bigger than my body gives me credit for

mom.  do i really need to wear this ridiculous sweater that you made for me?  i'm working hard to establish my street cred as the tough guy in the neighborhood and walking around in these feminine sweaters is not helping display my masculinity.  

i'm so embarrassed.  don't look at me.

Cry-Fest 2010

I've decided that I didn't just buy Milo out of a spur-of-the-moment need for something fuzzy to sit in my lap in the evenings while I read.

On Saturday my parents came into town and I offered to let them take both my boys back up to their house for a few days. I was planning on heading up there today for Thanksgiving so I thought it would be nice to have some alone time so I could get some big projects done.

I've sent Jackson to Grandma's house plenty of times before, but I've never sent Payton there before. Payton is always my little partner in crime. I thought I could handle 3 nights without my boys. I was already lonely by Sunday morning....

Yesterday I was preparing for my trip up to Idaho to see my boys and spend the holiday. I kept feeling uneasy about the trip so I checked the weather report and saw that there is a blizzard in eastern idaho (where my parents live) and when its done there it will head to SLC.

So unless I want to try my luck driving through a blizzard I'm going to be spending a few more days alone. Luckily I have my sweet, fury little Milo to fill a teeny tiny part of the void that I feel without my kids here with me.


So even though I'll be able to spend Thanksgiving a good friend, I'm still re-naming this holiday "Cry-Fest 2010" since I won't be with my babies.


HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Pirate

I'm glad I'm not the only one that falls asleep with their eye patch on.

puppy love

Have you ever noticed how after someone has a baby that's all they can talk about for like 6 months afterward??

Well you can expect that with me.

But I'm not talking about a baby.

I'm talking about my puppy.




{I ♥ milo}

{photoshop}

I have two obsessions lately. One is the photos I took of the ocean while living in California. The other is editing said photos in Photoshop. I've pretty much edited all the photos worth editing.

Now guess what I'm doing with my free time??

I'm going through facebook finding other peoples photos of the ocean and editing them for my own pleasure.

On my cousins' facebook page I found some pictures from his trip to Florida and thought I'd brighten them up a little bit.

This is why Photoshop is the best thing in the world:

Welcome!

The Boden Family added a member to its ranks this week!

Milo T. Ruffscowitz is our sweety little ShiChi (Shih Tzu/Chihuahua).

I've been wanting a dog for about a year now and frequently found myself on KSL looking at the puppy ads. I saw so many adorable little puppies, but never found one that I just had to have. Finally on Sunday I saw a picture of this little guy and fell in love.

Mister Milo is the perfect addition to our little family!

Food

I do my best cooking when I'm sick.

I'm just a picky eater in general, but when I'm not feeling well I'm a REALLY picky eater. When I'm sick there are only a few things that sound good to me. Chicken Noodle Soup. Roast Chicken. Stuffing. Mashed Potatoes. Potato Soup. Fresh Bread.

You know, all the good stuff that you eat when you go to Grandma's house.

But it can't be soup from a can, chicken from the store, instant mashed potatoes or Rhodes Frozen Bread. It has to be the real thing. Noodles made from scratch. Homemade stuffing shoved inside your chicken and roasted in your oven so your whole house smells. Real bread mixed in your mixer and set aside to rise for two hours.

I'm sick today, so of course that's what I spent my day doing. Roasting a chicken.

And there's a pie in the oven right now.

it finally happened

Remember back in January when I excitedly proclaimed that Jackson had his first loose tooth?? Well here we are 9 months later and that tooth has finally come out!!!

I was too chicken to really pull the tooth hard so unfortunately he ended up walking around for a few days looking all snaggle-toothed and weird.

But after my sister really loosened the tooth up for me I gathered the courage to pull it. Since we'd tried many times before and I'd scream every time I tried to pull the tooth I got Jackson pretty scared about the whole situation. I had to take drastic measures in order to get that tooth out. Bribery didn't work so the next option was sneak attack. I called him into my bathroom and when he walked around the corner I put him in a headlock and yanked his tooth out before he even knew what happened.

Daddy.......

{superhero poster courtesy of The Paper Tray}

Maggots in the Coffee Pot

When I don't feel like cleaning up my house in the evening I watch this show.
{watch to the end of the clip and try not to throw up}

It makes you want to clean every nook and cranny of your house doesn't it?

Pre-Schooler

kissin' cousins

Jackson and his cousin Paige are the same age and they are really good friends. We went up to visit her this weekend and when we pulled up to the house Paige came running out to us and tackled Jackson when he got out of the car. They were tied at the hip the whole weekend.

On Saturday Paige came down and handed me this picture.

I thought she made it for me, her dear old Aunty. I saw the hearts between the two people I assumed were me and her. So I told her I loved it and asked her to tell me about it. She said, "I made it for Jackson, but he said he'd only keep it if I stopped kissing him."

When I looked closer I did notice that the two people at the bottom of the picture were her and Jackson. Then I laughed because she clearly wanted to keep kissing Jackson since she chose to give the picture to me instead.

I love these kids.

{BSU}

AMAZING season opener Broncos!!!

Take us all the way to the BCS Championship!!

ocean

i find myself looking through my monterey pictures all the time.

i.miss.the.ocean.

before he left

Spider Encounter

I think big disgusting spiders seek me out. They must be attracted to the screaming and jumping up and down that I do when I see them. Remember the really disgusting spider I encountered in Monterey??? This one was a little bit more dramatic.

In my cleaning one day I took the garbage bag out of the can, then left the can sitting around (call me lazy if you want to). Then instead of putting a new bag in the can I decided to pick up some of the toys that were laying around and put them in the can until I was un-lazy enough to put them back in their proper place. Then to further prove my laziness the can sat out for a couple days (while we used the bathroom garbage can to throw stuff away....lovely, I know). So one morning Jackson and I were standing in the kitchen. He says "Is that a spider?" and I say "Is that one of your toy spiders or a real spider". I realize it's a HUGE real spider and instantly start screaming. Then of course Jackson starts screaming. So I'm frozen and have no idea what to do. It was surrounded by toys so I didn't have a good smashing radius.

So after about 20 minutes of dry heaving I finally decide to take pictures of it, then to run the whole can outside. I debated about what to do next. Should I call my home teachers? Should I find a neighbor?

No.

I saran wrapped the top of the garbage can to trap the bugger in. Then I taped all around it just to be safe. After I was confident that he was trapped I went to target and bought bug spray. Once I got home I cut a hole in the saran wrap, sprayed the bug spray and sealed the hole with another layer of saran wrap.

I'm sure at this point you're thinking that after the spider shriveled up and died I dumped everything out, cleaned up the toys and went on with life.

Well if that's what you think of me then you're totally wrong. I threw the whole thing away. Can. Toys. Spider. Everything.

Post Script: I feel like I have spiders all over me.

birthmonth

Instead of celebrating Jackson's 'birthday' it's really like we've been celebrating his "birthmonth". When Nate came home for a few days at the beginning of the month we celebrated Jackson's birthday with him, then again at my brother's house a couple weeks ago. So instead of doing a big party I just decided to have Jackson's best bud/cousin come over for the night.

We spent two surprisingly fun hours at Chuck E Cheese. I didn't know until it was too late the battery in my camera was dead, so it was pretty lucky that good ol' Chuck E had a photo booth.

Aren't they just the cutest?

First Grade

Jackson officially started 1st grade!

It was an exciting morning. We went to his friend Izac's house in the morning so we could all walk to school together. The boys were so excited that they ran the whole way there. We couldn't keep up with them.

The three boys (Jackson, Braxton & Izac) were all in the same class last year and the cute little McKenna was in the other afternoon class. Me and the other mothers of these cute kids are besties, so naturally the kids are on a semi-bestie basis. (I love this picture because Payton looks so cute there in the corner of the picture.)

After school Jackson ran to me, hugged me, then jumped up and down while he told me that "first grade is awesome!"

Payton really missed Jackson, and I think deep down inside Jackson missed Payton too. I think this picture says it.

School

So Jackson starts school on Tuesday. In the past when I thought about my babies going to school I thought it would just be so dang heart-wrenchingly painful that I'd just sit and look at the clock and wait impatiently for the moment that I could go pick them up. But here we are, less than 48 hours away from Jackson going to ALL DAY school and I'm sitting here giddy as a school girl.

Payton will also be starting pre-school. In order to prepare him for when I go back to school full-time I'm putting him in ALL DAY pre-school 3 days a week. This will be a little harder since he and I are bff's and totally tied at the hip, but I'm so freaking excited.

While they're in school I can just be a real person. I'll go to the grocery store and hear nothing but the voices in my head and the distant bumblings of the other customers (I don't really hear voices in my head...). I'll be able to go to Target (my happy place) without emotional breakdowns about Transformers. I'll get to spend time with my girlfriends without worrying about taking a baby to the bathroom or wiping a runny nose. I'll be able to clean my house and not have a child follow right behind me and make a huge mess again. I'll get to go to the gym and not have to rush through the workout because I have a child in the nursery. I can workout for 3 hours if I want to. I won't, but I can, and that's the whole point.

Oh the possibilities!!

Hide your kids, Hide your wife

I usually don't watch the news because it usually depresses me or makes me angry somehow, but this little clip is the kind of news I like to watch.

Then someone out there that is far more creative than I could ever hope to be turned it into a song.

{WORD}

adventures at target

95% of the time my kids are wonderful. they are sweet and nice and a joy to be around. the other 5% of the the time i wonder where my kids went and how they got replaced with devil children.

tonight i was that lady that every one stares and and secretly judges because it seems like i have no control over my kids. after trying to reason with them i resorted to the usual discipline tactics. those failed and things escalated to threats. once i realized that wouldn't work i just decided to ignore them.

the people at target sure got a show.

payton was screaming about candy. jackson was going crazy because i wouldn't buy him a transformer (and seriously, this kid has a million transformers. i've never seen a kid with more transformers). when he realized whining wouldn't work he started crying and yelling stuff like this, "you just want me to be sad and to cry and to not be happy. you just want to be a mean mommy. you never want me to be happy. you like to see me cry about not getting transformers. you never ever want me to be happy again. and i won't ever be happy again until you buy me a transformer. you just want to save money and not buy me more toys."

if i weren't so angry i would've totally laughed at him like i'm laughing right now.

when i wouldn't reply to his complaints about his happiness he started screaming "MOMMY!" over and over again and when that didn't work he started hitting me. for reals!!! he was literally punching me in the back.

so needless to say. my boys had a very early bedtime tonight. the sun wasn't even beginning to set when they got tucked into bed. i'd be lying if i said that this evening wasn't relaxing. i got to sit in my chair and relax in silence.

it was priceless.

taps

My cousin passed away two weeks ago and we just had his funeral on Saturday. Funerals are always so hard, but this one really got me. Not just because he was my cousin and he was so wonderful, but because he was also a soldier and got military honors at his funeral. I burst into tears when I saw the American Flag draped across his casket, but surprisingly I kept my composure during the funeral. I thought the worst was over but at the burial he was honored with a 21 gun salute and taps. I couldn't contain my emotion at that point.

Not only was I overcome with sadness for my dear cousin, but I couldn't stop thinking about the possibility that I could be in this same spot again anytime in the next year since I just sent my husband and am about to send another brother to war in the middle east. Between my husband, 3 brothers and 1 sister-in-law our family has been in Iraq going on 8 times. After a while you start to wonder if your luck has run out and one of your loved ones might come home in a casket.

Please support the troops and pray for our soldiers!

Buddy

When my husband left I confessed to one of my girlfriends that although I was sad that he was leaving, I was excited for Payton to share my bed with me again.

{He's just so cute and cuddly}

Pure Vanilla. From Mexico

Since my husband is gone I went to my parents house this year for my birthday. My dad also invited my other siblings over for the weekend to celebrate my birthday and go to his ward father and sons camp-out. There just happens to be 10 grandsons in the family.

My brother Jacob was there and loves me for so many reasons. #1) He loves to listen to me play the piano #2) I give his wife and daughter beautiful hair-dos #3) I'm funny #4) He thinks I'm a wonderful baker.

It seems that every time we're in the same house I end up finding all the ingredients for cookies or a cake or some other treat neatly placed out on the counter and he's got a big smile on his face like a little boy waiting for Christmas.

My birthday present from him this year was another one of those not-so-subtle hints that he'd like me to do some baking for him.

He travels a lot for his job and recently found himself very close to the Mexico border. He brought me a little souvenir from his trip that could be used to make him many little treats.

I feel like I'm buying a lot of Vanilla when I buy the 8 oz. bottle of Imitation Vanilla.

But he went all out and bought me 32 oz. of pure vanilla.

And I feel super cool because not only is it pure vanilla. But it's pure vanilla From Mexico.

eclipse-ish

since yesterday was my 28th birthday i had a girls night with my mom and my sister. We went out for buffalo wings and saw eclipse. I find the best thing to do when going to watching any movie from "the twilight saga" is to go with absolutely no expectations at all, then you'll really find that you enjoyed yourself!

for real though, the part that really excited me about the whole eclipse experience was the harry potter trailer!!!!!! Yeah I've already seen it like 29 times, but I can't get enough of harry potter. if he were a real live person i would stalk him. i would be his biggest fan and i would beg him to have babies with me. that's how much i love harry potter. i've read all 7 books at least 10 times each, but really probably more.

after we watched the movie i went home, went to bed, then got out my ipod touch and watched the harry potter trailer in bed for another twenty minutes. i get chills every time. then i fell asleep and had harry potter dreams. he's my dream lover.

so, who wants to see it with me when it finally comes out in theatres?!?!?!?!

{Goodbye}

My husband got deployed a week ago. I'm not supposed to say much about his deployment. In all honesty, I don't even know where he's going. I mean, I know the country, but I don't know what part he'll be in or what he'll be doing. (And that's not because I don't pay attention, it's because he can't tell me)

It's really comforting sending your husband off to war when you have absolutely no idea what's going on!

In a weird way it's been a relief to have him go. Not because I want him over there, but because it just feels like we've been waiting for this and working towards it for the last three years of our lives and now he's finally going and we can get it out of the way.

I only took a few pictures while we waited for their plane to arrive. One with Jackson, Payton and some of the nieces and nephews. And the last one is Nate with his Mom and 3 of his sisters.

Good Luck Nate! We're proud of you!

Just complaining

My computer is G-A-Y

Not in a homosexual way, just in a "I'm a crappy PC and I freeze up all the time and won't let any programs open because I'm a loser" kind of way.

I was sitting down at my good ol' lame face computer to edit pictures of my husbands departure for all of you to see and once again it's pulling the same crap as usual. I'm about ready to throw the thing over the balcony and wash my hands of it. But, I'll wait to do that until I can buy a MacBook Pro

{Apple rules all}

Family Photos

Before Nate left on his deployment my dear friend Natalie took some cute family pictures of us.

Enjoy!

Dental Disaster

I did the most horrible thing tonight that I'm still seriously crying about!!!

Payton has a cute little monkey towel that he loves to put on after the bath so he can look at himself in the mirror. I guess I wrapped him pretty tight tonight :( I took him in my room so he could look in the full length mirror and I walked out of the room to get his pajamas. I just assumed that he'd stay in there and wait for me. About 3 seconds after I walked away I heard something fall hard on the floor and then Payton was screaming.

The poor little tyke had tripped on the edge of the towel and fell. His face slammed into the floor with full force since his hands were TRAPPED IN THE TOWEL!!!! Not only did he bust his gums open in multiple spots, but one of his front teeth was literally pushed halfway back up into his gums.

I've been beating myself up all evening because of it.

But he did do something really cute. After we got him cleaned up and calmed down we let him sit down and watch his favorite movie. He was sitting there sniffling while watching he show, then in his cute little voice he said, "Mom, can I have my scriptures?" He's carried them around all night. He even took them to bed with him. How nice that his scriptures bring him comfort even though he can't read them.

J & P

There was a continuous flow of spontaneous hugs as they couldn't contain their excitement to be at Chuckie Cheese.

Jerseylicious

Nate got hooked on what I thought was the most ridiculous show. I could not believe he was watching it because he only watches "manly" stuff. The show is called "Jerseylicious" and it's the funniest show I've ever seen in my life!!! It's all about a bunch of big haired, overly makeup-ed jersey girls workin' in a salon and the "drama" is hilaaaaaarious. If you have the Style Network I highly recommend this show. And I can say this because I went to beauty school for a short time in Utah, but these jersey girls are strikingly similar to the stereotypical Utah girl with the huge hair, massive amounts of make-up and insane overcompensation with the attitude.

We love it!!!!

{spring has sprung}

Utah has been delivering some amazing weather lately. And we've been soaking up every minute of it.

T-Ball

Mr. J has started T-Ball! I never realized how entertaining it would be to watch 5 year-olds attempt to play baseball. Once the ball is hit all the kids on the team race to get the ball and pile on top of each other, forgetting that they need to throw it to first. And on a few occasions even the batter would race to the ball instead of running to first.

This is a fun age. We're having a blast over here!!