The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Last night was the Happy Time Preschool Chritstmas play starring none other than Jack Kramer as Joseph and Ella Gartner as Mary.

I can say without any hesitation that I have never in my entire life so thouroughly enjoyed a theatrical performace of any kind more. The entire thing was touching and hilarious and entertaining and spiritual all at the same time. Watching my little boy up there singing five times louder than any other child and nailing every word was honestly one of the highlights of my life thus far. If it was my job to hand out both Oscars and Grammys, The kids of Happy Time Preschool would sweep all categories in 2008.

After the show Santa Clause made a surprise appearance and the kids were thrilled! Jack came up with a whole new set of completely random gift requests and Ella was totally mezmorized all night long.

Right after the preschool party we had to hurry over to another Christmas party. This one was for my writing class and so even though it was an all adult party I had to tote the kids along because John was working. I was a little worried that Jack would be too bored at the second party but the most incredible thing happened. Santa showed up to that party too. Jack got to sit on his lap and give him a whole new list of random gift requests.

My grandma Arnett is in my writing class so she was there and she got to sit on Santa's lap and I even got a turn.

I have a feeling that this really will be the best Christmas ever.

Santa Clause is Coming to Town

This morning we got up and out the door to go see Santa Clause at the San Tan Mall and sit on his lap. This was actually a second attempt to see Santa. The first was on Saturday where we waited in a line for half an hour that absolutley DID NOT MOVE. Today was John's day off so we decided to try again since a Monday was bound to be less crowded. We checked Santa's schedule and so we knew that he would get there at noon. We arrived at about 11:50 and we were the very first ones in line! Thirty minutes later we were still the first ones in line! Santa was late. And to top it all off it was absolutely FREEZING (you know, in an Arizona kind of way).

Finally Santa showed up and of course it was well worth the wait. Jack was totally shy with him and when Santa asked what Jack wanted for Christmas he acted like the question was totally unexpected and then named a few totally random things that he has never mentioned wanting before including a Star Wars blaster (which he already owns) and a non-spicy candy cane. This is, of course, after I had coached him for weeks to ask for a trampoline and a Hot Wheels race track.

Last time we were at the mall he threw a penny into the wishing well and his wish was "I wish there was a trampoline in my back yard." It was about 5 hours later that we got home and as soon as we arrived he ran straight to the back yard. I had totally forgotten about the wish until he came in all bummed out. "My wish didn't come true." I suggested that he ask Santa to bring him a trampoline and then spent the next three weeks searching craigslist for a good deal on a used trampoline (I just wanted to help Santa save a little bit of cash.)

Before we left Jack let Santa know that we would be leaving him some cookies and that we didn't have a chimney so he would have to come in through the door. Hopefully Santa will appreciate the heads up.

cool it, mama bear.

Alright, today I had an experience with motherhood that was a first for me and it totally opened my eyes to a whole new universe of heartache. Ella has been sick so Jack has been bored out of his mind. I promised him that we would go to the park to find some kids to play with but we got there and there was no one there. Three parks later we found one that had kids playing on the play ground. There was a foursome of kids that ranged in age from about 7 to 9. They were playing tag and immediately Jack joined in...or at least he tried. They wanted nothing to do with him.

I hung back and watched him try every trick he knew to make these kids want to play with him. At one point a train passed in the distance. Theres Jack shouting and waving his arms "Guys! A Train!" one kid finally turned to him and said "Its just a train."

Jack gathered up a bunch of acorns and brought them over to the group. "Check it out! they are grapes made of wood!" Unimpressed stares and then finally "they are just acorns, kid."

A while later one of the girls made the suggestion to her pals that they should play house. Jack jumped up super excited to show his domestic skills "Yeah, lets play house and I'll be the dad!" Finally one of the girls turned to Jack and just said "Uh, we don't want to play with you."He was crushed. He came over to me and said " I showed 'em my acorns but they didn't think they were cool." I responded (all the while stifling the urge to go over and throttle the little bitch) " I think your acorns are cool." You may be shocked but this provided little comfort. "Yeah, but you're my mom."

Why are kids so mean? What is a mom to do when she sees her kid excluded like this? Probably the only thing worse than being left out is being that kid with the mom who steps in to fight his battles. Afterwards we had a pretty good talk about choosing nice friends and how he can't control how others choose to behave but he can choose how he behaves and now he knows to always include everyone. This message/lecture was DRILLED into me as a child and its always funny to hear myself sound EXACTLY like my mother.

A Day That Will Live in Infamy

It was six years ago today that I walked down the aisle and married a man I had known for all of three months. John was so handsome in his tuxedo and I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. Six years later I know I am the luckiest girl in the world. Thanks for six fun filled years, John Kramer. I will love you forever.

Mr Smarty Pants

The tree is up! The lights are hung! Now all we have to do is wait twenty two agonizing days for Christmas to come. The upside is that I have twenty two days of using one of the most time-honored methods of parental manipulation in the book. Yes, Santa's Naughty List. This worked like a charm last year and I was really looking forward to it again this year but wouldn't you know it, Jack is starting to think a little harder about the whole Santa thing. Today Jack and Ella were playing in the yard and I heard a fight break out. Sure enough Jack comes running in to tattle (which in our house is a higher offense than anything he could possibly be tattling about.) I stopped him before he began and said, "Oh I hope you aren't going to tattle because Santa is watching you right now!" he gave me the dirtiest look he could muster and said "Mom, you think I will believe anything but you're wrong!" I wondered if someone had told Jack the truth about Santa. Then he said "I know Santa isn't watching me right now because thats impossible. Right now Santa is in the North Pole." So, he is beginning to doubt Santa's omnipotent reconnasance powers. Something tells me we only have a Christmas or two left with this kid buying it. Oh well.

It really is amazing what he picks up on. I have learned the hard way that no swear word crosses my lips without it being recorded and cataloged in his little brain, and then inevitably rears its ugly head at the most inappropriate of times. Also he has inherited his mom's photographic memory for song lyrics so I have to now censor everything that plays in our car. I realized this a few months back when I found out that Jack had announced to his sunbeam class at church that he was "bringing sexy back". We were driving down the road last week and a song came on. He yells from the back seat. "Mom, this song is SO high school." Oy Vey.

A Balanced Diet

So tonight Jack and Ella decided that I didn't have to make dinner. Not only did they declare that they were going to make dinner, but they would be hosting a dinner party and I was invited. I didn't think much of it until I saw them coming out of the kitchen with a plate full of ....something. They were so proud of themselves for "making dinner". In case you can't tell from the photos, their dinner consisted of frosted sugar cookies on a bed of Cap'n Crunch topped with a generous serving of Cheez-its. DEEELLLICIOUS.

Twilight Premiere

My sister-in-law Cheryl called me late last night (9:00...yes that's late for me these days) to tell me she had an extra ticket to the midnight showing of the opening of Twilight. Now most of my friends know that I am an old school Twilight fan, and have been reading the books since before it was cool. I, like any red-blooded American woman between the ages of 12 and 70, love Edward and his gang of hottie vampires, so even though I literally can't remember the last time I was awake and out of my house after midnight, decided to throw caution to the wind and go to the movie.

Okay, let me just get this out of the way: The movie SUCKED. Like seriously the single dumbest movie ever made in the history of movie making. Cheryl and I literally giggled through the whole thing because it was so ridiculously cheesy. It was so over the top with bad acting and horrible special effects that I was honestly expecting to see a man in a bumble-bee costume come onto the scene, because it was so much like a Mexican Telenovella.

I swear to you that I'm not just one of those people who was so in love with the books that I was bound to hate the movie, no matter what. It really was just bad movie making. Such potential wasted too. I wish they could just scrap this whole movie and we could all forget it ever happened and then they could try again with a whole new group of movie making folks (especially need to replace make-up artists and dramatic mood music people). I could go on for hours.

Heres the thing though... I had more fun than I've had in a long time. Cheryl was so fun to hang out with while we waited for hours for the movie to start, and theres no way I could have endured the entire movie if I didn't have her next to me to laugh with. Also, my niece Lauren and her friends are so fabulous. Lauren really should have been born to me.

I am totally interested to hear what everyone else thought of the movie. Comments please....

QT: The Land of Milk and Honey

This morning Jack and I got up early before John and Abe and we went on a date to QT. Jack has a love affair with QT and believes that all of the worlds ills can be solved with a trip to QT. When you think about it, it is an absolute wonderland of limitless bounty. Aisles and ailsles of soda, slushies, donuts, ice cream, candy, chips and even DVDs. To a child this kind of abundance of treats is very impressive...heck its impressinve to me! The ultimate incentive for Jack is a promise to go to QT. Here is a hilarious conversation we recently had about the role QT plays in Jack's psyche.

Me: Hey maybe if you are really really good today we can go on a date to QT later.
Jack: Yeah! I love QT.
Me: Let me ask you something, If you had the choice between going to heaven or going to QT, which would you choose?
Jack: Isn't there QT in heaven?

So you can see Jack has some pretty high expectations for the hereafter. Forget streets paved with gold...give him free flowing icee machines and greasy hotdogs cooking on rollers.

First Haircut

Today Abraham got his first haircut. I had such mixed feelings about it because I love his crazy baby hair and its just one more thing that reminds me that my Babyham is growing up. I did however finally come to terms with the fact that my child had grown a mullet. I mentioned this to Kristen and she said, "I don't know if you could really call it a mullet because it's not 'business in the front, party in the back', its just party all over." This was an accurate observation, but mullet or not, it was time for a haircut.

Abe had every woman at Great Clips wrapped around his finger. He was an angel for the haircut and flirted with all of the ladies.

I took some pics of the event for posterity.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

62 IS THE NEW 50!

Happy birthday to the best mom and grandma in the world!
We had a birthday party for Grandma Haws yesterday at Kristen's house and what a party it was! We had pizza and cake and games. Here are the highlights:

PARTY GAMES FOR GENIUSES

The best part was that my mom was in charge of the games and she just made it up as she wnt. It was HILARIOUS to see how much the kids loved these games, one of which involved nothing more than passing an empty cup around a circle. I was sure that the kids would realize that there was absolutely no point to this game, but sure enough, they just passed that cup giggling the whole time. It never occured to any of them that there was no object to the game. no winners or losers, no skill involved...just cup passing. My mom is a genius with kids. she assured me that they would love it and what do you know...they did. Jack said afterwards, "I was a really good passer" Yes Jack, you just might end up in the cup passing olympics.

HAPPY LOSERS

Another hilarious "game was that each kid had to put their fingers behind their back an put up any number of fingers, then when Grandma said so, pull your hand out and show what you have. After they all pull their hand out, Grandma says, clearly making this up as she goes "Ella wins because she has the highest number!" So you can see that this is a fairly beatable game, right. We go for round two, and you expect all of the kids to have all of their fingers up, since now they know that the most fingers wins...nope. Jack went for two fingers, Ella went for three fingers, It didnt occur to either of them to just go whole hog and hold up all five fingers. "Ella is the winner again, because she has the most fingers up!" Jack then folds his arms angrily and makes a pouty face because he just can manage to out-stratagize his cousin on this very cerebral game. Then comes my favorite quote of the night: Grandma Says "Hey Jack, no pouting, In our family we aren't sore losers, were HAPPY LOSERS! She then kicks off the traditional dance party and got everyone to show her their "sweet moves"

Mom, I want to be just like you when I grow up. You are fun and smart and righteous and sassy and accomplished and generous and always happy. I hope I can be half as good a mother to my children as you were to me. You are my best friend and my hero.

My Private Riot.

So I was out rioting last night after John McCain's concession speech because, you know, thats how republicans roll when we lose elections, right? right? I mean, I saw on the news that we could expect major riots in Chicago if Obama lost, and since I am from Arizona like McCain, I thought it only made sense to do some rioting of my own.

Anyway, I was trying to turn over cars and I have got to hand it to the liberals. Cars are really heavy. I then went out looking for people to assault and stores to loot etc. but unfortunately, I live in an area that is heavily populated with other Republicans and so most everyone was at home since they have JOBS and KIDS. I guess someone has to go to work and make some taxable income so that all of the democrats in the country can get their welfare checks and have someone to pay for their healthcare.

Finally I decided that I was tired of rioting and that I should probably get back to my family. One distraught Republican just doesn't make for a good riot.

The great news about the election (besides 102 getting approval) is that the value of our gun collection just went through the roof. I guess there is always a silver lining.

Halloween Chez Nous

We had a fantastic Halloween! John was a pirate (really it was just an excuse to bring our parrot Dude out in public.) And he was a hit at our ward party. Kids were lining up to get a closer look at the bird.

Jack was an astronaut. We got this costume from John's parents months ago when they visited mission control in Houston, Texas. We had bought Jack a really expensive Buzz Lightyear costume for Halloween, but it was made of heavy vinyl and after he wore it to preschool and almost suffered heat stroke in it, he decided to opt for the astronaut, which I think was so cute.

I was a purple Fairy. I decided to get a costume that I could slap on every year with regular clothes. Jack didn't give a crap about my costume, but I had a lot of little girls who were big fans! Ellyse also got a little set of Fairy wings.

Abraham was Yoda. This was the perfect costume for him. I couldn't even look at him without laughing because it just fit his personality so well and he is just the right size. He is so serene and wise. I have always thought that Abe has a little bit of an old man look about him behind that baby face. I was sure he was going to rip that headpiece off right away, but he wore it the whole night and never complained. He is such a sweet little Jedi Master.

We went to the Katie Jones' birthday party right before trick or treating, which is something we do every year and is always alot of fun. There were six of us there from the neighborhood who all had babies the same age. This picture was an incredible feat to obtain, because the babies were all over the place. From left to right: Malachi Joyner, Reagan Allen, Hope Chereck, Obadiah Smith, Abraham Kramer, and Rylee Fleming.

This picture was the best part of Halloween. I recently learned of the existance of a magical Candy Fairy. Legend has it that if you leave all of your Halloween candy out on the back porch before you go to bed on Halloween, She will come in the night and take the candy and leave you money to go buy whatever you want. We gave it a try and what do you know...IT WORKED!! Jack got twenty dollars! The candy fairy didn't have any smaller bills and she was willing to pay pretty much anything to not have all of that candy in the house.

The Fair is a Veritable Smorgasborg

In our family we have a really really fun Annual tradition that we carried out last night...The Arizona State Fair! Okay, go ahead and say it. The fair is ghetto. Heres the thing...We know its ghetto and We LOVE it! We just bring a couple of semi-automatic weapons and a stroller and our appetite for deep fried goodness and cotton candy and we EMBRACE THE GHETTO-NESS. Like most things in life if you look at the fair through the eyes of a child, you see how incredible it really is. The rides, the lights, the smells, the animals. It really is a lot of fun.

This year we went with my old friend Nick Carter and his girls and my mom met us there with her Argentine exchange teachers that she is hosting right now and we had a ball. We always go on dollar ride night and we don't play the midway games, but we do indulge when it comes to food. We get everything that strikes us. Carmel apples, Indian Fry Bread, Roasted Corn, Giant Turkey Legs, you name it!

Babyham loves the lights and the music. We were listening to a loud rock band and he started moving and shaking to the beat of the music. I think we might have another rocker on our hands.

Jack loved playing with Nick's girls. Amanda is five and Allison is seven and they are two of the cutest girls in the world. Apparently Jack and Allison had a special connection, because they decided to hold hands for a large portion of the evening. It was absolutely adorable, but the best part was how proud John was of Jack for being a ladies man. Especially because Allison is SEVEN years old. What can we say, he likes older women. Allison is a tiny little thing and Jack is a giant, so you can see they make a cute couple despite a three year age difference. GO JACK!

When we were on the way home, we must have hit something in the road becasue we all heard a loud pop but then didn't think much of it. A few miles later we completely blew out a tire on our van. Of course we were on a completely dark stretch of road with no flashlight in a scary part of town. it took John a little while to put on the spare tire in the dark, but eventually we were on our way.

This morning I asked Jack what his favorite part about the fair was and he knew exactly what his favorite part was. He said without hesitation "When our tire exploded!" I told John that next time we ought to save the money and instead of going to the fair, we'll just stay in Queen Creek and have car trouble. Once again, the world through the eyes of a child is a much more exciting place!

To all of the crazy carnies, deep fried twinkie vendors, the toothless ride operators and the largest horse in the world: SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!

I swear this will be my last political post...for a while

classic!

Baby handcuffs

If I ever wanted to imprison Abraham, I wouldn't need to put him behind bars, I could just give him a toilet. EVERYTIME he gets the opportunity, he puts his hand in the toilet to feel the water. then he invariably pulls the lid down on top of his hand and traps himself. he gets mad and tries to escape but in the process, just ends up pushing down harder on the toilet lid. It reminds me of those monkey traps where they put something shiny inside of a jar with a tapered lid and the monkey reaches in and grabs the object and cant get their hand free because it is fisted. All the monkey has to do is let go of the object to get loose but it never does.

Anyway, this scenario with the toilet has played out so many times that I finally had to take some pictures of it.

Abe is at that age where he automatically puts everything in his mouth. At the beach he ate literally pounds of sand and seaweed. Its so odd to me that kids would be hardwired to do something that has such a potential to make them sick, but then I look at my healthy little uber kinder shoving handfuls of filfth into his mouth and tounge kissing the dogs and I realize that this has got to be natures way of making sure they get all of the exposure they need to build up immunity to disease... either that or simply a way of thinning the herd.

I saw a movie yesterday (Baby Mamma) where a mother sees her toddler covered in a brown mystery substance and she asks, "is that chocolate or poop? she then gets down to examine it and smells it and then TASTES is and says, "Oh its just chocolate." This would have totally grossed me out before I was a mother, and now I totally get it. I guess all of that germ-y exposure we get as babies just prepares us to be parents.

Jacked up religion

This is a conversation that I overheard yesterday and butted into between Jack and Ella (my niece) right after a small fight that had broken out between them.

Jack- "You know who makes you wanna fight?"

Ella- "Who?"

Jack- "The Devil."

Ella- "Yeah, the devil makes you wanna fight and Jesus makes you wanna do good stuff."

Jack- "The Devil is a really bad guy. The baddest guy there is."

Ella- "Jesus is a really, really good guy. Jesus is in control of everything I do."

Me- "Woah, Ella, Jesus has set a perfect example for us to follow and if we are smart we will follow it, but he is not in control of everything you do."

Jack- "Jesus is in control of everything I do...except when I fight, then its the Devil."

Me- "no, you guys are in control of yourselves. Jesus wants you to do good things and the Devil wants you to bad things, but you get to choose.

There was a thoughtful pause and I could see that Jack was thinking really hard.

Jack- "Hey Ella, do you know who the Devil is?"

At this point I was expecting either a philosophical remark, "our enemy" or a doctrinal remark, "Jesus's bad brother" or even a simple identification "Satan". This was not so.

Jack- "Obama."

Don't worry, I spent the next five minutes trying to convince Jack that contrary to what he may have overheard his daddy saying, Obama is not the Devil. He is just a guy running for President that we don't think would be a good choice, because he wants to take away our guns and raise our taxes. He is NOT THE DEVIL. Just a person who we disagree with about alot of things.

Senator McCain might want to consider hiring Jack to do some campaigning. He already knows how to sling mud.

I Wanna be Sarah Palin when I Grow Up

I guess it comes as no surprise that the Kramer's love Sarah. I saw this little clip of her and I just had to include it onour blog because its such a great example of how great she is.

Sheriff of Naughty Ham

So Abe has just been into absolutely EVERYTHING lately. This scene with the dog food and the dog water is played out multiple times a day. It is his work and his glory. Nothing makes him happier than the discovery that the laundry room has been left open. He can hear it open from anywhere in the house. He can also hear the fridge being open from anywhere (its almost supernatural) and tries every time to make it there before it closes so that he can just put his chubby little hands on all of the cold stuff. I really don't know what is so exciting about it except that he isn't allowed access and that makes him want access. Nothing is more offensive to him that when he has target locked the fridge and he is headed over full speed and then Bam...it gets shut right before he can reach in. its a cruel world, Babyham.

This is also a common scene in our home. Abe has taken to rubbing whatever food he is eating into his hair. Especially the cement like substances such as oatmeal and rice cereal. I have found that the most effective process is to just throw him in the sink after every feeding and hose him off. Needless to say, he loves this program.

In this one Babyham is showing his standing skills. He has been letting go of things and standing for a few seconds at a time. Part of me is so proud of him to see him so strong and mobile and the other part of me misses my helpless infant. He is a super fun baby but he is not a snuggly baby because he has a lot to get done. His babywork schedule is pretty full. He has started saying "mama" when he sees me and it definiely seems like he is identifying me and not just randomly babbling. Also, he started picking up on some of the sign language we do with him and now at the end of a meal he lifts his hands above his head and doed the sign for "all done" This is usually when the aforementioned cement food in the hair incident will occur.

Haws Cousins

I just wanted to post a few pics of our Family hanging out with the Haws's. Lauren is the little sister I never had and the daughter I hope to someday have. She reminds me so much of myself when I was her age and we even have matching glasses, which I think make us look like twins...okay moybe not twins as much as sisters....okay not sisters as much as like aunt and niece. We'll go with that. She is so much fun...Hey LoHa, when are you going to come back over and spend another weekend with us?

Here is Milan and Jack in one of their wrestling fests. Its so great for Jack and Milan to spend time together becasue he can gett all of his boy-aggression out on someone who can take it and appreciates it. Jack and Ella are best friends but she'll never quite understand the beauty of a great headlock.

This is Ellyse who is the queen of babies. Its fun to go over there and watch her with all of the kids. She is such a natural mommy and a teacher and she is just so good with all of them. Its hilarious to see her carry Elan and Abe like this because combined they weigh about as much as her.

Dinosaurs!

On Friday we went with the Bachrach boys to Walking with Dinosaurs at the US Airways Center in Phoenix. It was one of the coolest shows I have ever seen! The dinosaurs looked so real and they were actual size! The boys loved it. We sprung for the expensive seats that were very close to the stage, of course when we got there, both Jack and Brigham pointed up at the nosebleed seats and said, "Wouldn't it be awesome if we could sit up there!" Note to self: kids like the cheap seats.

Brenda's Interview

I spent the entire day working on a press release about the Bachrach family for all of the local tv news and radio and newspapers. I would like to get as much awareness about The situation of Brenda and her boys becasue I really feel like there a lot of people in the community who would be willing to donate money to the family. I immediately got a response from Channel 3 news and they went to Brenda's house tonight to interview her and hear her story. It is heartbreaking but I think Brenda did an amazing Job. She is beautiful and articulate and I don't think you can watch this story and not feel deeply for her and her boys. Take a look at the link. http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/stories/Gilbert-local-news-091108-wife-fatal-wreck-talks.695cffbd.html?ocp=1#slcgm_comments_anchor

Hopefully we will get even more coverage tomorrow.

It has been interesting to see everyone's response to greiving. I have seen people just fall apart and I have seen people who need to cling to someone and I have seen people withdraw and be alone. I have discovered my resopnse is to find a job and to stay busy trying to be useful. This has been theraputic for me as it helps me feel just a little less powerless against mortality. I spent all day getting this press release out to every news outlet in town and I have become the official donation cheerleader for the Matt Bachrach Memorial Fund.

Tomorrow we are taking Brigham and Hunter to Walking with Dinosaurs and I am really excited about it. I really want the boys to just have an amazing time and to have a cool happy experience that they will remember. The Viewing/Visitation is tomorrow which will be hard on everyone, so I'd like to at least start the day off with something purely fun for the kids.

Brenda is amazing. She understands that by letting people serve her right now she is really serving them. She has kept such a calm and classy demenor and she has been so strong for her kids. She is an incredible woman under any circumstances, but this is the ultimate and she is proving that her strength and grace are the real thing. She inspires me.

A Sad Day

We got the terrible news today that our good friend Matt Bachrach was killed early this morning in a car accident while driving home from California. He and his wife Brenda are our very good friends. They have two boys ages 6 and 3 and Brenda is expecting their third boy within weeks. I went to their house as soon as I heard and spent the day with Brenda who is holding up really well but is obviously in a state of shock. Words fail me right now. I came home and hung on tightly to my husband and my boys and thanked Heavenly Father for letting me have them for another day.

Here is the link to one of the articles about the accident:http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/stories/Phoenix-local-news-090708-double-fatal-i10-ax.535067af.html

We will all miss you Matt.

First Day of School!

Jack started preschool today! He is going to Amber Olsen's on Tuesday through Thursday from 12:30 to 3:00. I have felt like Jack is really ready for preschool and so we were all really excited for it to start. I got Jack a Transformers back pack which he thought was pretty cool. The kids line up against the garage when they get dropped off and then they march inside together singing songs. Its pretty cute. I took a picture of the whole class getting ready. Notice that Jack is once again the biggest kid there. I'm so proud of my big boy!

UTAH!

Jack, Abe and I got home from our trip to Utah last night. We were there for a week visiting my sister Stephanie and her family. We had such a great time. Abe and Talan are so cute together and Jack and Reagan had a ball attempting to boss each other around. We did fun things every day and I loved getting to spend time with the Adairs. They are such a fun family. Here are some highlights from the trip:

This is Talan and Abe on the day we arrived having a good conversation. Both of these babies are so good natured and sweet but with very different personalities. It was fun getting to know Talan. We discovered that Abed literally eats about 5 times the amount that Talan eats. Incidentally, he also has 5 times the stinky diapers.

We went to build a bear workshop on Wednesday because none of us had ever been and we thought it would be fun. Jack picked a T-rex and Reagan picked a Panther. Because we were in Provo they had a little missionary outfit complete with a Book of Mormon and a Bible. Jack picked the little missionary out fit as soon as he saw it. I thought it was a perfect Utah Souvinir. He named it Elder Tinkalicious Kramer. I have no idea where he got Tinkalicious from but I thought it was pretty funny. Reagan picked a pop star outfit. We laughed about how opposite their choices were.

On Thursday we went to the Farm at Thanksgiving Point. The weather was absolutely perfect and so we hung out for a long time in the grass and checking out all of the animals and stuff. One of the best parts about Utah is how many family friendly things there are all around. The kids got to have a couple of pony rides and the babies loved playing in the grass.

It was hard to resist this picture. Stephanie and I titled it

"JACK ASS".

On Friday Stephanie went to a salon and got our hair done. I really don't know what I was thinking when I decided to cut all of my hair off, but thats a whole other story. We had a cousin babysit the four year olds and we took the babies with us to the salon. I had no idea that this ordeal would take FOUR HOURS and before we were done the babies had had it. I gave Abe a piece of licorice to try to keep him happy. Lets just say that the licorice worked. I had to hose him off afterwards in the salon sink! I love this picture because he is about the same age as Jack when we gave him his first taste of candy which was also licorice.

Saturday was game day! Steph and David have season tickets to BYU Football. It was the first BYU game I have ever been to and I loved it! Their seats are really close to the field and the cheer leaders cheer right in front of us so there was always something interesting to watch. BYU played Northern Iowa and they kicked their butts. It was so fun to be apart of the excitement.

GO COUGARS!

On Monday a storm moved in and the temperature dropped about 40 degrees! We of course didn't even pack sweat shirts so we raided the Adair's closets. Here is Jack and Carsten in matching Sun Devil sweatshirts playing in the rain. These two play really great together. I loved seeing Jack with all of Stephanie's boys because he worships them and he can get all of his boy-ness out. They wrestle and run around and play football etc. Jack loved playing with all of his Utah cousins.

On Monday night David and Stephanie and I got a sitter and went shopping. I saw this Buzz Lightyear suit for Jack and I couldn't pass it up. What I really want to find one day is an adult size Buzz costume becasue I have always said that John looks like Buzz Lightyear. I think this costume is perfect on Jack.

Tuesday was finally time to go home to Arizona. The flight was full so I wasn't supposed to have a seat for Abe and was going to have to put him on my lap, but I overheard the flight attendants talking about a seat that was out of order because a kid had spilled chocolate and glitter all over it. I was able to negotiate a seat change and put Abe's seat into the chocolate seat. SCORE! He and Jack were both wonderful little travelers and the flight home was blissfully uneventful. Its funny how I used to dislike flying because it was boring. Now I just pray that it will be boring.

We were so happy to touch down back in Arizona. We had all missed John so much and it was so exciting to see him waiting for us outside of security. John brought me a dozen red roses and a new tank for himself... oh wait I guess that the tank was for Jack, although it was hard to tell with how much John played with it. He is such an overgrown kid. Thats why Jack has so much fun with him. Here is Jack giving Daddy all of the details of our fun trip.

A huge THANK YOU to Stephanie for putting us up and feeding us and entertaining us. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful family and even though I am sad that I don't get to see Stephanie and her family more often, it is really great to have a reason to go on vacation. We are so glad that we did this trip. John and I decided that we will try to plan another trip up there this winter with all of us.