Our Week

We have had an interesting week, I decided the boys needed to prepare for Moma and Papa's visit, so we made a chain to count down the days, the boys get really excited when they get to pull a link off each day.
Jakie covered himself in pillows with the help of Daddy of course, but he thought he was pretty cool.
The boys tried on Dad's tie.

Sam tried to dress himself.
We had friends over for dinner and their boys and ours had a good time playing together.
Sammy and Jakie played ball with Daddy in the front yard.




It was a rough week for us, I decided to potty train and it seemed to work until Jacob got sick, and then things went downhill. Thank you to all of you who have given support and have helped me stick with it. Samuel is getting the whole potty training thing, slowly, but he understands it at least. Jacob is taking a break until he is completely recovered. Wish us luck as this journey continues.

Potty Training 101

Well, I took a lot of classes while attending BYU but I wish there had been a class called Potty Training 101 because I could really use the knowledge I could glean from a course like that, right now in my life. We started potty training the boys yesterday. I have wanted to potty train them for quite a while, but it hasn't worked out, until now. I really could use any advice anyone has for me, so far Courtney has given me quite a bit of help, thank you, thank you. But I have heard, and now witnessed that potty training a boy is a bit different than a girl. If you have any tips, you moms of boys out there, please be kind and share your knowledge with me. I know I am crazy for doing them both at the same time, but I think that I would go insane if had to do this two times in a short period of time, instead of one really horrible time. Plus, they always want to be together, so it would be really difficult to potty train them separately. Anyway, thank you for any advice you could leave me.

Pictures

We have been really lame and haven't posted much on this blog, so I thought it was about time. We haven't really been up to much, but we did take a trip to the local zoo and to a local childrens museum. Here are some pictures of the boys at the museum.



Samuel and Jacob in a old log cabin kitchenSamuel churning butter
Samuel, Alan, and Jacob looking at turtles
Samuel mailing a letter at the childrens town, there was a store, a house, a gas station, a garden, a fire station, and some other things I can't recall now.
Jacob in a truck, he loved riding around in all the cars they had for the kids
Jacob and Alan in the international section
Samuel and Alan doing the same thing
The boys and Dad at the zoo looking at the giant tortoises
The boys love sitting in the big window, they love watching the school bus, the garbage truck, and the mail lady come by.
Samuel and Jacob on our rocking chair
The boys love to pretend the laundry baskets are boats
Jacob made a bed for his pooh bear out of blocks and here he is demonstrating how it works, he kept saying cheese after the picture was taken, unfortunately this was the best shot. I am so proud of my little engineer.

Hopefully we will get better at blogging and keep you all updated on what we are doing!

Sammy and Jakie's tag

Jacob and Samuel were recently tagged by their cousin Brady and these were their answers, they didn't understand some of the questions and I didn't understand some of the answers so I wrote a NA next to those I couldn't get an answer for and you will just have to use your knowledge of two year olds to figure out some of the other answers.

1. What is something mom always says to you? No No No

2. What makes mom happy? kisses

3. What makes mom sad? touches those (pointing to computer keys)

4. How does your mom make you laugh? (starts to laugh)

5. What was your mom like as a child? Baby

6. How old is your mom? 3

7. How tall is your mom? 3, 7

8. What is her favorite thing to do? sing

9. What does your mom do when you're not around? sleep

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? Jacob

11. What is your mom really good at? make peanut butter sandwiches

12. What is your mom not very good at?animals

13. What does your mom do for her job? play

14. What is your mom's favorite food? peanut butter

15. What makes you proud of your mom? singing

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?NA

17. What do you and your mom do together? Go Park

18. How are you and your mom the same? NA

19. How are you and your mom different? NA

20. How do you know your mom loves you? Hugs, kisses

21. What does your mom like most about your dad? another day

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? church

Olympics

The boys have caught Olympic fever, we have been home a lot this last week because I have been battling a cough and have not been feeling very well, so we have watched a lot of Oympics. The boys have endured it fairly well, they liked the track and the volleyball, they want to have races with each other and us all the time, and they ask to play volleyball every ten minutes or so. But, when the diving started a couple of days ago, the boys had a new love, they can't get enough of the diving. When the divers jump off the board they stare until the guy hits the water, at this point, they start to laugh and jump up and down. It has been pretty funny watching them.

So, we tried to make this really nice video tour of our new place, and we did it like 3 times and them downloaded it to blogger, or I should say, attempted to download it to blogger, and attempted and finally after the fourth attempt, we decided to take pictures and do a picture tour, if you don't care about what our place looks like, feel free to ignore this.
This is our family room and dining area, as you can tell it is much bigger than our last place, the boys love the room and run around all over the place.This is both views of our galley style kitchen and below is the washer and dryer area and door to the patio and car port.
Here are the boys enjoying some time playing with chalk on the patio, to the side of the lower picture you can see our storage room and also in that picture you can see the carport.

This is the boys bathroom and their bedroom.
Here is the extra room, you can see that we haven't done much with this room yet.
This is our bedroom with the lovely window seat, and below is our master bath, yeah, we have our own bathroom, no more waking kids when we have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. By, the way don't you just love the wallpaper, it is our favorite.

And there you have it, a tour of our new digs. We are enjoying the time off that Alan has from work and school and are anticipating some good years here. We love you all and miss you. We hope some of you will be able to come visit.

Cousins

We were able to visit with Bryce and Maile and family before we left for Texas, we had a fun time going to the park. Brady was a lot of fun showing Sammy and Jakie how to kick a soccer ball and to play at the park. At one point he had Jakie by the hand and was taking him around and talking to him, he followed him well and soon Sam had Jakie's hand and there was a little train of boys running around. Leilani was a doll and so fun to watch, you can tell she is trying to hold her own with her big brother. She has the most beautiful red hair, which I am totally jealous of, and she was very sweet. Thanks Bryce and Maile for getting together with us on your trip.We also had a new arrival to Alan's family, his sister Karen had a new boy, Caleb was born at the end of July and we are happy to have him in the family, congrats Karen, Chris, and Gavin.

All of the boys together, Sam, Gavin, Caleb, Jakie.

Jacob and Samuel's Birthday

The boys turned two before we moved, but we never had a chance to blog about their birthday. They received way to many gifts from very kind family members. Here they are enjoying their new car garage, it has had a lot of use already.
Alan of course had to set it up, the boys were trying to play with it even before it was out of the box, it was a little frustrating to Alan because he couldn't put it together with both boys running cars down the unassembled ramp.
They got a couple of new items of clothing which unlike most kids who get new clothes and throw them aside, Sammy and Jakie had to put all of them on right then, (Aunt Marisa and Uncle Robert they loved their new pooh and "ticker" shirts. Thanks)

The boys also enjoyed all the balloons they got to play with.


These are the cakes we made for their party (thanks Jane.) We made a fishbowl cake using two round cakes and cutting the top and bottom off the cakes to make the fishbowl shape, and then covered it with fondant, and also we made a cake to look like an ocean scene.
We want to thanks all those who were kind enough to send cards, gifts, call, or send their love, we appreciate all that you do for us and our little guys. We love you all and are grateful for you in our lives.

We've Just Been Hanging Around

I realized it has been a while since I have actually blogged anything, but, we have been busy. I spent almost a week with the boys at my parents house while Alan was finishing his senior thesis in Orem. While I was there I saw this painting, which my brilliant cousin Lana painted of the boys. Can you tell which is which? She is studying art in Saint George at Dixie college and I think she is amazing, thanks Lana.

As many of you might know, the boys really like trains, so we returned with Moma and Papa to the train museum to see the other half of the museum we didn't realize was there last time. This part was the actual trains, the boys loved the trains and were exited to see the new Frontrunner (an extension of Salt Lakes Trax) train leave the station.
After the trains we went out for ice cream at the famous Farr's Ice cream parlor in Ogden. Moma used to work here, so we had to get some shots of her in front of her old hangout.

The boys had fun watching the street get repaved in front of Farr's as they ate the ice cream Moma and Papa had given them.


We also had the opportunity to visit some great grandparents who live in Ogden. We visited Grandma and Grandpa Fisher (not pictured here, I forgot my camera) and Grandma Montierth who won over Jacob and Samuel's heart with her marble game, a favorite amongst all the grandchildren. Tracy, I hope you have fond memories of this game, Grandma thought you might remember this game.

Four generations.
Moma and Jacob outside of Grandma Montierth's house, looking at grapes.
Samuel and Papa doing the same.
Samuel and Jacob invented a game while we were there. It involved sitting on the fireplace and throwing a ball and then jumping up to retrieve it. I was quite impressed by their creativity.

Later we went to see Grandma Gunnell, who the boys have named Grandma Nell because they can't say Gunnell. They had fun eating her raspberries and playing with the toys she always has on hand.

Boppus and Grandma Jane arrived at Grandma Nells and the boys were happy to see them again. We had a good time hanging out with them and we were looking forward to coming back to Orem again.
We also had a great time celebrating Pioneer Day (it is a celebration of the Pioneers entering the Salt Lake Valley.) We went to discovery park and had some KFC, I love picnics, and then a fun time running around and chasing the boys at the park. Samuel on the big big slide, it was a lot of fun, so much fun that we convinced Boppus (Val) to go down too.
Alan and Samuel hanging out in the space ship.
Jacob and Alan on the tire swing.

We had a lot of fun in Ogden, thank you Moma and Papa for all the fun things we did, and thank you Grandma Jane and Boppus for all you do for us. We love you!