Hard Time

Lately, I've been having a hard time with something--the fact that my boys are growing up so fast. It seriously stinks. Yet each and every day and every new milestone is so fun. How can it be so bittersweet?!?

The other day we were looking at old pictures and videos. It made me so teary eyed. I couldn't believe how young Caleb and Carson were!! It was shocking! When did they grow up? How is it that time is flying by so fast? And while I am trying to just enjoy each day, sometimes it just hits me hard how old they are and how big they've gotten. And it makes me cry.

Perhaps I've lived in Texas too long. I fear I get closer and closer to the dark side each day I live here. I heard this country song and *liked* it (yes, you read that right! I know!!!) and it totally fit how I was feeling today. (Thanks, Brandy!)

Instead of just posting a link to the song, I decided to post some of my favorite pictures of my boys with it:


Sigh. Is it bad that I never want my boys to grow up?

Post edit: Ah yes...minor detail...the song is "Never Grow Up" by Taylor Swift and I cut out parts to make it shorter! (Thanks, JoEllen!)

Lately

Lately...

...we have been trying a few different very hole in the wall places. Yummy!

Lately...

...I have been missing our camera. It's been missing for months and months. I've determined it is forever gone. Kind of a bummer. The only camera we have now is on our phones. Pretty good...but.... Like the picture above--we went to the Magik Children's Theater and I just couldn't get a good picture of Caleb meeting the cast. (Show was aWeSoMe by the way--I really didn't know which was funnier--the show, or Caleb laughing hysterically at the show! We will definitely go back!)

Lately...



...we have been enjoying lots of Sea World.

Lately...

...we had a fun visit with my brother Kody who came to town for work. But well...we didn't take his picture. But I did take this picture when he was with us. That counts for something, right? We love uncle Kody. And Rudys.

Lately...

...I think the arcade game that usually dispenses one bouncy ball as a prize was broken.... Cause we got 30. Bouncy ball anyone? Can life get any better? Monkey bread and 30 bouncy balls!

Lately...

...we've been digging the new HEB (grocery store) that they just opened near our house. Race car carts, balloons, suckers, buddy bucks, samples galore.... Suddenly grocery shopping is so much more fun!

Lately...

...Caleb offers to hold his brother's hand to keep him safe in the parking lots. Melts. My. Heart. Every time!

Lately...


...we've entered a new phase of life. The phase where we wear what we want to the store. And bring what we want to the store. Whatever keeps us happy while shopping.

Lately...

...we've been learning some new tricks. Like headstands. (And for Carson--somersaults. He is great at them and giggles hysterically after each one he does. Funny kid!)

Lately...

...we have to set an extra plate out for our pet t-rex. I know...I know...pets eating at the table? What can I say? I'm a sucker. (Caleb always gets his pet some meat because he's a carnivore, you know.... :) Lunch meat counts, right?!?)

Lately...



...I find my boys reading together a lot. I just love to see my boys reading together. Especially the children's scripture reader. They are all into the stories and I love it!

Lately...

...we have enjoyed playing the wii together. Really close together! :) (You don't think those boys love their dad at all, do you?)

Lately...

...Caleb lines stuff up. Oh wait. Maybe he's done that before. But he is very creative and loves to use his imagination lately. Here he had 67 cars lined up and was feeding dinner to each and every one. (And yes...I counted out 67 pieces of cereal for those guys, as instructed by Caleb. I hope those cars appreciate my hard work. :)

Lately...

...we have been enjoying the weather and swimming.

Lately...

...we have had a couple of ghosts riding in the backseat of our car everywhere we go.

Lately...

...those ghosts think they're funny. Very funny. (Ok. They are.)

Lately...

...Carson is all about helping. Caleb has taught him well.

Lately...

...we have enjoyed a home movie theater. Life is so rough!

Lately...

...we (term used loosely) find strange things to play with. Like the diaper genie full of dirty diapers. (Remind me why we buy toys again?)

Lately...

...we love to play games with each other and with friends. But, hey...if they're busy...that's ok. We can just play games with our stuffed animals. (In this case--5 stuffed animals each had their own bingo card that Caleb was helping them mark.)

Lately...

...Carson cannot seem to just walk anywhere. Physically not possible. He has to skip, hop, gallop or jump his way everywhere. And we all find it very adorable. I seriously giggle every time. It never gets old!

Lately...

...I find Caleb helping Carson with whatever he needs or wants. He really is such a sweet kid. (See that dark picture? Missing my camera, I tell ya! :(

Lately...


...I just love to see my boys pal around together.

Lately...

...I just love how much my boys love each other.

Lately...

...I'm behind in blogging. And apparently I like very long posts to make up for it. You still here? :)

Lately...

...life is good.

Itzhack Perlman

Two more posts. I am on a roll! :)

For his birthday, I got Chris tickets to see Itzhack Perlman. Shhhhh...to be honest, I really didn't know much about him. But Chris had mentioned him a time or two (or ten) so I thought...what the heck...sounds like a good birthday present. Well... I hit the birthday present JACKPOT! Chris was SOOOO excited. (I love it when I accidentally hit that jackpot... :)

A couple days before the big concert day arrived, Chris got an email from the place where we bought Chris and Caleb's violins back in the day. They were advertising a contest to enter to win backstage passes to meet Itzhack Perlman. Chris entered and WON!

He was pretty much giddy to just have tickets to see this legendary man. So imagine the level of giddiness (can you say that referring to a guy? Whatever...just go with it!) when he found out he actually got to MEET him!

I was so excited. Not because I really understood how excited I should be, but because I KNEW how excited Chris was! I couldn't keep a smile off my face because it was so fun seeing him so excited about it!

Such a fun night. I just love that Chris guy.


(Ok...and maybe, just MAYBE I was an itsy bitsy, teensy weensy, little tiny bit distracted thinking about my bracket and March Madness and all the games I was missing.... But only a little bit. And I secretly and discreetly only checked the scores a couple times. :) But I don't feel too bad since I saw Chris also checking those scores during intermission. ;)

It really was wonderful music, a wonderful night, and even better company.

Going Green

Well, not really in the earthy kind of way...more like the St Patty's Day way.

Caleb and Carson woke up to Clue #1 that led them on a treasure hunt ending in a few fun St Patrick's day things.

And we had a bit of clover fun (love those cookie cutters!) with breakfast and lunch that day.



During the day, Caleb, Carson and Chris had to find the randomly placed invitation with their individual name on it. It was an invitation to our family St Patrick's Day party, complete with decorations!


The mini party started with a mock restaurant and a fun menu of green items to select from (sorry...no pics). And was followed by some fun shamrock coloring pages while their orders were put together. Followed by the menu items selected being delivered to the table



Next we played some silly, but fun games. Like throwing lucky pennies into our lucky leprechaun hat. Or the ever fun, letting an inflated green balloon go to see who can land closest to that green leprechaun hat .

We ended by eating our green desserts also selected from our menu of green items.

As always, the days leading up to St Patrick's Day were filled with festive pjs

(Ok...ok...perhaps they just squeezed into last year's....)

And the Queen of Packages, my awesome sister again sent the best package ever. EVER! I'm serious. She is the Queen of Packages. And festive holiday-ish pillowcase fun too. She's the queen of that too.

(The only picture I could find of said pillowcase. And by now the Easter ones are out so it is too late to take a picture. But this picture serves a dual purpose since it just cracks me up anyway. Poor kid was sleeping sitting up in his bed--his head was bobbing up and down and all around and banging into the crib. But he slept on. I'll have to find and post that video soon.)

Anyway. We had a good time. I love holidays. And I just love my cute boys.

Chris's Birthday!

Alrighty. Another marathon blogging session. 6 new posts. Watch out! It makes me sad because I always forget what all the fun stuff like three days later. But...you do what you can do, right?!?

To start out the festivities, we went with some good friends to the temple. Thanks, guys! It was wonderful!

Chris took the day off for his birthday. A nice present to the rest of us too on his birthday! He woke up to Caleb giving him a big hug and his first clue. We sent him on a treasure hunt for his gifts. Once he found and opened the last one (or so he thought!) we were having fun playing games when there was a knock at the door. The awesome Cheneys held onto his last gift for me and brought it over to surprise him. (Thank you, thank you by the way!)

A new electric acoustic. I think he likes it just a little bit. He falls asleep playing it every night. :)

We spent the day together and used one of his other presents that night--tickets to the rodeo/concert.

The weather was awesome and we had a great time walking around the fair grounds and watching the rodeo. In San Antonio, they kick the spurs out of the AT&T Center every year for a couple weeks while the rodeo is in town. It's a big deal here. After the rodeo was a Martina McBride concert. And I must say--I actually enjoyed the concert. I'm not much of a country music fan, but I did like and actually recognize a lot of her songs! Time to move out of Texas? :) Thankfully, my boys are still holding strong. They'd much rather do this

than listen to an ol' country concert. :)

We were also able to sneak away the next day and go have dinner together. Hmmm...was it my birthday or his? :) Perhaps I benefit too from it being his birthday! :) As always, it was great to spend some time together, just he and I.

And lastly, we ended our several day celebrations on Sunday when we were able to have friends over for cupcakes, root beer floats and games. Thanks again, guys!

We had a great time celebrating and love to be able to spend time together! I love birthdays.

Snow in San Antonio!

Our good friends came to visit from Utah. All 6 of them, ready for warm weather and fun! And then this happened:


Could not believe it! What are the chances?!? The first snow in 25 years and it has to be while our friends are here ready for a week of nice warm weather! We unfortunately got caught in an ice storm the night these pictures were taken. Scariest. Drive. Ever!! We watched several cars in front of us just driving along cautiously suddenly slide down the freeway into massive pile ups! People were spinning out and fish-tailing all over the place. Roads were closed. And it took 2.5 hours to get home from a drive that normally takes 20 minutes. I lived in Utah for 8 years--yet I think that was the slickest I'd ever seen roads! It was insane!

But we still managed to have lots of fun that week and are hoping they'll give us another chance soon! :) Thanks for coming! Always so fun to see you and spend time with your cute family!!!!

Valentine's Day

Hmmm...can't seem to find any pictures. Perhaps I didn't take many? The boys did get matching pjs.

(I thought this picture was funny and happened to show their Valentine's pjs. :) They're both holding their cup the same way and reading their books. :)

And then there is that awesome sister of mine. Everyone should have one that is so awesome. She made the boys some Valentine's pillowcases and then later sent a Valentine's package. She is queen of the packages. There were so many cool things in there. I wanted to steal some of them for myself! The boys were seriously giddy and dancing around when they saw the pillowcases! They love holidays and they LOVE those pillowcases!!!! They are always excited to get a package from aunt Nyn! Unfortunately, I didn't turn on the video camera until they settled down enough to open it. They were running around all giddy and excited just before this. So all you get to see is the tail end...but you get the idea!



And as if that wasn't enough...Chris has the sweetest and most thoughtful co-worker who also sent home valentine packages. They were in hEaVeN!

Anyway, we made our usual heart shaped sugar cookies. It was especially fun this year because we made them on Sunday when Chris was home. It was so fun to have him help us decorate them too and the boys had so much fun with him!!!

This year we snuck over to Chris's work and put hearts all over inside his car. Caleb worked hard all morning (and Carson for about 2 minutes :) drawing on the hearts and writing little notes to him. It was fun. That is, it was fun once we circled around and around and around the parking garage where he was parked trying to find the car!



Anyway...it was a fun day and we love our holidays!

Joint Party

Perhaps someday it won't be so fun...but for right now--having birthdays one day apart is awesome!

This year we headed back to Chuck E Cheese for a joint birthday party for the boys.





Carson is already getting kisses from the girls :)



Chris made awesome invitations. They were VIP passes that we put in plastic badge holders and attached a lanyard. Here is the front:


And the back:

Chris is hilarious. He always does such a good job with such things!

Why are there no pictures of Caleb? He was way too busy playing to stop and pose for pics. I love that kid.

Thanks to all of you that helped us celebrate the birthdays of our boys and helping them to feel so special and loved. And thank you to all of you that sent fun packages and cards. It was so fun checking the mail every day before their birthdays. They were giddy with excitement and anticipation each time we checked the mail. In fact...they still are!