Speaking of...

Does this post feel naked? I feel naked writing this post. There's just this big ol' box ready for me to fill it up with words. No pictures. (gasp!) Reason being I'm away from home. Or actually I am home. Well I guess they are both home. When I'm home I call the other home, home. Wierd, huh? (I think I'm getting stage fright, here. Can you tell I'm rambling)
Speaking of fright...My little Nolan was a total disaster today/tonight. We got to trunk-or-treat in good spirits and within 5 minutes he was in tears for the next 45. The kid was absolutely terrified. And it wasn't funny like the duck fright. That was funny. This was serious. He finally learned that he could get candy by saying "treat" and holding his pumpkin bucket. It was so precious.
Speaking of precious, remember how I said he was a disaster today? I laid down for a power nap during his nap and he woke up after about an hour. Yikes. My mom got him up but he bawled for me and she finally brought him in. I opened my covers and let him in, thinking he wouldn't stay there very long and before I knew it he was twitching and falling asleep.
And I could have snuck away but decided to lay there with his sandy blonde hair tickling my nose and face.
And I got to kiss all over him and he didn't flinch.
It was heaven.
When I woke up we were both sweating like crazy and I was drooling in his hair.
But we had napped together- a feat NEVER completed with either of my kids.
And I think I need to forget my wierd sleep habits and do that more often.
Speaking of wierd sleep habits did you know I'm a completely high-maintenance super-light sleeper? It's a HORRID CURSE. I had to go buy my own pillow today at Target because the one of the guest bed was too firm. I'm so ridiculous. And if I don't have a whirly fan to make some noise and it's too hot or too cold or the bed's too soft or the pillow's too flat or if I don't have a pillow to hug or if my knees touch or if the air ir stale....you can forget it. I'll be awake for hours. I'm telling you. It's horrible and sometimes I get so tired I cry but I can't fall asleep. So it was a frigin' x-mas miracle that I took a nap today with Nolan's hair up my nostril.
Oh, speaking of falling asleep, I'm about to at this computer. But I'm trying to think of a way to tie in my next "speaking of" to tell you about the new piece of the case of the stolen purse...
Speaking of....nevermind. Here's the scoop.
I was at home when I went to find my phone that one of my kids had moved when I saw that there was a picture on there that i never took. I was like, 'OOOOOohhhhh, i never checked the pictures after getting my phone back. Hmmm..." and i flipped to them and there were probably 20 pictures on there, the first being a picture of the ground with my coupons from my purse laying on the ground. This was at 11:29 Friday, the day the purse was stolen. The next is around 4pm of a butch looking woman with a man hair cut laying down. Then there are some of a kid on the toilet (lovely). The next pictures are the next day of a water bottle on the ground at 11:48am. Then there's one of a bike at 12:21pm. So in my mind I thought for sure that Meanrobberdude had taken the purse home then called the next day claiming he had found it in a dumpster, thus claiming a reward as well. But there's also a possibility that Meanrobberdude stole the purse, took it home and took some pics, ditched the purse, and then the dumpster-diver guy really did find it and return it.
SOOO, what do you think? You think Meanrobberdude would have the nerve to call and return my own purse and see us face to face? Or could there be more to this story???
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHH....

Ode to Nolan

Oh, my sweet little Nolan. You are the most darling thing I have ever laid eyes on. Plus it totally helps the cuteness factor that you say, "Sowwy, Mommy" without being told. And you tell me to "watts" everything you do. You had me watch every bite of dinner tonight. Was I annoyed? Yes, I was. But I still thought it was cute.
You slapped a kid at the park yesterday (or so his WT mother told me) and not only apologized but hugged him even though he was a complete stranger and smelled like 2nd hand smoke.
You count to three when I won't give you something you want.
You point your finger at me and say, "Mom, SSS!" when you want me to stop singing because you want to sing.
You giggle because you know you are being a total stinker. Like tonight when you took a shower with me and kept smacking my butt and laughing. Then you pointed at different parts of me and exclaimed, "eeeeeEEEEEeeeeeewwww" and it hurt my body image a little bit.
You have to do EVERYTHING your big brother does and love to dress up in costumes even though you have no idea who you are dressing up as.
You get really excited about trucks, balloons, birds, helicopters, airplanes, and Yoda and Star Wars (aka "dun-dun").
You sing like nobody's business. You can sing probably....30 songs and be understood.
You think farts are funny (where'd you get that from, anyway :)
You can pee on command.
You out-eat your brother at every meal.
You HATE wearing your right shoe. It's always missing. (plus you chucked one out the window of the car the other day and lost it.)
You make my mornings awesome because you collect your doggies, TWO blankies, and pillow and tell me, "a-mahning, Mom" and cuddle with me for a while.
You have learned to share at an incredibly young age and will give anything to Carter if he whines like a doggy.
You think Carter is so funny.


You are TERRIFIED to the BONE of feeding the ducks. (seriously, is this not the funniest picture you've ever seen?)


You love babies and liked holding your new baby cousin for about 45 seconds.


You blew out your candles all by yourself. (Carter was ready and waiting just in case)





You didn't like the cake but ate all the frosting.




You got a sweet new hat from G'ma and G'pa Burk and some crashing cars. And I think they are broken now.





And you pushed really really hard on this button to make the car go down and pulled this face every time.


Happy Birthday. I love you. Stay two.
Please?

(And lastly, lemme say that I really am not obsessive about plastering my watermark all over my pictures. I've been having issues with a plugin in Adobe Lightroom and it automatically puts that sucker on there EVERY TIME. It's a pain.)

New Baby Burk

I was SOOOOO excited to see this little girl. My BIL and SIL welcomed her to their family this morning and we are all so thrilled for them. She was 8lbs. 9oz and 19 3/4 inches long. Both mom and baby are doing well. Here's a few pics at the hospital.

Oh My Holy Whirlwind of Emotions. Fasten your seatbelts, folks.

You have NO IDEA the range of emotions I have been through this weekend.
It all started Friday morning- I went to the gym with the kids and took all my stuff to shower afterward then hit up Walmart on the way home, put Nolan down for a nap and have one myself. I needed it. I promised myself one immediately after waking up.
I never take my purse into the gym. I have a convenient little hiding place between the front two seats under the console that hides it pretty good. I shoved it under there and headed in.
An hour and a half later I walked back to the car. Carter beat me there and asked what happened to the window. My first thought when i saw the shattered glass was "That sucks for that person" but it didn't register that it was MY car until I used the remote to unlock the doors and saw the lights blink. CRAP. There was glass ALL OVER the passenger side and sidewalk.
My heart stopped and I checked under the console and yeah, it was gone.
I RAN back inside, which I'm not really sure why- I was panicked.
I got inside and told the lady at the front desk what had happened (and yes, I started crying. Don't ask why I'm just a cry baby.) and called the cops and Spencer. They both came and we talked to the cop who told us this has been a trend lately and went to check a couple of trash cans with no luck. Thus I started life with NO PURSE. No credit cards, cash, coupons, license, PHONE, NOTHING! How naked did I feel? Eew. It sucked. I sulked for hours. Then I got to attend Time Out for Women that night with friends which cheered me up considerably. But I think I reached for my phone...hmmm....428 times before it sunk in. ARG. (*btw, I remembered before leaving that I had a spare key to my car and my HOUSE in my wallet. And thief knew my address. YIKES! What a creepy feeling! When I got home last night my awesomely rad hubby was changing the locks on our house and put in some 10,000 watt lightbulbs in our outside lights. Seriously, we like light up the whole street)
I continued life with no purse today and attended a beautiful funeral this morning for a beloved friend who passed away last Saturday from cancer and boy did that put things in perspective. Suddenly my very replaceable purse and belongings weren't so important anymore. (but I still bellyached about it all day because of the annoyance and because I'm a bellyacher)
I got to go to lunch with my friends.
Without kids.
For the first time in my life.
How fabulous and fantastic is that? We had a ball. Such amazing women. I was so happy to be with them and felt so blessed.
Then we got to attend more of TOFW and hear some great talks and be uplifted.
Then I got to go to DINNER with my friends. This is just gettin too good.
AND THEN I GOT ICE CREAM WITH MY FRIENDS.
Bliss.
And I think by then I made my peace with Mr.Breakintomycarandstealmystuffandmakemecry. And I got home to my sweet, darling boys in their soft new doggy jammies and my wickedly awesome hubby who is my superhero in my times of silliness.
And Carter took my hand and told me to close my eyes and come inside- he had a surprise. I thought it was a cookie or something.
Then Spencer called my phone and I heard the ring and Carter brought my purse back to me and yelled "SUPRISE!"
I was shocked. I was ecstatic. Elated. Whatever. You get my drift. This whole weekend which started out so rotten had turned a complete 180. I had an awesome time getting away and LOVED coming home to my family, refreshed and uplifted and getting my stuff back was the icing on the emotional cake.
THE END.








Just kidding i know you are dying to know how Super Spence got the purse back...
Apparently the person who stole my purse took the cash and store credit cards and chucked the bag. A man who was dumpster-diving near the gym found it and called the first name on my phone list- a lady I know. She called her brother who had Spencer's cellphone number and called Spencer who called my phone and connected with this man and went to pick it up.
SO BOOYA Mr.Jerkwhoisalow-life. I hope it was worth $7. If you only read my blog you'd know I'm a cheapskate and you would have saved yourself the trouble.
Unless that dumpster-diver was really you..............and we paid you an extra 20 bucks for returning the purse that you stole....................crap I just thought of that. And that really puts a damper on my feelings of elation..........

Happy Sautumn!

It was fall- until today. Then it was Summer again. And I LOVED the Fall weather. I got to turn my OVEN on! But this evening it was warm and we played outside. (*note- it obviously felt a little too much like summer. Nolan drenched himself in old pool water- hence the nudity. EEW!)
Just wanted to share some pics of my darling little guys playing in the last days of summerish warmth.








The ice cream man still comes around every evening and graces us with his music. Nolan has learned his true identity and now yells, "A-man! Man!" and dances.




And finally, boys will be boys, huh? I'm just glad there was nothing in there.


Happy Sautumn. It's a real season around here.

We're back!!!

We were excited about this trip.


I couldn't WAIT to get up in the Fall weather with the changing trees and my camera.




We went up to Brighton and walked around Silver Lake




Then headed to Malad, Idaho.




And ate Subway at the farm.


And got to take pictures of this fence which is awesome and lined with boots for a mile or so.






And the kids got a break from the car.


We stopped to see the beautiful new temple in Rexburg.



and finally made our way to our home sweet home for the next few days, the "Owl's Nest" way up in Island Park, Idaho.

(complete with a sweet hot tub)

The weather was awesome when we got there and we explored the cabin and made a fire and had s'mores.



(long toes provided by yours truly)



We soaked in the hot tub, went to bed and woke up to this...







It was beautiful and felt like Christmas morning as the kids woke up (or maybe I woke mine up) and we got to watch their faces light up as they saw the surprise outside.





We lazied around in our jammies for a while









Needless to say, we spent most of that day inside.

The next morning my brother, Dad and I got up early for a hike at Harriman State Park.
We watched the sunrise


And enjoyed the peace and total silence









And my hat looked way different than this in my head.


Then went to Yellowstone that afternoon and got to see a saweet elk buck with his harem and got to hear him bugle. (It was AMAZING) (and by the way I think I accidentally deleted all those pictures...bummer)

And we made our way down to Old Faithful via some geysers. It was FA-REEZING and the wind was blowing and my chin froze and I had to talk without moving my face- just my lips. (and my mom might kill me for posting this picture of her. But seriously, what kind of face am I pulling?)

Carter was so cold and thought that the steam from the geysers was hurting his eyes so he kept pulling his hat over them and then he'd stumble all over the place.

And we made our way down to Old Faithful and not only was she late but very anti-climatic and about a 30 second show....LAME. And we were completely frozen.




After we thawed out we returned to the cabin and soaked in the hot tub to get the chill out from our bones. We packed up and headed out the next morning and took a scenic detour to Mesa Falls and yes, it was freezing.







We had Reed's Dairy, which is the BEST ice cream on the planet. If you think that you've already had the best ice cream on the planet, you haven't had Reed's. It's amay-za-za-zing.

We saw lots of friends and ate lots of food and saw lots of breathtaking scenery. It was an awesome trip. If you've never been to Idaho- GO! You won't regret it. And when you are there go to Reed's dairy. It's worth the trip.