Utah- Part Uno

Well we made it to Utah and only had to change each child's clothing once while flying. Collette puked all over both of us on the first flight and Owen's diaper leaked because of all of the apple juice Tyler and I were forcing him to drink so that his ears wouldn't bother him. All in all a very successful flight over.

We've been having a blast since we've been here. Spent the 4th with family and friends doing all of the things that a typical fourth of July holiday calls for.

BBQ/Pool Party:



Tyler got in a huge water war with all of the nephews. See him in the right hand side of this picture just enjoying every second of this game? He was actually winning at this point but once they retaliated and wouldn't give up, the game tragically ended with Tyler faking his death off the diving board.



Fireworks with friends:

I think giving your two year old child a sparkler might be one of the scariest experiences there is. He almost lit his hair on fire a few hundred times.

Owen really loved the fireworks for about the first five minutes and then entertained himself by playing hide and seek under the blanket the rest of the night.

Collette on the other hand, couldn't get enough, she sat in Tyler's lap with her ears covered just staring up to the sky. She was for sure a fan.

The rest of the week was spent with Tyler's family. Almost everyone was able to meet up in Utah to spend the week together (we missed you Todd and Carrie!).

While the Rhodes' fam was here we spent some time at the park:

And at This is the place Heritage Park. Let me just say, this really is the place, especially for kids. Owen couldn't get enough of the Pony Rides:

the Petting Zoo:

or the Trains... yes people, multiple trains for the kids to ride:



Can you see me in this picture? Seriously, what was I thinking here? I don't remember loving this ride more than Owen did but I guess I was. Pictures don't lie.

We also had a Rhodes Family Reunion

 Where we spent time with Owen and Collette's great grandma

And tried our feet at this activity. Darcy was super good at it...

 So was Owen

I, on the other hand... 

was really really bad at it. Guess I need to work on my balance.

Owen spent some time petting a random a dog that wandered over 

 

And Tyler enjoyed the time with his parents (Isn't he handsome?)

We also took a dip in the pool, which I don't have any pics of because for some reason my phone isn't sending pictures at the moment and I didn't take any with a  regular camera.

I personally think the best part though was just the time spent hanging together, watching movies and chatting it up:

Wish we could see them more often. Owen loved being with his cousins and couldn't get enough of Grandma and Grandpa Rhodes.

There was still much more fun to be had but let's not overload this post with too much Utah goodness. Stay tuned...

Cabin Fever

So I've had two sick kids and a traveling husband for the last two weeks. Owen has never really been sick so this is new territory for me. I'll be honest, I don't like it and I'm not very good at being a mother to two sick kids. I pretty much think every cough means Collette has RSV and I'm checking Owen's snot every few minutes to make sure it's clear and not some scary color that means that his sickness is something more serious than a cold. Thankfully, neither of those things have come true and both kiddos are finally on the mend. Anyway, because the kids have been sick, we've been stuck indoors for almost two weeks straight. Some of the things we've been up to while in the house:

Playing trains and legos. This particular day, we were having the train go on an African Safari. This is Owen to a tee... instead of pretending that the people on the train were looking at the animals in Africa, Owen set up all of the animals to look at the passengers on the train. I love this kid:

Finding the kids playing together. Or really finding Owen driving cars, playing dinosaurs, etc. on top of his sister. Luckily, she doesn't seem to mind:

Building Forts:

Finger painting:

Entertaining ourselves with sticker books:

And lots and lots of sleeping:

 And lots of cuddling, the only thing I've enjoyed about sick Owen. He  loves to cuddle right now. There is nothing better than hearing him ask "Mommy, cuddle with me?"

Like I said, luckily everyone is on the mend now. None of us can wait to get out of this house and on a plane to Utah this weekend! YAY for vacations and healthy children!

P.S. Sorry for the not so great pictures... I've only had my phone to take photos with.

Something That Irks Me

There are not many things that bother me but this is one thing I don't understand. How hard is it to take your shopping cart back into the store or to one of the cart return centers in the parking lot? Once at Albertsons, I backed up and someone had left a cart right behind my car, in my blind spot. It dented my bumper. I didn't like it.

Anyway, tonight at the Costco, I saw this:

 and this:

Do you see how close the carts are to the cart return places? Seriously people... take ten extra steps. If I can do it with two kids in tow, you can do it as well.

Synthetic Love and Other Randomness

So Tyler and I were watching TV last night and stumbled upon this. This man has a synthetic doll that he really believes he is married to. He talks about how they support each other, love each other, have great conversations with each other, etc. It's like Lars and the Real Girl on crack. One of the craziest things about this was that a psychologist came in to talk to him and left saying that he isn't crazy as long as he is happy. Wait, no, I take that back,  the craziest thing was when the man decided to order a second synthetic doll and was asking his "wife" for permission. Or maybe the strangest part was that even after he saw himself on the show, instead of realizing he was crazy he says it's just a matter of time before everyone is finding love with a synthetic doll. I really hope that's not the case, but then again maybe the writer of Mannequin was on to something all those years ago.

Also on that episode was a lady who would eat this:

She would eat it ten times a day and had been for thirty years. It makes me sick just thinking about it. She had rotted her whole mouth by doing it and caused $20,000 worth of damage. Can you even imagine?
Changing subjects... do you watch Modern Family?  We do and we love it.  The other day I was reading an article about this lady:
 
And it said that she is a natural blonde! Can you believe it? She doesn't look like it right? Well, I couldn't help but google a pic (I actually asked Tyler to since he was the one on the computer) and look what he found:

Gorgeous right?
Something you may not know about me is that I thought I was a natural blonde until I was 21. See:

Let's not talk about the jean jacket or the frumpy sweater. I think we should just ignore both.
At that point, my good friend Josh told me he thought I should go my natural color just to see what it was. I thought it was a good idea since I hadn't seen my natural hair color since I was 12 years old so I promptly called my hair dresser for an appointment.  I was shocked when I came out a brunette. I had no idea. Now every time I go to get my hair done and ask Tyler if I should try something different, he jokes that I should go blonde. Yesterday when he saw this picture, he mentioned it again. He doesn't realize that just  going blonde won't make me look like Sofia Vergara. More likely, I will just look like a really fake blonde.
Speaking of hair, I did this to my son this week:

I didn't realize that cutting the sideburns would make him look like he had a bowl cut. Too bad it isn't 1985, I think it was somewhat popular then, but what do I know, all of my brothers had mullets through the 80's.

I guess he gets it...

Since having this baby girl:

I keep getting questions like "does Owen like her?", "How is Owen handling things?" and "Do you think he gets that she is part of your family and is here to stay?"
As I stated in a post a little while ago, I was super nervous about how having Collette would affect Owen and I'm happy to say that he really loves her. Some proof:

That picture was taken a couple of days ago when Tyler had put her on the changing table. He walked out of the room for a minute and Collette wasn't very happy about it. That's Owen trying to give her a binkie to help make her happy. He also sings happy birthday to her when she cries. I guess he feels like that's a song that would make anyone stop crying. One more thing he does is say over and over "No cry baby, it's ok". Cutest thing ever to hear him say that. We also see this a lot:

See... loves her.
To be honest, I was never sure how to answer the last question, the one about him getting that she is part of our family and is going to stick around until this morning. I had a meeting at the church and took the kiddos with me. At one point we had to change rooms and one of the men that was there offered to carry Collette into the other room for me and I quickly took him up on that offer. As he was walking out of the room with the car seat and baby, Owen starts freaking out and yelling over and over "My baby! Man holding baby! Mommy, my baby!" It took a while to calm him down and get him to understand that the nice man was going to the same place we were and was not trying to kidnap our baby girl. So there is your answer folks... I guess Owen does get it and now I can rest assure that if anyone ever did try to take her, Owen would let me and everyone around us know about it.

Memorial Weekend

When you have a baby that isn't even two weeks old and there is a holiday like Memorial Day, you wonder if you'll really be able to have an enjoyable weekend, doing holiday things or if you'll be stressed, tired and just busy trying to take care of two chidren. We decided to make weekend plans and hope that Collette would cooperate for all the fun we had ahead of us. Guess what... she did! The weekend was fantastic. We started it off with a little dinner at Pei Wei with my mom and some friends:

This was Kikimac (Owen's name for our friend Caitlin and her son Max) first experience with Pei Wei. I think it was a success.

The John's were there to enjoy it as well.

Yummy

Jeff REALLY enjoyed the amazing soda fountain that Pei Wei had to offer. I'm sure it will keep him going back again and again.

Saturday was more quality time spent with the Mulcock's. This time at their pool.

 Tony, Amber, Aldo and CJ were also there.

Owen had such a blast swimming with Tyler.

 Collette loved it too. She thought sitting poolside was super relaxing.

Sunday we decided to have a "mango madness" night. Our friends The Johns have a mango tree and gave us permission to go pick some of the mangos and do what we wanted with them. What did we want? Mango cobbler! Yummy! Tyler made two different kinds of cobbler to try out and we made some homemade ice cream to go with.

This is one of Owen's best buddies... Max. As you can see, they adore each other:

Monday we got up and headed to the beach. I'll be honest, I was a litte nervous about how Collette would handle the sun, sand, wind, etc. Luckily, Jeff and Caitlin had us covered, they let us borrow their shade shack to keep her happy. It worked like a charm. I think she was born a beach bum.

Since Collette did so well at the beach, we decided to try our luck out on the boat later in the afternoon and guess what? She loved that as well. I guess she was born for Florida life.

So comfy right?

Isn't he handsome? And he's really good at driving a boat.

Don't judge us for having Owen wear a life jacket that was too big. We only had one kids jacket with us and we had to let this guy wear it:

We really love these people... can you tell? We spent a whole weekend with them and never got sick of it. They're leaving us in October and we're super sad about it. Please Mulcock's DON'T GO!!!