Jackpot for mother

I still can't figure out how to move photos where I want them. This picture belongs towards the bottom of the page. Oh well, here are my two good looking boys on Easter.

My mom has been waiting for a post for a while now so I decided to give her "the jackpot" with lots and lots of pictures of her grandkids...

A few weeks ago, we went to California because I was coaching a gymnastics meet. The meet was right across the street from Disneyland so we decided to go. That will be the last time, I believe that I will ever go to Disneyland in my lifetime. Bottom line: too many people, lines are too long, kids need naps.

This is the big steam boat in the middle of Disneyland that I always wanted to go on but never did until now. I always wondered what went on on that ship, I thought it was for the priveledged people of Disneyland.

Take a look at Marks hat! We got it at the dollar store because he left his other one on Space Mountain. It says Chopper and I figured it was better than the only other choices of a marijuana leaf or an image of "Che".

By the way, I realized way too late that there was a smear on the lens of the camara so many of our pictures are blurry.:(

While we were in California we made a trek to the beach. Huntington I think. Here are a few things I really enjoyed about this treck. 1. Crying kids in the car all the way there 2. Tai peeing on my leg as I tried to hold her so she wouldn't touch the disgusting urine and crap all over the toilet seat and ground. I'm talking ALL OVER MY LEG. 3. Then I got to push the stroller for a 1/2 mile in the sand 4. We only spent 1/2 hour at the beach because the only parking that we could find was a mile down the road with a meter (besides the $20 parking close to the beach that we refused to pay) 5. We were dying of thirst so we stopped at 7-11 and Mark got a slurpee but couldn't find a matching lid...inevitably it spilled all down my same peed-on leg and all over the car. But, why am I being so pessimistic. We had a great time! really.

My kids really do love hanging around each other and are best friends.

Did you know Tag has an obsession with trains? He likes to watch them crash. He also begs for a bed time story about "Thomas and James and Gordon and Percy" every night.

Happy baby. Tatum is now 10 months. WOW time goes fast. This was probably at 8 or 9 months.

This is hilarious to me because I saw this on my camera and concluded Tag took a picture of himself and what a beautiful photo it is. Tag is our sickly child that is sick literally every other week. He suffers from asthma so any little bug that comes along is magnified 10 fold with him. He eats very little, except for last week he ate more than his whole life put together. Part of his diet last week included a whole Little Caesars pizza by himself over the course of two days. I am not joking about this!

Sweet little Tatum is getting around really well and is hard to keep up with all of the sudden. She is happy most the time, crawls, stands up next to furniture and gets into everything she can reach.

Easter 2011. No candy for my kids this year. Just bubbles, silly puddy and an easter egg hunt.

Matching Easter Dresses

It felt great to organize and clean the toy closet. I even found a place for the rascal. Actually he found it and wanted to hang out there for a while.

This is what was going on during General Conference in our house...

Finally...some pictures

Here is our handsome dude from 2 days ago Tai before....

...and after

peekaboo

a little fort Tai made for Tatum

Tai planned a day to be twins with Tag. They enjoyed this very much. Our family went to Las Vegas because I coached a meet there. And what do you know, my parents just happened to be in LasVegas the same weekend. It was jolly good fun. They were kind enough to watch our kids while Mark and I went to see TOWER OF POWER--my second favorite band in the world. (See 2 posts ago). That makes February 2011 the best month ever with being able to see #1 and #2 favorite bands in the same month.

Here we are at the Mandalay Bay escalator. We were planning on going to their famous aquarium but weren't counting on it costing us $40 bucks to get in, so instead we rode the escalator up and down like 10 times. We all ended up happy.

Here is our precious little Tatum. She brings such sweetness to our family.

Ohp, here is our family portrait during Christmas time. All matching, how cute.

Strap Bar

I did strap bar about 2 hours ago. Just 4 giants is all and boy am I feeling it now. My neck, my upper back. I'm really scared about waking up tomorrow to the pain that awaits me.

p.s.- I'm sorry about not posting pictures yet this year. I am trying to find the cord thing that goes to my camera to hook up to the computer. But just so you know, my kids are still really cute if I do say so myself :)

Top 5 favorite artists of all time

5. not sure...Jackson 5, Gladys Knight, or my recent favorite The Backbeats (their rendition of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" is the best performance of any song I have ever heard. see clip above)
4. Stevie Wonder
3. Earth, Wind and Fire
2. Tower of Power
1. Take 6

Mark and I had the great fortune of going to see Take 6 live in concert last Thursday. It was their first time in SLC and boy was it the 2nd best 2 hours of my life! They are unbelievable musicians and I loved looking around the audience to see the faces of pure delight because I know most of the white audience had never seen Take 6 before and I know they were blown away. It was so good I wish I could have brought every one of you there--even you, who dislike a capella music. A month after Mark and I were married we borrowed my sister-in-laws Nissan Pathfinder to tackle the mountains of Colorado in a snowstorm to see Take 6. We almost died because it was the worst snowstorm I have ever seen and I do not drive well in snow, but we lived to sit in the 2nd row of the concert and that was the best 2 hours of my life. Ever since then Mark has been a true fan of Take 6 and even found and read group founder Cedric Dent's doctorate dissertation on some musical theory or something.

I dare you to YouTube em. Enjoy the 10 grammy award winning group that caught my attention that winter night driving home from gym in my dad's nissan maxima back in 1992. Yes, I remember the day I first heard them!

Rollin' along

Tatum is getting too big too quick. She started eating rice cereal this week and loves it. She can roll, and sit already. It is going by too fast.

We love our little Tag. He is addicted to candy and Thomas the Train. The first words coming out of his mouth when he first opens his eyes in the morning "candy". He's got the beginnings of a mad unibrow too--love it.

Tai got an 80's cabbage patch bike for her birthday. It is great. It's the kind where the tires don't go flat. She finally learned how to ride WITH training wheels. You can see her rolling along at an angle--its funny.

This was Halloween night. We had the HUGEST hail storm. I was afraid for my life for about 2.5 seconds. That tricycle is Tag's Birthday present. He loves it.

Both Tai and Tag request to hold Tatum several times a day. It is very cute. When Tag holds her he gets real serious and sweet and flutters his eyelashes.

Tag took this picture. Tatum's hair now goes flat most of the time because it is growing. I like the hair sticking up better.

This was halloween. Two tigers and a bear. We got one tiger costume at DI then the very next day we received a package from my mom who sent a Tiger costume for Tag for his B-day. So we squeezed Tai into the DI one. After the Hail storm I did take Tag and Tai trick or treating around the block and they got a modest amount of candy in which I ate a good amount :) I never understood how some kids can keep their candy for months (Mikelle).

Catch-up

We live right next to huge pumpkin patches. They are quite the sight! Before we moved here I had never seen them except for in "It's the great pumpkin Charlie Brown". which by the way we love here at our house. We have decided that Mark is so Charlie Brown and I am so Lucy. Anyway, we got to pick our pumpkin from the patch this year instead of from Walmart. They also had a hay maze, a corn "sandbox", and animals to pet.

This looks like a painting but it is a photo I snapped when I took the kids on a drive on the Nebo Loop. It was astoundingly beautiful. It was deserted too, so kinda spooky to be up there by ourselves. I loved every second of this drive.

Before we took off for our trip we went to the Big Red Barn and had their famous ice cream, and bought some homeade blackberry jam.

I just noticed I didn't have any pictures of the 3 kids together so here you go.

The kids loved the fountain at Temple Square. We spent some time walking around and even got through 20 min. of the Joseph Smith movie before having to come out due to restlessness. We were waiting for Mark to come out of his interview for an internship with the Church History Library.

This pretty much sums up Tatum's blessing. It's rare when this girl cries, so I was sad when she screamed the whole way through. Too bad I didn't hear anything that was said. I'm glad my friend did though and took notes.

We were so excited when Mikelle's family came up to Utah (for the first time I might add). For Tai and Tag's Birthday we went to the Amazing Pizza Kitchen. We went for lunch then did a bunch of activities there like race cars, glow in the dark golf, laser tag, bumper cars, arcade games and kiddie rides. My highlight was watching Mark drive the race cars...we were all nervous to say the least... we had a good laugh when we were screaming for Mark to hit the brake and he honking the horn was hitting the brakes, but he got the hang of it by the end and did great.








The Birthday Buddies. Oct. 7th 2005 and 2008.

What a gorgeous baby! :)










I can't forget my short trip to AZ for a gymnastics clinic. I was able to see Finley (Luke and Shawnie's newborn). He looks just like Luke and cries just like Tatum. It was fun to see everyone.

Cute great-grandpa Tom. (with Tatum in the swing, and Finley's being held)











Tomorrow our lives are changing. I will be a single mom of three during the day now because Mark got an internship at the Family History Library working 8 hours a day for a year. We couldn't be more grateful even if it means an hour trip on the bus up and and hour trip back. Let the challenge begin and wish me luck because I really don't think I can do this.

Oh, yah. I forgot to report our incident at the hospital. Tag has asthma and has been getting sick every two weeks for like 3 months now. It is annoying because every time it gets so he can't breathe very well so I have to take him into the doctor and they give him some steroids and breathing treatments to get better and he does by the end of the week, then a week later he is sick again. We finally had to go buy our own nebulizer and do treatments at home. Well, this last time even the breathing treatments were not working so they sent us to the ER. We spent two days and almost 2 nights there. It was a nightmare. He had to be hooked up and monitered everywhere: on his foot, an IV in hand, things on his chest. This is on a boy who throws a tantrum and refuses to wear flip-flops because there is something between his toes and refuses to wear "feet pajamas" because it feels weird. Poor little boy was going absolutely bonkers having to be cooped up to a 3 foot radius for 2 days. Well, I could rant for a very long time about doctors and the ER but then I would get in trouble by my parents so I won't. Plus, I should be grateful for all of the people there making sure my little Tag was OK. and I am.

The End.