My Boys

Quin means…

Watching Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtles after school

Eating pasta with no sauce and pancakes for breakfast

Getting dressed with underpants backwards and glasses sliding down the nose

Singing along to “That Snail is fast,” “What does the Fox Say?” and “Love is an Open Door”

Dreaming of Grandparent’s houses and birthday gifts

Begging to read the Lego Star Wars Encyclopedia every night before bed

Quin is…

Lights on all night

Smiles in the morning

Smoothies and Sundaes at Costco

Questions like “What is for dessert?” when dinner has just been served

Kind words like “I love you” and “You are special to me”

In his perfect world every night would be bath night
And instead of going to school everyone would go to the pool

Quin is all things warm and friendly

Dallin means…

Pointing to every airplane that crosses the sky

Finding chairs pushed to the middle of the room, the snack cabinet and the kitchen sink

Jumping off the last step

Hiding under the covers and giggling every morning

Touching circles in the sidewalk outside of school

Climbing over fences

Dallin is…

Vehicle puzzles and picture books

Dripping sippy cups

Crazy blonde hair

No socks at naptime

Mickey mouse doubling and a pillow, travel companion and tissue

Hot dogs with no buns and fruit snacks

Green glasses flying through the air into bushes and toilets, and under cushions and cars  

In his perfect world every day would consist of shoe shopping and there would be no fences

Dallin is cuddles before bed and waves at the window

A Visit from the Tooth Fairy

On Sunday Quin was laying on the couch and said "Mom, my tooth hurts."
I replied, "Go tell your dad to look at it"
Bryce checked out his mouth and pronounced that he had a loose tooth.  I was surprised! He just turned 5.  However, the family dentist assured us that it was a normal time to get loose teeth.  Whew!

Well, Quin spent the next few hours wiggling that tooth and then at dinner was frustrated because he couldn't eat without his tooth hurting.  So, to my utter shock, he asked his dad to pull it out.  Bryce, being somewhat of a teeth pulling expert, was able to yank that snaggle-tooth right out.

That night Quin got a visit from the tooth-fairy and spent the next day either telling people to look at his smile or sitting and admiring the dollar he was given.

The tooth-fairy cash was spent on a Darth Vader Action figure.  Yes, we have introduced Quin to Star Wars.  And yes his mind has been blown.

Having a 5 year old is exciting stuff!

More Quin Quotes: Cartoon Comparisons Edition

 So Quin has been cracking me up lately.  Here are a few recent quotes:

1.  Quin found a measuring tape.  He came up to me and held it up to my back.  I asked him what size I was and he replied "Just Perfect."  Talk about a self-esteem boost.  I felt like Mary Poppins, however Quin's measuring was even better than "practically perfect in every way" I think.

2.  Quin's favorite cartoon character is currently Ursula.  Yep. Ursula.  Let me illustrate this fact with two instances.

a. Today Quin told me that his two favorite people are me and Ursula.  Sorry Bryce.

b.  Yesterday I wore my Little Mermaid sweater.  Quin looked at it and said "Can I have an Ursula shirt?"

I told him we will put it on our list to Santa.

3.  Quin always likes the bad guy in cartoons.  Sometimes this worries me.  Currently his favorite movie is "Princess and the Frog."  His favorite character in this movie is "the Shadow Man."  Creepy, I know.  However, I did think it was kind of cute when we were at the zoo and a caught him doing this....

 ...clearly he is not afraid to reverse the Shadow Man's evil spells.  I think this is a good thing.

4.  Dilly Dallin had a cold a little while back.  While the picture below does not show him with the runny nose, try to imagine two green tentacles leaking out of his nose.  That is how Dallin looked for a few days.  Gross.

 Quin's comment to his appearance was that "Dallin looks like the seaweed creature."  Now for those of you who don't watch Godzilla regularly, the seaweed creature is a green, slimy monster.  I think Quin's description was pretty accurate.

5.  During General Conference weekend, Quin informed me that he has two favorite Thomases.  Thomas the Train and Thomas S. Monson.  Thomases are basically awesome.

Now I think it is time for us to lay off of the cartoons for a while...

Fall Fun at Disneyland

Dallin's favorite thing to do at Disneyland is meet characters.  Especially the soft, cute, cuddly characters. Unfortunately these characters usually have very long lines waiting the greet them.  I have tried several times to wait in these lines, only to have to leave because Dally is throwing a rip-roaring tantrum.  Dallin does not like to wait to hug the characters.  When he sees them he must hug them. Immediately.

Now that you know Dallin's background, let us explain why he has such a happy face in the picture below.

This past Monday I discovered a little sign a Disneyland that said there was a fall festival going on in the Big Thunder area.  I haven't ventured to Big Thunder in quite some time because it has been closed for months.  However, we decided to go check out this fall festival.  And I am so glad we did.   When we walked in we were told that the kids could color some masks for free so we headed to the "mask coloring station."  Low and behold, who did we see coloring there?  Goofy himself!

 Well Dallin was thrilled.  He ran up to Goofy, held his hand, and gave him  a hug.

 Grammy and Quin then proceeded to sit down and color with Goofy for the next 15 minutes.  (Side note about Goofy:  Goofy went in the back to "go take a nap at the clubhouse" and 10 minutes later an extremely attractive young man walked out in sweats. Mysteriously he was the same height as Goofy and had a very similar stance as Goofy.  Let's just say it made me and Grammy a little sad that we had not given Goofy a hug ourselves).

After the mask coloring was complete, Quin decided he needed to go scare a few people with his spider-mask-creation.  Who better to scare than Dale?!?  Quin walked up to Dale, put on his spider mask and yelled "roar" (what else would a spider say?).  Dale jumped back in surprise and then proceeded to show his witch mask to Quin and pretended to put a spell on him.  They had fun playing this mask-scaring-peek-a-boo game.  A few minutes later some music started playing and it was announced over the speakers that it was time to dance!

 Well this lovely lady came up to Quin and asked him to dance.  He was a little shy, but jumped in there when he saw Dallin run up to Minnie for a hug.

 Meanwhile, Mommy and Grammy were not invited to dance by the adorable Goofy... I mean Disney characters.  Probably because we were standing under this sign.  Oh, well.

I have got to say this was one of the funnest afternoon's we have had a Disneyland!  Glad we got to kick off Autumn with some of our favorite pals!

Quin's First Day of TK

So when we moved to California and I heard about this thing called Transitional Kindergarten.  Essentially it is a public school program for kids with late birthdays and it gives them an extra year of kindergarten.  I decided to sign him up (2 years of kindergarten sounds super!!!) and so far things have been going well.  We were both a little nervous about the first few days of school!  

 I was able to keep it together while dropping him off but when I came home I cried!  I am going to miss having this sweet guy to hang out with all day!

 Quin tries to wear his "Godzilla" shirt every day and is still a little scared when I drop him off.  Luckily he has a sweet little friend from our ward who waits for him by the playground gate.  She holds his hand and walks with him to the classroom every day.  It is so sweet!

 Meanwhile at home Dallin and I are keeping busy and having some fun hanging out.  It is nice to spend some one-on-one with this crazy kiddo.

When Quin comes home, it is basically a huge celebration.  We pull out the popsicles and bubble machine and celebrate that he made it through another long day (6 hours!) of school!

 I read somewhere that when you have little ones at home the days are long and the years are short.  So true.  Can't believe how big these guys are getting!

One Whole Hand!

So Quin has finally reached what Bryce and I like to call "old kid" age.  He is 5 (tear, tear, sob, sob)!  He is officially a big kid.  So to start the birthday celebrations off right we had a BBQ at Grammie and Grandpa Donaldson's house.  There were presents (notice that adorable couple in the back....not Nana and Bryce....but Haylee and her new boyfriend-soon-to-be-something-more-but-we-will-talk-about-that-later-guy) 

 There was a cake made by yours truly (and no that is not the letter "s" on the cake- it is the number 5 artfully arranged with blueberries).

And there was a superhero.  Quin's supersuit was his favorite present this year.  He has been obsessed with "The Incredibles" for the last few months and has been begging for a supersuit.  Well here it is in all it's glory.  The Supersuit!

 On Quin's actual birthday the Doty's were in town so we took a trip to Disneyland where we met Quin's favorite character....Frozone.  I've got to say Frozone is probably the most quotable Disney characters.  I think my favorite line of the movie, however, comes from Frozone's wife when she informs the superhero that "She is the greatest good he will ever have."  I like to use this quote in my own household as well on a frequent basis.

 Quin was also awarded with the official birthday ears which he now insists on wearing year-long at Disneyland.  Needless to say, he still gets told "happy birthday" regularly.

 So Quin has been begging for a birthday party for about a year with friends and games.  This year we broke down and planned the whole she-bang.  We made a little photo-back drop and had everyone take a super-hero portrait.  Here are a few of my favorite pic's:

 Then we had "Incredibles themed games".  We made force fields (bubbles) like Violet.

 We stretched like Elasti-girl for Limbo

 And played "pin-the-mask on the superhero"

It was a fun day, but I have got to say I have a year to recover!  

Love my 5-year-old!

LOL!

My kids are hilarious.  Here are a few reasons why:

 1.  Sometimes they surprise me by dressing up like Spider Man.

 2.  They know what they want and how to get it.  For example, from the picture above we can see that Dallin wants to go swimming (thus the life jacket) and that he is planning on riding his Mickey Mouse airplane to the pool.  If only he can get through the baby-proofed gate....

 3.  Dallin hates wearing shoes on his right foot.  He always takes off his right shoe and sock.

 4.  Quin is obsessed with some strange things.  Like spider-robots.  There are 3 different kinds of spider-robots we talk about.
1.  The Omnidroid from the Incredibles
2.  The spider-droid from Star Wars
3.  The cookie-robots from Despicable Me
  Sometimes I have to stop and laugh about the things we talk about.  One of the most exciting moments of the last month was when we went to Disneyland and we saw the Omnidroid from the Incredibles in the Pixar Parade.  I don't know who was more excited.  Me or Quin.  Never in my life did I think I would be so excited about seeing a spider-robot that I would rip my camera out and take not 1, but 4 pictures of it.  Enough said.

 5.  Dallin gets REALLY excited when he gets what he wants to eat.  His current favorite thing to eat is fruit snacks.  I get to see this face every time he gets fruit snacks.  It is really hard not to give him fruit snacks on an hourly basis.

 6.  Dallin likes to cheat at basket ball by pushing his slide up to the hoop and dunking.  What can I say?  He is innovative.

 7.  Quin is an awesome dancer.  I especially like his victory dances.

 8.  I am greeted by this sight every morning.  First let me explain the extra-large-pajamas.  A few weeks ago Dallin started climbing out of his crib and everyone stopped sleeping.  I would wake up at 3am to the pitter-patter of little feet and see Dallin playing with my keys on the stairs.  Needless to say, something had to be done.  Much to my dismay I learned that sleep-tents had been recalled for safety reasons so I turned to my dear old friend, Google, for answers.  I googled "how do I stop my child from climbing out of his crib" and was answered with this wonderful invention.  The Sleep Sack.  The sleep sack is basically a pair of Aladdin-pants in the form of overalls.  It restricts how far kids can lift up their legs, so they can't reach their leg up and over the crib.  This little beauty has a special place in my heart.  I am once again sleeping soundly thanks to the sleep Sack.

Oh yeah....Dallin is still obsessed with sippy cups and likes to collect them...and walk around drinking from them....

9.  Riding dirty, Doty style.  Sing along with me...

"They see me rollin

They hatin

Patrolling they trying to catch me ridin dirty

Trying to catch me ridin dirty

Trying to catch me ridin dirty"

10.  Yep.  I laugh every day thanks to these two.  Life is good.