Morgan's a hoot

We were driving down to my parent's house today and Morgan was being even more talkative than usual (which is saying something) so I asked if he wanted to play a game.  This is how the game goes: one person says the following and after each line the second person (or group of people) echoes it

I said a Boom Chicka Boom (echo)
I said a Boom Chicka Boom (echo)
I said a Boom Chicka Rocka Chicka Rocka Chicka Boom (echo)
Uh-Huh (echo)
Oh Yeah (echo)
One more Time followed by an adjective like fast, high, opera style, etc. Then you do it in that voice

So here's how it went:

Mindy:  I said a Boom Chicka Boom
Morgan: I said a Boom Chicka Boom
Mindy: I said a Boom Chicka Boom
Morgan: I said a Boom Chicka Boom
Mindy:  I said a Boom Chicka Rocka Chicka Rocka Chicka Boom
Morgan (in a somewhat disgusted voice): I didn't say that

 He seriously makes me laugh.

Happy Halloween!!!

Trick or Treating, a Spook Alley, Carving Pumpkins...Halloween sure is fun!  Here are some pictures (I know there's a lot of Teagan but this isn't favoritism, Morgan just won't pay attention long enough to look at the camera so I don't get nearly as many good ones. Teagan cooperates better):

Motherhood

Let me just preface this by saying I love being a Mom more than anything in the world. I can't even imagine life without my sweet boys and wouldn't trade places with anyone.  But sometimes being a Mom is so hard.  Teagan has reached the Destroyer stage where he makes as big of a mess as he can in the shortest time possible.  No matter how much time I spend cleaning up it seems like our house is always a disaster.  And for some reason Teagan is being extra needy right now and whines and cries all the time, mostly when I'm trying to get something done but sometimes even when I'm holding him and he has my full attention.  Now add to that Morgan's perfectly normal for his age need for autonomy and love of the word NO and some days it's all I can do just to get through the day without having a mental breakdown.  I can't give 100% of my attention to my kids and keep the house clean and run all the errands, not to mention have 5 minutes of time for myself or the hundred other things that pop up.  Some days are just hard...but TOTALLY worth it.  Just look at these cuties...



Morgan in his costume on the way to preschool

And here's a beautiful sunset taken from our front porch this evening.  Don't we have a great view?

Yay, I'm back! Plus my thoughts on tv

We left our laptop at my parents on Sunday and when I tried to get on to our blog on our desktop found a monster virus that wouldn't let me use anything related to Google.  So I've spent the last few days trying to get rid of it (to no avail) and finally called my super hero brother-in-law who fixed it right up.  THANKS ROB! 

Since we've been married we've pretty much always had cable of some sort because everywhere we lived got terrible reception and it was cable or nothing.  And who in their right mind would give up tv entirely?  When we moved into our new house with  our significantly larger mortgage we decided not to have any extras (cable, internet, cell phones, etc) until we got used to paying our new bills and knew how far our money would stretch.  Our antenna actually works great here so getting the regular channels is not a problem but I got so used to having a DVR that it's just too annoying to plan my schedule around my tv shows, especially with kids who want this or that right this second and no pause button.  So it was a pretty natural transition for me to just stop watching tv altogether.  Instead of feeling like I'm missing all my favorite shows, I feel liberated.  I'm free of the tv and I really love it.  There are so many things I want/need to do in a day: go to work, run errands, feed my kids, play with my kids, read to my kids, teach my kids, bathe my kids, read my scriptures, exercise, clean the house, service, catch up with friends, visit with neighbors, work in the yard, read a book, scrapbook, etc.  I don't have enough time to do all the stuff I really want to do so why would I give up any of that precious time to watch tv?  I think most people would be surprised by their own reaction to no tv.  I didn't think I would feel this way.  I thought it would be a big sacrifice but it turns out that having no tv has been a great blessing for me.  Randy would NEVER agree with this.  He misses tv terribly, poor guy, so I guess to each their own.

Our Yard is almost done and Morgan hits his head AGAIN

We spent the entire summer putting our yard in from scratch and doing pretty much all the work ourselves (ok so Randy really but I did help some). We're trying desperately to finish up the last stuff before it snows so Randy was a trooper putting rocks in our park strip during the rain today.  Here are some before and after pictures (check out the pretty rainbow):

It's a good thing Morgan is super smart because it means he probably has a few brain cells to spare.  This kid hits his head ALL the time.  Today he tripped going down the stairs out onto the patio and fell smack on his head as usual.  He hit so hard a rock was stuck in his head.  And since I'm putting pictures up I thought I'd add the ones from a few months ago when he dove head first out of the shopping cart.  They make todays look like a little scratch.



Here are the shopping cart pictures:

Pictures

OK, so I'm not delusional.  If you're reading this, it isn't because you want to hear what I'm thinking about today, it's because you want to see pictures of my cute boys.  So here you go...

Signs that turning 30 does indeed mean you're getting old

#2 Teaching Morgan how to somersault is seriously painful.  This time I heard something crack.  Not good.

Signs that turning 30 does indeed mean you're getting old

#1 This is the amount of hair that I comb out of my hair each day after I get out of the shower.  It does not include any hair that came out in the shower while I was washing it, all the hair I collect in my hairbrush everytime I brush it, or the random hair I seem to be leaving all over the house.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to be bald soon.  I am definitely getting old.

Learning Life Lessons the Hard Way

I hate driving. People on the road just really irritate me.  In fact, my number one pet peeve (in life, not just in driving) is people who drive in the fast lane/passing lane.  This lane is for passing: you get in, you pass, you get out.  It's not a hard concept.  And you certainly don't drive in it if you're driving the speed limit or slower.  It is so aggravating. And it's not just driving.  Doesn't it drive you crazy when you're at the grocery store and you pick what looks to be the shortest line only to watch person after person check out in the line next to you while you haven't moved an inch in fifteen minutes.  It doesn't matter whether you're in a hurry or not, it still drives you crazy.  Or it least, it does me. I'm just not a very patient person.  All you have to do is look at my Dad who has had many more years to develop this virtue than I have and you can see I never had a chance.

So I recently got a speeding ticket and really can't afford to have my insurance go up which means I can't afford to get another ticket and have been pretty much forced to start driving the speed limit.  So now I plan at least five extra minutes to get anywhere I'm going, I set my cruise about 2mph over the speed limit and I just sit back and relax.  I cannot believe how much my quality of life has gone up from this simple procedure. 

Now the scriptures tell us to be a patient about a billion times and God doesn't tell us to do something just to spite us.  If He tells us to do something it's because doing it will make us happy.  So it stands to reason that being patient will you make you happy.  But telling an inpatient person to be patient is like speaking a foreign language.  We don't know how.  Sure, we can put on an outward show of patience, stand in line with smile on our face and all that, but inside we're in turmoil.  The internal storm is raging and it's all we can do to keep it contained (some of us can't even do that) because we just don't know how to let go of our irrational need to have everything as quickly as possible.

I feel liberated.  I've finally been able to let go of that need and it feels great.  When I get home from work I'm not all bent out of shape because of all the morons I had to deal with on the way home.  I sit back, relax, listen to my book, and just enjoy my peaceful ride home.  It's amazing.  Patience really does improve quality of lfie.  Of course, being imperfect and being impatient for the first 30 years of my life, I'm not doing as good at incorporating this virtue into other aspects of my life.  But I finally understand patience a little better and I see what a difference it can make in my life and I'm working on it.  Wish me luck...

Smarty Pants

Last night Morgan dropped one of his toys down the heater vent and had a complete melt down when I couldn't get it out for him.  I told him we'd have to wait for Daddy to get home because he has longer arms than I do.  Unfortunately, Randy couldn't reach it either (if it's even down there, who knows).  So Morgan starts wailing again like it's the end of the world.  Then he stops crying and says "maybe we could put a cord or a rope down there to get it."  He's two years old!  That's some pretty impressive problem solving especially in the midst of emotional turmoil.  His intelligence never ceases to amaze me.

Mindy who?

It's funny when people ask me what I like to do in my spare time because for the longest time all I've done is be a Mom. Not that being a mom isn't fabulous nor would I trade it for anything in the world but who I am as a person has kind of gotten lost somewhere in the middle of being Mommy.  Teagan is old enough now that he and Morgan are playing together and entertaining each other and I'm starting to find time for myself.  It's fantastic.  I used to love scrapbooking but found, after having Morgan, that scrapbooking and small children don't really go well together. For one, there's way too much stuff for them to get into and destroy.  For another, I just don't have large enough chunks of time to devote to it.  It takes so long to get stuff out and decide what papers/elements/tools/etc I'll need for my page that it was impossible to get anything done before I was needed again.  So, with my new-found time, I've recently switched over to digital scrapbooking and I'm loving it.  I still get to put my pictures together in a fun artistic way but without all the mess.  And it's much easier to leave and come back to.  I haven't printed any of the pages yet so the jury's still out on whether I'll like the finished product as much but I'm having fun for now.  Randy says the pictures are missing my personal flair (whatever that means) but if the choice is no scrapbooking or somewhat inferior scrapbooking (which I'm not sure it is anyway) I'll take it.  I'll post some of them here when I'm ready to print some pages.