas, it didn't work as I'd hoped. I did find a nast paste type thing that will keep it spikey for almost all 3 hours of church. Oh well that's all he cares about. Connor's on the other hand I did myself last night and grabbed out the wrong length for the clippers and didn't notice til it was too late, oh well, now he and Brian have the same hiarcut, practically buzzed evenly all over, not my favorite but hair grows and Connor thinks it's cool to match Dad in anyway possible.

I did get the camera for my birthday and then found out it takes a different memory card than my old one and so can only take like 5 pictures so we're working on getting a memory card but since everything costs twice as much here as the towns we haunt every few weeks we are waiting til we head west for a valid reason such as my mom's knee surgery next week or receiving my 10 year award at the H&R Block banquet in 10 days. (How sad is it that I just turned 26 and have worked at the same place for 10 years. Odd I think, but hey an award is an award right :))

Brian has been gaming like crazy and loving his new flat screen. I have not gained the affinity for it he has and likely never will, not a big fan of the games he has anyway. I do appreciate that we now fight over the TV far less frequently but since his games kind of make him zone out, I do end up changing more diapers, breaking up more brotherly fights, and filling more sippy cups than I used to. Oh well I guess that what moms are for right.?

So we are still alive and SO glad tax season is over. The 15th was hectic to say the least. We stayed busy pretty much all day and to top it off, my boss was in a car accident that nearly shut down the road (it was down to 1 lane) for well over an hour, just as the high school was getting out. Oh and the lovely "tea parties" that were happening in Rexburg had shut half of the street down for hours before that oh so fun. With the car accident I got to stay late and help make sure every return was sent out that night. Yeah me. We finally made it home and we are enjoying not having to do anything right now. We did go to Idaho Falls yesterday so I could pick out my new camera, that will be here just in time for my birthday. Oh and since my sister-in-law's boyfriend works at Best Buy we go a really good deal on it, and so Brian decided that he needed a Hi-def flat screen for his PS3 and since Nick could get a discount we got the screen for him for his birthday, spending pretty much my entore monthly budget for groceries and gas in one store, go us. I am excited to get my new camera and have something more exciting to put on here but for now we are alive and celebrating the end of yet another tax season!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CONNOR!!

Tyler decided that Connor HAD to have a WALL-E party. After over a month of searching, I found Wall-E decorations on-line. Gotta love GOOGLE. . . The cake I ordered from the Broulim's (grocery store) in Rexburg, the brown blobs are supposed to look like the garbage Wall-E compacts, not blobs of well..... you be the judge... (oh and where it looks like the frosting is missing they were supposed to be tracks from WALL-E) Connor and his wheel barrow(sp?)
Connor had to crawl to the bottom of this huge bag to get all his presents...

A view of the many presents, after he'd opened a few...

He was super excited about all of his presents, it was really fun to watch.

(ignore the stupid look on my face, I was coaching a very sick 2 year old who was DONE!!)

Ok so this post is a few days late but we had his party a couple days after his birthday and I had to work so those are my excuses.

Monday (3/30) was his real birthday but since pretty much all his family was working we decided not to have his party that night. Which worked out well because he had a cousin born the same day (an hour earlier) and they did her party that night. We went to her party and everyone thought it was cool they had the same birthday since her grandpa and Brian's dad are twin brothers so they tell us all the time how cool it is that the twins had "twin grandkids."

On a sad note, when I was looking at the pictures on my camera from the party, my camera screen went weird and since it's at least 4 years old, I don't think it can be resurected. But my birthday is in about 3 weeks I think I actually know what to ask for for my birthday, for the first time in YEARS! Hopefully I get one so my posts don't get too boring.

My whole family is looking forward to the end of tax season so we can all have a break and relax for a few days and live like normal people. NO more suitcase wardrobes at least for a while I hope.

OH DADDY...

The boys with their new "pets"Tyler with "Brian" and Connor sitting on "Brian O'Brian"

Connor's second birthday is Monday and so after work Wednesday I met Brian in Idaho Falls to go to dinner and do a little shopping. We finally used up my gift certificate to Olive Garden, that I got for my birthday last year (11 months ago) and I LOVED IT. I love my italian food. We decided that since we were right by WalMart we'd stop in. I was thinking we'd get some stuff for Connor for his birthday but taking Brian to the store often makes it more expensive. He found these huge stuffed animals and insited that boys needed them for Easter. They do usually get a stuffed animal for Easter but it's usually about 6-8 inches tall these are at least 3 feet tall. Connor's frog is the same height as him. Well the night we got home I convinced Brian not to give the boys their animals that night but the next night he couldn't wait anymore and now they have "pets" the same size as them. Oh daddy....

Only 6 more work days this tax season and I am SO excited. I can't wait to be able to clean on the days I want or not if Idon't want because I can do it the next day!! I'm looking forward to only going to Rexburg when I want to and taking my kids to the park, if the snow ever melts here. But likely not for at least a month or so, if I'm lucky. COME ON SPRING!!!!!

Crunchy Hair & Time Off

Every Sundy amorning Connor insists that I gel his hair and spike it. He has really fine hair so it works out easily on him. Tyler is more of a challenge, he has my hair-thick and LOTS of it. TOday I decided to do that spike only the front thing and he was STOKED!!! I just laughed because all through church he kept saying..." my hair is crunchy mom, why is my hair crunchy?" By the time we got home he was asking why it wasn't crunchy anymore, but if you rub your hair for 3 hours straight the gel kind of wears out. These are pictures I took right before we left for church. Ignore the background mess.

I love Connor's face in this one, so typical Connor!!

So the company I work for was cutting hours so I volunteered to take this coming week off since I had no appointments anyway and the other employees are all pretty much the bread winners in their families and I am not. That night I realized that means I can actually attend my wards relief society dinner. First activity other than church in MONTHS!!! I told one of my ward friends and am now on the dinner prepertion crew. Yeah me, growing up and haveing responisbilities other than my family. I am excited to spend some time with my friends I haven't seen outside church in months. We already have a couple play dates in the works.

My other plan is to actually get my house CLEAN, not just liveably picked up but cleaning supply scents, vacuum lines, organized clean, but we'll see how long the energy and ambition actually last. Which reminds me of an interesting comment Connor's nursery teachers said today. They told me he was a very tidey kid. WHAT?? Connor, are you sure? The kid who LOVES to take every book off his shelf, dump his buckets of cars ALL over his floor and dump out all his toys all at the same time. How exactly is that TIDEY??? Yeah I just laughted and said, why do you say that? They said he is the best cleaner in the whole nursery. He loves to organize the crayons into straight rows, sort the block into their appropriate bins and so forth.... Why can't that behavior carry home with him, I mean come on, have you seen the kids floor, because I haven't for weeks, well at least not for more than an hour at a time. Well I'll put him to work in the morning and see if we can find that floor again soon. Wish us luck...

FOOD STORAGE, FINALLY!!

So for "family night" we decided to organize our food storage, I didn't get any before pictures, they were too embarassing. But we got some shelves and finally unloaded the boxes and organized all the varieties we had. I found I had a lot more than I thought and so that was good....Until the boys were helping load a shelf and it colapsed, yeah not so good but miraculously(if you've read my former posts) no one was injured. These shelves are just inside out front door but it's the best place. We do get a lot of comments on it frm our friends and a whole lot of questions from Brian's family who are not LDS and don't know about food storage. I was always taught to store what you'd eat, and yes those ARE Girl Scout Cookies. What can I say we like our cookies....

It is no where near a years worth but you have to factor in that we have NEVER had a place for it before and I just started actually working on it a couple months ago. Got to love caselot sales!!

Oh and on a side note, as of right now my mom does not need surgery on her knee. The MRI showed a torn ligament, MCL and ACL but do to her arthritis from her previously dislocating it they said surgery on the ligament was unnecessary and the MCL and ACL surgery would make the arthritis worse. She got a new knee brace that allows her to walk a little and she is starting to be able to move around on her own a little. Connor's nose is healing nicely and so is the bruise on his ear.

Well it's bed time and Connor needs his pajamas on...

Yet more injuries.....

So Wednesday I was at work when I got a phone call from my mom. She had fallen and injured her knee and couldn't get out of the car when she got home. I ran out of work, and went to my mom's house. I got my mom moved out of the drivers seat and took her to the doctor. Right now we know that the x-ray didn't show anything too severe and so they want an MRI tomorrow. So I was home with my mom this morning and my kids had made a HUGE "tent" out of the box my mom's tredmill had come in. Well Connor was trying to go around it and hit his ear on the corner of the table. Insta bruise. Then I had to go to work so I took my kids to my sister and after work we were getting into my mom's house and I had the diaper bag, my purse, a bag of dinner, and Connor in my arms. This would have been fine if it had not been for the gale force winds blowing. I was tryingto keep the screen door from blowing off, which it has before so.... I tried to put Connor down and he didn't let go, but I thought he had. Well I turned around quickly to close the door before the wind took it and Connor fell flat on his face, on the cement. Insta nose bleed!! Yeah and a mouth full of blood. I'm hoping he sleeps well tonight.

To add to it all, when I took him to the doctor earlier this week they said he had a sinus infection, starting an ear infection, and if we didn't treat him soon, he'd have bronchitis that would turn to pnemonia really easily. Yeah loads of fun. Tyler's eye is healing nicely and you almost can't even tell he'd hurt it.

No gruesome pictures this time, but hey my kids are super accident prone, as you've noticed, so I'm sure there will be more to come....