Family Photo

This is our most recent family photo, taken in November. I think it turned out great!!

Tagged!

1. I keep things in the original packaging for as long as possible, and I hate removing tags from new things until it is absolutely necessary. I kept the new tags on our living room furniture set for about a month after we bought it and started using it. My father-in-law made fun of me for this, but it is just something weird about me. I kept the boxes for our toaster and popcorn maker, and many other wedding gifts for 3 1/2 years. I guess it is like once I take the tag off or throw away the original packaging it is really final, and I always second guess my purchases so I keep all of my receipts in case there is a slight chance I want to return something. Anthony is the complete opposite in this way. He breaks into the packing immediately and throws the receipt away. It drives me crazy.
2. I love watermelon excessively. This summer I ate a 25 pound watermelon in three days...all by myself. I will eat watermelon from the first crop in the spring until the last crop in the fall and never get sick of it. Thank heavens it is made up of 90% water or I would look like a watermelon.
3. People who litter drive me crazy. How hard is it to throw your trash in a garbage? It makes me so mad when I see people throw trash on the ground. I wish recycling was more available in Utah and I would totally participate. I saved all of my thousands of papers when I was in school so I could recycle them on campus. I think the green movement is great and I wish more people would be earth-friendly.
4. I hate getting my face wet. If I go swimming in a pool, my head always stays above the water. I think I only got my face wet in the ocean 2 times the whole week we were in Hawaii. It is the last thing I wash in the shower so it can stay dry the rest of the time. I don't know why this is, but it applies to my hands, too. For this reason, I hate washing pans, or touching a wet rag to wipe off counter tops. I usually clean with gloves on.
5. I am a sucker for massages. Luckily I have a pretty good personal masseuse who willingly gives me one as often as I ask.
6. I am a freak about clean ears and noses. I am totally grossed out when I see someone with a bunch of earwax or nose hairs or cliffhangers. Anthony can testify that I am constantly on him about these things.
7. I love balancing my checkbook and managing our accounts. This makes for an easy job when you never have any money. Nonetheless, I like crunching the numbers.
8. I am a complete realist. I'm not big on dreaming or wishing for things. I like facts and figures and tangible evidence. Anthony is opposite of me on this so we make a good couple. While he has his head in the clouds, I have my feet firmly on the ground. We compliment each other this way.

That is me in a nutshell. I was going to tag my sister-in-law, Jenny, but she tagged herself, so there is no one left to tag except my sis-in-law, Victoria--your it!

How close is too close?

Today I'm writing to get out my frustrations about living in such close proximity to other people. Obviously, our townhome is connected to another unit, and thankfully, we are on the end. However, the unit next to us is rented to college students, who insist on having a party about every week. I suspect there is underage drinking and possibly some MaryJane there, if you get my drift, but once they get wasted, they become obnoxiously loud. Finally, last night Anthony went over to tell them to be quiet. Next time he says he is just calling the cops. The thing that really bothers me, though, are the myriad of unsupervised children who roam the complex, and always end up on the rocks outside my house, because it is the perfect place for their so-called club house. They leave their trash all over, pull the branches off the trees, and move the landscaping around. One day I had to go out like 4 times and get mad at them because they had hauled these two huge gates over and leaned them up against my house, only to have them keep falling down. Seriously people, why can't you just watch your kids and clean up after them? There is one good thing about this, though....it makes Anthony want to move to a smaller community and buy a bigger piece of land, so we have our own space and don't have to deal with bad neighbors. Plus, if we could build a house on like 5 acres of land, Anthony could walk around the house naked...it would be his dream come true!! Don't get me wrong, I love my townhome, I just don't love the fact that there are other townhomes around us. I guess we just have wait until the time is right for our next home.

For all you moms out there

Andrea sent this to me about a month ago and I thought it was funny. I've especially felt the burden of being a mom this last week with two sick kids and no sleep, so I've been kind of ornery and out of it this week. Anyway, this video kind of lightens the mood.

A Monkey's Uncle

This year for Halloween Tyson was a monkey and Tanner was a banana. Tanner pretty much slept the whole evening as we pushed him around in the stroller. Tyson looked so cute, but he really didn't understand the whole Halloween thing. He wasn't big into knocking on doors and getting candy. One of the houses gave him a balloon that Anthony blew up for him and he just wanted to play with that the rest of the night.

Terrible Two's

Unfortunately, I think they are here--Tyson has hit the terrible two stage. It has been apparent for awhile now, with him throwing tantrums and blatantly disobeying, but on Thursday while I was at work, Tyson managed to get a hold of a black marker and draw on all the appliances in the kitchen, the cupboards, the table and chairs, the furniture in the living room, the TV, and all over the carpet. Somehow, whenever Anthony tends the kids, some sort of ink product ends up on something in the house. All I can say is thank heavens for microfiber. It is a cinch to clean. We were able to get the marker off the carpet with resolve and oxiclean. At first those spots looked bleached out after they dried, but now I am thinking that that is the color of the carpet when it is actually clean. So we either need to get the carpets professionally cleaned so that it is all one clean color, or just walk more on the clean areas where the marker was so that they get equally as dirty as the rest of the carpet. I reconsidered re-carpeting, but my dad assures me that Tyson will just do it again and not to replace anything. He also said Tanner couldn't be any worse than Tyson is, and I think that is true. Don't get me wrong...I love Tyson and he is a joy most of the time, but the few instances where he causes trouble is enough to drive me insane. Tanner seems a little bit more mild than Tyson. He has been a bundle of joy ever since he was born. I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute with him and it makes me sad he is getting so big. He smiles and laughs all the time compared to Tyson's serious composure at that same age. Oh well, I guess you just have to roll with the punches.

Tyson's Birthday

So Tyson turned two years old on Friday, and we had his party tonight. We had quite a crowd. I doubt he understands the concept of birthday yet, but he loves the presents he got. Thanks to everyone for the presents. Anthony and I made him a cake in the shape of a truck, and it turned out great.