Tickets

I'm one of those people (like most of you out there) who feel like they never win anything! Well, I can't say that anymore. One of our local radio stations (The Cowboy 104.3) has been giving away tickets to a midnight showing of Eclipse. And the other day I was driving home down the freeway and I heard their little cue-to-call, so I gave it a shot, like I have many times before, and I got through. I was so surprised. Unfortunately it was just a recording that said: You are caller number 4, please try again. So, I immediately called back and somebody answered. I WON!

I got four tickets to the midnight premier. It's tomorrow night and I'm so excited. We're having our neighbor come over and stay with our kids so we can go. Sterling's brother and his wife are coming with us since I know they're big Twilight fans.

When I talked to Sterling later he told me that the stretch of highway that I was driving on at the time was exactly where he was driving when he won rodeo tickets a year ago on the radio. Hmm.. Must be a lucky stretch of highway. For those of you in Utah, it's on Southbound I-15 between the point of the mountain and Thanksgiving Point. Watch out for it. It's a lucky spot.

I'm super excited to go. It should be great!

Happy Father's Day

I forgot to call my dad on father's day. Does that make me a bad daughter?

Actually, I called him on father's day, my time. But it was Monday morning his time. It's annoying that they live in Hong Kong. But they'll be here in two weeks!!

Sterling had to work today (yes, on Father's Day), but he was able to come home and spend some time with the family afterward.
Honey, you're wonderful. Thank you for giving me two beautiful, wonderful children. You're a great father to them. I love you.

I also wanted to say Happy Father's Day to my daddy, since I didn't get to talk to him on Father's Day. Daddy, you're the best father a girl could have. I love you so much.


I'm so thankful for the fathers in my life. I hope each of you took the time today to appreciate them and everything they do and how wonderful they are.


Now, for the grandparents, because I know they want to see pictures of Austin, and I haven't been very good about posting any. So, grandparents, here you are. Eat your heart out.
It's getting to the point where you can definitely tell they're siblings. They're really starting to look alike.Krista sent me this shirt. Apparently she couldn't resist. :)
Cami likes to get down on the ground and play with her little brother. He's not always thrilled about it.
I was going to add a few videos as well, but for some reason I can't figure out how to get them to work. I'll try to work it out and post them later. Wish me luck.

Self esteem

Self esteem: noun, def.: a confidence and satisfaction in oneself

Mine got shattered a few days ago. I was sitting around with some people from my ward, one of which was a 5 (possibly 6) year old boy who used to be in my primary class. I'm leaning back in a chair, just relaxing and he turns to me and says "I can tell you're about to have a baby because you're tummy is big."

.....

Well, actually I just had a baby. But thanks for pointing out how I haven't yet lost the weight Austin gave me.

In his defense, his mom is pregnant right now. But don't kids just say the funniest things?

Funny. Yeah.

Visitor

The last week of April, my best friend from college Melony came to visit me. Sterling was gone to Vernal that whole week, so it gave me something to look forward to. She arrived on Wednesday and left on Sunday. It was great to see her again.

It was actually pretty funny because when she and her husband booked her plane tickets, they booked it to include May 1st, which was their one year anniversary. When I asked them about it later, Melony sheepishly told me that 'they somehow forgot' what that day was. I guess if it's the first time you're celebrating it it might be easy to forget. I was glad she was there to spend time with me though.

We spent our days sitting around, playing with my kids, shopping, talking the usual girl-talk: clothes, men, shoes, cute jeans, work, more clothes, you get the idea. We went down to the BYU bookstore and shopped there a bit and just had fun being together again. I miss having her live close by, there's just something about having a best girl friend near you.

We realized late Saturday night that we hadn't taken any pictures, so these are the ones that she gave me, and coincidentally are the same ones on her blog. That's what you get when you forget a camera.

Not the most flattering picture of me, but she looks great.
Mel went to see her brother and sister-in-law and their kids while she was here, so, I took advantage of her absence. Since she spent her anniversary with me, I made a cake for her. I had to call her mom and husband to see if they remembered what their wedding cake was like, but neither of them could remember what kind of frosting they had. In their defense, Mel and James didn't get more than the 'feed your new spouse' bite of cake, so I don't blame them for not remembering. Afterward we baked the cake, Sterling and I made another dessert to cover the cake smell. Mel has a nose like a hound dog when it comes to cake. (I learned that while we were roommates and I tried to bake a surprise cake for her birthday once. She knew as soon as she walked into the apartment.)
This was the cake. It's likely the nicest looking cake I've ever made. Sad, right? I'm no pastry chef. Her colors were bright pink and green. I didn't have a green flower, so I made one from construction paper. Tacky, I know. But it's the thought that counts.
It was so much fun to see her again. I have the best friend any girl could ask for. I just wish she didn't live all the way in Arizona so I could see her more often. Mel, I love you girl and couldn't ask for more in a friend. You're the best.

Two months and four years

Today Sterling and I are celebrating our fourth anniversary. Unfortunately, we're celebrating it separately. He's out in Vernal tracking grouse, while I'm here with the kids. However, he took me out last weekend to dinner and a movie. It was great to get a kid-free date with him again.

Also, today, Austin is two months old. It's amazing how fast time flies. He's already gotten so big and he's smiled and laughed. It's so fun when I get my face down next to his, and he looks at me and breaks into a huge toothless grin. Amazing how such simple things can make you feel so loved.

Austin, you're such a sweet little boy, I'm so grateful for you. Two months has gone by so fast, and I've enjoyed every second of it.

And Sterling, thank you for four wonderful years. I hope the next will be even better. I love you.

Haircut

So, Cami finally got her first haircut. I've just been letting it grow till now and haven't really cared what it looks like. She won't let me put pigtails or anything in it, so it just kinda does it's own thing.

Now you ask, if you've been fine with her hair until now, what motivated you to finally cut it? Well, I'll tell you. Before I had kids I often looked at other women with their kids at the grocery store and their kids didn't have their hair done, their clothes were covered with food, their faces were dirty, etc. and I always told myself that I would never be one of those moms who just let my kids run wild and free.

Then, I was looking at Cami one day and I realized: that's exactly what I'd become. She was wearing lunch on her face and clothes and her hair had grown out to a mullet. My child looked like a dirty little hillbilly. I was not happy with myself for letting it get like this.

I hope I don't sound critical of other moms out there, because I'm learning how hard it is to handle more than one child and I realize now that it's really just easier to let your kids be kids and be dirty, but I never wanted to be like that.

So, I sat her down a few weeks ago and finally gave her a haircut! She wasn't too enthusiastic about it. She was far more interested in what was in the bathroom drawers, but I managed to at least chop off the mullet.
Here's a picture of the mullet. It's just a few long strands hanging down the middle of her back, and when her hair dried, it clumped together and then it looked like a nasty rat tail. Gross.

Here's the after picture. Her patience was just about exhausted by that point, so it was hard to continue to get her to hold still. But, the rat tail is gone and it's more or less the same length. I'm so proud of her for putting up with it as well as she did.

Sleepless nights

Remember how I said that if I got one post a month I was doing okay. Well, here's my April post. I'll try to post again, but can't promise anything.

So, I don't know how many people read all the way to the bottom of a post where it has the date and time stamp. If you do, you'll see that this post is being added at about 1:30 am. Now, you may ask, 'what are you doing up so late?' But you must be forgetting that I have a new baby. Ah, now doesn't that just explain it all?

Austin usually eats last at around 10:00 at night. Before that it's a steady feeding every two hours. Sometimes he wants to eat every hour, it gets old real fast. Back to the point. Once he eats at 10, I know that I now have several hours of down time, so I start doing things that I don't like being interrupted to do, like playing on the computer or reading a book or budgeting or other fun stuff like that. Soon I glance down at the clock and realize that it's nearly 1 in the morning. Oops, so much for going to bed early like I planned. Again.

By then I realize that Austin will be up to eat again at any time (he still only gives me four or five hours at a time each night), and that is why I'm up right now blogging. I know he'll be up within a half hour to eat and there's just no point in going to sleep before I have to feed him again.

So, since I'm up, here's some of the pictures I've taken of him recently. My mom has been pestering me to post more pictures of him so she can get to see what he looks like. So many people say that he's the spitting image of Sterling. I still don't see it.

We have a picture of Cami just like this. Sadie makes such a good little doggie mommie.

Cami also had this as her first bed. It only took about two weeks for Austin to grow out of it. He has his own crib now.

Like most moms, this is what I spend half my day doing.

Poor kid is going to be traumatized from having the camera shoved in his face all the time, but he's just so cute.

There's just something about a sleeping baby. So precious.

Relaxin in his chair. I wish I had a seat like this with a vibrator in it.

Oh, I hear a baby cry. That's my cue...