BACK TO THE DAILY GRIND!

Well today school is back in session, dang it. It was fun to have Emma home, to get to be lazy and not make lunches, to not have to get up and get her ready, and to get to hang out with her, etc. I think she had a good break, nothing too exciting but still better than nothing. We tried to have fun this break without spending money so here are a few things we did.
#1: Had a sleepover with her cousin Maddy.

#2: Spent time with Grandpa Rodgers, he even came over and brought a giant tether ball for Emma and him to play with.

#3: Invited 10 friends from the neighborhood/ward to come over and decorate Halloween cookies while listening to Halloween songs.

#4: The break started out with a date with Daddy and ended with a date with Mommy. Thanks to her school for handing out gift certificates to restaurants for not missing one day of school during the month of August. At lunch we gave "cheers" with our cups, colored together, did a word scramble together, ate lunch, had ice cream cones and headed home.

RANDOM PICTURES!

Here are just a few fun pictures that make me smile.

Elias: "until these boys can play with me I will just sit here next to them and watch my movies."

Twins: "why does this big kid who always put our hands in his mouth insist on being by us?!"

Elias: "when my legs are to short to reach the pedals...next best thing, get my big sister to give me a ride!"

YAY, I'M 2!!!

I can't believe our little Bubbas is 2 years old already, where has the time gone?! We decided not to do a party this year but instead do what Eli would really like, make the day all about him and the things he loves...being outside!

Yesterday Emma told us that she wanted to use her own money to buy him a present for his birthday. We were so proud of her for being so generous (I mean the girl only has $2 which she has saved from the tooth fairy so she ain't loaded or anything). I took her to the Disney store so she could pick out a car for him - the boy is obsessed with the movie Cars and cant get enough of them. While we were in the store Emma looked long and hard for just the right gift and after making her final selection she had 3 items that she just couldn't wait to give to him (don't worry, I kicked in the extra she needed). That night she couldn't wait for him to go to bed so she could hang up some birthday banners and wrap her gifts for him. She even wrote him the cutest poem ever, its written just like this:
to: 2 years old Eli
from: Emma

This is the day.
Your 2nd birthday.
Wak up with presents.
And fun stuff.

Love Emma

When he woke up in the morning she helped him open the presents even though he was pretty aprehensive about them. He loved sitting with his big sister but didn't quite comprehend that good things awaited him inside the cute polka dot wrapped gifts. After he opened his presents and ate Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes for breakfast we headed to the park. He was loving that as usual until he would spot a kid with a car in his hand and then we had one of our many terrible two tantrums, which was quickly followed up by a time out in the middle of the park! (Emma likes to tell everyone who called on the phone today that he had 2 time outs on his birthday). After the park it was time for a nap. During his nap Emma looked pretty bored so I asked her if she wanted to play with her friend and she said yes but that she didnt want to miss any part of Eli's birthday so she played while he napped and then after that Eli, Emma and daddy set up a tent in the backyard so we could go pretend camping. Elias LOVED helping daddy set it up and getting to use all the fun tools. After the tent was set up we had dinner and then built a fire and roasted marshmallows. Elias didn't care to eat any of them, he just enjoyed setting them on fire and watching them burn and then fall off the stick. After he was done burning marshmallows and his fingers we decided to go inside the tent and watch a movie. Nerds! That about sums up his day, I think he had a great time. He is now sleeping in bed with his new Lightening McQueen and Mater tucked in beside him. Happy Birthday Bubbas!! You can watch a video of him throwing a birthday tantrum under the video section.

DATE WITH DADDY!

What to do, what to do...what do you do to entertain your kiddos during October break that is more fun than just laying around the house watching movies but doesn't cost any money?! This October break we are going to have to get very creative to see how to make this break exciting since we are trying not to spend any money. Idea #1: Take advantage of the fact that Emma still loves spending time with her parents before it's too late. Yesterday Jared wrote her a little invitation and handed it to her at breakfast time inviting her to go on a date with him that day. They packed a picnic lunch, went to the park to eat it, played croquet or "crow-key" and "crow-ket" as Emma kept calling it because she couldn't remember the name to save her life and then we used a buy-one-get-free ice cream coupon and they went to Cold Stone and ate some ice cream!Emma had the best time and gave me every detail in order when she got home.

Saddest part of the day...Elias realized that Daddy and Emma were going to go outside and he didn't have any shoes on so he ran to his room, climbed on top of the box of wipes and grabbed his shoes off the shelf (even matching ones at that) ran and gave them to me so I put them on and then he ran outside only to discover that he was all alone, they left him :( (sorry the picture isn't very clear, no time to take a great shot, had to get it in the moment.) Don't worry, super mom to the rescue, I chased him around and around the bushes in the front yard and then when that bored me (a couple of minutes later) I brought him inside and let him eat 2 bowls of ice cream with sprinkles!! Excellent mother of the year, ha ha!

YES ON AZ PROP 102!

Our church leaders have come out and asked us to do what we can to get people to vote yes on Prop 102. They aren't telling us who to vote for for President but they are asking to support this propisition and do what we can to spread the word and get voters to support it. To the right is my small contribution but a good start right?! (Thanks Austin for the idea!)

NEAR DEATH EXPIERENCE!

OK not really but we came awfully close. I was at Karli's (my soon to be sister-in-law) bridal shower when Jared sent me a text message..."prepare yourself. Emma has a brush stuck in her hair and it might have to be cut out." My immediate response back, "don't touch it, I will fix it." As soon as I got home Jenn (my other sister-in-law who does hair) and I went over to go and inspect the damage. Being a girl, I too have gotten my hair tangled up in those stupid round brushes but I have always managed to get it out, minus a few pieces of hair. This time it was looking like a different story. Jenn and I couldn't believe it. We worked at it for a while and nothing was happening. Bless Jared's heart, he told us that peanut butter gets hair out of brushes and we let him know peanut butter only works for getting gum out of hair :) If Jenn would have had her scissors with her we would have cut it out but because she didn't, we worked at it for a few more minutes and somehow, by some miracle from above, the hair came out. Emma was crying, I almost cried because she is supposed to be a flower girl in a month and if we had cut her hair it would have been to her chin, not really long enough for an updo at all. That night when Emma went to bed she said her prayers and said, "thank you for letting me get the brush out and thank you for not making me cut my hair and please don't let me get it stuck in there again." PS - when we thought we were going to have to cut it out Jenn reminded me to take a picture for the blog and that made Emma cry more because she didn't want me to post this picture on here but I assured her that if we have to cut her hair when she is 15 years old she will think this is funny :)

BLESS ALL OF OUR HEARTS, WE TRY...

"VOTE HERE/AQUI". So I thought it would be fun to earn a little spending money by working the polls on Tuesday. I worked for 16 hours and made approximately $70 after taxes...AWESOME! That comes out to be $4.37 an hour...I made more than that at my first job when I was 15 years old, excellent. It was pretty sad at the polls I must say, hardly anyone came out to vote but those who did well let me break down the majority of the voters for you. They were either LDS (fact, because I knew a lot from my parents stake and you could see the garments) and the others...Hispanics wanting to know how to vote so that Sheriff Joe Arpaio didn't win. I have never been one to get political on my blog but now I am. I love America and all the freedoms it gives me and what I don't like about it, I can complain about because I vote. Please go and vote. To make it easier for you, I am including a link you can click on to become an early voter - translation - you can sit on your lazy butt and vote from home and mail it in for free or drop it off at any voting precinct without waiting in line. https://recorder.maricopa.gov/earlyvoteballotnet/ ok I am done.

Oh Emma my love. She is good at so many things, she can dance, she can read at a 3rd grade level, she is polite and always writes the Tooth fairy a thank you note but Olympic events...just aren't her forte. Her class had their own Olympics, they got into teams and marched out to the Olympic theme song holding their team flag, competed in different events and won medals. Every kid was supposed to win a gold metal at one event so they would all be proud of themselves. Thank heavens for that rule because Emma was on cloud 9 when she won her gold medal. It was so fun to watch her participate and in each event but I am afraid that is the last Olympics I will ever see her in...I don't quite think she will make the 2020 Summer Games at her rate :)

So for the first time I will admit that my son is speech delayed. I always chalked it up to the fact that he was a boy but turns out, its not. Starting next week we will be having a Speech Therapist come out to our house once a week to work with Bubbas to get him talking. He uses a little less then 10 words now but it starting to make sounds that mimic words - yay! It never really bothered us much until recently when he started getting really frustrated because no one can understand what he wants. Since Jan/Feb he has had fluid in his ears that weren't always due to ear infections and the speech lady says that because of the fluid in his ears it may sound to him like we are all talking under water and that's why he doesn't talk (when I say talk I mean use words everyone can understand because the kid babbles like crazy). So today we went and saw an audiologist who ran some test on him (see above picture) and he came back normal, although they did say that he had negative pressure in his ears which meant fluids were about to come and she did say that when he has the fluids in his ears he may have hearing loss but today he was good. We go back in 2 weeks to talk to the specialist there and find out if he needs tubes or not. Poor kiddo, someday we will all understand you and you will be happy with us but for now at least we are doing the best we can and getting him the help he needs, thank you Aunt Caryn and Aunt Richelle for helping us with this.

So I have been sick all week and now it has made its way down through my throat and into my chest and can I just say that I sound like a man, my friend called today and she thought I was a man and Jared was in the shower and heard me talking and he thought I was a man which freaked him out cause he thought a man was going to see him in the shower, but anywho...Emma put some clothes in the laundry basket yesterday and came to me and said, "mom, you need to do the laundry, that has way too much in there." I am trying to decide if that is a compliment because I always do the laundry so she has never seen the basket get that full before or if she was ripping on me for being lazy this week?! hmmmm.

When I was earning my big bucks on Tuesday, Jared had to stay home and watch the kids. That meant, he had to do Emma's hair, get her and her friend to the bus stop which meant loading up all 3 boys, pick them up from the bus stop, make lunches, make dinner, entertain Elias, feed the twins, change oodles of diapers, etc. Can I just say that when I got home, the house was quiet, the boys were happy, Elias and Emma were bathed, the dishes were loaded in the dishwasher, he said Elias didn't watch TV all day (how did Jared accomplish that great task?!) and he had washed our sheets on our bed so they were nice and clean. He was amazing. I was starting to feel that my role as the homemaker wasn't really necessary with such a great guy around but luckily it happened...He was pooped out and wanted to go to work and the best part was, the next day Tyson managed to get poop on our sheets and pee on them, he was so frustrated with all his hard work and how it had been such a waste...I love it! Welcome to my world my love.