A reminder of what is funny! (to me that is)

Okay, so Matt has been the one to post random rambling thus far. So it is my turn. I just want to post some Youtube videos that are my favs.* Some are new (at least to me) and some are old. I hope you all enjoy and get some good laughs.

*Disclaimer-The following opinions are strictly the author's and do not reflect the group's opinion in anyway. Thank you.*


First we have probably my all time favorite Youtube video. It is "Ok Go - Here It Goes Again". The things people can up with when they have 8 treadmills just lying around. I would say this is a brilliant way to advertise your band. We have a fitness equipment retailer near our home that reminds me of this video every time I pass it. Why, you ask? Because, when I first noticed them, they had their mail box attached to a stationary bike next to the street. Now they are much more advanced. They have constructed and stick-figure-ish robot that is on an elliptical machine with the mailbox attached to that. I guess if any person were to be on an elliptical machine as long as that robot is on that machine, you would look like a stick figure too. Anyway, back to the video. The first time I saw this, I laughed so hard, I almost peed my pants. This one is tops in my book. (you may want to put down a towel underneath you before you start playing this and the other videos)

Alright, now the next video involves on of my favorite Olympic sports, women's gymnastics. There are actually several videos from this particular gymnast. I recommend you go and watch all of them. Good stuff.




On to the next. This one I saw for the first time this week. I think it is the epitome of Mormon culture. Here is to you Mormons! Just cause we can't drink or do drugs, does not mean that we can't act like we are stoned. (side note-the gymnast in the above movie is a Mormon and from Utah, just wanted to prove my case) I also love the song they chose for their music. It is one of my favorites.




And lastly, I would like to pay tribute to the movie of the week, coming out this Friday, "Twilight". Don't get me wrong, I am totally going to go see it. And I am pretty sure I will love it, but I couldn't help but laugh at this parody of the Twilight trailers. I am sorry if there are some die hard Twilighters out there that get offended by this, but it was too good to not pass along.




Well, I hope this has made your day a little bit brighter and your abs a little bit stronger. I would like to say that there are other videos that I could have put on here, but I didn't want to make this too long of a post.

Woo Wooo!!

No, I am not cat-calling a hottie walking past. That is the sound my son makes anytime he sees anything that as to do with trains, not just trains themselves. He loves trains. We have a picture of a train on the underpass at our exit from the freeway. One time we weren't stopped by the light and so we kept on driving and he got so mad at me. He didn't get a good look at his beloved train. If I watch one of my movies and it happens to have a train in it (such as While You Were Sleeping), he will want to watch it over and over again. I say again, he loves trains.

It all began with Thomas the train. I put it on when we moved into our house so I could unpack boxes without him under foot. It didn't take long for him to get into it. He already loved anything with wheels. So the obsession began. My Aunt Karen, bought him his first train in April which only made the obsession worse. In May, my sister-in-law, Kim, and her son Brayden, took us to go see Thomas at the Heber Creeper. He didn't want to ride the train, he wanted to go see Thomas and watch his wheels go around. After we did ride the train, we went inside a tent at the station that they had set up with several trains sets. Beckett had died and gone to heaven. It was tough to get him to share the multiple trains he had gathered. (I just have to say that that was one of the smartest marketing schemes I have ever seen. When you are finally able to drag your child out of that tent, kicking and screaming, you then have to pass the tent where you can purchase those exact train sets. Evil people!) It was a lot of fun (thanks Kim and Brayden), even if it was rough getting out of there without buying the whole gift shop.

The obsession is still strong, 6 months later. When I go to visit my parent's, I typically get Beckett out first and let him run around while I get the baby out of the car before we go inside. I noticed that he kept saying "train, train" while I was getting Belle out. I didn't think much of it. He says train a lot. I just thought he wanted his train to play with or something like that. Well, one time I noticed where he was saying it. My parent's have big 50 gallon water barrels outside by their garbage cans. Those barrels are on two 2x4's. It looked like a train track. I couldn't believe it. That was why he kept saying train. Smart as a whip!

More evidence of his obsession, the other day, Matt left his belt out on the couch. Beckett than picked it up and placed it on the floor between his Winnie the Pooh push train and his dump truck. The belt was now a train track. This kid has a one track mind I tell you.

He also got new sippy cups with Thomas on them this last week. I have never seen him drink more than since he got those cups.

I just have to say I love my son! He brings so much happiness into my life, even if it means that I have to buy a Thomas balloon at the grocery store because he has eyes like a hawk and can spot Thomas anywhere, no matter how small Thomas is. These are the things that make him Beckett. I kind of, secretly wish I had something that I loved that much.

The Update

Well hello, all! We have had a few busy weeks (hence the no new posts for a while). First, we had one of Matt's good friends, James Bullough, get married the Friday before General Conference. We went to Vernal, UT to witness the blessed occasion. We had a great time and some kind people, relatives of John's (James' twin brother), opened their home to let us stay there instead of going to a hotel.

The temple there is so beautiful. It was originally a tabernacle, but the church turned it into a temple in 1997. As we were waiting to go into the sealing room, I noticed a really neat looking couch. It was very antique looking. A temple worker noticed me noticing the couch and came over and told me that it was originally Brigham Young's couch. They reupholstered it, so it looked more modern looking. So, if ever you happen to find yourself in "Dinosaurland" at Vernal, take the time to stop by the temple there. It is so beautiful.

After we got home from Vernal, my wonderful Aunt Karen came and spent Saturday night with us. We had fun watching Pete's Dragon and Ironman. Two totally different movies, but we enjoyed them just the same (well, maybe not Matt. Guess which one Matt wasn't too thrilled to watch). She also introduced us to some deliciously addicting snack foods that were kind of like cinamon and sugar covered puff things. They tasted like they used real butter to coat the puffs. They were divine. Thank you, Karen, for introducing me to one more thing I should avoid but probably won't.

General Conference was wonderful and, as always, goes by too quickly. I was so shocked when Pres. Monson announced the new temple in Rome, Italy. I would have never thought we would build one there. That is wonderful that the saints there are being blessed for their faithfulness.

Well, the next week was so busy that I can't even remember what it was filled with.

Last Saturday, Matt got to go to the BYU football game and freeze with my family while they watched BYU beat New Mexico (Go Cougs!). He then was able to warm up at the Brick Oven, a popular college hangout in Provo with amazing pizza. Unfortunately, when he got back to my parent's house, he started to feel sick and we became grounded there due to the fact that Matt had contracted the stomach flu from someone at work. That night was not a pleasant one. The next morning, I rushed up to Ogden, through a snow storm, to give my Sunday School lesson, leaving Matt in the capable hands of my family. When I got there, I discovered that it was not my turn to teach that Sunday. So, I braved the snow storm again and went back home to take care of my almost dying husband. To put it lightly, I felt sheepish.
Matt was feeling well enough on Monday that he was able to go to work, thankfully. That night Anabelle tried Rice Cereal for the first time. Here is what she thought:

Unfortunately, she was not able to have it again this week until yesterday because the Stomach Flu Fairy followed us from my parent's house. Beckett got it first and was also the last one to get rid of it, poor kid. He had it rough. I only had it a little bit and Anabelle threw up once and was fine. To sum up the whole experience, I probably did 15 loads of laundry this week. And tomorrow, I am going to be scrubbing this house from top to bottom. It was a most unpleasant week.

I guess one pleasant thing happened this week. Anabelle is crawling now. She does in a catapillar looking way. She puts her arms out in front of her and then pulls herself forward onto all fours. Then she puts her tummy down and puts her arms back out in front of her again. It is hard to explain other than she kind of looks like catapillar going up and down. It is pretty cute.

Well, now I have caught you all up. I wish good health upon you all. And if you must get sick, only one at a time.

Awards

Well, I truly do not know what to say. I am so flattered. Who know a kid from Bountiful could grow up and win an award such as this. I don't know where to begin. I have so many to thank for this award. First, Matt - He was the one who set up the account and started the blog. He also reminds me to take pictures for the blog. Also my children for making my life interesting enough to have something to write about. And for being so cute. I would also like to thank Julia for the nomination. And last I would like to thank all of you that read my blog for making this possible. (sniff, wipe tear) I am so lucky and blessed. I am told that I now need to nominate two people for this award. So I will nominate Kim and Erin, they were the first people I knew to have a blog. Congratulations for being way more tech savvy than me.

P.S. To translate the gift from Portuguese to English, it means:"This blog invests and believes, the proximity[meaning, that blogging makes us 'close' -being close through proxy].

"They all are charmed with the blogs, where in the majority of its aims are to show the marvels and to do friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize, and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut, or that they propagate?"

The Zoo

Well we finally did it. I took the kids to the zoo. I brought along my two sisters to survive the event. We had a blast. I think Beckett didn't know what to think about the fact that he was actually seeing the animals that he has been seeing pictures of. After he realized that they were real, then he started to say their name over and over again. For example, when we got to the giraffes, I pulled out the camera so I could capture his reaction to them. When ever he sees pictures of giraffes, he immediately says "Giraffe! Giraffe!". So I was expecting him to do that exact same thing. NOPE. He just sat there and stared at them. I filmed him for a while hoping that he would come out of his shock of how strange they really do look like, but he didn't. BUT as soon as I put the camera away, "Giraffe! Giraffe!". He loved the elephants the most (not surprised). That one he started to say right away. He didn't get the monkeys though. I'm betting he just didn't care about the monkeys. He used to just love them, but they have been replaced by elephants (blame "Dumbo"). We were going to ride the train, but the line was so long and it was getting close to nap time, so I didn't push my luck and avoided it. Next time though, we will ride the train. I did let him play in the water of this giant marble-ball-fountain thing though. We did have to stop when he started to splash other kids. Here is the video of that.

Anabelle didn't really care about the zoo. She didn't really want to be in the stroller. She only wanted to be held. Lately, Anabelle has been eyeing our food. She watches Beckett eat toast with such longing. So, while we were eating lunch at the zoo, my little sister, Sara, was holding her. Sara was eating a sandwich and Anabelle attacked that thing. She wanted it and she did everything she could to eat it. We caught her on video trying to eat mine, but I haven't figured out how to put videos from my camcorder onto the computer. Once I do, I will post that one. It was hilarious. I can post videos from our digital camera though, so maybe I will have to only take videos with that until I figure out the camcorder thing. Here is a picture of Anabelle eating a cracker that we caught with. She got out of Beckett's bag of snacks.

Also, Anabelle is this close (picture me holding up my thumb and pointer fingers really close together) to crawling. Sunday night she got up into the crawling position, but gave up and just scooted on her tummy. It's going to be soon. Look out!

Also, Beckett found a new way to play with Anabelle.

We had fun with this until Beckett decided to start drumming on the bucket on her head. It was cute though.

Some interesting reading...

So I've looked around at our friends' blogs and a few questions popped into my mind. First, don't any of us use spell check? Second, don't any of us have fun anymore (this is excluding Mike and Dana, our friends who live way the heck out east and have been to concerts, the ocean, D.C. and a bunch of other places that are overcrowded with touring liberals)?

I would hope that people like James, my friend who lives in Salt Lake and is nearing mortal death, a.k.a. marriage, would have more time and money for fun things like space exploration and sitcom writing. But no, most our creativity seems to end at taking photographs of wherever we do go and putting those onto the blog space.

Not that I don't appreciate the pictures of my own children plastered on all your virtual walls and seeing the pseudo-cool places you find yourselves in. I guess I just want more for my own entertainment.

Am I sounding selfish? I think I'm sounding selfish.

How about this: You all write really well and how about some accolades, coated in sugar for your health.

A Brand new week!

Hello all. Here is my, Alissa's, first attempt at blogging. I am not as eloquent as Matt, but I will do my best. It took me a while to find the time to finally sit down and do this. We have been doing something every weekend it seems like. First there was Peach Days with Ana & Scott. I was amazed. It was almost as big as the fair, except all the animals were replaced with peaches. They had all the rides and food though. Beckett made some imaginary friends there (they also could have been his ghosts friends too). The next weekend we had a fun picnic with my old roommates and then had Eric and Julia over so they could watch Becktt & Belle while Matt & I spoke in church. They almost missed their job because they thought it started an hour later than it did. But they made it, much to our relief, in the nick of time. Thanks Eric & Julia for your help! Then this last weekend, my dad slept over to help Matt finish putting up our rain gutters, but unfortunately, it looks like proffessionals need to finish the job. I give them an A for effort though. After he left, my little sister came up and slept over. Us girls watched "Little Women" (Belle included). Matt came out of the bedroom every so often to put in his two mocking cents about the movie though. But we had fun anyway (at least I did, I hope Sara wasn't bored stiff).



Well, it is a brand new week and hopefully it will not be filled with the runny noses that last week was filled with. I almost got sick, but thankfully, my superior immune system saved me. Anabelle has been sleeping through the night and so I feel like a brand new woman. As Pam from our favorite TV show said, "Never underestimate the power of a good night's sleep." I am busy trying to keep up on regular house work and clean up the messes that Beckett keeps making. I have been trying to start our food storage. I went to a case lot sale on Saturday and I had a very hard time letting myself pay for it. I had to keep reminding myself that it was okay and it was going to save money in the end. Buying all that food at once was kind of scary though.


Both Beckett and Anabelle have grown up a lot in the last week. Anabelle is now sitting up all by herself and has started to make the repetitive "babababa" noises. We go to the doctor next week and then we start solids. I can't believe it has already been 6 months. Time has really flown by with Anabelle. She also has her first tooth. She is very good at picking things up and playing with them now. It looks like she has to really concentrate to do grasp the toys. I love watching her face as she does it. She loves to watch Beckett play. She laughs at everything he does. He on the other hand, is starting to get a little jealous of her and doesn't like to have her touch him. Ahhhh toddlers!



Beckett is learning how to say new words left and right. For the last month or so, all elephants have been called "Dumbo", and all fish have been called "Nemo" (even my dad's stuffed parana is called nemo, but he says "Ouch" afterwards so show that it has sharp teeth and is scary looking). *Interesting side note, when he says both "Dumbo" and "Nemo", they sound exactly the same. The only way you could tell which one he was talking about was to look for which one was in his field of vision (which can be hard to spot, that kid has eyes like a hawk).* But this weekend he figured out how to say the right words for elephant and fish. Fish sounds perfect. He is so excited that he knows this word that he now says it as he walks around the house, fish or no fish to look at. He also can say elephant now, but it sounds a lot like he is saying "a fish". We will have to keep working on that one. Here are a couple of fun videos of Beckett just being Beckett. They were taken at Peach Days. Sorry about the camera work (I blame Matt completely on this one). Note - on the second video tilt your held to the right about half way through and you will be able to watch the rest just fine.

Matt's schooling is going well. He is super busy with both school and work. We luckily get him all weekend. He works so hard to take care of us. We love him lots and appreciate all that he is doing. He has also started an apprenticeship to my father to become a "Mr. Fix-it". I think this has been on of Matt's greatest decisions. I am sure that this will take him far. Thank you to my dad for accepting him into the program. Matt & I are both anxiously awaiting the season premier of "The Office" this Thusday. We are really excited to see what happens this season.



Well that is us so far. I am hoping that having a blog will encourage me to document our family more. So until next time, Peace out!