Portland temple photo shoot

Some funny stories from the kids:  When Grandma and Traci took care of the kids while we were at the Portland Temple they were walking around the grounds and Brendan said, “we need a map.”  He was also the first one to see the temple from the freeway.  Out of the blue, not with us prompting him to look for it or a temple that he has ever been to before, he hollered our, “I see the temple.”  Right as we were passing the exit we were supposed to take.  I was impressed that he recognized it on his own as the house of the Lord.  He must have good parents.

Brendan also decided to be a cheeser when Traci started to take his picture.  He just started making all of these faces on his own:  

We are so appreciative to Grandma and Traci for watching the kiddos so that we could have an enjoyable time inside the temple.  

While playing back at home, Eliza took one of the tongues from the Mr. Potato Head dolls and said “Look a pink spitter.”  She is too young to understand that tongues are used for more than just spitting, right?  I mean, you can speak different languages with them, trill them, etc.

Funny kids.  Thanks Neil for the documentation!

Some funny kiddo quotes...well, just from Brendan

Brendan’s reply when I told Lincoln to take something out of his mouth.  “Dad, he just wants to smell what it looks like.”  One night at the dinner table when Brendan and I were having a typical disagreement and making our points known, Brendan said, “Dad, stop arguing with me!”  He turned the tables on that one.  

Brendan wants really bad to be SpiderMan for Halloween.  Eliza wants to be Jesse from Toy Story 2.  We have a Yoda costume for Lincoln.  We also have a princess Leah costume if Eliza wants to wear that.  

Grandma and Traci will be here for it so that will be fun.  We will see what we can come up with.

A Tribute to Adam

Last night at dinner we drank soda. We don't drink it or have it in our house very often so our kids think it is pretty cool. Anyway Neil was explaining to me that Brendan was adamant on drinking out of the can. Eliza didn't miss a beat and said: "and I am Meaghan and mom, you are Maria. Dad you can be Dan and Lincoln will be Samuel. Curious George can be Jacob." We love our friends the Estocks! (they have a little boy Brendan's age whose name is Adam)

Books...do you just read them?

In our house we do a lot of things with books besides just reading them.  Brendan likes to lay them on the ground and build roads with them.

I thought this whole patchwork of books was really kind of clever!

Eliza has been found after long moments of silence just enjoying a good book in her room.  I love it when this happens:

Lincoln likes to eat them.  Seriously.  We have this set of 12 board books that have made it through 2 kids just fine with minimal wear and tear...expected!  But with this kid he has destroyed them and devoured them.  Covers have been torn from them and then eaten.  I just don't know why he does this.

We just love BOOKS!  We can learn so many things from good books.  One of the kids favorite places to go is to the library.  They absolutely love all of the books that we bring home.  We read them over and over and over and we love them.  Some of our favorite books have been Fancy Nancy, Cecily G and the 9 Monkeys, Are you a Horse, and Giraffe and a Half (just to name a few)

Lincoln's favorite past time!

We have since removed everything from our bottom drawer so that Lincoln doesn't take everything out 20 times a day. Hopefully someday he will outgrow this...we can only be hopeful.

How's this for street proselyting? and HARD WORK!

We love our kids to death. We appreciate them wanting to help when we go out to rake the leaves and do any of the cleaning up around the apartments. They just make me want to smile all of the time...well, most of the time!

Thanks to M&Ms

I love these little candies. They have accomplished more than I ever could when it comes to potty-training my children. What has worked even better with Eliza is that they are only her candies and no one else gets them...except when she has an accident. She has to give one to Brendan. I don't know if I am teaching very good values here (selfishness, not sharing, coveting) but she has only had two accidents since implementing this tactic.

I am really proud of her for sticking with the whole potty-training this time...or should I say I am proud of myself for sticking with it. It was hard for the first couple of days. And I still get frustrated sometimes, but then I just take one of these yummy m&m's and feel better, too.
Oh, and one more thing is that she takes FOREVER to pick out just one m&m after she goes potty. She will let her hand run over and over all of them and then finally picks one. It has been funny because she ate all of the brown ones first and then the red. Orange was next and then she started in on green ones. Then all that is left in the container are yellow and blue ones. I acquired another package and dumped them in and she started with the brown ones again. She is just so silly. I love you Eliza