Wow. I'm back!!

So I've been gone for a long time!! Around the end of December I started going to bed when the boys do, which is like 8 or 8:30.  I am just so tired by the time they go to bed that I just fall asleep while I wait for them to fall asleep.
So I haven't been around at night to blog or craft or anything!  I try to get some things done during the day, but it's hard.
So just as a catch-up:
Christmas was wonderful, and we were able to go out to Snowflake the weekend after Christmas.  It was really fun!
New Years was great as well.  The boys LOVE the days that Chase get's to stay home from work.

In February Chase's work paid for a bunch of employees and their wives to go to Mexico for 7 days.  It was so fun.

I have more pictures but they are on Chase's phone and computer.   So I'll update this when we get there.

Lastly, I found out that I am PREGNANT!!  I'm due Oct 27th.  I'm doing mostly ok, but I do have several days when I don't feel so great.  But we are excited.  We find out in June if it's a boy or girl. 

I'm kinda, sorta, dreading this weekend....

I love the weekend for the most part.  Sometimes everyone has a different idea of what we should do (watch a movie, play the N64, work in the yard, pour marbles in the sink....) but over all we get the work done and have time to play together and usually make a good treat.

Then Conference weekend comes.  I personally love Conference, but surprisingly my 4 and 5 year olds don't love to sit and watch men and women talk about stuff that is more then they can understand.  I often hear people saying how much fun they had with their kids playing games like Conference bingo or they come up with other coloring pages for the kids to do. And I think, I wish that worked for us.  Someday I won't dread Conference weekend, right?  Like after the boys move out of the house? I just never hear people talking about how hard it is to get their kids to sit down. Could someone just let me know that this happens at their house too?  Or is it REALLY just me?

All parents have the responsibility to teach their children to sit and listen.  This is something I think is a very important part of being a parent.  Saying that- all children are born at different points on the "listening scale".  The scale goes from "Child sitting quietly without very much help or support from the parent from a very early age" to "The parent will have to sit on their child to make them stay, and tape their mouth closed but the child will still make noise.  There is no bribe or deal the parent can make that will make this child sit and be quite for more then 5 or 10 minutes."

Most kids would fall somewhere in the middle, but maybe a little more on the right side then left.  Also, it depends on the day of course.  Some days I can find something to keep Collin busy for a full 20 or 30 minutes, and Landon busy for maybe 10 as long as they are separate.  (By the way, for those parents who have children who are naturally quite and keep themselves busy I hope you fully appreciate that child.)  Landon actually stays very busy if he is allowed to make a mess (playing in flour, sugar, salt, or water.  He can use just one or all, it doesn't really matter.) but right now I'm not big on cleaning up his mess so I usually try to keep him busy with other things.

Conference weekend is hard for the boys for several reasons.
1st- we only have one TV and it is downstairs where the boys playroom is.  This would work out nicely if the boys would play quietly, but more often then not we are consistently saying "Please be quiet.  Boys, be quiet.  BE QUIET.  Go upstairs.  Go outside. What is Landon doing- oh, playing with the soap and putting ripped paper in a plugged sink.  Come back downstairs.  Be quiet."  The boys don't get why they have to be quiet in the play room.
2nd- we would send them outside but Conference is not known for it's wonderful weather.  It actually looks like it's supposed to be good weather, but more often then not it's raining, or worse off, snowing.
3rd- I love Chase, and I know he does the best he can, but I often feel like I am supposed to tune the kids out and let them do whatever just to watch Conference.  Chase doesn't mean to ignore the kids, he just gets so...involved... in Conference that he doesn't realize what is going on, or that we actually have to entertain the boys.

So I'm just going to hear what I can and then know that I can read or watch them again.

Flour fun!

This happened about 2 weeks ago.  But let's talk about it like it happened yesterday.

I have a dog trainer who comes over once a week and helps me with Charlie.  She happened to be there, and so I wasn't keeping a real close eye on the boys.  All the sudden, about 15 minutes before Kimberly left, Landon comes running in and stands by the front door- covered head to toe in flour and announced that they had made a skating rink.  I just laughed- I think I said something like "Oh, kids will be kids!  Hahahaha."  Kimberly left and I showed Chase what happened.  He took one look and said, "They are in so much trouble!"  I told him to calm down, just laugh about it.  Kids just do this kind of stuff (I seriously must have been on a sugar high, or something.).  I put the kids in the shower/bath, and started cleaning it.  I thought, this will take about 15, maybe 20 minutes to clean up. First I got a wet cloth and wiped the counters.  Then I did it again with a new clean wet cloth.  Then I did it a third time. I swept (my mom called at this point and I told her what happened, laughed, and said Kids will be kids!  My mom gasped, then said in a really confused voice, "Yeah, I guess kids will be kids."), then I decided I needed to vacuum the hard floor.  Then I mopped.  Twice.  Vacuumed the carpet, and went back over the hard floor to get all the corners.  Wiped everything down again.  2 and 1/2 hours later I went upstairs and told Chase "The boys are in so much trouble.  I'm taking a shower.  So much trouble.  They are in trouble and they are trouble. (muttering) trouble.  So gross.  All that flour.  Grrr.

I asked Landon about it a few days later.  I said, "Hey, what happened in the kitchen?"  Landon, "We made a really slippery situation."

Happy birthday Charlie!

This is Charlie.  He is a coton de tulear, a breed of dog from Madagascar.  Chase and I have been talking about getting a dog for a long long time.  I knew he would be more my dog then anyone, so I always felt pretty...weary about getting a dog.  I started looking at pounds and on KSL and would see one every now and then that looked cute, but I didn't feel super strong about getting a dog.  Thursday afternoon I was looking on KSL again and saw a picture of this little guy.  I looked up the breed on line and learned about them.  They are very fun and playful, super healthy, and they are happy in any environment.  I decided show Chase so we could talk about getting him.  On Saturday morning we decided to take the boys and go pick up Charlie.  They were very excited when they found out we were going to take him home.  He has been really good so far.  He really likes Chase, so we're trying to urge him to sit with Collin and play with him a lot.  I'm really worried about training him.  I'm sure it will go great, but I just have no idea what I'm doing.  

Cali day 1

Even though we left the day before, we didn't take any pictures.  We tried to see the Salt Flats but it was so muddy we didn't even stop.  So day 1 is Saturday.  We drove and drove and drove from Elko NV all the way to a place called Muir National Forest.  It's part of the Redwoods, and it was beautiful.  Dave and the girls met us there, and it was really fun to spend time with them.  Afterwords we went to Pier 39 and I had some clam chowder.  It ended up being really good.

Cali day 2

Sunday we went to church with David, Megan, and the girls.  One of my seminary teachers was in their bishopric, Brother Bohn.  It was fun to see him and catch up a little.  We didn't last the whole church, Landon was very tired and we decided to go home and eat and then head over to the Golden Gate Bridge.  We went and parked so we could walk on the bridge.  It was so windy!

The boy's found a hole that went though the cement so they could see the ocean under the bridge.  It was kind of scary.

Collin found a door and tried to open it.

Cali day 3

Monday was driving.  Once I saw it was a 7 hour drive to Newport Beach Chase and I decided to drive 3 hours Sunday night so we would only have 4 hours on Monday.  I was very glad we did that, we were able to sleep later then we would have, and the hotel had a great breakfast.  We went to the beach soon after we got there.

We decided to go get ice cream after the beach

Chase ended up finding 3 clams, but I looked online and found out that you can't take any clams you find on the beach where we were so they threw them back.