Things That Need Blogged About...

Halloween Costumes...

Merry Christmas To Me!

First Broken Bone :(

Some Funny Stuff

"Hey, Gavin, how was nursery today?" "It was great! I just kissed this girl the whole time." "Really?" "Yeah. And hugged her. Just gently. Because I love her." "Oh yeah?" "Yeah. But I don't know what color shirt she was wearing."...?

Recently Gavin informed me that "We are having a baby." "No, we're not." "Yes, we are! Your belly is getting bigger and bigger!" "No, it's getting smaller and smaller!" "Nope, sorry mom. It's bigger. It's a baby."

I think Gavin has been spending too much time with my mom lately. When I told him Daddy was on his way home from work, he said, "Mom, maybe you should go put on some makeup so you'll look pretty." When I told him I already put a little makeup on this morning, he said, "Maybe you need a little more."

Also, London has a new game she plays. If she asks for something and I say no, she'll ask again a few times, then switch to something else she knows I'll say no to. It usually goes something like this, "Cookie?" "No cookie." "Cookie?" "No cookie" "Gum?" "No gum." "Gum?" "No gum." "Shower?" "No shower." "Binky?" "No binky." "Ice cream?" "No ice cream."...and on and on, until she is laughing too hard to keep it up. Pudding? Well, OK then.

If You Go To The Zoo...

If you ever go to the San Diego Zoo, don't ever, ever kiss a gorilla.

It might bite off your hand.

Fourth of July, Part II

So Mudgy the Moose was the highlight of our Coeur d'Alene trip, but he had a lot of competition. I mentioned the parade- here's a bit more of it. There were also a LOT of horses and giant trucks and Shriners guys and prom queens in convertibles. The only thing missing was candy. When I was a kid there were buckets and buckets full of candy thrown at every parade! What happened to that???

I mentioned the park last post, too. Here's a peek:

It's all wooden, has slides (not wood), swings (also not wood), and all the usual climbing things, balance beams, etc., but also some cute houses, this boat, and a hog for mom. Oh yeah. Gonna bust out my leather chaps next time!

We were excited to see all our old favorites in Coeur d'Alene, but there was something new this time, too! We finally convinced Terry to let us meet his "friend" Cheryl, and she was a big hit. Gavin wants her to "live with Grandpa so we can see her all the time". He also said "I just really love Cheryl." And she helped Terry watch the kids one night so we could go on a date, so we just really love Cheryl, too!

And then there's the fireworks on the beach. It just doesn't get any better than that - especially when Dad digs a custom-fit lounger for you.

Can I eat this dirt? Mmm...gritty!

Mudgy the Moose

Every year we try to visit Dave's dad in Coeur d'Alene for the Fourth of July. Coeur d'Alene is gorgeous this time of year, and Vegas can't compete with a small-town Independence Day. As far as I know, Vegas occasionally does fireworks on the Fourth, but that's about it. In Coeur d'Alene the Fourth begins at dawn, staking out your spot for the hours-long parade. They have food and fun booths in the park, and the best fireworks show ever over the lake. The highlight of the parade this year was Coeur d'Alene's newest celebrity, Mudgy the Moose. Author and Wee Sing creator Susan Nipp and illustrator Chuck Reasoner teamed up to write this adorable book about a moose and a mouse who play hide-and-seek all over Coeur d'Alene. The book is super-cute, but the best part of all is that Terry, aka Grandpa Beardo, was commissioned to create five huge Mudgy and Millie sculptures to go along with the book, so you can read the book and follow the trail all around Coeur d'Alene's greatest spots! London was really enthusiastic about finding "Muggee Moose" everywhere we went.

Here's Mudgy in the parade:

At the lake

the playground

on Sherman street (a great little downtown street with shops and galleries and Mudgy Moose Ice Cream)

at the library (which has the cutest, cutest children's library ever!)

and on Tubbs Hill, where the story begins.

We also happened to be there for a special Mudgy book signing. We're hoping Grandpa Beardo will hook us up with one of these little Mugdgy sculptures!

End of the Blog-cation

Hey! I'm sure you gave up checking on us long ago, since I haven't posted all summer, but we did have a good one. I'll catch you up over the next few posts. To start with, we've had a great time exploring the great outdoors, starting with Red Rock Canyon. We went hiking a few times before it got too hot. Gavin is quite the climber, and London really wants to keep up.

We also learned that even though Daddy is strong, he's not really that strong. Even with Gavin's help. That rock just won't budge!

We also went back to the beach! Snow angels are fun, but you can't make a snow angel in your underwear!

London learned how to collect shells...

Waves, undies and your favorite cousin. A perfect summer day!

The Lees Get a Manny

I read "The Nanny Diaries" before having kids and thought, "How ridiculous! Why would a stay-at-home mom ever need a nanny?" Now I've come to my senses and realized that I would love to have a nanny, a personal chef, and a maid who would stop by every evening to do a load of laundry and scrub the ketchup off the ceiling. Mary Poppins hasn't appeared yet, but I think the kids like this model just as well:

Uncle Mikey is doing an internship with Dave's company and has moved in with us for the summer. In addition to his duties at WT (which may or may not include wandering around looking lost) Mike will be reading bedtime stories, taking the kids to the pool, and babysitting for free. Of course, the Brothers Lee also plan on spending every Saturday golfing, so instead of having two parents nights and weekends the kids will have three parents in the evening and only one on Saturdays. Mathematically I'm not entirely sure this works out in my favor, but we're still excited to have him around.

First Makeover

The other day Gavin and London disappeared into my bathroom for a while. A few minutes later Gavin wandered out again with a thing of creamy purple eyeshadow.

"Uh, what are you doing with that, buddy?" I asked.

"Ummm, I just realized that only girls wear makeup, so I didn't put on your makeup, Mom." Whew!

"But London is a girl..." (If only I had taken a picture...)

Shacking Up Together

Let's move in together. All of us. Wouldn't that be great? Here's the thing - I love to move. I like packing up and going somewhere new and meeting new people and falling in love with new places. There's way too much world to stay in one place. But every time we pack up again I feel like I'm leaving a piece of my soul behind. I'd love to just gather up all these pieces and keep them together in one little box where I can pull them out any time I want and be right back in any of the places I'd call home.

I want to live in Idaho. Not somewhere a few hours from home, where I can have some "distance" from family, but right next door to all of them. I want to live with my mom on one side and my mother-in-law on the other and my sister next door, and I want my brother to visit more than once in a blue moon. I want us to go to the gym together in the morning and eat dinner together every night and my kids to get fat from Grandpa's famous "Farmer's Breakfast". I want all my high school friends to be there, too. I want to know what they've been up to the past eleven years. I want to know them as well as we knew each other then.

I want to live in Provo. I want us to take the kids to visit all the places where we fell in love, and we can live in an apartment complex full of all our college friends. Dan and Tish will live next door, Brian and Lindsey will be down the hall. Melissa and Brian will be there, too, and Heidi and Dannis and Lisa and Brandon and Susan. Especially Susan. There will be room for my favorite roommates and all of their families, and all the friends Dave never met. I'll even invite some U of U people and Dave's construction buddies and all our favorite professors. Our kids can run up and down the halls with their kids and we can pop in on each other and say hi every time we leave the building. We can have movie nights together and play Guitar Hero and raise our kids together like in some crazy hippie commune.

I want to live in Las Vegas. I want to have barbecues after dark because it's finally cool enough to go outside, and I want to invite all the amazing mom's club ladies who helped me through those first intimidating years. I want Gavin's nursery friends to be his friends through elementary school and high school and his whole long life. We could all live on the same street, with a big park at one end and a swimming pool at the other. I can't believe how many people moved away in the year we've been gone! And even those who are here I don't see often enough. I want you all to live next door and come over for some hot gossip and cold drinks every single day.

I want to live in San Diego. I want to walk out my back door onto the beach. I want to spend afternoons at Legoland and SeaWorld. I want to go to the puppet show at the library every Thursday morning and to book club every Thursday night. I know it's only once a month now, but if we all lived together we could have it once a week, right? I want every single person I met there to live with me because I wanted to know everything about you and I never got the chance. I want to spend Thursdays scrapbooking with Darcy and I want Rina to stop by any time she wants to.

I want to live in Mexico, Spain and Peru. I want to go back to San Sebastian in Spain and become best friends with the woman who runs the little Basque inn. I don't want to live in Aberdeen, but I'd like to gather up my favorites there and transplant them like a garden to my new friend-filled home. I'd start with my grandparents. I want to bake and garden and fold laundry and chat with them every single day before it's too late.

So what do you think? I'm a bit messy, but we'd have fun. You could build forts with us and we'd all stay up late together watching Scrubs reruns. Whaddayasay? Do you want to move in together?

April In Review

It's funny how the times when you have a lot to blog about are the times when you also have no time to blog. Here are a few highlights from the past few weeks.

We had a tricky April Fool's Day Dinner (meatloaf and mashed potato cupcakes, fruit snacks packs filled with veggies, cookie "fish sticks", jelly instead of catsup, and taffy "peas")

We had a visit from a favorite friend:
And we got fancied up for Easter:

Londo spent the whole day twirling around saying, "pretty, pretty pretty!". Yes, indeed! And Gavin just looks like he's auditioning for Bond, or the cover of GQ. We spent the holiday in Idaho, where I lost my camera for most of the week. If you really want to see what a blast we had, head over to Chef Messy's blog. As usual, she is the camera queen, and the master blogger, even while pregnant and exhausted. Also, note the adorable birthday present she made for London. You rock, Chef Messy!