bubbles..

abound when rowe is tired.....

easton

it is time for an update on big brother. 7 years have come and gone and it gets me teary to have a first grader.

he has amazed us this past year. my shy, quiet boy has come out of his shell. i have a real boy on my hands.

easton is an amazing reader. like truly amazing. he reads the books his fourth grade sister reads. they swap books and it amazes me. his fluency and pronunciation are unmatched. now, this doesn't mean that because of his classy reading skills he loves such classy material. captain underpants keeps him in stitches. what a great series for the ultimate little boy! all the naughty words you can imagine! improper times for bodily functions to occur and all. my little brother passed on all his books about captain underpants to him and he has been in heaven, reading and re-reading. i can only imagine what he and his friends talk about when they are alone....

on the other hand, where the red fern grows also stole his heart. and who wouldn't love big dan and little ann?

and all that complaining i do and have done about birthing the size of his cranium? well, i should be quiet. i think big skulls mean big brains. this kid has fallen in love with sports to the extreme. scott took him to a jazz game at the beginning of the season (it pays to work with surgeons that have season tickets and are also on call a lot). easton was subtracting 3 digit scores in 5 seconds or less, more amazed at the lead than his math skills. we just assumed he was learning that at school until we talked to his teacher at the quarter conference. she told us they were working with simple one digit math, not 3 digit. the other day he started at 40+40=80,80+80=160 and so on. he went all the way up to 8hundred and something, added those up and was off by a hundred. it kind of totally blows my math retarded mind. he loves numbers. he can tell you any score to any basketball game played. saturdays are for watching college ball and the mornings are for grabbing the newspaper and tearing it open to the sports. after one lesson on how to read the key in the newspaper and it has saved me from having every page of the paper all over until he finds the sports section. we don't have cable so scott found an online channel that broadcasts the games live. he is now diving into converting the different time zones! this kid. honestly. thank goodness he has still retained his mild mannered personality so that his boredom at school will not turn into naughtiness. he prides himself on being a great listener, thank heavens. we have also had a great teacher that is giving him work to do when he finishes early which i really appreciate.

he is also my cinema loving child. where did he come from?? math and movies? he can tell you the release date of any upcoming movie out there. i have noticed this decrease as we don't have access to channels with commercials lately. (hooray!) hulu and netflix on the DVD player satisfy my very smallish appetite for the tube. but, he always knows when some violent action packed movie is coming out, and what it is rated. he knows very well even some PG's we get to preview and i am amazed at his moral compass. we give him rules and he thrives on keeping them. now,

before i get all big headed about this kid, let me tell you some things that keep this kid normal.

peeing. seriously. i am wiping down urine from every part of the toilet. i have told him over and over that at this house, until the men step up and scrub the toilets, they WILL SIT DOWN. i don't care about your manhood. if you want to retain your standing status i have to make it out of those bathrooms without having to clean the poison off the baseboards and walls. those little squirt guns are incredibly wobbly and tend to let loose like a cannon. and oh murder, i can always tell when friends come over. repeat.the.whole.thing.over. boo! an invention must be brewing in some mothers head that somehow aims, flushes and washes their hands at once. boys will be boys!

so, there an update on the testosterone at this house. how lucky i am to have two little boys and not the naughty kind like my brothers were. i love you guys, but holiness to our mother, you guys were devils! i am quite inclined to think my two little boys are my reward for enduring the antics of my 4 brothers growing up!

photo....shoot

mom, another one? seriously....

me: ella, rowan probably got a good look at your dental hygiene the first 1,254,678 times you thrust it upon him, dear. let's keep our saliva in the proper place.

ella: i'm dust sowin him what tees look like mom.

this is the milk intoxication look. he is drunk after the "nursies" as ella says.

this perfectly renders my baby's life. ella's schedule includes the mauling of a smallish, slightly chubbed out baby.

one friday night i found myself alone with 4, FOUR, ahem, children. my husband found himself at work late in the operating room. so i found some styling spritz, and fancied my fella up.

alfalfa if you please. and for the record, he looks exactly like my brother vaughn in this one. and well, vaughn is the male version of myself.

beiber fever at our house, thought some tween motha would appreciate this one.

you ain't nothin but a hound dog....

rowe's honest opinion of the situation ;)

bath time. love my nekked baby after baths. being a winter baby i don't get near enough skin loving time with the bebe. soon enough.

mr nancy

ted l nancy was sent to me in the mail. well, not ted himself, but his book. my alaska brother kept telling me about this letter writing man. since his descriptions always left me in fits of slobbering laughter, he knew i would truly enjoy it.



it is a book that jerry seinfeld helped get published after coming upon some of the funny letters ted wrote to various businesses. i have thoroughly enjoyed this book. i also have never read a book that has me laughing out loud and slobbering to prove my enjoyment. you can read about it HERE.



some of my favorite letters include those correspondences to hotels. my favorite laugh out loud moment occurred when reading about ted's inquiry to be accommodated by this hotel with his level 4 bed wetting status. or maybe it was the one to a hotel to ask if they could accommodate his third leg with a ottoman next to the bed. no, no, it has to be the inquiry to nordstrom's asking for the mannequin resembling his neighbor who just passed away and ted's need to purchase it and give it to the family as a way to heal. or maybe it was the inquiry to a seafood restaurant requesting to be seated by the dumpsters because of the immense odor he suffers from. if you think michael scott's stupidity is slightly entertaining, then ted will keep you in stitches.



also things that are tickling my funny bone lately include my mum,dad+technology.



we were celebrating my little sis's 16th birthday back in november. we ventured out with one toddler, two new borns, two post partum mothers, one technologically challenged mum, and a freshly turned 16 year old for an outing to the city. translated, a packed SUV, some traveling and FOOD. of course. anytime my mother is involved with a cell phone of any kind you can be sure it will be funny. we heard her phone ring, which involves a couple of seconds for her to verify that it is indeed HER phone. then, you have to watch the frantic digging through her purse and her banter with all around who it might be. somehow she has her phone rigged to tell the caller she is in a meeting. now, bless her heart. my mother isn't a high faluting weekday meeting goer. religious worship serving meeting goer, you betcha. but business suit, a call on line one - no. so her revealing this to us, that she has let some callers know she is in a meeting, is hilarious. the other hilarious factor is that she doesn't know how she does it. by the time this whole thing takes place she has missed the call, or hit the magic button to tell someone she is in a meeting. usually you get a call back. she has also branched out this past year to texting....



while on the subject of texting, i warned my dad that humor of this next situation was blog worthy, he was warned. his place of business has him using a fancy pants iphone. fancy nancy indeed. after some questioning about how, if, and when, texting is slowly winning his heart. he decided one day in the christmas bustle, to text my mom a love note of sorts thru his new found communication skills. my parents are ogden high sweethearts. both grew up in the heart, and i mean downtown, of the great o town. 27th and adams and 23rd and orchard for locals. let that bear testimony to you of the gravity of the inner city in which they lived. we have a lovely tradition in O town displaying tons of little house things with cute christmas scenes that adore the local downtown park. we call it christmas village. while in high school bliss, my dad accompanied my mom without complaint. once the courtship was over and children came around, my dad's declaration to all was that it was no longer fun. my mom's christmas wish every year is for his accompaniment to the christmas village. so, in a text message he sent to her it was something to the effect of this:



i love you now more than ever,

will you go to christmas village with me?

love,

billy mac



after he sent the message, he realized he sent it to the stake president instead of my mom. he quickly had to try and undo this sticky situation. and look up there, no name to the recipient of this text. the thought of the stake president (a mormon term meaning someone high up) thinking that my dad (his executive secretary) was declaring christmas love to him had my poor motha laughing her way out of every shop she entered that day. she would enter a place of business with the intent to fetch holiday gifts, only having to exit because she couldn't control her giggles. she called me 5 hours after said incident barely able to get it out, in turn causing us to echo hysterics of laughing.

the stake president's reply to my dad was essentially asking if he could take credit for it and send it on to his own jingle bell sweetheart. . . . . . . . .