What does Santa prefer?

I'd forgotten that I'd seen Santa out and about before Christmas...just checking on a few things. Thanks for reminding me, Crystal. Santa must have quite the garage.

Picture a Christmas

Christmas Eve in Springville. We had a very nice lunch followed by a bit of gift giving. Ryan pulled himself up onto Grandpa's leg and decided to have a little conversation.

If you can't picture it, Evan is trying to eat it. He's not playing peekaboo.

We had a nice white Christmas. Very peaceful. Unfortunately, most of us were sick. We slept in, didn't have much of traditions at all. I did make orange rolls for Evan and myself(the only two up at the time).

Our Christmas decorations were not elaborate this year. I didn't even have the energy or time to put up the tree. Luckily, we did hang our stockings. Which are beautiful. Thank you Mom! If you hadn't made one for Ryan and sent it to us, I don't know if I would have even hung the rest.

Our pile of gifts from our dear family members became our tree on our table. It was a pile of love in my mind. Oliver and I decided we didn't need to do gifts for ourselves or for the boys this year and it turns out we didn't have to. Even though we draw names in our families, we were still thought of by others and I hope they all know how much we love them.

We did open presents...at 2pm. Sometimes its nice to not have children old enough to care about presents.

Count the Cars! Thanks Pop! These are so cool!

And, of course, the best part of opening presents? The filling! The paper! The trash! Who cares about toys & clothes & a box full of pacifiers?

Across the sea, in Bethlehem,

Lord Jesus came to Earth.

As Samuel had prophesied

And angels sang his birth.

Hosanna, Hosanna,

Oh, let us gladly sing.

How blessed that our Lord was born,

Let Earth receive her King.

"Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus" p.36 Primary Children Songbook

Christmas Lights

Oliver and I like to look at the lights that people decorate their houses with. This year we were discussing what we would do when we have a house of our own. How will we decorate the outside of our house? What about you? What do you do? or what do you hope to do? Icicle lights? Wreaths? Candles? White lights? Blue? Red? Green? All of the above and more? Inflatable lawn decorations? Giant Santa on the roof? Manger scenes? Nothing? We drove by a house the other day with luminarias lining the walk and the porch. But not just any luminarias, they were milk jugs and it looked like colored LED lights instead of paper bags with candles. It was cool. I was promised to have a husband who would get out on the roof to decorate the roof line. I honestly don't know what our house will look like. I like icicle lights. I hope to have a nice big window in which I can put a Christmas tree.

This year we decided to see the Christmas lights at Thanksgiving Point. They do a little drive through park thing, which was overpriced in my opinion, but whatever. It was still fun.

From the waving polar bear,

to the penguin falling off the igloo,

to the parachuting reindeer, the boys slept through it all.

Despite all the beautiful lights depicting Santa land, I think I was most grateful for the end of the little drive. Paintings depicting the birth of Christ were on each side of road with a poster reading the verses of a Primary Children's Songbook song titled "The Nativity Song." The last verse is the following:

See the sweet mother, Mary so fair,

Joseph who guided the donkey with care.

See the dear baby of Bethlehem,

Little Lord Jesus, the Savior of men.

Merry Christmas!

Language of Love

This post comes out of the process of having two children and doing the unfortunate thing of comparing them. I love both of my children, but I do think about things and this thought has crossed my mind. Its a matter of really thinking whether I am a mother or not. Yes, we have two children. We take care of them. We love them. I gave birth to them. But with this comparison of the two of them, I'm realizing just how quickly Ryan is developing and realizing that he will eventually be able to do things that Evan does not or will not do.

"Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language."-Dale Carnegie

I have been a mother for a little more than two years now and have not been called "mom" yet except by those who are not really my children. Do you think that being called something makes you that person? Here's a little story. When I first met Oliver, my roommate thought his name was Rob and had an entire conversation with him, continually calling him Rob instead of Oliver and he never corrected her. This led our entire apartment to call him RobOliver(once we found out his real name) and to this day there are still some of our friends who call him Rob because that is how he had been introduced to them. But the other thing about this story is that in those situations with those friends, Oliver would respond to the name Rob. He became Rob. Yes, he was still Oliver and the two were not different personalities, but it was a part of his identity.

One of the privileges of my job is that I get to work with the residents and with the RAs and get the same training that they do. We focus on lots of things for the age group we work with, but that also applies to most things in life, relationships, situations that extend beyond BYU 2008-2009 year. We talk about identity and how we develop identity. The RAs are required to know their resident's names; they get to take a quiz on all of them. Why? because if they can name them on a piece of paper, then when they see them on campus, in classes, in the hall, in their apartments, they can say "Hi, Susie Lou" and it makes it a little easier for that person to transition into being away from home & out of their comfort zone and hopefully won't get lost in the shuffle of craziness we call student life. This applies to everything, when someone remembers your name, don't you feel just a little bit more important and involved, than if they forget or don't know your name?

So that long winded paragraph was about how I live in a house with a husband whom I can't talk to 24 hours a day(maybe only half that) and two boys who speak in guttural sounds. :) I was thinking how cool its going to be to hear Ryan say "Mama" one day and then thinking about whether Evan ever would.

Luckily, these two gorgeous happy boys have a different way of saying Mom and saying I love you. Just like every mother gets to figure out with their new child, they have their own way of sharing their love. Whether its from the biggest smiles you've ever seen greeting you when you walk back into the house, or the tight squeeze you get around your neck. Sometimes its shown in the way that they won't let you put them down. They can't say "Mom, I just need to be held right now" but boy do they say it with their body or the giant scream once you do set them down followed by quiet calm when you pick them back up. It can be as simple as Evan coming over and laying his head on my knee for two seconds(the longest amount of sitting stillness unless he's asleep) or them just crawling to you.

So I definitely look forward to the day when I actually hear the words "Mama" or "Daddy" and my heart will melt. At the same time, I'm grateful that I am still they one they want when they are tired and that I am their security in a crowded room. I love how great it feels to have a head laid on my shoulder. This totally makes me lead into another thought process of intimacy, but this is enough for today. My two adorable and fast growing children are below. Now I need to see if its possible to wrap Christmas gifts while they are awake.

Another Superhero in the Making

Big Boy

Another big step for the young one.

This is because Vicky mentioned something about watching to see what he can do next to be aware for her little guy. Well, here you go. He can sit up by himself!! and he's so roly poly that he has just figured it all out so quickly. He can sit up and fall down without hurting himself and reaching for things he wants and...I am just so amazed. It's interetsing to see him hit these typical markers because Evan hits atypical markers and they really are completely different children. But they are both adorable and make us happy. As for Evan, he got a late birthday present from my parents that really makes him look like a big boy:

I know this may sound mean, but he was trying to get the backpack so much that he kept turning in circles like a dog chasing its tail. It kept us laughing for a while. But he looks so big with a back pack on his back!

I love my boys!

Thanksgiving in Illinois

One thing I'm grateful for? Eternal families! Because I love spending time with my family. I love spending time with Oliver's family as well, but for Thanksgiving I was able to be with all of my siblings for the first time in 4 years. The only sad part was that it was only for 1 day. I really like these people. The Lord must have known this could and would and should happen: family members liking each other so much that they want to spend lots of time with each other.

So Oliver and I made the strange decision to travel to Illinois by car. In case you were wondering between the Friday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after, our car recieved 3050 new miles added to the odometer. It was good because we actually took our time and didn't try to drive it in one shot which was different than times past. But it was long and tiring and unfortunately we weren't feeling so hot by the time we got home, but it was worth it to see my family whom I love.

I didn't bring out my camera on Thanksgiving itself, but here are some other photo highlights of our vacation.

On the first night of our drive, we stopped and stayed at a motel in Grand Junction, CO. And Ryan decided to show that he is growing up and can get up on his hands and knees. Throughout the week he continued to try and go forward instead of backwards.

Guess what we stopped and saw in Goodland, KS. That's right! A giant Van Gogh replica! Yay for random bits of art in the world: The Big Easel project

Ryan decided he really liked his uncle Mitchell. This is them bonding on Monday night. He really liked alot of people on this trip, and I think many people liked him too--he's very snuggly. Pop, Casey, Grammy, Aunt Kris to name a few.

A few other things that we didn't get pictures of but discovered last week: Evan getting upset when anyone attacks his mom(attacks as in tickling, which is a bonus for me! This even applies to Daddy attaching Mommy), pitch black bedrooms are awesome for Evan going to sleep which leads me to apologies for not getting any outside pictures of the house I grew up in to show off my underground house. I didn't get a group picture, but I've decided to steal the following picture from my sister Jo:

Man, I love these people. Unfortunately missing Mike who has to take care of his job responsibilites for Black Friday, but wow. And there were still around 30 other people at this massive celebration. My contribution involved cutting out leaves and providing them for individuals to write what they are thankful for and that's when I realized that Oliver and I will probably never agree on one thing: Oliver is grateful for mountains. His comment was: You never know how much something is a part of you until they aren't there anymore. This is funny because on the drive out, as we got into the eastern part of Colorado, I started to breathe easier and relaxed alot just because of the lack of mountains and the ability to see for miles. Mountains are a part of Oliver and cornfields are a part of me.

This last picture is a view of Wyoming on the drive home. It's like the world decided after Thanksgiving, that it really is winter(as we drove past Vail, Colorado BEFORE Thanksgiving, 7 were filling the mountains with fake snow) or as Oliver put it "the earth decided it was FULL."

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you are all reminded of what you are thankful for and continue to celebrate these happy feelings and share your blessings through the Christmas season.

Leaves!

As I was walking home from the Central Building, I saw this spot and couldn't resist the beautiful weather(it was 60 today!), the sun, or the leaves. So I ran inside, got Ryan & Evan and had a photo shoot with the cutest little boys ever...even if they don't always cooperate. I believe it was a 30 minute break well spent away from work. Besides, by the time I was done with my meetings afterward, I would have had absolutely no light to work with.

Here are my cute boys: Undirected hugging and its crazy that the grass is still green...

This is the best laughing grin from Evan.

Here's the best smile from Ryan
Genuine laughter--What fun leaves can be!

And a warm fall day can be so thought provoking...

Crazy 8s

Last, but not least, the tag of 8s.
RULES
1. Post rules on your Blog
2. Answer the six "8" items
3. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving them a comment

8 FAVORITE SHOWS
1. Ugly Betty
2. America's Next Top Model
3. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
4. Mythbusters
5. Studio 5
6. Rick Steve's Europe
7. The Cosby Show
8. The Rachael Ray Show

8 THINGS I DID YESTERDAY
1. Watched White Christmas
2. Delivered Rice Krispy Treats
3. Went to Community Standards...thrice
4. Took a long bath
5. Made cookie bars
6. Took out the trash
7. Talked to my parents
8. Took a nap

8 THINGS I LOOK FORWARD TO
1. Being with everyone for Thanksgiving
2. ROAD TRIP! (A little less exciting with two children, but still good)
3. Being in Illinios
4. Creating some Thanksgiving crafts--A thankful tree and maybe some others
5. A relaxing vacation
6. Getting organized
7. Christmas shopping
8. Oliver finishing school

8 FAVORITE RESTAURANTS
1. Los Hermanos
2. Chili's
3. La Gondola
4. La Buona Vita(the long lost Italian place)
5. La Dolce Vita
6. Steak'N'Shake
7. Giardino's
8. Panda Express

8 THINGS ON MY WISH LIST
1. SLR Digital camera
2. Couch(a full length one)
3. New clothes
4. Understanding of Angelman Syndrome & how to live with it
5. To be a better mom/wife/sister/daughter/ & friend
6. An organized mind
7. Cute haircut
8. Financial prowess

8 PEOPLE TO TAG
1. Anna
2. CJ
3. Emily in AZ
4. Emily in UT
5. Holly
6. Kristen
7. Laura
8. Sherie

Lucky 7 Tag

7 Things I Can Do:
1. Sing, not well, but I can do it.
2. Spell--most of the time
3. Spend forever looking at art(paintings, sculptures, architecture, photography)
4. Get really engrossed in a book and have to finish it in a few days
5. Watch Christmas movies!!(Oliver said I could)
6. Swim
7. Dream about a clean house

7 Things I Cannot Do:
1. Get up in the morning and work out(despite my great goals a few months ago)
2. Stand waiting in long lines
3. Plan meals--luckily, I don't always have to
4. Remember to put Evan's boots on him every day
5. Play the left hand on the piano
6. Watch a basketball game on TV
7. Remember all the dances I learned in my country western swing class

7 Things That Attracted Me to Oliver:
1. His smile
2. His blue eyes
3. His laid back attitude
4. His love for kids(he taught primary in our ward when I met him & I still have a little fish that he had made as a visual aid in one of his classes)
5. His friendship
6. His humor
7. He has a good sense of direction...I don't even think he knows that was one of his endearing qualities.

7 Things I Say Most Often:
1. "I don't know"
2. "Evan! NO!"(It's sad but true)
3. "Just go to sleep"(another sad reality)
4. "Ollie, can you hold him?"
5. "We need to clean the house"(And in that case, I only half mean you)
6. "I love you"
7. "He's so CUTE!!"

7 Celebrity Admirations:
1. Tom Hanks.
2. Johnny Depp
3. Robin Williams(That guy can act in any role!)
4. Bill Cosby
5. America Ferrera
6. Big Bird
7. Bob Villa...

7 Favorite Foods:
1. Ice cream...anything with chocolate
2. Gnocchi ai funghi(gnocchi with mushrooms & a tomato/alfredo mushroom sauce that is no longer attainable because the restaurant is now gone)
3. Torpedoes! from La Gondola
4. Green bean casserole
5. Mashed potatoes
6. The Cannon Center's chocolate chip cookies
7. Oriental Chicken salad--a new favorite

7 People to Tag:
1. Anna-Lisa
2. Kendra
3. Shayla
4. Deanna
5. Lori
6. Vicky
7. Nola

Tags Galore!

I decided I was going to finally catch up on some tags. And apparently they all have to do with numbers. Here's the first: Find the 4th folder in your pictures folder and the 4th photo within that folder. Post the photo and talk about it. Sounds easy enough. Here goes:

This is Charlie & Chelsea. They are cute. I took their engagement photos and they used this one (or one like it) as their wedding announcement. (The wedding info was "written" on the wall.) I love the colors. I'm supposed to tag people with all of these, but that's going to add up and I don't know if I have enough different people. So the three I'll choose are Christina, Crystal, & Susie. Have fun!

Blessing of Renewal

Have you ever had the experience of feeling your spirit, your soul, your mind, renewed by one thing or another? And every time it happens, it feels like the first time, and you wish that you had been reminded of this so much sooner and that you could have felt this great yesterday but you are so grateful to feel it now? I attribute that feeling to several things today. One being that I was actually in the chapel(or at least the gym) for most of sacrament meeting and able to sing the hymns. While I spent Sunday School in nursery with Evan, I was able to go to the entire hour of Relief Society today and its been a very loing time since I was last able to do that. Again, I was able to sing the hymns and actually focus on the lesson given and hear the whole of it. And through spending that hour in Relief Society, I was able to realize some things and set some new goals and that is always a blessing. It's amazing how such small things can make such a large difference. And for those who have the Joseph Smith Manual and haven't yet read the chpater about the Prophet's letters to his family, I would encourage you to do it and then to write a letter to someone you love. That's one of my projects for this afternoon...and I'm not going to care if Evan helps me..I'll just tape the paper back together before sending it off. Yay for music, sacred music, and for being renewed so that I can continue on in a positive way.

Halloween Priorities

Sometimes I think that I want to be this amazingly crafty mom who is not only on top of life, but can make the holidays an awesome experience. From this post about Halloween, you'll see that I shouldn't try to fool myself because I'm much more into the holiday stuff that we did in the previous post.

I did try. I had plans. Some of them happened. Most of them didn't. Doesn't this sound awesome: At 10am, take the boys to the grocery store where they were holding a trick or treating through the departments. Evan would be a farmer with a "John Deere" stroller, Ryan would be a bumblebee in our front carrier and I would be his flower. (Aaaww...) Then at 5 we'd go around to the apartments in Heritage Halls to do some trick or treating and basically just show off my adorable children because we don't really need the candy. Maybe if we had time, we'd finally carve the pumpkin that we picked at the pumpkin patch last week and let Evan play with the gooey insides. Great plan right?

Here's how it really went down...at 10am, bee & flower costume not even in existence, "John Deere Green" chorus running through my head as I stare at the posterboard being eaten by Evan. At 11, Farmer Evan in John Deere stroller and I in Oliver's cowboy hat head to the Central Building where I have to gather some things for work. We get back and I continue to work on my plan for the disaster scenario the hall advisors will have to go through at 2pm. At least the John Deere logo looks as cool as I had hoped it would. Come 5 o'clock, I realize that I haven't had time to make dinner and that food is much more important than showing off my adorable children, so we go to the cafeteria to eat. Afterwards, as I started to clear the table off, I realized that last Friday's pumpkin was already rotting and was leaving a little mark on the table. So that went directly to the dumpster. That was Halloween for my family. For me, it wasn't quite over yet because at 8 I was responsible for spending 3 hours at the area dance where we had the job of making sure the dress and grooming standards were being abided and that nothing bad happened.

So Halloween, I'm not exactly sure if I'm a big fan of you. It is fun to get dressed up and to see all of the little ones dressed up as little animals and little people, but you're just an excuse to have a party or have a dance and get together with other people and look funny. And yes, sometimes you're a really good excuse to eat candy. Thankfully, we successfully avoided that problem. I do feel bad about little Ryan not having a cute first Halloween picture, but you know...they won't care. In a few years when he starts to think about it and wonder why, he'll know I loved him...right?

I do want to say thanks to Emily for giving Oliver and I an excuse to get dressed up. While this is a costume, its also a dream we have...to go on vacation...relax somewhere exotic...

Doesn't Oliver look like he's ready to go right now?

And little Ryan, I do love you. This picture isn't a good one of you, but its proof that you were at least wearing black which would have been perfect for your little bee costume. Don't tease me about it too much when you're older...

Fall Celebration

We like to do fall oriented things on Evan's birthday. This year we decided to go to Rowley's South Ridge Farms. It was a gorgeous October day and it was so nice to be outside. It really made me feel like a regular family on an outing doing something really relaxing and fun. I wish I could say it was for our children, but it wasn't--it was all for me. :)
We got to go on a hayride through the orchards(as seen in the topmost photo) to the "pumpkin patch. I love how slow tractors go. I haven't been on a hayride in a long time so that was very soothing and relaxing.
The pumpkin patch was pretty picked over already, but we still found a pumpkin to bring home.

Back at the Big Red Barn, we waited in a slow moving line(which isn't as cool as slow moving tractors) to try their Cider slush(for Oliver) and pumpkin pie ice cream for Evan. As you can see, the ice cream was a big hit. Then we needed to do a little photo shoot by the old tractor sitting outside before heading home to take naps from our afternoon of being outside. What a great day. Yay for fall and families!

And yay for cute children to use as excuses to do fun stuff.

A 2 Year Old in the House!

Two years ago, on a randomly snowy night in October, I went into labor for the first time in my life. After doing ridiculous things, like resting in the bathtub, going to a tri-hall council meeting, and finally saying let's go to the hospital, we were so excited to welcome our first child into this world. We were so happy to have such a healthy little boy with a head of (surprisingly) reddish hair and with so much energy. He was gorgeous and we couldn't be more excited to have a son and to start to learn how to live with this third little person in the house.
That year went by so quickly. Evan was such a cute baby. He was a very easy going baby as well. He fit in well with our routines, he could go to bed late and wake up late. Looking back, somewhere in there, Evan started to wake up at 1 or 2 in the morning and stay awake for a while with Oliver. He was loved by all of his extended family, as well as his mom and dad. He was so content with life. He didn't start to crawl right away, but he was okay with just being wherever we put him. He finally started to crawl and he hasn't stopped moving. One thing that he started in that first year was being such a happy little boy. Smiles and giggles for anyone and everyone. What more could we ask for?!
Unfortunately, Evan's second year started out rocky and has been rocky for the majority of it. On the positive side, his smiles and giggles have not stopped. They have just gotten bigger and more little boyish instead of babyish. While the second year started out rocky, we are so blessed to have been able to also discover the reasons why in the same year. Evan's crazy curls grew in and have just exploded over his head and that army crawl has turned into a scoot and walking along anything and everything sturdy enough to hold him up. Within this second year of his life, he began a sign of affection where he would bonk his head against yours and that has developed into some sort of hug where he pushes his head against your face and says "aaaaaooooooaaaaaaa." Our baby is growing up and its hard, but we love him. He's just so cute!!
I know his third year of life will just be full of so much more love and a million more changes and advancements.

From Shrubs to Grasses (A post from Oliver)

So, I figured it was about time I made a post on our "Online Family History Journal" as I like to call it. So here it goes. WARNING: Be prepared to hear about some boring school stuff!


The first 2 months of the semester I was in a pretty intense Botany class where we dived into the world of woody species of plants of Utah. We learned about 90 species out of the 350 native to the state. It was pretty fun to go on a field trip at least once a week with a Van full of crazy plant loving Utah natives. I'm pretty sure I learned as much about Utah as I did about plants.

As our final project, we had to press and collect at least one species from 30 diferent woody plant families which was pretty challenging, and we couldn't use trees you find in neighborhoods, because those come from nurseries and aren't considered Utah plants. Fall is so beautiful here and I loved getting to spend class time up the canyons. If you need a science credit, I highly recommend taking some sort of field botany class...way fun!

So my class renewed my interest in plants that I've had my whole life, so it wasn't hard for my teacher to convince me to take the next block botany class offered, Intro to Grasses. In the shrubs class we looked at about 50 different FAMILIES of plants, and for the next 8 weeks we'll focus just on one family.....the grass family. It's pretty crazy. It's actually pretty tough to key out grasses to the genus and species and even worse, variety level. We get to use our book on all of our tests, so that's cool. We get to look at all the different parts under the microscope which is kinda fun. No camping or field trips though =(

In my microbio lab last week we took swabs of things around campus and are gonna grow them out in an incubator over the weeekend to see what all is growing on stuff we use every day. Some things we swabbed were: the courtesy phone, the keyboard in the computer lab, the drinking fountain, a doorknob, the men's locker room shower floor (GROSS!) and a PE issue basketball. On Monday I think I'm going to start wearing gloves and a face mask after what we are gonna see.


Next week we are actually gonna swab ourselves (nose, throat, ears, fingernails, etc.). Joy.


Well, hope I didn't bore you too much. Back to tending to our cute litle guys. They are so fun to play with.


Adios. Oliver

October color

At first, you look at the mountain and its brown. But this morning as I looked at the mountain, I realized that its still so full of almost any color that you want.

New Sister

I have a new sister. 4 1/2 years ago, I became the newest sister to Oliver's family, the count was doubled, whether Beth liked it or not. Then 2 years ago we had the happy arrival of Chelsea. Now, as of two days ago, Jen has joined the crew.

We had a weekend of wedding fun for Chris & Jen. Until I get our copy of the wedding photos, though, I won't have an actual photo of the two of them together on their happy day. Because we had a little camera and everyone else had much more entertaining cameras to play with, I didn't pull ours out as often, except to take pictures of us(because if we didn't who would?).

Nevertheless, it was a fun weekend. Friday afternoon, the women got together to put together the bouquets that we would each hold(which I thought was a very nice gesture to include all of the sisters and sisters-in-law). Luckily, Ari (who is dating Oliver's youngest brother) flew in right as that project was starting and she has some knowledge in that area and was able to help that move along quickly. That night, we had a "roast & toast" dinner at La Dolce Vita, a wonderful family owned Italian restuarant in downtown Provo. Go. Everyone who likes Italian food should go. They serve gnocchi!!

There were a lot of funny & sentimental stories told about both the bride & groom from their families and friends. Oliver loved the toast "to destiny" by Jen's brother who said that she refused to date computer science majors in college. And Chris' old roommate told a story about one morning when Chris was trying to be better at waking up suddenly jumped out of bed and said, "I'm magically awake!"(If you know homestarrunner.com then think of Strong Mad's voice as you read that phrase). Good times.

Saturday was beautiful. I am so grateful that Oliver & I could attend the sealing ceremony in the temple with the family. I loved being able to sit next to Oliver & hold his hand in that peaceful place. To be able to think back to when we were sealed & then think of all the blessings being sealed upon Chris & Jen as they became husband and wife. Congratulations to them.

So of course the rest of the day involved lots of pictures to document the happy occasion and a reception at the Springville Art Museum. The decorations here were amazing because the museum hung several paintings belonging to Oliver's Grandpa. Ones that he had painted himself, one painted by Grandpa's grandpa, one by Oliver's aunt, one by Oliver's sister, and one by Oliver's cousin. I thought that was the coolest thing in the world! But then again, I am a huge fan of art and of museums. :)

The boys had long days and weren't the happiest in the world(Evan especially). It was hot and a little too much was being asked of him at times. But on Sunday we were able to spend some relaxing time with Oliver's family before everyone parted ways again and that was nice for all of us. Unfortunately, we all now have to come back to reality and actually do the things that will help us continue to be successful in this life. Chris & Jen get to stay in dreamland for a while on their honeymoon to San Francisco. Charlie, Chelsea & Macy flew home to Arizona. Grandma flew back to Vegas. Beth drove back to Idaho. And today Jimmy & Ari flew back to Florida and Dad flew to a week of conferences in D.C. before going back to Alabama. Sadly, Mom will be leaving Utah to drive back to Alabama in the next day or two. Evan will miss his Grandma and I will miss having her to come visit him as well. It's been so good for him to have someone else to know and love, plus it was a huge relief to be able to leave the boys with someone I know and trust instead of a babysitter that doesn't know the boys as well. So some lifestyle changes for all of us will happen this week.

The latest family photo with us all dressed up and lookin' fancy.

The boys with the happy (& tired) groom in the front.

Yay for weddings. And family reunions. One thing I noticed was that with two children, if I have one of them(usually Evan because he's mama's boy & super clingy) then I just assume that someone else has Ryan. He was so good and got passed around so much that he's probably in a million pictures being held by someone different in each of them.

Now back to work.

Training or Torture?

Evan has his first official pair of shoes and wore them for the first time today. The physical therapist that we visited a week ago said that we could buy him some hightop hiking boots or pay for a DAFO(basically an ankle supporter) that would cost 700-800 dollars. So instead we found these shoes at Payless for $20 and will be trying them out. He's only been wearing them for 2 hours, but it hurts my heart to see him with them on. It seriously has changed his whole demeanor. To have his feet confined with rather heavy clunkers makes him not want to move. The above picture is proof of that...he sat there for at least 10 minutes and that little half a grin makes him look drugged. Normally any picture we try to get of Evan is blurred from his movement or he's sleeping.
The point of the shoes is to help correct his ankle position and to help desensitize his feet so that he doesn't put pressure on the inside of his feet and can enjoy walking. Like I said, it's only been a few hours, but he's supposed to wear them 8-10 hours a day everyday and right now, it just breaks my heart. Without Oliver, who is trying to keep Evan happy by reading to him and playing with him, I'm not sure if Evan would still be wearing them. I'll take that back, he would still be wearing them, but I would probably be crying.
So I know I need to stick with it. We'll see the doctor again on Thursday and see what he thinks about these boots. So that's a week to work with these things for at least 8 hours and to get Evan used to them. I love him and I do hope that this is a beneficial thing for him and not just a form of torture for our adorable almost two year old.