Tuesday, August 16

What we're up to

Hello all. It's been a strange little break we've had here. I haven't had a computer for several months and I've had a million things I wanted to blog about. Oh well, such is life.

Our computer is finally back from the shop, and I've been keeping up with all your blogs via the Internet on my phone, but I can't blog from my phone so we've just been waiting for the computer to come back so I could send you all the (I'm sure) much anticipated update on our lives!

First off, for those who missed it we now live in Tucson, AZ. We moved here in April to pursue a new job for Sam at Raytheon - a very large defense contractor - in the finance department. He's enjoying it and learning a lot, and it's allowing him to work really wonderful hours so we're both happy. He has had some long weekends and we usually spend them doing exciting things with the boys like swimming or playing pretend at home. Sam is a really fun dad and most nights when he gets home he changes clothes and immediately takes the boys outside for a long walk to look for lizards and snakes. It's nice because it gets the boys all worn out for bed, they get some good quality time with dad, and it gives me a chance to clean or finish up dinner or just catch a quick breath while the boys are out. Sam is also getting excited about the upcoming football season and his imminent win in his fantasy football league.

I have been staying at home with the boys and watching them grow. They are just getting more and more cute by the day, and I love being with them. I've also been running a lot and just finished my second half marathon in July. I have really grown to love running, and I love that my boys know that I do it often. When David wakes up in the morning, 9 times out of 10 he'll ask me if I just got back from running. I think it's great for the boys to know that exercise is good and should be as much a part of our lives as other things that are good for us like the gospel, or even sleeping and eating. I've also been spending a majority of my day trying to organize 2000 sq ft of stuff into a 1000 sq ft apartment. Our last apartment (in Heber) was not much bigger, but it did have a 3rd bedroom and we also had a large storage unit holding half of our stuff. We opted to move into a smaller (2 bedroom) apartment and not rent a storage unit to save some money while we're waiting for our house to close. It's been worth it in a lot of ways, but the hard part has been the fact that we've been here for a month and I feel like we're only halfway moved in. We just don't have enough room! But I've really enjoyed the simplistic living and the motivation to get super organized.

We are anxiously awaiting the bank approval of our home - a beautiful house in the exact neighborhood we wantedv- but it's a short sale so we're in this for the long haul. I don't want to post any pictures because I don't know if we'll actually get it and I don't want to jinx it.

David has started "preschool" at home. I really wish we could have gotten him into a real one, but since we missed registration during the move, I felt it was my responsibility to make sure he doesn't fall behind. He already knew the alphabet, how to count, the phonetics of each letter, shapes, and colors. So we're just working on developing that knowledge. He's learning how to write his letters, draw his shapes, the phonetics of letter pairs like CH or SH or QU, how to recognize numbers (he doesn't yet know his written numbers), opposites, and rhyming. He astounds me with how smart he is all the time. I don't mean to say in comparison to anyone else. I just mean I am amazed with the minds of children and how well they're able to grasp concepts that seem so out of their mental ranges. He also loves to watch movies, and his favorites at the moment are Toy Story 2, then 3, then 1. (in that order), Kung Fu Panda, and Megamind. He eats a peanut butter and jelly and pepperoni sandwich every day for lunch (yes, all on one sandwich). Although his favorite food continues to be cheeseburgers with no pickles and onions (yes, it's that specific) and root beer. Or spicy lemonade (sprite), but he just doesn't get it very often. He also loves fruit, and his favorite is a pluot. He loves dinosaurs and cowboys and any type of animal. He is a big helper and loves to follow me around the house to do whatever I'm doing. His personal favorites are vacuuming, sweeping / mopping, making dinner, and baking cookies. He's very good at all of them!

Trevor turned 2 last month and had a very small pool party. He did NOT want anyone there. He's become somewhat anti-social since lately and wanted family there but no friends. The mere mention of other kids made him cry. In the end he finally agreed on one friend who happens to be the son of my one and only girlfriend here, so it worked out marvelously. It was Toy Story themed. Or more specifically Buzz Lightyear themed. That boy is OB. sessed. Big time. He finally likes nursery again (I think his old nursery had too many kids) which has been nice for all of us. He has upgraded to a big boy bed. And actually, to the bottom of a bunk bed. Which means big brother was upgraded to top bunk. They love it! Trevor continues to be such a funny kid and makes me laugh all the time. His terrible twos have also hit full force and they are much funnier than they should be. He is very contrarian and that is the form his terrible twos have taken. He will say and do the opposite of whatever anyone says or does, regardless of whether or not it makes any sense. Ex: "Mommy, I have my Buzzer Wightming (Buzz Lightyear)." "Cool, you sure do Trev." "NO! I DON'T!" or "Mommy, I want some peach yogurt." "You do?" "NO! I DON'T!" Favorite things to say: I can't, I won't, I don't, I don't want to, you can't, it's not, I not, you see the trend. He loves popcorn and rice. And cheese in any form. He also could eat nothing but fruit, and his favorite fruit is a banana. He is currently growing all four k-9 teeth all at once and he likes to show them to everyone.

The boys say some pretty funny and cute things sometimes, and here are a few of my favorites from the week:

David: "Mommy, I can smell you."

Me: "Uh, oh. Am I smelly?"

David: "No, you smell nice. Like strawberry yogurt."

Ha ha ha ha. Okay.

I recently cut both of my boys' hair. I'm used to David's hair being pretty short, but I cut T-man's short and he just looked so funny to me. Like a baby trying to be a grown man (although he usually looks like that anyway). Anyway, I was staring at him and laughing a little bit and he finally asked "Mommy, why are you looking at me?"
To which I so lovingly responded "You just look so weird!"
At which point Trevor looked me square in the eye and yelled "No! I NOT!"

David loves music and has some strange favorite songs. He will ask me to sing them any time he wants to hear them, and he'll sing with me at the very top of his lungs. I love it. This was his request the other day:

David: "Mommy, will you sing the skies are blue song?"

Me: (I have no idea what he's talking about) "What song, bud?"

D: "The skies are blue!"

Me: "Which one?!?"

D: "You know, the skies are blue! The one you sing in the car!"

Me: "Umm......'the trees are green, the skies are blue' (to "what a wonderful world")

D: (wailing) "Nooooooooooooo!!!!!! Not that one! The real one!"

Me: "David, I don't know what song you're talking about. Can you sing it for me?"

David: "The skies are blue and remind me of us"

In case you don't know the song, it's "Rolling in the Deep" (David's absolute favorite song of all time) and the words are "the scars of your love remind me of us". You can see how he might have mixed those words up. I laughed for a good 5 minutes over this one.


We went on a walk the other night as a family, and Trevor was running way up ahead of us on the trail. He stopped very suddenly, pointed animatedly at the ground (at a large pile of doggy excrement), and announced, very seriously as though we needed to take great heed to his words, "That's dog poop" and then continued on his run. That kid cracks me up.


This isn't anything necessarily funny that David said, but rather some funny pronunciations of words that I find utterly adorable. He calls cinnamon "silverman", so most mornings he will ask me for silverman raisin bread. Love it. He also says plain "playin'". He'll always let me know if he wants his silverman raisin bread with honey, or butter, or just playin'.


Trevor also says things in his own way, which I discovered the other day after much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I made some pizza for lunch and Trevor started crying that he didn't want pizza, he wanted green beans. I was surprised but happy to oblige. He was pointing in the pantry at the green beans he wanted, so I grabbed a can and put them in a bowl. He started screaming saying "not THOSE green beans!" I wasn't all that surprised because I buy the unsalted kind and it's not like they taste amazing. So I seasoned them a little and put them back in front of him. Again, he lost it. He didn't want THOSE green beans. After a large ordeal at the table, I brought him over to the pantry to show me exactly which green beans he wanted. I soon discovered that the "green beans" that he wanted were of the jelly belly variety. We both walked away from that experience pretty disappointed.


Well, that's what we have going on right now. Once I get all our photos transferred over I'll post a bunch. But I figured I'd rather have a post with no pictures than no post at all. Thanks for listening!

9 comments:

Nicole said...

Yaaaaayyyyyy a post! Yaaaaaaaaayyyyy your computer is fixed! Yaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy that means we can skype, right??? I very much enjoyed this post. You and your cute family sound so happy and like you are getting along nicely down in Tuscon. I SO enjoy reading about you and all your boys. It just makes me wish we could be neighbors even more!!

shelley said...

whaaaa haaaaaa haaaaaa haaaaaa!

"we both walked away from that experience pretty disappointed"

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

rachelle and trevor continue to amaze me with their alike-ness. social anxiety? check. favorite vocab words include "won't", "can'", "don't", and "not"? check. except for the weird looking part. 'cause you and i both know that rachelle is pretty dang adorable!

Jerry Banks said...

I love reading about the family!!

Jennifer said...

ya ya yayaya....so happy for a new post.

Those boys just crack me up!!

Can't wait for pictures now!!!

Annalisa said...

LOVE IT!!!! you are a great writer and I can picture the boys doing those exact things!!! love and miss you1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Shalah said...

Thanks for the update! I love reading about your precious family!

Heather said...

Ah man. We really miss living close to you guys and hanging out every weekend. Those boys are so dang funny. Lets skype now that you have internet again, I'm sure Harlow will get a kick out of David and Trevor. love love love ya.

Ashley C said...

Hi Shannon,
Thanks for your comment! We are really excited. I have to tell you, if it were up to Nate we would wait a long, long time before announcing it to the world. But I just can't do that for some reason. It's a miracle that I waited like 24 hours before announcing it on my blog. So I guess he just accepted that I can't keep news like that to myself. Also, I'm not at my goal weight unfortunately. I'm about 8 lb away. I totally hoped I would be feeling good about my body by the time I got pregnant, but oh well. Time to pack it on! jk. I hope you join the prego bandwagon with me soon. :)

Grammy said...

Love those boys and loved the 'both walked away pretty disappointed' hehe