just take my money

when i had elizabeth, i got a bunch of target gift cards from generous friends and family.  this is great except that i don't really shop at target so i have to make a concerted effort to use my gift cards.  today i went to target to get an item that i needed that walmart doesn't offer and that i can get at vitamin cottage, but for a lot more money.  perfect reason to use a target gift card!  so i took all three kids in the store with me to find out that my parker store (actually most of their stores) don't have it in the store... just online.  oh well, i'll just order it online and have to wait for it to be shipped.

i got on my computer to order it and put it in my cart.  it was $24.57 and i could ship it to the store for free... or add something cheap to my cart so i could qualify for the $25 free home delivery.  so i went to add a $1 elf mascara to my cart but the target.com page wouldn't open.  the address bar said i was at the right page, but the page was just blank and white.  ugh.  that happened with a million other things online that i tried to load.  can i please just add a $1 item to my cart?!?

i finally gave up.  whatever, i'll just use my phone instead.  so i added my main item to my cart and my $1 mascara and entered in the card numbers and pin numbers for two gift cards.  then, trying to actually checkout, it wouldn't go through, fiddling around with it erased my payment info so i entered in the gift card information again (for the two cards) and clicked "review order" and then "checkout" and then "review order" and "checkout" and on and on.  it just kept looping me through.  apparently target.com sucks no matter what device you're using to access it.  at this point i was almost screaming to my computer because what other options do i have?  i can't buy it in the store or on my laptop or on my iphone.  i find a customer support number online and call it.  i give the impossible to understand indian guy my cart number and request that he just submit my order for me.  "okay, i just need to review this information with you so you can confirm that it is accurate."  but he's quoting me a price $6 more than it should be so i tell him there should be no shipping charge.  "well, if you spend $25 then you get free shipping."  "yes, i know.  my items are $24.57 and $1 and when i had my order pulled up, it confirmed that the shipping charge was waived."  "okay, i will waive your shipping charge for you... is everything else about your order okay?"

so i got off the phone with him and immediately got an email about my order and that my shipping charge was "refunded" to me.  still confused why it wouldn't just ring up like it should, i looked closer at the email.  somehow my $1 mascara had been dropped from my order so it was just the $24.57 (which explains why the guy on the phone was going to charge me shipping and had to waive the fee manually).  well, wonderful... my item will be shipped to my house free of charge (as it was supposed to) but i can't help but think... "how annoying would this be if i had actually wanted that $1 mascara that randomly disappeared from my order and i had to do this all over again?!?!"

target, you more than just a little suck.  i tried to give you my money in person, on my laptop, on my iphone, and on my phone through customer service... and you still dropped part of my order, therefore charging me less than what should have been the case.

i swear, it has never been so hard to get someone to JUST TAKE MY MONEY.

that was the longest process of my life.

And back again

Ever since the switch back, i keep thinking to myself, "Someday, I'll write my thoughts on my iPhone to android to iPhone experience."  well... let's take a quick minute to maybe do a bit of that right now.

for two years, i had an iphone 4.  and i was totally satisfied.  even the last six months when it had a cracked screen (it wasn't bad at all) and kept running out of memory (eventually i figured out itunes and was able to backup and delete old text messages).  i only had a few things i didn't like and they weren't huge.  things like that there was no option to turn off the camera noise without putting the whole phone on silent... and that the camera pics were grainy (it's a cell phone... it's kind of to be expected).  so a few months before i was up for my upgrade, i started looking into phone options.  i didn't want to pay a bunch of money so i was pretty much only considering the smart phones that i could get for nothing or next to nothing.  it came down to the iphone 5s and the samsung galaxy s5.  i looked at a number of websites comparing the phones (i found this one to be easy and helpful) on certain things like screen size, durability, battery life, storage capacity, camera megapixels, etc. and the galaxy s5 was the clear winner in every category.  i also loved that it was water resistant for up to 30 minutes should it accidentally get dropped in the toilet/kitchen sink/swimming pool/bathtub.

but that's a pretty huge jump to go from iphone to android.  every single time i brought it up, christopher told me i shouldn't do it and that i should just stick with an iphone.  he begged me to just please get an iphone because an android would be a huge mistake.  i know he's always right, but i researched this phone thing a lot and it just made sense.  i couldn't go against all that logic.  my birthday came and went and i didn't get the upgrade.  even though i'd pretty much decided, i still wasn't completely sold.  i even talked to sales reps at places like best buy and costco trying to get the momentum to take the plunge.

so still going along those lines, went i was in atlanta for thanksgiving break, i found myself at costco talking to a verizon guy at the phone kiosk.  the galaxy and iphone were both $50 normally, but would be free just that weekend (black friday) so i should probably go ahead and upgrade now instead of waiting for the sale to end.  against my better judgement, i decided to do it (the logic won out... even though switching phones is always a pain and probably not what i wanted to spend my time on since i was in atlanta).  the final thing for me was when i was debating still and christopher said something like "just go ahead and do it."  i thought i had his support.  i didn't really.

the next few hours ended up being spent with phone stuff.  switching activation to my new phone, shopping for a case, getting pictures and info transferred over.  it was a pain.  but whatever... that's fine as long as it's worth it in the end.

but then i spent so much time the next several days googling and figuring out how to work my phone and customize it to be the way i wanted it to be.  it was a mix of fun and frustrating.  i was also trying to figure out simple stuff like text message notifications (since you can download whatever texting app you want, but the notifications were different than what i was used to) and voicemail (i didn't want to have to dial in for voicemail).  also mixed in here was that i wasn't receiving text messages from any iphone users (because of an imessage glitch going on with apple.)  none.  and i had no way of knowing what i wasn't receiving.  so add in there that i was also spending hours online and on the phone with apple trying to figure that out.  also, my contact list that came into my phone was an old one from at least four or five years ago so it had tons of people i don't even remember and none of the people in my ward or contacts from colorado.  that was hugely inconvenient but i didn't want to spend more time taking my phone into verizon... especially because i was trying to salvage what was left of my thanksgiving break in atlanta in between all the sickness and whatever.

so on the 8th day of having my galaxy, i got back home to colorado and thought maybe in my normal life, i would get a better hang of the phone situation.  i got my contacts in my phone and spent more time practicing stuff (like taking pictures with the camera... it has 16 megapixels but it wasn't as intuitive so my pictures frequently came out blurry or with really off lighting).  through all of this, i had an unsettling feeling and a horrible knot in my stomach like i'd made the wrong choice.  but anytime i thought about returning my big beautiful galaxy for a small little iphone (that looked nearly identical to my previous iphone that actually came out sometime in 2010), i couldn't handle it because it seemed unbearable and too against the logic.  i kept telling myself to press on and i'd get used to it if i just took the time to learn the features and details of android.

but i also tried to look more specifically at why i was feeling the way i was.  i loved my actual galaxy phone.  it was pretty and i loved the hot pink case i'd gotten to go with it.  it was basic but cheerful and it had a great grip on it.  the problem was that no matter how hard i tried, old habits die hard, and after using an iphone all day, every day for two years, i couldn't handle a phone that didn't have ios.  i was so homesick for the apple operating system and how first nature it was to my fingers and my eyes.  i think if i had started with an android, i would prefer android (i have a number of friends out here that i've talked to recently that have android and prefer it far above iphone... especially my friend sarah who broke her android phone in september and had to use a craigslist iphone for three months until she was eligible for an upgrade and could get another android.  i asked her about it and i think her exact words were "i hated every second of it."), but i began my smartphone experience with an iphone and so, essentially, that's how i was raised.  i began considering the "what if i just returned this and got an iphone..." thought process.  totally ignoring comparisons of the two phones, just putting on my blinders and asking myself, "would i be happy with the 5s?" and i found that when i didn't compare it to the galaxy, i was okay with the iphone 5s.  i guess a similar thing would be thinking about my car.  my car is fine and there's nothing i hate about it (other than how dirty i've let it get since i got pregnant... holy crap i'm so lazy these days)... but if i were to compare it to a nicer, bigger car with leather seats, i would start to feel dissatisfied with my little rav4.  nothing has really changed... just that i've upped my expectations and gotten a little greedy.  put my blinders back on and only look at this car in my garage, and suddenly i'm satisfied and grateful again.

anyways, i decided to just make up my mind and take the galaxy back.  it wasn't worth losing sleep over at night (yes, that was literally happening) and honestly, if i felt even worse about that decision, i still had two more days (you get 14 days at costco to return/exchange your phone) to switch back to a galaxy.  once i made up my mind, i was so anxious to just get it done (hoping that the switch would bring me peace).  i woke up and called costco as soon as i thought they were open (turns out they didn't open for another 30 or 60 minutes) and then again when they actually opened.  i talked to the phone kiosk manager at the parker costco (he was the guy that happened to be working at the time) and he was rude and condescending and rushed and overall not at all helpful.  he was even guilting me about returning the phone because i bought it at a different costco and his store would have to take the loss (really?!  i'm just switching it out for a different phone... costco is costco and they're more polite to their customers than this!) and blah blah blah.  i have a hard time believing than an actual costco employee would ever act this way, but i know the kiosk people are independent of costco so i can't expect them to be up to the same standards.  anyways, he was horrible and ended the phone call by cutting me off and saying something like "i'm really behind and i have to go, but just come in at your earliest convenience and we'll figure it out."  uhhh no, i don't ever want to meet your face.

so that stressed me out because i was so anxious to just get this done and over with, but now i had this guy at costco that made me not want to go into the store.  i considered looking up a different costco location but decided instead to wait until later in the day when i thought he would be off work and another person would be working.  i waited until 3:45 or so before i loaded the kids up.  but first, i knelt down by the side of my bed and said a prayer.  stupid and silly and crazy to kneel in prayer about exchanging a phone?  not at all if you knew how much turmoil it was causing me.  i felt so much better when i got up from that prayer.  not necessarily confident, but definitely more taken care of and less alone.  like i had some backup support along with me.  i got to costco and there was no one at the phone kiosk.  but there was another customer that said he'd been waiting for ten minutes already and three costco employees that were trying to location a phone rep person.  i asked a costco employee if the guy they were looking for had been working all day and he said "yeah, he's been working all day... he's the manager."  and i got a little worried but not too much because i still felt peace.  well, turns out he'd already left to go home, but the employee coming on duty was just late from being stuck in traffic.  she finally arrived around 4:30 and she was wonderful.  the guy on the phone had been so opposed to returning my galaxy for such a lesser phone because iphones are terrible but the girl was all "i prefer my android but i know everyone has their own personal preference and it doesn't make a difference to me whether you have an android or iphone."  sigh of relief.  the whole process was really long (like multiple hours i think) but never at all unpleasant.  costco refunded the price for the phone and the glass cover (that goes on the front...$25) and i bought the 5s for the regular non sale price of $50 (so we were out $50 i had saved but i wasn't planning on getting the black friday discount before that so it was only semi a loss) and walked out of there feeling better about life.  it look maybe until the following afternoon before i felt fully settled in my phone (i downloaded my regular apps, icloud restocked my phone with the previous notes, contacts, etc. and i got a case for it) and i literally never looked back.  i would occasionally miss certain features of my galaxy, but never once did i consider switching back before the saturday deadline (the costco exchange happened on wednesday night).  i felt peace and happiness and total confirmation that it was the right decision for me.

so yes, there are certain things i definitely miss about my galaxy... being able to zoom into a picture and have it still be crisp and clear because of the 16 megapixel camera.  the pink (well, at least i set mine to pink) led light that would flash if i had a missed call or text message.  i didn't even need to see the screen or hear an alert, i could just walk into the room and instantly know if i needed to check my phone.  how big it was!  i really liked having a huge phone.  i thought it might be too big, but it still fit great into my purse and pants pockets and hand and wasn't difficult to use.  because of the BACK BUTTON!  i really loved that back button.  that was so intuative and i loved having it right near my thumb since most back buttons (like for text messaging and facebook) are on the top left of the phone.  this made the big screen super easy to navigate even without huge hands.  i miss that it was water resistant and more durable in general so i didn't stress about something bad happening to it.  i liked the screen to phone ratio and that there was less "wasted space" on the front of the phone.

there are other things i liked about the galaxy (and android) but those are the things that gave me the most pause in exchanging my phone.  it took me a day or two to get used to having a small screen again and no back button.  i'm okay not having my pink led light because i realize that's more of a fun luxury instead of a necessity.  i'm trying to get myself used to the mentality of my high school years when cell phone mentality was "the smaller, the better" and the fact that my phone looks just like my old one but without a crack in it.  ; )  i'm also just focusing on the little positives i find about my iphone (like how i like that the speakers are on the bottom of the phone instead of the back) and relishing in the comfort and familiarity of how first nature it is for me to text, etc.  here's one thing i'm absolutely loving about my little 5s though.. the fingerprint recognition.  i think this may be the only way that the iphone beats the galaxy because with the galaxy, you have to swipe your finger for it to recognize it, but with the iphone, you just hold it over the home button.  so when i click the home button to light up the screen, i literally just hold it there.  i put in my thumbs and my first finger of my right hand so it's easy to unlock it even without picking it up or holding it.  i've never password protected my phone before, but since brady loves swiping my phone and getting into apps (ever caught your kid seconds before they delete your kindle app and all of it's contents?! or realize that now you're involved in several new words with friends games?) i'm excited to be able to lock him out of it.  not that i ever let him hold it (i am more careful with this phone than a newborn baby... mostly because i feel like it's probably more fragile than an actual newborn baby), but still.  if he ever gets his hands on it, it'll be nice for him to realize there is nothing fun for him there, so he might as well leave it alone.  and i can use my fingerprint in the app store instead of typing in my apple id password every time.

anyways, it totally wasn't the logical choice, but it was obviously the right choice for me.  it was a colossal pain and took more hours of my life than what i would ever like to count or be aware of, but i'm sure i learned something super great from this experience that will offer me invaluable knowledge in the future.  ; )

new laptop

i got a new laptop.  i'm trying not to hate it.  i realize that sounds like a completely spoiled thing to say but does anyone else have a hard time with new technology?!  i would just rather that my old laptop work than need to get a new one and start fresh again.  i don't like that my pictures aren't on my computer and my bookmarks are gone and i have to enter in all my passwords every time i go to a new site... and i have to find all the sites myself since my browser history doesn't pop it all up for me.  and i have to get used to a new keyboard and mouse pad and windows 8.... i'm really hating windows 8.  that said though, here's what i love about my new laptop: it works.  and it was cheap.  i'm really into cheap things these days but that's a post for another day.  ohhhh here's maybe my favorite favorite thing though... my laptop is silent!  my other laptop had to have a super loud fan going 24/7 and would still get soooo hot that it could burn my hand.  with this laptop, i have yet to have the fan kick on and it's great.  i do need someone tech savvy in my life though to help me get rid of all the initial crap they put on (games and free trials and a million random apps) but really, i'm surviving okay.  setting it up was stressful and i went to bed with a terrible feeling in my stomach (which i eventually identified as mourning the loss of my old laptop) but i'm hoping time will solve my troubles.  before i know it, i'll be loving this computer and not even missing my old one... right?!  hopefully.

blog backup

one time, a long time ago, i read on facebook or something that some girl i knew back in college had her blog crash.  and she lost everything.  like really e v e r y t h i n g.  so naturally, i have since developped this out of control fear that my blog would crash i and i would lose all of the pictures and stories and memories.  i'm big on journaling and since i type way faster than i write (and it's just more fun and more convenient), i almost exclusively journal on my blog.  except for a few more personal things that i normally write in gmail and email to myself, this is it.  of course i back up all my pictures on an external hardrive and now on google +, but the random stuff that my head comes up with around midnight or so?  well, that's pretty much exclusively on my blog.  and all of that stuff would be down the drain.  so i thought to myself, i'll print a blog book!  but those things are crazy expensive (i mean it would be hundreds of dollars to go that route) and i think i would just get new anxiety trying to take care of that book making sure nothing happened to it.

well, my 10pm self tonight is brilliant because i had this exordinary idea to...  wait for it...  google "is there a way to back up your blog."  i'm a genuis, right?  it only took me how many years?!

anyways, turns out, it takes about 60 seconds to back up your blog.  not a huge time commitment considering the benefits.  if you're interested... check out this post... it's the very first link if you google "is there a way to back up your blog.

am i the last person in the world to do this?!  why on earth did no one ever tell me this already?!  and umm, how do i know if it actually worked?  let's add "tech savvy" to my list of qualities i'd like to develop in 2014.

video: john 3:16

as i mentioned before, abigail was assigned to give the scripture and prayer in primary on sunday.  since honey and i were kind of slackers about it, we didn't start practicing with abigail until friday night... i think.  so when sunday rolled around, she had it mostly memorized, but not all of the way.  so for whatever reason, sunday, we kept working on it with her.  and in the days following.  well, she got it down pat, and we taught her 2 nephi 2:25, which she has about 90%.  it is surprisingly fun and addicting.  i think christopher and i were both shocked about that.  as soon as she mastered john 3:16, we were instantly brainstorming all the scripture mastery verses and articles of faith we could teach her.  and i want to teach her the young women theme too.  kids learn so fast, the sky's the limit on what we can plant in that little brain.

does this redeem me just a little bit from "crap" and ummm, everything else she's learned from me in her little lifetime?  

and because it's just that adorable, here it is again...

also, thanks again for the bluetooth, mom!  i used it three times today!

and abigail used it once...  obviously.

random day of pictures

wednesday was the birthday of my favorite eldest sister.  this is how i celebrated...

i still really love those cheese eggs on toast (have i mentioned that i add cream and it makes them simply to die for?!) but i have another breakfast favorite too...  oatmeal!  a half cup of oats, one cup water, 1/4 cup flax seed (i'm currently out, and so is costco, and i'm really not happy about this... it's healthy but really, it adds amazing texture) and microwave for 2 minutes.  then stir in a few shakes of cinnamon and some brown sugar.  a little whole milk, a little whipping cream (not whipped), and one whole peach cut up (or a cup of diced strawberries).  it is knock your socks off incredible.  i guess you could make it healthier if that's your thing but i like sweets/dessert for breakfast and this hits the spot.  i might even prefer it to peach cobbler.  similar but doesn't give you that gluttonous nauseous ioverate feeling.

abigail plays with her dollhouse all day long.  sometimes brady and i join in on the fun.  when we do, we all like to play with "our" dolls.  i'm the mom, abigail is the blonde big sister, and brady is the little baby boy (sadly, his doesn't come in blonde but he doesn't seem to mind).  and when christopher gets home, he's the dad.  we all know our place.

i gave abigail a haircut.  i love and hate it.  mostly hate it but it was necessary.  her hair barely grows (it's been the same since she was 18 months old) and so thin and fine.  it was growing longer on the bottom but not on the top and since it was so thin, it just looked like a stringy little mullet.  as her mother, i thought it was cute because it perfectly resembled my hair at that age but honestly, if i looked at her through unbiased eyes, it looked just plain bad.  so i cut it.  i evened out the bottom and gave her a little bob.  i kept as much of the length as i could (the right side was significantly shorter because she doesn't ever twirl knots with her left hand) while evening it out as much as i could.  chris says she looks like a boy and i say she looks like she has a helmet haircut.  anyways, it was necessary and so even though it totally changes her look and makes her look so much less like my baby pictures, i try not to cry about it too much.  someday it will grow, right?!

my friend, jodi, dropped off a few new nail polishes for me on friday (she's always getting fun stuff for abigail and me and dropping off delicious treats so even though my toes looked absolutely horrendous all week, i'm going to pretend it was just a coincidence).  as soon as abigail saw my freshly painted toes, she begged me to paint hers too.  it took a few days but finally happened and i painted her fingers too.  she looks so adorable with painted fingernails and it's such a flattering color.  so i'll try to forget the fact that she "ate off" all of the polish on her right hand.  it's just her toes and her left hand that are blue but it's still pretty cute.

 

i can't stop sneaking into brady's room to take pictures of him while he sleeps.  i hit the timer button on my baby app when i put him down and then when it's been between 15 and 30 minutes, i sneak in and take pictures of him.  he's just so adorable i can't help it.

abigail is all over the place.  there should be a support group for parents with three year olds.  em said her three year old is only good or bad.  abigail is allllll over the map.  good, bad, and every single thing in between.  lots of in between.  i am comforted though that she said her little girl was terrible at three but it completely awesome now.  it may be a long tunnel but there is a light at the end!  also, abigail would sooo greatly benefit from learning to tell me not to yell.

i'm an idiot.  my three year old still wants to sleep in a crib but i occasionally push her to try out her bed.  three times in the space of forty five minutes, she came downstairs.  three strikes you're out, so i put her in her crib and she came downstairs again.  it wasn't even until fifteen minutes later that it clicked and i realized she must have climbed out.  ha.  not a successful nap day.  (today started out with tantrums to nap in bed, getting out of bed, tantrums because i insisted on the crib, and then i broke down and gave her a binky and she fell right asleep.  struggles.)

this guy's naps have been shorter... like an 1h20 instead of 2h20.  my days have been much less productive as of late.

i put brady in his bumbo and then ran to my room for a minute to look up a recipe on my computer.  while i was doing that, i heard a thump from the kitchen and thought to myself "oh no!  brady fell out of his bumbo!" but when i listened, i didn't hear any crying.  so i thought maybe he'd just grabbed the thomas book that sits on abigail's little wicker toy basket and the book falling to the floor was the thump i'd heard.  umm nope.  it was definitely brady  jumping out of the bumbo.  and he was just happy as a clam about it.

monday morning my honey left for salt lake.  wednesday morning he flew from slc to st george for a quick meeting before coming home.  i wasn't expecting him until later and didn't have a real dinner ready so i told him i'd make him an egg salad sandwich.  he said yes, he'd like french bread and no, the bread didn't need to be toasted but he'd like his sandwich with a little bit of love on top.  that guy's texts always makes me smile.

i think greek yogurt tastes horrendous.  but that doesn't stop me from buying it when i find a good sale.  this time was my first buying the greek gods brand.  i got two containers... one plain and one vanilla honey.  reading the side of the vanilla honey container it said it was a good substitute treat in place of ice cream.  i scoffed because i know how bad greek yogurt tastes.  but when i tasted it, i was blown away (i later checked the nutrition label and it has a whopping 32 grams of sugar per serving... that's why it's so delicious) and repented... purposefully scooping it out to look like ice cream.  the funny part?  my christopher and abigail both independently made comments about how i was eating ice cream.  so delicious.  it is still "healthy" for you when it has 32 grams of sugar and 14 grams of fat per serving?!  because we polished off that 24 oz container of it in less than 24 hours.

abigail has never liked baths.  as a baby, she rarely cried and rarely laughed.  friends would always tell me how their kid was soothed or excited by bath time but abigail always seemed pretty indifferent.  that's the same story now except it's accompanied by an intense fear of washing her hair.  so imagine our surprise when chris was showering and asked abigail if she wanted to shower.  i wasn't there but apparently, she just immediately stripped down and got in!  chris called me in to see it.  you can't see the water in this picture but seriously?!  all over her hair, face, ears, and she was enjoying herself!  is it weird if your three year old still sleeps in a crib but has already graduated from baths to showers?  not conventional... we'll see how this pans out longer term.

 

sooo, although my very favorite part of the day was actually talking to liza on the phone... which i didn't get a picture of... because were talking.... the rest of the day was pretty great too.  happy birthday liza!  i'm glad your birthday was so awesome!

words with friends

i'm a night owl.  i stay up late at night wasting time online or on my phone.  and sometimes i do that in the middle of the night when i return to my bed after feeding brady.  the other night was just one of those times.  it was my turn in several words with friends games.  well sometimes it's like i've hit a wall, like writers block or something, and sometimes all of my plays just come to me clear as day.  the other night it was the latter.

in quick succession, these were my plays: 

 

 

 

 

somehow in less than five minutes, i was able to hit the triple word spot in every game and score some big points with practically no effort.  it made me feel better about that morning last week when i woke up and, thinking i was mentally awake, played my word, leaving off the "w".  it still went through because it was still a word but i missed out on 20 points.  i was kicking myself and my cousin chris was just soaking it up.  i'm still a little upset about it.  because for the record, i ended up losing that game.  by TWO points.  

see, i thrive at night.  mornings.... not so much.

On the wrong side of the crib

baby girl woke up crying this morning.  that doesn't happen often, and when it does, it means we're in for a rough day.  a normal day is when she wakes up and happily plays and sings in her crib for an hour or so.  bad day is when she's crying about who knows what before her eyelids have even popped open to let in the light of day.  brady, on the other hand, is one happy kid.

laughing, smiling, cooing?  check, check, check.

not laughing, smiling, or cooing.

"it's a raccoon horse!"  as a mother, that's my sign to break out the animal flash cards a little more often.

instead, we broke out the pool.  which has been sitting, fully inflated, in our basement since last summer.  talk about a quick and easy setup.

bumbo and sophie and this kid was content to just hang out and watch the action.

we saw a mowing tractor drive by and baby girl went to check it out.  i told her to be careful and not fall over the fence like last time.

coppertone baby?  this swimsuit was huge on her last year but fit great when i put it on her this year.  i did not take into account that the swimsuit wouldn't always be dry.  whoops.

this is the guy on the tractor.  i'm used to privacy in our back yard so the close proximity kinda  left me feeling a little violated.

need a closeup?  you're welcome.  he went back and forth about six or seven times before i finally decided we should just go inside.

that's a face that has recently been crying.  and a naked body that is wearing a fitted crib sheet.  she was crying because she decided she wanted that sheet on her crib for nap time instead of the one already on the mattress.

i thought i loved the free kindle app on my phone.  but i had no idea until i put a little P&P on there!  i have a testimony that everyone needs the scriptures on their phone... and P&P as well.

don't you want to just jump into that picture?!

oh, you're still crying?  of course!

this hat keeps disappearing and then resurfacing at the oddest of times.  after nap, she put on her swimsuit, this hat (inside out) and insisted on sunscreen (which was totally unnecessary because it was 6:00 and the pool is on our covered patio (best place ever to put a pool... no sunscreen required!  unless your kid throws a fit about it.

you're still laughing!  he really has transformed into the most delightful little bundle.  we love him so much.

and since i taught her how to open and close the screen door (to not let bugs in) my child has one more thing to be ocd about.

still crying?  great.

just two loving siblings... hanging out with some pistachios.  and as long as i give her the easy ones, abigail can open and eat her own!  now that is a milestone to celebrate!  "child can open and eat pistachios without assistance."  bonus points that she puts her shells in the designated bowl.

sometimes i get her hair wet like this just for kicks.

have i mentioned that she also has started refusing to eat anything [that resembles a meal - requires sitting down or contains anything of nutritional value] and so that's just a lot of fun too.

so she cried when i had her eat these two bites of avocado.  and then of course she cried that it was all gone and actually we didn't have anymore.  always a win win for everyone involved.  she's really precious.

autocorrect

sometimes autocorrect is annoying (i need to learn how to override some things) like when i text my honey "eta" and it always changes it to "era" or when i try to type "think" and it always ends up being "honk."  

my two favorite autocorrects from the last week were this one with weed...

yes, that was exactly what i was trying to say!

 and when i was texting diana and wrote "she doesn't call me unless she's trying to kill me."  whoops.  me = time.  she doesn't call me unless she's trying to kill time.  luckily i fixed it before i sent it.  sadly, i didn't get a picture of it first.  it made me laugh out loud.

have you ever searched "autocorrect" on pinterest?  that made me laugh out loud too.

pictures with captions

here's another 20 picture post... with commentary.

what a smiley kid.

i had a text conversation with weed where i demonstrated one use for these two stickers.  then i gave them to baby girl when she woke up from her nap.  and what do you know but she did the same thing!

and then this happened.

we had a conversation about where stickers go (on paper, on your hand, on your shirt) and where stickers don't go (on the kitchen floor, on the furniture, on the wall) and baby girl asked if stickers can go on brady.  i said yes thinking it would go on his sleeper.  nope... apparently she meant head.

i asked her the other day who her best friend was.  she said pooh bear.  and elle.  "pooh bear and elle" made me laugh.  so cute.

he's such a good sport.  and baby girl loves that she can "play" with him.  every day (all day long) she asks me if he's bigger now.  it's precious.

"let's make thomas and percy!"

have you ever tried to sculpt thomas the train out of purple play dough using only your left hand because you're also holding your baby?  it's very challenging.  here's my thomas (with annie and clarabel) and he specifically has two funnels... just like baby girl requested.  i still need to google if trains can even have more than one funnel.

rolling a ball on the table is easier to do with only one hand.  i made this little snowman with hat.  sadly, i couldn't add a face (with one hand) without knocking him over.  but baby girl was okay with that.

abigail gave brady this very hungry caterpillar to hold.  once again, she was thrilled to see him playing with a toy.

the ugly duckling of baby carrots.  one of these things is not like the other...

i've had my phone for exactly five months.  and i've talked on it two days.  i feel like that's pretty good.  it's probably because i mostly text.

honey dressed brady in this outfit.  for next time, let's remember that if he's not wearing a onesie underneath, his pants will slide off while the rest of him slips through his shirt.  he was very naked about 30 seconds after this picture was taken.

abigail is a follower (like myself) and i love it.  she's so easygoing and although she'll stand up for herself when necessary, she's super accommodating.  this morning she asked my honey if she could watch thomas.  he said he wanted to watch mickey mouse.  she said she wanted to watch thomas.  so he said "i really want to watch mickey mouse with you.  can we watch mickey mouse together?" and she said yes.  it was adorable and totally typical of how she is with her friends.   

i sat brady down to take a picture or two and all he could do was yawn.  so i put him down in his crib and he took an epic nap of almost 3.5 hours.

trying to finish off our french dip leftovers, i realized we're actually out of meat.  so i made a carrot sandwich.  and it was delish.

baby girl's favorite thing to request for any meal is "something else."  she doesn't like to eat the same thing ever.  so i'll offer her apples and she'll throw a fit because she already ate apples (like three days ago).  i gave her pecans (leftover spinach strawberry salad) along with her cottage cheese and she was happy as a clam.

during the epic nap, i went upstairs to check that my kid was still alive and was confused to find his binky balanced on top of his face.  but then he moved and it moved with him and i realized it was embedded in his cheek.

see the mark on his face?  i wonder how long it had been stuck there.

and then she stuffed her face with as much seaweed as she could beg from my honey.  girl loves that seaweed.  and then she held it up and made some comment like "i'm holding it on the window, guys!"  guys?!  we died laughing.

 i'm having a blast today with my little ordinary life.