Saturday, September 22, 2012

Potty Training Gone Awry

Before I write anything else we had a first in our house.  I asked Brandi how to spell "awry" and she couldn't do it.  This is a first in our marriage! She normally can spell anything.  I digress....Brandi is mortified I have put the picture above online but I thought it was pretty funny.  Jack was on the counter playing in the sink and decided to relieve himself.  Anyone who knows Brandi can only imagine her dry heaving as she cleaned this up.  Hopefully she used some bleach!

Below you can see we now have him at least sitting on the throne....really working something!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Sunday Morning

Below are pictures from 2 different Sunday mornings. Katherine was suppossed to be getting dressed but obviously found dressing her brother to be more fun. The things I miss when I am at church meetings in the morning. Brandi is very lucky and surprisingly late fairly often.



Here while some might argue he doesn't match it certainly is an improve,ent from above.


Quotes from Jack

Tonight the boys got haircuts dad included. Jack came over and Brandi told him how handsome he looked. Jack responded he wasn't handsome....he had awesome hair!"

When we got home I asked Jack if he wanted to take a quick shower. Which he responded No! I asked why not to which he informed me "because my hair is cute and I don't want to ruin it!"

After we finally got him in the bath I was putting lotion on him and playfully smacking his bare buns......he then turns to me and says, "Dad do you think I am enjoying that?" before I could respond he followed it up with,"because I'm not".

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Saturday Morning

Well it is 10 am and Brandi is still sleeping.  She had a migraine last night and has had several busy nights because I have had several events this week.  I have another Katherine story from yesterday.  Brandi had taken Katherine and Jack to run a couple of errands.  They have both been very tired and crabby lately.  From inside the house I could hear Brandi open the door from the garage....I then hear Katherine let out a scream and start to cry.  I then hear begin to berate Jack and do something in retalliation.  Katherine then pleads her case to her mother to no avail.  I then hear her footsteps and quickly realize she is coming to me to administer justice.  She comes into my bedroom and relates to me the story about how had maliciously laid in wait for her to then slam the car door on her arm.  I tried to punt back on Brandi and fulfill my roll as she affectionately refers to me as "Drive-By", and told Katherine she needed to petition Brandi because she had seen it and was there.  Katherine then said those imortal words that every father who has been held out as the devil love to hear....."but Dad you give out the naughty, mean punishments mom doesn't"...finally recognition for my work!  So far the only time in our marriage our kids come to me and it is to be the enforcer against one of their siblings.  Glad for the attention I took her hand and we went and found Jack together!  The rest of the story is to graphic for young readers but needless to say Katherine appreciated the swift justice I delivered.

P.S. - I like to talk tough but if you think for a moment Brandi let me do anything to her baby you haven't been around for awhile.  I was able to at least let Katherine believe their would have been blood of it weren't for her mother defending Jack!  Unfortunately my new found ally's loyalty and love faded by bedtime when there was weeping and wailing because I was putting her to bed instead of her mother.  I can't win!

Disneyland 2008

This past week we went to California - Disneyland!  After being in the park for a few days we stayed with Johnny and Jen for a couple of days.  Because I am new at this and our lives our now much more boring I am going to stretch this out over a couple of posts.  On Monday we flew into Orange County picked up our rental car and headed for Disneyland.  We stayed in the Marriott Residence Inn ( I would highly recommend this hotel) it had a great breakfast included each day and it was within walking distance of the park.  Our room was a two bedroom loft.  Brandi and I had the loft and my mother bunked with Katherine and David in bunk beds.

The next morning we headed to Disneyland.  Our first ride was Pirate of the Caribbean.  Katherine sat shaking in my arms throughout the ride and David wasn't very excited either.  So since the dark kind of scary ride was such a hit we thought we would head to the Haunted Mansion a sure fire hit.  David liked this ride because it was like a mansion scooby-doo would visit.

Crow Creek 2009












Well world I am back online.  We will see how long this lasts.  I am planning on trying to go back and post a few other events.  We recently got back from spending the 4th of July at the crow creek ranch.  It was different this year with grandpa and grandma not being there, but Michelle and Brent were awesome hosts.  It is amazing how green it is this year.  We were the first family up this year and so we were put on work duty.  There was a broken pipe which created quite a mud bog which we had the opportunity to shovel.

Katherine loved the ranch.  She loved to play with her cousins, ride on 4 wheelers, play with the dogs and ride horses.  This is Katherine with her cousin Elizabeth.














David, Uncle Dan, Daniel and Anson decided to go swimming in the creek.  David had to be coaxed to sit down in the freezing water.  I had to bribe him with $5 to get him to do it.  I almost had him go all the way under.  You will notice Anson also lost his diaper not very sanitary.  But he is a hemmert!






Which Hand

Unfortunately I couldn't find the picture but another draft post from 2008:

Katherine has learned from her brother the fun game of guess what hand it's in.  She hasn't quite grasped the overall concept of how it works.  Below is a picture of her asking me to choose a hand.  I chose her left hand and ta da a green ball.  She then held out her hands again with 1 green ball now.  I chose the right hand and she slyly passed the ball into her left hand saying there is nothing.  Keep in mind this is in front of her not behind her back....we will have to work on it.

The $900.00 Chuck-E-Cheese Token

A former Draft post I just discovered from 2008:

Unfortunately we were unable to go with my family up to the ranch over the labor day weekend.  The kids and I were going to go up but there was a chance Jack was going to have to go back into the hospital.  So we sent David up with the Hemmerts and I stayed to help Brandi.  Luckily Jack started eating and his johndis number came down and we stayed home.  In preparation to going up to the ranch I decided to get a tune up on the van and also get the DVD player fixed.  It stopped working about 6 months ago.  We left our van at the dealership and they said they would call and let us know what was wrong with the DVD player.  Later that day they called and regretted to tell me that they couldn't find anything wrong with it but it would need to be replaced.  The bad news being it is going to cost me $900.  I gave them the go ahead to order the new player and install it.  The next day I got a phone call telling me the car was finished and they had some great news.  When the technician pulled DVD player our and set it down he heard a "clink" he picked it back up and a chuck-e-cheese token fell out.  He then hooked it back up and hallelugha it worked.  They were nice enough to return the now $900 token.  Now I feel guilty for wanting to take the $900 out of my kids hide.

I'M BACK!

Well it has been a little over 4 years since my last post.  I am not sure what brought me back but perhaps this could be some sort of a journal.  Brandi and I have been lamenting how we haven't been very good at documenting what has been going on.  I am sure several of my posts for the next little bit may be a bit of a catch up from what I can remember.  Lucky for you I have a crappy memory.  I decided maybe the inspiration for my return to blogging could be that I am again in a fantasy football league for the first time in 4 years.

We have been blessed with 3 wonderful children. Katherine keeps us on our toes.  Diabetes certainly hasn't slowed her down.  The other day Katherine and David went to the doctors office for their check-ups.  David was due for a flu shot and for any of you who know David that is not something he relishes.  After what seemed like an eternity of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth the doctor finally turned to David and said "the academy award for most dramatic goes to David!"  Katherine was observing this from her perch on the examination table.  In her kind, compassionate demeanor she turned to David who was sitting on one of the chairs and innocently asked David would you like to know how much it will hurt?  Surprisingly David said yes.....Katherine with a wry smile launches herself off the table and mid-flight kicks David in the shin as hard as she can......when she lands she turns to him and matter of factly says......"less than that!"  David and the doctor were mostly in shock and Brandi was trying not to laugh.

For the second year in a row Katherine will have an interesting school picture.  Last year she had an allergic reaction on picture day and her eyes were almost swollen shut! So this year Brandi was trying to make sure she was extra pretty.  She spent most of the morning dolling her up and then drover her to school to avoid any mishaps.  Unfortunately, Katherine was late and running to class and tripped and went down hard.  She skinned up her arm and hands and of course her chin which made her look like she has a soul patch or raspberry patch.  When we get the pictures back I will post this years and last years for comparison.

Jack has his mother wrapped around his little finger.  He has gotten into the habit of waking up several times each night and coming into our room for a snack, drink or whatever.  Brandi being the caring mother she is would get him a snack and a drink and we have now started a terrible habit!  I am not quite so loving.  Last week Katherine had a bout with a stomach bug and ended up in the hospital overnight.  I was at home with the kids and it had been several late nights and I was exhausted.  About 2 am I woke up to the sound of slurping....I roll over and laying next to me is Jack in the fetal position going to town on his fingers....if you have ever seen the way he does it he puts his fingers in his mouth with his palm facing away from his face.....try it some time it hurts.  Anyway I enjoyed our special little moment for about 20 seconds and then picked him up and took him back to bed.  As I have told this story several times apparently most women I have talked to after saying ahhhh said how could I take him back?  I agree I shouldn't have carried him I should have just pushed him out of bed and had him walk back himself :)

Again sorry in advance if some of these posts are boring but I want to try and remember things so bear with me.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Fantasy Football and Fox

It is now a little after midnight and I have just checked my fantasy football team. My good cousin Tod invited me to join a league and so for the first time I have entered into the fray. I spent about 10 minutes this morning pouring over scouting reports, fasting, seeking inspiration and rubbing my lucky rabbits foot. All this to find out that we aren't keeping track of scores until week 2. It might end up being good because I only have a 14 point lead over my match up and all of my guys have played and he still has one on MNF. If this doesn't make sense to you don't worry it didn't to me either about 24 hours ago. For those of you anxiously awaiting the final tally I will let you know how the game tomorrow night turns out.

The second part of what is on my mind is as I do most nights now about this time I flip through several family blogs and try to read what people are up to and it has been awesome to get to know some of our family better. However tonight I read a rather disturbing yet hilarious post from Ryan Miller regarding a soap opera Passions and his heartache over its recent cancellation. If you haven't read it I would encourage you to click on my favorites to the right and enjoy. As I read his post I started to reflect on my life and the guilty pleasures I have indulged in and a few came to mind.

For several summers I would work on the Ferry Farm in Corinne Utah, generally with my cousins Johnny and Joel. Things could get a little slow during the summer especially on TV and at the ranch you only had local channels. Now some of you might be saying wait we have so many reality TV shows to choose from, but alas back in the ninety's these edgy, purely genius gems hadn't come along. Instead we had the latest creation from Aaron Spelling comprising a perfected formula of beautiful women, california, and a bunch of gorgeous hunks some of whom were bad boys, good guys and misfits. You through them in a common living/working environment, watch them grow together/apart/together/apart etc. and you have cinema gold! You have to love Fox for the shows they produced were admitidly a little edgy and slightly risque (I would put them in the same league as Passions.) These shows were generally so well written they were able to cover the whole plot for the season in one summer so there wasn't a need to bring them back for more, but a similar show would always surface. I am curious if these titles bring back any memories for anyone else: Summer 1994 "Models Inc." (the title says it all!) This show was so well written it had 29 episodes and lasted until March 1995 when they finally exhausted all the possible angles and drama surrounding a modeling agency as a spinoff from 90210. Summer 1996 "Malibu Shores" Summer 1997 "Pacific Palisades" Sadly this well written theatrical masterpiece only lasted for 13 episodes but they were each very action packed and dynamic. Of course during this time you also had melrose place and Beverly Hills 90210 (another fun fact I graduated with Kelly, Brandon, Dylan and the gang in 1993). I must say Aaron Spelling had a simple formula and he kept using it time and again. Anyone else out there want to come clean? Ryan I feel your pain, I had filled the hole in my life with the TV show Las Vegas but sadly it has been canceled. I now hope another brilliant script will be picked up this fall. Maybe Night Rider or Lipstick Jungle (J/K the previews on that one make me blush)!