Funnyman

Lukey is our little funnyman. He's always making jokes and loves to make us laugh. He also just brings a smile to our faces for just being him. He still has the cute little toddler speech where the 'R's are 'W's and the tongue gets in the way. He also has some made up vocabulary. He loves beef jerky and calls it 'Meat Turkey' or 'Spicy Ham'. And, because he's trying to keep up with his older brother, he acts pretty old and tough and thinks he knows it all. In following suite with Kobe, he now wants his hair combed flat. When he wants it flat, he says he wants it 'short'. This picture is something that Luke did at preschool that I have been meaning to share for awhile. It was when they did their unit on Martin Luther King, Jr., and they spent the whole class learning about what MLK did and changing the world. I saw another little girl's poster that said, "If I could do one thing to change the world, it would be...to make sure everyone had clothes to wear." Luke had more important things on his mind, such as the mountains and how, darn it, they're just not quite bumpy enough. :)

Luke also likes to 'stretch the truth'. He has an 'avid imagination'. These are things I tell myself so that I don't freak out about the amount of lies Luke tells and how easily they come to him. Jakob took Kobe and Luke to church yesterday and I stayed home with a sick Jude. Jakob shared with me an interesting conversation that happened on the drive home from church:

LUKE: The Brother of Jared (a Book of Mormon prophet) came to my class today.
KOBE: Huh? What?
LUKE: Yeah! He did!
KOBE: No, he didn't.
LUKE: Yes, he did. (Repeat this banter 4 or 5 times)
KOBE: Dad!
JAKOB: What happened, Luke?
LUKE: The Brother of Jared came to my class today.
JAKOB: Was it someone dressed up like the Brother of Jared?
LUKE: No, it was him...and some soldiers came, too. Yeah, some soldiers.
JAKOB: Oh, really?
LUKE: Yeah.
KOBE: Um, but the Brother of Jared died a long, long, long time ago. (Kobe exercising his knowledge of death once again.) Right, Dad?
JAKOB: Yeah, he did. A long time ago.
(LONG PAUSE)
LUKE: Spiderman came to my class today, too.
JAKOB: Oh, really?
LUKE: Yeah....(sensing his story might be getting too outrageous)...but it was just someone dressed up like Spiderman.

The Party

Saturday we held Jude's Birthday Party and it was a lot of fun. I know it may be hard to believe, but this is Jude's 'fun' face. As well as his sad, happy, mad, excited, and tired face. Completely composed. He did keep his party hat on the whole time which was so cute. We invited two families over for pizza and cake. Jude is way more grown-up than my other boys were at a year. There was chaos and balloons and screaming and Jude was crawling around the middle of it, hungry for action.

He snarfed down the pizza and dug into the cake before we could even get the candle on it. You'd guess it wasn't his first time eating those things! :) I think at Kobe's party it really was his first time having cake and ice cream because I really stuck to the eating guidelines of the first year. Jude has already had cake numerous times, but enjoyed this cake most of all because it was for his birthday.

Jude was totally grabbing at the cake and making a mess and everyone was loving it. So Luke (who was standing nearby as Jude's helper) analyzed the situation and figured that, for some reason, this cake's a free-for-all and took his handful. Jude got a lot of fun gifts, including a toy cell phone, toy keys, a toothbrush, and an animal train from his Uncle Erik. He also enjoyed the tasty wrapping paper that they came in. A great party for a great year!

A few updates: I took my own advice and am now watching a 7-month old baby boy three days a week....for money! Today was my first day and I am exhausted! I don't think any amount of money is worth day-caring kids, but you do what you have to do. I also received an additional calling this last week......STAKE CHOIR DIRECTOR!!!! I was having major health issues associated with the amount of stress and nerves that came with this call, but we just received word that Elder Oaks of the Seventy, who is presiding at Stake Conference in three weeks, requested no Stake Choir for the meeting. So I am at peace for another six months. Phew!

Happy Birthday to Jude!

Today's is Jude's 1st birthday! (This is a picture of 'Bucky York'.) Tomorrow we are going to celebrate with cake and ice cream, but today is the official day. It's hard to believe it's already been a year with this little guy! He already has so much personality and spunk, and he does seem like an old soul who knows a lot more than a little munchkin should. He has finally mastered climbing up and down the stairs and will stand for a while without any support. He's become wise to his brothers and starts to yell at them if they take a toy or wrapper of trash away from him. The third has to learn to defend! He loves to play with our cell phones and remote controls, and LOVES to dig in the trash. He still is a snuggler and loves to be with mom or dad the most. Happy Birthday, Jude!

Happy Valentine's Day!

The Office

I know that everyone is posting about 'The Office', but no one is posting what I think. Does anyone else out there think that Jim and Pam should NOT get together? Here's my two reasons, one of them mean and one of them.....they're both a little mean.

1. Pam is not cute. She isn't. I think that she COULD be, but she's not. She could definitely use a little trim and a round brush to the hair. She needs to say good-bye to the barrettes and add a little volume to the top (of her hair, of course!). She could also use a little more make-up than the lip gloss she wears now. Some may point out that, for quite some time now, I only wear make-up on Sundays. But when I was single and looking...not a day went by without make-up. Not a day. Now I thought that the hair and make-up people knew this, and that they were saving her big 'Extreme Makeover' for a big event. But a Diwali festival and wedding have passed with no real change.

Now some may argue that Jim's no model. But he is nice, charismatic, tall, funny, slender, and plays basketball. In TV land, this translates into prime meat and deserving of someone cute. Someone like....Karen. Isn't she great? Does she deserve to be dragged along into this sick game? Mark my words. In a future episode they will bring out something horrible in Karen so that we all have to hate her.

2. Pam had her chance and she blew it. Jim should get the idea that she's just not that into him and move on. She wants to be able to flirt and prank with Jim while not having to commit, but you can't have it all, honey! And again, I think Karen's a cute and nice girl for Jim. And is anyone else thinking that Roy is trying so hard now? He's trying. And you know that we've all had to give our man a second chance. Mmm-hmmm.

I don't know why I feel so strongly. Maybe because it's late. Definitely past my nice and reasonable thought time. And maybe it's because Jim almost said he would date Pam if she was into him while he was on a date with Karen at a wedding! Maybe I've been the 'Karen' in a social situation and still feel bitter about it. Who knows. But, anyway, wasn't it hilarious when Ryan totally jumped and knocked the bouquet away from Kelly at the toss? Hilarious! I'm still laughing about it.

Hey! I just totally had a revelation! I was the Karen in a situation! I only dated one other person before Jakob. And while I was dating that person, his old girlfriend wanted to meet with him to talk things over and they did! Right outside Helaman Halls late at night. And one time he brought me flowers...but he also brought her flowers, too! "Because she's my friend," he said! Darn you Rachel and Logan!!!!!!!!!!

(P.S. See? She can be cute! Beautiful even!)

Joo-Joo Eyeball

The title of this post is a Beatles song reference. Did you get it? I'm using it to describe Jude's beautiful big eyes. I got the boys' picture taken a couple of days ago. I've already written a post about how intense an experience it is whenever I take them to get their pictures taken, but I thought I'd talk about it again. I'm that obsessive about it.

We went to a new place this time. I forget what it's called...maybe Photo Innovations? They did fine, but it was definitely a mistake. If I wanted to spend $43 dollars on pictures (which I did), I would've gone to Kiddie Kandids. JCPenney is the only place for me. Right price. Good pics. Anyway, my main purpose in the trip was to get another good, traditional picture taken of all three boys. This place takes like 80 pictures and then you have to sit in front of a computer monitor and look at all the pictures in groups of three until you narrow it down. That's like 26 decisions I had to make in five minutes! I normally look at a screen of 15 pictures and take 20 minutes to decide. But 80 pictures? Yikes.

Obviously, my judgement was impaired after all that pressure. I ended up buying a traditional posed one that I didn't even like with my $9.99 coupon, and then a single sheet each of these two adorable shots with poor lighting. I didn't plan on it, but I couldn't pass them up. I'm going to make a trip to JCPenney in an attempt to capture the perfect picture of all three boys. It is quite a quest, but they've done it before so my faith is strong. But I am very happy with these cutest pictures.

This one of all three boys is hilarious. Our photographer was a young guy which I was super nervous about at first. But as it turns out, if you have three boys the best person to take their picture is a boy. He was making 'toot' noises the entire time and asking, "Who did that?" The boys could not stay composed (especially the master of toot jokes himself, Lukey). It was definitely our most relaxed and fun photo shoot ever. But Jude barely even cracked a smile the whole time. He is one composed baby.

A Commercial Break

Here are some things I am really excited about. So excited that I am advertising them for free on my site.

The New Arrowhead Water Bottle Tops: The water bottles now have new tops that are AWESOME! They are so easy to drink from. I don't know how to explain it, but they conform to your lips better and there's no longer the 'suck and release' struggle the other top presented. Another important advance in technology. Critical for our daily water consumption comfort.

The Magic Eraser: I'm sure many of you have already discovered these many cleaning days ago. I'm last to get in on all the cleaning trends, but that should surprise no one. But can you believe these sponges!?! For those of you not familiar, all you have to do is get it wet, and it basically removes any dirt, grime, streak, anything from anywhere. I'M NOT JOKIN! I took it to my bathtub and discovered that there were places in the tub I didn't even know were dirty. And all these scuffs and marks on our doors that were there before we moved in - gone! Definitely a miracle and I'm definitely excited at the thought of cleaning now. Still just thinking, but that's a step in the right direction. They sell a great generic at Target, so there you go.

The SpaceBag: I'm a sucker for a good infomercial (I promise I'll open "Turbo Jam - Five Rockin' Workouts by Beachbody" someday, Jakob!) but these spacebags stand by their amazing promises. Jakob and I are fighting our 'pack-rat' tendencies, but there are some things you must logically hold onto. We have definitely run out of space in our house.....UNTIL THE SPACE BAG CAME ALONG! You stuff all your blankets, towels, pillows, etc. in them, take a vacuum to their plug, and it shrinks and flattens them down into tiny pancakes. I think in the jumbo bag on the bottom of the picture I have two comforters, two pillows, and five queen sized sheets. On the top large size bag I have three pillows. Our closets are spacious now and I really want to invest in more spacebags for our seasonal clothes. We have like 10 bins of boys clothes in our garage - all their different sizes - and we could shrink them all down to the size of a peanut. One step closer to parking a car in our garage. (Somewhere Jakob's laughing right now.) Hey, we all have to pursue our dreams!

The History Channel: I am definitely addicted to the History Channel. I don't know if I had just never discovered or given it a chance in the past, or if I have aged 20 years since I gave birth to Jude, but I am completely intrigued and fascinated and full of a hunger for history. I have watched shows on Houdini, Godfathers, The History of Plumbing, All three illicit drug specials: Cocaine, Marijuana, and Heroine, Jonestown, Cults, The Real Dracula, The Westies, Charles Manson and The Black Death Plague. I'm sure there's some I can't remember. It is on whenever I'm doing projects and DVRed to watch at night when the boys are in bed. My aspirations of being that annoying history buff at the party who corrects everyone's simple knowledge of the world are taking shape.

So that's what I get excited about these days. Definitely my highest recommendations for my dearest friends.

Our Weekend

This weekend Jakob and I got to go on a date. We trade babysitting with two other families. So once every three weeks we watch all of the kids on a weekend, but then we get two weekends to go on dates ourselves. It's worked out really great and saved us tons of money on babysitters. We call them "Kids Nights" so the kids think that we're doing them a giant favor. Genius.

So we knew we wanted to see a movie this weekend, and Jakob made a couple of suggestions. "The Messenger" and "Stomp the Yard". ("I take 2 steps forward, You take 2 steps back. We come together cuz opposites attract.") I was not going to take 2 steps backward on our precious night out, so I had to pull Jakob 4 steps forward. That's pretty much how this marriage works. :)

To be fair, Jakob hasn't watched TV for weeks because of work, so he hasn't seen any movie trailers, just read brief descriptions online. But there seriously is slim pickins in the movie theatre's right now. So frustrating! I'm dying for 'The Prestige' to come out on video because I didn't get to see that yet. So we decided on getting some dessert and then just renting a movie from Blockbuster. We got dessert at the same place Michiko had her non-baby shower. It's a sports grill called 'B.J.'s' and they have these huge cookies baked in a deep dish with ice cream on top. So yummy! Jakob has eaten them at other restaurants, so I'm sure some of you have had them. But if you haven't, find them and enjoy! I'm already craving them again.

The movie we rented was 'Lady in the Water'. We didn't see it in the theatres, but are big fans of M. Night Shamalalanahayanan. People had said it wasn't great, but I really liked it. It was interesting. I have really been thinking about something a side character said in it. He's a movie critic, and he talked about how there is no more originality in film anymore. That everything has been done a million times. I think there's a lot of truth in that, and my new goal is to try and come up with an original plot - something that hasn't been done before. It'll give me something to think about so the old brain doesn't turn to mush. It's my alternative to one of those 'Brain Age' handheld games.

So that was the event of our weekend. Saturday we did a "10 Second Tidy" that lasted 2 1/2 hours. We had a visitor and had to clean the house, but it was nice to have it all clean for the rest of the weekend. Oh, yeah! We also got a new toaster! We had to retire the toaster we got for our wedding. It gave a good fight and served us well for nearly six years. The other year and a half it has disappointed us, hurt our feelings, and mocked us repeatedly. We had to let it go. We've upgraded to a four-slice and feel like we're definitely a family now.