Thanks for my camera!

Thanks for my new camera Joe! I've been bugging him for a Nikon SLR camera for 2 years now and I finally wore on him. This was the best mother's day gift ever!! My goal was to take my own pictures of our boys since every professional photo shoot with these 2 scoundrels have been disastrous. Plus, I was getting annoyed that my other camera wasn't quick enough to get their faces in any pictures. The 3 frames/sec feature can keep up with them! I am still figuring out my camera and have yet to photoshop, but here are samples of my 1st try:

Can I add one more time that I love my camera? Thanks Joe. And Happy Anniversary...9 years, oh my goodness we're old! I am so lucky to have you in my life. Love you so much.

1 Week of Disney= 2 Very Exausted parents

So here we are, our annual family trip to Walt Disney World. 1 year later, and the boys were much easier and more eager this time around. We had a blast, but after going nonstop for a week, words cannot describe the exaustion we felt by that last day.

1. Magic Kingdom-We visited this park 3 different times (see what I mean about being tired?) 2. Epcot-we spent 2 days at this park. It was focused on innovations and different countries.

3. Hollywood studios-Really neat park themed around making movies. Here we are in the "Honey I shrunk the kids" themed playground. The coolest playground that made you feel tiny 3. Animal Kingdom Or Animal "Ding Dong" as Mason calls it.

This is probably my favorite park b/c of the scenery & animals. It has an African feel to it.

5. Character restaurants. We spoiled the boys by taking them to a couple of restaurants where the characters actually came to our table. This one was called Chef Mickeys and they got one on one attention from Mickey and his original 5 friends. The food was amazing as well. Now we actually thought that this next restaruant would be Winnie the Pooh and friends, but that night was Cinderalla night. I kept thinking of all my friends with their little girls b/c they would've loved this. All these little girls were dolled up in their glittery cinderalla dresses to meet the cast, it was so cute! Then there was my boys who had no idea who she was and could care less that they were meeting her. Where she came by our table, they didn't even want to take a picture with her. After talking him into it, Samuel broke away from his mac n'cheese and posed. This may have been the 1st time Cinderalla has ever been rejected!

6. So during our trip, the boys got really into meeting the different characters and getting their signatures & pictures in our book. We met too many characters to mention, but here are a couple:

Samuel loves Toy Story and was Super excited to meet Buzz Lightyear. We braved a heavy downpour of rain to meet this guy, but seeing Samuel's face made the wet clothes worth it. The things we do to make our kids happy.

I think this picture is funny b/c Mason was pretty scared to meet the Beast. I would be too. Look how big he is just kneeling, he's huge!! But he braved it.

Finally, the surprise of the trip was how much Mason like Mulan. He'd never been interested in watching the movie, so he must've thought she was pretty cute b/c he kept wanting to see her. We stood in line to see her twice and she spent a lot of time with Mason on our 2nd round which was so sweet. He always finds her picture 1st in his autograph book.

Well our trip was in Feb, so I am a bit behind but all in all, that was our disney trip 2010. It was so much fun to see the boys get excited over the rides and meet these characters that they know from movies. However, I must admit...it was quite a lot of work and very exausting! We had 2 toddlers who were still in diapers and relied on daily naps which they did not get most days. While it was much easier than last year, I am thinking next year will be even better! Can't wait!

It's all fun and games until someone loses a TOOTH!

My new toothless wonder: Sir SamuelAt the ripe age of 3, Samuel managed to knock out a tooth. I was working out at the gym when not 1, but 2 kidcare workers came to get me...blood being on the shirt of one of them. I promptly freaked out and ran expecting to find a sobbing Samuel. Nope. He was growling and chasing kids like nothing had happened. Then as I was getting him ready to go, some of the older kids asked him why he had blood all over his mouth. His response? "Don't worry, my daddy fix it. He a tooth doctor." Put a smile on my face as I contemplated telling Joe. Everything appears fine...Dang it, he lost a tooth! This may not seem a big deal to many, but believe me, my poor orthodontist husband relented about this tooth for many days. Less than perfect smiles bug the heck out of him and now he gets to watch his son's tooth grow in too early, weird, maybe brown.Samuel thinks he's a superhero which may have contributed to the tooth incident. He literally bounces off the walls and somersaults all over the place. This is his response whenever anyone asks about his tooth. Big thumbs up. He's pretty proud of it and shows it off to anyone who will look. The tooth fairy didn't even come! A random picture, but we've loved having the Rigby's live so close to us. Finally, after 6 months, we managed to pull off a date night without the kiddos. Tough task!

Is this really Texas?

Yes, the picture you're looking at is our home in Keller, TEXAS. We got a whole foot of snow and it stayed on the ground for almost 4 days. Supposedly, this kind of snowfall hasn't happened in over 40 years. The kids were absolutely loving it....ok, ok....Joe and I were loving it too! Joe was very proud of the snowman he built with the boys. It was the tallest one in the neighborhood...our Texan neighbors were not much competition to Utah boy.

Joe built a snowfort for the boys.
Samuel making a snowangel. My poor kids had no snow clothes so they were sopping wet in no time. They still lasted almost 2 hours our there though!

Our Christmas...yes, a little behind as usual!

Here is our Christmas vacation in no particular order. We went to Utah and enjoyed lots and lots of snow. It was fun taking the boys tubing. And yes, that is Mason in pink pants....obviously borrowed!

Mason threw a fit about putting the mittens on, but gave in once he touched the cold snow!

We went to Temple Square on Christmas Eve to see the beautiful temple and all the lights. It was so flippn' cold that Mason, who usually hates wearing gloves & hats, didn't complain one bit when we bundled him up. We lasted about 15 minutes and then couldn't take it anymore.

The boys absolutely loved all the attention they got from Aunt Emmie, Uncle T, and especially their cousins Lily and Bella. They could not get enough of them and it certainly gave Joe and I a break to have them entertain the boys! One of Samuel's favorite thing to do was tackle the girls...and he got pretty good too! Lily also introduced Samuel to the Barbie world.

The story behind this picture below: The girls had taught the boys to do the Donald Trump finger point and say "You're Fired!" This turned out to be pretty funny b/c Samuel would say it with a lot of conviction. Anyways, when we were saying our goodbyes, there were lots of tears as we watched Aunt Emmy and the girls go out the door. As they headed to their car, Samuel ran out unto the porch and shouted "You're Fired!" And then Mason followed suit. It was like...you're leaving me? Then you're fired as my cousins! We sure miss them!

One of Samuel's favorite places is Chuck-e-Cheese, so we thought it would only be fitting to have his birthday party there. It was so nice to have Joe's family to be there and celebrate his birthday with us. It really made the occasion that much more special. If you ask Samuel today what he did at his b-day party he'll say "Chucky Cheese came out!"

I can't believe my little Samuel is 3 years old! I know every parent says that, but honestly, where has the time gone? I took him to primary for the first time and was in tears. I pulled the primary president aside and asked if he could stay in nursery for another year, b/c surely he's too little to start primary? I mean, if he were born 2 hours later, he would've been a 2007 baby. She was kind but firm and I ended up leaving in tears. People were asking me if I was ok and it was so embarassing to admit why I was crying...b/c I'm pathetic!! I'm going to be a wreck when he starts kindergarten! Anyways, the party was an absolute success and Samuel still talks about to this day. His favorite gift was the Superman type action figures. He takes them everywhere!

According to our boys, Santa visited us twice this year...at our home in Texas and Grandma and Papa's home in Utah. Since Santa gave the boys great gifts in Texas already, their main gifts in Utah were from Joe's family. However, we wanted the boys to have lots to open on Christmas morning since that's their favorite part. So there were lots of laughs as everyone realized that all the "presents" from Santa were just wrapped up old books and toys we found around the house. The boys could care less, just as long as they were opening something, and it didn't cost us a dime to have a 2nd Christmas!

*One of their gifts from Aunt Emmie were these Burger and Fries shirts. They love to wear them and I've gotten so many compliments on them. Thanks Em for these cute shirts!

Here are some of the gifts the boys scored while at our home. We had our own little Christmas right before we left for Utah. Mason loves trains and cars so he was feeling good about his car transporter. Samuel was estatic get a little drum set. We had to hide the cymbal after 10 minutes...I figured that might happen! Oh, and if we ever tell Samuel to smile for the camera, this is what happens.

My parents came to visit for Thanksgiving and we had such a great time. We dragged them everywhere...from tree lightings and light parades to the polar express train ride. Note Samuel's "smile" face for the camera!

And thanks to my dad, we had Christmas lights up on our house for the first time. It looked absolutely amazing. Unfortunately the final picture won't download, so you'll have to take my word for it. There were lot's of lights and lots of color. The boys loved it! The real effort however, was in taking it all down! Which I did almost entirely on my own. I wanted to add more lights to more trees, but I'm rethinking that one after being poked in the eye with a branch.

Anyways, lots of good times over the Christmas break. We had so many friends in Utah that we wanted to visit while we were there, but the four of us had the pleasure of being sick our entire trip. Even I, who hardly ever gets sick, slept half our vacation away. My immune system was compromised from the chemo so I got hit pretty hard. But it was still fun and we still got to do so many fun things. We can't wait until our next trip!