Happy Marriage Day Amanda and Ben!

Yesterday we had a fun, busy, long, joyous day as we celebrated the marriage of Brian's sister Amanda. Amanda and Ben Scott were married in the Salt Lake Temple on February 26, 2010. Their ceremony was at 9 AM, so we had to wake everyone up early to be downtown in time. The boys waited in the waiting room with Hollianne and Angela while we went to the sealing. It was great to be there with them and feel of the Spirit in the Temple and see their excitement. Then we got to wait outside in the chilly wind for them to come out. Ollie had a great time wondering and exploring the grounds. He even climbed up on that beautiful bench all by himself and Brian snapped that fabulous picture. Dexy and I don't so much love the cold! When Ben and Amanda came out, they looked super happy. We took pictures in front of the Temple doors and Ollie climbed the stairs to knock on the door to come in. Then we had a luncheon at Golden Corral (yummy!) and a little bit of a break for nap time before heading to the church for more pictures and the reception. The church was decorated beautifully - the family friend who helped Wendy out with all the planning and decorating did a fabulous job! Ollie and I then had just a few minutes to run out and get our family some pizza (we were hungry!) before the guests started arriving. We hung around for a while, chatted with some people we knew, and ate delicious cheesecake before the boys were just shot and we had to go. We had spent Thrusday night at the Bowles house, so we went back there to get our stuff and let the boys take a bath in the big, fun, jet tub before heading home to rest after a long but great day! Congratulations Amanda and Ben!! We're excited for you to start a fun life together.

Super Short

Here are the pictures. This one is from yesterday morning, pre hair cut. Look at Ollie's beautiful, crazy curls! Brian said he was starting to look like Rock 'n Roll Larry from upstairs (he always has crazy, mad scientist hair). I guess it was a little unruly. But I do miss the curls.

And this pic is from this morning (about 5 minutes ago, actually), post hair cut. The short hair makes them both look so much older. They look like they should be heading off to school any day now. Oh, and speaking of being big, last night before the hair cutting tragedy Oliver asked Brian to take off his diaper. Brian took it off and then just a few seconds later, we looked over and found my big Ollie standing over his little potty trying to go pee. We watched quietly so as not to interupt him and he did it!! He peed in the potty for the first time! A pee-pee in the pott-a, a pee-pee in the pott-a! We cheered and sang and he got 4 stickers on his chart. He is just getting bigger every day.

Oliver looks so butch with the super short hair. Kind of like the kid who would beat you up on the playground. He's so sweet, though, and the curls helped him look like it! It's not as bad this morning as it seemed last night, though. And hair, fortunately, grows!

Dexy's isn't nearly as short. We paid better attention the second time around. The poor, oldest child gets stuck with all the parents mistakes. He definitely looks happier than Ollie.

A Toddler's Fashion Sense

I try to give Oliver some options and let him help me decide what he wears, but this morning he did all the deciding. I opened his drawer to get some choices out for him when he came right over and pulled out this pair of shorts. He then insisted on wearing them.

So I let him wear the shorts, eventhough it was only about 35 degrees today, and tried to convince him to wear a long sleeve shirt that at least kind of matched (we do live in a basement, so I try to keep them dressed according to the temp outside as it gets colder down here), but to no avail. He not only didn't want to pick one of my preferences, he just didn't want to take off his pajama shirt. In fact, he flat out refused. Since I try not to fight with my kids over dumb, little things that don't really matter, I just let him keep his jammie shirt on.

To top it off, he had to put on this pair of multi-color strip, Elmo socks! And then he had to make sure that Dexy was wearing his crazy Elmo socks, too! Gotta love it!

Just a side note: we had a tragic hair cutting mishap tonight. Brian thinks that Ollie's curly hair looks silly and has been wanting to cut his curls off. I, of course, object. But he just has been bugging me about cutting the boys hair. So tonight, I said he could as long as he didn't go too short. He got the clippers out and asked me to hand him the 3/4 inch attachment. The color code said that one was purple, so I grabbed a purple attachment and handed it to him, but said that it looked kind of short. He said it was fine (not really looking at it, just thinking I was being sad about the hair cutting), clipped it on and started on Ollie's hair. After a couple of strokes it was obvious that it was not only kind of short, but really short. There were 2 purple attachments, one 3/4 and one 1/4. I didn't realize it and had handed him the 1/4 inch and neither one of us really checked it. It is really short, again, and I am super sad! I have been fighting to let the curls be and finally Brian was going to just trim it and I made a silly mistake and now the curls are gone again and my cute boy kind of looks like a cancer paitent. Ugh!!!! So tragic. We checked better for Dexy and used a 1 inch attachment on his hair, but I still think even that is too short for him. Then Brian cut his own hair. I guess no one's hair is safe in our house!

Dex Wishes he Could Walk!

Here he is giving it a try. He's getting pretty close. We'll just have to see how long it takes him to do it on his own now!

Sir Jude Laurence's 1st Birthday

My younger brother's little boy, Jude, turned one on February 10th. His mom is so cute and fun that she wanted to make sure that he had a fun, all out, party with his boy cousins. And seeing as how there are so many boys cousins up in our neck of the woods, 6 to be exact, they and my Dad came up over the weekend to have the fun up here with us and boy are we glad! Cristina had a knightly party all planned. She unfortunately left the dishes down in St. George, but that turned out ok because she still made Jude a super cool dragon cake, she had remembered the swords and shields for the boys to make their own, and we found an inexpensive dragon pinata at a party store. We had the shin-dig out at the Peterson's house and to make it even more knightly, Marie had gone above and beyond by making all the boys their own comfy knight's tunic! We had a grand old time, decorating shields with our very own emblems, besting the beast (even the adults got a wack at it), opening presents, and slaying the dragon cake! The present opening also brought a surprise for us when Derek and Cristina had us help Jude open a present which turned out to be a book with the title of "Baby on Board" that was about teaching the older siblings about Mom having a baby! "Do you have an annoucement to make?" I asked. And sure enough! Cristina is pregnant - yay! It was a fabulous party! Cristina did a great job making Jude's 1st birthday a big deal. But, like all one-year old party's, there can get to be too much birthday fun (the last picture says it all). We timed it just right though, and shortly after that pic was taken, Jude was headed back to our place with Derek, Brian, and Ollie so that those boys could go to bed. Cristina, Dexy and I stayed to watch the Peterson boys while Marie and Ryan went to their ward's Valentines Dance. The Peterson boys even got to have a sleep-over with Grandpa Oliver. It was a fun night for one and all!

My Big Boys

I fill and set out 2 tubs, but they like to squeeze into one eventually. Usually it's Oliver who climbs over into Dexy's tub, put Dex doesn't seem to mind.

Finally, one picture where Ollie looks bigger than Dexy instead of the other way around. Plus, Dex is wearing his 'little brother' shirt to make it extra clear who is really bigger!

We got our invitations to Jude's 1st birthday party and are so excited! Cristina was so nice to make sure that they each got their own invite, which they happily opened and read (with help, of course) like big boys. Dex thought that it would be good chewing material as well.

My big Ollie boy in a slammin' outfit that he picked out himself today (narrowed down to 3 shirt options and 3 pants options, of cousre - you can't count on a toddler to do it entirely on his own)! Brian tells me all the time that before I know it, Oliver will be heading off to his first day of kindergarten, and this picture proves it. He looks so big and grown up!

And here's my big Dexy learning to use a cup. He still mostly just chomps on the spout, but he can pick it up, hold it, and knows where it goes, so he's getting there. He has started cruising around on the furniture, as well and wishes that he could walk on his own.

Brooklyn Returns

The second week in January, we switched from watching Brooklyn Betensen twice a week to only once a week. She now comes to play just on Wednesdays. And the last couple of weeks she's been sick on Wednesday, so we haven't seen her in a while. When she came on Wednesday of this week, everyone was happy about it. Maybe because it had been a while. When her mom dropped her off bright and early at 7:30 still in her jammies, she actually got excited to see me, wanted to come right to me and wasn't sad in the slightest when her mom left. I was very happy about that because she's usually not so friendly toward me right when she gets here (which is totally understandable). My boys were still sleeping, so I asked her if she was still tired and wanted to lay by me for a while. She happily laid in between Brian and I and went back to sleep. Dex woke up first, but not until after 9, Ollie next at about 9:30, and Brooklyn and Brian didn't wake up until we had nothing else to do in the kitchen and had to come out into the living room at about 10:30! What a joyous, restful morning! Then they all played really happily together, all napped again from 1:30 - 3:30 (all at the same time, so even I got a little rest), and then we watched Super Why! and snacked on the chocolate muffin that was in Brooklyn's "snack bag" until her mom came. It was a really easy-going day, especially for a Brooklyn day, which was great because I've been a little crabby over the last couple of days! They were all super nice, sweet kids! The pics: Brooklyn and Dexy mesmorized by Super Why!; Brooklyn with her favortie baby, my very first Cabbage Patch Doll, Osgood that I got when I was 3 and kept for all these years; eating chocolate muffin, Ollie's only sad because I was trying to make him sit in the chair instead of carrying it around; and my cute boys being friends! It was a good day.











And just a cute story about my little Ollie from tonight so that I don't forget: We had kind of a crazy day. I watched Marie's boys so that she and Ryan could go out for a couple of hours. Because they were coming over, I put Dex in with Oliver for naptime. They talked like 2 little furbies for 45 minutes. Dexy finally fell asleep. It was quiet for a few minutes, then Ollie started making noise. I didn't want him to wake Dex, so I went in to get him only to find him totally naked, holding his diaper and the smell of poop in the room. He had pooped in his bed. I just got him out, cleaned him up and put his diaper on and let him play with his cousins. I had to wait till Dex woke to scoop up the poop and load all his blankets into the washer. Then we had one of our married friend couples and their little boy over for a fun homemade pizza dinner (somewhere in between all this I made pizza dough). They left at about 8:45, having a 15 month old of their own and understanding the need to not stay too long, but it was still kind of late. I fed Dex and put him in his bed while Brian just sprayed Oliver off in the shower instead of a bath like usual. Then I got Ollie all ready for bed, read only a couple of stories and said prayers. Here's the cute part. I put him in his bed and he very sweetly said, "tata milk?" I couldn't resist, so I said, "you can have some chocolate milk. I'll go get some. I'll be right back." I went into to the kitchen to find that Dexy was not in his bed where I had left him. He was crying so Brian had gotten him out. I shook up some chocolate milk, while Brian told me the deal with Dex so it took a little while. When I took it into Ollie, I found him sitting peacefully in his bed just waiting for my return with his chocolate milk. When he saw me, he very happily said, "ta-ta milk." I handed it to him and he laid down contentedly to drink his milk and go to sleep. It was just so sweet and precious how he was just pleasantly waiting for me to bring his milk to him. What a sweet boy!

Real, Professional, Family Photos

Well, we finally paid someone to take pictures of us. All of our family photos up to this point have just been captured by me handing my camera to someone and saying, "will you take a picture of us?" Needless to say, they have been good, but not fantastic. Brian has a friend who is starting up a photography business. He said that he would give us a good deal, so Brian got in touch with him and made the arrangements. We paid him $40, but could have paid more because the pictures turned out fabulous! It's so nice to finally have something that looks professional and stunning! Now I just want to go buy a thousand frames and hang them up everywhere! His name is Travis Green and I can get you in touch with him if you want fabulous pictures, too. And as a plus, he was super nice to us and our boys! Really, let me know if you want some family photos. I'm sure he'd love the business and I would love to support him. Anyway. He just brought the CD over to me and I couldn't wait to post them! Here are some of the great pics. The one in our blog header is one of these as well (obviously). This was on the 30th of January before I had my hair chopped off (agian, obviously). Seeing these pictures made me miss my hair somewhat. Only slightly though, because it will grow fast. Ollie is wearing the hat that Heather made for him in some of these because he loves it so much, that it took us a while to get him to take it off. Should have left it on though, because not only is it cute, but it was quite cold!

Spaghetti - Bowles Style

When we eat spaghetti, I use spaghetti squash instead of noodles and ground turkey instead of ground beef. It's more nutritious, but still delicious. In fact, Brian likes it better that way. And the boys dig, too. They, of course, wear only diapers when we have this for dinner. When we ate spaghetti squash the night of the 1st, Dexy in particular was loving it! He scarffed it down and even licked his plate clean. Then he finished what was left of Oliver's food. Unlike some of the big boy cousins in this family, it looks like we won't be asking Dexy the question, "how you get so big eating food of this kind?" At least so far, he eats healthy and he eats well and on top of that he still gets breastfed every 3 or 4 hours. No wonder he's huge (and so happy)!