Using Her Noodle

Yesterday the kids had Mac & Cheese for lunch. I came back in the kitchen with the clippers to give Jack a haircut & Callie was talking about macaroni in her nose. I checked out both nostrils & saw no evidence of mac & cheese, but when she breathed through her nose it definitely sounded like there was something in there, and since she said she'd put a piece up her nose I definitely believed her! I stood there with a tissue to her nose trying to get her to blow hard but she just wasn't blowing hard enough. After a demonstration by yours truly she got the hang of it & gave a big blow & out flew a noodle from her nose!



We left to run errands a little bit later & her nose seemed a little snotty - almost macaroni-ish! I thought maybe some little noodle pieces had broken off. Jeremiah was home from work by the time we finished our errands so I sent the kids in with him while I grabbed a couple bags of groceries from the car. When I got in the house he & Callie were talking about macaroni & cheese because apparently she had just sneezed out two more noodles! :)

Oh, & Jack did get a haircut. Luckily a good haircut is only 2 weeks away! I'm still working on blending! (It's hard when you're dealing with a squirming 16 month-old!)

So I'm totally stoked because I finally have a new cell phone! My other one was getting so bad! My batteries wouldn't hold a charge for more than like an hour & I couldn't use my #6 at all so it was impossible for me to call any new number with a 6 or to use M, N, or O when I was sending texts, which if you text much, you can imagine how difficult it would be to not use those letters! So anyway, my new phone came yesterday - a Motokrzr KM1. Jeremiah has always thought that Motorolas were the crappiest phones, but he said maybe they've improved - he hasn't really been in-the-know for a couple of years now. Plus since it has a warranty & insurance, can I go wrong? I'm most excited that now I have speakerphone, can lock my keys, and most importantly Bluetooth! Woohoo! I actually had to go to the chiropractor a few times a couple months ago & both Jeremiah & my chiropractor got onto me for holding my phone between my ear & shoulder (which I do a LOT)! So I'm SOOO excited to have Bluetooth! I know I could have used an earpiece with a wire, but no I couldn't have! I hate them! The cord drives me nuts and I hate having just an earbud! So I got a sweet Plantronics that has the little ear hanger with it & I already love it! Technology rocks! Oh, and my phone is like a little mp3 player too. Doubt I'll use that part all that often, but cool nonetheless!

Mamma mia, here I go again!

A few weeks ago we bought a new sheet set at Bed Bath & Beyond. Jeremiah & I didn't agree on what to buy - I wanted to go with the same set we were replacing - Wamsutta Luxury Sateen 400 thread count. Jeremiah wanted Hotel Sateen 600 thread count because it seemed softer (I didn't think so) in the store. Which is just annoying anyway that there are all these thousand-thread count sheets & stuff out there anyway. Before we bought our first luxury sheets I did a lot of research (who researches sheets you ask?). Several articles said that there aren't really any thread counts higher than 4- or 500, but for marketing, manufacturers will count the threads in creative ways to say the count is higher than what it really is. So now that you have a mini education on thread count, I'll tell you that I let Jeremiah choose the sheets & we came home with the 600 tc. And 2 weeks later he heard "I told you so" when we decided they reminded us of sandpaper. We were in Vegas again on Saturday so I took the sheets back to Bed Bath & Beyond and exchanged them for the ones I thought we should have got in the first place.

Jeremiah endured 2 1/2 hours of Mamma Mia! for me on Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Theatre (what a guy). I had a hard time enjoying the show at first because I was worried about what he must be thinking & feeling bad for him, but once I got over it I mostly enjoyed it. I wouldn't say that I'd recommend it though unless you're huge into Broadway because shows like that are expensive so even at half price I wasn't totally thrilled we'd spent the money. If you're unfamiliar with Mamma Mia! one of the main draws is that it features tons of ABBA music. Since we're not from the ABBA generation we weren't familiar with a lot of the songs, but we did end up singing Dancing Queen for about the next 36 hours! At the end of the show the cast came back out & performed 3 songs. I haven't been to a concert before, and haven't ever wanted to go because the idea of everyone standing around dancing & singing along sounds kind of silly to me and this little post-concert only confirmed my suspicions! A couple rows away I noticed an old man who looked like Mr. Rogers just standing stiff with his hands in his pockets. But two guys over from him was this probably 50-something year old man very enthusiastically swaying back & forth and clapping his hands. It was entertaining.

When I was wiping off Callie's ketchup-coated mouth after lunch she said, "I'm gonna get a lil' bit firse-rated (frustrated)!" She'd said it about something the other day too. Where does she come up with this stuff?!

Cheeky

That would be Callie. We're trying out using "the naughty spot/place" when she's in trouble since she laughs at spankings & enjoys having her nose in the corner. She stands on her little mat for 2 minutes until she hears the "beep beep" of the little kitchen timer. So a few days ago she's put on the naughty spot & about 30 seconds later she loudly says "beep beep! beep beep! beep beep!" No response from me. "Mom! You hear that? Beep beep! Beep beep! Beep beep!" Oh my gosh! A couple days ago I was trying to get her to come to me so I could get her dressed & she was just not coming so as she walked by I grabbed her arm, apparently hurting her. She immediately started sobbing & before I could say anything she shouted through the tears, "SAY SORRY!" When I asked if she was okay instead of saying sorry she repeated again, but not shouting this time, just sobbing, "Mom! Say sorry!" Okay, I'm sorry! She's sooooooo 2! Another day she picked up a little bag with her stuff in it & said, "Bye Mom, I wuv you! I'm going shopping to WalMart!" as she blew me a kiss & strutted away on her little pink plastic dress-up shoes. Oh, & Sunday morning when she first saw me ready for church she said, "Mom! You look weawy (really) cute! Your dress! Your shoes! Your nega-less (neckless). You look weawy cute!" Sooooo girly!

Jack on the other hand is just as sweet & polite as can be, saying & signing thank you, saying "toot toot" when he toots!, and saying and signing pees (please). He's adorable! Poor boy has been working on getting some teeth in for about 3 weeks now and there's no end in sight! He's fairly grumpy at times, but when he's not grumpy he's just plain adorable! Oh, & he loves putting on hats or other head pieces & checking himself out in the mirror - he gets a total kick out of it!

feliz cumpleaños a mí

My birthday was Friday so Jeremiah took me to Vegas Thursday night. We were going to see a show, but because of my indecisiveness I waited until Thursday afternoon to try to buy tickets & the show I wanted was sold out so instead we did dinner & a movie. Jeremiah wondered why I hadn't chosen Rocky instead of the chick flick we ended up seeing. Hmmm. Actually, for our first date my friends & I drove to 2 or 3 Blockbusters to rent all the Rocky movies & we had a 2-night Rocky Marathon. Not that we were into it, but we figured it'd be a great way to win over the guys. Victory, obviously! And that was the beginning of our beautiful story! So yes, Jeremiah & I will definitely watch the newest Rocky together - when it comes out on DVD!

We spent a long day Friday looking at model homes. We recently bought some lots that we're going to build on, so we wanted to find a layout that would suit our family for the rest of our time in Kingman - it could be a very long time! Here's Jeremiah & I at the end of the day on some couch in one of the homes. In typical Jeremiah fashion, he wouldn't smile - just stare or make gay faces.

So the only other update is that Jeremiah is officially a college student! Woohoo! He's taking a Spanish class at the community college and impressing all of his Mexican employees with phrases like, "De donde eres?" & "Que hora es?" His guys humor him & answer his questions about what they like & do they like football, etc., & then they ask Jeremiah questions back. Jeremiah's the head of his class, although he needs some work on his accent! :)

Snow Day

It snowed in Kingman last week! Even though it was definitely naptime I wanted Callie & Jack to be able to play in the snow since snowfall in Kingman is a nearly annual occurrance! Jack got over his tired grumpiness long enough to spend some time outside. He was fascinated! I showed Callie how to catch snowflakes on her tongue, which she thoroughly enjoyed trying!

Jeremiah was pretty excited about the snow since that meant that hunting the next morning would probably be better. Unfortunately for him the snow didn't improve hunting conditions. A funny aside - he's been bow hunting in the same spot for several weeks now and about a month ago he finally saw a buck in his spot so even though it was nearly out of range he let an arrow fly. He missed the buck but came home with raised spirits because at least he'd seen something (he's spent many hours sitting in the cold & never seeing anything)! A few days after missing the buck he was talking to a friend about it & saying how odd it was that he hadn't seen anybody else in that area. His friend informed him it was because that area was closed! Turns out it was the ONLY area not yet opened in the state! Slight oversight on his part! So now I feel that it was divine intervention that stopped him from getting the buck that day! I probably would have been visiting my husband in jail not to mention that he'd lose his hunting license for life for poaching! So now that the area's open, we're crossing our fingers that he'll see another buck in the next couple of weekends before the season closes.

One more thing. We've been doing our reading program for just about a week now & already we know that it's working! At least for Callie - Jack doesn't seem that interested. But then again, children his age learn much faster than children Callie's age so maybe he is picking the stuff up. Anyway, Jeremiah wrote down "mama," "daddy" and "Callie" the other day & she read what he'd written. I was a little annoyed with him when he'd told me because you're absolutely not supposed to test in the beginning, and when you do finally test you never just show a word & ask them to tell you what it says. Then last night after I'd told him how excited I was that Callie had grabbed one of the words from the set that I hadn't yet put away and said that it was "dolly," he said he wasn't surprised because he'd tested her again! Agh! He promised he won't do it again. Anyway, despite my annoyance with his sneaky testing, I'm pretty stoked to know that our efforts are thus far fruitful! Woohoo!

Stupid Blogger

So it's been almost a month since my last post, but there's been a lot of the every day stuff going on. So I've added the latest in a few different posts so that I don't write a novel in just 1 post (although you may think this qualifies as one). First of all, I'm super annoyed with Blogger right now. Notice my template & page are totally different? That's because I switched over to the new Blogger & it won't let me customize any of my stuff like I used to be able to. I'm sure there's a way, but since I'm not really familiar with html I can't do it. I was able to figure stuff out before, but after trying for quite a while yesterday to change my background (as you can see I only succeeded in changing my title bg), I threw in the towel. So welcome to my new look. Thanks a lot Blogger.

Anyway. The little Divis clan is doing well. I'm trying to lose weight (isn't everybody this time of year) so I've signed up for an account on MyFoodDiary.com. It's pretty much a luxury calorie tracker but I think it's pretty cool. I've never in my life worried about counting calories, but I'm giving this a try since it's cheaper than Weight Watchers and basically the same thing when you really break it down. It's definitely helping me eat smarter. Like last night even though I had more than 450 calories to go I opted not to bake chocolate chip cookies (we keep frozen balls in the freezer that are warm & delicious in 12 minutes!). I decided at the beginning that I'd only have dessert twice a week (I'm a dessert freak!) & I wanted to save myself for the weekend! So my change of diet is one big thing for me right now.

Also I started a reading program yesterday with Callie & Jackson. My bro/sis-in-law Justin & Jamie told us about a reading program (among others) developed by The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential. I was a little skeptical at first, but reading the information, then checking out the book at the library has convinced me that it's totally possible to teach your baby to read as well as many other things (if you're curious there's a video clip on the Institute's website [early learning programs\view us on fox tv]). So we're now going to be working on their reading program daily & eventually adding other areas. And if you're wondering why I want to teach my children to read, the point of the program is that your children are learning how to learn and to enjoy learning. What really got me interested in the program was hearing about the Institutes math program. It teaches to think in quantities instead of numerals, and since I struggled so much with math in HS, I thought if I could help my children in any way it would be a small thing on my part & such a huge advantage for them! Anyway, maybe in a few months I'll be able to report that I've lost the weight I want to & that my children can read some words.

We did it!

We started trying to potty train Callie when she was about 18 mos. because I was so excited about the Princess Pull-ups, but she wasn't ready for it. And since Pull-ups are a lot more expensive than diapers we went back to diapers for a few months. So about 3-4 months ago we started working with her again & she did much better. Now just a few short months later she's an official Big Girl as the Pull-up potty-training site would call her! We had a big girl party for her New Year's Eve with cake & Dora ice cream (she of course picked it out) & we gave her a new package of panties & some princess Megablocks that she'd seen sitting in the garage for a couple months that were to be her reward for being potty trained. I had taken her with me to pick out her new package of panties and there was no question that they were to be Dora, but unfortunately for her WalMart was out of her size. Doesn't it seem like WalMart is always out of half of what you need? I felt bad for Callie but I wasn't too upset since the Dora panties are super ugly! She choose Tinkerbell panties instead. It will be nice when she can wear a size 4 - there are way cuter options once you hit 4. Her 2/3's are big on her though so it will probably be a while before she's a 4! I did get these cute little panties for her from Osh Kosh. They say they're a 2 - yeah right! Anyway, we're so excited that Callie's potty trained! In the words of Dora, "Lo hicimos!" We did it!

Christmas Stuff

Christmas was pretty fun this year with Callie! Even though she doesn't know enough about Santa to not be able to sleep the night before, she knows that he lives in the North Pole, likes milk & treats, has reindeer & that he's back home resting now & getting ready for next year. We left "pumpkin gooey butter cake" (thanks Shannon - the recipe was a hit!) & milk out for Santa on Christmas Eve so when Callie got up Christmas morning she went over to the mantle to inspect things & then came into our room to tell us "The milk is all gone - Santa drank all the milk!" How cute is that?! She had a great time opening presents - she was a pro! Jack on the other hand - I wanted to get some pictures of him opening some up but since he wasn't really interested in opening presents I had to pick him up & set him back by his present! Callie, the dutiful older sister, helped Jack open most of his presents. Callie also found a new favorite word that morning - mine! A couple days after Christmas I had to sit with her & have a talk about it. Amazingly it helped & we're hearing "mine" only occassionally, which is totally expected for a 2-year old! So below is a clip of Callie going through her stocking - one piece of candy at a time! It's a little long so unless you're a grandma or aunt (and even then) it's probably a little boring.

Stocking Inspection

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

So much to tell! First, here are the little crazies in their holiday jammas.

So this year I was totally on it - at first. The tree's up & stockings are hung, but that's about it. Last year I went all out, but now that Christmas is in a week & a half, I don't even care. I am proud about the tree though. Many times in past years I've wanted to put up the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving or even the first weekend in December, but it ends up being halfway through December. So this year I got the tree out on Sunday after Thanksgiving. Of course it did me no good since our crappy pre-lit tree was not lighting! After about 1/2 an hour of checking bulbs I said forget it & decided to wait till after my walk the next morning to run into WalMart & grab some new lights. I don't know if all pre-lits are so crappy, but we've had problems with ours for the past 3 years! In the past though I've been able to find the problem bulb before a 1/2 hour was up! In the tree's defence, it was only like $60 the day after Thanksgiving 5 years ago, so maybe cheap tree = stupid lights. Anyway, Callie was going nuts Monday afternoon waiting for me to finish putting on the lights & garland & ribbon so that we could get down to business. She was a very good little decorator! At first I just had her hand me decorations. Soon she was telling me where to put them. And before long she was going to the tree to do it herself. I didn't have to rehang much of what she put on - she must have her mom's flair! :) She did at one point talk about how Grandma Darcy had made our tree (not true of course). I told her Grandma Darcy was really crafty. She said, "Yeah, Grandma Darcy's crafty. I crafty too mom." Yes she is! She's certainly not lacking confidence! The other night I said to Jack, "You're so stinkin' cute!" Callie immediately followed up with, "Yeah, I so stinkin' cute too!"

We went to our ward Christmas Party 2 weekends ago & Callie was SO excited to see Santa! Our Santa was comical. The guy who was going to wear the suit (an older man who would have been great) went to put it on & the pants wouldn't fit over his thighs, so the next several minutes were spent stalling the children & looking for someone to fit the suit. But none of the kids knew the difference. Callie had been talking all day about seeing Santa and was just so excited! Santa gave all the kids candy canes so now Callie mentions daily that she wants to see Santa & get a candy cane. We've told her about the naughty & nice thing but until very recently hadn't been using it against her! So before we even started blackmailing her with it, she was in time out one day & crying out, "I nice! I nice! I not naughty!" I love it! I think we'll be able to use the naughty & nice thing for a while past Christmas since she's still talking about trick-or-treating! Jack was very hesitant about Santa, but in the end was accepting of the Jolly Old Elf. I think he's not quite old enough to be terrified like Callie was last year, and hopefully next year he'll think he's great like Callie does this year!

So now I'm working on finishing presents, and getting everything in order so we can have a fun, stress-free last few days before Christmas. I really wanted to take Callie to the Grand Canyon Railway so that we could ride The Polar Express, but when I called in November to get tickets for this month I sadly learned that you have to buy your tickets a year in advance! That's insane! They did have 3 dates in January still available, but who wants to see Santa in January?! I called a few days ago to book our tickets for next year & my first choice was also already booked! For next year! But anyway, for anyone who wants to ride The Polar Express with us next year, call & get your tix now! We're going Friday, December 14th at 6:30pm. I can't wait! It's too bad though! Before I knew that we wouldn't be able to go this year I'd told Callie all about it so she's constantly saying she wants to ride the train & see Santa.

Well the kids are both up now & crying to be fed so I'd better go. But Callie would like to add one last thing:

edrfasdfghjkl';;p'

:)

Tylenol Junkies

Is it strange that my children delight in medicine taking? Callie LOVES Tylenol in any form, but especially the Meltaways. She'll say to me, "Mom, I gumpy. I need Tynol." So since she's been sick the last 3 days she's constantly asking me for medicine. "Mom, I sick, I need some medicine." She even cries if I won't give her any (I'm so mean!). 2 nights ago I gave her some Tylenol Simply Cough - it's Cherry Berry flavored (yeah, whatever) & you give it to your kid in a little cup. I thought for sure she'd think it was gross but she savored every sip of the stuff. She gets excited when it's time to drink some more Tylenol.

And Jack is headed down the same twisted path. He's seriously happy when he sees the dropperful of grape Tylenol & most always gladly opens his mouth for the treat!

Even Jeremiah said last night after running out of Tylenol with Cool Burst that I needed to buy some more since it's a lot better than the Nyquil or whatever he'd been taking.

Is Tylenol a publicly traded company? We need to put our money where our addiction is!

LCD, HDTV, HDMI, DVI, DVR - I Love Technology!

Another Thanksgiving, come & gone. My grandparents came from Overgaard, AZ, Kenny came, Tara came, & Kayleigh came & brought her bf Dustin (who I really liked!). Highlights of the weekend were new holiday pj's for the kids on Thanksgiving night (I'll have to post pictures later), Settlers, and of course good food & pecan pie! We finally have broadened our gaming horizon & tried the game Tikal. Overall it's enjoyable & something new, but I can't say it's the new fav yet. I haven't tired of Settlers because my winning ratio is much less impressive than Jeremiah's. So for me I love the challenge of beating Jeremiah. But Mr. Victory is tired of always playing Settlers (a fair argument) so we figured we might as well try some new games & if we don't like the game we buy we can always resell it on eBay.

So this was the first year since I met Jeremiah that we (or I) didn't get up in the wee hours of the morning to do Day-After-Thanksgiving shopping! I was really a little bummed about it! We'd planned on staying the night in Henderson at Tara's on Thanksgiving so we could hit Best Buy, JC Penney, & a couple others, but Jeremiah hurt his back playing football Thanksgiving morning so he wasn't about to stand in line for hours at Best Buy for a new LCD tv & a laptop (we figure we'd have needed to be in line before midnight). So after much deliberation we decided that we really didn't need anything from WalMart or Home Depot (about all our town has to offer) and I stayed in bed. I really LOVE getting up to do the shopping though. It's SO exciting to be right there in the middle of the madness. It's always been a fun thing so far because we haven't needed to buy the season's hottest toy so we've been able to laugh at the crazed looks on these moms' & dads' faces as they push through the crowds to get THE toy for their child.

I do have to admit that we ended up getting an LCD anyway! My dad, king of amazing deals, actually got WalMart to ad-match their 32" LCD with Home Depot's! WalMart's was almost $100 more than Home Depot's (and Best Buy's), but it was a much better tv than Home Depot's. Crazy thing is, WalMart's ad had printed on it that they would NOT ad-match the tv unless it was the EXACT same model, which if you've gone appliance shopping anywhere you know that they all have slightly different model #'s for that very reason! My dad should be a negotiator- he is SO good at getting people to bend and give him what he wants!

So now the only problem with our new LCD is that our cable company doesn't have HD broadcast in our city & doesn't know when they will. We looked into Dish Network, but because I HATE their on-screen channel guide so much (and a few other reasons), we've decided to wait it out with our cable company. There's only a handful of channels anyway that are broadcast in HD so whatever. The lady at our cable company said that sometime in 2008 (and I guess the holdup is the government) ALL channels will be broadcast in HD. Fact or fiction, I don't know, but how sick will that be if it is true?!

Conversation with Callie

"Mom, I pooped."
"You pooped in your panties?"
"Yeah."
"Why did you do that?"
"Because! I pooped!"
"That makes mama sad."
Callie gets behind kitchen curtain & says "ROAR!"
"Mom, I scare you."
"No, I'm not scared. I'm frowing."
"You sad mom?"
"Yeah. I'm sad that you pooped your panties."
"Mom, cry!"
"Cry?"
"Yeah! You sad - cry!"
"I'm sad but I'm not going to cry."
"Yes! Do it!"

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.

When Callie brought this little handful of weeds in I was about to tell her to get them back outside because they'd make a mess. Thankfully before I could say anything she sweetly held out her little bouquet to me & said, "Here mom, I got you flowers." Talk about melt your heart! This is the first time Callie's brought me flowers. I love that girl! We put the "flowers" in her new little tea set vase.

Our California Adventure

We headed to CA Wednesday afternoon - early enough to get to The Men's Wearhouse in time to get Jeremiah a new suit for his brother Jason's wedding. 6 hours & $400 later we had an awesome new black pin-striped suit that would be ready to be picked up Friday evening.

On Thursday we went to Disneyland with Jeremiah's mom, sister Tabetha, & b-i-l Travis. Callie had talked about going to Disneyland and seeing Mickey Mouse on Thursday all week long! In fact on Thursday morning when she started asking about seeing Mickey Mouse we told her that we would get to see him that day & she said, "Hooray! Mickey Mouse!" for what was the first of many times that day! And sometimes she'd even add a "Hip, Hip," before the "Hooray!" She LOVED Disneyland! We'd gone in February but she didn't get it then. It's amazing what 9 months will do! She did not like Pirates - both she & Jack were very scared! But she really liked the rest of the rides we took her on. Especially Gadget's Go-Coaster! She sat with Grandma Divis who had an arm around her so Callie could only get one arm up to go down the coaster, but she kept that arm up the whole time along with a petrified look on her face! But when it was all over and we got off she got a big grin on her face & said it was fun & that she wanted to do it again! Jack was a very good little guy all day, as usual!

On Friday Jack & I got to do some shopping (Jack definitely didn't enjoy it as much as I did!), & Callie went with Jeremiah & his m&d to visit his brothers at work & to the beach.

Saturday was wedding day. The Newport Beach Temple is beautiful! I'm so excited that Jason & Richelle finally got married! I'm excited to have Richelle for a sister-in-law. She's awesome! We took so many pictures waiting for Jason & Richelle to make their big entrance out of the temple that I finally handed the camera to Jeremiah to carry & neither of us remembered to get it back out to take any pictures of the bride & groom! How lame are we?! :) So hopefully someone in our family will email us some good pictures. Jas & Richelle both looked so happy & great! Their reception that evening was amazing! Richelle did a really great job with the wedding!

Halloween was great for the Divis household- at least 2 of us anyway (Callie & me). For me because I love everything about the holiday & season! I got to make the funnest costumes (although you should have seen our house every time we looked at the things - feathers everywhere!), we carved pumpkins, we had candy, what more could you ask for? We carved pumpkins for Family Night on Monday with Stuart who stayed with us for a week & a half while my m&d were out of town. Stuart hadn't ever carved a pumpkin before using a pattern & we kept trying to warn him that the pattern he was choosing was probably too intense for a first-timer but he totally proved us wrong with his awesome pumpkin-carving skills!

Callie helped Jeremiah with his. She was adorable! She kept rubbing his arm & patting his shoulder and saying, "Good job, daddy," or, "I like it," or, "Looks good!" I being the serious pumpkin carver & being in a Harry Potterish mood, carved an owl.

So the decision to have chickens for Halloween came about because I saw a similar chicken costume a few years ago in a magazine & wanted to someday make one because I loved it! I figured that next year Callie would have an opinion about what she wanted to be & since she'd surely never choose to be a chicken, this was the year to do it. Turns out I was wrong about her not having an opinion! At first she was really excited because she sings a chicken song that we see on Noggin so she's all about the chicken. But after going to Story Time at the Library and seeing one of her little friends dressed as Cinderella, she was so over the chicken! The morning of trunk-or-treat night:

Me: Callie, are you so excited to be a chicken & go trick-or-treating?
Callie: I want to wear a Cinderella dress.
Me: You do?
Callie: Yeah.
Me: But you're going to be a chicken.
Callie: No mommy, I don't want to be chicken. I want to wear a Cinderella dress!

Who knew that a 2-year old would have an opinion. The chicken of course stayed. We went to a Harry Potter themed Halloween party on Halloween (amazing job), and then we took Callie trick-or-treating for a half hour. Jeremiah wanted to go home after 2 houses but Callie was thoroughly enjoying herself. I told her to say that she wanted to go to the next house & that stuck. Jeremiah was ready to go home after every house & Callie said every time, "Next house, daddy," or "One more house, daddy." It was hilarious!

Now the only problem has been that big pumkin bucket with all the candy (which wasn't that much since we didn't go to many houses, but when you're 2 it's a ton!). We keep it on top of the fridge and Callie is constantly asking for pumpkin candy. I put all the candy in another bowl (that she doesn't know about) so the candy fairy comes every night and kindly deposits a couple little pieces of candy into her pumpkin bucket. She loves it! And her favorite of all the candies? Suckers! (And Jack likes them too!)

Halloween Chickens

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To get more Halloween candy!
Here are our little chickens Saturday night all ready for trunk-or-treating at our ward party.

Sweet Callie-girl

What's sweeter than your 2-year old asking you to sing her "I Am a Child of God" as you put her to sleep?

Chocolate Pudding & Ice Cream - Yum!

When I told Callie I was so glad there was chocolate pudding all over her shirt, she sweetly replied, "Thank ya Mommy." And if you haven't tried hot chocolate pudding & ice cream, you haven't lived! (Thank ya Andy & Didi!) It's crazy good! Just heat up your chocolate pudding (or make the cook & serve kind) & have it with vanilla ice cream! It's de-lish!

Jack is ONE!

I love Billpay! I'd never signed up for it before because we don't have direct deposit & I'm too cheap to pay 7 bucks a month for the convenience. But we made some changes to our accounts so now we finally have free Billpay & I set it up today & I can tell it's gonna be great! Woohoo! I've already scheduled my utility bills & mortgage payments for the month & I'm stoked! If you don't use Billpay you should - unless you have to pay $7/month!

So Jack had his first Birthday last week (17th)! I can't believe he's 1!
He had a huge slice of chocolate cake, just like Callie did on her first Birthday. Although Callie didn't get up in the middle of the night for 2 hours because of a stomach ache like Jack did! Not fun! Poor little guy! Poor us! We celebrated his birthday on Sunday since Tara had come for the weekend, so on his actual Birthday, I only fed him the smallest amount of cake! It wasn't that good anyway.

Here are some other recent pics of the kids for your viewing enjoyment!