Genius boy of ours.

There are hundreds, yes hundreds, of papers in stacks in TMac's room that have been colored on, written on and painted on. He spent an entire day water painting recently. He went through the entire case of water color paints and didn't want to eat or play anything else all day. He was just happy in his room painting, humming and singing. Picasso used to do that type of work without food or breaks. I know...I brag.



The above word written in blue is robot. I was amazed one day and called Tracy to tell him about our genius son. He loves to ask me to write down certain words or names or have me print out tracing pages but on this day he watched an episode of Word World. (A great show that your children should watch on PBS.) About an hour and a half later he asked me for a piece of paper. He went into the other room and colored. When he brought the paper to me he showed me that he had written the word robot. I was amazed since I knew I hadn't written it for him or spelled it out. I asked him where he learned to write robot. He said really casually - it was just on Word World this morning. Holy cow! He had watched the show a few hours before which means that he remembered the word that whole time and was able to write it down later. GENIUS! He is four and 3 months right now. It is so fun to watch the mental wheels spin when he is working on his projects.

This word above - duck - he copied from an activity paper.

This is our living room wall. If he had his way all of the wall space in our house would be covered like this. Heaven forbid if I try to throw any of the papers stacked in his room away!

Our bedroom wall. He loves to hang the papers above where our heads lay while sleeping. Sometimes they flutter in the breeze of the fan and I'm just filled with love for my little boy who loves to color, write and learn.

A tracing page. He sticks his tongue out so cute while concentrating on completing a tracing page.

I just had to post some of TMac's creations and show off our little Einstein. He brings tremendous joy to our family. When I taught first grade and subbed Kindergarten I used to dream about the future day when my children would draw potato people (you know - their first stick people that look like potatoes with arms and legs) and churn out pages of drawings that only they could explain. Now it is happening with my own son and I love it!

Happy Birthday to our Mom Cheryl!

Tracy has a super great Mom and that makes her my favorite (hee hee) mother-in-law! Happy Birthday to Cheryl! She had a birthday this weekend and we want her to know that we love her. Going to her house is always really fun. She spoils us and lets us move in for several days at a time to have cousins days, sleepovers, parties, awesome food, water days, etc. She cleans up after us and helps so much with all of the grandkids. When you sleepover at her house you will wake up to fresh made waffles, pancakes, homemade bread and all kinds of treats. If you leave dirty clothes in the laundry room she always gets them washed and folded before you even have a chance! This Summer we had several rounds of cousins days at her house. We like to turn her backyard into a water park and her bonus room into a giant bed. She went with us to Sea World and the kids had so much fun pulling Grandma everywhere. She even rode the rapids ride with them and got soaked! She is a great grandma. I cherish the homemade blankets and clothes so much. Especially our vintage wooden rocking horse. I really love Cheryl. I really don't think I have ever been mad at her...it's just impossible because she is so sweet! Thanks for a great Summer Mom! Apparently I need to take more photos of you because there aren't any from the last few months with you as the main subject!

TMac says: Thanks for letting us sleepover. Playing bus driver with K in your backyard was fun. I will be busy this week with starting soccer but maybe when I have time I can come to your house. Happy Birthday Grandma! I love you! (That was word for word. No changes from Mom.)

Emotions...

Usually blogs are pure fun but the last few days some posts have made me cry hard. I'm getting dehydrated between the Olympics, some unfortunate trials of my friends and some emotional posts from friends. I haven't cried this much in forever. My friend SB is in my constant thoughts today, my friend CJ has been on my mind daily this week and another friend CS had me in tears remembering sweet Sister Shumway. Prayers for everyone dealing with sucky cancer, missing loved ones and a huge hoorah to a brave 18 year old who has the convictions of a soldier and is joining the Army this week. I am stealing a quote from SB's blog that hit a spot in my heart -

"God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs." Spencer W. Kimball

That is so true and I am so grateful for my friends, family and ward members. Love you all!

Phelps phans phorever - we love the Olympics!

We have really been enjoying watching the Olympics - fast forward style. I have always watched tons of the Olympics since I was a child but this time is so fun watching with TMac. He is so amazed and has so many questions. Tracy used to mess around in a gymnastics gym growing up so he is fun to watch the men's gymnastics with. TMac really likes Michael Phelps and so do I. Who doesn't? For once a really nice guy who doesn't seem to be full of himself and has no bad press from drugs or affairs that I am aware of. From what I can tell from watching him in these and the last two Summer Olympics - he is humble, nice, loves his momma and is respectful. TMac thinks he can pretty much swim as fast as MP. I really like the Olympics because they expose TMac to a lot of sports that he would never otherwise see. He wants fencing lessons ASAP! He also wants to hang upside down from the "white bar". He said the BMX bikers were crazy though and that he would not do that with his bike! I wish I was a beach volleyball player. What a great life and great bodies too!

I don't consider myself a cry baby but I have teared up several times every single night! You know you all do too! I am just so happy for the athletes when they are happy. I also really like all of the cheesy personal interest stories that come along with the reporting. I really regret that I didn't go up to Salt Lake when the Winter Olympics were there. Thank goodness for the Olympics. I don't have time to watch too much TV but I did need something to fill the So You Think You Can Dance void. Ooh - the athletes should do that next. Dancing with the athlete stars!

Olympics opening ceremony - 1 minute video.

I love this video! Short and sweet. I don't care if some of the fireworks were CGI'ed (computer generated images - I think?) They looked great on my TV. TMac loved the hundreds of smiley face fireworks. Thank heavens for DVR recording so you can fast forward through the parade of nations, commercials and races that aren't the final races.

Love - river style.

It is time for a new blog header so this picture that has been the cutest header is retiring. I absolutely love this photo. It has many of my favorite things in it - my gorgeous boys being brothers and sharing a hug, the river and evidence of a great day!

River trip - our remedy for life's stresses.

Gorgeous river rats. I love blond, California boys and matching swimsuits. Precious!

Aaaahhhhh...there is nothing like a good river trip to ease the stress that life can bring your way. When our family is feeling the stress of the daily grind (especially Tracy and Dana - the hardest working men in the universe) we all yearn for the river. A trip to our honkey tonk river spot is the remedy we crave. Last week we got a sudden opportunity to go and we grabbed at the chance. It was so great. We have missed it so bad. Two years ago and the 3 years preceding we went all of the time. Last year we did okay but career changes slowed us down. This year we've been only a few times since Tracy is working Monday-Saturday usually 95 plus hours a week. It was an awesome weekend with naps, BBQ'ing and relaxing together as a family. It is always nice to spend leisure time with Tracy, especially for the boys. Thanks Tracy for working hard so that we could take a few blissful days to play hard!

Okay, if you plan on reading this post, grab a snack because I do not like slideshows. They slow down the blogspot, won't print out into book form and frustrate TMac who surfs this blog all of the time. There are a ton of photos below and I even only chose a fraction of the awesome photos we took!

Tracy is always great about building a special sand sculpture and since TMac is all about sea animals and Sea World lately, they built a Mommy and baby dolphin.

Sing the Alan Jackson song "When Daddy let me drive." The boys love to drive on the journey from our motorhome to one of our favorite river spots. Don't worry - it's on private property. Tot must drive! If you start him out sitting on Mom's lap in the passenger seat he will protest!

The boys love piling up all of the big couch pillows and bed pillows and jumping into them off the drivers platform of the motorhome.

I love this picture of Tracy. All of the problem areas are hidden under the water - hee hee! I should take some photos in this position because I delete most of the ones that show me in my swimsuit!

Tot's current trick is giving the best hugs all day whenever the mood strikes. I love it! That is not me in the bikini behind them. Just a random lady and the dog named Oakley that the boys loved playing with. They love their river dogs which in TMac language means dogs that he gets to borrow for awhile.

The boys love hanging out on the wood deck on Papa Doug's (Genni's Dad and W's grandpa) boat.

Dana the river lizard - basking in the sun. The water he is in is a little cove on the side of the river that slowly fills up all day which makes it hot like bath water. When you get too hot you go jump in the big river behind him and cool off in the cold water.

Papa Doug taking a nap on his boat. I didn't have my camera on me any of the times that he took a nap in a chair right in the deep water! Doug is fun to have with us because he is really easy going and super funny.

W jumping. The older boys did such a great job of taking turns and being careful with Tot.

Hanging out on the jet ski. These swim trunks are one of my favorite sets. It says "surfer dude" across their bums!

Tot loves a good jet ski ride but he usually returns asleep. This time he came back awake.

Mommy and Tot swimming. Great photo that hides all of the problem areas! :)

One of the reasons that the boys are such great swimmers is their experience in the river with the tides, waves from passing boats or jet skis and differing depths. They both started swimming in the river when they were 2 months old. The river is usually really calm though and wave free.

TMac and W were eating dry Trix cereal out of bowls like they were kitty cats. They were belly laughing and would get cereal sticking to their nostrils!

Nap time for Tot.

Tracy and his boys at sundown in the lagoon.

Tot felt like having a hug! River = LOVE!

Which Disney princess am I?

You Are Belle!

Intelligent and kind. Your beauty goes much further than your apperance. Also, you make judgements of people based on their personality and not their looks. Attaining all the knowledge that you can is one of your major goals in life, but you are also a person who can make things happen.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

I took this quiz because I wanted to see how my results compared with my two sisters. Heather came out as Jasmine and Erin as Ariel. I thought that the descriptions did match them - mostly. But, my first several results were not me at all so this quiz in my opinion is just fun. I had several princesses with equal percentages so I just changed the color answer from purple (purple is my favorite color) to yellow because I felt like Belle matched me best and I wondered how much the color question had to do with it. Apparently a lot. Changing to yellow resulted in Belle. I guess the quiz is telling me in a nice way that I am not beautiful on the outside ha ha! I surely don't have any illusions about that! I'm happy with being a person who can make things happen.

Pet peeve side note - when I hit spell check it pointed out that the quiz people spelled appearance wrong in their Belle description. I'm anal about spelling and word usage so I changed it but that messed up all of the graphics. It is annoying me but I have to leave it! Aargh! Yep - I'm weird.

TMac says he's moving away!

Today TMac packed up some of his toys and told me that he is moving away! Where is he going? Far, far away. That is where some of his cousins in Utah live. Almost weekly he wants to get in the car and go visit his Utah cousins. I say that we can't because they live far away in Utah and he always says, "is that far, far away?" I asked him why he wanted to move and he said that he was upset because too many people are moving away. My sentiments exactly! We've had good friends move out of town and out of state recently and more have plans to leave in the next few months. No one listens when I tell them it is forbidden to leave. I guess I should want to move to a bigger house and I sort of do but then I think about packing up twelve years of collections and a higher mortgage payment and lose the urge. I wish it was as easy as piling up some toys!

I hate earthquakes!

I find the above map of earthquakes from today and the last week so fascinating and scary at the same time. What a cool website - www.usgs.gov. See our big bad one from today in blue?

I hate earthquakes - but I would still choose them over any other natural occurrence. I was in the middle of typing an email today when the first of the two largest earthquakes hit and when they were over I went back to the email and shared some thoughts with my friends. Because what I typed cracks me up and I should use this blog as a journal more often (in addition to my constant, shameless showing off of my gorgeous sons), here you go - some excerpts from emails today since they are already typed and all I have to do is copy and paste. Whalah! Easy post!:

Holy cow! This email was interrupted just now by several sizable earthquakes! I hate them and I was just teasing Wendy about preferring earthquakes to Hurricanes. I still would choose earthquakes but I was in a really huge and traumatic one when I was eight so my heart is still beating really fast. I jumped up from the computer and plucked poor TMac up off of the toilet of all things and put him in the bathroom doorway and then ran and grabbed Tot from his crib since he was sleeping next to glass French doors (I really should relocate his bed) and ran him to the doorway. Poor TMac was standing there naked and probably thinking that his mom is crazy. Miraculously, Tot stayed asleep through it all and is now sleeping on my bed after hanging out in the doorway for awhile and having a serious question and answer session with TMac about earthquakes. I was especially diligent about practicing the earthquake drills when I taught elem. school. I'm still scared! I wonder what the magnitudes were?

_ _ _ _ _

From a friend - 5.8 at 11:42 am centered in Chino Hills and 3.8 at 11:51 am. I'm in Orange today and that first one made me jump out of my chair!

My response:

Thanks Angie! I was just going to look on the news but I hate watching the news so now I don't have to! They seemed a lot closer together than 9 minutes didn't they? That is weird. 5.8 is not too shabby! My former college geography teacher would have a lot to say today. In 1998 he was really warning us about the big one - 8.0 or bigger and that was 10 years ago!

_ _ _ _ _

Interesting. They downgraded it from a 5.8 to a 5.4. The attached article references the big one I was in when I was 8.

"The magnitude-5.9 Whittier Narrows quake in 1987 was the last big shake in that area. That quake heavily damaged older buildings and houses in communities east of Los Angeles."

I lived in Norwalk which was very near the epicenter and it lasted a really, really long time. My parents were stuck in their waterbed on the other side of the living room from our bedrooms and couldn't get out and we were all screaming for them. My little brother was under a year old and was holding a piece of bologna which got squished through his fingers and onto the wall because he was so scared. My parents were yelling to us to get in the doorways. I remember that the wood floor in my bedroom waved down into a large hole and then back into place, the bunk beds slapped on and off each other and the piano moved a good 3 or 4 feet from the wall. A Sparklett's water truck was making deliveries on our street and it spilled water bottles out everywhere. My dad was a self-employed plumber and made really good money that day going door to door replacing gas lines, etc. Am I remembering this right Mom? It's weird what memories come rushing back. I thought I would share my scary memories with you all! I'm not going to sleep good tonight.

_ _ _ _ _

There are my thoughts. It also really cracks me up that the news articles have quotes and interviews from people who were visiting Disneyland from other states. Some vacation story they will have to tell! Hey Disney execs. - you should build an earthquake ride in California Adventure. I am really glad that the San Andreas fault line got a relatively harmless release of pressure today. Hopefully the earthquakes today helped to stave off the big one which I am really afraid of!

New posts in progress...

I'm working on it! I had to start with updating my holidays and sidebars. It's really late so goodnight! Pretty please sleep in Tot!

Fire Fly Shoppe.

My sister started a business for her incredible digital scrapbook style photo designs, templates, blog headers, birth announcements, invitations and traveling photography sessions and blog consultations. The photo gifts that she offers are so creative and just gorgeous when they feature your own children or loved ones. Please check out her site at:

http://www.fireflyshoppe.blogspot.com

Eternal Treasures Clothing.

My mother-in-law started a business selling her gorgeous handmade clothing. She specializes in heirloom style clothes and currently has three absolutely beautiful blessing/christening infant girls gowns for sale. She will also custom make any outfit that you desire for any special occasion. Please check out her website at:

http://www.eternaltreasuresclothing.blogspot.com/

A slideshow of gorgeous clothes.

I have been working on the blog site for my mother-in-law's handmade clothes. She makes really gorgeous clothing. Since I made a slideshow for her site of my kids wearing some of the clothes she has made them I thought I would put the slideshow on my site as well. It's already made so all I have to do is put it on my site and you can enjoy looking at my handsome boys! :) I love to show them off!

The gospel according to TMac.

After dear President Hinckley passed away last month one of our family nights was about prophets. One of TMac's favorite Primary songs is Follow the Prophet. He loves to watch a video of his cousin Wyatt singing it and when he was still in Nursery at church the Primary chorister was so awesome about coming in to Nursery and signing with the little ones. We sang that song along with the fun music player on lds.org - it has a million verses! We were showing TMac pictures from our new gospel art picture kit that we love from Christmas (thanks Hudgens!). When we showed him President GORDON B. Hinckley and explained that he went to live with Heavenly Father he said, "Hey, his name is just like Gordon the train in Thomas the Train! He's cool!" We chuckled and moved on to the new prophet THOMAS S. Monson. We weren't even realizing but we barely got his name out when TMac exclaimed, "Hey, his name is Thomas? He is so cool!" Well, the gospel must be true if you love Thomas the Train because HENRY Eyring is blessed with a train name too! Sorry President Dieter Uchdorft. As far as I know there is not yet a train named Dieter but give it time...there is a Skarloey and Rheneas so it is bound to happen! We were laughing so hard and TMac thought that the men were so hip! Thomas is the train that wears the number 1 by the way so TMac's little existence is all in order! President Monson is number 1!