White Family pictures

Just wanted to post a few of our best shots!

so many things

There are so many things I could post about right now. Our awesome and relaxing Thanksgiving with the Sparks...



Or I could post about the funnest date we've been on in a very long time. Job and Brittney planned a gondola ride for all of us to go on. We got cheese and crackers and got to see all of the Christmas lights on the houses by Newport Beach. (And it wasn't even that expensive! Thank you Groupon! And Job and Brittney!)

And most importantly, why I haven't been posting!!! Emily taught me how to crochet and I am ADDICTED. Not even kidding. I can't stop. Literally.

And when I finally put my crochet hook down at night, I HAVE to pick up my book for our new online bookclub. Come check us out if you want! Pickwick Society. Needless to say, I have NOT been going to bed early...

A good place

My neighbor jokingly made some comment the other day about my life being an open book. And honestly, I think the last couple of months, it has been-especially for those who live within a mile of me.

But I just realized that for all of you that read my blog and don't see me in real life, you may still think I am pregnant. Well I am not. (which I actually think is very few people right now, since my blog went private. I mean, quite a number of you COULD read my blog, but since it doesn't show up in the automatic feed saying that I have posted again, I don't think anyone realizes I have posted in the last 3 months. Ah well!)

I had a miscarriage at 12 weeks. When it happened, I was really sad. Not a very interesting word, but that's the best word I have to describe it. Even as I was going through it, though, I thought "I can do this. I am okay. Everything will be okay." But 6 weeks later, I hit a wall. I was back to crying every day and I thought "I can't do this!" I was about ready to ask to be released from one of my callings so that I could just de-stress my life even a little bit.

But I held on just to see if I could snap out of it. And that's what my post is to tell you. That I did, and I am in a good place right now. I feel better about my life right now than I have in a good long time. I have good friends and neighbors who are more wonderful than I could ever hope for. And a mom who came and helped me with some projects around the house that I couldn't seem to do. I love my sweet boys (all three of them!) and I am happy.

Day out with Thomas

Today we went to see Thomas the Tank Engine. The boys loved it! And since it's a holiday, Daddy got to come with us! (and Grandma too)


There was a little hay maze that Joshua had to run through TEN times (no more, no less) and Nathan got all dirty crawling through it.

We also got to ride an old caboose and sit up high in the seats that you had to climb up ladders to get to. The boys loved looking out the window and the whistle was super loud. Nathan loved the trains. Every time a whistle would go off, his eyes got so big. And he even started "da, da" in the same intonation as "choo, choo"...which may not sound like a big deal, but for a little guy who only says "ba" for EVERYTHING he sees, the "da, da" is huge!

Voting or boating?

We told Joshua this morning that we were going to go to the "voting" place to vote today. It's just a few blocks away, so we walked. We told him he would get a sticker. He seemed to be just fine with the idea. And even found a big stick before he left that he asked if he could take with him. "Sure!" I said.

When we got there, he seemed a little distressed and kept asking "Mom, Mom! Where is the voting place?!" I kept tell him that we were AT the voting place. Then we got back in the stroller and headed for home, with him proudly wearing his sticker on his hand.

After a minute of walking down the road, it was obvious that something wasn't right in the little 3 year old's mind. He was upset and we couldn't understand what he wanted. He kept asking "where is the water place you were talkin' about?!" and I kept answering that I hadn't said ANYTHING about a water place and that I had NO idea what he was talking about. Then he held up his stick and proclaimed "I wanted to use my stick to puddle!" "Puddle? What is puddle?" Justin and I still have no idea what he is wanting. "You know, PUDDLE!" Josh says as he uses his stick to pretend PADDLE on the side of the stroller.

"OH! Paddle! You want to use your stick to paddle?"

"Yes Mom! At the 'BOATING' place!"

Sorry son. Voting was a big disappointment.

Bye Bye

So I asked Anna if I could post every now and then, and to my delight, she said yes. Here's my first try. Nathan actually talks quite a bit, but he mostly says about 3-4 words or, to be exact, makes about 3-4 regular sounds. He says something like "That" and "Ba" and "Ma" and "Da" (and, sadly, those last two don't seem to be early versions of Mom and Dad). But one thing he does say consistently if not always at the right time is "Bye Bye." Usually he says bye to people or things after they are already gone, after we have tried to show off this new found skill. But sometimes the timing can be perfect.

Yesterday at church, for example, Nathan, who continues to be just a skinny little guy (sorry for those genes...), squirmed out of his pants while we were sitting in sacrament meeting. As the pants fall to the ground, he says, looking down, "Bye Bye." Well said, Nathan. Well said.

Angels Game

We went to an Angel's baseball game about a month ago, but we forgot our camera. So I remembered it this time! We went again on Tuesday night for one of the last home games of the season. (And we won, so that was even better!)

The boys were both really good during the game. Nathan loved it when everyone clapped. He would start clapping and smiling. This happened every couple of minutes. As he clapped and smiled, he would grin up at Justin. I guess he wanted to make sure Justin realized how cute he was being!


Josh loves the "Big A" outside in the parking lot. Nathan likes the sign that lights up on the "Big A".


They also had a deal going on where you could get 40% off of all hats. We thought we'd get one for everyone so we could be ready for games next season. GO ANGELS!




P.S. My favorite thing that Josh has started to say since we have gone to the Angels games is this:

"When I get reeeeeeeeeally tall, I play baseball down on the Angel field!"

sometimes followed by:

"Mom? Do you want to come watch me when I play on the Angels field?"

You bet I will!!

"I love you"

Joshua has been very good about saying "I love you" lately. It's super cute. He seems to be pretty sensitive as to when it is appropriate to give hugs and say I love you. We've had a rough couple days over here and he has been giving me lots of hugs and I love yous. This is how the conversation goes:

Joshua "I love you Mommy" as he wraps his arms around me and pats me on the back

Me "I love you Joshua. Thank you."

Joshua "I love you too"


Hehe. I love that he always has to add the "I love you too" at the end. It always brings a smile.

1 year pictures

These were taken a few weeks ago, but here is a little taste of Nathan's 1 year pictures, courtesy of my sister-in-law. Who takes all of our cute pictures. And makes all of the cute hand-made things in my house. Seriously. Love her to pieces. Go look at her blog. Or her Etsy shop. You'll agree with me, I am certain.

Emily's Blog

Isn't he cute? Even if he won't smile on cue. At least he's not screaming, right?




Facts about Nathan:
-still loves to suck on his 2nd & 3rd fingers on his left hand
-points and says "dat!" when he wants something
-is a light sleeper, unlike his brother
-is turning into our resident climber
-he loves balls-sometimes he will even say "ba!" while he's crawling after them around the house. there are always 4-5 balls in sight at anytime on our floor. careful if you come over!

Summer Reading

I have been reading a number of books over the summer. Some good, some not as good. But I thought I'd give you a little update.

Most recently finished:

I just finished this last night actually. Cornelia's character was so endearing. Half of the book was written from her point of view and she goes off on all these tangents about old movies and good books and how the relate to her life...and it made me happy. Great read. I would recommend it to anyone! Thanks Jaclyn.


Not my favorite:

Everyone has been reading these books lately, and normally I like the "bandwagon" books. But I am not going to read #2 and #3. Too graphic for me. I can't imagine anyone just LOVING these books. But I could be wrong. He's not a bad writer, but just not my cup of tea.


One that has changed me most profoundly:

Everyone asks me if this is a marriage book. NO, it's not! Far from it. It's about changing the worlds "me, me, me" mentality. It helped me to open my eyes and think outside of my happy little world and realize that there is so much need out there. It's hard sometimes, because I feel like in the LDS church, we give every month on our little "donation" slips and feel like maybe that's all that we need to do. Or we go to our monthly service projects and tie quilts and feel good. And while those ARE good things, I think there are so many good projects and things to get involved with outside of the Church too. This book really helps you think through how you can do good in whatever your stage of life or circumstances might be. I really would recommend it to any and everyone!


And one I have been perusing lately...

We are expecting #3! Sometime mid-March.

Happy Birthday!

So a little late on this birthday post. But I have good excuses. The day before Nathan's birthday, we went to the Wild Animal Park as a family. The first couple of pictures are from that. I am not sure if I am blowing on his face, or trying to kiss him. Either way, I thought it was a funny picture. And Nathan in the 2nd one was just too cute not to put up.


For his actual birthday we just had a nice day at home and had our friends Emilee, Dan, and Jack come over for dinner and cake. You may notice that Nathan is already a mess before he actually STARTED his cake. He discovered blueberries.


This is his favorite present. His "monkey". We got it at the Renegade Craft Fair that Justin's sister Emily sold some of her goods at. It was sweet! He loves it, and so do I!

$1500 in Costco gift cards is mine

Yep, you read that right. Many of you who know me well know that I would love to be on a game show and win lots of money. (I'd like to be on one even if I DIDN'T win lots of money, but the money would make it more pleasant...) My dream hasn't come true yet, but I did get lots of money in the mail today so it felt like I won something.

I have a neighbor who taught me how to do online offers. She has done a couple and has other friends who have done some too. I decided to try it. You know when you get spam emails that say "Get a free $500 Walmart gift card" or something like that? And then you click on it and you have to sign up for a bunch of other offers to get it? Yep, that's what I did. (This was all done through a specific website that helps you know what companies are legit, so don't just try any online offer you see!)

Today, all my hard work PAID OFF because I got my gift cards in the mail. I figured out that I put about $300 (and quite a few hours) into this project, but when you get $1500 for $300, that's a pretty darn good deal. And I did get a bunch of other stuff too, with that money I put into it. Like books, and movies and free music downloads. And I resold some stuff on Ebay, so I actually probably spent under $300...I should sit down and figure it out.

But right now I am just too happy. I might just hold onto them for a rainy day. :)

Just in case you forgot...

So I realized most of my recent posts are more about Joshua. So just in case you forgot I have a reeeeeally stinkin' cute other kid who will be ONE YEAR OLD on Saturday! Here's the latest...

3 year old gems

Yesterday's quote of the day:

While Justin was helping Josh get ready for bed Josh says,
"We don't eat poop, we eat food."

Good, son...

Today's quote of the day:

While I was trying to hurry Josh along eating his breakfast so we could go walking with our friends, he exclaims,
"Mom! Be patient!"

I couldn't help but laugh.

Joshua is 3 and he KNOWS it!

We had a great party yesterday for Josh's birthday. We are up at Snowbird with Justin's family. We swam and ate cake and he got presents...super fun. He understands that he is 3 years old and he feels big.

This is him eating his birthday breakfast-a baseball pancake.



Here's his clock cake. That was pretty much the only thing he could talk about all day, despite getting some pretty great presents.




Here are a couple of presents from Grandma and Grandpa White. A Toy Story backpack and Mr. Potato Head. He also got an Etch-a-Sketch and some books. His favorite book (that we've read about 20 times in the last 12 hours) is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.




You might notice that he is only in underwear in half of his pictures. That's because we are potty training right now. It is day 4 and he's doing great! Phew!

Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons

We had a blast going up with my parents to Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons. It was just a short 2 day excursion, but we saw a lot. Joshua's favorite part was "Old Faithful". It was pretty windy, though, and he kept covering his face with his hood!


I think my favorite part of driving through Yellowstone was how every so often the cars would be backed up (since it was only a 2 lane road) and it would be because there was some sort of animal off to the side of the road. I got good pictures of some of them. We saw elk, a grizzly bear, a black bear, and bison.


Here's some of Mammoth Hot Springs and a beautiful waterfall behind my parents and the kids!


Our 2nd day we stayed the night in Jackson and went to Jenny lake and took a little hike up to these falls. The Tetons were so gorgeous. As we drove back to Logan down 89 by the Snake River, I decided that's where Justin and I are going to go for a little get away sometime. It's so beautiful!


Now we are spending a week up at Snowbird with Justin's family and we'll be heading home to Cali at the end of the week. I sure can't wait!

Justin is famous!

Okay, so maybe famous isn't the right word. But he presented his paper at the symposium for the Mormon Scholars foundation seminar that he's been attending for the past 6 weeks and there were a couple of reporters there. And this morning this article is on the FRONT PAGE of the Mormon Times (a part of the Deseret News)!!!

Literally or figuratively children of God?


Go Justin! I am so proud.

How well do you know Joshua?

Anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes with Joshua in the last few months knows that he is obsessed with clocks and bells. Specifically clock and/or bell towers that ding. Anytime we pass a building that has any sort of "tower," he automatically thinks that it is a clock and/or bell tower. For example, driving past the Logan temple this afternoon, Joshua noticed that there were "two bell towers" on the Logan temple. We have names for the different clocks/bells that are visited/talked about regularly in our daily life. I am going to make a list of a few of them and you can determine how well you know Josh if you know where all of them are.

1. The Square Clock
2. The BYU Bells (okay, obvious)
3. The animal clock
4. The Happy Clock (side note-- This is his all time favorite. Significant enough that since he has started saying prayers all by himself, they go like this: "Heavenly Father, Thank you for this day, And the happy clock. Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.)
5. Big Ben (okay, also obvious)

Because #2 is so obvious, I will show you some cute pictures from last week. Don Cook (who I took organ lessons from at BYU) did a Carillon concert at BYU for the Provo Freedom Festival. It was free and so awesome! Justin and I took Josh on a little "date" to go see the bells and he was so happy!



While most kids were running around playing tag or some other normal little kid game, Joshua just sat and watched.

And listened. After every song he would clap and say "please can it play another song?"

Lest you think he is not a normal 2 year old boy, though, there was some rolling down the grass hill. Poor Justin was a little queasy after 10 times of this...

Life by timer

We have discovered something recently. Josh thinks setting timers is cool. We can get him to do almost anything if we set a timer. He even reminds us. Our conversation this morning:

"You can watch a few more minutes of Blue's Clues and then we have to have lunch."

Silence.

A few minutes later.

"Okay Josh, time to eat."

"No Mommy. When the timer beeps, then we have lunch."

"Oh, we need to set the timer?"

"Yes, when the timer beeps, we eat lunch!" (Duh Mom)

Set timer. For 1 minute.

1 minute later. "BEEEEEEEP"

"Oh WAIT Mom!!!" (Josh's phrase when something reeeeally exciting happens) "The timer beeeeeeping!!"

"Oh my goodness, it IS beeping Josh! So what are we going to do now?"

"Eat lunch!"

I wish I could say that setting the timer meant no tantrums. But he's 2. But it at least helps me stay sane. :)

Gleeful :)

So this is something I have been wanting to post about for the past week, but in our craziness that has been preparing to go to Utah (which we are HERE and Uncle Phil is home from Sweden safe and sound!) I have not done it. So I say--

THANK GOODNESS for friends who blog much more regularly than me! Besides the weird grin that is on my face in our picture (I think I was a little too excited) Jaclyn's words sum up my feelings EXACTLY. Please read here:

Jaclyn's Glee Post

Though I think my favorite line from our little 11 year old friends behind us was (and this was literally a scream, that's why I am about to put it in all caps...)

THAT WAS CAPITAL A-MAZING!!!!

It's my new favorite thing to say. The end.

My little composer

Everyone always asks me if I teach Joshua any piano. The answer is NO--he is only 2. But he likes to play around on it sometimes. He composed a song the other day. I was pretty amazed. (still am!) Don't get too excited here, he's not Mozart or anything. A little background about my little 2 year old, though. He loves clock towers and bell towers. If it is a clock and bell tower in ONE, even better. He idolizes Big Ben. And the "happy clock" at Disneyland (outside It's a Small World). He's a little obsessive. Okay, a LOT obsessive.

Anyway. Sometimes he makes me play the clock tower chimes on the piano. And I do it for him. Because he's my son. Yesterday while I was making dinner, I heard him messing around on the piano. After a minute, he runs in and says "Mommy! I play-a-bells!" And this video shows you what he did.



Now, the cool part is that he repeats it. Over and over and over again. And if he starts on a note that would make the bells be in a minor key, he keeps playing the notes until he finds the major key. I am just so excited! My little musician!!!

P.S. Now you know what it takes for me to blog. I seriously have good ideas everyday about stuff to blog about. Here's my list over the past month or two of what we need to catch up on:
-my Mom's spontaneous visit
-many a trip to Disneyland
-Joshua's new best friend (or worst enemy), Simon
-Justin's acceptance to a seminar at BYU meaning we'll be in UTAH for 2 months starting next FRIDAY!
-daily cuteness from my 2 little boys

So stay tuned for more excitement (probably to come in another 2 months...ha ha)

The partying has just begun!

So we have had massive amounts of visitors/fun time here in So Cal. And its only the beginning. Next week Grandma and Grandpa White come back for Spring Break and then JACLYN will be here for her internship, and then June 1st, we'll be back in UTAH for a couple of months!

But. I digress. For the past couple months we had Mags come visit, then Grandma Snyder, and last week we spent most of it in San Diego with Emily and Penny...then Katie and kids decided to come for a couple of days last minute too. PHEW, we have had FUN!

I mean, seriously, I went to Disneyland once a week for FIVE weeks. Now that is what I call FUN. I have so many pictures I don't know what to do with, but I'll let you see a couple.