24 hours in sacramento

ben ran the run the river half marathon in sacramento on the 15th and i'm just gonna say that he pretty much rocks. his goal was to get under 90 minutes... he came in at 1:28:03. he placed 7th overall and 1st in the 25-29 age group. can you tell that i'm such a proud wife?

while we were at my parents that weekend, grandpa bill set up one of the train sets for joel and kadin and they were in their element all day long. between the dogs, the trampoline and the trains, there was constant entertainment for the boys which resulted in never-ending happiness for me.

tagged

jackie tagged me and i thought this one was pretty fun. and easy. which is important.

this is the fourth picture in the fourth photo of our iphoto collection:

this is on our trip to hawaii a couple years ago... looking kinda dorky on our hotel bed.

i tag morgan, janaya (she needs things to blog about, even though today she had 2 posts in one day) and jillian (i want to see if she even has a fourth folder of pictures).

costumes, candy and cuties

ben took the boys to the ward halloween party while i was out of town for the weekend. he had to give them suckers before they even got to the party so they would calm down and put their costumes on without freaking out. ben said they were seriously a mess by the end of the night as you can see from the pictures below. but that's what halloween is all about though, right? ...letting your kids gorge themselves on candy while making a sticky mess for you to clean up. they had a great time, so it was worth it.

joel was a bat (or a "batty-bat" as he likes to call it).

kadin was a monkey.

i was so sad i missed it, but at least i have this cute shot to make up for that.
on halloween night, we took the boys trick-or-treating with a couple of their favorite friends, sam and charlie. kadin insisted on eating the candy he had received after every house, so we had a hard time moving him along as fast as the older three boys, but they all had a good time and got plenty of candy. one great thing about having so much candy in the house is that i have some excellent leverage to get my boys to eat their broccoli (they call them "trees") and carrots. they have to eat three of each before they get a piece of candy. totally genius. except they are probably eliminating all the healthy benefits of their veggies by immediately eating sugar. oh well. i do what i can.

6 1/2 months

i haven't been very diligent at documenting my pregnancy like i hoped i would. oh well. here's my ever expanding belly at 28 weeks or 6 1/2 months or how ever you like to say it.

moral support

just a little something to bring a smile to your face... i took this back in may when we were potty training joel. kadin was such a fantastic cheerleader for joel's pooping efforts. maybe i can recruit him to be MY pooping cheerleader after i deliver my baby. happy pooping to all!

pregnant brain

i was making some crumble topping for blueberry muffins the other day and look where i dumped the teaspoon of cinnamon. yep, right into the flour tupperware. whoops. ben decided we should just mix the cinnamon into the flour. a little cinnamon makes everything delicious, right? i made some chocolate chip cookies the next day and they were decadent as usual. phew.

my darling mr. four-eyes

ben almost failed his eye test this summer when getting his california drivers license so he took a trip to the doctor a few weeks ago. he came home after picking up his new glasses this week and said, "i could've been seeing things!" any brian regan fans out there? speaking of brian regan, the eye doctor informed ben at his appointment that his left eye is bigger than his right eye and ben totally almost burst out laughing. "it doesn't affect your vision at all, i just thought you would want to be self-conscious for the rest of your life." hmmmm. thanks doc. here he is again posing to look studious. isn't he cute?

i love you my sedu

this just arrived in the mail last week. a birthday money purchase. it doesn't catch my hair or pull on it. love it, love it, LOVE IT! maybe i'll actually do my hair every once in a while now.

the new husky

sorry for the delay on the husky report. thanks for all your great suggestions! we gave joel the new husky about a week ago yesterday. in the end, we decided not to lie to him about the fact that this wasn't his real husky. here's basically what happened:

me: "mommy and daddy have something for you joel." ben pulls out the husky from behind his back.

joel: "i don't want a NEW husky! i want MY husky!" he takes it and throws it aside.

ben and i look at each other like, "crap."

me: "this is husky's brother. husky sent him to keep you company."

joel: "but i want carter to bring me MY husky from the beach." (carter is joel's cousin, just 3 months older than joel, who was very concerned when he heard about husky being gone. he offered joel to come and help him look for husky. very sweet, but he lives in washington.)

me: "well bud, i'm really sorry but i don't think your husky is coming back. it's husky's brother or nothing." (this is breaking my heart!)

kadin: "i want him!"

joel: "NO! he's MINE!" (joel grabs the dog)

nice. that's all it took. the prospect of his little brother getting the new dog instead of him. and he hasn't parted with it since. i took this picture about five minutes after the introduction. notice how beautiful and shiny and fluffy and plump husky is? it won't last for long. it's only been a week and he's already filthy. also, notice that kadin has his blue doggie with him, too. we need to start investing in TY stuffed animals. this is ridiculous.

RIP husky

it finally happened... on our trip to the beach this past labor day, joel lost his beloved husky dog. husky has been a constant in joel's life since he was born... a precious friend that he has toted along almost everywhere and cuddled with every night for almost four years. he's been pretty sad, but i almost cried when ben repeated what joel had expressed in his prayer one night last week while i was at yoga:

"dear heavenly father, we thank thee for mommy and daddy and kadin and joelie. please bless the toys and the food (this is the exact prayer he says every time, no matter the time of day, despite our encouragement for variance)." he pauses. "please bless husky that he can be not scared at the beach. bless carter to be safe when he brings my husky to me. and bless husky that he can have fun in the surfing. in the name of jesus christ, amen."


seriously tragic. so we just HAD to order another husky... and it's on the way to our house as we speak from those folks at amazon. but i'm a little worried how he's going to take to a brand new husky. obviously joel's going to notice that it's not the same dog. he's no dummy. any suggestions on how we should handle it? what we should say? how to introduce the new husky?