a beautiful, beautiful flamingo

the one where they have big muscles

nate has been doing a lot of soul searching lately to figure out what he wants to do with his life. he's almost done with school and he has a lot of really cool career options available to him.

i think destiny came knocking this evening and showed us a clear path for not only him, but our boys as well. We could build a legacy and pass it on to generations of Boden's.

my kids are still littles and they helped their friend and his mom move out of their apartment. they weren't just sitting around playing either. see all that stuff by the truck? They hauled all the stuff up a flight of stairs. no joke here. they were born to move. born to be heavy lifters.

i can see it now.

"BODEN & SONS MOVING COMPANY"

future.

lemon

i'm not a good dancer.

considering my natural athletic ability you'd think that i could dance. but sadly i was not blessed with those skills.

i do enjoy dancing though. the problem is that the people around me don't enjoy it so much. unless they're looking for a laugh.

you won't find me doing sexy dance moves to seduce my husband either. i gave it a try a couple times, but he laughed awkwardly and probably felt really bad for me.

i think liz lemon stole some of my awkward moves.

him

i don't spend a lot of time on here talking about how much i love my husband. maybe i think no one really wants to hear it. or maybe it's because public displays of affection make me uncomfortable.


i'm sure it's both of those things.


but if you ever laid awake at night wondering what it is that i love about this man here it is.


here is one of the little things that makes him so great.


when he buys clothes he doesn't have the patience to try them on. he sees what he likes, buys it, and comes right home.


when he tries on said newly purchased clothes to see how they look he realizes they are too small.


but instead of getting mad or annoyed he dances around, makes funny faces, flexes his muscles, and lets me take pictures while i laugh so hard that i start "lizzing" (laughing+whizzing).


then he packs the clothes up and tries to get me to take them back to the mall because he'll be embarrassed about going back 45 minutes after he left.


but i don't do it.


that's love.

trickster

i used to have a dog. i had wanted one for ever and ever and ever. when nate was gone i kept asking him if i could get a dog. he kept saying no. so naturally i went out and bought a dog anyway. i took a picture of him with the boys and sent an email to nate that just said "sorry :)". being the nice person that he is, he didn't get too mad at me. i spent 9 wonderful months with that dog before i got caught and forced by the landlord to get rid of him. 

i've had a few months to recover from the loss of my dog and have now focused my attention on bunnies. i really want a house bunny. nate keeps telling me to wait until we live somewhere that allows pets. he's super paranoid that i'm just going to go out and get a pet anyway. so i preyed on that fear and played a little joke on him :)

payton and i spent the afternoon at a friends house playing with their bunnies and ducklings. i took a picture of the bunny and sent a text to nate.

he was asleep at the time. so it was a perfect time to send the message. he'd wake up groggy and a little grumpy, then as he's heading off to class he checks his messages and sees this! he was so mad at first! but after about 15 seconds i couldn't contain my laughter anymore and when he realized i was playing a trick on him he got a good laugh out of it too. 

you gotta mess with each other from time to time. it keeps the relationship lively.

future

Someday he might be a doctor, a lawyer, a soldier, or as he says "a sharkologist". He may someday be the valedictorian, the quarterback on the football team, or the captain of the swim team. He may go to an Ivy League school. He might be president someday. Or maybe, just maybe, he might find a cure for cancer.

But last night.......he was just a kid who fell asleep with his hand down his pants.

more curious sleeping habits

you know how much i love taking pictures of payton sleeping!

like most moms i always check on my babes a few times before i finally go to sleep. they're just so cute. jackson has always been good about sleeping in his own bed. Payton on the other hand, he's a bed hopper. It didn't start until nate was gone. i like to think he started climbing into my bed to comfort me because i was so sad. by the time nate left for "the desert" he'd either climb in bed with me or climb in bed with jackson. 

now that life has returned to some form of normalcy he's still a little wanderer. i'm thinking he's a sleep walker. i was a really big sleep walker when i was little. methinks he inherited some of my crazy sleep habits! i've been known to fall asleep anywhere no matter how uncomfortable the circumstances. oh the stories i could tell.

anyhow, after i did my face washing & teeth brushing last night i came out to the living room to find him like this. he slept in this position for a solid 30 minutes. 

i love it!

vogue

my husband knows how to get a laugh out of me.

i don't know if i'm just easily entertained or he's incredibly funny. maybe it's both.

either way, this dude strikes the funniest poses for my benefit. he'll want to die if he ever finds out that i posted one of his pictures, but i'm pretty sure he isn't one the two regulars who read my blog so i'm gonna cross my fingers and hope he never sees it.

this photo is one of many photos that i took up in idaho. he was rolling around in the grass and posing against the tree and the garage. each one funnier than the next. i'll keep the funniest ones for myself, but i'm gonna share this little gem with ya'll.

hope you think it's as funny as i did

:)

'91

it finally happened........

jackson asked me a question about my childhood and said "in the olden days"

since nate is home i took the opportunity to spend a little alone time with jackson. we went out for an evening snow cone and talked while we enjoyed our treat. he was impressed with the many size choices that this snow shack had to offer. since it was a special occasion i let him get a bigger size than usual.

then it happened

"mom? in the olden days when you were a kid did they have that many sizes to choose from?"

i actually thought back to the olden days in the summer of '91 when my dad put a snow shack in front of the local grocery store and me and all my siblings worked there for the summer. i told jackson that back then there was only one size and they actually were served in paper cones.

it totally blew his mind.

Clothing Optional

People may judge me when they see my son running all around town in his jammies. But what do you do? Getting him to wear clothes is a fight every day. The kid loves jammies. He likes to be comfortable.

His need for being comfortable is evolving in a way that I don't care too much for.

When I manage to get him to wear real clothes for an outing he takes them off within seconds of us walking through the door and puts on jammies. Recently though, he just takes off his pants and his underoos and tries walking around the house with his shirt being the one and only thing on his body.

Just when I put a stop to that he took it a step further.

Two nights ago I went in to check on the boys after they'd fallen asleep and he'd taken ALL his clothes off. He attempted to sleep that way again last night too! I got in there and put his jammies back on and he just slept right through it.

Let's hope this phase goes by quickly.

bieber

i already posted this picture on facebook, but it's just too cute to not post on here as well.

jackson has been growing his hair out for a few months. i really try to let him decide how he wants to fix his hair. there a many days when when shows up at school with his hair combed straight back and he looks like a grandpa. for some reason he really likes that look.

i have to admit i was taken back when the subject of his most recent hair-do came up. he wants to shave his head when school gets out, but it was getting so shaggy that i at least had to trim around the edges. after it was cut he said.............

"mom, can you fix my hair like justin bieber?"

it COMPLETELY shocked me to hear that phrase. i have never ever heard him say that name before so i didn't think he knew who he was.

i was a good sport about the whole thing. i did the biebster hair-do the best that i could. if you asked me, i'd say he's way cuter than justin bieber. but that's just me.

What do we do all day?

I found this over at Team Boo. It gave me a chance to say OH SNAP and it reminded me that I'm not lazy because I'm at home every day. I'm on duty 24/7 fool!

Pirate

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

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.

Ladies Man

Payton was really sad to say goodbye to Keani,



but he never fails to find another lady to spend his time with.

Is there a mouse in my house.....

...........That likes to nibble on butter???

Or do I have a two year old who didn't believe me when I said "We're all out of cheese" so went on a discovery mission and found something that just HAD to be cheese. I bet he was a little thrown off by the taste, but clearly he decided to go for it.

This is proof that McKenzie blood does in fact run through his veins. We love our butter. Just talk to my Dad.

R.I.P. Crib

Last Sunday was a sad night in the Boden household. But when I say household I mean ME. Cute little Payton and his rambunctious ways broke the crib. The child likes to jump on the bed and I guess he jumped one too many times. Nate and I happened to be right across the hall. Luckily he was right there because me and my deaf little self didn't hear anything. I thought Nate was just being old and senile and hearing things. But sure enough, when we went in to check on him the mattress was sinking abnormally low.

I seemed to be the only one truly affected by this. I think Payton was secretly pleased with himself, and Jackson was just happy to have a reason to stay up. I was sad for two reasons:

I wasn't ready for Payton to move out of the crib!! He's a determined little boy who likes to party. He pushes the limits as far as he can (while still being unbelievably cute) and I just wasn't ready for the bed-time battle.

I was also sad because this crib had some sentimental value for me. I bought it for Jackson for his first birthday. I was a poor single mom and was so happy to buy him that crib. In reality though, we got plenty of miles out of that little crib. Two babies and four good years. I think that's a lot to ask of a Wal-Mart crib.

I wanted to wait until we got to Utah to get a new bed. I wanted to get the boys twin bunk beds, but the current sleeping arrangement wasn't going to work out. We had Payton sleeping on his mattress on the floor. Nate went in to check on him at 4 in the morning and he was asleep on the hard-wood floor almost underneath Jackson's bed. So after a Craigslist find fell through I sped on over to our faithful Wal-Mart and purchased a pretty cute Toddler bed. After moving all the toys and anything else moderately entertaining out of the room Payton does go to sleep at night and even takes a nap during the day in it. I just have to get him really tired beforehand.

So, just as we're about to say goodbye to beautiful Monterey, we welcomed a beautiful dark brown Toddler Sleigh Bed into our little family. Good Luck. I'm betting the bed breaks in 7 months.

Watch out for this one....

...He's a smooth talker.

Jackson has a serious love of Transformers. I'll admit to being a bad mother and confess that he's seen the first Transformers movie. He got introduced to the world of movie ratings when I told him he couldn't watch Transformers anymore because it's PG-13. Now anytime we want to watch a movie he asks me what it's rated. When the previews for the new Transformers movie started playing he got really excited. I told him he couldn't see the movie because he wasn't old enough. He tells me, "Mom, Transformers isn't PG-13. It's PG-"I" 3, and I'm 4. So I can see it."

This kid has got skills.

Roll Out!

We've really been working with Jackson to get him to be more reverent at church. He usually likes to play Transformers so you'll frequently hear him saying, "auto bots......ROLL OUT!" About halfway through sacrament meeting I had to remind him that he should be thinking about Jesus. A couple minutes later I hear him say, "Jesus Christ.......ROLL OUT!"