. . .but here are some Halloween pictures!!!! Better late than never, right?!! Here are a few pictures of the ward Halloween party mentioned in the previous blog. . .Cohen ended up being a Cowboy on actual Halloween, so I'll post those pictures soon. . .maybe in 2011.
Um. . .uh. . .yes this is the best picture with BOTH boys in it. 
Cohen eating his yummy cupcake that he 'won' at the cakewalk.
The only picture of all 3 of us!! I know I should have dressed up. . .so not like me to just let it slide. . .
So, it's been a full month since I've posted anything, but I've been faithfully keeping notes on a post-it so that I'd remember the stories I want to tell!!!
Thank goodness it's getting a bit colder, because we were having a TON of flies in our house every day. Because when the weather was nice, not too hot and not too cold, I would leave the back door open so that the dog and the kids could go in and out at their leisure. Unfortunately this also meant that the flies could come in and out at their leisure also, which mostly means coming in and not so much going out. So, every evening I would hold a big fly-swatting party in my kitchen and living room and kill as many as I could. This has led to Cohen being a pretty good fly-swatter himself. He would help me during these fly-infested times, and now that we only have 1 or 2 in the house at a time, whenever he sees one, he finds it his duty to get the fly swatter and chase it around for a while. He's actually a pretty good shot if the fly lands far enough down on the window for Cohen to reach it. We've always dreamed he'd grow up to be a great football player, but maybe he'll just be the world's greatest fly-swatter.
Our ward Halloween party was on the 17th. . .like I have been thinking forward enough to have my kids costumes figured out or something. Anyhow, I just figured Evan would be the default costume, Superman, because we already have that costume and it takes NO effort on my part. It gets to be about 6:30 that night, and the party started at 7, so I finally start digging around my house for something for Cohen to wear. I end up with a pair of brown camouflage pants that are just a bit too short, a green camo shirt that is WAY too small, and a black camo fleece jacket that fits just right. Thank goodness for the jacket because his little belly was hanging out the bottom of the shirt and that would have just been embarrassing. I drew some black stripes on his cheeks and he went to the party as. . .an army guy!!! I really am a great mom, eh?!! And if I had never written this on my blog, I could lie to him in years to come when he looks at the pictures and tell him that he asked to be an army guy and not that I was just a really bad procrastinator!! I still don't know what he'll wear on actual Halloween. . .I'll probably just try to borrow something from a neighbor. I want to come up with some hugely creative idea, and have everybody look at him and think, "What a great costume, this child must have an incredibly brilliant and handy mother to come up with such a creative costume." But alas, it is not to be. Not this year at least. Maybe next year.
So here's a fun little thing Cohen is doing that is driving me bonkers. Every time he comes up the stairs he wants me to carry him upside-down by his ankles. He lies down on the ground and says, "Hold the toes mom, hold the toes." It's funny, but apparently he's complete debilitated himself from walking up the stairs, because even if he's down there by himself, I'll hear him yelling up the stairs, "Hold the toes mom, hold the toes!!" I like to play it with him sometimes, it can be fun, but EVERY TIME?!!! Come on child!!! Give your poor mom a break!!
Cohen is progressing in his prayer saying. The other night I was putting him to bed and I asked if he wanted to say the prayer, which usually means that I say a word and then he repeats it until we're done. He says yes, so I fold my arms and say Dear. . .and he says 'No mom!'. . .I continue Heavenly. . .and he says 'I do it!'. . .so I say OK, and here is his perfectly childlike first prayer without any help: "Dear. . .Heanly. . . . . AMEN!!!" I busted out laughing and told him to at least pray for Daddy, so he began again: "Dear. Heanly. bessadaddy. . .AMEN!!" That amen is his favorite part.
Evan is starting to say a few words. . .and I use that term lightly. . .he's starting to grunt a few words is more like it. He says Uck! (Yuck. . .during a diaper change) and Wack! (Quack, like a duck) and he can trumpet like an elephant. No, he does not say mama yet, but trumpeting like an elephant?! Now, that's talent!!
I am an Activity Days leader in our ward for the 8-9 year old girls. We had an activity where they were learning how to entertain young children, and we played Duck Duck Goose. A week and a half later Cohen had coerced me into playing with him, and he starts patting himself on the top of the head and is saying 'Duck, duck, duck.' I get it figured out and we play an awesome 2 person round of Duck Duck Goose in the living room!!! It mostly consisted of us running around in circles and sitting down wherever, but it was fun!! I couldn't believe he remembered that!!
There you are. All the cute stories from my post-it reminder note have now been transferred to this here blog. The update is complete. Adeiu.
So, we are in the midst of potty-training. . .Cohen is doing awesome at peeing in the potty, but NOT so awesome at pooping in it. In fact, he has NEVER pooped in the potty. Yuck for me. So we took a trip to All-A-Dollar and bought all of these awesome prizes, to be distributed after a successful poop-in-the-actual-potty. . .They would motivate me if I was a 2 year old boy, so why do they not motivate my child? Bubbles, a horsey, some stickers, a cool little gun, and a styrofoam sword for crying out loud!!!! Every day, we sit down in the bathroom with this bag of prizes and review 1)how awesome they are, and 2)what it will take to win said awesome prizes. And every day, he wants these prizes, oh yes he does. . .but apparently not bad enough. WHYYYYY????!!!!! I'm not going to put him back in diapers because we're doing so well otherwise, but I'm getting really disgusted by the clean-up of the poopy underpants. Hopefully this story will have a happy ending, and SOON!
So now that Evan is walking so well, the boys are playing pretty well together, usually. This was kinda cute. . .Yesterday they were not really playing that well together, one getting poked or hit or pushed every few minutes. I was trying to get ready to leave the house, so I kept reminding them to play nicely together in hopes that they actually would, and that I'd be able to do my hair and makeup in peace. After many failed attempts at this playing nicely thing, Cohen dragged his blankie up to me and asked if he could go night-night. Of course you can go night-night!!! That is just the kind of help I need in getting ready!! We didn't need to leave the house for about an hour, so I got him a cup of milk and plopped him in bed. He hasn't been napping at all lately, except for in the car if we're going somewhere late in the afternoon, so I didn't really think he would go to sleep, but I was willing to let him try. Evan saw me leaving Cohens room and shutting the door, and he toddles down the hall and starts banging on Cohens door!!! Even though Cohen had been kicking the tar out of him for the last 1/2 hour, he still wanted his big brother around to play with! (Wait, it gets better.) Since I want Cohen to actually fall asleep, I tell Evan 'no' and pick him up and remove him from banging on the door. A few minutes later, Evan has also apparently had it, so I plop him in bed too!! Woo hoo for me, right?!! Well, being the prophetic mother that I am, I knew Cohen probably wouldn't go to sleep, which he didn't, and after my few minutes of glorious silence, he starts banging on his door to be let out. I let him out and hope that after his little rest he will be a happier camper. He walks out of his room, down the hall and looks into the living room. "Where's Ean?" he asks. . .for crying out loud!!! The two of them were at each others throats not 5 minutes before, and now they are banging on each others doors and asking for the other?!! At least it encourages my hope that they'll turn out to be best friends, right?! It was pretty cute that even though they weren't really getting along, they still wanted to be with each other. Forgive and forget, right?!
So, Cohen has inherited Jareds body's intolerance for mosquito bites. . .we'll be outside and Jared will have 10 bites before I even notice that there are mosqitos out there at all!! Also, he has some sort of allergic reaction to some bites as well, because sometimes he'll swell up all around the bite, like too much swelling for a little mosquito bite, like it kinda looks like he has a tumor on his arm or something freaky, right? Anyhow, Cohen has had a few mosquito bites before, but he finally got bit by the crazy ones a few days ago. . .he came in and had one smack in the middle of his forehead, and another right below the corner of his right eye. I put some Caladryl lotion on them so he wouldn't itch them, and they didn't seem to bother him the rest of the evening. The next morning, Jared gets him out of bed and comes in to ask me how Cohen got a black eye. What? Well, it wasn't black, but it was all red and swollen up HUGE underneath his little eye!! Sad!!
I didn't notice the swelling on his forehead until later that day, but that one got all swollen too, and once you noticed it, it looked like he had some crazy Klingon forehead or something!!!! (Is it scary that Klingon is NOT underlined in red by my automatic spell-checker?? As I was typing that word I was honestly thinking to myself, 'well, I won't know if I've spelled this right or not, because Klingon is not actually a word, so even if I spelled it like it's supposed to be spelled, it will underline in red, right?' WRONG!!!!) Back to the forehead. . .yes, it was poking out of his head WAY to far, and of course we run into someone we know at the store. I even brought it up just in case they noticed, so that I could explain that his forehead was not always so crazy and ugly. . .maybe they wouldn't have noticed on their own, but if they had, and I hadn't explained, they would have thought 'how sad for that little boy with that unusually large forehead. . .' Good thing I explained, hu?!!!
Speaking of injuries on childrens foreheads. . .a few weeks ago Evan fell down the stairs in the backyard and landed on his forehead on the cement so he's had HUGE scabs covering his forehead for a week. Lovely. People must think I beat him.
Here's a picture of the boo-boo right after he got it. Over the next few days the scabs got darker, and thus more prominent. :) 
Pictures have now been added!! Yay!! How exciting for all you blog subscribers!!
This is Jared and I eating at the Luau at the PCC.
Besides just sitting around basking in the sun, we did do a few touristy things. We hiked up through the botanical gardens to Waimea Falls, but tragically there were no falls. Apparently it's just the end of the dry season, so the falls were just trickling down the mountain, but it was beautiful anyways. All of the flowers and trees over there are so amazing. I just loved seeing each new thing!! On Saturday Jared and I went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. AMAZING!!! This is the thing to do if you go to Oahu. It is a fish sanctuary, and there are so many amazing kinds of fish. After we had been in the water a while, we got to where we felt like we were just seeing the same fish over and over again, and then some crazy new type would swim in front of us!! We were inches away from these huge turtles, and countless types of tropical fish. Pictures couldn't do it justice. Honestly, if I ever go to Hawaii again, I would love to do this again.
OK, this is a hideous picture of the both of us, but the only one we took at Hanauma Bay. If you look close, you can see the snorkel mask indentation on my forehead!!
Evan turned 1!! We made it!! I always said that if I could just make it through this first year, we'd be set, and here we are! I almost can't believe it, honestly it's gone by so fast. We didn't have much of a party for him, but Chantelle was in town and so were Alan and Camille and we were all going up to Ray and Bev's for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, so I decided to at least make a cake. What to make for a 1 year old? Well, there were lots of great ideas, and Chan told me about a train cake that she had made with Twinkies as the train cars. . .sounds easy enough, right? Well, I baked myself a cake, and bought myself a box of Twinkies and lots of candy to decorate with and just started. Now, I'm not usually a great creative thinker, or very artistic or crafty, so it was truely inspiration that I made such an amazing cake. . .honestly one of the coolest cakes in the history of amature-mommy-cake-decorators. Somehow I thought of doing a tunnel. . .and the rest just came out of me. . .5 hours and lots of sugary frosting later the masterpiece was done. . .I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Here's Evan with my brother Alan. Can you see how amazed Alan is? And how jealous he is that he didn't ever make his kid such an awesome cake? Can you also see how the train track comes around and UNDER the tunnel?!! Green coconut grass. . .brown coconut dirt. . .chocolate licorice train tracks. . .quartered chocolate wafer cookie rail-road-ties. . .and the engine even has a cow-pusher thingy. . .I'm a great mom, I know.
Here's a better view of the tunnel.
birthday cake!!!
We finally went on our vacation to San Diego with Jareds family. It was so great!! We were so close to the beach, and spent a lot of time there boogy boarding and making sand castles and stuff. Jared got a rediculous sunburn at the beginning of the trip and spent the rest of the week in lots of pain. We went to Sea World, which Cohen loved of course, he just loves animals. He was totally enthralled by Shamu and the dolphins, and all of the animals. It was great.
Show. . .and Justin too!!!
this little carnival place just down the street from our
beach house.
Doesn't jared look excited?!!! He's going to be so happythat I posted this picture!!
Here's the family photo on the beach. Jared is such a great photographer, right?!
This picture basically sums up how we all felt by the end of this picture-taking adventure. . .Poor Sophie
Our cute little family walking down the beach. . .so picturesque, eh?!
Cohen is talking a ton, which is so cute. He's starting to use his imagination so much, I love to just sit and watch him play with his little horseys and dinosaurs. Their conversation goes something like this. "What are you doing?" "I don't know" "Whats your name?" "Dinosaur" "Hey!! Don't do that!!" "Don't hit me!" and stuff like that. Its funny. I find myself just watching him, hoping he won't notice that I'm watching so he'll keep on playing in his little imaginary world. I love it!
Evan has started walking for real, thank goodness!! Because he's HEAVY!!! He has been taking a few steps for a while, but just over the last few days has been walking across the whole room. He loves to just practice walking, its so funny!! He'll just walk in between the couch and the windowsill over and over and over. It's cute.
Cohen is learning how to pray. Every night for dinner, we ask him if he wants to say the prayer, and if he does then Jared helps him. It goes a little like this:
Before I get started, let me just say that JARED IS 30 TODAY!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!! Ok, so I'm only 10 weeks behind him, but for the next ten weeks, he's in his 30's and I'm still in my 20's!! He's in Navuoo today, and I really wish I could be with him there. I wanted to make a big fuss and have a big party, but alas, he is out of town for his birthday, AGAIN!! I really love him a lot and miss him terribly. He's such a great husband and an awesome dad. I'm really happy (and jealous) that he is where he is, I only wish I could be with him. So, instead of a party, he just got a few mushy texts from me, and a box of snacks that went to Palmyra because he was supposed to be there for a few more days. . .and so the box is in New York and he's in Nauvoo. . .go figure. I love you Jared!!!! Happy Birthday!!!
So, I haven't posted in a few weeks, and a hundred things have happened that I've thought to myself "Write about that next time you blog. . ." and of course I've forgotten all of it!! Oh well, let me just upload some pictures and we'll have a nice little 'lets have lots of pictures and not too many words' post. . .because we've had some fun, but nothing that makes a real good story, you know. . .
This is at the 4th of July parade in Centerville. It was supposed to be the hottest day of the year, up to 110 or something outrageous, but there were lots of clouds, and it was still hot, but not 'it's so hot, who cares about a parade, lets go home' kind of hot. The kids loved it and Evan was a perfectly sticky dirty mess by the end of it. Oh, and the laundry needed to be done, so this was our best attempt at patriotic clothing as well. . .
The other kids in the picture are Cohens best friend Janessa, and Jessie's cousins boy Taylor who we go swimming with.
This is my favorite picture from the parade. . .so patriotic don't you think? You can just see how passionate Cohen is about waving that American Flag. Funny!
After the parade they had a little carnival with those blow-up slides and stuff. Janessa was too chicken to go, so Jessie and Jim pushed Evan around in his stroller while Cohen and I went through this little obstacle course a few times. It was FUN!! Cohen needed me to help him the first few times, but then crawled right up this thing on his own after that!
Here we are about to go down the big slide at the end. . .
Later that day we went to my moms for a BBQ before going to Rob and Josie's for fireworks. You'll notice that all of our 'red,white, and blue' clothing must have gone in the laundry because it all got so sticky and gross at the parade. The best we could do after that was camo. . .patriotic in a different way, right? Evan's shirt has one little stripe of camo on it, so it counts!!
Here's a video of Cohen and Evan jumping at Grandma's house. It's cute, and funny. . .poor little Evan. . .
Here's the boys all ready for church on Sunday. So cute. Some of you may be wondering "Hey, didn't we see Cohen in that outfit that Evan is wearing just like. . .3 months ago?" Well friends, the answer is yes. . .Evan is a tubber. . .and thats not a real word but you get exactly what I mean.
This is the Hamper Monster. . .one of our favorite pastimes lately.