A thousand words...

They say that a picture's worth a thousand words.

Yes, that's Austin wearing his bike helmet in the house and yes, they're "eating fish"(brightly colored plastic ones)

I'm really not sure what these pictures say.

Haircuts, again.

Carter's hair has been hanging in his eyes lately. I told him it was time for a haircut. His response, "Yeah, I want it super short like daddy's!" I'm still not ready to just buzz over his head with the clippers so this was my compromise.

It's shorter than the last haircut I gave him. I have to say that I preferred cutting his hair when it was longer. It was easier. The mistakes were easily hidden by the curl and length so it didn't take very long to cut. Doing a shorter cut takes more time and requires more holding still, which makes both of us grumpy.

Austin got a haircut too, just a trim. It's still long and curly but a little less wild. See....

And just for kicks here's a picture of the two monkeys together.

What a way to start the day

So, this is what I saw when I turned around from making the boys breakfast this morning. So Funny!! It was nice to start the day off laughing.

This is Austin smiling

Stroller bag

Ok ladies, stroller weather is coming. Hallelujah!!! I saw this on my friends blog and thought it looked fantastic, especially for you city dwellers. Here's the info.

*NOTE* From this point on in this post anytime you see the reference "I" or "me" it means the woman who invented this wonderful contraption, not yours truly.

Enjoy!

The ZOOBI Ultimate Stroller Caddy and Carry Tote

So what does it do, you say!?
First of all, it's a STROLLER ORGANIZER: 2 large zippered pockets hold all the valuables, you've got a cell phone pocket, a zippered pocket for keys/chapstick, credit card... AND it holds two drinks! (waterbottles, baby bottles, sippy cups, you name it!)
It has two buckles up top on either side that allows it to attach to any stroller - ones with two handles, ones with one big bar, etc...

Secondly, it's a CARRY TOTE: So you're at the park, Sea World, mall... and you want to leave the stroller, but not all the goods - Pop out the drinks, fold the bag in half (it velcros!) and VOILA! it's a tote with a shoulder strap.

Think this lil' gem can't get any better? Here's one final perk... Undo the zipper that goes all the way around and it unfolds into a full-sized, waterproof CHANGING PAD!!! WAHOO!

Doesn't matter if all your shtuff is still in the pockets, it makes for a little pillow at one end.

If you'd like to purchase one (Hint, hint), you can buy one from me directly, or online for $29.99. Right now, I've only got it posted onAmazon, so PLEASE check it out!

****For free shipping!! Use this code at checkout: ZBSPRING *******

I would be honored if you could help me spread the word!! Tell friends and family... Copy and paste any information on to your blog, email, facebook, twitter, even just word of mouth.

If anyone wants to know more, they are welcome to call me!

801.376.9676

Haircuts :(

For a while now Carter has been asking for short hair. Zach's sister, Jennifer, had her wedding in January and had specifically requested that Carter's blond curls be there so I had told Carter that he'd have to wait until after Jenn's wedding. Well, four days after Jenn's wedding Carter was sitting on my lap when his head whipped around and with a twinkle in his eye he said, "It's after Jennifer's wedding. Now I can have short hair like Daddy!" We were in Utah at the time and our flight back to Chicago was leaving that afternoon so I told him he'd have to wait. Well, on January 30th the time had come for a short haircut. Here are the before and afters

BEFORE:




AFTER:





Can you tell Carter's haircut was a bit of a process? Yeah, he looked like a little girl with a bob cut initially so I called my sister-in-law, Brie, to get some tips and proceeded on. I took the "after" pictures right after the haircuts before putting them in the bathtub so they're not the best. In the near future I'll post some better pictures. I made a few adjustments to Carter's cut and it has settled nicely. Zach and I like it now.

December

December hit and Carter started asking when we were going to put our Christmas tree up. I wanted to set the tree up and get the lights on while the kids were asleep because, let's face it, I would have heard, "Are you done yet?" a million times before I was actually done. So that's what I did. They woke up Saturday morning, saw that the tree was up and could hardly contain themselves. We had to make them eat their breakfast before we got the decorations out.

Waiting for an ornament.

Austin put every ornament he got in the same place.

Compare this picture to the one above. In the end I think I counted 18 ornaments on that one branch.

I didn't get any pictures of the finished product but just picture a tree with decorations only on the bottom third and one branch holding 18 little glass ornaments. That's what our tree looked like.



December also brought some snow for us to play in. It was so nice to not have to get them dressed up, haul them down the 10 floors, through the building lobby, across a busy street to play in a park where people bring their dogs to poop. All I had to do was bundle them up and send them out the door. They loved having snow shovels. Carter had been asking for one ever since he saw one at our old church building and when he saw snow on our deck he sated, "Now we have to get a snow shovel!"

See their little snowman?

Carter and "his" shovel.

There was one day before Christmas that I asked Carter to go up and get dressed. This is what he came down wearing....

His argyle shirt, swim trunks and black Sunday socks. Nice!!




** Christmas Morning**

Christmas was great!! This is the first year Carter really understood the concept of Santa Clause coming and leaving gifts. It was so much fun to watch him anticipate Christmas Eve and see his excitement when his question, "Did Santa come?" was finally answered, "Yes!". Christmas was pretty relaxing and low key for us. We spent it at home just the four of us. As much as we miss our families it's nice to spend the day in our pajamas playing with our toys. I didn't get many pictures, mostly video, but here's what I got.....

Austin got this cool fire truck bed for Christmas. We left it in the front room for three days so they could play in it. They love it.

You may be expecting something about New Years.... Don't. We were all in bed before midnight. zzzzz

November

In November we had some good outside play time. The boys loved to play in the fallen leaves. Austin was fascinated with the crunching sound they made when he walked on them. Carter's big birthday gift from us was a scooter so we put it to good use before it got too cold outside. Enjoy the photos..

Playing Cars

Here they're scratching their backs on the tree like Baloo the bear on Jungle Book. (I think Carter's seen that movie once about a year ago but he remembers that part)

That's about it for November. Somewhere in there we had Thanksgiving but I didn't get any pictures. The main participants this year were us, the stomach flu (both boys had it), and work (for Zach). If you ask me it was a little crowded.