jackson and his cute little face

look at those cute little freckles he's getting on his nose :)

sometimes i sit around and wonder what life would be like right now if i'd made just a couple different choices in my early years. it can be fun sometimes to imagine a life that could've been. but it's always the little things that bring me back to reality.

those cute little freckles on his nose. his skinny legs and knobby knees. how he farts uncontrollably when he laughs.

reality is much better than anything i dream up in my head.

the boy who couldn't boil a noodle

do you teach your kids to cook? 

i had a boy babysit the boys for me last year. he was 13 so i just assumed he could do basic cooking. i had leftover spaghetti sauce so i said for dinner he could just boil some spaghetti and microwave the sauce. 

but he didn't know how to boil spaghetti. 

so i got out some hot dogs and said he could microwave them for dinner. and i had the popcorn popper out so they could have popcorn while they watched a movie.

i came home to find out that he had no idea how to use an air-popper, and they ate cold hot dogs for dinner. 

and they almost started a fire trying to figure out how to use the air-popper.

i thought back to my childhood and couldn't remember a time when i wasn't cooking things for myself. i was 4 when my brother started paying me a quarter to make him popcorn. i believe i was 7 when i started baking all my siblings birthday cakes. by 6 i could at least make noodles, grilled cheese sandwiches and fry, poach & scramble eggs, and make a killer chocolate chip cookie.

after that incident i realized having the boys in the kitchen with me was more than just a fun activity. i'm determined to raise boys that know how to cook everything that i can cook. 

i can't tell you how nice it is to sleep in on saturdays and not have to worry about breakfast because jackson is in the kitchen happily making toast and scrambled eggs.

teach your boys to cook!

(i was in the kitchen on mothers day happily baking some brownies, when payton came in wanting to share the load so i could enjoy my day.)

they call me the wanderer

i try to not be a complainer. i think it's important to be positive about your circumstances no matter what they are. but darn it if i don't complain about life sometimes. there are just days when you wish you could trade places with someone who is living a more exotic life, or at least one moderately different than your own.

today was a day where i kind of just wandered around aimlessly. i thought about taking payton to the park. then ended up at the yarn store. meandered over to cafe rio. then found myself at the other end of the valley 40 minutes from home.

i wasn't sad or mad. i was just.....going through the very basic motions of life. but i looked out over the valley and just thought "life's pretty dang good."

on the farm

payton went to wheeler farm with his buddies eli & landon. it was such a perfect way to spend the morning. the boys spent an hour climbing a big tree and ginger and i just relaxed, talked & took pictures. the weather was perfect, the boys were perfect, and being there made me walk away even more convinced that i want a mini farm someday.

tradition

i hope your easter was a wonderful as ours. 

when it comes to holidays and traditions i'm pretty low key. there a few things that i try to do with each holiday, but there is little fanfare. i get stressed out when there are plans and parties and expectations. i like my holidays to be easy and flexible. 

i had planned a few things for easter. we woke up in the morning and did easter baskets. then we got ready for the day and went to church. when we came out of the chapel three hours later it was warm and bright and all the trees were blooming. 

i stood under a tree and look a picture of those blossoms and thought "there's no way we're staying inside today." 

is my time better spent in the kitchen fixing a big holiday meal, or outside enjoying the day with my family? 

we put tradition to the side and enjoyed the beautiful day together. outside. as a family.

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.

greatest hits

sometimes i miss those days when you HAD to develop photos in order to see them. granted, half of those developed photos ended up looking like shiz, but at least they were there. they existed in a physical form that you could touch and carry with you.

too many wonderful photos live on my computer and have been forgotten. though with my new mac they seem much more accessible. i've been going through all of our photos and brightening them up. therein lies the beauty of digital photography. those photos that would've turned out dark and lackluster after being developed can now be given new life through the magic of photoshop.

now i just need to commit to developing those photos that have been given a new lease on life.

here are some of my faves, many of which have been seen on here before...

everybody's best friend

payton just spent 1 & 1/2 weeks in idaho with grandma and grandpa. he's never spent more than a few days away before. he and i are almost completely attached at the hip so this trip was obviously going to be an adjustment for me. i really didn't think it would be hard for jackson or our friend armin to be away from him. armin comes over every day after school and several times each day i heard both of them talking about how much they missed payton. payton is the humor in all of our lives so it was a very quiet week. luckily he's back and things are back to normal, just the way we like it.

the good ol' days

i walked past an old ford bronco the other day. i'm one of those people that glances in the windows real quick. i'm not a thief checking for goods, i'm just a little curious. inside this bronco there was a stack of old cassette tapes and an old school tape deck with a tape sticking out of it. when was the last time you saw cassette tapes in regular every day use? 

it totally made my day.

then it got me reminiscing about the good old days.

i was in heaven when i was in 5th grade and got my very own alarm clock radio with a cassette player. i rode my bike down to IGA and bought some blank cassettes and i was ready to go! fully equipped to record any song that came on the radio. every night i would anxiously wait until 9:00 for the "hot 9 at 9" so i could record all the songs. when a couple friends started getting cd players and few years later i thought "this is never gonna catch on. why would you want a cd when you can record any song you want to a cassette straight from the radio?" but eventually i jumped on the cd bandwagon. before long we were all burning mixes for best friends and boyfriends. i still have bunch of them. remember how long it used to take to burn a cd? i remember spending almost an entire saturday at a friends house making a mix for my boyfriend. it took FOREVER!!!!

i don't feel like i'm old enough to be saying this, but can you believe how things have changed over the years? We didn't have internet in my house until i was a freshman. that was 1998. i had a cell phone senior year that was only capable of making and receiving calls. no texts. no voicemail. nothing. now i have everything at my fingertips with one tiny little device. pretty much everything i need is in my iphone. thus explaining the picture of old cds spread across the floor. they haven't been used in years. i was getting ready to throw them out when the boys found them and starting playing with them. my first reaction was to say "NO, YOU'LL SCRATCH THEM!" but caught myself and let them have their fun.

here's to the good ol' days :)

I love chickens

in n out

they just built another in n out burger in utah. it boggles my mind when i see cars filling up the parking lot waiting for an unreasonable amount of time in the drive thru for some in n out food. since the food is only mediocre the only reason that comes to mind is that utahns so badly want to feel like they're in california so they flock to this place. 

i was driving by one day and saw how unbusy this location was at the time so i decided i was going to go in to give in n out one more chance to impress me. i think you can tell by the look on mr. p's face how unimpressed we were.

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

:)

the pictures aren't great.....

.....but the concert was!

any josh groban fans reading my blog?????

i've never been a groban fan per-se, but i've always recognized and respected his incredible talant. so on saturday when one of my besties told me she got free tickets and invited me to go i wasn't sure if i should say 'yes' or 'no'. i went back and forth with it for about 30 minutes. i'd already had a 'girls night' with my sister during the week to see a movie, so i kinda felt guilty leaving my family for another girls night. even though nate was telling me to go, i had myself convinced that he'd be mad at me if i did.

so i sad no.

then about two seconds later i called my friend right back and said yes!!

thank goodness i did.

it was me and my besties out on the town leaving our children behind and living it up! I only knew two of the songs (and one of them was a Neil Diamond cover), but the music was amazing and the company was great.

thank goodness for a friend who got free tickets at the last minute.........from her ex-husband!!!!

the guys

I tried so hard to get those boys to smile and look handsome for a picture, but this is the best that I could get. Crappy picture or not, they're a handsome bunch.

devil woman

i haven't been around much lately. 

and that's a good thing.

because if you'd been around me lately you'd have seen my grumpy alter ego that doesn't like people and doesn't care about people.

i think it was just the culmination of a million things at once. i'm pretty sure it started when my air conditioner went out. am i the only one who turns into a beast when it's too hot??? my personality literally changes when it's too hot. 

i think the other thing is something only a military wife can understand. maybe not though. my husband was gone for almost two years. that's a long time. i didn't realize until he got home how comfortable i was with him being gone. not in a bad way. i'm not saying i'm not happy having him home. i'm incredibly happy to have him back. it's just become very apparent how independent i got and how important MY schedule became to my general attitude. i got used to sleeping alone. so did he. it's weird sharing a bed again.

it's been a time of a lot of adjustments for our little family. and i wasn't prepared for it so i found myself getting angry at everything. my kids were probably thinking "who's this devil woman who's taken over my mom's body". okay, i haven't been that bad. but still, i haven't been my happy cheery self either and kids are sensitive to that. 

but it's funny how the small things get you out of your funk. i always expect this grand amazing event or epiphany but it's always the little things. i was sitting by the pool for the boys morning swimming lessons and jackson was just sitting on the grass playing quietly with his toys. he was alternating between playing with his batman toys and looking up at the clouds daydreaming. he was just so sweet sitting there and having that opportunity to observe him brought that sense of pride and amazement. he's mine. i made him. what else in life could possibly bring me more happiness than those two little boys who drive me so crazy sometimes?

birthday

i asked these two turds for something very important for my birthday.

i wanted quiet.

i knew that was a lot to ask of these guys. so instead of telling them to be quiet all day long i just asked them not to fight. i also asked them to speak kindly to each other and keep a smile on their face all day long. 

guess what they did....

they found a way to fight, with smiles on their faces, and with kind voices.

don't let these pictures fool you. they are legitimately fighting.

and i was legitimately pissed.

'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.

superman

 mr. payton loves to wear a cape to take milo for walks. maybe he thinks he needs super powers to be able to walk that huge 4.5 lb. chihuahua.