I do love my Brady...

So pretty much Brady has been giving me *&^%# recently as he has been trying to prove is two year-old "manhood." He won't do anything that I tell him to do, but of course does EVERYTHING that I tell him not to do.  I kind of just want to pull my hair out right now.  However, despite everything that he is throwing at me,  I do have to say that I love that little guy.

Tonight when I was feeding Pyper dinner, he came up to me and wrapped his arms around my legs and said, "I love you mommy."  I of course replied back with, "I love you Brady," when he promptly responded, "I love you more." Did he just melt my heart? Yes! (I do have to say though that I'm pretty sure that he did not come up with this line on his own, but rather stole it from his new favorite movie TANGLED.  He has been watching it quite a bit recently...oh well, still cute).

Another random Brady moment happened today that I wanted to get down for future posterity...mainly to be able to embarrass him on future dates.  Tonight I was having some edamame, when Brady came into the kitchen and said he wanted one of my 'green carrots.' I, of course, shared one of my 'green carrots' with him and he proceeded to put the whole thing in his mouth....pod and all.  I thought about stopping him, but decided I was enjoying it too much.  Several minutes later he came back with full mouth and said, "open your hand" as he quickly tried to spit it out into my hand.  Luckily, I guided him to the trash just in time (this isn't the first time he has tried to spit the remnants of his food into my hand).  Later, as we were having dinner I was trying to coerce him into eating his green beans and told him that if he ate one bean, he could have his milk.  He again proceeded to stick the WHOLE bean into his mouth at once (another Brady trait), and began chewing.  Again, several chews later, he said "trash" and started walking towards the trash to spit the bean out.  Well, at least I got him to spit into the trash can as opposed to my hand....NOT...when I wouldn't let him spit it out in the trash can, his next plan of attack started with, "open your hand..."

Well, I have to say I did finally get him to swallow his ONE green bean and we managed to finish dinner with only a few minor casualties.

Grandma's Bed vs. the Trampoline

So, one of the cool things about living at grandma's house is that they have a trampoline.  For a two year old, this is a dream come true.  When we first arrived, I could keep the kid off of the trampoline.  In fact, on one occasion I came upstairs from putting Pyper down for a nap to try to find Brady.  I kept calling his name and he didn't respond.  I finally thought I would check outside and or course, there he was jumping on the trampoline.  He decided that he wanted to jump to he crawled out the doggie door to make it happen.

Since then, however, it has been quite cold so we have had to figure out some alternate activities.  Well...grandma's bed made the team.  Now whenever I am looking for him, I go directly to grandma's bed.  One cool thing about grandma's bed is that there is a mirror.  My Brady is just a little bit vain at this point in life.  His next favorite thing after jumping is probably making faces at himself in the mirror.  So, I guess grandma's bed is the perfect combination. I don't really know how grandma feels about this new found toy, but I think I'll just plead the fifth if she asks me anything about it.

Oh yeah, and one other thing about this video clip.  Brady has recently been wanting Pyper to participate in our conversations.  Whenever he wants Pyper to have a turn to talk he says, "Pyper's turn" in a super high, squeaky voice and then expects me to be the voice.  If I don't do it right, he will keep saying "Pyper's turn. Pyper's turn" until I get the exact right intonation.  I guess we know who is the boss in our family.

Life in Utah

So, I decided that I should probably start blogging again. I was just reading some of my friends blogs from California and it reminded me how much I miss all of them.  Miss you guys!!!!

Anyway, life is good so far....other than the fact that our car was stolen, it snows pretty much every other day, and John is not quite yet in love with his new job. Bummer!  I've decided it's all a learning process and there is a reason we are here now and who knows where this new adventure will take us.

However, having said all that...I do love being with family!  Brady LOVES living with grandma and grandpa and Buddy (the dog of course).  One of the new found loves in Brady's life is the drinking fountain at grandma's house.  Not only does Brady love to fill up Buddy's water dish (especially when it's already full of water, which usually ends up with the an empty water dish and VERY wet Brady), but he also love giving Thomas drinks from the fountain....of course!!!  How thoughtful right? At least once a day, we are cleaning up water or dog food from this room.  That's why Brady is so vigilant in this video clip as he is trying to clean up his mess.

You Stole My Car?! Who does that?? Welcome to Sandy....

Have I ever mentioned that I HATE wasting my time? It seriously is one of my biggest pet peeves.  Well, today I trying to be super efficient by getting my safety and emissions test done so I could go in this Saturday today get my car registered.  Well....did I mention that my car got stolen today?!  Talk about waste of an afternoon!!!

When I went in to get my safety check they told me I failed because my emergency break was broken.  I proceeded to ask them where I should go to get it fixed.  They told me to go across the street to Firestone (by the way.....NEVER go to Firestone). I took their advice, thinking that I was again being SO efficient to get this all done at once.  Oh yes, and did I mention that I had both kids with me at the time.  Okay, so I parked the car right outside of the bay, waiting for it be serviced.  I left the keys in car, which don't you always do when you're going to have your car worked on.  I got both kids out of the car (Thank Goodness!) and went inside to get helped.  There were two men in front of me, who looked like they were about to leave. Within in a few minutes the two men had left and I had moved to the front of the line.  I turned around for a second and looked out the window and saw someone getting into my car.  My first thought was, "WOW they are super fast here," then I soon realized that wait, that man is not going to fix my car....NO, he is DRIVING OFF with my car!!! Seriously, is this really happening to me!  I really felt like I was on CSI of NCIS or something! Well, on second thought, I guess a stolen car would make a really boring TV episode, but it's NOT boring when it's YOUR car they are stealing!

I proceeded to call the police, they showed up and I filled them in on all the details. Well, to make an already too long story short, the police found my car two hours later in American Fork.  However, the story gets better (or worse for some).  They found my car parked in the garage of a family in American Fork.  Apparently, this man had somehow opened their garage door, parked my car in their garage, and then drove off with their Jeep.  Oh yeah and I did I tell you that as he was driving off with the Jeep, he ran into this families' other car that was parked into the drive way!  Seriously, this guy must be on something because why would you open the garage and steal the car in their when there is another car in the driveway that you could steal!

Well, anyway, props to the Sandy and American Fork Police officers for finding our car so quickly.  They stole pretty much everything in our car, including our two car seats and my Phil & Ted stroller :(  but it really could have been so much worse.  I am so grateful that things turned out the way they did and that my family is safe.  It was definitely a learning experience for me and I hope that I will be much more vigilant in the future.

Thomas the Train Birthday Party

We celebrated Brady's 2nd birthday a little bit early this year by having our friends over to the park for a Thomas the Train celebration. He couldn't have been more pleased! Thomas the Train is Brady's whole life right now. Thank you everyone for coming!




After he opened all his presents he proceeded to organize all of his Thomas loot and just stared in awe. He literally didn't move for 20 minutes. He just kept lining all of the trains up and boy, did he get a lot of trains! I don't think he had ever seen so many Thomas items in one place before. It was pretty awesome.

Brady kept digging into the cake before we started. I tried stopping him at first, but then figured, "heck, it's your birthday and your two. Enjoy!"

He was so excited when we sang the "Birthday-Birthday" song to him (that's what he calls it). He has been practicing for weeks.

Happy Birthday To You...

Pics from Bear Lake

Wow...it has been forever since I have posted. I find that the only time I actually get pictures taken of Brady is when my mom is around with the camera (thanks mom). Neither John nor I are very good at popping out the camera, so I am grateful for family vacations!

We went up to Bear Lake for the 4th and spent time boating and playing in the sand. Brady really loved the boat, as long as mom was in his sight of course. In the picture above, Brady REALLY IS driving the boat. Let's just say we went around in circles for quite a while, before he eventually fell asleep at the wheel, hands still at 10 & 2. It seriously looked so uncomfortable!

We had a great time. Thanks for a fun trip mom and dad!

We're having a baby girl!

We are so excited to announce to everyone that we are having a baby girl! I was certain it was a boy (just like last time I was certain it was a girl), so it looks like I'm 0 for 2. Oh well!! We can hardly wait to welcome this new sweet spirit into our home!

Easter Weekend and Easter Egg Hunts

We attempted several Easter egg hunts this year for Brady. Our home owners' association put together an Easter egg hunt for all the kids to take place on Saturday morning @ 11:00am, not at 11:02am as we soon found out. When we arrived there were literally only two eggs left in the infant and toddler area. Well, to put it bluntly, I was a bit peeved (I do have to say that I am about seventeen weeks pregnant and I am WAY hormonal right now :) ). Anyway, I was so bummed that Brady only found two eggs. While John was telling me to chill out, he told me to turn around and look at my son. Brady had found a sprinkler box and was jumping up and down on it and laughing his head off. Well....this was a good learning experience for me as I realized (again) not to sweat the small stuff. He frankly could not have cared less if he had gotten any eggs. Kids are great! They really enjoy the simple things in life. What a great reminder.

Brady, however, did finally get his easter egg hunt as we spent Easter Sunday up at John's parents' house. And again, he really didn't care, but it was a whole lot of fun for John and I to watch him. Thanks for a fun weekend!

Surprise...we're having a baby!

So, yes it's official (I guess it was official three months ago), but we are having a baby. Our baby is due the day before Brady was born (and no we did not plan that) and we are super excited! Wahoo!!!

Valentines Day and Random Brady Pictures...

For Valentine's Day this year, I decided to show my love by going all out to make John's favorite meal...with a little twist...Is there a better way to say I love you than by a heart shaped meat loaf I ask???

I have to say I was impressed by my own handiwork, so I had to take a few pictures. I created the meatloaf masterpiece above, as well as heart shaped croutons and rolls. (This is definitely not going to happen again in the near future). Lots of fun and it all actually tasted pretty good too!!!


Brady trying to get the last dregs of frosting out of my Kitchen Aid bowl. This child takes his food VERY seriously! What a cutie!!!

Christmas and Hawaii!!!

This year for Christmas we split our time between families. We spent the week before Christmas (including Christmas Day) with John's family up in Santa Rosa and then flew to Hawaii with my family for the week after Christmas. We had fun all around. Since I am a horrible 'snapper' and fail to take pictures everywhere, I bummed a few from my mom from our Hawaii trip. It was a blast...kayaking, rope swings, ocean, LOTS and LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of sand (Brady proved this to me quite early on)...what else could you ask for? Thanks mom and dad for a fun trip!!!

Brady appears to be training for the Olympics...he will be entering the discus throwing event.

This rope swing doesn't appear very impressive, but the top of the rope swing was hanging from a tree about 60ft-70ft. from the water. It was pretty intense and so much fun!!!

My sister and I teamed up to kayak down the river. (John was such a sweet heart and let me go while he stayed back with Brady...He's the man) It started out pretty rough as we couldn't get the hang of going straight and were literally zigzagging across the river while the rest of our family was WAY ahead, but eventually we mastered the paddles and flew past the rest of them (well...sort of, at least that's how I'm going to make the record).

New Years Eve...we stayed up to a whopping 9:00pm and man do we look tired! Woohoo, party animals!!!