Vaca-muh-cation!

Ok, more like a weekend getaway. But it was totally worth it! McKay and I one night, after a call from my Grandma Esplin, decided to do something crazy. Take our two children, stuff them in our 14 year old car and drive 4-hours up to Burley, Idaho; *furiously clicking* Population... 9,105. And by the time all of our relatives arrived. 9,122... or more. I could be off by a bit. And then we thought it would be a good idea to stuff all 17 relatives... don't forget- possibly more, into a somewhat small house. It would be considered only accomodating because we forced it to be. Luckily, McKay and I arrived the night before everyone else and because we have two little children, we actually got a room. If you're curious like me and you don't know the whole story, you may be wondering why in the heck a call from my Grandma would make three families and a few college strays drive up to Burley. Don't get too excited the answer isn't going to shock you- it was my grandpa's 71st birthday and we all just happened to live close enough to come up or down or sideways to be there!

 If you didn't get it by my emphasis before on how small Burley is, let me remind you again. Burley is really small and there really isn't much to do there. So all of the kids went to a local park to play. Holy crud it was freezing! By the way, Of the 17 people 12 were kids.

This photo here is of Ayden getting very excited about the doggy in the background.

Anyway, my boys got all bundled up and we drove to the park with Aunt Lissa, Melissa for those of you that have trouble translating, and her friend-boyfriend-something friend and played around until fingers started to turn blue.

 Ethan was the first to suffer the purple fingers. You can see them turning red here. And don't worry- that pant leg got pulled down right after this shot!! Brrrr! Poor guy! Although, of everyone there, my kids were bundled up the most. I even forgot to bring my own sweater. What was I thinking?! Lets just stop there and assume that I really wasn't. Because if I actually was thinking that would imply that my thoughts are not all that intelligent.

 After about 20 minutes of playing on the actual play structure, this is where most everyone ended up- the Merry-Go-Round *said in a deep despising voice* Its not exactly a thing that Ethan and Ayden can play on with the big kids. You remember being a kid right?? You try to go as fast as you can on those things and see if anyone flies off or pukes. So, IF my two year old were to participate, he would be the first to fly off and then probably the first to hurle. I'm not even going to address the issue with little Ethan!

Ayden waiting patiently for his turn and all the big kids were nice about letting it go slow when he got on. Two of them even stuck their feet out like a wall where he was sitting so if he slid toward the outside he'd bump into their legs. I was convinced of the soundness of the leg-wall. NoThInG was getting through the leg-wall! *nervous laughter*

After Ayden's turn was finished he chilled with Lissa some more. He definitely likes her. She's kinda of a sucker for his standing in front of her and begging 'det up. Det up. Please.'

We also managed to get a photo with all of us there. See that shirt I'm wearing. SHORT SLEEVE!! And see how bright it is outside! If you really can't tell if its 2pm or 7pm. Let me give you a hint. The sun is gone and I'm pretty sure it was close to my kids' bedtime. Ethan has already gone into a survival mode in this photo. He knows that if he smiles he might lose some heat out of his mouth. *wonders if anyone bought that, shrug- oh well* He was clearly ready to go home.

But what's the purpose of going outside if its not to play in a leaf pile you found! He certainly enjoyed this for about as long as this video ran. It didn't help much that Ayden was doing what Ayden does best. After he was very clear to me that he had had enough of this thing called 'play', we went and hid in the car.

Oh sweet sweet nectar of the heater!

While we were in Burley, we did more than just played at the park. We gorged ourselves on a delicious ham, ptotato and veggie dinner in honor of the birthday Grandpa! We played games likes Stop Thief, Mancala, Apples to Apples, Pictionary and Ticket to Ride. My Grandma had a system set up. It can't be just play games and choose what you want. It had to be every 25 minutes you switch to a new game with new people. And if you tried to add a game to her set up you couldn't. BUT it was still fun, even with a slighty controlling/OCD Grandma.

We ended up driving home Sunday afternoon and have realized that our car just can't really hack 4-hour drives. Dang thing. Luckily we're buying a new car soon! Woo hoo! 

Costume time!

What is awesome about Halloween? I have to say everything!! I love Halloween. It is so much fun to dress up and go out all night partying. Eating crap candy, skeleton shaped veggies, spider cupcakes, caramel apples, apple cider or wassail. There's cute little trick-or-treaters all over the place. And of course my own cute little trick-or-treaters! ...........and maybe the other kids running around aren't exactly. . . little. They're actually mostly too old for trick-or-treating and they take more than one piece of candy. When I said you could have one I meant you could ONLY have one. Not one of each type! And the. . .er. . . partying all night thing... I guess we party all night if it counts as McKay, our friend Chris, the boys and I shuffling around the house trying to find something to do. But really- I LOVE Halloween!

We had a company party. Each department at work gets to decorate their area and then prizes are handed out to the best decorated, or most scary, or coolest theme. My department is somewhat lacking in their artistic abilities.  The photo above? With the streamers and my little lion? Yeah- that's about as decorative as my department got. Pah-fe-tic! *pathetic* I've decided that next year Amber and I will be in charge. She works there too and we are sick of the embarrassing set up we always have. There were some departments that were pretty cool. One place actually brought in a couple of fountains, made a pond, had a bridge and bushes and "animals" with the theme 'Haunted Swamp'. It was pretty impressive. One area was themed 'The Night Before Christmas' others just had massive black plastic draping from the ceiling with either blood, creepy dolls, or other strange patterns highlighted with black lights. Ayden wasn't too thrilled about going through one that had a fog machine in it. At least the places that were supposed to be scary did a good job of not scaring my toddler. Ethan could care less. He was just curious.

By the time we were finished trick or treating around the building Ethan was about clocked out. He had lost the bottom half of his costume since he was so nice and toasty and Ayden had filled two little felt buckets full of candy as well as our pockets. It was a good day.

Once Halloween actually rolled around Ayden and Ethan had both collected runny noses from other children at the company party. Eh, it was bound to happen. We made bank on Halloween as well. I mean- look at that face. Who can say no to such a cute face?

You could? Ok fine... how about these faces!?

Ok ok, I know that at least GG-Pa can't say no to their cuteness. And neither can the two wards we trunk-or-treated to. If for some reason you don't know what that is. Imagine going to a church parking lot and everyone's car trunk is facing out. Some are decorated and some are not and then each car has a bowl of candy you collect out of. And a picture is linked if you're really curious.

They're really fun and a safe alternative for someone like me that has a 2 1/2 year old and a 9 month old.

The churches here in Utah are close enough to walk to. So, naturally we walked and as soon as McKay mentioned that Ayden was walking too slow and that on the way home he would carry him on his shoulders, Ayden stepped in front of him and stuck his arms in the air. "Det up? der ur igup solders? Det up solders?" And yes- we understood about half of what he said too.

Trick or treating is pretty tiring though.

GG-Pa was making sure Ethan got his fair share of candies.

And after a looong day of trunk or treating at GG-Pa's ward and then our own ward we went home and chilled. We also learned that our little lion is not a meat lovin lion but instead a bread hunting and loving lion.

This year we only got two trick-or-treaters. It was pretty nice actually.

Halloween

Playing with cobwebs

Appeasing Mommy and her crazy camera.

Hiding in the crib fort before go time!

(Go time= pumpkin carving time.)

We're EXCITED!

Getting back from the library and showing off our hat.

Mommy and Me

We opened up the first pumpkin and were very curious.

Until Mommy told me I had to pull all the guts out.

Run away! "Mommy its messy! Wash hands! Ewww"

This is what you get when you're a germaphobic mother and you make your toddler wash their hands a ton. They become an even worse germaphob.

So Ayden played with the safe looking pumpkin AFTER McKay and I had carved it for him.

 

See Mom, this is the fun part!

 

All done. Ayden's is the scared face pumpkin and mine back there is a vampire about to suck some blood. McKay's is in the background doing nothing, because it is nothing... so far at least!

Had to add a silly face. Cept I'm the only one with the silly face. Either I missed the memo or they did!

Taking pictures of myself because McKay won't do it and he won't join in. :)

Happy Halloween everyone!

Hee Haw fun!

This last weekend the boys and I had the chance to go to the Hee Haw pumpkin patch and we had a blast! It was only $5 for all 3 of us to go. That was the best part for me. I was expecting it to cost more!

Before we made it out the door to the pumpkin patch we enjoyed 'PUMPKIN FINGERS!' It was a big hit. He ran all over the house like this for about 3 hours or so and then we headed out. McKay was really sick and didn't get to go, so I took lots of pictures and recorded some stuff for him. :(
The first thing us boys did was head over to the hay ride. I didn't get a photo- there wasn't much to see. But we did get candy! or Ayden got candy. The rules were once you see a creature pop out of the corn you had to yell "Hee Haw!" over and over again like your life depended on it and then said creature would huck candy at us. And boy did those kids fulfill their duty with fervor! Ayden wasn't exactly sure what was going on; he'd listen to the kids yelling "Hee Haw!" and then once all of them had stopped yelling, he'd yell "Hee Haw!" A lot of the bigger kids would snatch the candy before Ayden got to any. Luckily there was a man in front of us 'sneakily' shoving candy right at Ayden's feet. Even then he still didn't get that he was supposed to grab it. Good thing Mommy was there to snatch if for him before the other vultures, with candy filled fists, swooped down.  

As many of you may know... or possibly not. Ayden LOVES to swing. This ride was a hit. I think if I let him, we would still be there swinging in circles. The farm had this girl managing the swing, she had to stand there and push it in circles. She could have had a lot of fun with it, but she just looked embarrassed. I think I would have been embarrassed to if I were her age. Here's the video I took. Its probably something more for grandparents to enjoy, the quality isn't that great, so view if you dare! Even though you can't see Ethan, he was right at my feet eating the dirt and sucking on the rocks.

The man that was in charge of tractoring this ride around was a little jumpy at the start and finish. Ayden was expecting a smooth take of and even though he is sitting down, he nearly fell out when the guy jerked to a start. You could hear all the kids yell something like "Whoa!", "Ahhh!" or Ayden's "Oh NO!" 

This is about when it started to rain. Really rain. As in hailing and windy enough to make the rain/hail slant into your face. Ayden wasn't phased. I was freezing! And Ethan had my jacket wrapped around him like a cocoon while he sucked on a bottle. I have to admit I was jealous of him! While Ethan chilled in the stroller, mostly warm, Ayden and I got to participate in the pig chase.


I was thinking it was going to be something like us watching other people chase the pigs around making fools of themselves. Nope. It was US chasing the pigs around making fools of ourselves! They had the age 3 and under shuffled into the pen with the parents and then told us that whoever touched one of the pigs first got a free pumpkin. "Ready. Set. GO! Set your 3 year old on the pigs!" Most of the kids chased the piglets. Ayden just stood there clinging to my leg, terrified of all the cheering and screaming that was going. So like any good Mother I scooped him up and ran at the pigs. Needless to say, we did not win a free pumpkin, but I bet we made some people laugh!

Ayden found the ducks! As well as the goats, chickens, sheep, and piggies. He mostly loved the ducks... or at least the dirt the ducks made. He tried to rub his hands in that mess. You can't see it all that well, but the mud is so wet that it squishes under your feet and water oozed up around your shoe.

Ayden's second love while we were here. The bouncy hay thingy. I don't really know what it is. Maybe this was his first love. We spent the most time here. He was scared to get in at first and just ran around the outside edge, until he got close enough to me and I pushed him in. Yes, yes he was fine! Look at him- he appreciated my assistance in the end.

Here's another video. Just as awful quality and randomness as the first. :)

Check out the massive pumpkins behind him though! They lifted those things up on a crane later that day and dropped them down onto a car. Too bad we missed that.

This is about the time that we were done and done playing! It was still cold and still raining and Ethan was turning purple even though he was the one that was wrapped up the most. We did manage to get one more ride in before we headed out soaked and exhausted.

He was a little scared of this swing at first. But he enjoyed it in the end.  By the time we finished here we were D.O.N.E. Both boys crashed on the drive home. Oh the sweetness of wearing kids out.

Tricked ya- you thought I was done writing. NOPE! Here's my P.S.

Since it was just me and the boys here I didn't get to take as many photos as I would have liked to. They had a PVC slide that looked something like this one here.

  Ayden was really scared of it and didn't want to go alone. So. . . I went with him. That thing was no good to my rear. It didn't go that fast, which was good for Ayden. Ethan just sat at the bottom of the slide watching us build up our courage to go down. Another little girl went before us and then we were good to go.

The End to a rainy but fun day.

Now good night!

Catching Up!

I've been collecting pictures in my camera and realized that I have been neglecting the photos and need to put them up so grandparents and friends can enjoy them! Of our two children, Ethan is the cuddliest. This isn't really saying much since he's only barely cuddlier than Ayden and Ayden doesn't really ever sit still enough to cuddle. A few days ago I caught McKay and Ethan enjoying a nice little cuddly moment. Yes they aren't even touching, but the fact that Ethan was thrilled to sit up there with his Dad for about a half hour... because of the banana... BUT that's besides the point! He stayed up there with McKay and crawled all over him stopped to rest his head on his Daddy and munch on the banana, that McKay says gave him a hand cramp. Cursed bananas!

We went to Costco a few days ago to collect the much needed laundry detergent, paper towels and diapers and in our case, the much hated previously listed items! Who the heck thinks as a child or even teenager- 'Heck I'm going to grow up, get a job, and have all this money so I can pay for the bills, the light bulbs, diapers and similar crap!' I don't think so. More like 'With all the money I'm going to get I'm going to buy a car, sweet clothes and some shoes!'.... etc. Back on track! If you look closely at Ayden's head you'll see a fatty bruise on the left side.

There's a better view. We had both boys in the Costco cart and stopped to look at some clothes. Ayden was standing with a container full of cheerios when we decided to keep going. He doesn't quite have balancing himself down and when we started to move the cart, his hands were still glued to his cheerios, so he mushed his head into the grating on the floor of the cart. Mush is not an over exaggeration. I don't know how he ended up head first, but he did and the cheerios ended up sprayed all over the floor. A manager came by to make sure everything was alright and we made a hasty exit after he offered to clean the mess. Why must people gravitate toward calamity like a fly to poo?!

Ayden's new favorite thing to do- trap Ethan in said laundry basket and then sit on it. Wait for him to start crying and then run for it when Mom or Dad comes to see why the baby is furious.

A couple of days ago, McKay was feeling pretty good and decided to play with the boys. The look of pain on Ayden's face here is actually a look of sheer joy and excitement! All three boys were running around wrestling, tackling each other and tickling. McKay was doing most of the tickling and both kids were eating it up!

Ethan half the time didn't know what the heck was going on. He was pretty cute to watch though. He would crawl over to the fray and then roll over like a puppy dog so that McKay could blow strawberries on his belly. He couldn't get enough of it! Ethan just started this thing when he gets excited, where he'll crawl really fast and look at the floor and shake his head back and forth. So that's what McKay got to see coming at him.

Ayden wanted to help blow strawberries, but instead just squished Ethan, who didn't seem to mind until Ayden tried to scrape his bottom half over Ethan's head.

We've just discovered that someone really LOVES Rice Crisp... that doesn't sound right, but I can't think of what it's actually called or if that IS really right. Ayden asked me for three bowls yesterday and it cracked me up to see his Rice Crispy goatee!

I just finished the beanie Ayden's wearing yesterday. Its the first one I've made in a looong time and decided to let Ayden try it on even though it's sized for my head. He. Loved. It. I'll have to make one that fits his head before it gets too cold. He took it with us on a walk today and was very cute with his too big beanie. Man some of the ladies I meet at the playground. I tell you, that place draws the crazies in like a beehive does a bear! And no I am not one of the crazies! There were four women that came with their kids. By the conversions I heard they were either sisters or in-laws. The first thing that made me raise my eyebrow were the pants hiked up right under their breasties, then the mismatched shirts with scarves and funky jackets AND one woman was sporting aviator glasses. And no they were NOT the style you'd ever want to buy, they were tinted this puke yellow/orange. blech! Then to further embarrass the kids they were with they followed most of them around telling them they could or couldn't do this. Which- I get. I do the same thing to Ayden sometimes. The difference is I don't hover and I don't get scared when my toddler goes down the slide or walks past the slide or tries to go down backwards on the slide. One of the older kids got stuck on the bars you climb across and I swear as soon as they heard him fuss all of them swarmed him from all directions. Maybe not swarmed- waddled quickly with purpose to his rescue, even though just ONE person could have helped him... or better yet, he was like 7 or 8. He could have helped himself!  

Sick day.

We had a few sick days this week... correction. This entire week for us has been sick days! Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. It would have been one thing for just the kids to be sick, but it ended up being ALL of us sick. Lucky for the rest of us, I only took pictures of Ayden being sick. He's a good representation of what we all feel and look like. The only thing is, when Mommy gets sick, she's the only one who still has to be the parent. When everyone else gets sick, they all clock out. Just peachy huh. I need to formally apologize now to my Mom for being so selfish! I just assumed that when she was sick she got just as much pampering as the rest of us, but then again I don't ever remember her getting sick. I just remember her taking naps sometimes. Being a Mother now, I feel awful that I was not more perceptive to her needs... and I've of course resigned myself now to most likely getting the same treatment. That way when I get treated like I'm not sick when I really am, I won't be as annoyed... hopefully.

Now onto more pleasant things! This week I spoke to a friend about pampering yourself and I've decided to take to heart what she's said and allow myself to feel justified in buying that new pair of shoes I've ogled over for the past couple of weeks! I have these little inner conversations with myself, more like arguments actually, but I'm usually conflicted over things that have to do with pampering me. Taking care of me. And making sure I feel special. So...I've come to this conclusion. What is so wrong with that? What is so wrong with being pampered? What is so wrong with buying a chocolate bar you didn't budget out for or a pair of shoes or a shirt? Keeping ME sane, requires some pampering. Now I just need to make sure I can convince myself of that long enough to treat myself to something, because I deserve it.

I'm writing a self help book. :) Can't you tell? It'll be all about my craziness and how to keep your head screwed on straight in a world bent on knocking your head clean off! Or in my case, my own children, husband and myself trying to knock my own head off. It'll be a best seller. I'm pretty sure.

Brother lovin

Ayden hasn't really gotten the idea that he can be nice to his little brother yet. So when he is good to him, McKay and I LOVE it! And we usually have to get proof that he was nice to him sometimes. In this case, I caught Ayden helping Ethan eat his dinner. It was really cute.

I can't add videos directly to my blog. Darn 3 columns! So, I posted a link to the video above. I'm not sure if you'll be able to hear Ayden or not, but when he's feeding Ethan you can hear him say, "Here you go Brother. Open up." along with a couple other things I couldn't quite decipher. Something like "Nuther bite."