What a long week!

This week has seemed to last forever! I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Patrick had to work a TON! (For some audit thing or something...) We are talkin till after midnight some nights. In fact, he didn't see Brayden from Sunday night until Wednesday night because he was going to work so early and then working so late.  (Usually he is a 9-5 kinda guy.) He would barely see Conner in the mornings (he is my early riser!) but that was about it. I can tell when Patrick hasn't been around for a while in many ways, not only do I miss him, but the boys really miss their dad. They start asking where he is, if they can call to talk to him, when he will be home, and so on. It's hard for little kids to understand things like work, and why somedays it lasts longer then others. But the good news is that he has a 3 day weekend to spend with us, and no work!! YAY! I'm so grateful that my husband works so hard to support our family, and he sacrifices a lot.  He has a hard job, and I know for sure I could not do it. I love that he is usually home with us every night, and is able to do things like coach soccer for Brayden. Cause to a little boy, that is just the coolest thing in the world to have your dad do something like that with you.  And I shouldn't complain, I did at least get a chance to do some scrapbooking, and play with my new Cricut cartridge I got a while ago. So I did keep busy, but it's hard to keep your sanity when your husband is gone for so long! Thank goodness for kids bedtime! Somedays it is THE BEST time of day. 

Summer Fun...

Last weekend, we decided it was time to get the boys a little pool to play in. So Patrick and I went to Wal-Mart and found this fun one for just $20. And it may be the best $20 I have ever spent! The boys have had so much fun playing in it, and it does a great job of wearing them out and using up all that energy that little boys seems to have. I just sit out there with a magazine or something with my feet in the water and sit under the shade of my house. When the sun gets on me, and I get too hot, we come in. It's great! Patrick's mom came to visit last weekend also, and she brought the boys some fun new swimsuits, that they just loved, and wore every time they went swimming. The only bummer is that it has gotten so windy the past few days, and today it is stormy, so they haven't been able to go out to play in it for a few days, but don't think they haven't asked like a hundred times to go out to play, because they have! And since our backyard is like 2 square feet, there isn't a ton for a little boy to do out there, so this is a great remedy for that! It will at least be something they can do outside this summer when it is a million degrees.

The end of an era....

So today we officially sold our Toyota! We are very excited about that, but a little sad too. It was my first car, and I've had it for almost 9 years. Before that, it was my sister's car and she had it for like 5 years or so before I did. So it's weird to see it go. But at the same time, I'm glad it's gone. Since Patrick got his company truck in March, the Toyota has just been in the way and no one has been driving it. We pretty much just would take it to the gas station near by or something so the neighbors couldn't complain that we left our car parked out on the street for too long. 

I was going to post a picture of the car, but we just got a new computer this week, and so the picture is not on the new computer, and I have no idea yet how to get it on there. So just imagine the beauty with me for a sec. A once tan colored, 17 year old car, 185K + miles, hubcaps rattling as you drive, and the random cosmetic defect from age. It was a good car for us for a long time. I've had some good times in it in college and since we have been married. That little car sure made a lot of trips from Utah to Arizona during my nine year of ownership.  We sold it to a neighbor/friend who needed a cheap car to get to work and back. So it was a perfect deal for both of us. It was a good car...

Long live my little "Tiger" car! (that's what me and my roommates named it in college)  My boys are really going to miss it. I don't know why, but they thought that car was so cool. 

Time to go shopping...

I know this is total randomness, and most won't care, but I'm excited! My sister found out this week that she is having a little girl! :) That makes me so excited because, well, now I get to go shopping for girl stuff! And while I love my boys and all, there is just so much more stuff for girls, and it is so stinkin' cute! And I'm just about as girly of a girl as you can get, so I am going to love buying that little cutie-patutie things like dolls, Barbie's, and anything NOT Power Ranger or Transformer related! AND as if that wasn't cool enough, they are naming her after me! No not Melissa (blah!) but her middle name will be after me. Long story short...ever since I was born, my sister has called me Lizzy. No clue why, but it has stuck my whole life, and so the middle name will be Elizabeth  (cuz of Lizzy, and someone in Pride and Prejudice I think, but I've never seen that movie...gasp! I know, but it's true!) in remembrance of who I'm pretty sure will be her favorite auntie!  :)

What a trooper!

So this morning, bright and early, we headed to the Health Dept. to get Brayden's shots. I had Patrick come with us, because he is better at calming Brayden down then I am, and I was sure he would need calming down. So last night we explained that he had to go get 3 shots, but mom and dad would both be there, and he could hold daddy's hand and squeeze it real tight if he got scared. And of course we mentioned the new toy afterwards for being so big and brave. And I was so impressed how well Brayden did. No crying at all, he held his daddy's hand, and sat there very still, and just barely flinched and said "ouch" every time she gave him his shots. I was so proud of him, I was the one trying not to cry! He is getting to be such a big and wonderful kid, and I just love him to death! Good job Brayden!



Here he is with his new Power Ranger toy that he very carefully selected.



And of course Conner can't be left out, but I wasn't gonna buy him a toy to, so he settled for $1 popcorn while we were shopping at Target. I love how easily you can please a 2 year old sometimes! :)

Random Things...

So some random things that happened with us this week are....

I found out on Friday that I have to register Brayden for kindergarten! AHHH! Is it already that time?? So I went online to the school district web page to find out what I needed to do to register him, and find that he has to get 3 booster shots before I can register him.....which is WEDNESDAY!! So poor kid has to get those, which I'm totally bribing him that if he doesn't freak out, I will go and buy him a new Power Ranger or Transformer toy of his choice immediately after. (I'm so into the bribe thing with my kids, and don't feel bad about it at all! Desperate time call for desperate measures.)

I actually spent 2 hours at the park with my kids on Friday, and DIDN'T get sunburned! I have had to be more vigilant with the sunscreen since I moved here, but I always seem to forget just one little spot, and without fail, I get sunburned there! But not this time!! I felt victorious! :)

I have realized that Primary gives me a headache! I have been teaching in Primary for a year now, and today, I just really realized that it gives me a headache. All the noise! My goodness. Reverence is sometimes hard to come by in Primary I think. And I find that I'm much more stern with Brayden in there then I am with my own kids in my class. Today, I swear, I was shooting him my "stern mommy" look to stop talking and playing with his friends. I even had to play the mean mom card, and make him move away from his friends so he'd at least try to be reverent. Have any of you taught Primary with you kid in it?? Are your harder on your own, then any of the others? Am I on my own on this one?

I went out to lunch with my old college roommate yesterday! After living here almost a year, I found out that one of my favorite roommates, Brooke, lived here in Vegas! Happy day! So we finally met up and had lunch. It was so fun to catch up! It has been years since we saw each other! I can't believe it has been almost 10 years since I went to college and lived in the good ol dorms of LDS BC.

Also on Saturday, Patrick and I spend a good part of the day cleaning our carpet in our living room. Just so all of you know....it is the worst idea in the world to put cream colored carpet in a house! Don't ever choose that. When/if you are ever building a house, regardless if you have kids, and you are trying to decide between a nice cream color or a darker shade, always ALWAYS pick the darker shade. Then you don't have to spend a Saturday cleaning the stains out that your kids, and normal walking around has done to your carpet. It does look much better now. Now the trick is to really convince my sweet little Conner to stop taking his "spill proof" (not really!) sippy cups all over the house with him, and actually keep them in the kitchen. I'm sure it is only a matter of time before it is dirty and gross again, but hopefully we won 't have to clean them again until we move.

So the house hunting thing is not working out so hot for us. I have days that I'm overwhelmingly discouraged about it. Then other days I just feel like it hasn't worked out yet because maybe it's not suppose to. I kinda fear that this may be one of those things that you really, really want, and pray that it works out how you want, but the Lord has other plans. Maybe we are already where we are suppose to be for the time being. And while that is not what I would like the plan to be, that maybe what it is suppose to be. After 2 months of searching, 4 offers that we have been outbid on, and several others that were sold before we even got a chance to put an offer in, I am getting burned out! So we are taking a breather from it all, and just taking a step back. There are houses all over, at a great price, and we will eventually find one....right?!?! This is what I tell myself almost daily!

So there is my week in a nutshell!

How did we live without it???

This weekend, Patrick and I decided to finally buy a new propane tank for our grill. When we moved from Salt Lake last year, the movers wouldn't let us pack it into the moving truck because it was hazardous or something. We were in such a rush to get out of town that day to beat a huge snow storm, we just gave it to our friend who was there helping us, and left. So we haven't been able to use our grill since, cuz we didn't have a tank. So we finally got around to getting one on Sat. and grilled some hamburgers and hot dogs! They were so good!! So Sunday night we decided to grill Patrick's yummy pork ribs. They were AMAZING!! We both just sat there and wondered how we lasted so long with out our grill, we love that thing. The boys really thought it was great because we sat outside on Sat. night and had a picnic in our back yard. They thought that was the best thing ever! Top the picnic off with a Popsicles and they were set for the night! It was a beautiful day!

Last week was Brayden's last day of preschool. We are all gonna miss that! (especially me, that is when I went to get all my errands done, it's so much easier with just one kid!) But he is really looking forward to Kindergarten in August. Here are some pictures of the cute little parade that the kids put on. It was very cute. Then Brayden and I had a picnic lunch with everyone in preschool. He thought that was so cool! Thanks Lindsey and Lisa, I totally stole these pictures from your blogs, cuz I forgot my camera that day!! And HUGE thanks to Lisa for doing such a fun preschool, Brayden has sure loved it!

Brayden hates taking pictures in the sun, so he usually doesn't open his eyes! He's silly!

Good times!

So I was looking through some photo's today, and I came across these pictures from our trip to New York City. I then realized that it has been 2 years since we were there! That was such a great trip! Patrick had to go out there for an Autism conference for work. So there was no way I was going to miss out on a great trip like that. So we got to go with our great and best-est friends, Chris and Kym!! We all left our kiddo's with the grandparents (aren't they great for things like that?!?!) and headed off for 4 days in NYC. Not enough time to see everything we wanted, but enough time to have tons of fun, and see some great things.

Some of our favorites were....

the Statue of Liberty.....

Ground Zero.....

Kym and I went shopping on 5th Ave. while our husbands were in their conference. Despite the fact that Kym was like 15 weeks pregnant with her 3rd baby, she walked all 30 blocks with me, and we still had fun! We went to F.A.O. Schwartz and I had to take a picture with this life sizes elephant! How funny is that?!? Who buys that??? It was like $15,000!

Kym and I also wanted to go to Serendipity for lunch one day, partly because we have heard great things about it, and partly because it had Frozen Hot Chocolates, and they had just been on Oprah's favorite things list, so we had to try them out....they were yummy! We also found a place in Time Square that had the chocolate popcorn that was on Oprah's list too, that was great as well!

We ate lunch one day at this mall (South Side Pier I think??) that overlooked the Brooklyn bridge. That was pretty awesome!

We rode on those double decker tour buses that you see in the movies, and went all over Manhattan and into Brooklyn.

We of course hit a Broadway play! We saw Barefoot in the Park. When we were there, it was staring Amanda Peet. It was really good. We also walked through Central Park. Patrick even tracked down a Hungarian bakery that we went to have pastries at one morning. He showed us the different ones and which ones he used to eat on his mission. We stayed in a hotel that over looked Times Square. That was pretty cool.

It was the best trip! If any of you have not had the chance to ever go to New York City, I would totally recommend it, we loved it!