An early celebration

So I had been pondering for quite a while what to get Christopher for his second birthday. The kid has tons of toys, and when he gets tired of them, he just goes into B's room to play with his stuff.

I had been thinking about how the boys don't really like to play outside much. We spent tons of money on a fence, and it wasn't getting much use. I thought that if the boys had something fun to play with outside, then they would want to go out. After some serious shopping, I found a cute little play slide that was perfect! I realized that soon most stores would not be selling outdoor toys as they made more room for Christmas products, and that waiting another month to get the slide meant even less time to use it before the snow came, so Happy Early Birthday Christopher!

Here is Christopher playing on his birthday present (one month early)

He is so excited to play on the slide, that he can't even wait until daddy is done putting it together!

The boys played together on the slide for two hours, with no fighting!

Gifts from Ben

So with Ben's new position at work, he has to travel quite a bit. He is gone about one week of every month. This month his trip is to England. He left on Saturday morning, and won't be home until this coming Saturday. To make it even worse, the 7 hour time difference makes it hard for us to call and keep in touch. Since our cell phones don't call internationally, I have to wait for him to call once a day from his hotel. I think he knew that this trip would be hard on all of us, so today he sent me a great surprise-flowers! Take a look at the sweet gift he sent me:



I was on the phone with Alisha when the delivery man brought them, and when I answered the door, I said "Oh look what my cute husband sent me!" This is the conversation I had with B immediately after I hung up the phone:

B - "Mommy, why did that man give you flowers?"
Me - "Because Daddy sent them to me."
B- "But I thought you said your husband gave them to you."
Me - "Yes B, Daddy is my husband."
B - "And that guy is Daddy's friend?"
Me - "Uh, yeah, sure."
B - "Mommy, why did Daddy's friend give you flowers?"
Me - "Let's try this again...."


Ben also didn't want the boys to be left out, so he sent them cute cards in the mail. They are talking cards, so the boys love to open and close them all the time to hear the funny message inside. B's card has a reference to "kung-fu" So he makes sure to do his karate moves when the card is talking. Christopher's card sings a funny song, which he has memorized and runs around the house singing!

Thanks for the presents Daddy-we miss you!

And so it begins....

We have started working on our basement! We have been up to a lot in just the past two weeks. First we moved all our crap, I mean valuable belonings, to a storage unit. It only took us three trips with a truck! With the basement all clear, we started framing. Here are some shots of the work in progress.

B has been so excited about the basement. We told him that when it was all done, he could have a bedroom down there. He is adamant that he will have a bunkbed, with B on the top and Christopher on the bottom. When Ben started framing, he said to me, "Mommy, is daddy making my bunkbeds?" I am having a hard time explaining to him that it is going to take a while before things will be done. Every time a new sub-contractor shows up, he asks me if that man is making his bunk bed. When the plumber came, I told B, "That man is making you a potty in the basement." B's eyes got really big and he said, "I can have my very own potty downstairs?" Wow. Is that what it takes to get him excited about keeping his pants dry? A different toilet?

Here is B with his BOB the builder toolbelt on; flexing his muscles.

He was so excited to go and help Daddy. He even got to hold the tape measure and hammer a nail. His official job was to gather up the odd pieces of wood and put them into piles. He was so proud of his wood towers! Things are moving along well and we should be able to sheetrock by the end of next week!

feelin' HOT HOT HOT

So Ben has been in New Hampshire since Sunday, and our AC went out on Thursday. I don't want to call a repair man until Ben has a chance to look at it, in case it is a simple fix we can do ourselves. I have been trying to troubleshoot it with my limited knowledge, but to no avail. Luckily it rained hard last night, and the temp has stayed down today. I have all the windows open and lots of fans running. Thank goodness for small blessings! It could be sunny and 100! Guess the boys and I will have to eat out tonight just for the AC in the restaurant.

Halleluja!!

They finally did it! The park behind our house finally got hydroseed today! We have waited for 3 years for the park to get finished!! They planted tons of trees yesterday, and when the grass gets more established, the park benches should go in! It will be so nice to not see 2 foot tall weeds, or get dirt blown all over our back yard every time there is a storm! Hooray!

By the way....I know that Breaking Dawn just came out, but I am not going to read it until my trip in October, so please don't spoil it for me!! And if you click on the counter at the top of my blog, you can see 2 new trailers for the Twilight movie on the website!

For Ben

Happy 30th Birthday!! We love you!!

Camping Adventures

So we planned to go camping for two nights for Ben's birthday. It turned out to be just one night for Christopher and I....

It all started Wednesday night. We went shopping for food and treat for the trip and ended up getting WAY more food than we needed. (isn't that always the case for camping?) So many treats and munchies sounded good to us while we were in the store. After the kids went to bed, Ben and I loaded up the two cars (yes, it took two cars) with all our camp gear.

Thursday, as soon a Ben got home, we headed up Logan canyon to our favorite site, Spring Hollow, only to find it completely full :( So we went a little further up the road to Guinivah-Malibu, and found a nice little secluded spot to set up. We started a fire to cook our tin-foil dinners while Ben set up our awesomely huge tent. Here's a few pics from the first night.

That night the wild monkey emerged. Christopher got soooo hyper when it was time for bed. B had his own sleeping bag and mattress, and we brought the playpen for CJ. However, before we could coax him into it, he ran around the tent, jumping on all the beds while singing and laughing. Even after we turned out the lantern and tried to sleep, he was still singing and talking to himself for a good hour or more. Finally, he crashed, and slept for about an hour before waking up and crying. We got him out of the playpen and put him between us, but that wasn't enough to console him. We finally gave him a flashlight, and he stopped crying. However, the wild monkey emerged again and he ran around the tent with the flashlight. He found the camera, and brought it to me and said "Pic-toor" So here's what we took in the middle of the night:

The next morning wasn't bad, but I should mention that there were TONS of mosquitos! They were everywhere. We were constantly spraying ourselves with bug spray. After breakfast we went for a walk to the river by our campsite. The boys threw rocks and put their feet in the water.

After a nap (for mommy, more than Christopher) we had lunch and went exploring again. We got things ready for Ben's brother and some friends to join us for dinner that evening. The mosquitos were out in full force, and I could tell CJ was not having the best time. When everyone showed up, we roasted hot-dogs and tried to enjoy our food. CJ kept running to the car and saying "Go, Go." Ben suggested that Christopher and I go home to sleep, while he and B stayed the rest of the night. I was hesitant about bailing on our family trip, until I got bit by a mosquito right above my left eye. It started to swell up so huge! I looked like Quazimodo. It was ridiculous. After that, CJ and I packed up our stuff and headed home. The poor little kid was asleep before we left the campground. When we got home, I cleaned him up for bed, and he opened his eyes, saw his room, smiled and went back to sleep. Christopher is not a happy camper like his brother.

The next morning B and Daddy showed up around noon to tell us about all the fun they had. B loved camping, and asked when we can go again. It's hard to answer that question while looking at him. The poor kid has so many mosquito bites on his head, that he looks like he has chicken pox. But all in all, the trip was good and I do think we will have to go camping again.