Happy Haley

A while ago my mom mentioned, "I love how Haley gallops wherever she goes." And that made me start noticing. Haley never just walks. She runs, skips, dances, or gallops from place to place. She's always excited and energetic. It's fun to see how happy she is about life.

Fantasy Football Freak

Jason and I are playing on two different fantasy football leagues. And, I have to admit, I'm kind of a freak about it. I've never been a fan of NFL football, probably because there's not a team here, and it's always kind of bothered me that Jason thinks he has to watch so many of the games. But, now that I'm playing in the fantasy leagues, I'm just as bad, if not worse. I don't really know anything about the players, other than the names of the ones on my team. So, I just watch the games to cheer for my players and against the other players. I don't really care what teams win as long as my players do well.
I think it's made this season so much more fun for Jason and I because we're both into the games. A couple weeks ago, I was hurrying Jason up so that we could get home to watch Monday Night Football. He just smiled and said, "I never would have thought I'd see the day that you were begging me to watch football."
I'm proud to say that I am in first place in one of our leagues (the one with all of Jason's brothers and friends). My mom and I are the only two girls in that league and she has been in first place up until last week when I took over. I hope one of us wins it and the other takes second. It's nice to have girls at the top. And, I'm also proud to report that in both leagues, when I played Jason's team, I beat him pretty easily. That's nice too. (I have to brag about it now, since it's still really early and who knows where I'll end up by the end.)

Rub a Dub Dub

About a month ago, while my mom was watching my kids, she gave them both a bath in the sink. Her sinks are very deep, so it works just fine. And they had so much fun.
Well, the other day, I heard the water on, so I went into the kitchen to see what was going on. Haley had taken all her clothes off, climbed on a chair and into the sink and was filling it with water. I can't leave her alone for a second.

"E" Week

This week for preschool, it was "E" Week. So, we learned a lot about elephants. It's amazing to me how much little kids already know about animals. I think because they're just naturally curious and interested in them. They knew all the general facts about them, so we got to learn more of the details. Like how much a baby elephant weighs compared to how much they weigh.

We got to have two adventures (field trips) having to do with elephants. On Thursday we went to the zoo and on Friday we went to the circus.

The zoo was really fun for my kids. Julie took her older kid's out of school to come with us and we met Desiree and her mom and kids there as well. They have fixed the zoo up quite a bit adding lots of nice displays. There is a whole new tiger section that is really nice. Unfortunately, none of the tigers were out, so we didn't even get to see them. One of my kids' favorite things was a big wooden statue of an elephant. The kids could sit on the trunk. The elephant would play "pop, goes the weasel" and on the "pop!" part, it would blow air out of its trunk. The kids loved it and wanted to stay there forever. We missed one of my favorite parts, the reptile house, because Britton refused to go in because of the smell. It did smell really bad. Britton kept trying to go in then would turn around and run out. Then he'd say, "I have a sensitive nose". It was pretty funny. We spent most of the day there and had a really good time.

The circus elephants were much more entertaining than the zoo elephants. In fact, the elephant part of the show was one of my favorites. They are such smart elephants. They did a catwalk type thing where they announced an elephant and it would walk out and do turns and strut its stuff. Then they did a whole act of them sitting and laying down and running and skipping, etc. The little elephant was my very favorite. All the other elephants would kick their front legs out when they skipped, but the little one kicked his back legs out instead. It looked so cute. Like he was clicking his heels or something.

The rest of the acts at the circus were really good too. They had a trapeze man that walked upside down. It was so cool. There were little loops hanging down and he would swing and just get his foot caught in the loop, then swing the other foot to the next loop and so on. It was really neat.

Then they had all the other usual acts--clowns, horse riders, motorcyclers, acrobats, jugglers, etc. The last time I went to the circus, it was a 3 ring circus, so it's always hard to watch everything at once. But, this time they just had one act going on at a time. I liked it a lot better. They had so many cool things. I have always loved the circus and have been many times (including one time in a limo!), but this was by far my favorite I think. It seems like all the acts were really high quality and fun to watch. Plus it was fun to see my kids get so excited. Haley was so fascinated by it all. She kept her eyes glued on the stage the entire time.

My Afternoon

Half a mile is a lot longer when you are carrying two kids, two bikes, and all their gear. I think that's all I'll say.

I'm a nerd

I've been tutoring a girl in my neighborhood for a while now. I started a few years ago, when she was in high school and have done it off and on since. Now she's a sophomore in college and I've been tutoring her twice a week in math and biology for the last few months.
Anyway, today she arranged for me to do a Biology Review session for her study group. They have a test on Monday so they wanted me to help them get ready for it by clarifying things and making sure they understand everything correctly.
Well, I had such a blast. It was so much fun getting to spend 2 hours talking about the parts of the cell, transcription and translation, cellular respiration, photosynthesis, etc. I love helping them think of ways to remember things by drawing pictures or making up weird analogies. I feel like such a nerd, but I seriously had so much fun. (And I think they did too)
I ended up making so much more money than usual, since they all paid me, but seriously I would've done it for free. Sometimes I forget how much I love just sitting around talking about science.

50 Nifty United States!

For a while now, I've had a goal to visit all of the 50 states. Thanks, to my grandparents and several long cross country roadtrips, I've almost accomplished that. I found this website that makes a map for you of the states you've visited. I thought it was pretty cool. And it gave me a good visual of the regions that I still need to visit. It looks like it shouldn't be too hard--4 or 5 more trips and I should have it covered.

The Moon is Smiling

The past two days when I went out in the morning to go jogging and walking, the moon was just amazing. It was just the smallest little sliver right along the bottom. So, it looked like the moon was smiling at me. It was great. I hope it's like that again tomorrow!

Singing in the Shower

Britton has decided that he only likes to take showers now. He decided this when he realized that his friend Kyler who lives in our basement takes showers everyday. Kyler's almost 6, so Britton thinks everything he does is so cool.
Last night he was taking a shower and Jason and I were in the back room watching TV. We heard what I thought was Britton yelling for us, so we ran to see what he needed. When we got closer, though, we realized that he was just singing really loud. He was singing "Unbreak my Heart" from that Indentity Theft commercial. It was hilarious.

Rise and Shout, the Cougars Are Out!

Saturday was the first BYU home game and I couldn't have been happier with the game. It was a nice day and we got there right before the game started. It was fun to see all the people that we sit by again. We have the same seats (my grandparent's old seats) every year and so do all the people that sit around us. Everyone was so happy and excited.
The game went really well and we ended up winning 49 to 24. Here are some of my favorite things about the game:
--my favorite play was when John Beck passed to Curtis Brown and then Brown had the most amazing run, he broke through three different tackles and ran about 60 yards for a touchdown, he just never gave up, even when a couple of guys were holding onto him, he just kept running until he broke through, it was quite impressive
--there was a down pour--the kind that rarely happen in Utah where there are really big rain drops and you get completely drenched in seconds, the game got put on lightning delay which I don't think has ever happened here
--something that was unexpected, but nice, was that I got very nostalgic about my grandpa, this is the first football game since he passed away, I found myself thinking a lot about him and even getting choked up during the fight song remembering how he always belted it out at games, seeing all the older people stick it out through the rain also reminded me of him because I don't think there was much that could keep him from watching a game

I love the rain

This morning I got to go jogging in the rain. It was delightful.

Soccer--Part Two

I think Britton is getting worse at soccer instead of better. It's frustrating. It doesn't help that the games are in the evenings and he falls asleep on the way there. So, he's exhausted and grumpy and whiney by the time the game starts.
Yesterday he ran around chasing Jason, trying to get him to carry him for the game. He would grab onto his leg everytime he got close enough.
At one point, he was doing something with his hands all twisted up behind his back, I'm not really sure what it was. Maybe it was to ensure that he didn't touch the ball with his hands. But, more likely, it had nothing at all to do with the actual soccer game.
Towards the end, it looked like he was getting more into it because he was running and kicking, but when I looked closer, I realized he was just trying to kick all the other boys in the shins (he's really fascinated by shin guards).
The funny part of it all is that he practices in our yard almost every night with Jason. He's actually got skills and is quite good. He talks about his games and how much he loves it, etc. But, you'd never guess that when you actually watch him play (or not play, as the case may be).

Birds

Last night I asked Britton what his favorite kind of bird was. He immediately replied, "the Speckled Warbler". I was shocked, and then a little proud. A few months ago, we had had a preschool about birds and, although I couldn't remember it specifically, I knew we had talked about all sorts of birds. I was sitting there just thinking about what a great job I was doing teaching my little genius when he said, "I learned about it on 'Max and Ruby' ". Great, again I'm one-upped by the television.

Preschool Field Trip

Last Thursday we took our first official preschool field trip. I just started doing preschool with Britton again and his best friend in our neighborhood, Michael, comes to it too. On Tuesdays, we do preschool then on Thursdays we go on field trips. Each week is a different letter of the alphabet, so we went to the airport for our first field trip. Jason showed the boys all the planes and let them sit inside one of them and wear the head set. He explained what all the gadgets are for and showed them all the different parts on the outside. We watched planes take off and land and a helicopter took off right next to us. Michael has never been on a plane, so he was just in awe. Britton hasn't been flying in a really long time so he loved it too. I wished that we had arranged for Jason to take them flying. It would've been great. We decided to go over to another area of the airport and look at some of the bigger jets. Jason asked one of the receptionists if there were any pilots around who would want to show us their planes. When he came back, he was excited! He said, "We're in for a real treat--we're going to go on a G3!" The rest of us didn't even realize what that was. It's a charter jet that can fly anywhere in the world. It's all decked out with leather couches and chairs. It's the size of a regular commercial jet, but without all the seats. It probably had seats for about 20 and they were all super plush. Each one had a TV as well. The pilot showed us all the cockpit and answered all Jason's questions about everything. They talked for a long time after the boys were done looking around. I'd say for our first field trip, it was more than a success. Everyone had such a good time.

Soccer Mom

I am now officially a soccer mom! Britton had his first soccer game last Saturday. Jason is his coach and one of his best friends is on the team. So far it's been so much fun, but a bit different than I expected. I think every mom has visions of her kid being the star of the game. Britton has always been very athletic and coordinated and shown a lot of interest in sports, so of course, I figured he'd out-shine everyone on field and be a pro from day one. It didn't quite turn out like that. I should have guessed when, at the first practice, he started crying and refused to go back after Jason told him he couldn't touch the ball with his hands, but I still had high hopes for his first game. Don't get me wrong, he was really good and there were even moments of brilliance, but they were intermixed with moments of crying, laying down on the field, making faces at his teammates, picking grass, holding hands with his friends, trying to climb the goal net, and plain refusing to play anymore. It's good to know, though, that it's an age thing and all the other boys do those sorts of things, too. We're learning that the only things the coach has to do is keep his team going in the right direction and carry the crying ones off the field.
Last night, at their second game, I overheard a dad on the other team yelling, "Put down the grass, son, and go after the ball". It just made me chuckle.

Exploring

Monday morning Britton decided to make a map. As soon as he was done, he wanted to follow it, of course. So we jumped in the car and he led the way. He told me which way to go at every turn until we finally arrived at Rock Canyon Park and he said very excitedly, "this is what I drew on the map!" (That was pretty lucky since there wasn't anywhere else to go without running into the mountain) So, we set out on foot and continued exploring. I had to carry Britton's goggles the whole time, just in case we discovered a lake (even thought I knew there were no lakes there). The river was all dried up so we played in the rocks in the river bed and collected acorns under some trees and looked for squirrels. Britton and Haley had such a wonderful time. They are great explorers.

Orem Owlz

Lately we've been able to go to quite a few of the Orem Owlz games. Jason's brother James has season tickets for his family and they usually always have a couple extra. My kids love the games. The mascot is Hootz--a big owl with a baseball for a head. They used to be scared of him, but now he's their favorite thing about the games. They always have to run up and give him five or shake his hand. Haley cheers and claps whenever anyone else is and dances with all the music. She loves singing, "take me out to the ball game", too. Although, I enjoy watching football and basketball so much more, the baseball games are such a fun thing for our whole family. Maybe it's because I don't really care too much about whether they win or lose, so I don't mind so much if I don't see every second of the game. So, I'm perfectly happy to chase my kids around or go get treats or just sit and talk.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Last Saturday night, we had a movie night. We rented a movie for us to watch (Glory Road--very good) and some for the kids. Haley picked out Piglet's Big Movie and Britton picked out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II which is still probably too old for him to really like, but he thought it was cool. It was a blast from the past to when I saw the first TMNT movie in the theater. I think I was in 8th or 9th grade and I went to see it with Angie Pistorius. We thought we were so cool. I don't really think it was that cool of a thing at the time, but we didn't care. We always called each other Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo, or Leonardo. We thought we were so funny. Watching parts of the movie with Britton, it was hard for me to imagine what the fascination was way back then.

Chocolate Covered Cinnamon Bears

I love chocolate coverd cinnamon bears! I think I would probably love chocolate covered pretty much anything, but they are particularly good.

Shrek Super Party

My favorite XBox game is Shrek Super Party. It is so great because you do these different "epic battles" so there is a lot of variety. But it's easy enough for a four year old to play and a two year old to believe that she's playing. And it's 4 player so our whole family can play together. It's set up kind of like a board game where each person is a different player and has a turn and depending on where they land, determines what you do. There are lots of epic battles, but there are also "daring duels" where you challenge another player, "magic mirror", "magic portals", and places where you lose points or gain points. Britton's favorite spot is marked by a pair of stinky shoes and when you land there you're sent to the "evil bog". He thinks it's hilarious.