Bragging Rights

I can take no credit for this, other than I finally got a video of it. Teaching him this was all Bryan. And, yes, it is the old school set, but the roster has changed a lot in recent years, so maybe that last one will count again someday.

We think it is pretty darn cool that he knows these.

For the Grandmas

Watch for Peter's cameo.

Date Night

Bryan and I are having a date. We're sitting next to each other at the kitchen table blogging on our his and hers laptops. And having fun. I'm so glad that we're both geeks.

Family

Bryan's family was in town for almost 2 weeks. It was wonderful having them here for so long. I've already posted a few pictures from their visit. I found a few more that I'd like to include on here for posterity, you know, if I ever decide to print this thing off.

This is a picture we took at Bryan's Grandma Barbara's house. You know, I just realized that this is one of the few pictures of me I've put on here. Can you tell who Peter gets his hair from?


Here are a few of Cooper bonding with his Great-Grandma Barbara, while being held by his Nana Shari.

Boring

Bryan's been working this evening on making his brother's blog aesthetically pleasing. Which has, in turn, inspired me to try again to make mine more attractive as well. I've run into a few problems:

1. I don't like cutesy stuff. I'm just not into it. So all those blog templates out there that look like scrapbook pages would be wildly out of place on my blog. They're great for others, but not for mine.
2. My HTML is mighty rusty, so designing something on my own will take a LONG TIME.
3. My title. What image does one use to represent cleverness? It would be so much easier if I'd picked something like "Look At Me Look At Me!" or "I'm Awesome", but I didn't. And, yes, I'm fully aware that I can change my title anytime I want. But it's kind of like a challenge every time I'm writing and look up at the corner of my screen and see "Trying To Be Clever...".

So, my blog may remain visually uninteresting until I resolve the above issues. Oh well.

Popular*

I've been thinking about this for a few weeks. What I'm about to say might come as a bit of a shock, so prepare yourselves accordingly:

I'm not cool. And further, I never have been. I have plenty of friends and have never been a full-fledged outcast. But I've also never been in that really cool group. And you know what, I'm okay with that.

In high school the popular kids were known as the soces. (Think the word socials, but casually and coolly abbreviated.) They were the cheerleaders, jocks, goof-ball slackers, and a few stand-out brains. I was part of the social group that was lovingly nicknamed the drama freaks. Yeah, tender, huh? In all fairness to the social powers-that-be, the theatre crowd was remarkably odd when I arrived second semester of my freshman year. The drama teacher, a talented theatre practitioner, was also severely nicotine dependent. If he hadn't used the 9am break to go across the street to smoke, his nose and mouth would twitch. Nifty. Also, many of the students would follow him across the street and partake in the cancer-causing camaraderie. By my senior year, the teacher (and another one after him) had moved on to other projects. The theatre program was filled with a number of well-rounded students, even a few that were truly cool. Yes, I was pleased with what we had done to clean the place up. But the majority of us were still known as the drama freaks.

Not to worry, those foolish groups known as cliques are left behind with high school, right? Not so much. They just change shape. Now my possible social circles consist of the women that are so well groomed one wonders if they have their own hair and make-up people living in their basement, the moms whose kids are involved in a bazillion different activities and they themselves are on the board for most of these clubs/teams/organizations, the crafty moms who scrapbook and garden and sew and can and have cutesy decor throughout their homes, the slackers moms who joke about how their kids are ornery or how their husbands are lazy, etc. I could go on. Guess what? I don't fit into any of these groups either.

But like I said, I'm okay with it. And, here's the conclusion that I've come to lately, I'm a better mom because of it. Moms have to do hard things, the things that nobody else wants to do. They have to enforce rules and say no when it would be so much easier to just turn a blind eye or say yes. And the fact that I have no delusions of coolness makes it that much easier to go with what is right, not with what is popular.

*Did anybody else have Wicked start running through their head when they saw the title of this post?

Expressive

Last week Peter and Cooper woke up at about the same time. The three of us were hanging out in my room when the following exchange took place.

Peter: Mommy, what are those? (Pointing to my forehead)
Me: My freckles?
Peter: No, these. (Pointing again)
Me: Oh, they're um, expression lines.
Peter: No Mommy, they're stripes.

Oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know Peter.

Choreography by Peter

Cooper's Girlfriend

This is the picture on our TV box. We had to keep the box in case the TV ever has to be moved. It's current home is in our office/laundry room. Last night Cooper and I went in to check on Bryan and Cooper would giggle and hide his face whenever he caught sight of the picture on the box. It was really cute.

My First Tag (kind of)

So, my friend Crystal had this tag on her blog, and I thought I could use it as a good litmus to see how popular I am. Plus, I get to be all anxious to see if anyone will respond, and who doesn't need a little more anxiety in their life?

1. As a comment on my blog, leave a memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember(it can involve the family or even my husband too)!
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll be sure to write one about you... either on your blog, in my comment box, or I will email you back!
3. If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all ☺
4. Consider this a Tag: if you've read it, you have to do it!

Finally

I can't find my camera.

If I could you would be feasting your eyes upon something that Bryan brought home yesterday. Something that we haven't had in almost seven years of marriage. Something that Peter wanted to use as soon as he woke up this morning. What could have our whole family in such awe?

A kitchen table.

That's right, we've never had a table. Well, that's not entirely true. Our first apartment was fully furnished. And we rented one for a while when we moved to our second apartment, but neither were ours. (We also rented an awesome purple couch, but that's fodder for another post.) We've been using TV dinner trays and folding chairs. They've suited us fine. We would put Peter in his highchair and set up our chairs so that we faced him. It created a nice little circle of family-dinner-togetherness. But Peter has outgrown his highchair. We knew it would happen eventually.

Our good fortune was the result of some kind of sad news, depending on how you look at it. Bryan's grandma needed full-time care because of her rapidly progressing dimentia. She moved into the same facility where my grandparents live, although they are in the assisted living section. Anyway, her room is too small for many of her belongs, thus begins the process for her children of dividing up her belongings. Bryan's dad knew that we didn't have a table, so we were lucky to recieve the table and six chairs that had been Bryan's grandma's. It really is good that she's getting the care that she needs.

Permit me to wax philosophical for a moment. Stuff is just stuff. Eloquent, no? Really though, this process of deciding who gets what is hard on everyone involved. My dad and his sisters did it last year when my grandparents moved out of their home. Maybe it's different if the family member has already passed away, but there's a certain feeling of intrusion that clings to you when you begin carting away someone's memories, and they're standing there watching you do it. And what becomes of all those inhereted items? Are they treasued? Or retained only until they can be replaced with something more in line with the tastes of the person that recieved them? Things are just things. I hope to be remembered more for what I've done and who I've been than for how much stuff I've accumulated.

Wow, that was far deeper than I'd planned to go. Guess I feel strongly about this topic...

Anyway, we have a table and it's swell!

A Conundrum

So, one of the many reasons that I haven't posted lately is that the little bit of time I had before to write is now being sucked up by looking for a place to live.

"What's that?" you say. "Didn't you just move into you current domicile in February?" Yes, yes we did. Also, if anyone is really thinking the word domicile, then you get a gold star.

Our landlords are selling their house. They did offer to include us in the contract to sell, but for a few different reasons, we've told them we would look for a new place.

Here's the thing, we're totally spoiled now. Our last apartment was okay, but it did have a mold problem, and was on the busiest street in Provo, and there really wasn't anyplace for Peter to play outside. This apartment is a daylight basement with a walk-out entrance that leads to the backyard. It's a lot bigger than our old place and was recently remodeled. Granted it has flooded a few times, which wasn't so fun, but it is much fancier than anywhere we've lived before.

We really want to buy a house, but we feel like we need to save more before we do that. It's tough seeing so many people our age and younger that are in their own homes while we're still renting. I felt a little better reading my friend Cristin's blog a few months ago about how they're renting, but I'll be honest, it would be nice to live in a place where I could paint the walls.

And so the question of the hour: do we find a cheap place and save our money while biting our tongues about how our dwelling place is lacking, or do we fork out a little bit more money for an apartment where I'm okay with going barefoot because I think the spiders are under control? The first option will save us money, but the second will save sanity.

And if anyone knows of any apartments for rent in the North Utah County area, please let me know.

Choo Choo

We've been very busy for the last week, hence the severe lack of posting. Bryan's family is in town and we've been having fun with them. I will say more about what we've been doing later.

For now, here are a few pictures of our trip to the This is the Place park in Utah. They had a darling little train that drove around a pond. Peter went on it twice, once with Daddy once with Papa Ron. He loved it. They also had a mini-village. Peter made it clear that he wanted to stay and was not please when we informed him that it was time to go home.

Cooper kicked it in the Baby Bjorn most of the time we were there.

USA

Happy Independence Day!

Peter and Cooper and I took a walk this morning and saw an American flag on almost every lawn. I'm so thankful to live in this country where I have the opportunity to exercise my free agency. I believe that the founders of our nation were inspired men that paved the way for the gospel to be restored just a few decades later. I'm thankful for the men and women that devote themselves to maintaining our freedoms. I hope I don't ever take this country for granted.

Kind of Cool

I grew up in number 27. This makes me want to move back even more than I did before.

Something to remember

Last night during one of my checks to see if Peter was asleep yet the following exchange took place:

Me: I love you sweet Peter.

Peter: I love you sweet Mommy.

:)