family portraits

my friend, meghan, snapped some fabulous family pictures for us a few weeks back. here are some of my faves:




check out her smugmug page if you live in the bay area and want an amazing photographer that doesn't cost too much. and click here to see more shots of our silly little dudes.

livin' the life

was anybody as excited as ben and i were on tuesday for the release of coldplay's new album viva la vida? we pre-prdered it on itunes two months ago and what delight to have it magically appear in our itunes library overnight. this music really makes me happy.

i think i'm losing my mind...

does anybody else scream at their children at the absolute top of their lungs occasionally? or all the time? maybe i'm PMSing or something. here's what happened at lunch today:

i throw a bag of popcorn in the microwave and go do something else while it's popping.

joel climbs onto a stool to watch the popcorn pop and opens the microwave door half-way through the popping process.

me: (screaming as loud as i possibly can, mind you) "what in the world are you doing?!! don't ever, ever touch the microwave!! you just ruined this bag of popcorn!!! (insert more shouted ramblings here) AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" (and i seriously just clenched my fists down at my sides and hollered "ah" as ear shatteringly as i could)

joel: he looks at me bewildered for a couple seconds and then says, "it's okay mom."

wise words indeed from a 3-year-old.

all this over a bag of popcorn that probably cost 50 cents. just tell me i'm not the devil, please.

the joy of pictures

a couple of months ago, our boys wiped a bunch of stuff on our computer clean somehow. i sat down to our trusty iMAC one afternoon and all of our programs were missing EVERYTHING... no songs in itunes, no favorites on my firefox window, NO PICTURES IN IPHOTO. i seriously cried. we're talking a couple thousand pictures documenting our lives for the last few years. so tragic.

yesterday i was trying to find something on our hard drive and... low and behold, there were all of our missing pictures. hiding safely in the shared folder. they had somehow been erased from iphoto, but not completely from our computer.

i cried again.

so i spent all afternoon yesterday going through all of our pictures that i had mourned so tragically. pictures are so awesome. i had to share a couple of baby pictures of my precious boys.

this is joel at about 7 months... how can anyone resist that huge, "charlie brown" noggin with those enormous, twinkling brown eyes?! you can't, i tell you. :)


this is kadin at about 2 months... have you ever seen such darling squeezable jowels? i think not! :)

terrified

yep, i'm freaking out. i started potty training joel today. i have no idea what i'm doing, but i'm doing it anyway.

he's running around naked right now... well, he actually has a shirt on, but no pants. i've heard that's the best crash course and usually really successful. he's sat on the potty a few times today already, but no action yet. i'll keep you posted... hopefully, with good news.

**update**

so today it went... okay. he had a couple of accidents, which i'm sure is totally normal for the first day. by the end of the day, he had gone pee in his potty at least 10 times, so i think he's getting the hang of it. i think he's scared to have an accident, though, so he spends long stretches of time sitting on his potty and wants me or ben to sit there with him. i seriously spent several cumulative hours sitting on a stool next to him, while he read and i read and he waited and i waited. i kept asking him if he wanted a break, but he wouldn't get up until he had gone. sweet kid. the first time he went in the potty, he was so excited. he started laughing and smiling immediately and said, "i get M&Ms!" all in all, a successful day, but we are totally EXHAUSTED!

dinner time

well, ben is on a business trip for the third week in a row and i just couldn't muster the energy to make my kids a well-balanced, nutritious meal for dinner tonight. i really can't muster enough energy to do, well... anything. this traveling stuff for work really bites. anyway, lest you think you are a terrible parent because you can't get your kids to eat enough veggies, rest assured... here's what we had for dinner tonight:

milk, ritz crackers and graham crackers.

all the nutrients you could ever want, right? after that we walked down to the chevron on the corner and bought:

oreos, keebler soft batch chocolate chip cookies and pringles.

this all after they had a delicious lunch of:

gogurt, granola bars and spree candies.

here's to a better tomorrow with more green stuff and less dairy, sugar and refined carbs!

just me and the kiddos...

from the mouth of joel

this morning i got back from a run and began to stretch. from over his bowl of cherrios, joel looks at me and says, "how was your run, mom?"

15 minutes later...

kadin spills his entire glass of milk all over himself and the floor. his bottom lip starts to quiver, signaling a good cry coming on. i start to reassure him, telling him it's okay, and joel says, "it's okay kadin, mommy will clean it up."

so sweet...

usually.

in a nutshell...

so here's a smorgasbord of tidbits from our lives for the last month...

ben had a business trip in washington at the end of march, so we decided to take advantage of cheap fares and tag along. joel, kadin and i came a few days early and stayed with kadi and joel and then we drove down to ben's parents house for the weekend when ben flew in. here's kadin, joel and carter having a "popcorn party," their favorite activity before bedtime.
grandma and grandpa shafer have lots of trains for the boys to play with and they always push them around on top of the coffee table. sadly, this has done a bit of a number to their nice, new coffee table, so grandpa mike made a new train track for the kids that goes right on top of the table... brilliant! happiness for grandma and grandpa and fun times for the boys!
brock and emily graced us with a visit earlier this month. man, we miss you guys... we're pulling for a job for brock in the bay area!

ben and i ran the salt lake city marathon last saturday. for all the gory details, click here. this was our first time back to utah since moving away in october. it was great to be back. morgan and nate blessed their precious, little guy, sayer, the day after the marathon, so we were lucky to be able to be there. thanks for putting us up morg and nate! it was a great week, filled with lots of fun times with family and friends and lots of yummy food. and yet again, i was a lousy picture taker... ben and i took a couple of pictures in the morning before our marathon and that was it. not a single picture of sayer's blessing, my family... nothing. nice huh? i really need to be better about that.

i'm so proud...

i know everyone thinks that their child is really smart, but my child is honestly a genius. no really. (don't worry people, i am joking... a little bit). this morning joel was begging me to help him put together this new fish puzzle i picked up for the boys last week. i had to get in the shower, so i told him to work on it by himself and that i would help him when i was done getting ready. i came out of my room and was shocked to find that joel was just finishing putting the 50-piece puzzle together all by his lonesome. i gushed at how proud i was of him and i don't think i've ever seen him smile so big. it was so cute.

and, of course, like most little boys, his favorite part of putting puzzles together or building a tower with blocks is messing it all up when he's done.

a little word from the not-so-wise

lest you think your sweet toddler is snoozing away like the little angel you think he is, i would recommend checking on him.... RIGHT NOW! or you might find this:


better yet, i advise us all to invest in video baby monitors. yes my friends, that is none other than desitin...


i didn't take a picture of joel because he was freaking out and beside himself, but, yes, he was covered in the desitin as well... in his hair, on his face, covering his shirt, all up and down his legs, under his fingernails, etc. don't worry, joel is still alive... i didn't strangle him or anything, although i did call ben and tell him he better get home from work soon before i DID. i just put all my rage into scrubbing and cleaning that greasy, thick, nasty stuff. thanks to ben, everything is spic and span again and there's not a stain to be found on any of joel's sheets, blankets or clothes, although ben has some nasty open wounds on his knuckles from all the scrubbing. and most importantly, joel is perfectly fine... he didn't eat it, thankfully, and he seems to be recovering emotionally from witnessing a very angry mom. :)