Can I squeeze in here?

I woke up, went in the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot, and came back to the room. Um...this is a king size bed. Guess I'll go lay on the couch. 

Our Anniversary!

I know I usually only post about the kids, but today I'm gonna talk about me and Josh.  Today is our 7th wedding anniversary! Pretty crazy, right?! On our wedding day we were only 20 years old, living in our first apartment, and everything was planned within 3 weeks. So much has happened in the past 7 years. Just like every relationship, we've had so many beautiful memories, and some not so shining moments. I'm not gonna lie, sometimes marriage is hard. We've been together since we were 17, and a person grows tremendously between 17 and 27. There was a point in time that I wasn't even sure we'd make it. Instead of saying it was too hard, and giving up like so many couples do, we worked on it. Now I can honestly say that we have an amazing relationship and it gets better everyday. I love him so much and I can't picture my life without him. It's tough being away from him (especially on special days like this), but he's worth waiting for. He means the world to me, and I'd marry him all over again in a second. I came across this quote a while ago: 

"the couples that are 

"meant to be" 

are the ones that go through 

everything that is meant to 

tear them apart and 

come out even stronger

than they were before."

I can't think of words that describe us any better than that. We aren't a perfect couple by any means, but we are perfect for each other. Happy Anniversary love!

Our first minutes as a married couple: 

The most recent picture I can find of us: 

Quick Updates!

I know it's been a while since I blogged. Things are busy around here! Maybe I was a little too ambitious thinking I'd be able to blog every day.  Dylan just finished his first session of swim lessons. He's going to stay in this same class for another 2 weeks because he needs to get more comfortable with keeping his face in the water, and he needs to work on listening (no surprise there!). Sophia continues to try to crawl. She scoots herself backwards, and in a circle, but I've only seen her bring herself to her knees a few times. And when she does, she puts her face down and licks the tile. 


Dylan got a really cute batman shirt! As long as he can contain his little attitude, we are going to see the Dark Knight in a week or so.

 AND we are starting to bring back the mohawk! I'm going to let it get a little longer before I make a decision about shaving the sides. 

Later that day, batman needed a nap. 

While Dylan slept, Sophia and I kept busy. I used the front camera on my iPhone and let her look at herself while I recorded it. The result was hilarious. Watch the video below!

A trip to the Phoenix Children's Museum

I thought I posted these last week, but I guess not! These are pictures from our trip to the Phoenix Children's Museum 2 weeks ago. 

Gratitude and Trust

As parents, Josh and I want to give the kids every opportunity we can. Above all else, we want them to be happy. We are always looking for fun things for Dylan to experience, places to take him, and we let him participate in things that we think he will enjoy. We always joke that he's been to more Cardinal games and goes to the movies more often than 75% of the people we know. I hate using the word "spoiled" because it's so negative. To me, when you start expecting things like that instead of appreciating them, that is when you become spoiled. I don't have a problem with spending the time/money on things that he likes or wants as long as he is grateful for them. So here's the dilemma. Lately Dylan has been getting an attitude and sounding really unappreciative. Just a few examples: I got him some stuff he likes at the grocery store and he said "um, is this ALL?, well I'm not going to eat this jello because after dinner I won't be starving." And when I asked him if he had fun at the 4th of July celebration he said "no, fireworks are boring". After that comment I decided we needed to have a long talk about being grateful. I told him if that's how he felt then we don't need to go anywhere anymore. He can be bored at home. Especially with Josh gone, it takes a lot of effort to get him and Sophia ready and out of the house to go to t-ball, swimming, movies, shopping, or even just a trip to play with other kids. This isn't the first time I've mentioned this stuff to him, but this time I had to figure out how to really make it click in his head. The idea seems easy, but explaining concepts like gratitude, appreciation, truth, and trust to a child is pretty tricky. He would get that being ungrateful was bad but he wasn't comprehending much more than that. Finally as we continued the conversation he said "being grateful means I have a lot of toys and there are kids that don't have toys, so I should like my toys." Yes! He's getting it! Obviously it goes beyond toys, but he grasps the basic concept and that's all I wanted for now. To build off of that, he went through all of his toys and decided that he could afford to give some toys to the kids that have none. I was so proud of him. We've also had conversations about being honest, and how if you want to be trusted you shouldn't tell lies. I try to keep it pretty light but he knows this is important stuff. Last week he wanted to help me clean, so he started wiping off the island with a washcloth. I looked over and he was smacking the washcloth against the wall. I asked what he was doing and he said that was what you had to do to make it clean. I told him I wasn't sure about that. He stopped what he was doing, looked at me and said "well I hope you trust me". Yup, I do buddy, and you are doing a really good job.

I know this isn't the end of these conversations, but I have hope that he won't grow up to be a spoiled kid that has no idea how great his life is. I refuse to have a tiny boy version of Veruca Salt in my house. I'm so glad I didn't have to take it to the extreme and start cancelling everything we have planned. If I did that, we wouldn't have cute pictures like this: 

Learning new things everyday

Dylan asked to wear his Under Armour shoes to school today. Normally I have him wear his Vans because

1. His Under Armour shoes are white, and he isn't exactly known for being clean and

2. He can't tie his shoes, and the Vans just slip on. 

Rather than start an argument (that I would probably lose) at 8am, I agreed to let him wear the ones he wanted. 

I picked him up from school, and on the way home he told me his friend KJ taught him how to tie his shoes. He said he was really good at it, and when we got out of the car he would show me so that I would know how to do it too. We pull into the garage, and this is what he shows me....

 

I couldn't help but smile when I saw his shoes as I imagined two 4 year olds sitting on the playground figuring out how to keep his shoes from coming untied. Very creative. I didn't want to break it to him that it wasn't the way his shoes are tied (I guess technically he can tie them however he feels like it). I told him that there are a lot of ways to tie shoes, and I would show him how I tie them. That way he can be awesome at all the different ways to tie shoes. His response? "Well yeah because I'm 4 years old." 

On a side note, he also started swim lessons on Monday. He's signed up for 4 weeks, Mon-Thurs. At that point we'll see if he wants to keep going. I just want him to be comfortable without floatation devices in the pool. I'm not expecting an olympic swimmer, but with Dylan, we may just get something crazy like that. 

Learning how to float

Who has an iPod?

Ah technology! I love it. I know it wasn't that long ago, but sometimes I wonder how in the world we all got through the day without cell phones. What if there was an emergency and you were driving, how would someone get ahold of you? How did you call the police if you were in a car accident? I can only imagine the fun shiny stuff we'll have by the time Dylan and Sophia are adults. 

Recently Josh and I broke up with BlackBerry. We had been wanting iPhones for a while, and with Josh's deployment, the iPhone has so many more advantages. Since I can listen to my music on my iPhone, I didn't really have any use for my iPod anymore. It wasn't too long ago that I left my iPod on the table, and Dylan grabbed it and started listening to the music while he danced around the house. It was hilarious. So I told him that once I got my new phone, he could have the iPod. 

Fast forward to last week. I was cleaning the backyard, and found that a few unnamed siblings had left my iPod out there. (If you are in shock that I was outside cleaning the backyard, let me tell you it was not fun...or pretty.) I had never officially given the iPod to Dylan because I hadn't seen it in a while. So when we came inside I told him that the iPod was his now, but I still had to charge it because it was dead. Despite that, he carried it around all night. He asked if he could lay next to the iPod on the couch, and then he fell asleep. I left the iPod on the table, and carried him to his room. Around 3am, he came in my room crying and he came next to me and said "mommy?" in the saddest little voice ever. Usually he just climbs in the bed and falls back asleep. I asked him what was wrong (thinking maybe he had a bad dream, was missing josh, or something like that), and he said "I can't find my iPod!". Then he proceeded to cry harder. I got out of bed, grabbed the iPod off the table and handed it to him. He held it as he slept, and still had it in his hand as he walked out of the room in the morning. What kind of craziness did I just start? 

Of course he refused to talk about anything other than the iPod until I charged it. I also made a separate playlist of songs that he can listen to. The last thing we need is him walking around the house singing "move b*%&! get out the way!". No one has to tell me that it is crazy that a 4 year old has an iPod. I know it is!! That was my first iPod and Josh bought it for me when I was pregnant with Dylan. But what can I say? It was just going to sit in a drawer and not get used anyways. And he is really cute when you catch him singing the songs.