The Big 28!

We celebrated Brian's 28th birthday last week...

...and I forgot the candles. If you can't tell, these are matches in the shape of a 2 and an 8. The matches were so close together that when we began to light them the flames merged and made a bonfire on the cake, carmelizing the cool whip frosting. Needless to say, the birthday song was sung very quickly and we had no time for a picture of Brian blowing out the candles.

And here is his present (please ignore the messy counter; we're in the middle of a move). Brian got his very first fish tank. He would have preferred a 55 gallon, but I say you have to crawl before you walk, and I'm not confident in my ability to help care for a fish. In college my roommates and I decided to buy some 99 cent goldfish at walmart. They didn't last very long. Maybe they were allergic to something in their fish food, or maybe they couldn't handle the occasional playdates with Megan's beta fish. I don't know. But we joked forever afterwards that our apartment was haunted by ghost fish. I never really got attached to them though. I can't even remember the name of my fish. Becca, do you remember the names of any of our fish?

Anyway, for me, it's pets or kids; not both. I just can't keep up with the needs of both, but Brian assures me that he'll keep up with the fish. I don't know if you can tell, but there's no water in the tank. I figure we'll keep an empty tank for a while, then maybe we'll fill it with water and let that sit for a couple weeks. So I'm going to have to do more than crawl before I walk. I'm going have to roll over, then scoot, then crawl, then walk.

And lest you missed the side-note about moving, I'll say it again. We are moving! Brian is applying to go back to school for his MBA, so we're going back to Idaho! Yeah! We're very excited. In the picture, Aaron and I are making biscuits, trying our best to use up some of the food in our cupboards so we don't have to move it.

Brian's Birthday

"Yeah! Cake!" says BreeAnna

We didn't finish the cake in one sitting, of course, but because we sang happy birthday to Brian when we brought out the cake, everytime we eat a piece of cake now, Aaron sings, "Hotty Birfday to you, Hotty Birfday to you...."

And since everyone else has a picture on this post I thought Mom had better be in one.

Here Brian displays his birthday plate. They were not his choice, but Aaron was quite pleased (thanks Grandpa).

Happy Birthday Brian. It certainly was a "Hotty" birthday, but I suppose I'm a little biased.

Six Flags and San Francisco

We also went to Six Flags...

...And San Francisco. As the photographer, poor Grandpa never ends up in the pictures, but he was there.

Aaron at Six Flags

Aaron had even more fun than BreeAnna because there is a Thomas Town at Six Flags. Here Aaron has just laid eyes on Thomas Town.

He made a fabulous helicopter pilot, and afterwards, thanked Harold the Helicopter for a great ride.

He was delighted by Shouka the Killer Whale.

But most of all, he loved riding Thomas the Tank Engine. We rode in his coaches, Annie and Claribel more times than we could count. Another highlight, was shaking hands with "Toad da Hat" (Sir Topham Hatt), the controller of the railway. Everytime the Sir Topham Hatt character wandered through Thomas Town Aaron had to run up and shake his hand. He was just beside himself with glee. Thanks Grandpa and Grandma for a wonderful trip. We'll miss you.

BreeAnna at Six Flags

BreeAnna had a blast, as you can see.

She loved eating all the junk she never gets at home. Here she is enjoying an ice cream bar.

She loved playing in the water until she wandered under a little spray fountain and got soaked. Then she wasn't sure if she liked it or not. But after we dried her off she forgot about it pretty quickly and headed back to the water.

And of course, she loved hanging out with Jill.

Beach Bums

Collette's folks came to visit this week, so of course, the first thing we had to do was go to the beach.

BreeAnna liked the water quite well.

Aaron preferred the sand. Actually, he preferred to bury Mitchell in the sand.

Jill and BreeAnna got to be good buddies. By the end of the trip they were practically finishing each other's sentences. Not really. BreeAnna doesn't speak in sentences yet, but she sounds like cookie monster when she's hungry. Maybe she picked that up from Jill. We'll have to ask Jill's fiancé.

And Mitchell liked reminding us how tall he is. OK, so he's not as tall as the windmill, but he is 6'3". That's pretty tall.

Pixieland and I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home

A friend of mine had extra tickets to a kids' amusement park and she offered to take us with her on Friday.

At first, I was skeptical as to whether Aaron and Bristol would actually ride on anything without parents, but I guess they're braver than we thought. They had no problem with the airplanes.

They were too short to ride most of the rides without us, however.

And even though he's not smiling, Aaron was actually fascinated with everything, and had a great time. His favorite, of course, was the train. We rode it twice, and each time we got off of any other ride he would ask, "Ride the train, Mommy?"

We did the amusement park in the morning, and that evening...

...Daddy came home! Yeah! Both kids were very excited. Aaron kept saying, "Mommy, your Daddy's home!" and when BreeAnna saw him she laughed out loud. We love our Daddy!

BreeAnna's New Chair and Percy Cake

BreeAnna found a new use for her carseat.


This is her new reading chair. The chair was not actually the best part of this story. If I could figure out how to post videos I'd have taken one of her while I read her this book. This is "Five Little Monkeys", you know, the story of the 5 monkeys jumping on the bed. Every time I say, "one fell off and bumped her head" she says, "Ow!" Then when I say "No more monkey's jumping on the bed" she violently shakes her head back and forth. It's great.

And my parenting tip for the day: Personification
I made zucchini bread trying to get some green vegetables in my kids. Aaron is pretty picky about new foods. So how did I get him to try it? I told him it was Percy cake. Percy is a green tank engine and good friend of Thomas. I showed him the green specks in the bread and said, "See, this is Percy cake." Voila! It's his new favorite snack. The same thing happened with his new shoes from Grandma. He prefers familiar things, and he wanted nothing to do with these new shoes until I called them Thomas shoes (because they're blue).

More Pictures for Daddy

So I still don't have much to blog about today, but we're trying to keep Dad updated while he is out of town.

I can tell BreeAnna misses her Dad because she has taking to wrestling with Ord the Dragon. As you can see, she won this particular match.

Today, being Sunday, I tried to do BreeAnna's hair. This is the third time I put the headband on. As long as she could suck on the mousse bottle she was ok with it. By the time I was ready to walk out the door for church she had hidden it very well, so apparently she is a fan of the messy hair look.

Aaron had a great day at church. Another boy in the ward said he had too many Thomas trains so he gave Aaron 2 wooden trains, 2 freight cars, and enough tracks to make a circle he can sit inside of. It was like Christmas had come! I had to threaten to take the trains away to get him to eat lunch, and it was still a traumatic experience to leave them for 10 minutes, even for food.

Trains are our bargaining chips with Aaron. If we want him to do something and he won't, we threaten to take away his trains, or promise he can sleep with his trains. So threatening and bribery are my parenting tips for the day.

Craft Time

A wonderfully kind friend of mine decided I was in need of a project (and she was right). I have a framed copy of "The Living Christ," the testimony of the 12 apostles and I made a collage of pictures of Christ around the mat. It looks great, but it makes my matching framed copy of "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," look pretty dull. So she bought me the "I Am a Child of God" set of Greg Olsen pictures and we collaged them onto the mat together. Looks pretty good. Thank you, Jen. I love my picture!

First Word!

Yes, that's right. Owl. And it's not like she only said it once. As a matter of fact, she also called the cat, the frog, and the goose an owl. So she may not have the right idea, but she definitely can say the word. For those who are interested, the book is "Whoo? Whoo?" by David A. Carter and is one of our favorites.