Crazy Weird

Okay, so I was looking at my past profile pictures on Facebook and noticed the weirdest thing.  Do you remember when I was pregnant with Cannon and my hair went through that crazy naturally curly phase?  No?  I didn't either, but then I saw this picture:

and I remembered even blogging about it, although I can't find the link at the moment. 

Anyway, I wonder if Cannon's curly hair DNA was messing with mine.  Seriously.  Look at the curls this boy has and tell me there isn't a connection:

It's crazy weird and I love that we had that little connection in the womb.

One More Conversation...

I ofrgot to post this one. 

Lily walking past Miss Traci's house (2 houses away from ours) just 2 days after preschool ended:  Hi Miss Traci!  It's me, Lily.  Do you remember me?  I was in your preschool class.

Conversations

some conversations from April and May I found on my phone:

Brigham:  Mom, you'ye a fancy geuyl.
Me:  Thank you!  You sure know how to make a mom feel good.
Lily never to be outdone:  Mom, you're the nicest mom ever.
Brigham:  No, she's the cutest mom eveyr.

Lily to Brigham:  Brigham, London wants to marry you.
Brigham:  I can't marry London, Lily.  I'm going to be Batman when I grow up and marry Batgirl.
Me:  Really?  Where do you think you'll get married?
Brigham:  In the Batman Temple Hawaii.

Brigham:  Mom, when was I a grandpa?
Me:  You haven't been a grandpa yet, Brigham.  You have to grow up first.
Brigham:  Oh, Right!  I'm going to be a grandpa after I'm done being a Superhero!

Lily:  Mom, will I still have the same name when I'm a mom?
Me:  You sure will.
Lily:  You mean I'll still be Lily?
Me:  Yep, you still will.
Lily:  Wow!  When I grow I'm going to have a little girl and I'm going to name her Lily and I'm going to spank her tailbone.

Brigham:  Mom, I have two super powers.
Me:  You do?  What are they?
Brigham:  Touching my eyeballs and running speedy fast.



a few random Hawaii conversations I ran across:



Chloe:  We're going to Hawaii.  This is better than Christmas!!

Chloe:  Right now all my friends will be in school and we're in Hawaii!

Lily:  Is there school in Hawaii?
Are there gymnastics in Hawaii?
This is my first time on a bus!
That's the first sailboat I've ever seen in real life!

Lily to Grandma Judy:  Grandma, you have to hear this.  This morning I was out on the beach and I said 'Aloha' to somebody and you'll never guess what they said back.  They. said. Aloha!!!!


Lily out of the blue in Hawaii (Grandma Allen wasn't even on the trip):  Mom, I guess Grandma Allen was the first one born.
Stanton:  Yep, she was.
Lily:  Yeah, because she looks so old.


Chloe at the beginning of the night show at the PCC:  Mom, I made a wish on the first star I saw and it twinkled at me.  I can't tell you what it was because then it won't come true.
About halfway through the show:  Mom, my wish is starting to come true!
After the show ended:  Mom, my wish came true and now I can tell you what it was!  I wished that I would have a great time at this show tonight and I did!


and from more recently:

Lily seeing something while driving in the car...in a disgusted voice: That is so Jewish.
We've been reading the New Testament lately and Yes, I explained to her that while the Jews who lived during Christ's time were unkind to Him, the ones who live today are quite good and nice.

Brigham yelling from the bathtub:  Dad!  I have a pwobwem.  These guys keep sinking!
Thank goodness he was talking about his toys...


Brigham:  The underwear in my swimming suit are kissing my bum.
He had a wedgie.

Chloe after running into a friend from clear back in preschool days at the library:  Well, that sure was a good conversation.


Brigham fiddling with the pad on his bike handlebars:  Mom, where's the button that turns this into a rocket?

Random Cell Phone and Photo Booth Pictures

This is how I greeted my new neighbor as I was on my way to my swim class.   

Nothing says awesome like one lensed sunglasses.
Seriously.  I didn't even notice it until I took them off to clean them.  
I drove around town like this, people.

Found whilst vacuuming out the van.

The great flip flop disappearance of 2010:  Solved.

 Wicked cool bedhead the morning after swim class.
You can tell Brigham liked it.  
Later that day, after I'd tamed the mop, he said, "Mom, wheyr did youyr cazy haiy go?  I wiked it!"

Brigham's First Talk

Brigham gave his first Primary talk several weeks ago.  I'm certain Chloe & Lily were several months older than Brigham when they gave their first talks, but I still think it's funny how we practiced and worked and memorized those talks with them.  With Brigham, it was a scramble to even get it done (we had short notice) and I just didn't feel any obligation to have him up there by himself giving it completely memorized. 
You'll notice he gets distracted about halfway through and starts asking where his talk is.  He was convinced that his "talk" was the little reminder paper his Primary teacher brought him.

Various (Collaged) Items

These collages are really helping me catch up on my blogging.  Bless you, Picasa.

A few fun happenings over the last couple of months...

So....We Went to Hawaii...

...in MAY.  I always dread writing up the posts about huge trips.  We had a great time and enjoyed bringing Chloe & Lily this year.  They were so much fun and made this the funnest trip we've ever taken to Hawaii.  I'm super glad we didn't opt to bring the boys.  We'll wait until they're a bit older before we take all 4.  They had fun with Duren & Deyette (Stanton's accounts manager).  They were so great with the boys and made them feel like they were on vacation, too.
Since I'm so late in doing this and have so many fun pictures I want to include, I'm going the collage route again.  No date order--just recaps of the fun things we did.

This really was the trip of a lifetime.

Brotherly Love

Brotherly Love in our house often goes from this:

to this:

to this:

to this:

in no time flat.  And believe it or not, the roles are reversed just as frequently.

The Chicken Whisperer

Cannon's favorite evening activity is chicken chasing.  Coincidentally, our favorite evening activity is watching Cannon chase the chickens.
He's not really at all interested in catching them...he just likes to herd them.

Overheard:
Cannon to chickens:  Foofy, come eer...making the come here hand motion.  Wuh, Too, Bee.  In a stern voice: Foofy.

And in other news, it's this beautiful girl that's been giving us an earlier than expected daily egg.  She's even found the nesting box (with a bit of help from Stanton) and leaves us a fresh egg every day.  They're getting a little bit bigger and are uniformly golden brown in color.  We're very proud of our early girl.
And it's taking every ounce of self control I possess to resist making an early bird pun here....

4th of July on the 6th

We promised the kids we'd do fireworks for Family Home Evening on the 5th.  It didn't happen.  Instead, we lit them the evening of the 6th and the kids had a ball.  Come to think of it, so did we.  One of the things I really love about my kids is their enjoyment of just about anything.  They have low expectations as far as fun is concerned....evidenced by the fact that they were completely thrilled that we did fireworks, even though it was $20 worth and in daylight.

 

The best conversation of the night came from Lily, who took to heart every word of warning we gave the kids about the dangers of fireworks.  

After the lecture, we proceeded to give each kid a sparkler to run around with.  As soon as we handed Cannon his, Lily yelled, "Cannon!!!  Keep it away from your body!"  I'm feeling like that is getting lost in translation, but it was hilarious in the moment.  And Cannon did great with his sparklers, although the look on his face expressed his agreement with Lily on the dangers of toddlers with fireworks.  He was content with one or two and watching the kids do the rest.

Swim Lessons

The kids take from an awesome instructor who is no nonsense and really gets results.  We've loved her.

This was Brig's first year and he did really well.  He's here and there in his love for/fear of the diving board, but on showoff day, he did pretty well. 

Gin moved Chloe and Lily up a level after their first class this session.  They are becoming great swimmers.  Lily doesn't love that the divider rope is off, as for her it sort of serves as a security blanket.  She's doing well, though, and overcoming that fear.  Fear notwithstanding, the girl can swim and swim well.

Chloe, on the other hand, can't get enough.  She's a total fish and loves being in the water.  I was shocked at how well she was swimming on showoff day.

Family Home Evening in the Canyon

We took a quick trip up Smithfield Canyon for Family Home Evening a couple of weeks ago.  It was supposed to be an extended family affair, but one by one, we were the only ones left going -- us and Judy.  It was really fun to have her there.

How We Entertained 'Em

While Porter & Kamryn were here, we kept the kids happy and busy by....working!!

They helped us shovel, sweep, and clear out the huge mound of playground (not to be played on by shoeless children -which is why we were getting rid of it-) bark.  They were as happy as could be.

Coming Home

We spent a wonderful 3ish days at my sister, Lori's, house for our family reunion this Thurs, Fri, and Sat.  It was more fun than I can express.  This is the first year where I can say that sincerely, which gives me tremendous joy.  I'm so grateful for my kids and my tremendous family.  So very, very grateful.

I plan to do a post about the reunion (you know, like the post I'm planning to do about our family trip to Hawaii *ahem*), but the afternoon we spent here after we got home was one I want to capture while it's still fresh.

We came home to joyful signs of life all around us --

We haven't even unloaded the van yet, but who cares?  This is real life.