Monday, January 25, 2016

Rhett and Rad chat


^^^ Ben's micro expressions indicate he is unsure about his feelings regarding his new brothers.

On the phone with a grandparent:

Rhett: Yeah, I'm in kindergarten. It's pretty cool, I guess.
Rhett: Kind of intense.

The unfiltered honesty of a child:

Rhett: Your breath stinks.
Julia: Looks at phone...
Julia: It's 3:38AM
Rhett: Let's snuggle.

At the post office:

Rhett: What's wrong mom?
Julia: I don't feel great today.
Post guy: Can I help you Ma'am?
Rhett: MAYBE YOU JUST HAVE TO POOP!
Julia: No that will be all.

A Sunday afternoon:

Rhett: Hey Dad.
Rhett: I'm just chillin'
Rhett: But that doesn't mean I'm cold.

A few days before my birthday:

Rhett: How old will you be on your birthday?
Julia: I'm 30 now, what comes after that?
Rhett: 50
Julia: Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Whispered at church:

Rhett: Mom
Julia: Yes?
Rhett: Your eyelashes look really good today.
Julia:

During a Family Home Evening lesson taught by Rhett:

Rhett: This is Thomas S. Monson. (our church's prophet)
Rhett: I'm a really big fan of him.

And a little from Mr. Rad

A sunny afternoon: 

Rad: (terrified) MOMMA!!
Julia:
Rad: The mirror KEEPS WOOKING AT MEEEE?!
Julia: ...the next president of the free world folks.

At a rare real family dinner: 

Rad: (takes plate to sink)
Julia: Rad aren't you hungry? You barely ate.
Rad: Yeah, I not hunry.
Rad: (comes over to my chair) What you eating momma?
Julia: The same thing you had.
Rad: Can I have a bite?








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Wednesday, January 20, 2016

snaps

We're still not Snapchatting around here...but that doesn't mean that we've stopped taking lots of little videos like the subpar videographers we are. Which means the videos will eventually come out of the archive folders and see the light of the web. You're welcome universe.




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Monday, January 18, 2016

the place with the grapes

A story about taking your children out to eat at a restaurant on the weekend.

One fine Christmas Break day we were cruising in the mini van and out of the window Rhett saw with great excitement "the place with the grapes."

Known to most people as the Olive Garden.

Rhett claimed to have fond memories of feeling like family and their breadsticks. Rad is pretty much part Italian with his love of pasta. We haven't taken the boys to a real restaurant (or Olive Garden) in...a year? Longer? What we loved about the idea of taking the boys to Olive Garden was not the food (sorry. but the kids love it...so there's that) but that it was a real restaurant but not the fanciest joint on the block.

Jake and I felt super optimistic about publicly breaking bread as a family but we should have known not to do it the evening we did. Take a 5 year old a 2 1/2 year old  and a 9 month old...both of the latter who hadn't napped to dinner? IN A RESTAURANT WITH OTHER PEOPLE IN IT?! But no, we did it anyway. I really wanted to have a family bonding moment, so we took the chance. It did not work out in our favor.

We kew it was bad when the boys start to get cranky before we even ordered and Jake and I sat there and wondered if we should just abandon ship right from the get go. But we felt bad, they had already brought bread sticks and water and man I REALLY wanted some bottomless salad of a sudden, so we forged ahead, blindly ignoring the pretty blatant warning signals Beck and Rad were sending out like the bat signal to get the F out of there before they changed into terrible toddler monsters. The guy waiting on our table had some special waiter sixth sense and even warned me that we should just order our unlimited soup and salad combos immediately because "it would take a while" and we did, and we were locked in. But we did ask the him to bring the boy's food AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE because maybe that would buy us some time.

And within the first 15 minutes...

- Beck turbo-ed himself into a salad bowl sending lettuce to places lettuce shouldn't be which scared his little soul to death.

- Rhett loudly declared that Rad's spaghetti was "the grossest thing EVER."

- Rad showed off his stellar eating manners.


^^^ I love how our 2 year old can figure out how to work the TV remote, but can't find his mouth while eating spaghetti.

- They continued to spill and drop stuff. A lot.

- Beck continued to realize the world is a scary place and was only happy chewing on my hair.

- Rhett got distracted by organizing the sugars and was deeply effected when Rad commandeered all the breadsticks...the soul reason Rhett had wanted to go the place with the grapes.

- Rhett punched Rad to "teach him a lesson" about stealing a man's breadsticks.

- A new waitress stopped by to ask if we "needed anything" and her long hair wooed Rhett into offering this pick up line "Hey girl, I can write my whole name...with lowercase letters. Does that impress you?"

And before that relationship could steamify we did a hasty clean up, left a generous tip, offered the practiced "Apologetic Parent Face"   ( You know the one. The one that is sort of like a facial shrug, like "I'm really sorry, I know my child is being loud but I am a good parent and I will try to remedy this ASAP.") and herded everyone out to the car. 

Oh...but first me made Rad turn in the "your table is ready" beepers which he almost kelpto-ed which lead to a high-knee-run-in-place-and-then-collapse-tantrum in front of the hostess desk.

Rhett hoped his waitress love interest wasn't watching the shenanigans. 

Bonus: Rhett shared that the breadsticks weren't his favorite after all on the drive home. 

L to the O to the ironic L. 

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Friday, January 8, 2016

introducing Ben the puppy


Because three little boys just wasn't enough fun.

Exclamation points !!!!!

That little ball of white fluff is the newest little boy to our crew. Ben is a bichon frise, is 12 weeks new and joined our family on Christmas morning.





Their boundless excitement lasted for 72 boy hours, 100 dog hours and 238 mom hours. Ha.

I feel like I should say "SURPRISE!" because getting a puppy certainly doesn't seem like a rational short of decision when you have three little boys. And it's not. Totally not rational. But just look at that face!! HE'S SO FLUFFY WE COULD DIE! (Name that movie)



All fluffy puppy love emotions aside, Jake and I have been thinking about getting a dog since we first got married. Fact: the amount of research we did before getting Ben was 1000X more research than we did before we started having kids. Our logic....we're thinking that we'll get all the potty training, put random stuff in your mouth, eat of the ground, phases done at the same time. In reality on Christmas morning we (I) thought we lost our minds.

But really, Ben's has been such a blessing for our family. His breed is the best for our us and the boys. He's crazy energetic when the turkeys play with him and he's just as happy to chill and follow me around. #perfectchild









A few highlights from the past two weeks:

When I overheard Rhett asking Ben "who's your daddy?"

Rad taking EXTREME interest in Ben's potty training. He sits in the middle of the backyard monitoring Ben's movements and then gives a fully detailed report. He also loves putting on the plastic gloves and picking up the fun stuff. That's a plus. The downside is that Rad now want's to mimic Ben's potty routine. I'll let that one just sink in...

Our thought process with getting a puppy included the notion that if we had a puppy our boys might stop playing puppy (including barking when the door bell rang) all the time. Not the case.

Rhett taking Ben's exercise very seriously.



Beck gets the uncontrollable giggles when Ben wrestles with his toys. Beck gets the uncontrollable giggles when Ben sniffs him or kisses him. Beck does not get the uncontrollable giggles when Ben tries to use Beck as a pillow or when Ben plows him over when Ben's loving life.

Rad thinks Ben's water dish is a pool for his Power Rangers. Or his own personal watering hole. Thrice. Hopefully that's over.

Ben...welcome to the tribe/herd/crew/family. :)




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