Sunny (and at least kind of warm) St. George

I was freezing my buns off up in Salt Lake, so my loving husband brought me and the boys down to St. George! He only got to stay for about a day and a half, but he left us here - yay! We miss Brian (he unfortunately had to return to finals and work - yuck), but we are having a grand old time playing with family that we get to see less and enjoying the sun. Jude is so big and so cute! He and Dex play well together. One day, everyone was hungry - even Ducats. So we sat them all up to eat. Poor, starving, little souls! They sure are adorable. Ollie loves Ducats and always wants to go visit him. In fact, this morning he was having his happy, naked time when he decided that he was ready to go and visit Ducats. He put on his Mickey Mouse cap and his Curious George sweatshirt (his favorites) and was all set to leave. He walked over to the door and started saying, "go, go!" He, however, neglected the most essential articles of clothing for going out visiting - socks, shoes, pants, shirt, and most important, a diaper! I guess that we've just been having so much fun that he lost his head. Or maybe it's because he's only 21 months old. Whatever it was, it was funny!

Girls Are Just That Way

Oliver and Dex have both been pretty sick the last couple of days. When Brooklyn got here this morning, she started right into bugging Ollie. Because he was sick, it was really driving him crazy and therefore was rather annoying to me to hear him whining over any little thing. But, after a few hours of her teasing Oliver for attention, she finally realized that we would just give her attention because we like her and stopped. From that point on, she was not only pleasant the rest of the day, but she was actually quite enjoyable. And I realized that eventhough girls can be divas (we see that from her sometimes), there are some beauties to having a girl around the house. After we ate lunch, I was wiping the table off and Brooklyn came over with something and started pretending to wipe off the bench. I tought to myself, "heck, if she's willing why just pretend!?" So, I got her a wet paper towel and she happily went to work. She helped me clean the bench, Dexy's chair, Ollie's chair and was even scrubbing the floor of her own choice! I gave Ollie one, too. He wiped down the bench for about a minute and then proceeded to just rip his paper towel into shreds.

He ran off to go play and Brooklyn continuued to help, even picking up the paper towle that Ollie had ripped up all over the place. Oliver only decided to help once I whipped out the camera to take pictures and as long as he got to use the "real" rag. Later she was putting her baby in the high chair, breaking up little crackers into small pieces to feed to her baby and she thought it was so great when I started feeding it pretend baby food. So domestic and only 20 months old! Girls just come that way I guess. She was such a good little helper today!

Dexy the Red-Cream-Oreo Clown?

Yesterday afternoon, Ollie woke up from his nap and was feeling kind of grumpy. He's been sick and wasn't feeling good. He wanted to run around naked, so I let him. Then he wanted to eat an oreo with red cream filling and since he was naked, I let him. I didn't, however, want to let Dexy eat one! But, Ollie being the nice and shareful big brother that he is, passed what he didn't want of his second oreo (at least half) down to Dexy. Dex of course started chowing down on it and by the time I got to him he looked like this. I figured the damage had been done, so I let him have a little bit more. By the time he had what he wanted, he looked like this! Maybe that was too much damage and I shouldn't have let him. Oh, well. No matter what I should or shouldn't have done, it's over now and it sure was cute!

2 Cute Brothies

Here are my 2 cute boys being such adorable friends! I put Dex down on the floor to go do something and Ollie crawled right down from the bed and laid on his tummy next to keep him to keep Dex company. He loves his little brother so much, eventhough he still doesn't want Dexy touching his stuff! Oliver is very nice to Dex, is so happy when he wakes up from his morning nap and is always concerned about him. I'm actually really glad that they came so close together (it wasn't my plan, but obviously someone smarter than me knew what He was doing) and I am already starting to see a small glimpse of what good they will do for each other as they grow. I'm so thankful for my 2 sweet boys!

Nice Try, Dexy

Dexter is starting to really want to be big and play with toys like Oliver. And many times he wants to not just play LIKE Oliver, but to play WITH Oliver. Too bad that Ollie is still working on the whole sharing thing. Here is Dexy's attempt at playing with Ollie. First, Dex sees the toy and the play that he wants to participate in. Next, he moves stealthfully forward. Then he lunges forward and goes from the grab, but is rejected! And finally, because he's bigger and he can, Ollie just stands up with the coveted toy and walks away. Oh, poor Dexy! Nice try, but better luck next time.

Just Some Cute Pictures

Here are some cute pictures from November that I didn't get around to posting earlier. There's Dexy excitedly gnawing on a fresh green bean, Dexy as the 'bathtime baby' from a cute book called "Baby Colors" (the green page says, "bathtime baby sit and think, while you soak in this green sink" - this pic just reminds me of that), Ollie climbing in on top of Dex in the infant tub (I've since purchased another bigger tub from Ikea so they both have the same one and because no one fit in the little tub anymore, especially not together), and Ollie oh so happy about getting not just one, but two cakesters to eat (the best part is that he refers to them as 'yellow')!

Thanksgiving

This year we got to spend Thanksgiving with Brian's family. We went to the Bowles' house Wednesday after Brian got home from work and spent the night there so that we could just wake up and celebrate the whole day together. We ate dinner at Wade and Wendy's with just our immediate family. The whole, gianormous Bowles family had Thanksgiving dinner at the Church near Wade's parents house, but he said that since his family is expanding, he was just going to have dinner with his family at his house. I'm actually really glad he did! Wendy made sure that the food was delicious and warm and that the table was set with the nice china and a lace table cloth - it just felt more festive and celebratory and was less noisy than if we had joined them at the church. We really enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner and then we meet them at the church for the talent show. The girls did a tap dance to the Chipmunks Christmas song, Wendy sang with Amanda at the piano and Wade sang with all of his brothers. Ollie joined the girls for the tap dance while they practiced at home, but I kept him off stage for their actual performance. He was way cute dancing with them! We had a great Thanksgiving and hope you all did as well!