you + me = US

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Hate to Love You, Ruby Snap

I love these cookies http://www.rubysnap.com/menu.html but I hate them too. LOVE THE TASTE. Hate the price. Have you ever had them? They are exquisite. They are also adorable, coming in cute red polka dot box with a black ribbon. My favorite flavors are Maris and Trudy. They are $2.50 per cookie!!! TWO DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS PER COOKIE! Insane. But what's even more insane is that I allow myself to buy them. Yet buy them I do. Adding to my beautiful waistline. Subtracting from my bank account. So here's to you Ruby Snap, I hate to love you.

p.s. The girls in the ads are after-shots of what I'll look like if I eat their cookies on a regular basis.

I'm pretty sure.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The Importance of Interruptions

Lately I've been a little on edge. Nothing sets me off faster than having 2 to three or more people talking to me at the same time. I use the term "talking" loosely, because oftentimes one of them is crying, one whining, the other rattling away aimlessly, and the other trying desperately to have a conversation with his wife. Well, a friend of mine posted this excerpt on facebook and it really struck me. I should count myself VERY very fortunate to be in a position of responsibility, to be needed.

‎"When you are exasperated by interruptions, try to remember that their very frequency may indicate the value of your life. Only people who are full of help and strength are burdened by other persons' needs. The interruptions which we chafe at are the credentials of our indispensability. The greatest condemnation that anybody could incur - and it is a danger to guard against - is to be so independent, so unhelpful, that nobody ever interrupts us, and we are left comfortably alone." -Anonymous from The Anglican Digest

Mia wearing a diaper hat. I'm learning to find beauty in chaos. What do you think?

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Chicks

My sister and her AWESOME family came to visit this weekend and brought some surprise guests. . . baby chicks. Only a few days old. Her kindergarten class had been keeping them in an incubator and now that they've hatched they asked to come see me. We had a wonderful time.

These chicks had fun squashing bugs on Aunt D.D.'s phone. Mia loves her Aunt D.D.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

WILL - according to Will

I made seven baskets.

Hi, this is will

I am pretty much awesome. Repete it 100 times. I am 777 years old. Just kidding. I am 7. I do not know what to talk abuot.

Favorite color: Black
Favorite animal: King cobra
Favorite food: Chocolate Lava Crunch Cakes from Dominos
Favorite place: Airborne
Favorite time of day: dinner
Favorite movie: The Simpson's (my Dad let's me watch it)
Favorite toy: The Wii & my Super Smash Bro's game.
Least favorite color: pink
Least favorite animal: worm
Least favorite food: poo
Least favorite place: school
Least favorite time of day: homework
Least favorite movies: Spot and His Grandparents Visit the Carnival, Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure, My Little Ponies
Least favorite toy: Mia's my little ponies

I still don't know what to talk abuot.
If I had the most perfect day ever, I would eat popcorn shrimp and what I would do would play video games with the window open cause there's a window down there and I could feel the nice breeze. I would be with mom/rochelle. I would eat 15 choclate lava crunch cakes.

Me and Spence swimming in jacksen hole.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Spring Break - Where did we go?

Can you guess???

A few of the pictures gave it away. Comment your guesses below! We had so much fun. My old stomping grounds hold a lot of memories, many great, some painful. It was time to go and make some new memories with the new people in my life. Happy Spring break everyone!

Friday, April 13, 2012

Hello Hummer!

We babysat my brother's hedgehog for a week. Her name is Hummer. All I can say is, we can't wait to have her back!

Say hello Hummer!

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Tiny Dancer

At our house, we LOVE to dance. And it's catching. Little Mia has been cutting a rug since before she started cutting teeth. Here is a glimpse of her latest jam with dad and Will. (Notice how she calls for Will to dance with her). I love that she's only wearing one shoe. I love that Will is so cute to dance with her. Love their choreography. I especially love at the end when she signs for more.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Leprechans Beware

There are some kids at this house with a plan and if you aren't careful, you may have to grant them some wishes.

The design.

The finished product complete with ladder, slide, and giant tupperware tub trap.

Bait.

Serious bait. These kids aren't messing around. They know that no Leprechan can refuse a custom combo dance mat and shiny quarters.

They even turned on some irish music. We've learned from Darby O'Gill that leprechans can't resist 3 things: Whiskey, dancing, and hunting. We don't have whiskey, and we don't have anything for them to hunt, so we had to appeal to their musical interests.

Sure enough an hour or so after the trap was completed, an unfortunate Leprechan must have been captured and escaped because the money was gone, and the custom-made combo dance mat was gone and in their place was a whole slew of chocolate gold coins. Delicious. So now friends of Spencer, what'll we wish for?

Thursday, March 8, 2012

The Book Club

On Saturday I really needed to spend some extra time with the kids. After a game of Operation they wanted to build a fort. Fort building is a perfect example of synergism. Everyone pitches in their ideas and eventually we come up with a supersweet place to hide that would otherwise not exist. That's just what it ended up being. A supersweet place to hide. Without any input from me, the kids took books inside and enjoyed reading in the dark. They decided that everytime they went back into the fort they'd need to bring a book. Quite a stack developed. They called it "The Book CLub." I was amazed because they let Mia come in and out of the fort without a single complaint. So, welcome to the book club.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

No. It really is.

Life is good. We each are changing, learning, and growing so much. Alfonso and I usually start the day reluctant to end our minute or two together. Bracing ourselves for what lies ahead, I say,"Let's go make everybody mad." Then we're off, waking up the troops, becoming everyone's FAVORITE PERSON. We have a goal to eat breakfast together and read together every morning. It is a tradition that is saving us.

Alfonso's job is great, he's such a hard worker, but he also knows how to play. Ben is almost as tall as me, he helps a lot around at home and makes us laugh. Spencer is doing well in school, I love his insights and his unwavering willingness to help (regardless of the task and no, I'm not exaggerating). Will is a little jokester, natural reader and keeps things exciting with his remarkably short fuse. Mia isn't learning many words, we are signing our way through. For a a baby learning spanish and english, I don't understand why she's speaking chinese. Her jibberish is amazing. She LOVES to dance and sing. She loves to explore. And me? I'm good too. I get to stay home with Mia, the hours we spend together are quite peaceful. She's a good napper. My inner debate is whether or not I am entitled to a nap too.

I also get to stay home with our boys. In the afternoon when they rush through the door, I go into octopus mode. This is a time to keep everything together (my patience and myself included). It's a time for homework assessment, making sure everyone is on task. It's a time for signing a form with one hand and holding a baby with the other. It's a time for "Yes you can have a snack." "No, you cannot play Wii." "Please stop freaking out." "No, I don't know what veracious means." "Why are you wearing a bowl on your head?" Thankfully I can still help them with math although the time soon cometh where their skill will far surpass mine. Somewhere in all this a meal is prepared. That is the miracle. The days that friends come to play just add to the glorious chaos. I always breathe a sigh of relief when Alfonso walks in the door. My favorite time of day (sorry kids) is when the you are all taken care of, in your beds, and I have a few minutes to myself. It takes a minute to switch gears, to take a deep breath and realize I made it. I survived another day! It also takes a minute to count my blessings including the man next to me, and say, "Hey babe, I love you." Then we close our eyes and do it all over again.
Like I said, Life is good.

Kids Say The Darndest Things

9/8/14 After a massive pillow fight with Spence and Will, Mia fell to the floor and exclaimed, "I'm soaking tired!"

5/15/14 We were watching a Baby Einstein movie featuring a rhino puppet. Mia said, "Mom, that rhinoceros is a genius."

5/13/14 Mia just told me some disturbing news about her imaginary friend. "Squella, not like you, so her is hiding." I even offered Squella a popsicle to bribe her into liking me and she wouldn't budge.
5 minutes later:
No wait, Mia just informed me, "Her likes you now. Her gets a pop-is-cle."

5/02/14 Mia has been coming up with some unique names for her imaginary friends, Squilla, Quinley, Tortilla are just a few. Well today she was talking to her friend Celia and said,
"What's your Cat's name, Celia?
"Tiddley-Dee"
"Oh!!! GREAT name!!!"
Later, I asked her later about the cat and found out that there are TWO! One cat's name is "Tilly-Tina" and the other's name is "Tiddley-Dee."

4/21/14 Mia was shouting at me from the bathroom in a bossy way. I said, "Mia, don't talk to me like that." She said. "I YELLING at you." I needed to leave the room and she shouted again and said, "Mommy come here, right now. I gon count and you gon go in time-out!!!" Sweet swirling onion rings, I'm in for it.

4/4/14 While enjoying a chocolate chip cookie together, I asked, "Mia, why is chocolate soooooo good?" To which she naturally replied, "Cuz we gon' eat it."
Best reason ever.

1/07/14 At the store, at the top of her lungs, in attempt to tell me that she's going to "crack me up" Mia shouted, "Mom, I go a crap you up!"

12/11/13 Today at story time Miss Sally was teaching the kids about the color red. She was pointing out those with red hair. She said, "This little boy has red hair, and look, this mommy has red hair. And this mommy has red hair!" There was a pause and Mia shouted out, "I HAVE TWO MOMMIES!" All the parents looked around, Miss Sally bewildered, looked at me. Appalled I laughed and said loudly, "I have NO IDEA what she's talking about." Everyone started laughing. . . hard! For the life of me I couldn't figure out why she'd say that. So afterwards I asked Mia, and she pointed to the two mommies with red hair and said, "See? Two mommies!" Ohhhhhh, now I get it. Two mommies with red hair.

12/14/13 The dinner table was busy with multiple conversations occurring at once when Mia said, "Hey Will, this song my favorite: (in sing-song)
Hello Kitty, Hello Kitty,
I like Hello Kitty"

12/03/13 Ben was teasing Mia on the couch. When she angrily yelled, "Ben, DON'T BLOW ME! I NOT a bubble!!!"

11/13/13 Today I was crying and couldn't stop. Mia dropped what she was doing and ran up and said, "Hold me, you feel better!" I hugged her tight and put her down. A few seconds later she came up and said, "Here Mom, a have a Kleenex."

Lately, Whenever we are having a nice snuggle moment as a family, Mia will come up and say, "All To-ah-gedder."

10/13/13 I need to preface this by saying, Mia's word for "girl" is "grill." After church Mia got very upset and ran to her room. Alfonso went up to try to comfort her and said, "Don't cry, Mia." To which she responded, "But grills like to cry."

09/25/13 Mia and I were playing with pretend snakes. In their "conversation", they made a deal and so I told her, "Let's shake on it." she immediately began to violently shake the snake.

08/24/13 Once again, Pandora displayed the album cover (One World's Acoustic) of Justin Bieber on the screen. Mia looked at it again and said, "Mom, look! A doggie. Doggie wif guitar."

08/21/13 Pandora displayed an album cover of Justin Bieber on the t.v. Mia, startled a little by the music, looked up at the screen, studied for a minute and said, "Cute doggie!"

08/19/13 As we were all getting ready to go swimming, Mia was excitedly showing everyone her "swimming soup."

08/17/12 A day after I taught Will about the Star of David, Will was playing with a couple of triangle magnets. When he had overlapped them just right he held them up and said, "Look, it's Jared's star!"

08/16/12 After taking off Ben's newly acquired football gear, Will sat next to me, sighed, and said, "It's nice to have a football player in the house."

07/24/12 I was looking at my wedding ring while tucking Will in to bed. Will noticed and said, "That's a pretty fancy ring." I said, "It is. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever owned. But I love it mostly for what it stands for." Will surprised me when he responded, "You love it because it reminds you of the day you got married. Even if it was made of wood, it would be a still be a great treasure."

07/23/12 After a run to Dairy Keen, Will shared the following insight: "The most humblest flavor of ice cream in the whole entire world is vanilla." When I asked why, he said, "Because it's simple, it's plain, and it's always there. "

07/05/12 Fearing that Mia might ruin his pillow fort, Will asked, "Mom, can we put her to sleep?"

06/28/12 As we were setting the table for breakfast, Will (7)said, "I'm a simple man." I couldn't help but smile. "I'm a simple man with complex thoughts." Did I mention, he's 7???

06/25/12 While I was looking for a rubber band, Spencer handed a large one to me and proudly said, "I wear 5 rubber bands on my wrist at all times."

06/22/12 For the second time, Spencer said, "I don't believe in sarcasm." I argued that sarcasm does exsist and gave him an example. His response, "I call that oppositism."

06/03/12 While we were driving, Spencer spotted a slowly oncoming tractor and car and said, " 'Wow, tractors drive slow!' thought the lady in the green car."

06/03/12 We had watched a bunch of old footage of Beatles performing some of their hits, when Will yelled out, "Can we PLEASE stop listening to classical music?"

05/12/12 Trying to explain to our sick kids why we couldn't have friends come play, I said, "We need to get this virus out of our house." Will said, "Lets give it to someone else!"

03/03/12 Will just said, "I have a faculty butt."

03/01/12 Will told Ben that from now on he wants to be called Bethica, queen of the sea.

03/01/12 Will came inside from shoveling snow with cold hands. After explaining to me that the problem was his gloves, he asked,"Can I have an upgrade?"

11/29/11 Me: "Will, what do you want the person you marry to be like?" Will: "Hot and sexy." Room fills with shock & stifled laughter. Me: "Will. . . what does it mean to be hot?" Will: "That you just came out of the desert."

11/28/11 When it's time for oracion/prayer, Mia oftentimes will fold her arms and talk quietly while the prayer is said. At the end we say "amen." She loudly says, "BOB!"

11/26/11 Alfonso swatted at the pesky fly once again. "It's taunting me." He said. Will exclaims, "It's taunting you??" Mutters to self, "I hate taunting flies."

11/10/11 Will walked in the door and when he saw his friend Annie sitting on the couch said, "I knew this day had something special in it." "What?" Annie asked. "You! I knew you were coming over. You make today special."

11/10/11 In the car, Annie (a girl I'm tending) said, "Jesus is so lucky! He gets to be born on Christmas, huh!"

09-09-11 Alfonso and I went on a date for our anniversary and left the kids with family. After we picked up the kids, Will politely asked, "Were there a lot of people at the anniversary?"

09-08-11 At the breakfast table, I was telling the kids that tomorrow would be Alfonso and my anniversary. Will lowered his head and said, "I'm glad I don't have to see that."

09-07-11 At a restaurant, we were all joking back and forth and Will said, "You gotta be pushing my leg!"

08-20-11 At our moving sale, my 3-year-old neice, Nicole held up a shiny quarter and said, "Look, I have a quenny."

08-20-11 5 minutes later, Nicole was whining. Her Mom, D.D. said, "I'm not going to talk to you until you use a big girl voice." Nicole gave her a mean look and said, "But you just talked to me."

08-19-11 Will, sitting at the table kept singing, "Can't you see, I love my pancreas, look at me, I love my pancreas." Over and over. Thank you, Wierd Al.

08-19-11 Quite proud of himself and giggling a little, Spencer announced, "Faster than a speeding two-year-old, able to leap a towering pile of laundry, it's SUPERMOM!!!"

04-29-11 We had just finished a large meal at Chick's Cafe when Spencer leaned back in his chair and energetcally patted his stomach saying, "Now I know what Santa feels like."

04-28-11 Will was helping me pull our huge new stroller out of its box. His job was to pull the box down as I held the stroller up off the ground. It wouldn't budge. He paused and said, "Wait, should I go drink some milk, to make my muscles stronger?"

About Us

Our blended family is many years and obstacles in the making. We two were raised in separate countries, different cultures and upbringings. For each of us, God's blessed broken road weaved through marraige, the birth of a child (or two) and a painful divorce, in the end, leaving a himless her and a herless him. We met on a blind date in 2008 and haven't been able to stay away from each other since. Married for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple, we and our four children are determined to BE a forever family. This blog is an account of our daily lives, our ups and downs, and our journey to become "one."