Happy Third Birthday, Brynnan Grey!

Somehow he managed it: Brynnan “Scott Ba-guh-guh-guh” Grey (as Jonas calls him when he’s mad at Brynnan) has gone against the odds and made it to his third birthday. Technically, yesterday was his third birthday, so forgive us for not being timely.

A Jot to Mtn. Home 1

I apparently forgot I was so behind in my blogging. I hope I catch up someday soon! The boys and I went to Mtn. Home the last week in June because my sister in law, Tiffani, was there with her kids. Dexter, Mark’s brother and Tiffani’s husband, had to stay home and work, unfortunately, but so did Mark. Those darn jobs!! Why do we have to need them? LOL

Anyway, we had a lot of fun hanging out and playing together. Jonas had just gotten his cast off the day before we got there and he was running around with the other kids, no problem! It was amazing!

Tiffani and her kids were at Tiffani’s Dad’s house when we arrived Wednesday night at 7. The boys entertained themselves with their cousins toys while we waited. I thought this picture of Brynny was hilarious! It totally shows off his personality!!!:)

I love Jonas’ smile!

Crazy Brynnan:)

Cute Jonas:)

Jonas riding on a scooter. He did pretty good. I did have to help him to make sure he didn’t topple over.

The boys thought it was fun to lay down on the skateboard because then they didn’t fall off.

Courtney reading to Jonas.

Cute Brianna.

Trenton showing Brynnan how to use the lightsaber.

I love this picture of Brynnan with Trent. Brynny didn’t stay like this for very long!! LOL

Tiffani reading a bedtime story to Brianna.

I think by the time we all got into bed it was about 10!! And if you know me, we always have our kids in bed by 8pm, no matter what. I’ve found that in the last year if we go visit Mark’s parents we often get the kids to bed really late. It’s crazy, but easier not to fight them on it until they’re ready.

I’ll be back later with more photos:)

Happy Father’s Day

I know, this day was over a month ago, actually exactly a month ago! Haha. Well, I kind of got busy and didn’t post about it and remembered I’d taken some pictures.

This was not the best Father’s Day Mark has ever had. I’ve been so busy that I bought him a very last minute present and I built him up for it and he was let down! LOL Any guy would’ve been. SO here you are, some pictures from that day:

Yes, I got him bath and body works soaps!! He likes them and so do I, but we like different smells so I got him ones that I thought he’d like instead of getting ones that I like. That’s thoughtful, right?!:) He wasn’t too thrilled by it.

And pajama pants! Woohoo!! Awesome gifts right? The pj pants were like $4 so I wasn’t going to pass those up and Mark always gets holes in these summery ones because they’re so thin so I figured even though I just bought him new summer pj pants a month or so ago he’ll need new ones before the summer ends. LOL

Here’s Brynnan excitedly playing with Mark’s new soap, which I just realized I cropped out of the picture. Just imagine him trying to squirt out soap while they’re still unopened! LOL

And here’s Jonas. He didn’t want to give Mark the presents, so he laid on the floor like this and stayed there and pouted while Mark opened his amazing presents:) Being a parent is so much fun!!

Fire Guy!

On Wednesday for playgroup we went to the Ammon Fire Station that’s about 5 minutes from our house. It was awesome!! The boys had so much fun!

We had to split up into 3 groups because there were so many of us. Each group went to a different part of the station. This was our first firefighter showing us the area where they get dressed and slide down the pool from the living area.

All the kids in our group. The boy with his back to you is Brynnan. He couldn’t stand still for more than a few seconds!!

Jonas hanging out by the firetruck.

The second area we went to was the truck outside and the kids got to take turns and turn the hose on and off. They all loved it!:)

Jonas’ turn with the hose.

Jonas listening about fire safety in the last area we went to.

Some of the kids waiting for the last group to finish up.

When I told Jonas and Brynnan we were going to the fire station Jonas told Mark that he wanted to try on a fire suit. The whole time we were there he kept asking if it was time yet. I was really surprised they didn’t let each kid try one on when we were with one of the groups. Since we were waiting for one last group to finish I took Jonas to ask 2 of the firefighters if he could try on a suit. They took us back into the dressing area and one of them held up the coat for him and the other one held the hat on top of his head. Jonas was very happy after this!

Too Loud & then Too Quiet

Sometimes I’ll let the kids watch a movie and lay on the couch in the afternoon so I can have a break. On Tuesday, though, I really wanted them to take a nap so I sent them up to their room. They didn’t want to nap of course so they were playing and making a bunch of noise. It actually didn’t bother me because at least I was getting a break:) I heard some really loud noises and just figured Brynnan was jumping off the bed onto pillows, which he likes to do sometimes. Well, after about 2 hours it got really quiet. When I went up to check on them this is what I found:

I knew it wasn’t when I saw this as I came down the hallway!

Here’s the whole disaster area:)

Yes, That is Brynnan’s bedding that they took off of his bed, as well as the board that holds up his mattress!!

Isn’t that the face of cuteness…and disaster?!:)

Another cute face:) Isn’t it funny the things kids will fall asleep on? I often find Jonas sleeping on his books and totally covered by his blanket. Such a funny kiddo!

Finally waking up.

And here’s how their room is supposed to look like:) Jonas slept through the cleanup!

Getting Creative

I was at Robet’s Craft store a few months ago and saw this really cute idea for a chore chart. Well, I finally decided that I wanted to get creative and actually try to make it. While Brynnan took his nap yesterday afternoon Jonas and I painted and glue and stuck and drew together. I’m totally bummed that Mark had the camera at work because it was so much fun. I don’t spend a lot of one on one time with Jonas so when I do it’s totally awesome, usually! LOL

Anyway, here’s the finished product of our creativity:

The one at the store looked a lot different. I tried to make it work for us and I can’t wait to hang it on their wall and start rewarding them with TV and game time for finishing their chores. They watch and play games way too much these days!!

Can you tell what these are? I glued little pictures of the boys to clear pebbles and then glued a magnet on the back of it so it will stick to the magnetic board of the chore chart. When they finish a chore they can put their picture in one of the boxes.

I’m working on making a daily chart of everything we do so they will learn the days of the week and how to tell time, at least that’s my hope. I also want to do this chart so that transitions throughout the day are more fun than a headache for everyone. I’m going to print off picture of the foods they eat at each meal so they can pick out what they want to eat in the morning so we don’t have to fight about it later on. I’ll post pictures of that when I’m all done.

A Tribute to Snoppy… and Lilac

A while back I wrote up a post where Mark sneaked in and wrote that I killed his dog. After he wrote that I seriously started thinking about it more and thought that maybe I had killed her! She was put to sleep after biting the mail man about a month after Mark and I moved in as newlyweds to Mark’s parents house. I mentioned these thoughts to Mark and he said that he had only been joking and that Snoopy had been having problems for a while. That helped me feel a little bit better, but I called and talked with Mark’s mom about it to make sure. She confirmed that Snoopy had started acting different around people she knew around the time Mark left on his mission, I think. That was also the time that his younger brother Ian went away to school so Snoopy was left with just Mark’s parents. Not that they didn’t love her as much as the kids!!

She was a really great dog. Although I wasn’t much of a dog person 6 years ago. I feel really bad about how I acted toward Snoopy and after Snoopy died. I was still a teenager and pretty much acted like one. I was very selfish and thought of only myself, usually.

Both Mark and I were very excited to finally get our own dog. Mark has been wanting a dog the whole time we’ve been married and now that we have a house of our own we thought it was time. Well, I’m sad to say that I returned Lilac last Saturday!! It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do! Now I understand what Mark was going through after Snoopy was put down and I only had Lilac for 2 weeks. I can’t believe how insensitive I was toward Mark and I’ve apologized for it so many times, but I just feel like I’ll never make up for it.

I wish I would’ve been able to get to know Snoopy better. I didn’t realize I was such a dog person until we decided to get Lilac. Now I really miss having Lilac around, even though at times it was stressfull! Sometimes out of the corner of my eye I’ll see her laying on the floor, but it’s really my shoes or toys. Sometimes, I’ll even expect her to run down the stairs and beat me to the bottom. She was such a sweet dog, but the last week we had her I was so busy with photography stuff that I didn’t have as much time to play with her as I did the first week we had her and I could tell how roudy she would get. She always seemed to be wide awake and ready to play when Mark and I were ready for bed.

Well, I guess I should end this post someday. I miss Lilac and I know Mark misses Snoopy! I hope we’ll see both of them again someday! I scrapbooked some pages of Lilac so I’ll post those today and do more picture later.

Happy Birthday Grandma!!

Today is my Grandma Doty’s birthday(my Mom’s Mom).  So I wanted to say Happy Birthday Grandma!!! I love you so much and I’m so excited to come visit you later this month with the boys!!

Her name is Marie Doty and she is an awesome grandma! I lived with and around my grandparents for the first 3 years of my life. We lived in Marina, CA (it’s by Monterey, Carmel, Pacific Grove, CA) most of the time, I think. My family moved to Sacramento when I was little still and stayed there until I was 10 or 11. My parent’s got a divorce when I was 10 so we moved in with my grandparents again shortly after that. They were living in Pacific Grove by then in a house that we all loved! We would always go there every Christmas because Sacramento was about 3 hours from P.G. Grandma loved to do puzzles so we would always help her do those. And every night before going to bed we would have a bowl of cereal. I usually had grapenuts or honeycombs, something my mom didn’t usually buy. They had a plum tree in their backyard that we loved to climb and swing on. It had a swing attached to it.  Grandma’s garden was always so pretty. I loved playing in their backyard. I remember grandma would get so mad when the deer would come and eat her plants. Their house was so much fun and I miss it and being there with them so much!! About 6-7 months after Mark and I got married they sold their house to move down to southern CA to be closer to their kids. Mark and I were living in Sacramento at the time so we were able to go visit them the weekend before they moved. I was sad they were selling the house I practically grew up in, but at least I still have the memories.

Anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent there…I love you grandma and am so thankful for the example you have set for me throughout the years. Happy Birthday!!

This is my grandma with Brynnan the last time she came to visit. This was when he was about 8 months old I think. It’s the only picture I could find. I know it’s not the best one, but I’ll have some more to share in August after our trip!:)

If you wanna be a pirate!

Last wednesday the boys and I went to our wards weekly playgroup. It was a pirate theme and there was a bouncy castle, sandbox, and little kiddie pool to play with. The boys had so much fun! I did too! It was nice to visit with everyone and get to know them better. I’m starting to get most of the ladies names down and now I just need to work on remembering their kids’ names!

Jonas playing around the sand box.

Jonas loved playing by the sand box, but never would get in it. I thought that was funny.

Brynnan loved this mower toy! At one point a little girl was playing with it after her left it and he came to me and said “That’s mine, Mommy!” LOL

Here I am pushing Brynnan on the swing.

Such a cutie!

The boys swinging together.

Brynnan and Jonas both got into the little pool, but it was pretty cold so it didn’t last very long. Jonas got dressed again, but Brynnan wanted to stay in his swim shorts. He did go back and play around the pool with the kids. They had water guns and water balloons. It was a lot of fun! This week we’re going to the Fire Station so hopefully can remember my camera this time! I blognapped these photos from the playgroup blog.

A Funny and Useful Tip

We have a hornets nest outside in our backyard. Today I was outside in the garage cleaning up and it was out and about and freaking me out. I decided to look up how to kill them. I found a couple of “How-To” videos and this one in particular I thought was pretty funny, but useful:) Although, I don’t have wasps, I wonder if this would work.