flashback...

I was searching all over for Chloe's birth certificate (and couldn't find it, but as I was scanning these pictures looked up in the closet next to me and saw the envelope that says "birth certicicates" on it..FINALLY) and just found some old pictures of me in an envelope.

I'm about the same age as Claire is now so they were fun to look at. Here they are....

What my mom wrote on the back..."Stefany and another one of her dastardly deeds January 1981" (I was one....and I was perfect, I don't know what she was talking about!)

I'm probably the one that pulled the cups and cans out of the cupboard and left them under the dishwasher too!

Me at 11 1/2 months old

Halloween 1980...9 1/2 months old
Chrysta, me and Allyson

What?

Warning: If you haven't watched the bachelor yet, don't read this!

I thought for sure Molly was going home. I don't know if it's the editing, or the way she professes her love to him...it just doesn't seem real....but I don't see the chemistry as much with Molly. Their relationship just seems more shallow or something.

I really, really liked Jillian. I was totally rooting for her....maybe even more than Melissa. But as soon as he gave Melissa the first rose, Jeff and I both thought he was going to pick Jillian...we were wrong. She just was so real, put together, level headed, fun, the list goes on. She seemed perfect.

I mean, I guess you can't argue with, "I'm just not in love with her," but darn it, you should be!!!

But really, if you're in the final 3 and you're not make it all the way, it's much better to go home this week than have to walk out there hoping you're getting a ring and not get it. So for that reason, I guess I'm glad Jillian went home tonight. And, if it was Melissa and Jillian in the final 2, I would have had a hard time choosing one of them and rooting for them. Now, it should be easy...GO MELISSA!

Did you notice at the end how he was talking about how excited he is about next week and was basically looking at Melissa the whole time. I even said out loud, "Is he going to look at Molly?"


So I'm a dork and have read the message boards on the bachelor website for the past couple weeks, just to see what other people are saying and there are some interesting viewpoints out there. But with the whole Deanna thing...at first I was thinking, why would she even try? He better not give her another chance...I'm so over her (and hopefully he is too)! But after reading other people's comments, I'm thinking that she's just coming to give him advice, so I'm not worried about it anymore.

Don't worry, I'm not so big of a dork that I've commented on the message boards...just read a few of them! You should check it out, it's interesting.

I'm curious to see what makes him cry like that too! Next week should be interesting. We get to see Megan and Erica again....fun!!

Can't wait for the most dramatic rose ceremony ever. Or wait, was that tonight or last week, or the week before?

Lu-Weenie

Caleb is so funny. He got MarioKart for his birthday and absolutely LOVES it. I was taking pictures of Claire, trying to get her new teeth, and he said "Take a picture of the screen, Mario and LUWEENIE are on it." Every time he talks about Luigi, like asking me who I want to be, or saying that Luigi got ahead of him while he's playing, he calls him Luweenie! I love it!

Claire's new teeth. She got 4 on the top the week before last I think and she's starting to get a couple more on the bottom sides!

They look funny right now. I can't wait to see what she'll look like when they're grown in all the way!! She'll look like such a big kid!

Here's a cute one, since I posted all those nasty teeth pictures....

it's getting good....

So it was pretty obvious, at least to us, that Naomi was going home. Then the hometown visit with her family...getting the Christianity/reincarnation, we're part of the same "soul family", my daughter is psychic stuff from her parents, not to mention the dead bird thing, pretty much sealed the deal. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but last week it was pretty apparent that she was out of it. Good choice Jason, she wasn't right for you anyway.

So the more I see Jillian the more I like her. I thought her family was so funny and he seemed to fit right in. She's funny, she's real, she's down to earth.

I can't believe that Melissa's family didn't participate. I mean, maybe you're shy but can't you at least get over it for one night? Especially when you see how disappointed your daughter is. I saw that on the previews last week, and kind of thought they'd arrange some kind of private meeting, but I guess not. And her brother didn't even come?? I felt really bad for her and hope it doesn't mess up her chances later. Was it just me or did her friends talk a little too much about past guys at the dinner?

Molly, I like her, but don't love her. She's not as "real" as the other girls. When he said, "I can't get deep enough with her" I totally agreed. She's fun and cute and everything, but who is she REALLY...deep down? I don't know.

So Jillian and Melissa are still my faves. I'm excited to watch it now that it's really only girls that have a chance. For the last 2 episodes I've pretty much known it was going to be Stephanie and Naomi going home, we just had to get through it. Now it's down to girls that he really has a connection with. Can't wait for next week!!

HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY CALEB!!!

Birthday Party #1 (yesterday).....

Caleb wanted a "Superhero" party. Here's the cake I made
Trey playing the game where I put candy inside the balloons and the kids had to pop them to get the candy out. It was pretty fun!

Chloe the "Superhero Princess" and Batman. I made each of the kids a cape with their initial on the back for them to take home!

Batman blowing out his 5 candles!

All the Super Heros!!

Kenny, Olivia, Issac, Caleb, Chloe, Canon, Trey and Jared

Birthday Party #2 (today)

Caleb wanted a "Wii Party" so I made a cake with his Mii on it. The picture to the right of the cake is his actual Mii on the Wii and I tried to copy it. It says Caleb Lego on it because that's what he named his Mii.

SO excited about MarioKart!
He LOVES his new transformer that turns from an airplane to a transformer guy!

The birthday boy and Chloe

We love you Buddy!!!

BREAKTHROUGH!!

Caleb is finally eating things besides bananas, ramen noodles and cereal!!! He's eaten the bread in sacrament meeting for the last 3 weeks in a row (thanks in part to Mason, I think when they were here and Caleb saw him eat it, he did it too)....which is huge. I can't even remember the last time he did before that. For the last several days in a row he has had a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich...he would not even touch them before. Sometimes he would even complain of the smell when Chloe would eat one by him. Last night I made tacos for dinner and he ate TWO. He tried it and liked it and then even ate another... they were plain - just meat and tortilla, but for Caleb to eat meat is a big deal!

We've been playing up the whole "Your almost 5 now and 5 year olds like foods they didn't used to like!" and I think it's helping (his bday is on Sunday, so wierd that he'll be 5)!

It is SO nice. He's not perfect, we still have to fight him to try some things, but he is WAY more open to eating new foods now than he ever was before. It used to be that he'd rather just not eat than try something, or eat something he "thought" he didn't like! Hopefully he continues on this road!

We've had a busy week..

Especially this little girl...

In the past 8 days, Claire has..

1. Learned to climb stairs

2. Learned to pull herself up to standing

3. Gotten THREE new teeth. The top middle one on the left on last Saturday. Then the side one next to that on this past Friday, then the other middle top one on Saturday (the day before yesterday!

It's crazy how much she's changing and so fast!

Then...

Thanks to Lindsey and Josh for the tickets to the Jazz game for Christmas, we got to go there on Friday night. We decided to make a little mini-vacation out of it. So I got on Priceline and got a room at the Hilton Salt Lake City (4 star nice hotel) for $50!! What a deal! And we could park there and walk to the game!

We surprised the kids. We told them we were going upstairs after the game just to look around. Then I said, "Daddy, why don't you see if your credit card will open that door." Chloe was funny saying, "No, we don't want to disturb anybody." They were pretty excited when they found out we were staying there!

I think their favorite part was swimming....especially our little fish named Chloe!

They called swimming surprise number 2.

Claire and I hung out on the poolside chairs!

In the hotel room. It was a pretty good view. You could see the Salt Lake Temple though a couple buildings!

Then for surprise number 3 we took them to the Gateway and went to the Dicovery Children's Museum. We were there for hours and they had a blast!!

Chloe dressed up like a police woman driving her police car!

At the Market! Chloe had SO much fun checking people out. The store had lots of different fake food and little baskets for the kids to shop with!

Chloe doing the news!

Chloe and Caleb doing the weather report. It was neat because there was a flat screen tv where they could see themselves and a computer that you could change the background with!

I turned around for maybe 30 seconds, then back and Caleb was already at the top of the rock wall!

For surprise number 4 we went to the BYU basketball game (this one was more for Daddy then the kids). We had so much fun at the museum that we ended up getting to the game when there was only about 10 minutes left. After that we took the kids to get milkshakes!

Usually I'm the type that would rather just stay home then stay at a hotel and everything, so I debated suggesting it to Jeff when I thought of it, but I did and I'm so glad. We had so much fun and the kids LOVED it!

Bachelor analysis

Can we say BARF? That was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen...k, maybe not THE most disgusting but ew! I really don't know how she lasted this long but thank you Jason for sending home Megan and not making us have to watch her nastiness anymore (and sorry she attacked you and you couldn't do anything about it)! I loved how you totally rejected her when she sat there practically begging for a kiss....DENIED!

Shannon, you just tried to hard. You were borderline obsessive psycho. Even though you probably scared him off with your stalker-ness, I actually kind of liked you. I think you'd be fun to have as a friend and hang out with. But you were just too weird on the show....and how awkward was that kiss at the end? I mean, why did you even try? Couldn't you tell the chemistry was only a one way kind of thing? How embarrassing!
Lauren...how bad did that stink that he had a rose left and you didn't even get it? I think you turned a little psycho and arrogant in this episode. It was funny for maybe a second when you demanded the rose on the group date, but when you kept going on and on, and then even said you were mad the next night....not even funny anymore, and if you were really mad that's even worse. And the the awkward, "You want to kiss me, huh?" moment. Um....no, I don't think he did! I actually liked you a lot before last night, but you got a little weird.

Right now, I think Melissa is my favorite. Molly and Jillian are second and following close behind is Naomi. Stephanie is cool (and what a great name...just learn how to spell!) but I don't see the connection between them or the chemistry that he has with the other ones. I think he wants to like her but it's not there. She's too formal or whatever the right word is.

It's weird because I like watching this bachelor series more than I've liked it in a while. I just wanted it to keep going last night....I don't like having to wait a week! And Jeff loves it to so it's fun to watch and analyze after the show!

I think Jason is a good guy (although he does kiss a LOT of girls....even more reason for Shannon and Lauren not to try. If he wanted to kiss you, trust me...he would have!)

Hope you enjoyed my analysis of it! I'm sure you agree, right?

One of my favorite things...

...about the Wii Fit is watching the kids shake their little booties doing the balance games. Here's Caleb playing Hula Hoop...

He was playing the Penguin Slide game (if you don't know what it is....you have to shift your hips back and forth quickly to keep the pengiun from falling off the ice) earlier and I just stood there watching him and laughing the whole time! Unfortunately, my bootie doesn't look that cute shaking around!

Another favorite thing is the things Caleb talks about...

Caleb: "It's getting there, the snow melting."

Me: "Yeah, it's getting there."

Caleb: "You want to know why it's melting?"

Me: "Sure."

Caleb: "Because I said a prayer that it would melt. Heavenly Father and Jesus are doing a pretty good job melting the snow here on Earth." (I wish I could write the inflection in his voice when he said it, it would be so much better.)

Another thing he told me a couple days ago...

Caleb (in a sad whiny kind of voice): "I don't like my name being Caleb. I want it to be something else."

Me: "Why? I love the name Caleb."

Caleb: "I just don't like Caleb."

Me: "What else would you want it to be?"
Caleb: "I don't know, something like Spike."

Where did he get that from? So I tried to call him Spike all day and everytime I did he got a HUGE smile on his face.

200th post!

Wow...I can't believe that I've actually posted 200 posts! Crazy! I thought it would be fun (at least for me) to look back on the happenings of our family since I started the blog. I originally started it in July 2007 to announce that we were expecting a baby. Here's a look at some exciting, memorable and funny things that have happened....

August 2007 - Disneyland!!! We need to go again

August 2007 - Chloe started Kindergarten...wow, has it been that long ago? Of course we went to Leatherby's to celebrate!

September 2007 - Enduring crazy weather at the BYU games

October 2007 - Spirit week. Chloe got TOTALLY into dressing up. This is wear red day.

October 2007 - Who can forget the reaction to telling the kids we were having a girl!

Thanksgiving 2007 - LOVED this family picture and it was SO easy. We only took a couple pictures just for fun, but it ended up being the Christmas card picture (with the date photoshopped out!)

December 2007 - Surprise baby shower in California for me! I had no idea people were coming over for that and got to see my friend Andrea who I hadn't seen in a long time!

February 2008 - Caleb's first cavity. He thought the Clown nose (aka nitrus oxide) and shades were pretty cool!

March 2008 - Grammy came to visit and help with Claire, and we got to have her here for her birthday!

March 5, 2008 - We were blessed with our sweet little Claire

April 2007 - Allyson, Tim and kids came to visit...sledding was SO fun!!

May 31, 2008 - We got a new little cousin/niece Cassidy Ann Jones. Lindsey waited for us to get there to have her...only she waited til the day of Chloe's bday party!

May 2008 - Claire, Me and Grams

May 2008 - Caleb found a marker in the car and drew on his face right before we were going into TGIFridays!

Mother's Day 2008 - Hand made beautiful jewelry!

June 2008 - Playing in the pool with Daddy....maybe it will get warm again!

July 2008 - Chloe decided to put her own makeup on!

October 2008 - We lost our sweet Grams. I loved how much the kids brightened her up!

Claire's first Christmas 2008

November 2008 - My first gray hair....AHHHH!

January 2009 - My family COMPLETELY surprised me on my birthday