For Tina T.

From the mouth of Will....

Today driving in the car in the early morning,

Will: "Mom, the sun is hiding behind the mountains!"
Me: "You are right, how'd you get so smart?"
Will: "I am smart about suns mom."
Me: "Yes you are."
Will: "Because I ate my carrots once."

The other day, I was talking on the phone and said how Will was so cute, then I asked him if I should keep him forever, he said, "Yeah mom, don't ever sell me."

Another driving moment, I asked Will what he wanted to be...(he references the fact that I want to be a midwife, or a "doctor" that helps babies come out.)

Will: "I want to be a doctor first, like you mom."
Me: "Like me? Oh, what else?"
Will: "Then a race car driver, then a volcano scientist, then spiderman, then batman."

I am learning...

How to post videos!!!

Just when you thought life was uninteresting....

The economy and some lovely unethical employers decided to half lay off a single mom right before Christmas. So....to keep things interesting we are moving...AGAIN!!! We love moving and we can't get enough. We love boxes and U-hauls and packaging tape. We love vacuuming under couches and cushions and lifting and unpacking and repacking. Reallyi t's the only way I will actually get rid of crap and take loads to D.I., so I thought I had to do it again so soon. Okay the only truth in any of that is that we are moving and someone is a bit sarcastic, oh and the employer is a bit unethical, but not at all lovely.

Thanksgiving...

I LOVE Thanksgiving. I have decided it is my favorite holiday. Why? Turkey, cranberries, the smell of fresh, hot buttery rolls. Family, gratitude, glass is half full time. No one asks you to say all the things you wish you had. Time to snuggle up, eat pie, take a nap. Time to smell fall leaves, or watch snow fall, you never know, this is Utah. Not too much decorating, or cooking...(okay in 10 years I may have to eat those words, trust me I am grateful for whoever cooks each year, and this year it's me and the yams). No financial commitment. No extra debt. Apple pie with crumbs on top. Sweaters. The emphasis on getting together as a family, not too early or too late. Cheese balls. Olives and carrots. Cranberry orange sprite punch. Okay maybe I just love to eat all year and this is the only holiday that celebrates that. But really it is much more than that.

Yeah well....

I am obviously a total slow poke. I have been busy of course...but really that's no excuse. Actually it's a wonderfully good thing that I put those pics on here of our Yellowstone trip because my computer hard drive crashed soon after that and we lost everything. So, those ones are all I have. Disappointing, but not as much as that I also lost nearly all my photos from my trip to Hawaii. I have learned to get a seperate hard drive and back up everything, especially photos. I would cry if I lost all my kids' baby pictures. So, it's time to invest in a new hard drive.

Well, to catch up, WAY up, we moved at the beginning of September. So here is a picture of our house, complete with the construction paper decorations we made for Halloween in our window.



And then we went to Yellowstone, then after that I went to Hawaii. I need to go back on facebook to get the remaining photos, then I can post them here.

Right after I got back from Hawaii, we got a cat. Eventually we named him George, after Curious George. Our kitty is full grown and very silly and curious. Fully grown only in size, mostly he is still a kitten. A frisky stupid kitten. We love him. It took him weeks to come out from my box spring when the kids were home and awake. Once in a while he will get brave and let the kids check him out. Here is Rowen showing the cat his toy car. Rowen calls the cat "Dawah". You ask Rowen to say "cat" or "kitty" and he says "DAWAH"...who knows why, but the cat is named George and Dawah.

Here are a few pics of the cat.





Other interesting things that have happened lately are that William almost knocked out a couple more teeth. But the dentist said they can stay in. Woo hoo, Will can still eat corn on the cob and apples. At least for now.

I have begun the process of applying for school teaching jobs again. Just waiting for the right opportunity to open up, in November that can be hard. But at least by next fall, I should be all set, weekends and holidays off, summers too. That will be SO nice to have a routine with my boys.

I would like to say I will keep you posted on all that stuff, but who knows, it might take me two more months. :)

Our little trip...

So...the boys and I went to the Tetons and Yellowstone a couple weekends ago. I had four days off from work and the boys aren't in full time daycare yet (starts on monday), so we took advantage. Here is our trip in photos and captions...


It rained on and off the whole time, but here is the rainbow we saw the first evening on our way back to our little cabin from the grocery store.



Boys watching movies and posing for mom in their matching glow in the dark dinosaur jammas.


The weather did make for some interesting low clouds.


William being silly by a lake in the Tetons while we were hiking, String Lake, I think. We didn't see any bears, thank goodness. We had treats in our backpack...hmmm....didn't know that was a no-no, and no bear spray. We got lucky.


Pretty lichen on the rocks just below Leigh Lake. Nice name for a lake, eh?


Just in time, we met a little family with two girls, who snapped this photo for us.


The boys enjoyed their snack, thankfully no bears to share with.


Pretty red plants and the Tetons in the background. There were too many clouds we never saw the summit of Grand Teton the whole time. Oh well. It was beautiful anyway.



The boys at Granite Hot Springs, just south of Jackson.


Eating lunch waiting for Old Faithful to erupt, we just missed it and had to wait about an hour and a half. It was VERY cold at this point and we were freezing.


Me and boys waiting some more.


William smiling, while waiting.


Rowen playing with the buckle on his backpack. I swear get this kid some buckles and he'll be happy forever.


Will and his new friend. Will is a really outgoing kid, he draws people to him wherever we go. Within minutes he had a few friends at the Teton visitors center who kept showing me things, saying "Has William seen this yet?" This kid is electric.


And at long last, she blows.


William and his "scary hands"...Dad...where did this come from?



Thankfully the boys took a nap at the same time as each other every day. In the car though, so no naps for mommy, just a few quiet scenic drives, which are pretty fun too.



The boys and I at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and the lower falls of the Yellowstone River, gorgeous and dangerously steep. We mostly drove around in Yellowstone as opposed to walking around. William is too fast and too clumsy and doesn't listen well enough, I should have brought one of those leashes for kids that you see people using and you always think they are so controlling, well, yeah, those, I need one of those.


The falls again.


Don't approach the elk. Don't slow down to look at the elk or by any means take a photo of the elk, or the ranger might get p.o.'d at you, even if there are no cars behind you.


On the drive from Mammoth Hot Springs area it snowed on us for a minute and I thought of what a crazy young mom I am out in the middle of nowhere in the about to get dark hour in a snowstorm. But then it stopped and I got to feeling adventurous and fun again. And saw this beautiful sight.


We stayed in West Yellowstone the last night in a little hotel room. It was CCCCOLD there too. We woke up to ice all over the car. Then we tried to go out to get pancakes for breakfast and William's fingers got slammed in the door. He screamed for about two hours. We visited a little medical clinic in West Yellowstone, where some really nice nurses and docs listened to both kids screaming for a while and never did look at the bloody fingers. But they were nice and didn't charge me at all. Then we went to see this grizzly bear and a few others and a few wolves at the Grizzly Discovery Center. It was cool. We got a little set of toys of all the animals that we had seen in Yellowstone and then headed home.


William inside a bear trap.


Rowen inside a tee pee at the Grizzly place. He is such a cute kid.

And that's all she wrote. Tune in next fall for my...guaranteed never fail crazy mom needs to go on a road trip before she admits that winter is coming or she might go insane trip. Oh hell, she'll go insane anyway. But might as well go on a road trip first with the kids.