CHOCOLATE!

Two chocolate related items.
Today Brighton walks out of my closet with a sheepish grin and says "I didn't eat anything." I said "What didn't you eat?" " I didn't eat the chocolate from Jesus." She had destroyed our advent calendar and eaten all the chocolate. But these pictures are from the brownie batter I gave her. :)

It's a Boy!

Yeah, sorry that the only picture Aaron scanned is of his "proof" of gender. LOL. Anyway, Weird! We're having a boy! It's still hard to get used to the idea that all my cute girl clothes and things aren't going to get re-used (at least this time around) but it's going to be a fun change! We had the ultrasound yesterday and the second the bottom-area came up on the screen we KNEW it was a boy, LOL. Today the doctor said, "you're obviously having a boy!" I've thought we were going to have a boy next since before we conceived and at 12 weeks the ultrasound nurse said she thought it would be a boy, so it wasn't a big shock.

Brighton did a little pout when we said it was a boy but she's still convinced that "maybe it's a girl." I tried to explain boy and girl anatomy but there's only so much a 2 year old can understand. :) She is also CONVINCED that the baby will be named Jokala. pronounced like Joke a lot but without the T. She came up with this name before we even conceived and she gets full-0n angry when we talk about names. She says "NO! My baby is Jokala!!!" So now we just refer to him as Jokala around her. She might call him that for his entire life.

So serious honesty here... I need to get excited about the idea of having a boy. There's nothing adverse about boys to me, but I just always think about what would be the most fun for the kids and for me, I just wish Brighton could have a sister to play with. BUT- I had tons of fun with my brother Gregg (but we were less than 2 years apart) This baby will be about the same age span as me and my sister Lynzi, so I just kept picturing that. But it's ok... brothers and sisters have a special bond too and I need to remember that. I just think about all the fun girl things I do now with my sisters and I just want that for Brighton. So that's the deal! Aaron is really excited though. Now he'll have a real "boy scout" and won't have to try to petition to take Brighton on father-son campouts. I'm sure Brighty will be a real outdoorsy girl too though. They can all go on their campouts while I go on spa-weekends (in my fantasies). Here are the names currently in consideration: (in order of popularity in our house)

Oakley Aaron

Jett (Aaron or Reuel or Joseph Thomas as middle names... )

Talmage

Deacon

Gavin

Jonah (my fave, so I have to include it even though Aaron doesn't like it.)

Here are my issues: Oakley is also a girl name, which is a little bothersome. Jett sounds like a "wild child". Talmage is just a little weird, but sounds like a serious, successful person. Gavin is good.. Aaron doesn't like Jonah. If I had my way Edward would also be on the list but that's not even up for consideration. :)

Time for another episode of... things I'd never do.

Before I was a mom I SWORE I would never let my kids say a word wrong, and even encourage it, because it was cute. No way, I thought! Teach the kid the right way to say it. I remember my nephew Haydn saying ice cream in a cute way but I can't remember what it was because I was so bothered that his mom didn't correct him! But now... I have to repent. Brighton says skeleton "scare-eton" and it cracks me up! On Halloween she was talking about scaretons and then heard Aaron call them skeletons and corrected herself and I was seriously mad/sad! It IS super cute sometimes when kids say words wrong and I can admit that I was wrong. I do however try to get her to say regular words that she doesn't pronounce right.. like sometimes she doesn't pronounce s's at the front of words like sky and scooter. And she says yellow "rewow" which is weird because she can say Y's... she just refuses to say yellow. And this has been another episode of... things I swore I'd never do!
Oh and here are some pictures of ward trunk or treat and Halloween. Yes, I am wearing a gigantic rabbit fut coat and a poofy slip. We were both totally sweating all night because I bundled us up way too warm!

Pumpkins

Aaron wanted me to get the pictures of our pumpkin carving up here, so here they are! We have carved pumpkins with our friends Ryan and Natalie for the last three years, since Natalie and I were both pregnant with our first babies!

Here we were back then.... (super embarrassing picture of me.)


Here are this years! It was super funny because Brighton looked at me for a second and said, "mommy you look pretty!" which was weird because I didn't... and so I said "thanks... ?" and she said "You look pretty in your pumpkin making dress!" So funny. I was wearing an apron circa 1950 that my grandma gave me!

Natalie is making a "Twilight-New Moon" pumpkin. I made a Snow White one for Brighton and a regular jack-o-lantern for me. Aaron free-styled his and it was the awesomest!

Fall fun

Part of me loves fall because I love the colors, my birthday and getting to pull out fall clothes. Shallow, huh. ;) But I dread it because it means winter is coming! And now that I don't do much snowboarding, winter is just a drag! But fall is great, while it lasts.
We took Brighton to Linder Farms which is this huge, awesome pumpkin patch. Brighton went through the hay maze like five times and we had fun picking out pumpkins. Lately it is a total challenge to get her to look at the camera for pictures. She is openly rebellious about it. I guess almost three years of constant picture taking is wearing on her!

This past weekend our friends hosted a Halloween carnival where each family did a booth. Aaron has recently discovered a talent, nay, a passion, for balloon tying. He spent all of Saturday looking up different techniques for making balloon creations and he was a hit at the party!

Brighton was a Superhero Princess... a costume I envisioned in my sleep one night. She had silver superhero arm and leg cuffs and a belt and a cape and a princess skirt and a crown and her favorite part was getting to wear the makeup mask.

I've totally become the nosy neighbor

Aaron talks about this neighbor they had that they loved to provoke because she was always watching them and would periodically call the police on them. He and his brothers have some funny stories about her..sister.. someone.
Anyway, that's totally me. There used to be two teenage boys living across the street and now one is graduated and one is living with his mom. So today I come home around lunchtime and there are four boys sitting in the bed of a truck, hanging out in front of the house and I totally gave them the stare-down... the stink-eye if you will. Now I keep looking out the window to see if they're still there because I know they should be in school! LOL. Why do I have nothing better to do? A while ago they had a party while their dad was out of town and I kept watching to see if they were bringing in keggers or something. How lame am I?

But I guess I would want neighbors watching out for my kids... Growing up I could never figure out how I ALWAYS got busted for stuff when my parents were out of town. Did they have surveillance cameras watching our comings and goings? How did they find out when I took the car for a drive around the block before I had my license? Well I know now, it was Brother Fillmore. LOL. Then there was the time that was so coincidental it was not funny. My brother Gregg had his license but I didn't. After school I begged him to let me drive and he finally said I could drive for like 5 seconds in the mall parking lot. So I got in the driver's seat and drove up ONE row of cars and who do you think pulls up behind me? MY DAD!!! How he just happened to be in the mall parking lot at 4:00 in the afternoon at the same time is still beyond me but I was SO BUSTED! It's funny to think about all the things I never got away with when I was a teenager. I'm sure I'm in for a handful if there is such thing as karma!
P.S. I love Halloween because I love those little boxes of DOTS so much!

Gum Recycling Can? What?

What? Is this.

I am all for being environmentally concious. In fact, you would have thought it was my birthday yesterday how excited I got over our new great big co-mingled recycling bins in Meridian. But a gum recycling can is just going too far! LOL.