A Day in the Life

One look at my Instagram account is all it would take to tell you I'm faaaaaaaaaairly obsessed with my children and think they are the most adorable things in the entire universe.

However, once in a blue moon, or more appropriately, once in a super moon, they turn into life-sucking pint-sized vampires who leave no survivors and spend the majority of their days in destruction mode. Now don't get me wrong, I still love the fanged, scarier alter egos of my offspring but mostly just for the stories of horror they provide for the blog.

Here's the thing, I just finished up my third blog book (yipee!), and I've done a good job at making our lives seem peachy and perfect. It left me with this fear that my now vampire-esque children may one day look back and say, "Mom! You had it so easy with us!" And that's when I'll pull this little nugget of chaos out from the records to show them just how lemonade-sippingly easy raising them was.

Our days always start promising. The boys wake with puffy eyes, shuffling into our bedroom and climbing into bed with us one by one. There's giggling. Smiles. Ahhh. "Today will be a good day." I assure myself. And then it starts.

"Pancakes." Carson says playfully.
"You want pancakes?" Jeff replies, pretending to be shocked, because this is a daily request.
"PANCAKES!!!! PANCAKES! PAAAAAAAANCAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!"
I immediately jump out of bed to prevent the rage of a hungry Carson to spiral further out of control. We race downstairs to whip up some pancakes. Eli wanders down to follow us putting in his never wavering order of Honey Bunches of Oats.

"MILK!" Eli yells at me just as I get him his cereal. This happens every day. Like he thinks I will forget his day cannot start without his morning dose of calcium. I go to grab the cups, sure to grab one blue one because Eli refuses to quench his thirst by any other color.

"IIIIIIIIIIIII get the blue one!!!!" Shouts Eli. Again, demanding his obvious requests, that no longer needs to be requested because they have become a reflex for me.
"No. IIIII get blue one!" Carson says back.

Here's the thing about Carson. He totally knows how to get under your skin. He doesn't care what color cup he has, he only says, "I get blue one!" Because he KNOWS Eli will throw a hissy fit at the mere threat of him trespassing on Eli's blue cup territory. So Carson starts this fight. Every. Morning. Starting as a kind of joke, but then he becomes converted to his blue cup cause and it becomes a quickly escalated brotherly brawl.

Eli starts crying immediately, "NOOOOOO CARSON! The blue cup is MINE!"
"Mine." Short and sweet is his reply. He has Eli right where he wants him.
"MOM! He thinks heeeeeeeeeeeee's going to get the blue cup! Waaaaah waaaaaah waaaaah!"

I top the cups off with milk and shove the blue cup over to Eli before another word can be screamed. Carson isn't even upset by the injustice that he never gets his turn with the blue cup despite his daily battle for it. Proving my theory that he battles for the sole purpose of getting a rise out of the quick-to-erupt Eli.

I present Carson with his fresh, hot pancake, and just as I turn around to get my breakfast, this dialogue plays out:
Carson, "My chair!"
Eli, "No. This is MY chair, Carson!"
Carson, with a smile, "My chair."
Eli melts into a frustrated ball of dysfunction, "He thinks that's his chair!"

Unaware of what they are even arguing about, I try to hash it out with them, only to discover they are each arguing that they are each sitting in their own chair. ????? So even sitting in their own chairs at breakfast has managed to bring them both to tears by the end of the quarrel.

It is by this point I already need my first retreat from the day -- a shower. Where I hear the bickering continue, but I pretend to be oblivious. I get out to find that someone has been hit, toys have been stolen, something is broken, and that bowl of cereal I should have cleaned up before I got in the shower is now covering the rug in my living room as Carson gleefully tells me it "rained cereal." Cool.

In an effort to get Eli motivated for the day, I'll say something like, "Eli! Get your clothes on, buddy and we can go to the park!" To which he'll shout back, "I don't WANT to go to the PARK! I don't want NOBODY to go to the PARK!" And then he'll continue to play with his makeshift Transformers while I get ready.

Carson will come in and punch me, more and more frequently the more bored he becomes. Then he'll start snatching my mascara and running off with it while unscrewing the lid. If I can finally get him interested in his own toys, I may be able to apply a little bit of the mascara he kept trying to run off with.

A quick clean of the house, and the grueling daily attempt to leave the house begins. "Eli, you need to get your clothes on so we can go, please."
"NO!" He'll snap back.
"I guess Carson and I will have to go without you."
Silence. He's learned the art of sniffing out my empty threats. So that leads me to open the garage door for theatrical effect.

"NNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I WANT TO GO! I'M COMING!!!!!" And that's the only way to get Eli dressed in the mornings.

As my overdue second moment of serenity in the day, we head out for a walk, or an errand. This is absolutely critical. If we don't leave the house, the rest of our day is like out morning only 128x the screaming and whining.

There is happiness and smiling and giggly jabbering throughout our walk. So long as Eli isn't rubbing his feet on Carson's head, or Carson isn't shoving his shoes into the wheels of the stroller. Bliss. If we stop at a park, the happiness continues. They're even pretty good at jumping back into the stroller upon request when it's time to leave. Then we head home.

Eli always does this snazzy little move as we turn down our street where he steadily stands up on his seat on the stroller -- while I'm still pushing it full force -- and then shoots himself out of his seat onto a patch of grass as if he had pushed an evacuation button that was activated by that same stretch of sidewalk each time we passed it. He runs along side me to keep up, as I up my pace to hopefully convince him next time to just stay put. It hasn't worked yet.

We get back and they always want to ride bikes out front, but we rarely have time since we usually get back just in time for lunch. I open the garage and we all race inside -- the boys for their bikes and me for the garage button so I can shut the door before they can escape. I usually win.

Screaming. Crying. Gnashing of teeth if they are unsuccessful in their race against the garage door. Then comes the biggest battle of the day. The battle of who gets to close the door to the garage. Both boys walk in and give each other a stare down, with the door leading out to the garage gaping open. Eli makes his move and with a swift kick slams the door shut. He proudly proclaims, "I closed it."

"I CLOSE ITTTT!!!!!" Screams Carson. Zero to crazy person in .3 seconds. Drops to the ground, fists shaking, voice quivering, 2-year old rage oozing from his core.
"Sorry Carson. I already closed it." Eli says matter-of-factly, perhaps in an effort to gain his revenge for the blue cup battle of breakfast.
"I-I-I-I-I-I CLOSE IT!!!!!" Carson's sobs become gaspy and inconsolable. Meanwhile, I'm staring in disbelief, still trying to understand what the heck is going on. I go down to open the door again so Carson can satisfy his door closing urges. He immediately snaps out of it, reaches for the door, slams it shut, and our day can continue.

I shlep up some bowls of cottage cheese, Ritz crackers and maybe an apple. Eli screams he doesn't want the cheese. Carson throws his apples across the kitchen. Carson, without fail, at every meal drops his fork on the ground, completely loaded with food that ricochets off his utensil upon hitting the floor, and then he whines for five minutes about needing to pick it up before he will accept the fact that he has to pick the dang thing up himself. Everybody's tired and grumpy.

We do a much needed quiet time that is sometimes quiet but usually not. Everyone's supposed to be in their room for either about an hour if they don't fall asleep, or however long until they wake up. Carson has no problem blatantly ignoring every rule of quiet time without caution. That's worthy of a whole different blog post. Eli actually enjoys his time to himself.

Then we do a show, get ready for dinner, and Jeff is thankfully home to help simmer out the rest of the earth shattering disputes.

As I suspected, this is all a lot funnier to me now that it's written out. Writing has a way of helping me squeeze out the humor in otherwise irritating situations. It also helps me to see this is probably just an ornery streak we are in that will likely pass like the previous ornery streaks we've been through.

That being said, I would like this streak to pass as quickly as possible. Our main issue is the constant bickering and whining. Is this an age-old question? How do you get it to stop???!? I have lost all tolerance for whining. My kids' main form of communication as of late is grumpy grunts or high pitched screeches. Am I doomed to a life of fighting over who gets to slam the door shut? Have you found something that works for these seemingly insignificant sibling rivalries? At least tell me I'm not the only one dealing with these kinds of outbursts.

Help. My Instagram account is sure to suffer until I get my happy kids back. :)

Ogden River Walk, Gibb's Loop, Millcreek Canyon

You didn't think we'd stopped hiking, did you?!? Our fourth hike was the Ogden River Walk.

It was nice and paved and ran beside a river as the name implies. I had Eli go pose on a bench to take his picture, and then I said, "Carson! Go sit next to Eli for a picture."

By the time Carson got there, Eli had lost interest in the bench and was no where to be seen. The only way I will ever be able to get a brother picture of these two is with the help of photoshop.

The boys do not have the self restraint to walk by a body of water without throwing pebbles into it. Which made walking right next to a river for an hour a slow and pause-filled journey.

Eli has a promising career as a Target Photo Studio employee.

We stumbled upon a few parks along our river walk. So when the river wasn't distracting the boys, the parks were.

See.

Next we went to Gibb's Loop which started by Waterfall Canyon's trailhead.

Carson was particularly ornery on this hike and refused to carry his own weight.

This hike was probably my least favorite other than the one redeeming factor of the bridge across Strong Creek.

Had I not captured this adorable picture of me and Carson, the whole hike would have been a disappointment.

We stayed at my parents' house over the 4th of July, so that weekend we took advantage of being close to Millcreek Canyon and ventured over to a new area to explore.

Long story short, we were supposed to hike with Abe and Klarissa, but I entered an address into Jeff's phone as Tucsan instead of Tuscan and we never did find them after that due to loss of cell service and the enormity of Mill Creek Canyon.

On a 100 degree day, Millcreek Canyon was cool, beautiful, and completely blissful.

This hike is where pebble throwing evolved into boulder lugging. Carson spent the entire hike huffing around with rocks at least this size, just waiting to stumble upon water to chuck them into.

We heart hiking. And selfies.

Discovery Museum and Air Show

My sister invited us to go to the Gateway Discovery Museum with her a few weeks ago and we couldn't pass up the opportunity.

Carson put himself in the doghouse pretty quickly after being there.

Eli got straight to the heavy lifting.

Then Carson had to run a few errands.

While Eli had his own errands to run.

On the way out, Carson snatched an ice cream sandwich straight out of a bucket some strange, unknown man was carrying. To which the strange, unknown man graciously let Carson keep his stolen goody, and then he let all the rest of the kids have a treat. See kids. Sometimes stealing pays off.

A few days later, we met up with the Goldens again to go to an air show, though there's not much photographic evidence the Goldens were with us at the Children's Museum, or at the air show. Note to self -- instigate cousin pictures when adventuring with the Golden Crew.

It's safe to say Eli LOVED being up close and personal with the airplanes.

And, much to my surprise, I actually loved it, too. I didn't find the "tour a fighter jet" attractions too appealing, but the actual air show was completely awesome!!

The boys got a little restless/hot/hungry, but it was nothing some snow cones and meeting up with the cousins couldn't fix.

Here's Carson inspecting a rocketing airplane.

This is not the best smoke heart we saw of the day, but it's the only one I caught on film.

Carson attacked Ben as soon as he saw him. And then he continued attacking and licking and kissing and hugging and invading his personal space for the duration of our stay.

Eli and Carson enjoyed Brooke and Caroline's S.W.A.G. (Oh look! Evidence of the Goldens in the stroller in the back. I see a Spencer and a Madison!)

For the entire week after the air show, Carson had a little play phone he loved playing with, and he would always hold it up to his ear and say, "Oh! HIIII BENNNN! How are YOU?!?" Carson LOVES Benj.

It is officially confirmed that air shows are the coolest things ever. I think we may have found a new family tradition!

After the show, we went to our house for pizza and a birthday celebration for Caroline. All the while, my boys doted on Madison, giggling at her every smile or whimper.

Goldens, we'll have to plan another excursion...for the sole purpose of some cousin pictures!

Pizza Buffet for Father's Day

Since I got home from Girly Girl weekend on Saturday evening, and then Jeff and I had to rush over to chaperone a stake dance, I was left scrambling a little bit to figure out what to make Jeff for his Father's Day dinner. As soon as I mentioned pizza as an option, Jeff was on board, so I ran to the store at 11:00 Saturday night to pick up all the materials for a Personal Pan Pizza Papa's Day Party!

It was so fun to have everyone make their own little pizza. Though both boys chose the same toppings and Jeff and I chose the same toppings, and we had leftovers for the whole week, so we probably could have managed with just two pizzas, but it was more fun with four.

You guys know by now that I'm the world's worst gift giver. My parents bred out of me any inclination to grace people with kind, thoughtful, and heart-felt gifts. It's the struggle of my existence. Specifically around holidays where gifts would typically be exchanged.

Jeff unfortunately is the best gift giver. I often warn him not to spend money on me, so he will go so far as to find a thoughtful gift that I love, and that he didn't have to pay anything for, thus making it a doubly awesome gift. He's outdone me for every Christmas/Birthday/Anniversary/Chinese New Year to date.

But that was all about to change after Jeff came home from work one day and said, "I think I want to get P90X 3."
My initial reaction was, "WHHAAAAATTT?!?!" Because I thought the videos were somewhere around $300, and he has a gym membership, so I wasn't ready to fork over $300 when he already had a way to exercise.
He defended himself, "It's pretty expensive if you get it directly through BeachBody, but I was looking on KSL and there were some for $40-$45."

Okay. That was way more in my price range. But I already had this great initial overreaction going for me, so I continued to run with it while I decided if I would succumb to his P90X 3 desires. I replied, "Well. If you want P90X, then you'll have to cancel your gym membership."

Jeff finished off our conversation by resolving, "I'll have to read some more about it and see if it's something I really want to do. Then I may try it out a couple of times to see if I even like the workouts. But I think it's something I'd really like."

Meanwhile, I went to the store or something and that's when I realized I had played that whole situation just right. Because I really didn't have a problem paying $40 for P90X 3. I actually kind of wanted to try it too. And I still had this whole front up with Jeff that I was appalled at the thought of buying P90X, and with it being just a week before Father's Day, I knew I had struck gift gold.

The next day I got on KSL to dabble in the P90X market. To my surprise, the cheapest listing was in my city, and it was still available! I made elaborate plans to pick it up in the middle of mutual so that Jeff wouldn't notice me unexplainably slipping away one evening.

And just like that I became the best wife in the universe. Six years into our marriage and I finally got Jeff a gift he was genuinely happily surprised by.

I love Mondays. There's something about Mondays that make my kids play nicely with each other (usually). Especially if we've had a busy weekend. If we've been out and about all weekend, the kids treasure their Mondays to be home and back with all their toys again. I try to get caught up on laundry and house cleaning from the weekend on Mondays, so I take advantage of the boys' good post weekend behavior to get a little work done.

I was so thrilled as I was in my room folding laundry to hear the boys out back giggling and bouncing around on the trampoline. Their favorite trampoline game is to pick "poison berries" off one of our bushes that grows some kind of weird berry on it, and they throw the berries on the trampoline to try to dodge the catapulting berries as the bounce.

I was sure I'd find them playing poison berry when I looked out my bedroom window to inspect the cause of their eruptive laughter. I instead saw this:

After a quick, surprised scream, I ran down the stairs out to the deck, where I turned around to grab my camera, then went back to the deck, raced down the stairs, snapping pictures the whole way there, and then I said, "NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" snap. snap. snap. "You boys CANNOT ride a bike on the trampoline!!" snap snap. 

Eli took note of the mixed message I was sending while screaming at them, but documenting the moment, so he started laughing even harder, and I seized the opportunity to get my last shots before "putting the bike in time-out."

We have yet to figure out how the boys even got the bike onto the trampoline. I'm fairly certain it would have had to have been a team effort, and for that I congratulate them. I love it when they're so clever in their naughtiness that you can't help but adore their crazy behavior. Ha!

Carson's back to his sporadic sleeping. Wait. That's misleading. That makes it sound like he at one point hasn't been a sporadic sleeper. There was one point when he was sleeping in until 7-8ish and that's stopped. Now he prefers the 6:00 hour. And the day he woke up at 4:00, I called my mom in desperation to entertain us and keep me from strangling my kids in a weak moment of exhaustion. Luckily she and my sister had already made arrangements to go to a park for a picnic and a hike, so we made our way down just in time to tag along.

The following Saturday, it was my third Saturday in a row of bailing on Jeff. I thought it would be good to wear the kids out at a splash pad in the afternoon so they would go down easy for him in the evening.

Eli had so much fun! Come to find out later that Carson had a fever, so he didn't enjoy himself quite as much, but it was a perfect afternoon outing.

Then I made my way down to see one of my old roommates become one of the married. It was fun, as always, to reunite with the girls of Stadium Way 49!