Just when you thought our pool couldn't get any more awesome...

...we added this little beauty thanks to Craigslist! Can't wait for the cousins to get here!

A Sad Day

Some of you may remember a couple years ago when Scott asked for a VERY expensive swimming pool, and he got it! Check out this post to see just how awesome and expensive the pool was.

Sadly, we enjoyed the pool for 2.5 summers, but it is not going to make it another year. So thanks to our $8 pool for so many fun memories!

Thinking ahead to Halloween

Scott told me today who he wants to be for Halloween...


John Henson (on the right), cohost of Wipeout

Maybe we could make it a family thing and Charlotte could be Jill Wagner and Trevor could be John Anderson. And Drew and I could dress up as the Big Balls, or maybe the Motivator...

I swore I would never...

...get a minivan. But now with 3 kids, I get it now now. We still drive the Pilot, but this video is enough to give me the final push to convert:

A Little Obsessed

Since his birthday, Scott has been a little obsessed with Super Mario Brothers Wii. Fortunately the 24/7 desire to do nothing but play Mario has subsided a bit in the past couple weeks. That's since I implemented a new rule that he has to earn time to play Wii by reading. If he reads 30 minutes one day, he can play Wii 30 minutes the next day. One of my more brilliant parenting moves. But I thought I would share the evidence of his obsession that he brought home from school a few weeks ago:


If you can't read it, Scott's sentence using the word "up":

I got a 1up on Super Mario Bros.

He did use the word 'up' correctly, so I guess he gets full credit.

If there is another male Syphi...

Drew and I love to watch college football and basketball. And during the past season for both sports, we have used our white board on the fridge to record our favorite names. We may be done having kids, but Allison just found out she's having a boy. So Allison and any of my other friends expecting boys in the future, here are some suggestions!

Jamario
Jermajesty (Not a football player, but Jermaine Jackson's son. How could I leave this name off the list?)
Plaxico
Jovante
Jamarcus
Dinero (Cindy has called this one: Dinero Money Thomas)
Martavius
Tyreke
Javis
Jacquizz (my personal fav, especially with "Quizz" as a nickname)
LaMicahel
Rondavian
Ochocinco (Technically a last name, but also must be included since the guy legally changed his last name to match his jersey number)
Rantavius
Legerette
Charvez
JaMychal
Julysses (a new discovery, definitely in my top 5)
DeMario
DeMarcus
DeAndre or DeAundre
Johndre
Darshawn

I'd love to hear your favorite. And if you have any additions to add to the list, please pass them along.

Mustard, oatmeal and ice

When Cindy, Jeff and I were kids, at some point a conversation like this took place with my mom:

"Mom, there's nothing to eat in the house."

"Sure there is. You just aren't looking."

"OK. We have mustard, oatmeal and ice."

So ever since then, whenever the refrigerator gets especially bare, we will say, "We have TONS of food. There is mustard, oatmeal and ice."

We reached the point of mustard, oatmeal and ice this week. I was going to take a picture of my bare refrigerator, but the drawers and shelves were so dirty it would have been embarrassing. I had no bread, no vegetables, no fruit (not even in cans), no yogurt, and just a teeny bit of milk left.

So I finally went shopping last night. But as I was leaving I asked Holly (my wonderful sister-in-law who is staying with us for a little while) if she wanted me to pick up anything. And here was that conversation:

Holly: "Sure. I will make 7-layer bars if you can get coconut, chocolate and butterscotch chips, sweetened condensed milk, corn syrup, graham crackers and pecans."

Me: "Um, I think I have all of that stuff here at home."

So I have absolutely NO fruit or vegetables in the house, but I just happen to have every random ingredient for these fabulous cookies. What does that say about me?

Important lesson learned

Charlotte was SO excited to go to the Little Gym for her dance class. And with her newly discovered confidence and willingness to actually participate, I was talking it up too. She was all dressed from the moment she woke up in her leotard, tights and tap shoes.

Then Mommy thought... Wait. It is Presidents' Day. Oops! The Little Gym was closed. Charlotte was so disappointed (as was I). So how did I suggest that we make things better?

"Let's go shoe shopping at Target!"

It is amazing how a cheap pair of Tinkerbell flip-flops can turn things around! And Charlotte learned that shoe shopping can cure some of life's disappointments. It is as true for a 3-year-old as it is for a 35-year-old.

Our litte Wookie

We have been trying for months to get on video Trevor doing his Chewbacca immitation... This is the best we've got so far!

How lucky can a 5-year-old get?

Yesterday poor Scott spent the morning throwing up and the afternoon recovering. Here's what he told me today:

"Mom, I was SO lucky yesterday that I didn't have to eat breakfast, lunch OR dinner! I only drank a tiny bit of water. That was so lucky!"

Lucky?!? Really? Please tell me some day this kid will eat willingly.

While I'm writing about Scott and how silly he is, the other day he was very entertained taking pictures with my camera. Here was my favorite sequence of shots:

Crash landings

I stole this post title from my sister-in-law Sara... Since school started for Charlotte and Scott, they have fallen asleep in some pretty random places and times. Here are a few:

A proud moment for a fake blonde mom

Why does my first born child love me? Yes, he loves my black hair. For those of you not familiar with the term "partial highlight", let me explain. When I get my hair highlighted, I only have the top part done, leaving the hair underneath the natural (ugly) color. Scott has always been obsessed with my hair, but he especially likes to play with what he calls my 'black hair', or the non-bleached part. Yes, my natural color is sadly that dark now. Isn't that a touching Mother's Day tribute? In case you are wondering who is Mario, Scott continues to give himself a different name every day or two. Last week it was Mario. Today it is Birdo. I guess you have to know something about Nintendo video games to get it. Charlotte's gifts for me were a candy necklace she made in nursery, and that she willingly wore this adorable dress and cute red shoes that I have been trying to convince her to try on for weeks.

Inspirational FHE

Does playing Rock Band together count as a wholesome family activity? Hope your Family Home Evening last night was as inspirational as ours! Hey, at least we weren't playing the AC/DC version.

Dear Amazon Guy...

Scott LOVES getting on Amazon.com and looking for his favorite toys/movies. Some of you may remember the infamous one-click purchasing episode where Scott found a couple of Baby Einstein movies he thought looked cool and ordered them for himself... Well, since one-click purchasing is turned off, now he just adds things to my cart. I think there were about 25 items (all related to the movie Cars) last time I checked.

This past year was the first Christmas where Scott really understood the whole Santa thing and how we write letters to him. So he thought for his birthday it made sense to write letters to the "Amazon Guy" to give him a wish list. Makes sense to a 4-year-old, right? We had to have a few conversations about how you just can't ask the Amazon Guy for whatever you want and expect it to appear in a box on the doorstep in a couple of days... Wow. How different is this generation from ours??? Here are a couple of his letters:
By the way, Scott is very into changing his name to whatever sounds interesting for the day. Apparently "Race-o-rama", one of the Cars characters, was the name of choice for the day he was writing his notes.

Quote for the day

We were driving to church this morning, but since we had Stake conference, we were heading to different building. Scott told me:

"I'm pretty sure this is the way to Hawaii."

Don't we all wish, Scott...

Maui January 2008

Flashback a few decades...

This is hysterical! Go to http://www.yearbookyourself.com/ and try it out! Here is what I might have looked (or did look) like in years past:

1952: Wow - this totally reminds me of my Grammie Helen!

1966: Not such a bad look for me!

1972: Apparantly I didn't change a whole lot from 1966 until now...

1974: My mom looked EXACTLY like this in 1974!

1984: Watch out Olivia Newton John!

1990: My hair for junior high graduation looked pretty much just like this...

Beware of One Click Purchasing...

The other day, two packages arrived at our house from Amazon.com. I thought Drew must have ordered something, and when he saw them, he thought they were mine. So they sat on the counter for a couple of days until we realized neither of us had ordered anything. Then we opened the boxes and here is what we found:

Yes, Scott got on Amazon.com, searched for Baby Einstein and ordered a couple that he thought looked interesting. One-click purchasing was turned on, so it just took selecting one little button! But I am grateful this was all he ordered... He also used the Google toolbar (all by himself) to search for "Playground in my backyard" and found a pretty sweet play structure at CostCo.com. That would have been quite a surprise to see that delivered...

What am I going to do with this kid?

P.S. I know I am REALLY behind of my blog, but hope to add several new posts this week with all the fun things that have happened in the past month!

You can't teach this sort of thing...

Charlotte is such a girl. Yesterday when we went to the gym, she wore her sunglasses and beads and took her purse filled will all sorts of interesting treasures. She looked quite lovely:

The Evers Family Snowball Fight

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

A Proud Moment

So Scott, Grandma and I were sitting on the couch the other day, and he burps. He knows to say "Excuse me", but naturally he thought it was hilarious and giggled and said a bunch of random stuff - anything OTHER than 'excuse me'. Being the diligent mom, trying to teach my son a lesson, I continued to pressure him on this. "You know what to say after you burp. Say it!" Then, a pause... And here is what came out of his mouth:

BUSTED!

Grandma couldn't stop giggling...