Congratulations Joe!

Exactly a year ago, Joe and I were scrambling to figure out a Plan B because our Plan A failed at the last moment...which was to move to Florida by my parents, in a house we'd chosen, and Joe would work for and eventually buy out an orthodontic practice in my old hometown. Due to the horrible luck of a patient biting Joe's hand, he drilled too far and failed the restorative part of the FL dental boards. Even though it was disappointing not to be able to live by my family, we couldn't dwell too long on the turn of events because we had to focus on Joe finding a job and figure out where to live since we had to be out of our apartment in 2 weeks!

Well it all worked out thanks to Joe's wonderful parents who let the boys and I live with them for that summer while Joe worked in Texas and closed on our house. And we've loved every minute here and definitely have thoughts of staying here longterm. So this is why it was a hard decision to retake the part of the FL board he failed...but we decided that he might as well try again since he is so close and it will leave FL as an option in the future. So he endured another weekend of FL boards, and this time, things went much more smoothly and he passed!

I am so proud of you Joe! What a champ you are for enduring 2 FL dental boards for me. Maybe it was meant to be that you failed that first time and we live in Texas. But whatever happens, whether or not we move to Florida, at least you have something to show for all the dental board torture you endured!

Never say Never!

Bye-bye Altima. We'll never forget you since you were our first car together. However, driving you from Utah to Ohio to Wisconsin to Texas seems to have taken a toll on you and now... I have been forced to become a minivan mom. I am almost in tears looking at my picture in front of that van. Ha, ha. Just kidding. Ok, not really. I did have a slight identity crisis as we were shopping for a new car but I am over it and loving the new van.

I was one of those gals who swore to NEVER drive a minivan. I could never get over how
"uncool" they looked. But after looking at all our options, we couldn't deny how user friendly these babies are, especially getting into the 3rd row which will be nice when we have more kids. How can you not love the automatic doors, trunk, and dvd player? I am definitely spoiled and loving our "blue whale". To anyone trying to decide: SUV or minivan? All I have to say is, minivans aren't too bad!

Let's party like it's 1999!

Go Class of 99'! I just went down to FL for the weekend to attend my 10 year high school reunion. I swear, nothing makes you feel older than than to see the people that you went to highschool with go bald, gain weight, gain a few kids, become career people, etc! The first night was at a club in Universal Studios. I went with Sarah (one of my HS best friends) and her husband. It was neat to go to this thing and tell others "yeah, we still keep in touch" and "we were in each other's weddings". I'm so grateful for friendships that last! We had a mini-awards ceremony where I won longest marriage (8 years folks!) and Charlie, the girl in the middle won most changed person in 10 years. 10 years ago, Charlie was very into physics and not into appearances...I mean, not at all. Then when she walks into the reunion looking gorgeous and buff, jaws dropped. Don't you love stories like that? But don't worry, she still loves her physics with her PhD in Engineering and all!

Some of the girls (minus Charlie) from cheerleading.

My friend Sarah again, Jamie, and I.

Larry behind me, (who was not supposed to be in the picture), also won the most changed person in 10 years b/c he went from super short to super tall! And he was a lot more social at the event than he was in high school.
The next day, there was a picnic for the family and we all brought our kids. I only brought Mason since I left Joe and Samuel at home for the short weekend. Mason was free on the plane, so an easy decision on which kid to bring!

I forgot to rotate this ahead of time, but here is our homecoming King and Queen who ended up marrying and now have a little girl. True highschool sweethearts. I can't imagine marrying anyone from highschool, but its definitely worked out for them!

Mason found some friends and they were playing "pat, pat, pat, blastoff!" from Little Einsteins. He was really missing his "brubber" as Mason says, so when he met the little boy in the middle who is Samuel's age, he followed him everywhere. So cute!

Some of the Class presidency that put this fun reunion event together. Until the 20-year re-union class of 99'!!!

Finally, I wanted to post a picture of the new location for my parents' health food store. It's the section right behind the gray SUV. It's in a great spot that is close to the courthouse and a bunch of health practioners' offices. Congratulations Mom and Dad!

Samuel's new look

Before:After: After seeing my poor child drip sweat everytime we went outside, I decided to let go of his longer hair-do...but just for the summer! Once the fall hits, I will let his beautiful, thick, and silky hair grow out once again. Unless Joe can talk me out of it...but I think his hair is just too pretty to be kept short. Should've been a girl I tell you!

Here is Mason at the zoo. Little guy is growing up so fast!
All we wanted was a cute picture of the boys on the same horse, but of course they didn't want to share it with one another. Not even for 5 seconds.

Despite their many, many, many, many fights, the boys do have moments where they are actually affectionate with one another. Despite the endless "MINE" arguments, it has been fun to watch them have a lot of fun together and grow up as buddies.

We're alive!

Happy Easter! And yes we are still alive and well. Obviously I've gotten pretty lazy with blogging but I have 3 decent excuses: 1. My days are filled with sibling rivalry 2. Our computer stinks so it takes an hour just to check my email (I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea...it's SLOW!) 3. DVR-Maybe I'll be a better blogger in the summer when there's not as much to watch! Anyways, here's a few pictures of our Easter celebration:
A couple of days before Easter day, our playgroup had an Easter egg hunt. Here's Mason in action. I was impressed that he knew exactly what to do once I set him free. I've never seen him run so fast! I thought this picture was funny because Mason looks so sad. I'm guessing that Samuel stole that green egg from him. Here are the kids exploring their eggs. My kids of course gagged on the chocalote candies and Samuel kept giving everyone a "taste" of his sucker. I'm sure they all have runny noses by now!

On Easter day we had our own little egg hunt in our house. Here are the boys waiting in the playroom while Joe hid the eggs. Mason's spike is held up nicely by syrup from his pancakes.

Knowing our boys, I filled the eggs with fruit snacks and this time they went to town! They were fighting over each other's eggs even though there were plenty. My life! After eating their fill of fruitsnacks, they opened their gifts from the Easter Bunny. Although I didn't want to get drums, Samuel has an ingrained rthym, is always bopping to a beat, and drums on everything. It was a good buy, he absolutely loves it.
My kiddos goofing off. They are constantly hot and cold: laughing together one minute, crying and hitting the next. I love them to pieces, but boy they are alot of work! To the grandparents: our little Mason is getting strong! This was taken a month ago (or was it 2 months?) and we are at one of the parks in our neighborhood.

Here is a sample of what our Family Home Evenings are like. Opening song, fun song, lesson, and prayer all within a 5-10 minute span. You'll see why they don't last very long!

Mason's favorite song right now is "Pokerface" by Lady Gaga. Because our cd player no longer works in my car, the boys have become big fans of pop music. Samuel in particular loves songs by Pink. Whenever we are switching music in the car, Samuel makes certain that we stop and listen to any Pink songs. My boys are growing up to be so cultured. This video is of Mason singing the Pokeface song. Of course it's never as good once you get the camera out, dang it!


And finally, I wanted to announce that Samuel went pee pee on the potty for the first time tonight. I have heard horror stories about potty training so I have had no interest in potty training Samuel until he was 3. Anyways, lately Samuel has been telling me when he is about to go potty and like the good mother that I am, I usually just tell him to go in his diaper. Finally guilt pushed me to sit him on the toilet, and after the 3rd try, he went! We'll see what happens from here. I'd much rather change diapers at this point in my life, so we'll be taking the potty training VERY slow!

Well, we should be all caught up by now. Let's see, am I missing anything? Joe is loving his new job and I am loving being here. We both turned 1 year older; I am FINALLY back into my prepregnancy clothes (only took me 18 months, pathetic! I need to breastfeed next time!); and I got Joe to watch Twilight with me the night it came out on DVD. He did question that "glittering vampire" idea, but otherwise didn't think it was too bad. Hope everyone is well!!

Christmas Fun in Florida

To help keep this post as short as possible (which will not be very short!) I will try to condense my pictures and keep my writing to the point. So yes, for this Christmas we visited my parents in Florida for 2 weeks. It was so much fun and so busy since we had lot's to celebrate:

(1) We visited every theme park in the Orlando area. Of course we spent the most time taking our kids to Disney. Samuel's favorite ride happened to be the mini-rollercoaster they have for kids...thanks to his thick puffy hair, he made the height requirement and went on it 3 times.
Mason's favorite thing to do: WALKING! Yay, finally! My parents were so determined to see him walk before we left that they walked him all over Disney's Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom to get him confident. Finally, while waiting for us while we took Samuel on a ride, Mason started walking. It'll be fun to tell him one day that he started walking at Magic Kingdom of all places.
Here's a video of Mason walking for Joe's family. This is his 2nd attempt at walking after Magic Kingdom the previous night.


OK, back to our Disney experience. On one of the nights, we went to Disney's MGM studios to view the 80 million lights they had on display.
Here is a video of one of the many light shows they had that night. Pause the music on the side bar for better effect.
Here's Samuel participating in a persussion show at Animal Kingdom. He really got into the music and starting dancing with his bells. Before long, he was in front and center.

Now here is a video of Samuel dancing at a Disney World shopping center. It's pretty long, but just watch the first little bit and you can get a taste of how Samuel really gets into dancing!

(2) The boys got to spend a lot of time with Grandma Pauline and Granpa Kaleti this trip. They loved going to my parent's health food store and "helping" my parents out. Mason especially loved being wheeled around on a utility cart as my dad went about stocking shelves. One of my most memorable moments of this trip is when my dad volunteered to watch the boys while Joe and I went to Universal Studios by ourselves. He single handedly watched them all day, fed them, and then put them to bed at night. What a grandpa! (3) We had a wonderful Christmas day...presents, lots of eating, kids had long naps, etc. Other than Samuel having a major meltdown because Mason kept taking his new toys, it was really fun! For our family Christmas devotion that night, my dad played a beautiful medly of Christmas songs he arranged just for the occasion. We recorded one of the songs. Pause the music for this one, it's worth listening to I promise!

(4) We got together with my longtime friend Sarah, her husband, and little girl Kaley who is a month younger than Mason. Since my parents didn't have too many toys at her house, my boys went crazy when they saw all of Kaley's new toys. Needless to say, they had a ball. Thanks Sarah for the great dinner and great company! It was fun!

(5) December 31, 2008: Happy 2nd Birthday Samuel!!

This picture is completely Samuel showing his love for music. He got a music set for his birthday and it was a huge hit. Lately, we've been finding him drumming his hands to the beat of music and while we were in FL, he was attached to these drums at my parents store. This is Samuel beating the drums and blowing his recorder at the same time. If you think this is funny, you should see him try to play the piano and beat his cymbols at the same time!

My mom threw a little party at their store and it was complete with presents and a giant cookie for his cake. We knew better than to serve him cake, so we thought we'd serve him a big chocalote chip cookie instead. It didn't work. Afterwards, we took him to Sea World to celebrate and we had a ball! Even though Samuel couldn't have been any naughtier than he was on his birthday (I couldn't even count the tantrums!) it was still fun to see the delight on his face as he saw Shamu, dolphins, and other water life for the first time.

(6) Later that night, we took the boys home to bed and my sister offered to stay home with them while we celebrated New Year's Eve. We went back to Sea World and joined my parents for their special New Year's bash. Holy cow...so, so much fun!! We ate dinner in this gorgeous shark aquarium restaurant and then listened to an amazing philharmonic orechestra that played big band music. They played live while the fireworks coordinated with their music.

What a blast!! That night and our whole vacation! Joe and I are still talking about how much fun we had and are already planning our next big vacation to FL. Thank you mom and dad for everthing and we miss you already!

Happy Holidays!

Here are a couple of fall pictures that we took for our Christmas card this year. We actually had quite a few good pictures to choose from...thanks Suzie for making the kids smile in almost every picture...quite the feat, and thanks Tom snapping the photos!

When our next door neighbors first saw our picture, their response was "You guys sure like your football don't you?" We do like football, but that definitely was not what we were trying to achieve in the picture! First of all, we took the picture in UT and the clothes that I packed all clashed with one another. So plan B: Joe thought it would be fun to represent all the places we've lived in the past 8 years. That is the only reason why I would wear a sweatshirt for a picture we send out to our friends and family!

Did I forget to mention that we visited Joe's family in Utah for Thanksgiving? His sister, Bethany, also came with her hubby Allen, Taylor 10, Evan 8, and Alec 6. It was a very busy, but funfilled holiday break. Samuel loved hanging around the older boys and copied everything that they did. Samuel's favorite thing to do was spend time with Papa Tom in the train room. I've never seen him interested in something for longer than 5 minutes. He'd wake up in the morning and say "papa" than "choo choo"? On our last night there, we went to The Gateway shopping center to shop (if you can call it that with 2 kids) and then watched pianist John Schmidt play the piano before the Christmas tree lit up. It was quite cold that night and Mason made sure everyone knew he hates shopping, but other than that we had alot of fun. The best part was watching Samuel take in the music. He kept bobbing his head to the beat and would even tap his hand or foot to the beat. We managed to capture a little bit of it in the video.

When we got back from our trip, we went to a Christmas party a couple of moms in our playgroup put together. They all came in their Christmas PJs which was pretty cute. Notice that Samuel is the only one that cannot sit for more than 1/2 a second.
Along with eating yummy treats, the kids got to make reindeer shirts with their hand and footprints. I wasn't sure how do-able this activity would be with 7 toddlers running around but no paint was spilled! Most of the kids actually wanted nothing to do with the paint as shown:
But the shirts ended up looking really cute. Below is Samuel's shirt half done. We added eyes, a nose, and painted his name on the back.

Before I conclude this long and very late post, I wanted to add that Mason is now taking some steps! Yay!! He will only gather the courage to walk between Joe and I, but hey, at least we're getting somewhere! How different he is from Samuel. Samuel never wanted any help from us...one day he just let go of the coffee table and started walking across the room by himself. I am thinking that Mason will still take a couple of weeks before he gives up crawling and really starts walking everywhere. Enjoy grandparents! We thought this video was funny since Mason was able to make it across despite the distraction of Samuel streaking back in forth in his diaper.