Quick Trip

Brad had a conference with his company this last Monday and Tuesday up in Salt Lake, so we all came along for some fun. We headed up there Sunday night so we could drive in clear weather (they love to close I-84). We got up there in time to listen to the Christmas Devotional which was so nice...that is we listened to it in our hotel room, not at the Conference Center. Monday, the kids and spent several hours at IKEA, of course we had lunch there, love the Swedish meatballs, and then went swimming at the hotel pool. I brought our floaty thing for Ruth to sit in. She was worried at first, like she is with most new things, and then got very accustomed to the water and had a good time. The best part of swimming was when Will started kicking his legs and flailing his arms in the water. Ruth would laugh at that, which in turn made Will laugh...which made me laugh. We all laughed for a good five minutes. After swimming we headed back to our room to relax for a bit. Then we went and ate some wings and then headed to temple square to see all the Christmas lights. Brad and I couldn't believe that in the 3 or so years we lived in Provo we NEVER went to see the lights. They were beautiful! We also saw the statue of Christ in the visitors center which Ruth was excited to see. As we were walking away from the statue she said, "Bye Jesus!" which made me tear up. Then we went shopping at the Deseret Book store.

Tuesday, the kids and I met up with Kelsey (Brad's cousin) and her kids at the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. I'd never been there either, and it was really fun. Ruth had a fabulous time with Nyah, they wandered around the whole museum hand in hand, it was so cute. After that we did some more shopping and relaxing. Then Brad and I dropped the kids off at Kelsey's house (thank you again!) to go to a dinner/theatre thing his company paid for. It was a cute Christmas show, and it was mostly fun just to be out without the kids, with other adults. Our favorite part of the night was the driving because we got to chat.

Wednesday we headed home, and it was so nice to be home again. Going on vacation with two kids isn't much of a vacation for a mom. But it was fun, especially our time spent at temple square. Oh, and I forgot my camera which really annoyed me when I realized it...so no pics.

Cabin Fever

It's bad when cabin fever sets in on the first of December.

Ruth and I are going completely stir crazy. We never go outside anymore because it's too cold and icy...the streets never melted from the first time it snowed a couple weeks ago. Ruth needs to expend some serious energy, we used to go to the park every day so she could run around...and now for weeks we've been cooped up in the house. The other bad effect of this is that we're cranky. Our options for curing cabin fever are either shell out six bucks to go to Hop 2 It or spend money to eat fast food at Arctic Circle so she can play in their tiny play place...all the other fast food places have outdoor play areas. Both options are no good because they involve spending money. I tried to pull out the mini tramp and her red tube to encourage her romping around, but she got bored of them quickly. These are my woes. And poor Will is getting his top two teeth and crankier than ever.

Thanksgiving Pics

I can't decide which family photo I like best...

check out lentsphotography.com for more

Thanksgiving

My parents came into town Wednesday night and we had so much fun together. We made the usual spread on Thursday and decorated the house on Friday. Here are some snapshots of the weekend. More family photos are to come when I get them from my dad. The first two are of the kids in their new outfits from the grandparents.

Mom and I worked on these on Saturday, it was SUPER fun. They are made from tin cans, hot glue and felt. The beards are from batting, plus some buttons, googly eyes and that fuzzy wire stuff for the antlers. Oh, and Santa's head is a styro-foam ball and their noses are pom-poms.

Good One Ruth

Three stories about Ruth:

Two weeks ago I woke up (in the middle of the night) to hear Ruth crying. She wasn't in her room, so I wandered around the house looking for her. I soon found her climbing up the stairs from the basement. When I sat down on the stairs and asked her what was wrong she looked at me and said, "Watch cartoons!" She and daddy have obviously been watching a lot of cartoons down in the basement and she woke up wanting some more daddy time, it seems. She always asks to watch Pingu, a British claymation show.

Recently, Ruth has not been wanting to stay in her bed once bedtime comes around. We end up putting her back in bed tons of times. Last night, Brad decided to put up the baby gate, so when she opened the door she still wouldn't be able to walk out of her room. Well we were sitting in the kitchen talking and suddenly Ruth shows up. We should have known better since she is such a climber!

This morning she came to me and said, "Car, shopping." She remembered that I told her yesterday that we would go last minute shopping today.

I feel like I can hardly keep up with her these days.

Private

We're going private. I know it's a hassle, but it's for the kids. I was looking at my stats and saw that some of the "traffic" came from a google image search and it was one of Ruth sitting on the potty. While it's okay for friends and family to see that it just makes me squirm to think anyone else can see the intimate details of our life. So...send me an email (laws by {my full first name} at gmail . com...obviously no spaces) or leave a comment if you want to still read our blog. If I have emailed you I already have your address and will add it automatically.

Little Buddy

So I realized that I've done a HORRIBLE job of taking pictures of our little man. So enjoy:

And here's mama and sis:

Go BYU

Thanks Grandpa Laws!

She's 2 and He's 6 months!

First of all, she got two cakes. The recipe I had made two 9" round cakes so I thought that was good because in case I messed the first butterfly cake up, I could start over...I had a back-up. Luckily, the first cake went well. So then I used the second cake as her candle cake and made a caramel frosting to go ontop, yum. I was surprised how easy it was to make cake...and frosting...these were my first cakes from scratch.

You may be wondering why there are a bazillion candles on the cake, it's an "R." And this is what I did to the round cake to make a butterfly:


And this is the butterfly cake, decorated with pink buttercream frosting, jelly beans and skittles. On the side I used watermelon licorice-like stuff.

When it came time to finally eating her cake, she only wanted to pick the candy off with her fork. She refused to eat any of the cake...hmm.

We called up a bunch of friends and met them all at Hop 2 It. It was the first time we'd been and Ruth spent the first 45 minutes screaming about how cool everything was. We ran around and jumped for 2 hours, it was a blast!

Here she is in the ball pit with Ben and Jon:

She got a kitten and a big wheel type car for her b-day from us. Along with books and coloring/crafting equipment from friends and grandparents.

We've decided to call the cat Makutsi, after a character in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

This is Ruth as a bunny, jumping on our mini-tramp:

Sporting the tu-tu over the pajamas:

Now about Will: He weighs 16 pounds 10 ounces and is 26 inches long, both 50%. As you can see, his eyes are still a greyish blue color and he has his two front bottom teeth.

He rolls everywhere and loves to smile.

He grabs for everything. If you've ever seen Dora the Explorer you'll understand why I always want to say, "Swiper, no Swiping!" He's dang fast too.

And he can sit up without support for several minutes.

He's still not sleeping through the whole night but other than that there are no complaints. He's such an easy baby, loves to be tickled and gives giggles generously. He is patient when Ruth decides to sit on him and he loves his veggies. He is also very interested in Makutsi (the kitten). He loves when she jumps up on his lamp so he can feel her fur.

The Many Faces of My Children

"huh?"

"Oh, yeah"

"My tongue is so cool!"

grumpy ballerina

"There's ice cream?!"

Because I feel like it

I've been grumpy today for no good reason. We even bought some new Christmas decorations for the house. I guess I'm grumpy now because I want to bust out all the decorations, light some candles and listen to Christmas music...soon enough.

These are butterfly pancakes. Ruth wouldn't eat them but she was sure excited to look at them. We'll see what she does with her b-day cake (it's gonna be a butterfly cake).

We let Ruth watch the grizzly bear video below and for days she's been talking about how the monster fell down. She was really worried about it. Sad but funny at the same time.


Will is now a champion roller. I walk out of the room for two seconds and when I come back he's on the other side of the room, facing a different direction and on his back instead of his stomach. It was pretty disconcerting at first. I actually scolded Ruth a couple times about not moving her brother around! oops. He's also working on sitting and does it pretty well on his own. He LOVES to play with his baby toys and stays happy for much longer now that he can shake and chew on them by himself. He'll be 6 months in less than 2 weeks and I can hardly believe it!

I come back to these often

This probably took forever to make. The effort alone deserves attention. The end result is beautiful.

I know of no band that has made three drummers and one guitar sound so good. mesmerizing:

Great Song, Great video. I praise Texas for the good music it produces:

White Denim - "I Start To Run" from Downtown Music on Vimeo.

Halloween Activities

Last night we had the Rand's over to carve pumpkins.

Here is what their two older boys and Ruth did whilst we carved away:

They were eating snickerdoodles behind the island so that we couldn't see them sneaking more cookies than we wanted them to eat! Too funny. I made the snickerdoodles that afternoon; it was nostaligic because I remember rolling the cookies with my mom. So it was really fun to have Ruth help me make them.

And here is the final product:

From left to right: mine (Jack-o-Lantern), Brad's (wind blown tree), Chelsea's (leaves) and Tyler's (train, as requested by the boys).

Ruth preparing for trunk-or-treating at church...6 hours early!

I decided last minute that I would dress up too, so here are the kitties:


My full costume included Will. Together we are a cat eating a baby owl:

And in final news I've lost another 2 pounds!