Crazy continues...

I will spend this week packing and cleaning as much I reasonably can. Then I will fly to WA for my grandpa's funeral, come home, and sign papers to close on our house. Then we will have only a few days to pull up carpet & tile, then put down new carpet & paint so we can move in. And clean the house. oh yeah, and while we do all that, we will finish packing and cleaning our apartment. Yesterday doesn't seem so crazy anymore. But the wonderful part is that in the end - we will be living in a house! Contrary to what my niece might tell me, I do know what it's like to live in a house and I am looking forward to it.

Sunday Adventures

Today was full of surprises. Calvin slept in and we woke up when Brandon got a text to see if he was going to his morning meeting. We forgot about day light savings.
It's my sister's birthday so we had her over for some crepes. Calvin was so excited since he heard it was her birthday, he keeps yelling BIRTHDAY! He just knows it means good food.
Some of our neighbor's kids were coming with us to church today, (ages 2, 3, and 6) while their mom went to the hospital. The oldest girl made sure her little sister remembered to put on underwear, which she claimed she was. Fortunately, she dragged her back inside to make her put some on, because she really wasn't. The little boy was buck naked when we arrived and ready to head out the door, but his mom quickly got him dressed, mostly in boy clothes. But the shoes took too long to find so he sported some pink boots.
Sacrament meeting was far from dull, as you can guess with Cal + three. Everyone went to their classes and had a good time, except Calvin. Things were fine until he decided to climb up on a chair where a girl was already standing. She shoved him off and he face planted onto a toy chest before hitting the ground. Bloody lip and bloody nose and LOTS of crying. I think everyone in the building knew someone was injured. Luckily Brandon was in the hallway right outside the nursery. We grabbed some paper towels for the blood and took him outside. He cried for awhile, then the blood slowed down, and when we promised him cookies when we got home he stopped crying.
Afterward our friend was home from the hospital, but needed some rest so the three kids played at our house. We threw together some grilled cheese and sides and tried to keep them from locking bedroom doors. Later we cleaned up the mess and has some company over for dessert. Crazy day! I'm ready for bed.

Personal style

Calvin has decided he is old enough to decide what he wears now. Yesterday and today he has insisted on wearing his swim shorts instead of pants. At least spring weather is coming (I hope!)

Family Tree

Brandon and I have been checking out the new family search website the past few weeks. (not because there is the TV show about family history, but that was cool too) I was excited to find out all the Russian and Ukrainian ancestors I have since my little brother just got called to serve a mission in Russia.
When Brandon was looking at his line we were getting excited to see Counts and princesses, I kept hoping we would see a king, but after a few dozen of them from several European countries the kings were even getting boring. Then we found Charlamagne and Julius Ceasar, etc. etc. Every kind of royalty there is, and bishops too.
Brandon wants to know who messed things up in the family and why we don't live in a castle in Europe right now? That's his motivation for family history.

update: the next day we looked at some more lines on my family tree and found more kings and Constantine and more famous people. Maybe when you go back that far you have thousands of ancestors so a handful of them are bound to be Kings? The first name we saw that we recognized from Brandon's family tree was King Coel and his wife "the Fair" who lived in 125AD. I'm guessing there is a closer relation than that, but I like thinking that we aren't related until the 2nd century.

Geneology

This show looks awesome. What a great way to inspire people to learn about their ancestors.

Junk

It's that moving time of the year when I need to go through my clothes and boxes of things to decide what I can chuck. I came across this shirt. Yes, it is ugly. very ugly. Do I ever wear it? no, not really. But I had to run SO far to get that shirt, how do you get rid of it? I guess that's what spouses are for.

Translation

Calvin is at the age where he says a lot of stuff, but it takes parent intervention to understand a lot of it. Some examples are:
down = phone
butt = button
man-ah = snowman or snow or play dough (because we make snowmen out of play dough)
walky = thank you
He used to say "tank tu", and before that he said "tanks", we are kind of going backwards on this one. I think walky is a version of "your welcome"?

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Ditch the workout, join the party

My zumba instructor is so amazing the news is going to come to her class. So many people come to her class she has to teach in the gym now instead of the dance room to fit everyone. It's crazy. I am debating if I should go to class that day. It would be fun to see the excitement, but do I really want to risk being on TV while dancing like a fool? If I do go, should I buy some cute, new work out clothes? Also, if I go, and you see me on TV, keep this in mind: If I look ridiculous it's because that's one of the new songs I haven't gotten down yet. If I look awesome it's because that is the one song I bought on itunes and practice at home. And if they have the camera on me while saying "zumba is for all shapes and sizes" I am never going again.

New Soap Dispenser

A new soap dispenser isn't super exciting, but it is exciting to get to make your own. My friend Robynn invited me to go to Color-Me-Mine a few weeks ago to have some fun creative time. I knew Calvin would insist on painting too so I turned his clothes clothes inside out and let him paint away. I figured with Calvin it was better to keep it simple so we stuck to one solid color. Then Robynn watched Calvin so I could add some decorative swirly leaves at the end. If it didn't cost so much I think I would go there everyday. Then I would have a lot of soap dispensers.

Confession

Brandon, Heather and I played a fun game of Settlers tonight. (Brandon won)
It made me think back to when I was little and how easy it was for me to win playing Monopoly against one of my younger sisters. I would magically roll a 13 to land on "Free Parking" that was stacked with money for me and I rarely landed on her property. She was too young to count the dice quick enough and I guess I was too young to have a conscience? Sorry about that, Michelle. I promise next time we play monopoly I'll give you some free money... or at least be a kind trader. (which is saying a lot considering my usual competitive and borderline vicious trading style)

Patience

Patience is a hard thing for a lot of people. It's so hard for Calvin he can't even wait for me to cook an eggo waffle any more. Lately he gets so mad if I try to cook them and insists on eating them frozen:
(and he even ate the whole thing)

Names

Lately Calvin has started shortening Mama, Dada to MaDa or DaMa. I guess he figures this is a quicker way to talk to both of us? He also calls me Becca. I kept trying to figure out if he was referring to something else but he keeps pointing to me and insisting that I'm "Becca!"

I haven't had anything to blog about because I've been so focused on buying a house. Not that it takes up my time, besides looking at carpet and paint samples, but my mind is consumed with images of our potential new home. So hopefully things go well with all the paperwork and the inspection and we will be homeowners sometime in March. Calvin is practicing for the house by doing a lot of extra loud yelling that will no longer disturb neighbors when we don't share walls with them.

More Snow

We had a nice pile of snow this morning and since our snowman had some awesome hair going on, we decided snowoman would be the best way to go on this one:

Abstract

The other day we went to the BDAC to see the Illustrators in Utah show. (my Christmas painting is in the show) It was family art night so along with having snacks they also had painting stuff for the kids. Here are Calvin's creations. He made them completely on his own, the only way I helped him was 1. helping him know when to stop by telling him he was done and 2. keeping him from eating the paint.

He told me the first one is of a chubby blond lady dancing with her head turned to the side:This one is also a dancer, looking from the back:

Six remotes

A. digital converter box & channel changing
B. "universal remote" used for the dvd player (remember the problems with this one?)
C. TV remote
D. heater remote used to give to Calvin so he doesn't use a remote that actually does something
E. not sure, but we've had it forever, I think it's suppose to work for the stereo?
F. volume for movies since the sound goes through the stereo

Yes, it took me 3 weeks after we got the new TV to figure out how to watch it and an extra week to be able to watch a movie as well.

go jazz go

Brandon got us tickets from work to go to a Jazz game. Usually I am mildly interested in going, if at all. But check out these seats- yeah, there's actually people sitting above us! Way better. We had a good time. However, a disappointing part of the night was when I discovered that I am older than everyone on the Jazz team except Okur. Oh well, I wasn't planning on trying out for the team anyway.

Missing the internet

We didn't have the internet for a little awhile and there are a lot of things I don't like about not having the internet, but I've decided the worst part is having to use the phone book.

Painting Demonstration

If anyone is curious to see an example of my painting process you can check it out here.

TV again

Am I mean if I took the new TV back? What if this is the replacement?:Brandon's brother upgraded. Probably the nicest hand-me-down I've seen in my life. Although, it is competing with the awesome Christmas tree that was handed down to us from some friends this year too. Remember our old little tree? We have a few oversized ornaments that fit so much better on this tree. They are from Brandon's childhood, so we always had to put them on. One is a 7" canoe, which I'm very skeptical that it's an ornament at all, but Brandon claims it is.