President Hinckley

President Gordon B. Hinckley, the prophet and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died 7 p.m. Sunday at home of causes incident to age, surrounded by family. He was 97. I will always remember President Hinckley, his love for the church and for the temple and his sense of humor. I'm so glad he will be able to be with his wife again, although I am sad that he is no longer our prophet. His testimony has made my testimony stronger and he has helped me to feel the love of the Savior through his inspired conference talks and other teachings.

I read that President Monson will most likely be chosen as prophet, which is exciting. President Monson presided over and spoke at our stake conference yesterday via live broadcast about 8 hours before President Hinckley died. Does that mean we were the last ones to hear him speak before he became the prophet? That would be neat.

Girl's Trip to the Beach!

A few of you have asked where I was when Adam had a weekend on his own with the boys. Well, a few of my friends and I decided a while ago to plan a girl's trip that we could take once none of us were way pregnant or breastfeeding. All of our awesome husbands coordinated their time off work for the same weekend (which is more complicated than it sounds since a lot of them work in the same place). My friend Rachel's parents own a beach house in Saint George Island, Florida so they were so nice to let us stay in it for the weekend. It was a beautiful house and it even had an elevator in it which I was amazed at the whole weekend.

We left Thursday at around 4 and after an 8 hour drive full of adventure in and of itself, we arrived and went to bed. Friday we took a walk on the freezing cold beach and found beautiful shells and starfish and other interesting treasures that we couldn't identify. We went to lunch at a little diner called "That Place on 98" that had yummy burgers and also some fish foods that I'm sure fish-lovers would enjoy (I am not a fish-lover). Saturday we just hung out inside because it was rainy and cold. The whole weekend was just relaxing and full of fun. I kind of forgot I was a mom sometimes because we just did whatever we wanted, which rarely happens in the life of a mom. We watched tons of girly movies, did each other's hair and nails, stamped cards, made our meals together, had great conversation, and laughed and laughed and laughed. It was an amazing and rejuvenating weekend. We all learned a lot about each other and became even better friends.

Although I enjoyed my weekend away I was so excited to come home and see my 3 boys again. When I got home, I was not disappointed. Brody was waiting at the window for me and there was a "Welcome Home Mommy" sign on the door. Bridger kicked his feet in excitement when I picked him up and cuddled him. I am really grateful that Adam was not only willing to stay home with the boys but is such a great dad. The boys had so much fun with him I'm pretty sure they didn't even realize I was gone. I thought I would get home and Adam would be so much more appreciative of what I do everyday but he just said it was so easy and he would rather stay home with the boys than go to work everyday. I guess I'm not going to be getting any sympathy from him from now on! =)

This picture: From left Rachel, Hannah, Me, Shari, and Megan.

Now real life has started again... but now I am starting to plan in my head my next weekend away with the girls!

Finally, I would just like to say that I am kind of devastated by the death of Heath Ledger. I've been a pretty big fan since "10 Things I Hate About You" and "A Knight's Tale". Mostly I am sad because his little 2-year-old daughter has to grow up without a dad. It's too bad that things like this have to happen to such great and talented people.

Mommy Daddy

So, since I have been in the role of mommy and daddy the last few days I suppose I am in charge of updating the blog with all the gory details of my days at home with the boys. First of all I have to say that staying at home with the kids is about 1000 percent better than being stuck at work. I got to play, wrestle, shop, choose from a variety of foods, relax on the couch, check email, go for walks and watch cute kids do cute things. (I also got to witness cute kids do not so cute things, but those are few and far between.) I think I may have Jess go back to work so I can stay at home and be a house husband – or as the arabs say “Lord of the house.”

On Thursday night we had one of Brody’s little friends over for dinner and some play time. When his Dad came to pick him up he told him to say “bye, bye” to Brody, which he politely did. What then followed was surprising and made both Jonathan (the Dad) and I laugh out loud. Brody, as he ran to open the front door for his little friend, Benjamin, exclaimed: “bye, bitiba (Benjamin) nice meet you!” I had never heard that before and he said it so naturally (though untimely) that it was just precious. Brody is one cute kid.

Later that night I finished brushing Brody’s teeth to see Bridger happily playing by himself. Unfortunately, his play thing was the toilet bowl. With superhuman strength and agility he must have lifted the lid when I wasn’t looking and thrust as much of himself into the bowl as he could. He didn’t seem to mind that, but he hated that I dared wash his hands.

On Friday we just played and hung out until about 3 when we drove to a place called “jump city”. I had no idea what to expect but it turned out to be the best $4.28 I ever spent. They had 4 huge inflatable play areas, 2 of which had slides, and one of which had an inflatable obstacle course. The best part? I didn’t have to pay for myself, but got to play as much as the kids. We were non-stop for the full 2 hours. I think Brody probably burned about 50,000 calories running all over that place – especially climbing up the stairs to go down the slide 200 times. Bridger was a little scared at first, but then decided to loosen up and fling himself down the tallest slide with a few rolls at the end. They both loved it, and I was jealous that I didn’t get to do things like that when I was young. I can do it now, but I will never know the sensation of sliding down a 20 foot slide suspended by my ankles facing the bottom – Bridger will though!

I found out that day that Bridger can eat raisins now.

I found out the next day that he swallowed them whole and didn’t bother to digest them.

On Saturday we did much the same things as Friday, except that we braved the rain and went to Chucky Cheese’s. (Brody calls it “Gucky Jesus”) Note to self, and every one else: don’t go to Gucky Cheese’s on Saturday. That place was absolute chaos. No place to sit, kids running around everywhere, nasty pizza piled on the tables, Moms and dads passed out from exhaustion – it was not that great. I found myself wishing we had gone back to the jump city. I let Brody play 5 bucks worth of games to win about 150 tickets. Instead of waiting to cash them in for a tootsie roll we headed home. McDonalds is not my favorite place, but at least their chicken nuggets are so processed I didn’t have to worry about Bridger choking on it. I, on the other hand, did have to choke down my burger. At least, I think that is what it was.

Last night during the boys’ bath I said Brody had a small bum and Bridger had a big bum. Brody scooted over to Bridger and while tapping Bridger’s bum (he was standing) asked “Bridger big bum just like you?” Excuse me?! I do not have a big bum, and I told him so. He then said “you small bum just like me!” See? Every experience is an opportunity for quality teaching.

Well, today is Sunday already and Jess will be home before dinner. That was fast. I was planning on going to church today with both boys, but Bridger is definitely sick – every 5 minutes his binky is covered in snot and his temp is a few degrees above normal. I hope people don’t think I didn’t go because I couldn’t handle both boys by myself – because I could!

As an end note, over the last few days I also discovered that Bridger likes pizza, chicken nuggets, scrambled eggs, chocolate chips, brownies, cookies, fudge, smoothies, now and laters, smores, brown sugar chunks, ice cream, skittles, syrup, reeses, dum dums, popsicles, cake, and bananas dipped in chocolate syrup. But he doesn’t like spinach.

OH yeah! and it snowed at our house this week!

80's Flashback

Tonight we had a ward party that was kind of a get-to-know you game night. We were told to dress in our favorite time period . Adam and I (and most of the ward) chose the 80's because it is really easy to dress 80's. All you have to do is look crazy hideous and that pretty much looks like the 80's. We went to Goodwill this afternoon and I found this rad skirt (it is green denim in case you can't tell in the picture) and Adam's cool Zack Morris shirt. We had fun playing Trivial Pursuit: The 80's at the ward party. None of us knew any of the answers. Most of us were younger than 10 when the 80's ended.

Also, for those of you who like pictures of the boys, please look at my last post as I have added some pictures of the boys playing.

Sweet Freedom

I know it's been a while since I last posted and even worse, we haven't taken many pictures since last time and the ones we did take haven't been downloaded to the computer yet. I will put them up as soon as I can.

So Bridger is officially weaned! The last time I nursed him was December 27 and it is done. He had a really hard time with whole milk at the beginning. By hard time I mean he absolutely hated it. He would touch the sippy cup with his tongue and once he knew it was milk he would throw the sippy cup while staring me down. For days we tried to get him to like it and it finally paid off. He LOVES it now. He drinks about 2 whole sippy cups of milk a day now and he eats it with his cold cereal in the morning.

Bridger is also walking. Not taking a few steps here and there- walking. He just follows me around throughout the day and when he gets sick of walking, he insists that I carry him around. He loves to point at everything in sight and talk in gibberish about what he's pointing at. He is yum yum yummy.

Brody cracks me up. He says the most random things and is really learning how to have conversations and ask questions. He loves nursery and can name everyone in his class -and he does so every Sunday after church when we ask who he played with in nursery. He is usually a very polite boy with other kids and knows that when you push someone (not polite) you need to say sorry and give them a hug. He even says sorry to other kids who are apologizing to him.

Adam started his Pashto refresher course this week and it lasts the whole month. It's nice for me because he has a normal schedule again- M-F, 8:30-3:30. We even get to sleep in the same bed at the same time!

My calling at church is keeping me busy. I have had a few quiet nights to make cards and do crafty stuff, which I LOVE.

Have a great week everyone! Eliza, update your blog, okay?