HO HO HO...Happy Halloween, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Yeah, yeah....I know it is a month late! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. As usual, we ate our body weight in junk and now that junk is in my trunk (if you know what I mean)! We had a very calm Christmas this year, everyone was very excited for the new toys and treasures they would get from Santa. Averi is especially funny because this is what/who she actually thought Santa was/is:

This cracks me up so much!!! Poor little door hanger Santa has been drug around so much that his beard is all but a few strands now. He looks more like homeless drunk Santa now! Luckily a blind kid won't judge him that way. I laugh at the fact that she thinks this little guy brings her toys. I wonder what that picture looks like in Averi's brain?! Funny! I think we set her straight when we went to a braille club party and she got to sit on the "real" Santa's lap. That was such a treat.

Thankfully Christian and Taylor still "believe" in Santa. I don't know what I will do when I can't use the "spy elves" as motivation for them to be nice to each other. I love the things we get to tell our kids and call it tradition!

This year is starting out pretty good. James just got a very busy E.Q. President church calling, so we will be pretty much even more crazy than usual. I am still an under cover member who is callingless...he he! The kids are lovin' school and so am I! I love my free mommy time, but now it is time to actually be productive, so I have to work my "trunk" off by using our new WII Fit thingy. It is way more fun than other form of exercise I guess.

Oh yeah, here is something random: Our dogs literally ate our cell phone. They are tiny wiener dogs, so you wouldn't suppose they could do so much damage but they did! James wanted me to post this. Here is exhibit A:



Oh yeah, and here are some random pictures that I love.

Blind kid at bat! Averi was a witch for Halloween, isn't she so cute?!!


Christian catching some sweet air jumping in the yard.


My new diet plan: tie food to strings and don't use hands...do you think it will work? Just kidding!!!

Our best buddies Alyson and her hubby Christian "Trunk-r-Treating" with us

Me and my girls on "Witches Night Out"

See ya, I resolutioned to blog more, so I will be back again!

Thankfulness's

As I stated on my Face Book today, I am thankful for school. I get to send my kids there all day and they get smarter while I have a lot of freedom. I have been waiting for this all of my life. I love my kids sooo much, but I love them even more when I get a little "mommy time".

Today they are home from school. The only thing that is keeping me sane so far is the fact that I bought a Dyson vacuum last night and they are very fascinated by it for some reason. It's like a visitor from another planet. They keep hovering around it and pushing buttons to see what happens. I am going to use this to my advantage and bribe them to clean and let them try out the new contraption. Oh the mom tricks I can pull out of my sleeves! I am a genius!

This year is flying by so fast. I want to freeze time. But only if is during the school year in the Fall, not summer when my kids are home fighting all day. They are at such fun ages right now. I told them both a couple of weeks ago that I am their best friend and they have to tell their best friend who they have crushes on. It didn't work! I then tried to bribe them with $5.00 if they told me, and that didn't work either. I am doing something wrong. I will have to come up with a sneakier plan! I need to know these things dang it!

"Social Studies" vs. Science

Hellllllooooo! I have to share a funny story about my little Taylor Jo. I went to parent teacher conferences this week, and my kids are usually straight A students. This is very odd to me because I think I was a straight C student. I remember getting a few A's here and there. I think I was more interested in the "social" part of school than the learning part...big surprise huh? Well, Taylor has inherited my "gift of gab" as James calls it. She is a social butterfly...but she is also smart. I love that my kids have the drive to be good in school. Maybe it's because I tell them that they will have to get a $2.00/hr. job compared to a $50.00/hr job if they don't get good grades. They are very motivated by money, is that bad?

Well, I got to Taylor's teacher and she showed me her report card and it had a D- on it!!!! I almost passed out! Her teacher told me that it wasn't a big deal, and it was only because she didn't hand in a few assignments (did I mention that Taylor also inherited my airheadedness?). Being the resourceful mother I am, I decided to use this as a teaching moment. I got home and I gave them their report cards, Christian was all A's, and Taylor went down the list of all A's until she got the D- in Science. She freaked out and said "I got a D- and it wasn't even in talking, it was in Science!". I was cracking up because she expected to get a bad grade for talking, but never for school work.

I acted really serious and told her why. She said that she would never forget to turn her homework again and she was so sad/mad. It worked!!! I don't think I can do anything about the talking, but I can do something about their grades.

Then I thought to myself, I might of got bad grades in Science, but I got good at socializing. I am satisfied with that because I have to use my socializing abilities EVERY day. It is a good skill to have because we all know how awkward it is to try to talk to somebody with no social skills.

So..GO SOCIALIZE!!!

Crusin'

It is sad to see summer come to an end! We had a crazy summer with me getting hernia surgery, James was crazy busy with HUGE projects, and just plain old life. To end our summer we decided to go on a cruise with one of my best friends Alyson and her husband Christian. Thanks to my mom and my sister for helping us out with kids and dogs we got to take a MUCH NEEDED BREAK!



HERE ARE A FEW HIGHLIGHTS:

FIRST DAY: LEAVING MIAMI



GRAND CAYMAN ISLAND:

We decided to catch a taxi to a place called Cemetery Beach (because it is by the cemetery, where we saw grave diggers/robbers? and I swore I saw them throw a skull while they were digging-thus no pictures of them) and Snorkel. It was so fun! We love snorkeling. We were along a stretch of beach called the 7 mile beach. On the way back we decided to walk about 6 miles of the 7 miles along the beach (in the rain). It was fun and tiring. We almost missed our boat we had to chase down a taxi to take us back to port. The boats hold 3400 people, they won't wait for 4! Whew... Oh yeah ...the water really does look like blue jello! IT IS SOOOO COOL!!!!!!

James, Alyson and Christian and blue jello water

Cemetery:




THE BEACH:


Our secluded spot on Cemetery Beach, it was so peaceful. We made friends with a beach dog, he was so cute!



SNORKELING: So much fun and we didn't get eaten by sharks like I envisioned ahead of time-thank goodness!


James and I



Alyson:



Tired and sunburned at the end of the day-this is how every night was!



Roatann Island Honduras:
Here we decided to all go have a dolphin "encounter" in my mind encounter meant playing and swimming, in reality it was very controlled. I guess 300 lb. fish can be dangerous or something?! They were cute and it was tons of fun! They made all of their sounds with their blowholes, Averi would have loved it because she had a blowhole from her trachea hole that she made sounds with when she was a baby! She also clicked a lot. I think she was a dolphin in a previous life or something.


Aerial view of the resort with dolphins.



Beach cabins we plan on vacationing to someday!




Mom and baby dolphin....soooo cute!


I was getting sick of posing for pictures!




Tabyana Beach in Roatann, my VERY FAVORITE! There was a Reggae band playing, perfect water with perfect snorkeling. We love it there! We want to move there!



Snorkeling in Roatann: it was so much better than the Caymans. The water was clear, and there were so many more fish. No sharks either!






So romantic!





This is how I looked the whole time...clueless!

BELIZE: It was a beautiful country, but very poor. It was a huge eye opener for me to see that people actually do live in tin huts. It was also VERY HOT!!! I have never sweat so much in my entire life. James said it was a lot like Costa Rica (where he served his mission) I don't know if I could tolerate that for too long! We visited some Myan ruins called Altun Ha and then we went by boat down the river Wallace and got to see the jungle first hand. We saw huge iguanas and some howler monkeys, some of the local wildlife. VERY FUN!

James took these sunrise pictures from the ship in Belize while he was jogging (yes...jogging). He thought it would be fun to jog on board the ship, and I thought it would be fun to sleep while he jogged on the ship! We both enjoyed our time!






We climbed to the top of the Temple of the Sun God.









Good deal on perscription drugs without a prescription! We were dummies and didn't buy any though! I am kickin' myself now!


Mango tree! With ripe mangos.



River Wallace at the end we saw Manatee and dolphin swimming in the ocean-very cool!

River trip. We saw HUGE igunas, this one was as big as James! I'm glad we were in the boat!


Banana tree-brought back lots of mission memories for James from Costa Rica.


This is a common house style that everyone lived in. Usually they were up on stilts though to keep the critters out and let breeze in. IT WAS SO HOT!


COZUMEL MEXICO:
The last day to go on shore and I think we progressively got dumber each day as you can tell by our pictures! What happens in Mexico...






The beach was crowded with lots of drunk people! We got a good people watching show out of it!





This picture was funny because I took it and then realized that the guy in the background was wearing his hat "wrong". It was so funny at the time!


Playa Mia beach in Mexico--VERY, VERY HOT!!! I got sunburned just taking this picture of my legs!









OUR FAVORITE SHIP MOMENTS:


Our ship.





Cute little creations that our housekeeper made out of our towells. Funny huh?









Nightly dining. Every night they had a show put on by our wait staff. They would get up and dance on tables and crack us up! Alyson had them sing Happy Birthday to Christian (his b-day was in Aug.) because when the Indionesian waiters sang it reminded us of the scene on Christmas Story when the Chinese guys are singing Christmas Carols at the restraunt! We would laugh our heads off!


The theatre where the shows were and where I found my Knight in Shining Armour!

We had the best time! I am so glad that Alyson invited us to go with them, they are the coolest! We loved dancing, sushi, napping, shows, and eating all week! What a great experience!
We were worn out, and missed our kids though. It is always good to come home after a great vacation. We got the travel bug for sure!

This is a picture we got on one of our formal nights!

Dear Blog, I am sorry I ignore you...

If my blog was a person, it would be so offended by how much I ignore it!!!! We have had one crazy summer. Between James' hectic schedule at work and my surgery (more details to come) it has flown by. I have so many fun things I could have written on my blog, especially for my journaling, but I will have to condense them into a boring summary.

I will post pictures and highlights soon and perhaps share some of my funny dreams that I have been having while taking Ambien...crazy! I can't go without sharing my crazy dreams with everyone. My dad and James think I'm crazy, but my Mom and my sister share this weird trait with me, it's genetic.

Stay tuned for pictures and updates!

Take a ride on the "Potty Train"

Potty training has begun!!!! ARRGGG! . She isn't liking the changes, she has been crying on and off at the drop of a hat like I do when I have PMS!

The main problem I have with this is that Averi thinks the toilet is a performance stage. Also, she is such a creature of habit that anything I do or say while she is on the toilet will forever become part of her permanent routine, so I have to watch what I do. For example, I let her talk into a cup one time, and now she has to do it every time. It makes a cool echo, so she likes to make up stories or pretend like it is a overhead intercom in on of the many stores we go to. She copies and has all of the different store messages memorized and imitates them well. She also makes up rhymes and stories that I have no clue what she is saying, it is entertaining!

My kids are at a science/math camp for 6 hrs. each day last week, so I thought this would be a perfect time for the "potty training". Another problem...she thinks a potty training is a "potty train" choo choo! I will need to reword that! Anyway, wish me luck! Send me some Xanax if you have any to spare, I really need it!!!!

I have the cutest video of her making up rhymes on the toilet, but I can't get it to load, must be too big! I will try again later.

HAPPY 35TH BIRTHDAY TO JAMES!!!

Happy to my sweet husband!!! Poor James has had soooo much stress at work this past couple of months. He is in charge of a hospital picnic tomorrow (about 3000 people will be there), and on top of that he has HUGE projects he has to complete for the summer. He won't let me buy him anything for his birthday, we are trying to make it special, but it's not working out! He is turning 35 today!

We love him so much! He is the best husband and dad anyone could ever ask for!