Monsoon!

There is one bright spot to the dreadfully hot Arizona summer, Monsoon Season! For some reason I always thought the monsoons were mostly in July but we have had some good August monsoons as well. Last night was one of them, after we got the kids ready for bed the rain and wind started. The kids thought the hard rain was cool and so I said lets go out and play in it! Andy said you will seriously get soaked, um duh, isn't that the point??? So I ran out as the kids watched me, the lighting flashing all around, they were a little bit scared. Finally Hayden got up the nerve to come out with me and we were running and splashing and I said this is so fun and he said, "This is not fun mom!" and ran inside. A few minutes later (after he finished his donut) he came out to play and started having fun. We were splashing in the "river" flowing down our street. Brynley cried at the front door and I finally got her out. Unfortunately, Andy couldn't get many good pictures because the flash kept picking up the rain drops. We are in for a few more storms this weekend, I can't wait! The downside is the hot and humid air we have today but we'll just stay inside! Ooh, I hear thunder as I am typing this, yay!

Seriously... Where did this girl come from???

Modeling Andy's socks after church

My dad will be the first to tell you where she came from - her mother. Yes folks, apparently I gave my parents a run for their money growing up and Brynley seems to be taking after me quite nicely I suppose! Let me make a list of what she's been up to this week:

1 - On Sunday night I woke around 3 am to hear Zac crying and within a few minutes he abruptly stopped so I went to see if he was okay. As I left my room I noticed Bryn's door was opened and every light in the house was on. Once I got to Zac's room, I noticed Brynley putting his pacifier in. I took Brynley out and told her she needed to get back to bed. Her blankets and stuffed animals were downstairs on the couch and her special lovey blanket was in Hayden's bed. I don't know how long she had been up wandering the house but I thought it was pretty funny. There is now a lock on her door that locks form the outside so she can't escape at night!

2 - Monday night I asked the kids to finish their dinner and then they could take a bath. Hayden finished his quickly and Brynley would hardly touch hers. I sat there for 10 minutes tying to get her to eat and she kept trying to get down from the table to take a bath. I was getting so frustrated with her because I hardly gave her anything to begin with. A few minutes later I went to give Zac his pacifier in the swing and my head was literally turned for 5 seconds. Brynley announced that she finished her dinner as she was shutting the garbage can lid. Yep, she threw her food away. I put her right to bed an hour early and spent the next 45 minutes taking her back up to her bed because she kept getting out, crying hysterically that she needed to take a bath.

3 - After using the potty the other day, Brynley came walking out of the bathroom with her underwear not quite all the way up and I noticed something on her underwear and thought it was a piece of toilet paper. No, it was a panty liner that Brynley got out of my cabinet, opened and stuck on her underwear! I promptly took it out and told her it was only for mommy's, I have caught her with one in her underwear two other times this week!

4 - After Caroline was here playing the other day I went into Brynley's room to find about 40 starburst wrappers on the floor and a bag of marshmallows almost empty on the floor - those two are quite a pair the way they obsess about food. I am sure Brynley will hoard food someday.

5 - As were getting ready to go to gymnastics on Wednesday we heard Hayden yell from upstairs that Brynley broke the toilet. Andy ran up and I heard him yell so loud, I thought for sure the toilet had been ripped from the floor or something. I run up to see Hayden standing there naked, he had apparently been going to the bathroom, while Brynley had been scrubbing the inside of the toilet with her bare hands and some soap! This girl is obsessed with toilets now, I can't get her to stop touching them. She dips things in and takes them out. Yesterday she found a fake flower and was caught swishing it around in the toilet water - yuck!

I am sure there is so much more... Like Brynley over flowing the sink water, drawing on herself and Hayden with a permanent marker, beating up on Hayden all the time, and going to the back of the van every single time we get in the car. I remind her every time we are going into the garage to get in her car seat, but inevitably she gets herself buckled in the back and I have to yank her to the middle seats as she's crying and I'm yelling at her. When will she figure out that life would be so much easier if she would just listen???

Where's Brynley?

On Saturday we finally made the switch and gave Brynley her own Big Girl bed so that Zac could have a real crib. She was really excited about it and took a good nap in it without falling out so I figured she would be great for night time. We didn't hear a sound from her all night and so at 4 am I went in to check on her only to find this:

Brynley was no where in sight. I checked her closet, I called her name, I checked her old bedroom, I checked Hayden's room, and I basically walked all over the house calling for her. I went and told Andy that I couldn't find her but he didn't seem too worried. So I went back to her room, a little perplexed when suddenly I heard a sigh, so upon closer inspection (granted it was pitch dark in her room) I saw this:
Bryn's little foot was sticking out from under her bed at the end where her head should have been!

I couldn't resist taking pictures, these are very reminiscent of pictures of me when I was girl with my arm and leg stuck in the bookshelf next to my bed. When Bryn came downstairs that morning I asked her if she was sleeping under her bed. Her response: "I just came off my bed and bonked my head." Poor thing, hopefully she learned her lesson.

There was no falling out of bed last night, just a little girl waking at 6 am to go in Zac's room! I think the door will be getting a lock soon!

If only I had my camera at church...

I had a first time experience at church yesterday, much to the amusement of those seated within50 feet of us! It happened to be the quietest point in church, while the sacrament was being past, and I was holding Zac above my head admiring him, I learned that many around us were also admiring him. As he was smiling down at me he decided to projectile vomit all over me. Yes folks, it was covering my face, in my mouth, in my hair and all over the front of both he and I. I sort of sat there stunned as Hayden and Brynley looked truly frightened by the ordeal and Andy could only laugh. I didn't even have a burp cloth with me or anything, just Zac's little taggy blanket which I tried to use to clean myself up as fresh puke was dripping from my nose. Once the sacrament was over, I swiftly rushed out to the bathroom to try to clean us up with paper towels. After washing out my mouth, I was happy to find a piece of gum in my diaper bag to somewhat take away the taste of puke!

At the end of the meeting I had 4 or 5 people come up to me expressing sympathy and telling me that it was the funniest thing they have witnessed in a very long time! I am so glad that I could be the source of joy to so many innocent bystanders!

Life at our house...

It seems there's never a dull moment around here so I wanted to share a few from the last week.

First... Brynley is potty trained!!!! Yay!!! Once she knew how to do it, there has been no stopping her, and she loves all of her cute underwear. All toilets are now called potty trains, according to her, some are just bigger than others. She was at a friend's house yesterday and even went totally on her own without even telling the mom, I'm so proud. One thing I forgot about this whole potty training thing was how they can now examine their poop and see what it looks like. All kids do this right??? Last night it looked like a carrot apparently and this morning it looked like a teddy bear. I must say, I had to agree with the bear analysis. Anyway, I am beyond excited that we are "done" with potty training for another 2 years or so.

The three kids ready for church on Sunday

Crazy Zac!

The second thing I wanted to share just touched me so deeply when it happened, let me share... Last Tuesday Hayden didn't get a stamp on his behavior chart from school and I told him I was disappointed and told him that he wouldn't be able to play the Wii that day. He cried for what seemed like forever and so we just talked about how he has to remember to be good ALL day at school. So the next day (Wed.) I reminded him that he had to get a stamp on his chart if he wanted to play the Wii, he gets home and has no stamp. I felt bad for the kid, 7 hours at school is a long time and his misbehavior's didn't seem too bad to me. So that night at dinner, Hayden said the prayer and asked Heavenly Father to help him be good at school the next day. On Thursday morning as we were getting ready to leave for school we knelt and had family prayer (which doesn't happen in the am very often) and we asked again to help Hayden be good at school. Sure enough when I picked him up that afternoon he had a stamp and his teacher even remarked that she could tell all day if he started to get off task, he would remind himself to do better. As we drove home Hayden said, "Oh I forgot to tell Ms. Tapia about my prayer!" I told him it was okay, he didn't have to tell her and then he asked if we could pray everyday before he leaves for school. Since then he has had a stamp everyday and I am so proud of him!

Our New House!

So, we finally decided to build the house that we have had our eye on for over a year. We are very excited and are hoping that it will be done by the end of December if all goes well. Ours will be more of a tan color rather than the grey in the picture above. We went to the design center yesterday and chose all of our cabinets, flooring, lighting, etc... I'm such a nerd because I chose almost the exact same cabinets that I had in my old house. Many of you will remember that I was so sad to leave my cabinets and I am so glad that this builder had almost the same ones! Here is a picture of our tile, carpet, cabinets, counter and grout sample:

I'm still unsure on the grout, it's a little light and won't really hide dirt so I may be going back tomorrow to change that!

We are very excited, my aunt and uncle will be building a second home right next to us and our lot is almost at the end of a cul de sac as well as being right near the park. We will now have plenty of room for anyone who wants to come visit!

So proud of myself!

For any of you who read my tag post last week, I had some things I needed to work on. One being fixing Brynley's hair because it really intimidates me. So I took some time last week to actually try new things in her hair and I am so proud of myself. The picture above is one of the hairdos I tried this week, I didn't get pictures of any other dos but I thought this one was cute and she even sat still for it!

In other news, I had a goal to cook at least 4 times last week and I did it! So far I have actually cooked 5 time this week, yay for me and yay for the pocket book!

4 Months Old!

Our sweet baby Zac is 4 months old today! Wow, how time flies with baby number 3! Right now Zac is very talkative and will smile at the drop of a hat (accept when I'm trying to take pictures!). We all love him so much and don't know what our life would be like without him. Meredith always comments that he is the most mellow baby she has ever seen, I would tend to agree, but he's not perfect! He has a serious pacifier addiction and because I am such a sucker, I will go in his room at all hours of the night to get it for him. Andy keeps trying to get me to do the tough love thing and let him cry but really, this is the only thing he ever cries about so I figure I can at least do this one little thing for him! He is still barfing everywhere and doesn't have bowel movements on his own but he is perfect other than that. I hope he stays this way forever and never grows up to talk back to me and throw tantrums! We love you Zachar!

The Potty Train!

I decided last week after I purchased a box of diapers at Costco that it was about time Brynley be potty trained. I promptly returned the box of diapers and bought a much smaller pack at the store to get me through the potty training process. I took Brynley to buy some underwear, she chose a bright colored pack and a pack of Littlest Petshop undies. She almost got the fairies but then saw the petshop ones and had to have those! Meredith and Maddy and I were trying to get her excited on Saturday about getting potty trained, and thus we have, The Potty Train:

Yes, that's right, she calls her potty chair a potty train! She has had a great day and even told me twice when she had to go potty and even took her potty train to the playroom and did it all on her own! She had a few accidents but overall she is doing great! I am so proud of her and I knew she could do it, hopefully by the end of the week we will be diaperless, (for her anyway)!

Day 2...

From what I can tell, day one of kindergarten went off without a hitch! Hayden was happy when I picked him up though he was tired, thirsty, and hungry! His lunch time is at 10:20 am, and he doesn't get out of school until 3:50. When I opened his lunchbox, he had a lot of lunch leftover which I promptly turned in to an after school snack for him. Today we talked about how he needs to try to eat lunch fast so that he can try to finish it today! It made me happy last night when I asked Hayden if he wanted to go to school again after he woke up and he said yes. He really wanted to pick out his outfit this morning so I let him, I probably would have chosen a polo shirt or button down but he has been very eager to wear his Superhero shirt.

He said he made a lot of friends at school but there were so many he can't remember their names. He was excited that he got to swing 2 times at recess, and he told me all about the tour of the school and how they went to the office and the principal was waiting outside to say hi to everyone. I think I will let him buy his lunch tomorrow, we'll see how that goes!

Brynley wanted in on the picture action this morning. I think it will be a bit of an adjustment for her not to have Hayden here all day. Yesterday she kind of followed me around all day... For those curious, no, I did not send Hayden to school with a dirty face, somehow he got a really deep scratch on his face on Sunday, not sure how that happened.

First Day of School!

It is so hard to believe that Hayden is in Kindergarten now! He's been so excited looking forward to this day but I'm not sure he actually realizes how long All Day Kindergarten really is! As I look at the picture below it is hard to imagine this big kid as my little baby boy, he has really grown up fast.

It was scary to see Hayden surrounded by so many other kids, ready to head off on his own. I worry so much for him, I am scared that other kids might pick on him, I'm worried that he won't know how to communicate effectively while at school and that he won't be able to stand up for himself. He's a very smart kid but sometimes it's a little hard to get his attention, I wish his teacher good luck!

I hope he has a fun day, he looked a little apprehensive as he walked with hi backpack and lunchbox into the school but I'm sure he will be fine!

I've been tagged!

I was just tagged by Cara, so here goes...

How to play this game of tag. Post these rules on your blog:List 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts about yourself. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

3 Joys: My Family, Eating Out, Watching a favorite TV show
3 Fears: That Hayden will struggle in Kindergarten, We won't find the "perfect" house, Losing one of my children
3 Goals: To finish the book I just started, To cook dinner at least 4 times this week!, To get back to the gym now that Hayden will be in school and I only have two kids to take with me
3 Current Obsessions: The Wii - Mario Kart, Trying to find a house, Jones Soda-Berry Lemonade
3 Random Facts: I am not a reader, I hardly ever finish a book that I have started, I have the hardest time fixing Brynley's hair, it seriously stresses me out, and until this week I had only ever sent about 10 text messages in my life, I have a new phone and I can't stop texting with it!

I tag: Meghan, Kristin M., Wendy, Toni, and Kristen J.