Happy St. Patricks Day!!

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Something to tide you over...

We all know what a slacker I've been lately with my blog. I have SO much to blog about, but I either don't have the pictures or the energy :P. Plus there's something else I've been distracted with, that I'll definitely be blogging about soon, but I can't yet because I don't want to jinx myself :) (And NO I'm not prego :).

So, in the meantime, I had to share with you a funny conversation with Cali. We were driving in the car when some fun dance music came on the radio. I started dancing in my seat and told Cali to dance to the music with me. She replied simply, "I can't mom. I'm chewing gum." Cali couldn't understand why mom was laughing so hard! It was quite the funny moment :). I loved it!

So there you go, something to tide you all over until next time :).

Our Valentines

I had such a fun Valentines Weekend. I love having Valentines Day on a Saturday! I did something for JR and the kids on Friday as a surprise, and JR got to take charge of Valentines Day on Saturday. So everyone was happy :). I decided to have a surprise dinner for my family on Friday night. Cali helped me get things ready and she did SUCH a good job of keeping things a secret from JR. I decided to let JR and the kids have their favorite foods for dinner. Cali had a McDonald's Happy Meal, Isaac had pizza, and JR got sushi. He was SO excited that I got him sushi. It's his most favorite food ever. Usually when I plan a candlelight dinner I just want it to be JR and I. But this year I thought it would be a lot of fun to involve the kids too. They loved it! I think I'll do more things like this as a family from now on :).

JR came home from work early, so I made him stay upstairs while I finished getting everything ready. I really REALLY wanted everything to be a surprise. Luckily JR was really cooperative and didn't peak :). He didn't have a clue :).

Everyone seemed pretty happy about the food :).

JR showing off his lovely sushi. I had a little bit. I just wish I enjoyed it more! But I'm glad JR liked it.

Of course Isaac loved his pizza :). It was even leftovers, but he didn't care.

Cali and her happy meal. She was such a big helper and really enjoyed the fun dinner.

Isaac apparently was still hungry after dinner, so he decided to steal Cali's fries.

Complete with ranch dip. What a little stinker :).

The table after dinner. Luckily there wasn't much to clean up :).

And I had to throw this pic in because it's just cute. Love that kid!

After our fun dinner we put the kids to bed and enjoyed a movie. It was great :). For Saturday JR got his family to watch the kids and we did some shopping. It was nice shopping for clothes without the kids :). For dinner we ate at Applebee's, which was super yummy. We had a great time together, I got an awesome skirt, and the kids had a blast with the Petersons. So all in all it was a perfect day! Happy Valentines everyone! Hope yours was just as fabulous!

Isaac's Night of Firsts

I'm so sorry I haven't posted anything for a while. You know when you get in those ruts where you have stuff you could blog about but you don't have the energy too? Yeah, that's where I am. But I have things I want to blog about, so hopefully I'll get caught up soon.

First, though, I had to share with you some pics I took of Isaac yesterday. All of a sudden he's become this big little man! He's still my baby, but he's huge :). He eats more than Cali and I for lunch, and he's loving being able to feed himself. He's so much more adventurous and willing to try things by himself than Cali was. I love his little personality and all the things he says. "Hold you?" as he reaches up to me. I love it! Enjoy the pics of my big boy. Makes you just want to squeeze him!

Last night he would not eat his dinner. So we finally took him out of his high chair to give him some time to calm down, and to see if he'd want to eat after a break. Well, after JR finished his dinner he decided to eat a yogurt. Isaac wanted his yogurt, but JR told Isaac he couldn't have any until he ate all his dinner. So, Isaac went into the kitchen all by himself, climbed up to our table, and started eating his dinner! I couldn't believe it! He ate it all gone! And then he was so excited when JR gave him some yogurt. It's amazing how smart kids are. He's 21 months and he understood exactly what JR was saying and he did it! And that was the first time he's eaten at the table instead if in his high chair. Such a big boy!

When it was time to get ready for bed, Isaac decided he wanted to brush his teeth all by himself. He stood on the step stool like a big boy.

I couldn't believe he could reach the water by himself! He's such a big kid! Doesn't he look so much older than 21 months in this pic? Maybe I'm just biased :).

Then to end the night Isaac went to sleep on his new big boy pillow. I think he really likes it, plus it probably helps him breath better since he's been a little stuffy. Like I said, it's like he's grown up over night! I just love my big little guy :).

A Little Excitement

I feel like a dork because I can't think of anything exciting to post about. Oh, there's been excitement, but I just don't have any pictures. Ok, so there hasn't been THAT much excitement. But I did just finish something exciting so I thought I'd share it with all of you. I just read "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer and loved it, of course. And I was proud of myself for finishing it in just a couple of days! But I won't mention the part about neglecting my kids, my talk in church for Sunday, the laundry, JR, a shower, etc. The book was different than I expected, but brilliant still and I recommend it to anyone and everyone. So, if any of you have some time to kill and feel like neglecting something then I highly recommend "The Host". Great book, but unfortunately it hasn't helped me with my talk for Sunday. Help!

Draper Temple Open House

Thursday night of this week JR and I took the kids to go to the Draper Temple open house. I was super excited for Cali to see the inside of the Draper Temple so that she could get a better understanding of just what temples are all about. And it was a perfect opportunity to talk to her about how special they are and how we can be together forever because mom and dad were married in the temple. When we got there we realized that it was going to take much longer than I had planned on. There were so many people there! When you go, you start out at a church building near the temple where you watch a short video about temples. Then you board a bus that takes you up to the temple. It's quite the coordinated effort! We got to our designated chapel at about 7:40 p.m. (our reservation time) and we didn't get up to the temple until just after 9 p.m.. So, by the time we were done going through the Draper temple it was about ten. Isaac was such a trooper despite being so tired. Cali was tired too, but she liked all the pretty chandeliers and was excited that she got to go see the temple. Even thought it took longer than I expected, I'm so glad we all got to go. It was a wonderful experience and it just reaffirmed to me how much I love the temple and the wonderful Spirit that's there.

I'm so grateful for temples. Even talking to Cali about them made me choke up. How blessed I am as a member of the church to be able to attend the temple and know that my family can be with me forever. I'm so grateful that I started my marriage in the temple. Knowing that JR and I are sealed for eternity impacts our choices and how we want to live our lives. I encourage anyone who can to go to the Draper Temple open house. It was such a wonderful experience and I loved being able to share it with my family.

To make a reservation go here:

http://www.lds.org/reservations/ticket1/0,10785,1624-1-501-0,00.html

Vote for CJane!

For any of you out there who read my blog, PLEASE help me help out a fellow blogger. Please vote for CJane's blog as best Major Blog on the Weblog Awards. It seriously takes two seconds. Just click HERE. Or you can try this link:

http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-major-blog/

If it doesn't work please let me know. Or just google it and hopefully it'll get you to the right page. I believe we have until tomorrow at five p.m. to vote. Please show your love and support for Courtney, Stephenie, Christian and their entire family - not to mention support for people who blog about things other than politics and cars. If you don't know CJane, her family, or her blog click HERE. There are also links at the bottom of my left hand navigator for her and her sister Stephenie's blogs.

Lets help CJane win!!!

The Best New Year's Eve Ever!!!

Usually New Year's Eve consists of spending a little time with family and/or friends and then heading home, putting the kids to bed, and watching the ball drop on TV. I remember one year JR actually got in bed 15 minutes before midnight. Yeah, he didn't get away with that one - stinker :). This year, though, we actually had some plans! First, we dropped off the kids at JR's parents home to play and spend the night, so JR and I had the night all to ourselves! I love my kids, but it's amazing how nice a night away is!

Then we hit the first of two parties for the night. First we went to a party at our good friends John and Laycie Bowers home. We had great company, amazing food, fun games, and just an overall great time. We don't get to see them as often as we like, so it really was a lot of fun hanging out with them and their friends. We love you guys!

Me, Laycie, Laycie's brother and his date, and Celeste all playing The Game of Life. Too bad we couldn't finish the game before JR and I had to leave. My life was looking pretty good!

Here's John (center) with some friends rocking it out on Rock Band. JR had quite the fun time doing the vocals on this game. If any of you haven't figured it out by now, JR loves to sing :).

After spending a few hours with John and Laycie we went to another party that my good friend Jami Werner invited us to. It was with lots of ward friends and was held at our ward building. It was an 80's theme party, so of course we had to get decked out :). We played rock band, 80's trivia games, we danced, ate food and enjoyed counting down the new year.

Here's JR and I 80'ing it up. JR was Don Johnson from Miami Vice (sexy, I know :), and I was... um, someone from the 80's :). Nothing specific really, I just grabbed anything 80's I could find and threw it on - which btw is NOT that hard now. 80's stuff is EVERYWHERE! Great for my outfit, not so great for 2009. Scary!

What Don Johnson outfit would be complete without Aviator glasses. Thanks Steve for letting JR borrow them! Grrrrr :).

Me posing on the 80's wall. Even though I was little in the 80's, there were still quite a few things up there that I remember using. Ahh, memories. Oh, and if you're totally loving my Chicago sweatshirt (DI is the best!), it got even better on the back. It said "Tour '84". Yeah, it was pretty cool :).

Here's all us 'ladies from the 80's'. I was the youngest one there, but I was still rockin' it up. I just wish I would have had time to crimp my hair :). I am proud to say, though, that even without the crimped hair I still won the "most stylish" award. I guess all that 80's shopping paid off!

Here's JR rocking it out on Rock Band (for the second time that evening) with some of the other 80's men at the party. Love the shoes with no socks :).

And here comes one of the highlights of the night... JR's lip-sync to "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice. Yeah, he knew the ENTIRE song and did the whole thing - all 4+ minutes of it, complete with his amazing dance moves. It. Was. Awesome! I seriously almost peed my pants it was so funny!

And if that wasn't great enough, our home teacher Jared Warren (who btw is one of the nicest guys and more of the quite type - well, at least he seemed that way to me!) knew the whole song too and was 'the DJ' in the song. Again, IT. WAS. AWESOME!!! And, we found out on Sunday that apparently news of JR's amazing performance has been making the rounds in our ward. Could there be an encore in JR's future?

Here's us women rocking out to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". I learned in practicing for this that my moves weren't 80's enough. Oh well, at least my outfit looked good :).

I had to add this picture because, well, it's awesome :). Here's Jason Leckie and Ryan Howell after their moving lip-sync to a Wham! song. Yes, those are official 80's pants that Ryan is sporting. And no, their chest hair is not real, but it sure looked cool :D. Hahaha! Too funny!

Here's us enjoying a nice dance to some wonderful 80's song. Man, 80's music really was the best!

This picture just makes me laugh. Here's JR and I with our good friends Jason and Jami posing it up. Jason and Jami's pose totally looks like it could have been from a dance picture in the 80's. Too funny! Thanks for inviting us Jami! You guys are the best!!!

According to JR, we had the best New Year's Eve EVER! I think I have to agree :). It was nice not having to worry about the kids while we were out late. They had a blast at the Petersons and JR and I had a blast enjoying an evening out with amazing friends. Thank you to everyone who helped make our New Year's Eve the best yet!

HAPPY NEW YEAR'S EVERYONE!!!

P.S. Ok, so I know I've totally written enough already on this post, but I HAD to share this story. I don't know if any of you remember the 80's show Dallas, but there was a main character in the show named JR. Some people think my JR was named after that JR, but he's definitely not. So, JR's whole life he's grown up with people asking him, "So who shot JR?". Apparently that was a huge question in the TV show. So during the 80's trivia game we played I learned who shot JR. It was his girlfriend KRISTEN!!! I about died! You would have thought with all the people asking JR who shot him on Dallas that that would have come up. It was just too funny. So now JR knows he REALLY needs to be nice to me :). Its a good thing we don't own any firearms :D. Hahaha!