"What Mommy Says"

Yesterday we drove from Logan down to Salt Lake. Almost the whole way down we played "What Mommy Says". It's a game the kids made up a few years back...and it's great for passing the time. Here's how you play:

Decide who's player 1, player 2 etc. Argue about it for a good 5-10 minutes. Eventually decide everyone is player 1, but just so it doesn't get confusing, we'll call the other player 1 "player 2", etc. Once you nail this down, you can proceed.

Rules of the game are as follows. Mom asks questions. Questions about anything and everything. You have to specify who the question is directed towards. "Player 1....here's your question.... ". Here are some sample questions:

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Name something unhealthy.

Name something the same size as a pile of dirt, but not a pile of dirt (Carson came up with this question).

What is the best color?

What kind of super power do you want to have?

Name something that lives in the ocean.

Name something the size of a car, but not a car (Carson came up with this one too).

Who is the most powerful?

Best thing to eat for breakfast?

Basically, it can be anything. After they answer, mom assigns a completely random point value....anything from zero to infinity. The kids really like it when they get 10,349,209 points for a question and aunt kaity gets 3. You have to make sure that you assign very similar point values for the 4 and 6 year old to avoid any tantrums about so and so getting more points than me. Every once in a while ask a BONUS QUESTION. assign a really large point value to it.

There are no rules other than that. The kids just like getting points for stuff. It works great. And you learn a lot about your kids. And about aunt kaity (the super power she would most like is to be able to somehow have the ability to sit next to more than 2 people at the same time. )

Hero

last night we were driving home and brady saw the sunset.

"Oh....that's beautiful, huh mom?"

"yes"

"There is a man somewhere, standing on a roof watching that sunset, huh mom?"

"maybe"

"And you know what you call that man? A Hero. That is what a hero does."

Evil Love

Yesterday the boys were watching Phineas and Ferb. I like that show. I was sitting in the other room and I heard a song come on during the show about the evil scientist guy (i think it's about when he fell in love....) lyrics are:

Love was once a crazy dream
Now it's my new evil scheme

And I'm as happy as can be
It's the age of story
How an evil boy meets an evil girl
We've got love strong enough to rule the whole wide world
We both maniacally laugh at all the same stuff

I found my other half
Yes, I've got an evil love

When our robot armies march
To the beating of our hearts

I'm as happy as can be
It's the age of story
How an evil boy meets an evil girl
We've got love strong enough to rule the whole wide world
We both maniacally laugh at all the same stuff

You can't foil a plan that's built upon evil love

And I mentioned to Brady that I liked this song and he seemed shocked and said "mom! Do you like evil? If you do you like this song. Do you like Evil mom? Do you like Evil Love? 'cause that's what this song is about. Evil love."

i had to laugh. and then admit that i don't like evil and that I do not, in fact, like this song. Someday when he's a teenager I have a feeling we'll have this conversation again.

It's 10 o'clock at night and ALL OF MY KIDS ARE AWAKE

due to 2 late naps and some congestion. argh!!!!!!

Cute

Wednesday Brady had the day off of school. Carson did too....but I didn't figure that one out until I got all the kids dressed and out the door to drive the 20 minutes to Carson's school. When I pulled up and saw the parking lot was empty i THEN realized that Carson also had the day off of school. We were 200 yards from a Target, so I decided it would be a good idea to take ALL 4 BOYS in.

All in all they did OK. No major melt downs, and they only talked me in to buying one unplanned for unnecessary toy. So it wasn't the worst trip. I did take a picture with my iphone of my ridiculous cart filled with boys and no room for anything else. I'll post it the next time I find my phone and plug it into the computer.

Here they are all dressed up in their matching shirts...

Kody thinks he is such a big boy....he's trying to stand up (holding on to things) and can eat more cheese pizza than Dustin. Seriously....the kid loves pizza. I know one should probably not feed cheese pizza to their 7 month old baby. But he loves it. And every time I feed it to him I picture myself on Maury Povich saying "if my baby wants to eat cheese pizza i'm going to feed him cheese pizza!!!" and then 90 pound kody will come waddling out.....and people will boo me.

And lastly...i hope Camellia doesn't mind me posting this....but we took pictures of Olivia tonight in honor of her upcoming baptism. Isn't she cute???

Family Pictures Past

Next week we're taking our first family picture where i'm not pregnant.....

(2004.....pregnant)

(2006.....pregnant....)

(2008.....pregnant again.......)

I will still look pregnant in our family pictures next week....but in years past i've been able to look at the picture and think "oh well...i'm pregnant there..." but this year I wont have that excuse. It's a lot of pressure.

When I was going through the photo booth pictures for the previous post I found lots of pictures of 2 little boys having fun on the computer. It was cute to see their little poses.

On a side note....carson has lost his voice and it's the cutest thing ever. If I ever had a complaint about carson it's that he was too loud....this toned town scratchy-voiced version of carson is perfect!!!! He talks like he's been smoking 2 packs a day....i love it.

Before and After

here's my hair at 4:00 today

and my hair at 5:45. I think these photos might be a bit deceptive....the short hair is much cuter in real life. I'm happy with it and excited for the change. I decided I would grow my hair long when I get skinny again....but I have a few more months before i worry about that (my baby weight sticks to me like glue when i'm nursing.....so i don't try very hard to get rid of it!)

fun with photobooth.

Future Beethoven

A few days ago Brady wanted to compose some music. He named it "Carson's Song" and the two of them worked on this piece for about 30 minutes. I loved overhearing parts of their conversation "looks like you could use a few more whole notes carson...let's put one right here...and one over here...."

No one looks good under a bright flash in the middle of the forest...

This is the only picture I got from our little campfire last weekend (it was very dark except for the light of the fire and the flash caught everyone a little off guard). It was a fun activity though...a group from church got together to have dinner and a campfire. It was a bit chilly out...but I kept thinking that we probably wouldn't even attempt this if we were living in cleveland (I had been thankful for our weather out here all day....this same day we were at six flags walking in flip flops and eating snow cones). Anyway, the food was good and it was fun to get to know people from church a bit better (being new to the area and all....).

Baby-Pride

Parker has a "little einsteins" laptop that he lugs around. On one setting it will play a classical piece, one note at a time (with every stroke of the keyboard). Does that make sense? So no matter what key you hit, you play the next note of the song.

Brady was listening to Parker play today and turned to explain to me, "Mom, the toy makers made it this way so that babies would feel proud. Babies don't really know how to play the song, but they will think they can and they will feel proud."

I just love the idea of a proud baby.

Around the house...

Rare occurance: everyone one one spot, not hurting each other...

my mom brought over this pirate sheet thing and the kids have been having fun playing "boss island" (that's what they named the island in the middle).

Brady and Carson both wanted "shark fins" for hairstyles last week. Brady's hair is too long to make a really good one...and carson's hair is just too stubborn. But they both seemed satisfied with the end result. Though Brady came home a little confused, "Everyone at school kept calling it a mohawk. What's a mohawk???". Carson wanted to make sure his hair was cool, and no one would laugh at him. I could not guarantee that people wouldn't laugh. He decided to be brave and try it out anyway. When he got home he said kids thought it was cool. Phew!

I finally (after a year or so of having this table/chairs in my garage) got around to painting it for the boys room. I hope my mom doesn't mind....this was the little wood table we grew up with...

the boys like having a little table in their room, though they are concerned about the "brown on it" (where I sanded it to make it look old....) They keep suggesting I touch it up with the paint left in the can.

Packages from Japan are the BEST!!!!

We have very cool friends that live in Japan. If Anna had a blog I would link to it right HERE. But as far as I know, she doesn't. So you'll just have to take my word for it....they are fun (there's a picture of them in that old post). We miss them tons. We got a package from them the other day and we loved all the fun things inside:

This is just a weird sign. I'm attaching it to our hamster cage.

I love the name!!!

love this name too!

the breast-milk flavored candy. mmmmm....

There were fun books and a bunch of other snacks / treats the kids have been loving. Thank you Anna and Andrew!!!