Play-Dough Fun (or not so fun)

Today after the big kids left for school, Mom thought it would be fun to let the kids have some play-dough time. So she made up a batch. James really wanted the four original colors from his set which had all gotten dried out or mixed together, but Mom was able to convince him one was enough.

Everyone was in fine spirits.

James really loves his play dough, so he was really happy that he could play it again.



At least for a little while; until Izzy started eating the 'food' he was making. She has a special talent as an 18 month old little sister of driving Jamie crazy!



Mom sorted things out though and the two kids were able to keep playing and had a fun time. Mom even played with Jamie while Izzy napped, which he loved. Great success!

Jamie Gordon Rides a 2-Wheeler!

A year ago Grandpa Stan and Grandma Lori bought James this crazy bike with no pedals for his 2nd birthday. After a few months he really started to cruise around on it. For his 3rd birthday we got him a new Spiderman bike with training wheels. Well today Dad decided to see if James could ride without the training wheels since his balance is so good on the other bike. SURPRISE!!!!! And what good would a blog post be without a video, even if my phone did screw up and film it sideways. ARGH

Girls Adventures

One excited little girl




Plus six inches of Mommy hair



Equals a fun day and new hairdos for the Moore girls



Summer will be much more enjoyable now!

Practicing

Because everything is more fun with a chart and colored markers.



Mikey is preparing for a little concerto festival in a few weeks. We are trying to work on getting the piece perfect. I have a much greater appreciation for my mom and what she went through with all of us to get us ready for our various events. It is a lot if work but it is so worth it.

I'm grateful now for the lessons it taught me in hard work, commitment, achievement, and self worth ... even if there were times I hated it as a kid. Now I am learning some lessons of my own in patience, perserverance, dedication, with a little bribery mixed in for good measure.

Who knew piano could teach so many life lessons?

Why every Mikey needs a Grandma Lori

While Lexi thoroughly enjoys Grandma's knitted labors of love, Mikey also insists that Grandma Lori make him some items too. Some of them turn out not so cute ... While others are just great.

This sweater is one of his very favorite things to wear. He tries to wear it every single day in fact. And he gets really mad when it is in the laundry.

Today in honor of the beautiful warmth and sunshine he opted to wear shorts, "flips", and his favorite sweater to school. Some days I don't have enough energy to argue with that child.

To add to the affect he is also sporting his new Cars backpack from Grandma's New York trip.

Mikey loves you Grandma!

Why every Grandma needs a Lexi

Bad day

As I sit here waiting for my doctor who is perpetually behind schedule I thought I would take the chance to complain a little (which I seem to do a lot of lately, especially on Facebook).

Last night I ate too much. My mom took requests from everyone and so we had a shmorgesbord of random and delicious food. My belly rebelled against me all night.

We got home late and mike had to rush off to work a night shift so I got the kids to bed and decided to try to go to bed early. Please note that early for me is any time before 2 am these days. Well I forgot I had turned off the furnace earlier in the day to film a food storage video in our basement. I woke up freezing all night but couldn't muster up the energy to turn the heat on. At some point in the night I also developed a raging sore throat to add to my misery.

Combine the cold sleep and sore throat with a dream that I swear lasted all night long about my dog bubba having his legs ripped off and me carrying him in my arms all night trying to find a vet. I feel like I slept for maybe 5 minutes at best.

I awoke to an alarm at 7:30 because I had to be to the doctor in Orem by 9. Of course this is the ONE day that both kids sleep in. I got Lexi up and dressed and asked her to go wake up Mikey. She came back up and said "I can't find him on the top OR the bottom bunk" which of course sent me into a pregnant woman panic as I ran downstairs to look for him. He must have been cold too because he was completely nestled under the covers and hidden from view.

We rushed out the door with poptarts in hand and I got to do the most pleasant glucose test where you drink the nasty orange drink and then sit there for an hour. After the hour was up I got one of the nastiest and most painful blood draws ever. On a good note she got it on the first try instead of the 8th like last time.

I then proceded to go over to my doctor's office for a checkup. I thought for sure being at 10:30 am would avoid being behind schedule ...

And yet here I sit with only my iPhone for company, feeling starving, wanting a diet coke, and watching the time get late enough that Mikey will be late for preschool. Which pretty much foils my entire purpose of doing the appointment this early and doing the glucose test beforehand.

So I'm doing what any good mom and/or mom to be would do and blogging about it from my iPhone.

And THAT my friends is why I'm having a bad day!

-- Posted From My iPhone

Mikey's love notes

Five year old boys love their mommies. And I am saving all the proof. Here are a few highlights:

I found that one taped on the door when I got home one day. He worked on it himself while his dad took a nap.

Every day at preschool he chooses the "writing center" just so he can write me nice things.

I got this note attached to a delicious breakfast in bed.

I don't know who this one was made for but it sure wasn't me!

My boy loves me!

B is for Bojito

I do a little preschool with Lexi twice a week with some other families in our ward with kids her age. Yesterday was my turn to teach. I was reading a bug alphabet book (which was a real hit with the 3 year olds) and I got to the "B" page which looked like this:





I asked if any kids knew what that bug was. Lexi emphatically declared "That is a B for Bojito!!!" Just to be clear bojito is said with an entirely Hispanic accent with the j sounding like an h. And it actually means mosquito. And this picture is really a bumblebee.

There were so many things wrong with her declaration that I just burst into a pregnant belly laugh. Once I wiped my tears away I nicely told her "Yes Lexi, bojito does start with a b sound. Good job Loo Loo."

Things that make me smile today

A partially painted bathroom

A piano practicing session with no complaining

Making homemade Easter grass out of wheat

Today is a good day so far :)

Lexi: angel or monster?

I didn't know that girls marked their territory too ...


When I asked her WHY she would do this to her brand new little chair she defiantly responded, "That way I will know which chair is MINE!"


But who can't forgive this sweet little thing?

Updates?

So Julie clued me in to this sweet iPhone app that let's you quickly and easily update your blog. I've been posting fun stuff on facebook but it sort of gets lost there. So I'm going to attempt to do it on here and see if we can have a better family journal :)

I want to capture and remember the fun little day to day things about the kids and our life. So here goes nothing!

Here is us today :)






And here is Mike's problem (I mean project) for the day:

Business

That is supposed to be BUSY-NESS, not business. I haven't posted since August ... ok ya I totally suck. I do actually post on Facebook with news tidbits here and there, but they get lost in the shuffle so I will try to do a quick recap on WHY I haven't posted.

Food Storage
As you can see by the badge on my sidebar, I was working on a crazy food storage challenge. You can read more about the challenge in our Mormon Times article (yes we were featured in the newspaper ... SWEET!) It took a lot of energy to plan and prepare, and even more energy to actually live through the challenge. It definitely taught me a lot about what I am still lacking in terms of preparedness ... and inspired me to volunteer to lead a food storage relief society group in my ward. Eek. I'll let you know how THAT goes. We are also going to be featured on the Studio 5 tv show next week so we have had a lot to do getting ready for that! AND we re-did our network site entirely. Wow. Busy.

Hockey
Hockey season is upon me. That is always crazy business ... read BUSY-NESS. I run the Provo Blades women's hockey team and this year we have close to 30 girls signed up, running a B and a C team, website revamped, lost our coach from last year, and the list goes on. The beginning of the year is always tough getting things organized and games lined up. It's almost to the fun part now. Yay. I've also been continuing my role as the BYU Hockey Webmaster. JOY! I revamped the website in hopes that it would be easier for a new person to take over ... but alas no new people have jumped at the chance.

Preschool
Mikey has started going to preschool over at the elementary school by our house. He goes 4 days a week for 3 hours and he is just absolutely in his element there. I volunteered to co-op in the classroom for 14 days of the year, which means I get to swap babysitting with other mom's in the preschool for their co-op days as well. These leads to a lot of busy days either in school or with extra kids. But it's a lot of fun! I felt sad for Lexi because she REALLY wanted to do preschool too. So I am participating in a little home-based preschool with some of the other ladies in my ward. We do this twice a week and rotate houses. Again, very fun, but definitely makes life busier. If you want to see some pics from Mikey's first day at school you can check out my Facebook Photo Album. Both kids were so freaking cute.


BUSINESS
Ok this part truly is business but it's also BUSY-NESS. I spent most of the summer working for my dad helping with web and marketing work for his company Soleil LifeSciences. The last month included some heavy duty hours working on a new site for their Cold & Flu product at http://Sun-Dew.com I'm proud of the site and their product is amazing by the way. So you should go buy some. Right now.

Aside from all of that, our van is still broken after our Canada fiasco, and we recently discovered a leak in our icemaker that is causing some drama in our freezer. But we are all healthy and relatively happy and Lexi is FINALLY potty-trained (hallelujah!) so things could be worse :)

Hopefully I can give you some funny updates on the kids soon. They are so hilarious lately. But for now I'm on to some more busy-ness. Julie is making me declutter our blog ....

Blood, Battles, and Ice Cream

Since the summer days seem to be drifting away ... (pausing for you to sing the daa daa daa part) ... we decided we better have some fun before Mikey starts school. School? NOOOOOO! Ok just preschool don't worry.

Anniversary Celebration

So this week we celebrated our anniversary by eating a lot. What else would you expect of us? We had our Friday family Soleil lunch at Oliver Garden (Thanks Dad!) and then proceeded to go to Ruby River for dinner because we have to. Tradition. Then Marilyn (Mike's mom) tended the kids and we went "camping".

Camping in Salt Lake is apparently a little different than camping in Provo. We were supposed to have reservations, and there are all kinds of weird limitations on how far from the road or trail you can camp, have a fire, etc. We finally got settled in around 10 pm after a lot of driving, a little hiking, and some maneuvering with all of our stuff (we didn't think to bring backpacks cuz we didn't think we'd have to hike to a spot).

We had planned to play board games all night but ended up just chatting and reminiscing about all of the reasons we got married and how nice the last 6 years have been. It's nice to get away like that and take a step back from the chaos of life and think about the good things.

A Babyless Shower

We got up early and headed home so I could catch Teresa's baby shower. This was the first shower I've been to where there was no baby AND no pregnant mommy. Hopefully Vance will get to come home soon!

Blood, Battles, and Ice Cream

After the shower we took the kids up to the Dinosaur Park at the mouth of Ogden Canyon. They LOVE this place. There is one dinosaur statue that is shown eating another and the poor dead dinosaur is all bloody. I was trying not to show the kids but Mike brings them right over and points it out. Well the whole rest of the day they just kept wanting to go back to the "blood dinosaur". Mikey also loved the mechnical T-Rex and Triceratops that are having a pretend battle. Lexi did not so much like that part.

At the end of the day we got some delicious ice creams which were a big fat mess because the kids insisted on getting the stupid push pop kinds. Well Lexi's ended up spilling all over the ground and her shoe and it was bright red on a white shoe. Mike tried to tease her that it was dinosaur blood and she just looks at him like he is a dope and says "no dad, it's ice cream" in her deadpan gravely voice.

Overall it was quite a pleasant weekend. Pictures to come soon!

Hooters - yes those ones

Boobs are the latest obsession around our house. I'm not sure where the kids picked up this terminology but they have definitely been practicing using it lately. Here are a few examples of conversations around our home of late:

I was getting into the shower and Mikey barged in on me ...
Mom: Oh please close the door Mikey
Mikey: Why? Because your BOOBS are showing?
Mom: Yes, Mikey, they are my private parts please don't talk like that.
Mikey ("whispering" as he runs down the hall): Hey Lexi, let's go into the bathroom and look at mom's BOOBS

Conversation with Mikey a few days later ...
Mikey: Hey Mom, so number one doesn't come out of your boob private parts does it?
Mom (trying not to laugh): No Mikey nothing comes out of them
Mikey: Ok, and number two only comes out of your behind right?
Mom: Yep, that's how it works.

And the grand finale, Lexi playing with two naked barbie dolls touching boob to boob ...
Barbie #1: Oh yes we both have nipples
Barbie #2: My nipples are REALLY big
Barbie #1: I just have tiny nipples. They are SOOOOO tiny. Nice tiny nipples.

Is this normal?

Our new cousin - Baby Vance

Introducing our new cousin Baby Vance born on July 22, 2009 via emergency c-section. After a long week in the hospital they couldn't hold him off any longer and he decided to join the family about 7 weeks early. He was only 5 pounds 11 ounces and had trouble eating and needed a little help with oxygen. He is still in the NICU but he is doing well and will hopefully be home soon. Welcome to the family Vance!

Vance Bryan Harrison

New Mommy Teresa

Proud Dad Bryan

Summer days are drifting away ...

Do you remember being a kid and feeling like summer takes FOREVER to come and then it's gone in a flash? That's how this summer has been for us. It feels like it is over already. We have been super busy and it doesn't leave much time for fun. Here are a few highlights from the last two weeks and hopefully we will have more to post about before Mikey starts school in September. Did I say school? Oh my gosh! (don't worry it's just preschool, but still ... crazy!)

• We went to a pool party at the Scera Pool for my parent's ward. We discovered that Mikey and Lexi could go on the big waterslide if we went with them, so we headed up the slide. There was a huge lineup so when I got to the bottom I told Lexi we couldn't go again ... she was mad. Mike got to the bottom with Mikey and they rushed back up to try to go again. Well with only a few people in front of them the pool party ended and they had to come back down. Mikey was NOT happy.

• Luckily, we had a pool party at Aunt Irene's house the next day so we consoled Mikey with that fact. We got to visit with Christie and Thomas and their crew before they headed back to California. It's fun that all our kids get along so well.

• Not much else happened except that late last week Teresa (Mike's sister) decided to try to go into labor early and has been hospitalized for 6 days so far. At least it looks like her little boy Vance is going to stay in their for a little while longer. But she is on hospital bedrest and isn't enjoying it very much. We are keeping her and Vance in our prayers. She is almost 34 weeks so every day she hangs on is a very good thing right now.

In light of all the aunties and babies discussion ... my kids have become very interested in us having a baby. Needless to say we need to get car, insurance, and income situations figured out before we can embark on that journey so in case you were wondering no we are not expecting and we're not trying quite yet ... regardless of what you might hear my children say. Lexi was severely disappointed to learn that Julie is having a baby boy and now she is convinced we are going to be having a little sister for her very soon.

And ... the other day Jasmine was reading an article about getting flat abs and Mikey wanted to know what it was about. She told him it was so her stomach wouldn't be fat any more and Mikey gets all concerned and said "So you don't want your baby any more?" Hahaha.

4th of July 2009 (or 5th of July in our case)

Due to the last part of our Canada Trip Adventures we had to postpone our 4th of July celebrations until the 5th of July. Luckily Aunt T T (Mike's sister Teresa) saved the day by bringing us some barbecue food and some fireworks and we got to celebrate a day late. My kids didn't know the difference and it was so nice to have everything taken care of when we had such a chaotic return. Thanks Teresa, you're the best!





4th of July is always a good time in the Moore Family.

Canada Adventures: Part Four

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

• This seriously had to be the best day EVER! We woke up bright and early (after Mikey fell out of bed and split his lip and cut his gums) and headed down to the continental breakfast which absolutely thrilled Mikey. He has a strange thing for those free breakfasts ever since one hotel stay which was really meaningful to him.

• At breakfast Lexi poured a whole glass of apple juice down her lap and then decided she was REALLY sad and mad about it. While Grandma was consoling her I started to eat the pastry that Lexi wasn’t interested in any longer. Mikey thought it was HIS pastry and told me I was the meanest mom ever for eating his food. I tried to show him the half pastry that was sitting right in front of him btu he didn’t believe me that that one was his. So I proceeded to get him a new pastry which did console him but he neglected to eat after all. *sigh* Kids.

• After all the breakfast adventures we headed past Banff up to Lake Louise. It was just absolutely GORGEOUS up there! We loved it even though it was a little chilly.
  

• Mike and I dream of staying in the Lake Louise Chateau for an anniversary trips someday (and at $500 a night it will be someday a LONG time from now)

• Canoeing on the river was a blast. We especially loved scaring the girls by almost crashing into them. The kids had fun until it started to sprinkle, got very turbulent on the lake and turned freezing cold. Then they rebelled a little bit until we started to head back.

• Then we headed over to the Banff gondola ride for an adventure up the mountain. When we got to the top Mikey says “Can we do that again? I want to do it TWENTY more times”. We got to eat lunch at the very top of the mountain and even had a little Canadian chocolate bar for a treat. Gotta love the Caramilk bar. Yumm!

• After a fun-filled day we drove down to Cardston to start the reunion and Mike and I only got a little bit lost. We stink at that lately. We got to eat Grandma Weiss cabbage rolls (ok let's not kid ourselves, Mike ate cabbage rolls and the kids and I ate pizza) and visit with the family. It was so nice to see everyone again.

• We went back to the hotel and got in a little bit of gaming but couldn't stay up too late as we had to be up early for the rafting trip in the morning. We actually had to rent an extra hotel room just to play games in due to the fact that all the gamers had little kids sleeping and we weren't allowed to be in the conference room OR in the hall. Lame-o. One of our favorite games this trip was BANG which we played with tons of the cousins. Fun stuff!