Out of the Mouths of Babes

Some funny conversations with our kids....

1. "Look Mommy a snake". Gavin holding his finger up to me to show me his booger.

2. "You and Gavin need Yoga". Braxton said this to me this morning when Gavin and I were having a "moment" with each other. I asked Braxton "so what does Yoga mean?" and he said "Mom its a place you go to go calm down". (Thanks Braxton)

3. My conversation with Gavin about potty training...
ME: "Gavin do you want to wear big boy underwear?"
GAVIN: "No thanks, I want pancakes."
He has a way of changing the subject when he doesn't want to talk about something.

4. BRAXTON: "Mom I'm going to eat all of my cereal, because the Holy Ghost told me to."

5. GAVIN: "I want to see babies Holy Cow". Gavin when I'm getting ready to change Emree's poopy diapers. He calls her poop "Holy Cow" because when he sees it he says Holy Cow.

6. This happened just this morning while I was getting the boys dressed for the day.
ME: "I want you boys to brush your teeth really well before you go out tonight trick or treating because I know you will be eating more candy and I don't want you to get... (then Braxton interrupts me, and finishes my sentence for me)
BRAXTON: "I know mom, gravities."

Some Political Humor

I thought this was pretty funny...hopefully nobody gets offended by me posting this. I love it though! SO true. Oh and don't get me wrong I still love democrats, well only 2 I guess, which would be my Dad and my Grandma. :)

Braxton's B-Day Party and Cute Pics of Emree

I'm so bad... I am WAY late at posting Braxton's Birthday party pictures. His B-Day was on the 9th of this month. He turned five and he thinks he is SO BIG now. We had all of Rey's family here including his parents. We had a blast! Braxton loves his cousins and thinks they are the coolest thing in the world. As you can see I didn't get very many pictures, but at least I got a few. He is having another party still at my parents house this weekend so I will get more then. Oh and these are some pics I took today of Emree, I just wanted to share them because I thought they were too cute.

Paisli, Braxton, Cooper, and Colby

Gosh I love those CHEEKS!!!


Love those big round eyes

I love how shes puckering her lips in this one.

What a happy BABY GIRL!!

A Very Nice Sunday

I just wanted to say today was a really nice Sunday. When we were getting ready for church, there were no fights, and everybody got dressed when they were asked. We made it on time (HURRAY!), actually got to sit on a bench instead of the chairs in the way back and the kids were good during the meeting (minus Emree, but she's teething). I also got to start my new calling, teaching the Mia Maids in YW, which is a very nice change. Since we have been married I have only been in Primary. I love my little class that I teach, man I forgot how much girls like to talk, I'll be lucky if I can get through half of my lessons. It's ok though, I remember being that age and how easy it is to get off track and start talking about stuff that has nothing to do with the lesson (like hair, boys, and movies). So then we come home and I make lunch/dinner and then Gavin and Emree went down for a little nap while Rey, Braxton and I all hung out for about an hour. Before we knew it Braxton had fallen asleep on the sofa and it was just Rey and me, so we decided to lay down together and watch a few conference talks that we had recorded during General Conference. It was so nice and relaxing, we just loved the alone and quiet time we had together. As our family is growing, we realize more and more how precious our "alone" time is. I'm sure you all with kids know exactly what I'm talking about. Gosh its amazing how quiet the house gets when they are all asleep and how loud it gets the second they all wake up. It seems that everybody wants everything at the same time too. Once they were all awake we all just hung out, played games, watched the boys wrestle and play Power Rangers together. Side Note... I just have to say this because its so cute. Ok Gavin thinks he's really a power ranger and his famous thing he does around the house is he pretends to push a button on his arm , which is actually a chicken pox scar, but he thinks its his "power up button" and he pushes on it and then yells "Power Rangers, Power Up!" We love when he does that. Anyways this is turning out way longer than I wanted to but I just wanted to say I'm go grateful for days like this, It's not very often that a whole day goes by so smoothly and it wouldn't be fair not to write about the "good" days we have. We love and enjoy our kids so much!! Today was definitely a great way to start off a new week.

Rey's Been Tagged

I got tagged by my mother-in-law, which is sweet of her to include me in these cute little blogs, but I have always left the blogging to my wife, I rarely even look at it unless she tells me to. Today is the first day I have ever posted, so I will try to do it while still retaining my manhood.

8 TV SHOWS I LIKE TO WATCH
1. The Office
2. College Football
3. Nature shows
4. History shows
5. News (Question: Am I getting old, or just boring?)
6. Action movies
7. Chick Flicks with my wife (there are a couple of reasons for this.)
8. Documentaries (Answer: I'm boring.)

FAVORITE RESTAURANTS.
1. In-N-Out
2. Northwoods Inn
3. Good sushi places
4. Togo's
5. Panda Express
6. Red Robin
7. I like to try anything new, but getting my wife to be adventurous with me can be a little tricky.
8. Cheesecake Factory, Claim Jumper, Carino's, Skillet Too (from my Phelan roots), anything we have a coupon to, and Juan Pollo.

THINGS THAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY
1. Slept in
2. Played hide-and-seek with my boys
3. Took a nap (did my wife hook me up or what?!)
4. Thought really hard about exercising
5. Played with my little Princess Emree
6. Read
7. Had a really nice BM
8. I think I remember brushing my teeth at some point

8 THINGS I LOOK FORWARD TO
1. Having like 5 more kids
2. Replacing Scott in the Elder's Quorum Presidency (I've been very spiritual lately)
3. Upgrading my 80 year-old Corolla
4. Being accepted into a Master's program
5. Having my chest hair turn gray
6. Traveling to cool places
7. The bedroom tonight
8. my next BM


8 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT FALL
1. Football
2. The clean, fresh air of the High Des
3. My kids in Halloween costumes
4. My muscles looking bigger in sweaters
5. Being tagged by my mother-in-law
6. Gaining an hour when we end/begin daylight savings time (whichever one it is)
7. 8 is too many for Fall, maybe I could pull off eight for Summer, but Fall? C'mon, Fall is barely a season.

8 THINGS ON MY WISH LIST
1. I hope socialized medicine is finally implemented here in the US, it has been a long time coming, I feel so bad for all of the po' folk out there, and I would like to take more of my hard-earned money and give it to them so they can be relieved of their hemorrhoids, gout, and tape worms.
2. This is taking too long, I'm getting bored. I have no doubt everyone is on the edge of their seat to see my wish list, but I'm going to have to stop here.

8 PEOPLE I TAG ARE
Lloyd Christmas, Balky, Michael Scott (my nephew), David, and, whatever happened to Pauly Shore? That guy used to be funny.

Our little Roley Poley

Yesterday Emree rolled over for the first time and I also found that she had cut a tooth. Aw, my little girl is growing up. I feel like she is getting so big so fast. She is just so sweet and is such a good baby, now only if I can get her to be a good baby during the night, so I can get some sleep. We love you Emmers!!

I've been Tagged!

Gavin when he was a little under two years old. We are in Las Vegas at the mall.

I've been tagged by my sister in law Aubri. So heres the rules of the game. Go to your pictures folder and take the fourth picture from the fourth file and post it. That's it. Then tag four friends. Whew, I was lucky that it wasn't a picure of me :)

I TAG...
Anyone who reads this post! Lets see how many of you actually do it.

Sushi....No Thank You!!!

Rey and I went out on a date Thursday night, we went to Dave and Busters and then ate sushi for dinner. Now you have to know, Rey has been wanting me to go and eat sushi with him for the past couple of years. Somehow I was always able to convince him to get something else because I KNEW that I would not like it. I'm not a fan of Japanese OR Chinese food so I pretty much figured that I wouldn't like it....and I DIDN'T! Rey told me that there were some rolls that were "baked", because the whole raw thing grossed me out. SO I thought, alright he's been waiting forever, maybe it wont be that bad. YEAH right!! I didn't even like the smell of the place. The first roll I tried was the California Roll which had crab, avocado, and cucumber in it, wrapped in rice and seaweed. OK I like crab, I like avocados and cucumbers, lets try it. NO THANK YOU! I seriously started to gag, but I was trying so hard to like it since I knew Rey loves it so much and was all excited about eating it with me. I told him I didn't like it very much, and he could tell by the look on my face that I didn't like it at all. He was so sweet. He told me that I didn't have to eat anymore if I didn't want to. Well I surprised him (and myself) and I kept trying more. The next roll I tried, Rey told me just to try it before he told me what was in it. So I swallowed the dang thing and after, he told me that I had eaten raw eel, salmon and some other nasty stuff that was in it. Ok so there...I tried sushi and I will never eat it again. Sorry Babe, but you're gonna have to find another sushi buddy to go eat with.

Can This Day Be Over PLease?

I'm only writing this post just for the sake of remembering today (although its one I would like to forget) since I am using this blog also as a journal. Ok so Emree has been sick for about 2 weeks now. First she ended up getting the chicken pox from Gavin, and now she has had a very high fever and NOT sleeping for more than 2 hours at a time, if I'm lucky. Shes so congested and is very lethargic, its so sad. So today I took her to the Dr's after Rey and I staying up literally all night with her, switching off holding her. Rey got 2 hours of sleep and had to go to work all day, and I got 4. This has been going on for days now and we are EXTREMELY sleep deprived. The Dr. said she had a really bad ear infection, so bad now that its oozing stuff (nasty I know) which is causing the fever on top of having a cold. Poor little lady. Alright so after the Dr's appt. I had to stop at Target to fill her prescription and buy some diapers. This is where it all begins. We get there and I have all three kids with me of course and I thought ok I'm so exhausted that I am feeling dizzy, Emree feels like crap and I have to be here for at least a half an hour lets make this as easy as possible. SO I go and get the extra stuff I needed and I told the boys that if they were good I would take them to go look, ONLY, look at toys while we were waiting to pass the time. I strictly told them that we were NOT buying anything just looking and of course they agreed and, yes they usually are very good about just looking and not buying. Well NOT today. Braxton saw some toy that he wanted so badly and would not let go of it or give it up. He is so spoiled already and there was no reason to buy this toy. I told him calmly that his birthday is in a couple of weeks and he would be getting lots of toys for his B-day. Oh no, this did not go over well. I'm not kidding you the child went out of control, and I don't mean a tantrum, I mean like he turned crazy on me. He started screaming and throwing the biggest fit I have ever seen. Me with no sleep and a 5 year old going crazy was not a good mix. I now have Emree crying (who had just finally gotten to sleep) because Braxton was jumping up and down in the cart, shaking her car seat, and Gavin who is starting to cry just because the others were. Now we are getting all sorts of dirty looks from everybody, and I'm at the point where I feel like crying cuz I'm totally embarrassed and don't know what the heck to do with all of them. I could not get Braxton to stop screaming for the life of me. I even dropped the famous "You wait until your Daddy gets home, and I promise you will have something to cry about. Ugghh I was so frustrated with him. Now just a side note this behavior is way out of the ordinary for Braxton he almost is always good when we are out. I don't know what the heck got into him. He knows that this kind of behavior is totally unacceptable. Ok so with three screaming children I make my way over to the pharmacy and asked if my prescription was done. She said yes but they had to wait to check on something with the insurance. GREAT! The lady working was very nice about my kids, she said she had twin boys that were four years old and she understood my situation. Alright so I finally get my prescription and I'm heading out to the front of the store to check out the rest of my stuff. By this point I cant hold back my tears, I am so stressed and feel so stupid with everybody looking at me. I even had two ladies say " its sounds like that boy needs a spanking". I wanted to smack them! Of course they only had 3 lanes open and they all had long lines. THEN at last a cashier comes up to me and offers to take me in another lane. I knew they just waned to get rid of me, and that was fine by me. By now the whole store has been hearing Braxton scream for 20 minutes, which felt like an eternity. I said to her " thank you and I'm sorry" she was very kind and said she remembered those days with her own kids. FINALLY we are out of the store and I can really release the tears now. I get the kids loaded up (Braxton and Emree are still screaming) and what do I do??? I call my Knight in shining Armor (who's at work) on the phone to save me from this craziness. He calms me down and said he would come home early to help me out. What would I do without my Rey. So right after that I call my mom for support in the mean time and to vent. Just talking to someone who knew how I felt made things a little better. Well we get home and what do the kids do...they all fall asleep. Hallelujah!!! When Braxton woke up we had a nice talk with him about the way he acted and told him what his punishment would be. Well first off we told him that he cannot play with his new stereo that Grandma just gave him (which he loves) for 2 days and he had to be in bed an hour early tonight since thats the total time that he was out of control for. He actually accepted his punishment pretty well, until he realized that Gavin got to stay up while he had to go to bed. Oh well dude...Gavin listened to mommy today and you chose not to. So like I said I know this story is super long but I mostly had to document for my own sake. I'm hoping that we all can get some very much needed sleep tonight and that tomorrow will be a much happier and nicer day.

What a Lucky Girl I Am!!!!

Rey and Braxton had left the other day to run a few errands together. Well it had been a couple of hours and I heard a knock at the door, when I opened it....It was Braxton the "Delivery Man" holding a bouquet of flowers and he said "Mommy loves you and thinks you're hot". Well he was a little nervous so he got a little mixed up. He of course was supposed to say "Daddy loves you and thinks you're hot". It was very cute!! Rey then walked in and gave me a kiss and he told me he loved me. Awww he's the BEST!! I love that man sooo much. Okay so I'm thinking I'm pretty dang special for getting flowers and all, well then get this.... 2 nights later Rey had to go buy some formula kinda late at night and when he came back he had surprised me with a dozen red roses. I said, "Thanks Honey, but what did I do to deserve all of these flowers?" and he said...."just by being you". Another awwww moment. I know this is all kinda mushy stuff but I just had to share it with everybody and let you all now that I truly am a Lucky Girl to have such a sweet and thoughtful husband.

Oh just a side note, after he said I got all the flowers just for being me, he a few minutes later he came up to me and asked..."So what are my odds for tonight?" Typical Rey question....of course he had landed himself some extra lovin...he very well deserved it!!

My Delivery Man and my pretty flowers. I didn't take a picture of the roses because my memory card was all full.

Welcome to The Zone....The Splash Zone

Well Rey has had six days off, which has been super nice!!!! Just the way his schedule was worked out he had six days off in a row. SO we decided to do some fun stuff as a family. One of the things we did was go to the Splash Zone down in Corona. Its super fun for the kids and it was quite relaxing for Rey and me. Its easy to keep an eye out on your kids and the best part about it is that its FREE. Well we did have to pay gas money which ISN'T cheap (obviously) to drive all the way down there, but it definitely was worth it. After we left there we went to Victoria Gardens, walked around and did a little shopping. I feel so deprived living so far from Victoria Gardens I LOVE that place. We let the kids ride the train and then just hung out. It was a really enjoyable day and the kids were in such good moods the WHOLE time. They never got cranky until we were driving back home. Of course by the time we got home they had all conked out and we put them right to bed and Rey and I then relaxed some more and watched a movie together. The perfect ending to a perfect day :)

Braxton jumped right in when we got there and loved getting splashed in the face.

Then there is Gav who took his time and had to warm up to the whole idea.

Emree was getting a little hot so we put some water on her head. She loved it.

Here's Gavin hanging out where the water shoots up only to his knees...he does NOT like the water in his face.

After the first hour Gav finally got the courage to put his face in the water.

B would not leave this water gun alone. He thought he was so cool spraying all the kids in the face.

Rey put Emree's feet in the water....

and this was the face she made after he did it. She actually did like the water though.

I wanted to take a pic of Rey and he didn't want me to, cant you see the lovely smile he's giving me.

Striking a pose for the camera.

A Blast From Our Past

I just was looking at some old pictures and thought it would be fun to post them. Its crazy how much the boys have grown and how much our lives have changed. It really does just seem like yesterday that they were babies (gees do I sound like a mom or what?)

Grandma Fast and baby Braxton

Happy G

Me and Pooh (Gav) 2 years ago.

Daddy with his boys in the "baby" pool at his parents house in Vegas

Baby Gav

Christmas two years ago

Snorkeling on our honeymoon in Catalina...that was so much fun!

Aunt Aubri bought them these cowboy hats and guns

Gavin

Baby Braxton