Happy (belated) Birthday Carmen!

Well, Wednesday was Carmen's birthday -the ___ anniversary of her 25th birthday.
So last Saturday (on the 6th) I took the boys shopping for presents. Ryan refused to go with me, he insisted on staying here with mom. We went to Target they boys didn't have any ideas -I had one but it was mine, and my only idea so I wasn't giving it to them -yes I was letting them fend for themselves.
Anyways after 20 minutes of pointless wondering they decided that some scented candles were the thing to get her. I got her a movie (the Princes Bride) and then we went to the Disney store to get her this pj set she thought was cute the last time we were there.
Walking into the mall Kyle slipped on the floor -both feet straight out in front of him and wham! right on his rear end -for the next day or so he kept telling us it hurt I don't think he broke his tail bone as it's not hurting him anymore but I really felt for him having taken some hard falls myself.
So we got home -and like a dad who's done this before I'd picked up a present to be from Ryan. So we wrapped them, well OK we put them in gift bags but it's nearly the same, nearly...
Then Sunday morning (the 7th) Ryan gets up early and comes in and asks me what day it is. I tell him it's Sunday, and he says "Is it mom's birthday today?" I tell him "nope, not today, gotta wait for Wednesday."
Monday morning rolls around and when Ryan gets up he comes out to the living room where I am, sits down next to me. Then he looks up at the gifts on top of the entertainment center and says, "Dad, what day is it?", I tell him that it's Monday. He then asks "Is it mom's birthday today?", I tell him "nope, not today we've gotta wait until Wednesday."
Tuesday morning Ryan gets up and comes out and looks at me and asks, "Dad, what day is it?", I tell him that it's Tuesday. He then asks "Is it mom's birthday today?", I tell him "nope, not today, it's tomorrow."
So Wednesday morning, I'm expecting the same routine but true to being a kid he gets up he walks past me (as I'm awake and trying to get breakfast ready) and he goes in and wakes up his mom to tell her that it's her birthday and she can open her presents.
So the reason I didn't post this until like 4 days later is that we put the boys in another round of swimming lessons they're after school and it converted our doable but busy schedule to something absolutely CRAZY! It's a good thing it ends this Friday. I don't know if we can take it much longer, Ryan is so tired that he becomes an emotional roller coaster every day at 6pm...

Ryan's "other" smile

So Ryan brought this fridge magnet home from preschool and when we asked him about what we viewed as a lack of smiling in the photo, he replied "that's my other smile". We told him we didn't think it was as nice or cute as his original smile...
what do you think?

Riding Bikes

Last Saturday we took the boys to the "barn-park" as Ryan calls it -it's real name is Tumbleweed park but it has a huge barn roof over the play area, so it's the barn park...
Anyways here are some pictures of the boys riding around. As you may notice their faces are kind of red... Well we tried to go early before it got too hot but it was still well over 100 when we got there. Alas such is life in the valley of the sun (burn)...

Thanks Ashley!

So Carmen has been asking me how to make the background on her blog (ah -I mean OUR blog) different. She'd seen others with images and various different things and was wondering how we could do that. I looked at the blogger help and it as all on-line helps was NOT much help. So yesterday I just posted a quick question. Ashley pointed me at www.thecutestblogontheblock.com where I learned not only what size to make the background but how to get it to be the background. So what do you think of the new background? too many mickeys or not enough mickeys...

Thunder storm

So Thursday night we had a BIG thunderstorm. The news claimed that it had hurricane force winds above 100 MPH!!! It wasn't really windy here at our house but it was in other parts of the city (it blew the blow up roof off of ASU's practice field -yeah a blow up roof silly I know). In fact we stood out on the balcony and recorded some of the light show. Check it out.

Background

So if anyone knows how to add a background to their blog. Please let us know. It isn't as straight forward as I thought...

Talks in Church

So about a week and a half ago, Br. Strong (the first counselor in the Bishopric) asked James at scouts if we would speak in sacrament meeting. James said yes (UGH!) he then called me to tell me (double UGH! -he should have called first we or more importantly I could have politely declined).
Anyhow I resigned my self to my fate and started preparing a talk. James who has no faith in me taking more than about 12 mins basically prepared a half hours worth to speak on.
We showed up to sacrament about 20 mins early the Wagstaffs (the primary president) had the boys sit with them so we could sit on the stand -which was good for Jenny (the new beehive who was giving her first talk in sacrament meeting as the youth speaker) as I highly doubt she wanted to be up there alone.
Why is it that when you're assigned to speak there's never any ward business but it seems like the VERY NEXT week there'll be like 20 mins or MORE of ward business followed by a letter from the First Presidency and several items of Stake business? I know it's one of those does a tree falling in the forest make a noise if no one is around to hear it questions. But I had to ask.
So things were going along smoothly, Jenny got up and gave her talk. Then I got up. Now here's the deal I don't like giving talks they make me very and I mean very nervous. So I ALWAYS have the entire thing typed out -literally every word I plan to say during my talk is typed out. I get up and I'm just going along, and well I didn't notice so James will explain.
Well one of the elderly brothers appeared to just kind of knock over. There was some commotion in the audience as several members of the ward who are medical professionals by trade went to be first responders. The Bishop got up and asked Carmen to sit down. He then asked the entire ward to please sit calmly as they saw to making sure a member of the congregation was OK. So we all sat there real quiet as a ward, most people looking up at us with quizzical looks on their faces (as he was sitting in the back part of the chapel). Then the paramedics showed up. Now he's been laying down on the bench for at least 10 mins we've got no feel for what's going on -as a ward I don't think. The Bishop was wisely (I might add) letting the people in the ward with the appropriate training to do whatever they needed to do. When the paramedics showed up the Bishop decided that in the interest of letting them do what they needed to we'd adjourn. He said that the adults should go to the Relief Society room, the primary children to the primary room and the youth to either the young men's or young women's room. Although I was worried about the brother who'd passed out (it turns out he's diabetic and hadn't had breakfast and just sort of blacked out or something). I was kind of thinking "did we just dodge the talk bullet?" But alas I was mistaken the Bishop came over and said that we'd pick up where we'd left off in the Relief Society room. Dang! so close!
So we finished up our talks to a reduced audience -think the size of a regular gospel doctrine class as opposed to sacrament meeting.
It did prove to be quite an eventful morning though.