How To Lose Your Concentration During A Talk 101

Here are 5 easy steps you should follow if you want to insure the bishopric NEVER calls you to give a talk again.

1. Have you 3 year old run through the chapel calling out for you as your giving a talk.
2. Have no one stop him, but you (remind you are at the stand). Stop talking, take him to his father.
3. Have the 2 year old run with with dad to get big brother and have the two kids refuse to leave the stand.
4. Have the bishop get up and help your hubby with the kids.
5. Since both men can't quietly get the kids down, just have them sit with your kids behind you for the remainder of your talk.


For some odd reason it is just much easier to focus on what you are saying when your kids are in front of you (even if making faces) instead of behind you.

(In case you are wondering, this really did happen on Sunday. To put the icing on the cake, Drew threw up in the car on the way home. Yea for being a mom!!!)

Here are the little "angels" right before church. Boy, I had no idead what was about to unfold within the next hour. Haha

Ward Halloween Party. The Super Family

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have this weird assumption that people think that because I haven't blogged in over a month I must be doing nothing. After all, we are always so good at keeping others informed and writing in our journals, right? Haha, well, it's just the opposite. So here's a quick post just so I can remind myself of how incredibly;y busy life's been. Oh, and the order of the pictures is totally messed up. It's way to late to try to figure out how to properly arrange them.
During this past month I've:

Gotten addicted to pinterest. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I think it's the coolest thing, but I hate how I spend so much time on it!!

Became a US citizen!!! Yea me!!! I got sworn in November 18th. It was a rather emotional ceremony for me. I know I'm dumb, but I cried through it. Cory took pictures on his phone of me, but he's dead asleep right now, and I can't get to them. I'll post them some day (maybe).
We had a little celebration at our house afterwards. The food was great and the theme was Red, White, and Blue (duh, you could probably have guessed it yourself). Here's the invite I was very proud of myself for designing (minus the very personal details like my address).



Clarissa learned how to roll over. She did it this week actually, so this should be the last picture. Oh well. my life's is far from being perfect! I love her fat tummy hanging out. She is soo chubby.

Played dress up with the baby about a million times. Girls are so much fun!! Here she's wearing 2 pig tails. Cory hates it when I do this to her hair, but I think she looks cute.

grandma bought her this dress, and I think she looks adorable in purple (but I guess I am a little biased).

Hosted a pirate themed baby shower. "Ahoy, It's a Boy!". The decorations turned out really cute, the food was excellent, and I think (hope) everyone had a good time. Well, at least I did. I also hosted Thanksgiving dinner this year. The Jessica, Kyle and their cute boys came and feasted with us. My best friend since I was 10, was also in town and we had a great time catching up.

We celebrated Halloween!! Wow, that seems like forever ago and I never wrote about it. We were Super Heroes this year. I have a picture of the whole family dressed up somewhere, but here are the kids. Christopher was Spider man (and he was in heaven). Drew was Superman, and all he cared about was CANDY. Clarissa was Wonder women, and she was totally clueless. Cory was Batman and I was Cat women, but if you ask Christopher he thinks I was a kitty cat. We celebrated Halloween over 3 days, and the kids definitely got a sugar high from all the sweets.

We also got our Christmas pictures taken for Christmas cards, you can see them on the right side. I got them mailed today. Very proud of myself for doing it early this year. Oh, and I also got 15 Christmas gifts done for our friends and people we home/visit teach.

Ok, I think I convinced myself I've been busy!!

Just as a quick update on the boys.

Drew is in love with superhero movies. He begs to watch Spider man or Iron man daily. I don't give in (these movies are PG13 and the kid is only 2), but daddy (and grandpa) sure love an excuse to watch them again. Oh, he's got those two men wrapped around his fingers.

Christopher has been coming up with the funniest sentences lately. Here are just a few:

Cory went to put the boys down one night. After about 30 minutes I could still hear the kids talking so I walked into their room to see what was going on. I found Cory dead asleep on the bed. Christopher sitting next to him, and Drew sitting on the ground. Christopher looks at me and says:

"Shhh, daddy's sleeping."

The other morning I came downstairs to find both boys awake and quietly eating candy.

Me: "Christopher, go upstairs and wake up your dad."

Christopher: "Drew we have to be quiet. Daddy is sleeping and if he wakes up he'll take away our candy."

He knew I was too tired to do it myself. Stinker little kid!!

Yesterday Christopher was tormenting us to go take him to see Christmas lights. After about 15 minutes of nagging, Cory finally told him he would take them after dinner.

Christopher: "Yeppy, I'm so happy!" (opening the cutest and widest grin). "Thanks daddy, that makes me happy!"

Hodge Podge

I was looking through my pictures today and realized I have a whole bunch of pictures I've been meaning to post. So here's to an attempt to getting caught up!

This was a little project I did last week. I was feeling a little crafty and came up with this Halloween wreath. I love the outcome, did not like spending 3 hours cutting and tying tulle!

My poor neighbor, Miss Ruth, gets harassed by Christopher. He loves to push his car over to the wall, climb on it and bug her anytime she is outside. She been hiding inside her house more often lately. I wonder why?! Haha

Every once in a while we open Christopher's door at night to check on him. This night, this is what we found. Couldn't help but to take a picture. This kid cracks me up.

Like father

Like son (The first picture is Cory when he was a baby - already addicted to video games. And when I took this picture of Drew, it just totally reminded me of his daddy)

Drew got his first dental cleaning way back in July. He did a great job!!

This was one of my first shots of her smiling. She's been smiling since 4 weeks, she was around 7 weeks old here.

Clarissa has the chubbiest cheeks. Look at my little princess sleeping.

She is so cute and sweet!! I LOVE this baby girl!

Pictures

I've been meaning to post more pictures of Clarissa, but never seem to find the time. Christopher is in school and the other kids are sleeping (due to an early morning for everyone - they woke up at 4:50 AM and didn't want to go back down).

I'm exhausted, so this is just a quick post. I took Clarissa's 1 month pictures a couple weeks ago and here are my favorite. I didn't really like the photographer, so I'm not too impressed with these shots.

She was not very happy for pictures. All she wanted was her binky.


The girl taking her pictures did not do a good job (granted she had a crying baby to work with, but most her angles were bad). Here's Clarissa in her blessing dress.

My little boy is 2. (I took these back in July)

He's such a good little boy.

Chillin like a villain

Christopher fell from he jungle gym at the park a few weeks ago (19 days to be exact). He cried like crazy and said his foot hurt. We took him to the doctor the next day, but everything seemed fine, it just looked like it was bruised. A week later the kid was still limping so we took an x-ray and yesterday we finally got a call back from his doctor telling us he broke is foot. He actually has 2 fractures and needs to have it cast. The kid has been walking, running and jumping on a broken foot for 3 weeks and doesn't even complain of pain!!! I felt horrible though, for not being more proactive about finding out about his x-ray results earlier. My mom bought Christopher a t-shirt when she was in town and it says "Never Stop". Sooo appropriate!!! Even with an injury the kid never stops.

Lastly, I went to the Relief Society broadcast this weekend and it was AMAZING. I'm sure everyone who attended it fell in love with President Uchtdorf's message. He suggested 5 things we sister should not forget. I'm posting it so I don't forget this in a few weeks.

1. Forget not to have patience with yourself - no one is perfect, be patient with yourself and your weaknesses.

2. Forget not the difference between a good sacrifice and a foolish sacrifice - don't waste your time on foolish things.

3. Forget not to be happy now - don't spend your life waiting for your dreams/goals to come true saying you will be happy when it happens. Look at your everyday blessings and be happy with your life now.

4. Forget not the why of the gospel - don't think of the gospel as a to do list.

5. Forget not that the Lord love you - God has not forgotten you. He's aware of you, your fears, your trials. He loves you and has not forgotten you.

Welcome Clarissa

This is way overdue, but our sweet baby Clarissa arrived on August 9th. She is a really good baby and is very loved by the whole family. I've had a crazy month adjusting to life with 3 kids, culminating on my whole family flying in for her baby blessing. We had a great time, I was super busy, and am glad life is staring to go back to normal.

Clarissa arrived 1 day early from my scheduled c-section date, even though I tried my hardest to postpone it. She was scheduled for the 10th, which is my grandma's birthday and I really wanted for them to share birthdays. I went into labor Tuesday morning and after hiding/fighting/refusing to have Cory take me to the hospital I was finally dragged there. The checked me and said I could either stay and have the baby that day, or go home and come back the next morning, when I was scheduled to go.

What did I choose? Go home. Too bad the contractions got really bad by the afternoon, that this time I was asking to go to the hospital. She arrived safe and healthy that evening, and has been a good baby since.

At 4 weeks she started smiling and sleeping 8 hours at night. Although sleeping through the night does not happen every night, we will gladly take what we get!!

Quick updates on the boys:

Christopher has started preschool at his new school and he loves it (and so do I). He goes to school for 5 hours 3 times a week.

We have started to potty train Drew this week. He is catching on fast, wish me luck!!!

Happy Birthday Boys

This year I went the easy way and decided to combine the boys birthday party. We threw them a party at McDonald's right between both their birthdays. I have to admit it was weird to sing Happy Birthday to them when it really was neither of their birthdays, but it sure made my life easier. Here are some of our highlights.

Christopher was obsessed with the cupcakes. He had to have one before it was time. But I guess that's the perk of being the party kid. You get whatever you want.

My cute little boy putting on his party hat. I had to buy hats because he specifically asked for it. (They are such a waste of money!!!)

Drew playing on the playground.How would wee survive without inside playgrounds during the summer?

I can't believe it, one decent picture of the whole family. We sang Happy Birthday twice. This one only shows Christopher's cupcake tower, but Drew had one for him too. Actually Drew's cupcake stand tipped over a little before we sang to them, so we just had to switch the top cupcake when it was singing time because the second stand wasn't too reliable.

Who had the idea of getting bright blue, green and orange cupcakes? It was such a mess, that's okay, I only had to deal with it once, instead of twice.Opening gifts

Drew fell in love with his "Rex". He carries it around and calls him Rexy. Thanks Cammie!!

Well, I think I'm all caught up with my blogging, so you probably won't hear from me until after the baby. Wish me luck!! I hope it's soon!!!!

Random Thoughts

We've had a lot going on recently and I better blog about it now while I have time, or I'll never get to it.

My in-laws treated us to a trip to Sedona for the 4th of July. We had a great time swimming and playing with the Schmid cousins. The weather was amazing (I guess anything is amazing compared to the 118 degrees that was in Phoenix that weekend). It was literally a torture to have to come back to the valley and deal with this NASTY monsoon season!!!

At the airport overlook. I was quite impressed we were able to snap a decent picture of 5 kids.

This is the best our little family could come up with!!

This picture pretty much summarizes our mini-vacation. Hanging out a grandma and grandpa's resort eating popsicles and swimming. The boys loved hanging out at the patio and they would scream high to EVERYONE that walked by.

Cory and I had been to Sedona once before, but only for a day. This time we drove around and got to know more of this beautiful city. We were just in awe with all the amazing views that the residents of Sedona see daily. It made us wonder if they even appreciate it and notice it, like we outsiders did.

Our little hotel was next to an outlet mall, so on Saturday we were even able to go shopping for a bit. We had not planned on it, but who can really pass up 65% off at the GAP? (Well, a very pregnant lady can, but her husband can't and there were some great deals for the kids too).

Last week Cory took Christopher to get his 3 year old pictures taken. I was busy with other things and was going to have to cancel the appointment, so he decided to help me out. I have to admit I was a little nervous of what the outcome would be, but they did great. I can't believe my baby is 3!! (Actually he's been 3 for over a month now).

He's been talking (like real sentence talking) for a while now, and now I have to deal with talking back. I didn't think this would happen until he became a teenager, but I guess I was wrong. Some days he's the sweetest little boy and I just love him to pieces. And then there are the bad days, that get me on my knees pleading with Heavenly Father for patience and ideas on how to be a better mother. Right now the main problem is that I don't have enough patience to deal with the lack of maturity and huge amounts of craziness this little guy has.

This (ugly) picture is for my mom. She's been bugging me to post a pregnancy picture. Here's me at 34 weeks.

I'm currently 35 weeks (4 weeks left until schedule c-section date). I can't stand the heat anymore and I'm officially unpleasant to be around. I whine and complain most of the time and I don't EVER want to be pregnant again. I think I can finally say I AM DONE (just need to convince my other half that WE are done).

This has been a fairly easy pregnancy, but I just go CRAZY when I'm pregnant. And I really mean crazy. My poor family should not have to suffer through mom being pregnant again!!!

I had my last baby shower this week, and my good friend (and visiting teacher) Ivana was kind enough to come over and take ALL of my baby stuff to her house to wash. At this point, I'm accepting all the help I can get. I'm getting really excited and ANXIOUS to meet this little girl. She is a mover and I can't wait to see her and get to know her personality.

I could go on and on about how I'm done being pregnant, and done with the summer, but this post is too long so I better finish here. I totally forgot I still haven't posted about the boys birthday party. I need to get the pictures on this computer and then I'll post about it.

Happy Father's Day!!! (belated)

I meant to post this on Sunday, but never got around to. I didn't get Cory a Father's Day card this year (I know I am terrible) and I had great plans of publicly expressing my gratitude to him of what an amazing father he is. Well, I guess it's never too late.

I just want to let the blogging world know how lucky I am to have married such a wonderful guy. Cory, you are an awesome father and the boys ADORE you. They look up to you and love playing with you. Some of their favorite games with daddy include: ridding the bull, hide and seek, and, and just having Cory run around the house chasing them. I am really blessed to have such a hands-on husband who helps out a lot with the kids!!!

So, for father's day Cory got a BIG (8 person) tent. And to celebrate, we took him camping (more like he took us). Yes, I know I'm crazy. I'm 7 months pregnant and I wanted to go camping. I swear it's the pregnancy hormones that make me this nuts. We've been married for almost 6 years and I have never agreed to let him take me out, and now that I am huge and uncomfortable I say "Let's camp!" Go figure?!

We went with another couple (the Lewis) and had a great time. The boys really enjoyed being able to run freely, I liked the cooler weather. I do have to admit I probably won't be doing this again so soon. I need to get over how dirty and dry my skin was!!! I think it was more the dryness that drove me nuts. So here are some pictures as proof that we actually camped.

Here we are!!

The boys drinking their milk in the morning. And the TENT!

Cute Christopher. He walked around our camp site like this all morning. We had to convince him to take it off becuase it was getting too warm.

Our morning entertainment. This squirrel just hung around for a while and the kids loved watching it. When it finally left, Drew kept saying "squirrel, where are you?"

Can you tell Drew was happy?

May???

Did I really not blog in May? I try to post at least once a month, but I guess I'm not that consistent.

Lets just get straight to business. Last weekend Cory and I had a little staycation. His mom agreed to watch the boys over night so we could get a hotel near the temple, wake up early and go to a session. When we left her with the boys Friday night she made the mistake to tells us "Don't rush." Oh we sure took that to heart!!! The waking up early turned more into waking up at 9:00. WOW, I think that was the highlight of my weekend, but the amazing breakfast buffet, followed by time in the temple just made the beginning of our holiday weekend AMAZING!!

On Monday Memorial Day we had my in-laws over for dinner. We usually go over to their house, but this year we decided to just do it at our place. Cory and I pulled out the Dutch Oven and made a yummy meal in it. We also had corn on the cob and peach cobbler. It felt like camping, only better!! I had running water and my comfy bed to sleep.

Christopher
How do I put this in a nice way? He's driving me crazy with his creativeness!! He turns 3 on Saturday, but he thinks he's 16. On Sunday we were driving up to my in-laws and this was our conversation in the car:

Christopher: "Mamae, I go swimming at grandma's?"
Me: "No, it's late, cold, and it's Sunday."
Christopher: "Ok. Papai, I go swimming at grandmas?"
Cory: "No, it's Sunday"
Christopher: "I ask grandma to go swimming"
Cory: "Grandma will say no, it's Sunday"
Christopher: "Ok, I go swimming by myself."

Just like that, a simple statement. He thinks he can do whatever he wants. He always asks first, but I don't even know why, because no matter the answer he still does whatever he feels like.

We have a few things planned for the summer including Summer Movie Fun and swim lessons. This week was the first time at the theaters for the movie fun. I go with a bunch of friends and their kids. And guess what? I was the only one to lose a kid. Guess what kid? Christopher!! He ran away at the end of the movie and left me and other 5 moms nervously looking for him. He literally disappeared for about 3 minutes. It was a VERY scary moment.

Drew
He's all of a sudden decided to talk. He repeats stuff we say and seems to talk non stop (specially if we're in the car).

He insists Christopher's name is also Drew. Funny, but very confusing!!
Here are some of his other funny words:

Keebee - binky
teddy - blanky
Buzz tu-tain - Buzz chu-chu train (Toy story 3 - it starts with a chu-chu train scene)
I did it (even when we are the ones that do it)
I she-she - I want to go potty (she-she is pee in Portuguese)

Today he pooped in the toilet for the first time!! I'm not pushing potty training, but the kids constantly takes his diapers off and runs to the bathroom door asking to go potty. Pee in the potty has become a constant, but poo, that was a first!!

He loves to play with Christopher. He is lost, when his big brother isn't around!! Christopher went camping with Cory and Drew was in complete distress. The kid didn't really laugh until Christopher got back. He was so happy to see him, that he hugged and kissed his big brother on his own.

Baby Girl
She is a MOVER!! My goodness this kid kicks and moves around ALL the time. Christopher moved a lot, specially when I was eating. Drew was a bit more quiet. He moved at night time. Baby #3 beats the boys by far!! She moves when I eat, she moves when I lay down, she moves pretty much anytime anything is touching my belly. I'm a little concern about all this activity. The trend tends follow after birth. Will I ever get a calm kid?

I'm 10 weeks away from my scheduled c-section. I'm getting bigger and more uncomfortable by the minute. I had my first baby shower this week, and I'm getting more and more excited about having a girl. I can't wait to put bows on her hair, and to finally be able to dress a baby in pink dresses!!

Big Boy(s)

My little boys have been growing so fast, and life has been so busy that I feel like I can never keep up with all the journaling I should do. By the time I get to sit down and write all the events and sayings from the kids I already forgot half of them, I wonder if it's even worth it at all.

Christopher:
Well, I feel like he is officially a BIG boy. For a while now he has been:
bottle free
crib free
binky free

And for a month now he's been
DIAPER free!!!

This is how he spends most of his time at home.
Potty training wasn't as bad as I expected, but definitely not something fun. It took 3 days of intense training and frustrating accidents, but after some bribery to take him to the ice cream store (AKA Dairy Queen), he even got the poop thing down!!!

He's been saying and doing funny things lately, but of course, I didn't write them down so I can't remember them all. The other day he got a shirt from the library for participating in their reading program. They only had medium or large shirts, so his shirt is quite big. When we got home I let him wear it. He immediately put his hands in the air and started twirling around saying "Look mamae, I'm a princess." I couldn't help but laugh. Seriously, where did you get that from? I guess the shirt fit him more like a dress.

This one happened soon after Christmas, but I never got to writing about it. I was at the mall with the boys and Christopher as usual just RUNS. So this day, he ran ahead of me and into Pac Sun. So I ran in the after him to find him totally dancing in the middle of the store. It was really funny. I made sure I would remember that one so when he's old enough to want to shop there I can run in and DANCE at Pac Sun to embarrass him.

Drew:
He's been super cute and good lately.
He's super attached to his binky and blanket. The other day he woke up and didn't want to take a bath without his blanket. I figured his blanky needed a bath too, so I let it go in. He was in baby heaven to be able to do that.


So here's what Drew needs to work on before baby 3 comes:
Become binky free
diaper free
crib free
move in to Christopher's room

This past week we've been working on being bottle free (I know he's almost 2 and still takes a bottle for milk). I think we have finally achieved that!!! If I can get him to leave his crib and sleep in Christopher's room before the baby come I'll be a happy camper. We can work on the rest later.

Speaking of Baby 3. IT'S A GIRL!!!!
We are excited for the change, and I can't wait to be done being pregnant. This pregnancy has been the easiest one so far, although for the past month I've been dying of pain on my tail bone. Yes the bone, not my sciatic nerve. Going to church for 3 hours is becoming VERY painful. I can stand or lay down without problem, but sitting is just painful. Oh well, 15 more weeks and it's over. (Holly cow, I didn't realize I was that close to my due date!!)

Hanging over my head

I've been wanting to blog about a bunch of short stories lately, but I've had these Christmas pictures hanging over my head, and I can't seem to blog about life, until I get my pictures done. So here!!! Now I can move one.

I threw a shower for my friend back in December and the theme was Jungle Animals. It turned out super cute. I guess I was feeling creative.

Christopher in front of his preschool on his first day of school. (Keep reading for more info)

Christmas with my family. Enjoying the lights and ride at the train park.

Mesa Temple lights. Somehow I didn't get any good pictures with my parents and siblings while they were here. :(

Christmas morning at the Garretts. Drew looks so tired.

Christmas eve. Boy, I miss looking that skinny!! These are the Fletts, our great Brazilian friends in our ward. This was the day we had the BIG family dinner. 22 people!!!!

The girls posing by the tree.

These pictures are not in chronological order, which bugs me incredibly!! Ward Christmas party. The boys with Santa (although you can't really see Santa's face.) If you look close enough you can see Drew has a butterfly on his chin. He fell and split his chin open on the fireplace that week.

Doesn't his smile say it all? He is soooo full of mischief!

We've been busy lately, but it's late and I don't want to blog all the details. Here are some of the short main points.

I turned 27 on the 27th!! My golden birthday!! I went out to dinner with Cory to a fabulous Brazilian restaurant. Then later during the week I got to celebrate with my girl friends at the Cheesecake factory. Easiest birthday yet!! Loved it!

Christopher started preschool last week. So far he's loving it and so am I. He goes twice a week for a few hours. My mornings are so much quieter when he's gone, and I can actually get stuff done around the house. Yesterday I got to clean out the garage while he was at school. It was awesome, I left the garage opened and Drew just played in the garage the whole time!!! That would never happen if Christopher was home. I would have to chase him around and threaten him a gazillion times before finally giving up. I love that boy, but he requires so much stimulation, I just couldn't provide it anymore. I hope things keep going this well.

Drew is finally talking more and more. It's still very hard to understand him, but we're happy with his progress.

Here are Drew's words at 19 months (funny to compare the list with Christopher's at 15 months):

Mamae - mommy

Papai - daddy

all duh

buba - bottle

acua - water

doggy

ca - car

ba - ball

bu - Buzz (he LOVES Buzz Lightyear)

tatch - catch

Jesus

ights - lights

soes - shoes

what's that

I know he says a few more things but that's all I can remember. He speaks his own language most of the time.

Ok, it's way too late to keep going. Funny Christopher stories will have to wait until next time. Hopefully by the next time I post I'll also have a 100% on the baby gender.