The Dark Knight

Pat and I went to see The Dark Knight this weekend. It was long overdue. I was a bit hesitant to see it mainly because I didn't want to see a dark, depressing movie. However, after seeing it I can say that it was AWESOME! I was hugging my knees the whole time just wondering who the Joker was going for next. I love Christian Bale as Batman. He is by far my favorite. I want to see it again. Everything happened so fast, even though the movie was almost three hours long. I wanted to see what else would happen. We came home and I watched Batman Begins again. I should've watched it before we saw Dark Knight, but I ran out of time. It did help to watch it again, even it was after the fact. Pat really got me into watching movies with the subtitles on. It's amazing how much you can miss without them! GO SEE IT if you haven't already! 2 thumbs up!!!!!!

I Can Do It By Myself

Lukas is at a fun age where he really likes to be independent and do things himself (I think he's always had this desire, but can now actually do things himself). And actually I really like this because I no longer have to change his diapers, make his bed (unless I want it to look good), force him to brush his teeth or dress him. However, there are some disadvantages to this. He dresses himself, and therefore he grabs the first thing he sees and puts it on. Nothing new, right. But it can be embarrassing. EXAMPLE: I took the kids to the Thanksgiving Point Barn to meet up with a friend and her kids. Lukas dressed himself for the day and was wearing his too-small Buzz Lightyear PJ top (that he wore to bed the night before), his new batman socks with crocks and shorts and batman tatoos all over his legs and hands. I love his independence, but c'mon! Today he wore his cute shark shorts with a long-sleeved striped polo shirt. It just does not go together, but I what can I do? I am just happy that he can do it himself. :)

The End

(If anyone reads my sisters blog, I totally copied her for this post. Thanks Min!) Pat's three week break is up!! It was fun having him around and being able to do fun things with him. And it seems that summer is at a close, too, even though the heat is not giving up. Here are some fun things we did (and some not-so-fun things). Pat had a pretty big "honey-do" list and he accomplished every task! Thank you!

• hanging the upstair fan...beautiful!
• We had some pretty bad settling in our backyard and thankfully we had some neighbors that gave us their leftover dirt to fill it in. It looks brand new now! The kids are happy to have their sandbox back.
• We cleaned out our garage (as seen in earlier post)! And it's still clean! YAY!
• We got a babysitter and went to the movies. We saw HANCOCK.
• We attempted camping twice. Both times were fun even though finding a spot was a challenge.
• All the hornets nest hanging around our house and eves are now gone! I should've got a picture of Pat on the roof. He loved it. Anything to climb up to the roof.
• swimming at the clubhouse, always the kids' favorite
• The hose is now nicely rolled up in the hose box that has been leaking since last summer and is now fixed!
• We moved some toys in the basement and now the kids have more room to run around and make messes.
• We got our family pictures taken!

Good luck with your second semester of school Pat! You rock! :)

Family Photo

We are getting our family pictures taken on Thursday, but I'm debating on whether I should just get this one framed. Lukas loves to play pictionary (he calls it bictionary). He recently drew this one of our family. Max is in the bottom right corner, Lukas in the other corner and daddy is the one floating above Lukas. Which leaves the giant one in the middle...ME! Nice perception Lukas! Pat made me feel better and said that it's because I'm the biggest part of his life. Good answer. Lukas also draws similar pictures and calls them dinoaurs or monsters. I wonder what that means about our family...

S T I T C H E S

I guess there is a first for everything. I'm just surprised it wasn't sooner. Poor Max. For full details, click here.

Adventures in Camping--Take 2

I don't even know where to start, other than we decided to go camping for the second weekend in a row. However, this time we thought we were being smarter. Turns out you are not smart unless you make reservations (which seem impossible to get). And tell me why we live Utah and there are so few camp spots?? So here goes...

My sweet neighbor, Whitney and her cutie Holden (age 2) came up early with me and the boys to find a spot. Our husbands were going to meet up with us later. With much bickering, poking, fighting, and biting coming from the back seat, we drove to Big Cottonwood Canyon to find that EVERYTYHING was booked, in Little Cottonwood Canyon, too. We thought we were driving up early enough to get a spot. WRONG!!!! So, we head to American Fork Canyon to find the exact same thing! We thought we were going to cry. But they did have dispersed camping just off the road, if you could find something. Whit and I had great hopes and we drove to Tibble Fork and found the dirt road. I could make this a really long story, but I'll spare you and just say WE FOUND A SPOT! Yay! We were so happy. We threw our stuff down and made the long trek down the mountain (in the car) to get reception on our cell phones to call Pat and Casey to tell them where we were. Our heros!! They were already at Point of the Mountain and on their way! When they found us, they had Subway! (When we, the girls, packed the car, we left the coolers in the car the boys were driving in...so we didn't have any food and were starving!)

It was a fun trip, even though we had to climb down a very steep hill to get to our spot and we had a river on the other side of us that the boys couldn't stay away from. We had an awesome campfire and had fun laughing at Whitney (And I thought I was a scare-dey cat! haha. We love you Whit!) I've never seen dirt attach to humans so quickly as on this trip! We were D I R T Y !! But we had food and friends and a campfire, so what more could you want?! Thanks for a fun trip! Next time we'll have a reservation.

Some of my favorite moments on the trip:

My List Today

Today I am thankful for...

• being able to stay at home with my kids (as rowdy and crazy as they are)
• my sewing machine and a little free time
• cookie dough
• naps
• taking a walk on a cool(er) summer night
• throwing together a fast dinner (and everyone eating it)
• phone calls from my sister :)
• a washer that actually works

The Cleanest Garage!

I asked Pat to help me clean out the garage today. I've been feeling like it is just so cluttered and dirty and stuff is just thrown everywhere. So, today was the day we changed all that! We took everything out, organized it, de-junked and scrubbed everything down (including our nasty gross garbage can). I must say, it looks goooood! I think now we will want to keep it clean and uncluttered. I'd really like to get some hooks to hang things instead of just having them piled up on the floor. And someday we'll epoxy it and paint the walls (Pat thinks its unnecessary, but I think it would look nice). But for now, I'm super happy that it's finally clean and organized!!!!!!!! Come take a look! The floors look brand new and it looks like we just moved in...the floors are so empty! YAY!

Camp Out (sort of)

So thanks to Whitney, we got our hopes up for camping this weekend, and then rain was in the forecast so it was cancelled. We still wanted to go, so we packed all our stuff up and headed to the Spruces fighting the fact that it may rain on us. We drive all the way there (no rain) and it was full along with Redman. Boo hoo!! But we didn't give up, we just sort of compromised. We went to a picnic area and made a fire and cooked our dinner (still no rain). It was fun to be outdoors and the boys had a blast. Max found every possible thing that could make him dirty and it stuck to him like his best friend. We had s'mores and tin foil dinners and hot dogs and sad little cupcakes with melted-off frosting. Then when we could eat no more and it was dark, we packed up and came home. We got the air mattress out in the living room and camped out there. It was nice not having to worry about the tent! And we had a blast! Oh, and we had a special guest with us...Shrek!

Big Kid Bed

Pat and I got all our stuff out of his mom's storage yesterday and discovered I had a twin bed from my college days! We borrowed a friend's truck and hauled our stuff home. Lukas was excited for his new bed. He's been in a toddler bed for years, but he just always seems to roll off somehow. Or end up in our bed. :(Anyway, we went and got him some fun Diego sheets and he's loving his big kid bed. Max likes it, too and I can see him finding a way out of his crib in no time at all.) I have been dying to get them bunk beds, but they are just a little too young still. So this was a fun, cheap compromise!

I'm Finally Done!

VAMPIRES RULE!!!

Twilighted

My Twilight party was a blast! My old roommate Brendy came with her friend Becky. And my sister-in-law came and brought the cutest Edward and Jacob cookies. And my two cute neighbors Windy and Whitney came! We hit every angle of the books and tried to figure out what the next book would entail. We were giddy with excitement! Midnight couldn't come quick enough! And when it finally did, some of us went to Walmart where we were greeted quickly and happily with our new book!!!!!!!!!!!! No pre-ordering, no lines, no wait! And I so wanted to win a TEAM JAKE t-shirt! It took all that was in me not to crack open the book and flip through to see the ending. But of course I didn't. I'm just happy to have my book. And I plan on taking my time to read it. I wanted to stay up all night reading, but really only made it to 2:30. Then Max woke up crying and that distracted me enough to put it down and get some rest. However, I didn't really sleep thanks to Max. Grrrrr! And just for you other Breaking Dawn readers...I'm not going to plow through the book, I want it to last as long as possible. So next time you see me, don't say a word or even hint about the book. My sister and I made code words to know if we could talk to each other. If I am not finished with the book we say "Bella's missing" and if we are through with the book we say "Vampires Rule". So if you do feel inclined to talk about it, use code please! :) (I think there are more Jake fans than you think!)

Camera Theif

I went to upload my pics to my computer and found these... Why am I not surprised? Seems to be the age where they like to get their hands on stuff. Some weren't so bad. Looks like I know what to get Lukas for his next birthday!