New Discoveries

Don't you love friends who get to come over and just play with your children and do whatever they want with them? We love our friends!! Who else would pretend to give Brennan Red Bull and take pictures--not us. :) Brennan thought he was pretty cool though.

LAUNDRY

Wow! If you all only knew the problem that is laundry. I will eventually get it down, but I feel like a crazy maniac trying to get our families laundry completed. You can take note to the size of the dryer you see, the washer is the same size. A load of wash is incredibly small here. After being able to zip through my organized baskets of laundry in ND I find I am overwhelmed like never before. Needless to say to keep up on this tremendous chore of washing the machines are almost always running. I HAVE to do 4 loads every Mon, Wed, and Fri just to keep up. If I want to get everything COMPLETELY done. Well, that just doesn't happen. As soon as you get it all done everyone comes home and you have two loads worth after PJ's are in place.

The point of this venting session is to say Brennan finally investigated further into the kitchen to discover that around the corner are these two machines that have spinning things inside. He went for the dryer and pulled up to see closer. Then when hearing the washer start to spin(a small jet taking off) he spun around to find out if that could be more fun. Although he didn't dare get any closer.

Love/Hate Relationships

Hate might be a strong word to discribe the relationship between these two, but sometimes it is not far from the truth. It is kind of like having two 2-year olds playing. Eventually they just can't handle it. Taylor doesn't quite understand how to choose a battle with Mason and therefore gets into trouble more often than not when dealing with him. They do however love each other so much that when they both are having a good day it is really sweet to see them interact with one another. Here is too Taylor and Mason communicating nicely!!

Playing Catch

Brennan is really LOVING the game of catch. What is funny to us is he gets so excited but he can't figure out how to let go of the ball. :) He stares at it in his hand and wills it to move, but it doesn't go on his first attempt.

Hiding Places

Due to my post about Mason and the doughnuts I thought I would share a fun story with all. The oven has many uses, it can be made into a hiding place for many things. We really are the masters at hiding something very fast from Mason. He just doesn't quite get when enough is enough when it comes to treats of any kind. Presently we have two ovens. Like the picture here. The top was used for hiding and I could still use the bottom for cooking. Well, long ago it was a different story.

When in England last time we also loved having the missionaries over for dinner. We had a set of Elders that we just adored! Elder Rust and Elder McKinney. Elder M was from Georgia, USA. He had an over abundance of items in his apartment and was trying to mail them home. We told him we would do it and asked if it needed to get there quickly. His response was the following, "Take all the time you need." I am warning the world now, don't say that to my husband--EVER! Mike was responsible for taking it to the post office on base where the cost would be signifigantly cheaper. Time went on and the box got put to the side and forgotten. So I am cleaning and find this box, it had been about 2 weeks. I told Mike he HAD to have it gone. Without fail it had to be sent before they came to dinner the next day. I had work the next day and Mike was at home. I can't remember the exact logistics of this day but I got home to a Mike going out the door for something and would be back shortly before dinner. I see that the box is gone and don't say a thing. We had planned a dinner that would not involve the oven, but plans change. You see where I am going with this? I didn't have time to make the predetermined meal so I thought, "Pizza, always a big hit." I preheat oven and start picking up and playing with Mason. Suddenly our smoke detector is going off. I frantically run to the oven and see smoke billowing out. I'm not joking here, it is literally billowing out the sides. I open the oven and you guessed it--THE BOX!! I got it out and the saving grace was the tape on the outside that melted and prevented the box from actually catching fire. So Mike comes home and notices every door and window in the house open. He immediately smells the air and knows what has happened. You can only imagine my thought process--who hides a box in the oven!?! His first question, "You told me you were making ???" (I can't remember) I about lost my mind. My first question, "You hid a box in the oven just to avoid me getting irritated about it not being sent!?" Luckily for us only one white shirt was damaged inside the box and Elder M thought it was hilarious.

Happy Valentines Day

I have to say that Mike and I never really celebrate V-day. This is the first year in 9 years we have both done something. Mike brought me flowers. They are very beautiful and then I made lasagna, bread and cheesecake. Our first V-day(dating) I made those things for us and we had a candle lit dinner in my parents basement. It was a little different with no candles and four children surrounding our table, but it worked! :)

Can't hide a thing from this kid!

Mason had no knowledge these exsisted, let alone where they were hidden! He got down almost a whole donut in the time it took me to get the camera and take these. He is good, I'll give hom that!

A new bed

We are really horrible parents! We moved and thought, "we will buy a bed for Taylor when we get to England." Well, baby came, life got crazy, beds were overpriced, etc. Then my parents came and we decided we would wait because then they had a room and she didn't mind where she was sleeping. Then mold graced our life, then moving again, Christmas blah blah. Long story cut short, we finally got her a bed! Yippee for us! She wanted to take it back to the store at first, then she loved it. So I guess we can keep it now. :)

,

We are in trouble!

LET THE FUN BEGIN!!

Naked, always Naked

Did you think this was going to be an interesting post? Well, it is not. I just have a

question, do all girls insist that their babies be naked? Taylor does. They have cute clothes, we dress them regularly. We got them in PJ's when Taylor got ready for bed just to wake up and find them naked again. Is this normal?

Blackmail

Carter will forever give me plenty of shots that will be worth blackmail one day. The first is just a cute shot nothing special. I do have a feeling that he will want to burn the latter. hahahahahaha Fun to be mom!! :)

Proud daddy moment...da Bears!

This is Brennan's new favorite to chase. He will

settle for just about any ball, but this one is by far the favorite!

Late at night....

So I fell asleep a few nights ago. Mike was up with Mason. His meds were not helping in the sleep department. When downloading other pictures I came across about 15 of these. So this is apparently what they do when Mason can't sleep.

I especially enjoyed this one of him just being Mason. :)

A little glazed over if you ask me.

Flashdance

I just could not decide between the cheese and the super cheese. Taylor is just a ball of energy. She did insist upon these headbands at the commisary today. Normally I am not one that would just buy because they ask, but I was annoyed that I had to be there(not because of her) and she was so darn cute about it. So she got what she wanted today. :) All three had to be worn immediately and have been worn since.

Mason

Because I have done many posts on Mason and all that is him in the past I will try and keep this one short. I just finally pooled enough photos together to make him his own little collage. Mason hides from the camera like you would not believe. You can hide it and think he won't know, but he does. He is the stinker of all stinkers. He waits until you have put that camera away. He even knows if you have lied and said you did put it away. He won't come in the room until you honestly have, he just has the knowledge. It is quite disturbing sometimes.
Mason is doing great. He is learning and sometimes that is not always good with this kid. He mnipulates us better than any child coule. He was being very loving towards me the other day. got ready for bed without an argument, I was totally impressed. Until I realized he just wanted to watch a movie! Goodness, I thought he really cared. :) Just kidding, he does really care. He, as you can see loves dad.

Speaking of dad...this is a side note and those that only trully read the blog will get this at this point. The reason we were going private is because Mike was deploying. Now he has some back issues that need to be fixed first. So no more private! YIPPEE! I already told you we didn't want to. So I will post about his back later, but that is why after all this time we still are not private.

blogging slump

I feel like the first couple months of the year are so boring for our family. We are busy with school, work, day to day 'stuff' that just piles on top of one another. So I am forcing myself to blog about something...

Okay, I know Brennan is a couple weeks past 7 months, but I forgot to post this. Mike made such an effort to make it. I couldn't let it go to waste.

Brennan at 7 months can... Crawl, put not on hands and knees. He kind of pulls himself up and launches forward. It is something quite cute. He has two teeth. He loves food! Solids and mommy are the staple of his diet. He has a high pitched squeal of a laugh that makes just about anyone smile back in return. He is VERY ticklish. Can sit up and just today pulled to stand on one of his toys. He did need some stabilizing once there. He has just figured out that mom does in fact leave him on occasion. Mostly just to another room and he feels this is no longer appropriate considering he can follow he now. So he turtles himself after me. He can sign for milk and is oh so cute doing it!