New Guinea anyone?

So, this year Santa brought my boys two Guinea Pigs! That's right--despite Brian's "No rodents" rule, we are now the proud parents of a boy and a girl guinea pig (don't worry, the boy is fixed). Here are some pictures from Christmas morning. The boys were excited, and we were surprised at how big Guinea Pigs really are! They're like little rabbits, and they're great with the boys as you will soon see:

Brady with his Guinea Pig named "Hamster"

(he named him himself)

Kalen with "Leafy" who evidently loves to eat
leaves (Kalen named her)

Here's Kalen posing with Leafy the next day--like I mentioned,

they let the boys handle them in all kinds of ways.

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Here's another one with Hamster and Brady--I like this one

because it really shows Brady's excitement.

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And to not forget about Trace, tonight he was feeding

Hamster and when I turned my back...

.

He stole the carrot!

We hope you all had a fun-filled and loving holiday.

We're grateful for each of you in so many ways.

It's not candy mom!

I feel so bad, I haven't updated my blog in a MONTH!! But here it is, and I hope to get back into the swing of things. What can I say, I'm a busy busy lady right now.

So, this past week we had a FUN family activity with Grandma and Grandpa Graham and Uncle Chris. We each were able to make our own Gingerbread House and show off our individual creativity. If you want, you can vote for your favorite in the comment section! (ps--I didn't make one--I helped my boys of course)!

Here's Kalen's lil' house--sooo cute. You'll notice others with snowmen on the sides, but Kalen was the original to place a snowman outside his gingerbread house. He also did all the "gluing" of decoration all by himself!

Brady was so proud when he was done. You'll notice that behind the snowman on the right there are three little gingerbread boys. Brady was adamant that one of the lil' boys have red hair, thus the licorice stick on top of the head of the boy farthest to the right

:-)

Here's daddy's beautiful masterpiece. I love how Brian always takes such pride and joy in his edible creations, this Gingerbread House being no different. Brian was also the one to create the icing everyone used, which was perfect for decorating. It dried fast!

Uncle Chris had high hopes to make a giant house, but we ran out of crackers before he got to his roof. He had fun decorating none-the-less.

Grandma stole ALL the mini-marshmallows!! You'll notice no one else has any on their houses...

And last, but not least, Grandpa took great care cutting all of crackers into pieces to create a log cabin Gingerbread house. It was pretty creative, I think, although all that cutting made him pretty stingy with his knife. By the end, we knew not to ask him to borrow it :-)

AND A FUNNY FUNNY STORY:
So, throughout all of this, the boys were eating lots and lots of candy. About half-way through, I made a firm rule that they were not allowed to eat any more candy---they had had enough, we all had. After Brady got done with his house, and while I was helping Kalen, I noticed Brady trying to get my attention. "It's not candy mom...MOM, look, it's not candy." Without thinking about the earlier rule, I said, "You're right buddy, it's not candy, it's a marshmallow." At that announcement, Brady grinned and promptly shoved a whole large marshmallow into his little 2 yr old mouth! (I grabbed the camera)

Halloween stuff, lots of it!

So, in this blog my pics are all mixed up, but there are too many to try to arrange on this in a timely manner. Here is a fun craft/yummy treat Kalen, Brady and I made a few days before Halloween--Ghostly cupcakes.

We went trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood on Halloween night--and our cousins came with us--here's a group shot! My boys are the ones in front of me.

Our Halloween sort of lasted for a week!! My boys collected candy three times!! (don't worry, we mailed half of it to Uncle Thomas, in the MTC preparing for a Lithuanian mission).

The night before Halloween we went to our cousins Trunk-or-treat in Loveland, CO. The boys were the same costumes as above:

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Kalen was "Snake Eyes," the black ninja from GIJOE

Brady was spiderman, and soooo excited about it

And Trace was superman--it was much easier to carry than the rubix cube (see below)

And here are our ward Trunk-or-treat costumes--we did this the week before Halloween--and Trace won the costume contest (I made it myself).

Kalen stayed the black ninja, so no new pic for him.

It's been so fun, and now we get to start preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas--so exciting!

Sometimes we should listen to the jibber-jabber of a 2 yr old

So this past Sunday, Brian and I had to meet early before church to get our temple recommends renewed. That meant Grandpa was left to get the boys ready for church. (Grandma would have helped, but she was sick that morning).

Before we left, I laid all the boys clothes out in nice neat piles--everything from shirts and ties, to the socks and shoes. As I was walking out the door I told dad the diaper bag was ready to go and to make sure and spike Kalen and Brady's hair with the hair gel I was putting next to the diaper bag (I am currently spiking their hair all the time to hide the fact that they need hair cuts. I'll get around to cutting it eventually, right?)

So a few minutes before church starts, in walk my handsome boys. And grandpa did a pretty good job...but Brady's hair was a mess. It kind of looked like a "cool" mess, if you know what I mean, so I sort of liked it.

Grandpa noticed me looking at Brady's hair and said, "So, about Brady's hair..." Then he proceeded to tell that when he was getting Brady ready and putting the gel in his hair, he told Brady he didn't know much about using gel for hair (my dad is bald). Well, Brady just kept jibber-jabbering away, but dad wasn't really listening to him until Kalen came upstairs and said, 'Grandpa, that's diaper rash cream!' My dad had grabbed the cream OUT of the diaper bag instead of the gel NEXT to the diaper bag.

When I questioned Brady later, he said, "Grandpa no listen me," with a little pout. It's true--Brady was trying to tell him all along. Here is a quick pic I snapped before church started:

Home Sweet Home...we love it here already

We made it!!

And today we're enjoying the snow storm :-)
I had so many fun pictures, I decided to try putting a collage on my blog--you can see the pictures better if you click on the collage below though. These were from this morning. Even Kaya loves the snow!

Moving on out

For those who don't know yet, we are moving to Aurora, CO--right outside of Denver. Our lease begins on Tuesday the 20th, and we are officially loading the moving truck and headed out of FL on the evening of the 13th. Brian is driving the moving truck, I will be driving our van with my Kalen and Brady, and baby Trace is flying on an airplane out to CO with his Aunt Ashley (thank goodness for smart aunts--it was her idea)!

We'll miss FL a lot, and we've had tons of fun here, but more than ever before, we know this is what Heavenly Father wants us to do. We don't know what is in store out there in CO, but we do know it's where we need to be right now. Thanks to everyone for loving and supporting us, and I'll be back online in a 10 days or so :-)

In the meantime, I wanted to include some recent pics I took of Brian and the boys .

Things you don't really want to hear...

Yep, things you don't want to hear...yet I heard all three of them tonight:

"Moooommm, I pulled Trace off the bed and now his head is bleeding!"

"Moooommm, I dropped my chocolate ice cream on the carpet...oh never mind, Kaya is licking it up." (Kaya is the dog).

"Moooommm, Brady peed in the closet!" "What?!" was my reaction, to which Kalen replied, "But it didn't get on the carpet...I think he peed on the shoes."

Now I finally understand why you hear about the moms who lock themselves in the bathroom for a little peace. The good news was that Trace was fine, it was only a scratch-- I got the chocolate out of the carpet, before Kaya smooshed it all in-- and Brady didn't pee on the shoes...it was on the carpet, and that is MUCH easier to clean.

On another note, we had a fun family date to Epcot last week, and I wanted to post some pictures. It was nice to just spend time together, the five of us. :-)

We were so mean!! An M&M story

So, about a year ago we started trying to teach Brady his colors. He wasn't interested in learning them at all--some of you may remember an earlier post about Kalen saying he didn't know his colors just to get some m&m's. We used m&m's to teach Brady his colors, and we gave them to him if he got the color right. However, if he got it wrong, we ate them, right in front of him! We thought that would motivate him to try harder since he never really wanted to learn and since he LOVES candy.

I guess it was about two months or so ago when I realized he NEVER got red and green right. He was actually doing pretty well with the other colors. My friend Megan suggested we try teaching him other things to see if he picks up on them, aside from colors, so we taught him his shapes. I was super surprised with how fast he learned his shapes, especially because the color thing had been on-going for a year and he still couldn't learn them.

I was reading in a parenting magazine in the doctor's office one day and read that up to 10% of males (closer to 8%) are red/green colorblind and sometimes parents don't realize it until their boys are well into school and accused of being "careless" too many times. It hit me-- that could be the case with Brady, but when I went home and took his lego blocks and mixed the red ones and green ones, he was able to seperate them, so I ruled that out.

Until two nights ago. We realized that he is super enthusiastic to tell us his colors, but when it comes to red and green he is almost embarrassed to say it, and 9 times out of 10 he'll say red things are green, but he says it really quietly, expecting us to correct him. So we found these tests:

And, the results were, Brady couldn't see the red shapes at all. I know they are a litte hard to see, even for me, but Kalen could see them just fine. Maybe he just didn't know what to look for, but for now, I think he really is red/green colorblind. We can't really test for it officially until he's closer to four, but I think it's something to be aware of. And it turns out, I'm probably a carrier of the recessive colorblind trait--both of my uncles on my dad's side are colorblind.

So, the question is--weren't we so mean? ..."Brady, what color m&m is this?" and when he said the red one was green we would say, "No! It's red." and eat it in front of him...poor boy!

First day of school pics, finally

So, I know this is late, but I just wouldn't be a good mom if I didn't post about Kalen's first day of school (we finally put the pictures on the computer). He did soooo well!! I was so impressed with how excited he was, and more than anything I was super surprised--NO TEARS AT ALL!!

This is one in front of school--first day!

And here he is, starting the day--the girl behind him doesn't seem as happy...

Brady wasn't as happy--the entire three hours he kept talking about "Bubba" (that's what he calls Kalen, and we think it came from him trying to say "Brother"). The saddest thing was on the way home he looked at Kalen's booster and said (slowly because he's just starting to form words), "Bubba's seat...I miss bubbaaaaa." It was adorable.

Truly Southern

So, as often happens in my household, we were watching the food network. This time some show was talking about the "Southern Tradition" of eating Fried Chicken with Waffles. I told Brian I grew up in the south and never heard of that, but he assured me it was a very southern thing to do.

Thus, to help me enrich my true 'southern' intellect, we had fried chicken and waffles for dinner. Crazy, huh? Has anyone ever had it before, because if you have NOT, then I highly recommend it--really! We fried the chicken tenders and put them right on top of the waffles, then poured syrup over it all and it was really good! Needless to say, I was impressed--but I always am with Brian's cooking. :-)

Try it out and let me know what you think.

P.S--I did the "plating" and photography all by myself--Brian says I'm getting pretty good at plating. I should have ripped that extra corner of that waffle off though...

Three of a kind (not my boys this time)

I was recently able to see and spend time with some of the most important people to me (of which I don't get to see much of). And here's a little tribute to us...it means so much to me that we're still so close.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born- Anais Nin

The most beautiful discovery that true friends can make is that they can grow separately without growing apart -Elizabeth Foley

I don't remember how we happened to meet each other. I don't remember who got along with whom first. All I can remember is all of us together...always- Anonymous

End of 2001

(all of the following pictures were taken very recently)

I married my Brian in 2003

Megan married her Ollie in 2004
And Laura married her Scott in 2007

And then came the kids:

My Kalen

Megan's Evan (sorry it's a smaller pic, but I borrowed it from meg's site)

My Brady

Megan's Ryan

My Trace

Laura's Will

And Laura's Lizzy

And here we are--together again two weeks ago.

disclaimer: no make-up was used in the making of this photo

I love these girls.

Hide and Seek

Lately, Hide-and-Seek has been the game of choice for my oldest two. And sometimes, it really does take me a while to find them. Last week I was playing with them and was very impressed with their choices to hide, Brady's in particular, so I took some pictures.

Could you have guessed Kalen was in there?

Here he is!!

And Brady picked this spot all by himself :-) Isn't he cute!