You Two

Tyler:

You make me laugh so hard every day with the funny things you say and do. Some of the more recent funnies are:

While reading scriptures, you were repeating the words as I said them to you like usual. Then we came across the phrase "a blind man". I stopped and asked you if you knew what a blind man was. I explained that it was when you can't see, then you looked out the window and said "just pull up the blinds, and then you can see". Sometimes you are too clever for me.

While driving in the car the other day, I stepped hard on the gas to make it through a yellow light and the engine made a loud sound. You hollered from the back seat "Easy, mom! Easy!"

Sometimes you ask for more time when we're at the park, or if you don't want to go to bed, etc. Usually you just say, "two more minutes" but the other day you said "two more days".

Whenever I let out a sigh, or an aggravated "ugh!" or when you think I'm even the tiniest bit upset, you always ask, "what's-a-matta mom?"

There's a hundred more examples but I just want you to know how much I love having you around, and I love hearing you talk so much! Today I was thinking about how when you turned 1 or 18 months and I could count how many words you could say. Now you just say everything and you communicate so well!

You absolutely adore Brynlee and like to give her lots of hugs and kisses. You always ask to hold her, and when she wakes up you say "lets go get her mom!" and you run into the room cuz you can't wait to see her. Sometimes it's hard for you that she gets so much attention, especially from other people, but you handle it well and have figured out your own cute ways of demanding attention :).

Brynlee:

You turned 7 months on 9/9/09!! Your daddy and I can't believe how big you are getting and how fast you're growing up. You are constantly pushing yourself up onto your hands and knees, but you haven't quite figured out how to coordinate the hands and legs moving. You army crawl a little and get where you need to go. You are always reaching for everything and can't hold still for a second! It's so fun to watch you figure things out. You do this funny backwards push that looks like the worm in slow-mo.

You've got 6 teeth now and you eat solids like a champ! There isn't anything we've tried that you don't like yet, but you really love blueberry pancakes, peaches, and bananas.

You started saying "ma ma ma ma" a couple months ago and it surprised me because that's not usually the first sound babies make. But you still do it all the time and I love it. When you're mad you say "na na na" but I can't get you to say "da da"...in time.

I could've sworn they cut the cord at your birth, but you are still SOO attached to me. Most of the time I don't mind because I know it won't last long and I love you so much too. I just wish you'd let even your dad hold you once in a while :). I love to watch you watch your brother. You are so interested in what he does and he makes you laugh so hard. I hope you always have a good relationship with him.

You two are our greatest blessings.

Happy Birthday Kenny!

On Tuesday, the 8th, Kenny turned 26 years old!! I keep telling him he's SOO old! haha. We had a nice relaxing morning. He slept in (until 6:30 or so, which is much later than his usual 4:30 or 4:45 waking up) and I made a yummy breakfast of streusel cupcake/muffin things and bacon. Then he played with the kids for a while, got ready and went into work around 10:30.

I had the best idea for his birthday cake and I was really excited about it. I wanted to make a dumbbell, since he's addicted to working out since he got his gym pass. But I prove retarded once again and couldn't get the fondant right and didn't really have time to spend on it because of a crying baby and a toddler that asked me approximately 549 times to play with him that day. So I bagged the whole idea and put the two cakes together and frosted it all. Then I made some rice krispies really quick and formed them into a giant "26" and stuck it on. It was totally lame, but I decided to not be too angry about it because that'd be dumb, even though it was upsetting to work so hard on it for so long and then have to change it completely. Oh well.

Once Kenny came home from work, we all went out and got a boat-load of Chinese food, came home and feasted like kings. Then he opened his presents with Tyler's help (which was hard to convince Tyler of ALL DAY that they were not his, and now he tells me his birthday is coming soon). He got the game "bocce" which we've wanted for a long time, some socks, sweat pants, and weight-lifting gloves. Although he told me that only the weirdos wear the gloves haha so we'll take them back and get a watch instead :). We enjoyed some cake and ice cream and watched a movie, half with the kids, half without.

I wanted to throw him a party but he was very insistent (sp?) that I don't, so we just hung out together as a family and had a great time. Here's a few quirks about Kenny you may or may not know about...

He hates to have the sheet tucked in to sleep. He says it pulls down on his feet and it's too restricting. So whenever I make the bed I tuck in my side, and half the bed at the foot and that's how it is.
He also will take off one shoe, or sock, and leave the other on. It would drive me nuts to do that because I have issues with "equilibrium" but he's comfortable like that.
He brushes his teeth for a long time.
He flexes in the mirror and I think it's cute. I laugh at him all the time about it.
He is constantly whistling/humming/singing a song. He never knows the correct words to songs though, (which drives me crazy) so he'll just make up words, or whole songs.
This one's not a quirk, or a secret, but he's the best husband and dad ever and we think he's the best!!!

Happy Birthday Kenny!! We love you so much!!

Labor Day

On Monday it was Labor Day, and so of course Kenny had work off. We loaded up in the car and drove out to Belleville, for a full day of fun at Eckert's. They are another pick-your-own fruit place, but much bigger. They were also doing a family day with lots of rides, animals, music, etc. We had a blast. It was a hot day though, and we saved the actual apple-picking until the end so by then we were all hot, sweaty, exhausted, and worn out. But we are so glad we went. Tyler had a blast going on the rides, and petting/feeding the animals. They had funny contests like the greased pig, scoop shovel races, chicken plop bingo (which is where we all stand around and watch a few chickens, who are caged in, standing on a board divided into numbered squares, until one of them poops, then whatever number their poop landed in, the person who chose that number won a little prize) pony and camel rides, miniature golf, etc. We also met up with some friends from the ward, the Porter and Lindsay families. It was fun to see them there! We took a ton of pictures, as usual, and here's some of them.

Don't you love this golfing stance

Kenny givin the camel some love :)

Tyler is so funny about animals. He absolutely loves them, but when it comes to touching them he is very wary and apprehensive. So this was a big deal that he let them eat out of his hand. He didn't want to ride the pony, or the camel (which saved us 5 bucks so we were ok with it haha). When they had the kid contest where all the kids went into this big pen, then they let out about 10-15 goats covered in stickers and the kids had to pull off one of the stickers from the goat and they'd get a prize. It was all great until tyler got trapped in the corner and had a big group of goats heading straight for him. he got stuck and surrounded, and I was sure he was going to start crying. He was very brave though and got a sticker, and there were no tears!

She looks a little drunk here, but I just had to capture her feet up on the bar. She always rests them up there and I think it's so funny.

I decided that I will not go to any more fruit-picking things until both children are walking. Ugh! That girl is heavy.

We came home from that and recovered for a couple hours, then headed out to the Reeds' house, our friends from the ward. We had a little weenie roast over there and had fun visiting with them and the Kraude's, the newest family in the ward. The kids were completely worn out from the day, and so were we, but we had a great time! And we have some delicious honey-crisp and Johnathan apples to can now :).

Happy Milk Comes From Happy Cows...

Get it?

I love my job

Job title: MOM
Stewardship: Tyler and Brynlee
Working hours: 24/7
Days off: NONE
Replacements: None
Payment: none
Job Benefits: Eternal happiness and growth
Job description:

Inspire curiosity...


Stimulate their senses to help them learn...



oh yeah, and anything and everything else!

Yep. I've got the best job in the world.

Disclaimer: It's safest to not ask me my thoughts on motherhood around 4 in the morning when I've been up all night doing my "job"!! It tends to be a bit more negative, with an occasional use of profanity...

Mills Apple Farm

Yesterday I took the kids to a pick-your-own-fruit orchard with a group of ladies and their kids, from our ward. It was our first time going somewhere like that and we had a great time! There were 6 women with 9 kids between us all (a lot less than there would have been if school hadn't started) so there were lots of kids for Ty to play with so he was very happy. And we got some yummy apples too, so who couldn't love that? There's a big playground and shaded area that we all just sat around talking afterwards for a long time. Really the weather this week is like the greatest weather we could ask for! The high's are in the 70's and it's just cool and breezy. We have our windows open 24/7 and it is SOO nice. We can't get enough of being outside. Here's some pics from our fun trip.

Tyler with his girlfriend, Ashlynn.

They have small bags for the kids to carry around and pick apples so Tyler loved helping out. of course I had to discard the majority later when he wasn't looking, because he picked up all the yucky ones off the ground.

My favorite one of the day

The Influence of Righteous Women

Did everybody see that article in this month's Ensign issue? It's the cover story and it's awesome. I've been thinking about it lately and I wanted to share one of the best living examples of the influence of one righteous woman. See that cute old lady on the left, laughing at her great-grandaughter? Well that's my awesome Grandma Andersen. Mother of 12. Grandmother of 104. Great-grandmother of 190 and still counting. Not many people can brag about that large of a posterity, but she can (and she proudly does :)). This woman amazes me. I know this picture is a 4-mixed-generations picture, because she's actually my dad's mom. But she's the only blood-related Grandma still living. We got to live next door to her while we lived in Utah and I loved getting to know her better. I hope I can be half the woman she is.