I really am talking to myself

I came downstairs from showering the other day to discover that Sawyer had smeared a stick of butter over every surface he could reach in the kitchen. I responded by chastising him...immediately...repeatedly...and possibly...loudly.

As I was, shall we say, verbally expressing my frustration Sawyer walked over to the junk drawer and started rifling through it. He pulled out of pair of foam ear plugs, stuck one in each ear, said "Too loud in here Mommy" and walked out of the room.

He is 2. I might as well give up now.

Oh, and it appears he smeared the butter because he took a giant bite out of it and was mad that "it not cheese!"

not to mention...

We returned from Wyoming to find a cleaned-up house (including the boys' bedrooms and the FRIDGE) and a pan of freshly-baked brownies on the counter. There are good elves at my house.

Why, why, why Wyoming

We spent the weekend in Wyoming. Laramie to be specific. My brother was in Laramie for the week so we drove out to visit. We also went to the BYU vs. Wyoming game that happened to be the same weekend. The boys did remarkably well on the drive there and back. They slept most of the time both ways. Which is good, because if they had acted the way they usually act in the car I would still be recovering from a total mental breakdown. And let me just say, I wasn't even doing the driving, but the drive across Wyoming on 1-80 is one boring drive. And I have spent a fair amount of time as a passenger in a car on some boring drives. (The state of Nebraska comes to mind here too.)

Will got to "hang out with Uncle Evan" which is high up on the list of his favorite activities. Will spent most of the weekend toting around Evan's old still-semi-functioning cell phone. He kept pressing buttons really intently and we asked what he was doing and he said he was "texting Sophs" and "sending her pictures." Oh my. The thought of that child at 14 is truly frightening. We took the boys across the street to the pre-game festivities and Will wanted to go on an inflatable obstacle course. I told him he had to give me the cell phone first. He handed it to me and I put it in the diaper bag. When I looked back at him he was busy "texting" on another cell phone that he had stashed in his pocket. He obligingly handed it over. I put it in my bag only to look back and find that he was now using a THIRD cell phone which he had also stashed in his pocket. Sawyer got to play with Paul and chase the "puppies" which were really cats. Sawyer was disappointed that Paul didn't come home with us and kept asking "Where's Po? Where's Po?" on the way home. Bryce and I spent 3 hours at the football game with no children and also got to hang out with Uncle Evan and Laurel.

A grand time was had by all (well maybe not Laurel and Evan...but that's what you get for inviting us!...but you didn't think we'd actually show up did ya?!) Heh heh heh.

For anyone who doesn't follow BYU sports (cough, cough 90% of the people who might read this)...Wyoming fans are not particularly fond of BYU fans. Like in the physical violence and destruction of property type of way. Luckily, Laurel and Evan provided our boys with some camouflage. And we used it. Don't judge.

And turns out we only spotted one BYU-insulting middle-aged man during our stay. And his biggest insult seemed to be that we "think Provo is so much better than Laramie, but Laramie has everything Provo has...except Provo has a mall." Yes, he actually said this...and meant it to put the BYU-wearing fans in front of us in their place. I guess it is hard to think of much to say when you just got beat 52-0.

Halloween by night

Mollie was about to change into her costume. (RDRR)

And this is the only picture that was actually taken on Halloween night. Will kept running out the door trying to join up with every passing horde of trick-or-treaters. Sawyer was busy having a melt-down because we woke him up from a late nap following the dinosaur museum. Once they got back from trick-or-treating, Will was too busy tearing into candy to take a picture and Sawyer was too busy having a melt-down every time a trick-or-treater came to the door. He would grasp desperately for the candy bowl screaming "My candy! My candy!" every time I gave some away. He was definitely not okay with the idea of people coming to our door and taking our candy away right in front of him.

Sawyer asked to be Popeye. I bought a box set of the old black and white Popeye cartoons from Big Lots for $3 and the boys love them. I love that they are learning the virtues of random violence, domestic abuse, and ethnic stereotypes. Ah, the good old days. On the plus side, both of the boys are much more willing to eat vegetables.

Will wanted to be Indiana Jones. Actually Will wanted to be Indiana Jones last year...but so did every other boy born in the 2000s and after going to about 5 stores looking for Indiana Jones costume pieces I talked him into being a robot instead. I thought to myself "Surely, he will have moved on and forgotten all about Indiana Jones by next year." Alas, the year came and went and he was still obsessed. So this year he finally got his wish. He also planned out his next 5 years' worth of costumes: "next year Popeye, then a giant lego, then a dad, then a bobblehead." We'll see.

Sawyer still wears his sailor hat all day, every day. I bought it as a decoration for our nautical nursery a good 2 years before he was born, so I guess it was just waiting to meet its true owner all this time.

Halloween by day

We decided we needed to take advantage of Halloween being on a Saturday and not just sit at home all day waiting for trick-or-treating. Well, ok, I decided we needed to go do something and other members of the household came along for the ride. We took a chunk out of the boys' college fund and went to the Dinosaur Museum. Seriously, that place is kind of pricey. Our later children will probably complain that they never got to go to the museum. Sorry about that later children. We'll make up for it by letting you be the ones to take care of us when we're old! I tried to take the boys over the summer on a $2 Tuesday, but upon seeing the line we quickly bailed out of that plan. Halloween was a perfect day to go. They had some little Halloween activities for the kids and the place was almost totally empty. We saw other people maybe a half dozen times as we spent over 2 hours wandering around. I think we got our money's worth.

They aren't clawing each other's eyes out! That alone is worth $30.

Big dinosaur. Little boys.

They especially loved having the water and sand tables to themselves. Will was a little possessive of his dinosaur parade (and possibly a little possessed too).

Boys at work. Sawyer wouldn't dig for bones until he had hoarded all the brushes.

Son, just send the therapy bill to your father.

Howl-een

I wasn't sure it was gonna happen, but we managed to carve pumpkins the night before Halloween. Neither of the boys would help clean out the insides..."disgusting!" Sawyer helped a little bit, but only with a spoon. Will wouldn't touch it at all and kept complaining about the smell. I'll admit, pumpkin insides do have a rather distinctive smell.

Will carefully planned out his design with a marker.

Wow, good drawing Will! Just kidding...he drew a googly eye-ed face on the other side.

We're just a little tiny bit into Transformers at the moment.

Bryce bought me this song by request and I used it to make a picture music video for a friend. (Yes, it is from the Jon & Kate commercial, but since we all know how that is going I have no problem appropriating it.) Then I decided I needed my own video and spent an hour looking for another song to go with the pictures...but eventually decided I like this song the best for my own video too. I used the super easy Picasa video maker. The only thing I can't figure out is why the pictures look low resolution and some of the colors get messed up when you put them in the video maker. They don't look that way otherwise. Only biological relations are required to watch a video of my kids. The rest of you (if any) are welcome to go do something more amusing.