Belize-- on South Water Caye

Ahh, Belize.  I'm really not sure where to start in describing this place.  We stayed at South Water Caye-- a tiny island with no phone reception, weak internet connection, and rooms that have no glass in the windows and no air conditioning.  Perfect for people don't want the typical papmered tourist experience.  To say it was beautiful would be a gross understatement.  It was idyllic. 

 We spent the first day touring the island and taking pictures.  I was so happy just to be there.

 Someone found a conch shell and when he came to show it to me, a tentacle flew out of it and scared us both.  Apparently it had an octopus living in it!

 We had a beautiful sunset every night and were close enough to the mainland to see the outline of the Maya mountains.

Despite what you might think, this trip was exhausting.  We were up by 7 every morning and spent most of the day in the water.  We swam at least a half mile a day.  I had to catch up on sleep during lunch time one day.  But the work was so worth it.

We're back.

I'm back from Belize.  Everybody prepare yourselves to be bombarded by pictures and stories and bragging about how awesome it was. 

And just for now, one of my favorite moments from the trip:
Me: I don't drink.
Waiter: Oh, well you're not 21 yet, are you?
Me: I'm 24.
Waiter: Really? You must have a hard time getting into clubs!  I bet everyone thinks your ID is fake.
Me:  Oh, yes, you described my life perfectly...

Ahhhh.  Thank you, waiter, for thinking I'm 20, and not 30 like most people think when they see me with 2 kids.

This is just too entertaining.

I didn't vote.  I'm a convicted felon and have lost that right.

Just kidding.  I didn't vote because the electoral college and our bipartisan system have ruined the significance of the individual vote.  In a swing state, I would have been all over that ballot.  But I am a resident of Idaho. (I know, I live in Texas.  It's a long story.) And if I were the betting kind, I would bet the entire worth of our bank account that Romney would win Idaho.  He did, and he didn't need my help.

And now the election is almost over.  I know I should go to bed, but these apocalyptic facebook statuses are just too entertaining for me to stop reading.  And just in case you wanted it, or even if you didn't (beause this is my blog and I can post whatever the crap I want), here are my opinions on them.  Enjoy.
-- You know that electoral college that everyone wants to abolish right now?  That same electoral college put Bush in office instead of Gore.  Don't get me wrong; I hate the electoral college too, but I'm pretty sure that all the people who want Romney in office didn't want Al Gore there.  Heaven forbid we elect someone who cares about the environment.
-- There are a lot of people out there claiming that they can't handle another 4 years of Obama.  When I look back over the last 4 years and think of how my life has changed as a direct result of Obama, I come up blank.  I think I can handle another 4.
-- There are also a lot of people claiming, "The Mayans were right, the world is ending." First of all, I ask them to please take a course on archaeology.  If they're still convinced that the Mayans prophecied the end of the world-- well, my faucet is not spouting blood, my children have not tried to murder me since 6:00, when I drop things they still fall to the ground, and Chuck Norris still kicks butt.  So there.
-- For all of you who are threatening to move to Canada, great idea.  I'm sure you'll escape socialism there.
-- If I hear the word "secede" one more time, I'm going to puke. 
-- If you are going to compare Obama to Hitler, be prepared for me to ask you for a list of all the Jews that Obama has killed.

Calm down, everyone.  You should all breathe a sigh of relief knowing that America didn't elect a member of some "crazy cult," which I proudly belong to.

The reception... a little late.

 On our last day in Idaho we went to the reception.  The place was beautiful-- right on the Snake River and there was a beautiful sunset that night.  We took some family pictures before the reception started.

 Violet was delighted to find a chocolate fountain there.

 She even got to help decorate the getaway car, thanks to Brandon's doting cousins whom she followed around all night.

The wedding day

The whole reason for our trip was Brandon's aunt's wedding, which was on Friday.  We had to drive down to Salt Lake early in the morning to go to the temple, and Brandon's siblings watched our kids.  After the ceremony, I came out to find Violet with her beautiful dress on and her hair all curled.  She kept telling me that she looked like a princess.

 Charlie was not so thrilled about being at the wedding.  Brandon's siblings had lost his pacifier and this boy was ready for a nap.  He spent most of the time perched up on Grandpa's arm, snarling at us.

 After pictures, we went to the luncheon at the Lion House.  The place was beautiful and the food was good, but Charlie was screaming bloody murder by this time, and I was beyond stressed.  I was so desperate that I left in the middle of the luncheon, walked around downtown Salt Lake until I found a store, and bought a pacifier.  Within 30 seconds of me putting it in Charlie's mouth, he was asleep. 

The rest of the afternoon went much more smoothly, thanks to a sleeping baby.  Violet was surrounded by little girls who loved playing with her, and she thought Merania's wedding dress was the most fascinating thing in the world.  She loved it and we were all happy to be able to come to the lovely wedding.

Bryson's senior pictures

Brandon's little brother is graduating from high school this year, so I got to take his senior pictures this week.  He is valedictorian of his class, has tons of personality, and is also an amazing artist.  This kid is going to do awesome things.

 Also, Blackfoot has to be my favorite place to take pictures.  It's a small town with tons of old industrial-looking alleyways, but drive 10 minutes and you're out in the middle of the county with wheat fields and lava rocks.

I love this one.  It captures his moody teenager look.

Violet's birthday

I can't belive this beautiful girl has been part of our family for 3 years now.  Violet was spoiled this year and got 3 different birthday parties.  For one of them, we had cupcakes at the park with her friends.  She woke up at 4 AM on the morning of the party and wouldn't go back to sleep, so needless to say, she was a bit grumpy before her party.  She looked at the cupcakes that I had stayed up making and yelled, "I don't like them! I wanted chocolate!"  I couldn't convince her that they were chocolate.  She also had a kicking-and-screaming fight with me over putting leggings on under her dress that is so short that her diaper sticks out of it.  I ended up winning, but this sullen face was all I got out of Violet until her friends showed up.

 

 Oh well.  Soon more kids came and when she was surrounded by all her best friends singing Happy Birthday, she couldn't have been happier.

 Her birthday party in Idaho was equally fun.  She again threw a tired-induced fit over her birthday cake, but this one didn't last as long.  After opening her presents, she had a silly string fight with Mia that left her so excited that I had to lock her in her room in order to get her to go to bed.  I know, I'm a great mom.

 She had plenty of presents but her favorite one has been being able to spend time with Brandon's family all week.  Between the kitties, the wide open spaces, the family, and the trampoline, it has been heaven for her.

One fun fact about Violet: she loves singing and listening to music.  One of her favorite songs is "Just to be the next to be with you," (from the Monster Ballads CD) and whenever it plays, she sings, I'm the one who wants to be with you.  Deep inside a hole, you'll feel it too."  So I guess she doesn't quite get the lyrics right, but she makes me laugh every time.  We all love this crazy little girl!

Our fall trip... so far.

Lots of things have been going on lately, but just so that my family knows I'm still alive, I will blog about our trip to Utah and Idaho.  Travelling was about as easy as it gets with 2 kids, and as soon as we got to Utah, Violet was in love.  We first stopped at my grandparents' house and after picking raspberries off the bush and gorging herself, she asked me, "Mommy, can we stay here?"  I had to tell her no, we were headed to aunt Lena's house.  But she was equally delighted to stay there because Lena has a bunny, and both kids thought little Willa was the coolest animal in the world.

 Charlie started squealing every time he saw her. The next day, we went to BYU and took a tour of my old place of work.  I got some ice cream and brownies but nothing seemed to taste the same.  Also, it made me feel really old. Fortunately, we went back later and got bread with honey butter and it was just as good as I had always remembered.  We also headed to the Eyring Science Center where Brandon used to spend 90% of his school hours.  They have a display of some beautiful quartz crystals in the lobby, and Violet couldn't help but notice how pretty and sparkly they were.  Then she turned to me and said, "Hey mom, this is quartz."  That's right, my 3-year-old can correctly identify minerals without a field guide.  She is just like her daddy.  We went upstairs to the Geology office and the secretaries actually remembered us (they said they recognized my nose...) and it was fun to actually run into someone that we used to know.

We had planned a camping trip to Goblin Valley that day, but it ended up raining, so we stayed around Provo.  We instead went on a drive around Mt. Nebo and enjoyed the autumn colors.  And being the wannabe-photographers we are, we took about 400 pictures.


This one was taken using the macro extension tubes that we bought with Brandon's birthday money from Mom.  Thanks, Mom!

Violet occupied herself by throwing rocks into the stream and stood out nicely against the fall colors in her blinding outfit.



Lena took some nice family pictures for us.

And Charlie is always, always cute.  Even if he makes grumpy faces most of the time.

The kids loved spending time with Lena.  Who wouldn't? It was hard to convince Violet to leave Lena's house.  She told us that we could go to Idaho and she would stay with Lena.  But somehow we got her into the car and now we are in Idaho... with Mia.  Let the fun begin.

From an anonymous donor

Awhile ago I found a canvas at my mom's house.  I was a little confused because my mom doesn't paint, ever.  When I asked her what it was for, she told me that someone had left it there for me.  She couldn't remember whom it was, but I took it anyways, because I had been wanting to do a painting of Mount Rainier ever since we had been 2 years ago. Well, here is the finished product, and if you want to take credit for donating the supplies, here's your chance.

I have been a little better at motivating myself to do these projects.  People at Brandon's school sometimes ask him what I want to do with my life (apparently having kids doesn't count) and he tells them, "Lindsey wants to live off my money and be an artist."  And you know what, it's kind of true.  And I figure that if this is what I'm doing with my life, I had better get good at it.  So I've been trying.

What have I been up to?

Art projects. I may actually reach my 5-in-a-year goal!  But grr, they never photograph well.

 Cleaning up after kids.  I was doing my hair in the bathroom when Violet came up to me and informed me that Charlie had ruined her rug.  When I asked her how, she said, "He put his hands on it." So I came into her room to find this.  She had given him an enormous peice of  chocolate candy, and it was everywhere.  But boy, did he love it.

 Enjoying the weather.  It has been pretty nice out lately and Violet and I even caught a show at Miller Outdoor Theatre.  I'm not sure if she was more excited about watching Cinderella or sitting with her friends, but who cares, it was free.

 Crafting.  We painted some pumpkins for the first day of fall, and Violet was thrilled about it.

 And enjoying time with Brandon.  He frequently gets tackled by the kids, and is a great sport about it all.  He has finished all his interviews for internships next summer (I know, this last one just ended!) and has THREE offers so far.  I can't complain about that.

And I haven't had too much time to blog because I've been too busy enjoying it all!  (Minus the cleaning up after the kids part.)

Things that annoy me

I'm not sure where else to put these, so here it goes.
- When I go to people's houses and they apologize for it being "so messy," and I look around and all I see are 2 dirty dishes in the sink and a toy on the floor.  Some day I'm going to say, "Are you just trying to make me feel bad about my house?  Because this is cleaner than my house is, ever."

-When people pin a picture of an outfit and put the caption, "Casual," and the outfit involves big earrings and high heels.  Please, if it doesn't involve either a t-shirt you found on the floor or your birthday suit, it's not casual.

-When people say, "Pin now read later."  In other words, "I'm trying to get a record number of pins but the content really isn't that great."

- Old men who brag that "in fifty years of marriage, we have never had an argument."  Congratulations.  Try being married to me.

Fall pictures

It has become somewhat of a tradition for me to take pictures of the kids every fall at Hermann Park. My friend asked me if her son could tag along and get his pictures taken too, which was a ton of fun, especially for Violet.  I made them a scavenger hunt and they had to find "clues" that told them where to go and how to pose.   So I got pictures while the kids thought they were just playing a game.  Worked like a charm. The only hard part is deciding which ones I want to print out!

The best kind of sick day

I do not cope with pain well.  I know that we women like to pretend that we're all tough after we have kids, but honestly, with both of my deliveries I only lasted through an hour of labor before I was crying in the fetal position and asking for an epidural.  Being tough is just not my thing.

Yesterday I woke up sick.  No fever, but I felt like my muscles had been sent through a meat grinder and there was a construction crew in my head.  I used to like the achy, lay-in-bed symptoms, but I now have kids, so I dread the days when I have to deal with them when I feel like making a cocoon in my bed.  Luckily, Brandon has a super flexible schedule, so he got up with the kids, changed our flat tire, and took care of them until about 1:00.  He is an awesome husband.  But eventually he did have to go to school, and when I got home from dropping him off I was in bad shape.  I called my friend who lives in our complex and she volunteered to take Violet and Charlie for awhile.  I was more than happy to get rid of them for a few hours, so she came over and took them home with her.  I then took a glorious nap and woke up THREE HOURS later, called, and she said that the kids were being great and I could leave them there as long as I wanted.  I came to get them awhile later and after I got home, she came over again with some chicken soup that she had made especially for me.  And in my head, I was thinking, "WHAT? Who does that?"  I'm beginning to lose count of all the times she has saved my butt.

And that got me thinking about the last time I was really sick and I had equally great help.  It was when I was bed-ridden after having Charlie and having a nasty spinal headache.  I remember laying in bed with a little newborn, and Brandon comes through the door with Gatorade, pills, and IcyHot, and offers to rub my back.  I don't think I could have been happier if he had come through the door on a white stallion.  That was exactly what I needed.  I spent the next couple of days watching movies on the bed and taking several naps a day.  Then when my sister came into town, she sang and danced to Jingle Bell Rock just to cheer me up, took Violet for the day, and came back with two 44-oz drinks from Sonic-- an Ocean water for yumminess, and a Coke for caffeine.  For weeks after that, any time I went to Sonic, Violet would ask if Poodle was coming, too.  My sister also laughed uncontrollably when I was hobbling to the bathroom and Violet ran up behind me and slapped my butt, and actually knocked me down. And even though I was bed-ridden, post-partum, and pathetic, those first days after having Charlie are some of the fondest memories I have.  I have to say that I have very good sick days.

Blogging inspiration

Do you know who is the best person in the world at motivating me to blog?  My sister.  She called me last Sunday and we spent at least 15 minutes on this topic.  I told her that I feel like I can never blog unless I put a bunch of pictures, because that's all anyone cares about.  But she assured me that she likes it when I just post about how crazy my life is, with or without pictures.  Because it's funny.  Having days where you feel like shooting someone and then hiding in the closet with a bucket of ice cream is fine, as long as you can laugh about it. Right?

 

Well, fortunately I haven't had many of those days lately.  But it does still seem like my life frequently throws me curves.  It's a good thing I have such awesome friends, because I feel like I am always the one who calls and asks really weird favors of people.  "Can you drive stick? And if you can, could you drive me and my kids to the DMV in my own car that I don't know how to drive?" Or how about this one, "Can I come over and take a shower at your house? Because we just inexplicably lost our hot water and tomorrow is Sunday and I'm starting to stink." Yes, these are actual questions that I have had to awkwardly ask my friends these last couple of weeks. Luckily, we ended up getting our hot water back and I didn't have to shower at someone else's house.  But really, it seems like weird things always happen to me, and nobody knows that better than my friends.

 

I also love having a friend who always gets me into the zoo for free. Score!  And our zoo now has a splash pad in it!  How cool is that?

The golden age

We are officially over the terrible twos in this house.  Okay, Violet was never really terrible. in fact, compared to a lot of kids, she's an angel.  But from the time she turned 2 till a couple of months ago she did not have great sleeping habits. And by not great, I mean coming out of her room every 5 minutes until 10:30 or screaming at her door for half an hour.  It would alternate from night to night depending on how much screaming I could handle.  She had given up naps, but was still in the phase where if we got in the car any time past 3:00 she would fall asleep and ruin her bedtime. Couple this with a newborn who had gas until he was 6 months old and it becomes clear why I use birth control. 

But Violet is almost 3 now, and it's glorious.  She goes to bed on time, without crying.  She entertains herself.  She is independent.  Charlie is sitting up and almost crawling, so he can entertain himself for almost as long.  And he sleeps in till 9 every morning.  Every person who ever criticized me for sleeping in when I was younger (I got that alot-- "Just wait till you have kids! You won't be able to do that anymore!") can kiss my butt.  I love every minute of late morning sleep I get, and I don't care how lazy it makes me. 

However, this isn't to say that this age is perfect. Yesterday at the pool a kid started playing with Violet's floatie, and she wanted it back.  I told her, "You have to share your toys," and she responded, "Or not. "  Then today I was trying to get her to come home while she was playing outside, and I said, "You can jump three more times and then we have to go home."  And she looked at me and said, "Just don't talk right now, Mom."  And weeks ago when we were still living in corporate housing, we came to our other house and when we pulled into the garage she yelled, "Are you kidding me, Mommy?  I want to go to the splash pad house!"

Ah, yes. Back talking has begun.  But who wants perfect, anyways?  I would take spunky over boring any time.

For the love of food

Oh, Charlie.  I have never, ever met a baby who loves food as much as this little guy does.  He can't really crawl yet, but if there is food anywhere in a room he becomes completly mobile.  This morning Violet was snacking on some dry Lucky Charms and made the mistake of leaving her bowl on the floor.  This was what we came back to. 

I will find you, and I will EAT YOU!

When he was only 6 months old I was holding him and walked through the baby food aisle at the grocery store.  Immediately, he forcefully spat out his binkie and started smacking his lips.  And just last week I bought Violet a soft serve cone at Burger King and handed it back to her in the car.  Then I heard, "MMMM. MUH MUH MUH MUH. MMMMMM" coming from the back (those are Charlie's food noises) and thought, great, he is going to complain all the way home.  Actually, though, he decided to take matters into his own hands, literally.  I looked back a couple of minutes later and Violet had a chunk of her cone missing from the side.  At least he enjoyed it. 

Surfside

We finally went to the beach.  I told myself that if I lived another summer in Houston without going to the beach, it would make me the most boring and useless mom on the planet.  So when a couple of friends invited us to surfside, I made sure we came.  Violet immediately felt at home in the sand and water.  To make things even better, there was a little girl there that she knew, so she stayed self-entertained the entire time, which was great because I had to spend a good amount of time trying to keep Charlie from crying.

 Yes, Charlie hated it.  The sand was gritty, the air was sticky, the fish were smelly, and it was impossible for him to stay asleep.  I set him down and got a couple of cute pictures of him before some water washed over his legs and he started crying.  Then I took a couple more pictures before picking him up, just to be mean.

 But both of the kids got lots of daddy time, and that made everyone happy.  Brandon is so much fun.

 One thing Charlie did like was being held by me in the water.  I guess the rocking motion of the waves was soothing for him, and he would just lay his head down on me and stare off in the distance.  I love having such a cuddly baby!

 Violet and Brandon built a pretty cool sand castle.  This is what Violet spent 75% of her time doing (and undoing).  She also told me that a little princess named Mary lived in it.

 And Charlie didn't mind digging around in the sand while propped up on my leg.  All in all we had a great time, but by 2:00 we were worn out and headed back home.

Growing up!

My baby has been reaching a few milestones lately so I thought I'd include some photographic proof that he is getting oh so big.

Charlie has decided that sitting up is fun, and luckily our pool is the perfect depth for that stage.

Violet keeps our lives interesting.  Look at this face, she is up to no good.  A couple of weeks ago we found a lizard in my mom's house and had to catch it and put it outside.  When it scampered off, she said, "bye, baby lizard! See you next week!"  Then when we went inside to tell my parents about it, she said, "We found a lizard, and we didn't lick it!" I can never figure out how she thinks of these things!

Also, Charlie has started on solid foods.  Can you guess what is one of his favorites?

Clearly he's pretty enthusiastic about it.

And lastly, Violet is very girly.  She will only wear things if they are sparkly, and she loves pink.  Today she picked out a headband that would give Atley a run for her money and can't stop looking in the mirror and squealing.  No problem with self-esteem here.