I Think I've Lost It

So... you know how long I've been talking about wanting to wear my maternity jeans "just because."  Well, tonight I was in Costco and there was this cool booth set up selling these tummy tucking jeans.  At first I thought, "I would buy these," but then I got looking at them and didn't really want to spend the money... but I couldn't stop looking at them.  There were these cute dark wash capris that I almost put in the cart, but decided I, again, didn't want to spend the money.  

Megan was with me and we started laughing about the fact that they really were just maternity clothes being marketed to all of us.   I grabbed another pair, analyzed the spandex (to see if it actually could hold in the couple of inches I don't really like around my middle) but again put them back.  Then Meg pointed out this video that was playing and how the wrap shirt looked cute on both the pregnant lady and the thin one.

click here to watch the video

So then I really got to thinking... "I don't need to buy these jeans.  I have a couple pair of maternity jeans in a box in my closet that I LOVE and I can just wear those."  Then I noticed the shorts.  They were pretty cute and I honestly had nothing like them at home.  You see, I've always been pregnant during the winter so I didn't have any shorts with stretchy spandex on the top.  So I decided, what the heck!  I'd buy them and give them a try.  And if nothing at all, I could put them in my box for later.  (Like, much later.)

Well, I have them on now at home and they are quite comfortable.  However, they do not fit as tight as I would like so they aren't nearly as cool as the "Spanx meets Jeans" I was hoping for.  If they were that tight, though, they would not be maternity friendly as they were originally intended.  I mean, they are made by Lilac Maternity, for crying out loud.  So... do I keep them?  Yes.  Perhaps the size smaller would fit just a bit tighter, but would definitely not be as comfortable, especially long term.  Will I wear them?  In the future, for sure.  In the very near future? Perhaps.  But if I do that, then my other maternity jeans are coming out for sure.  Now I have no excuse not to wear them.  Except for the fact that I am NOT with child.  But I am going to refer you to the video once more.  Every body can wear these clothes.  Haha.

Somebody please tell me I am not crazy and that you will join me in this new fashion trend!

P.S. Check out lilacclothing.com and tell me you do not want that green and gray dress on the home page!

Love These Boys

After the party we took a second to have a little celebratory photo shoot.  It's always so hard to get my own kids to cooperate for me while taking pictures, but I'm glad we did it.  It's fun to remember the little things.  Like how Marshall had to wear his cowboy boots and Tyler's cute smile with that missing tooth. I'm not sure I ever explained that before: when Tyler's teeth were just starting to come in he fell and hit his tooth which eventually killed it.  Once it came in all the way it just started to get weak and brittle.  When he was 16 months we had it removed because it was just yucky and there was no reason to keep it.  So for the next few years he'll have a little gap there, which I thought would bother me, but it doesn't really.  That's just Tyler.  Until his big teeth come in.

Happy birthday boys.  You guys make my life worth living.  Love you.  I hope 2 and 4 are good to us all.

Easter Fun

We do our Easter partying on Saturday.  This year we started out at Great Grandma Stratton's for an egg hunt with the cousins.  (This is becoming a fun tradition.)  It's just so fun to watch all the kids go crazy in the back yard.

(Isn't this little jacket so cute...)

The cousins that hunted this year.

Grandma with her cutie pies.

Grandma and the men.

This was a tender moment, for sure.

One of the only pictures of Marshall from the picnic.

It really was a fun day.  It's always great to spend time with family.

Hope you had a lovely Easter as well.

Happy birthday, Tyler!

I sure am glad that a two year old has very limited expectations of birthdays.  Today he wasn't feeling too well, so we had a long day of whining and clinging to Mommy.  And on top of that, we've had a week of celebrating that is taking a toll on this Momma and I was a little over the hoopla and energy of birthdays.  We did however spend some good quality time together.

These pictures are a series that was taken on Saturday at the Stratton Family Easter Picnic.  It is the one time of year there is a guarantee of the ENTIRE clan having a plan to get together.  It was definitely a year to remember with the thousands of caterpillars that were just finding their way out of their nests.  After a while Tyler took a liking to one caterpillar in particular and wanted to hold it and play with it.  I know it starts out looking like he didn't know it was on him, but he did.  I'm sure he put it there himself at this point.  I should mention that pretty much everyone there had their fair share of surprise visits from countless caterpillars though.  Every time you'd turn around there was someone that had a few on their back or pant leg.  They didn't seem to love me (or my boys) as much as a lot of other people, but I'm pretty sure I had one halfway up my pant leg at one point.  It took at least 24 hours to stop feeling like there was something crawling on me...  I'm just glad they weren't anything nasty, just cute little blue-ish caterpillars.

 

Tyler has taken a real liking to bugs lately.  He'll tell you that spiders are nasty, but he loves to help find ladybugs and caterpillars.  He also likes to be doing anything that Marshall is doing and hates to share.  He has a very caring heart though.  Every time he goes to Gma Diane's house one of his first stops is to the cupboard that has the fruit snacks.  He'll always grab two bags and tell me that one is for Marshall.  It seriously never fails, he always gets one for his brother too.  I think its cute to watch him look out for his big brother.  It happens a lot, with a lot more things that just fruit snacks.  He'll even yell at kids that are giving Marshall a hard time.  I also really love it how he always asks about Marshall if he's not in the truck yet while Tyler is getting buckled in.  He just doesn't like to be without his brother I guess.

Tyler still talks a little like a caveman.  Most everything comes out in a word or two but I rarely don't know what he wants.  The only real sentences he says are things like, "I don't want it," when I serve him his meals.  My brain is having a hard time coming up with any others he says... probably because he mostly tells me that he doesn't want his food.  He loves candy though.  Always has, always will I suppose.  He also loves the movies Cars & Toy Story 3.  Another one of his favorite things is his church Nursery leader, Brother Meadows, who also watches the boys on Tuesday nights when I go to Young Women's.  A couple weeks ago we walked into church and Tyler did NOT want to go in the chapel, he just kept saying, "Meadows. Meadows."  When the first hour of church was finally over and it was time to head to nursery, he ran down the aisle of the chapel yelling, "Yeah!!!!"  He knew exactly where he was going and who would be waiting for him.  He loves Brother Meadows so much, in fact, that the night Tyler broke his leg I had Young Womens and Marshall and Tyler would normally go to the Meadows' house, but I was going to keep Ty with me because I was not entirely sure what was wrong with him besides the fact that his leg hurt and he wouldn't stop crying.  So I stopped to drop just Marshall off and Tyler became a sobbing mess again because he wanted to go to the Meadows' house too.  Silly boy.

I love this little one and continually wonder what things will be like when he can really communicate the things that are on his mind and why he does the things he does.  He is another "valiant" spirit, just like his brother- so head strong and convicted.  I'm pretty sure meekness is a recessive gene in our family, God bless us.  :)

Happy birthday Tyler.  May your two's be more terrific than terrible.

Easter Sunday 2011

Happy Easter!  I'm so thankful for this great holiday and the ones around me that make an effort to remember the true purpose behind it.  I'm so thankful for my Savior and the sacrifice he made for me and the fact that he was resurrected which will allow me to someday follow in his footsteps.

I could blog about a lot of fun stuff we've done over the weekend, but I think I'll save that for another time and just leave this one as a documentation of my kids at this exact moment.  Don't they look handsome?  (Notice the grass behind them!  We laid the sod Friday before the boys' birthday party and it looks divine, wouldn't you say?)

I could not convince Tyler to be happy for these pictures!  No amount of candy, juice, games, toys or mentioning of boogers could get him to crack a smile.  But that's kind of typical of him recently.  He's still a happy and silly boy, but more and more he's becoming more independent and stubborn.  Aren't I lucky?!  

I actually really am, and I love these little munchkins.  

Doesn't Marshall look like a little missionary?  I was going to grab his missionary badge, but we were already running late for church so we just went on without it.

FYI.  The suit Marshall is wearing once belonged to his daddy. 

Marshall's Gma Stratton sewed it herself!  Absolutely amazing.  She even marveled at the fact today that she used to have the time to do such things.  I'm so glad I remembered it was hanging in the closet... if I had waited much longer to pull it out it would not have fit.  

I wonder if there are any pics of Colby in this darling get up...

Changes

We're making progress on our yard, which is very exciting!!!  Colby's family was sweet enough to come help us dig our lines for our sprinklers.  (You'd think a family like ours would have a machine to do this, but it was broken, so we had to do it by hand.  Lame.)  I was the biggest baby out there and complained the most.  When I told Chase about it he told me the world must be coming to an end because his little sisters weren't the biggest complainers.  Haha.

We laid sod the day of the boys' birthday party.  

The goal was to get it done before the party started, but we overlapped just a tiny bit.  

I think a couple of parents weren't sure if they should be dropping their kids off in a work zone.

And here are a couple of trees we planted.  A Southern Live Oak (at top) and a Robe Locust (bottom).  It will be fun to recreate these pictures in a few years to see how much the trees and kids have grown.

Party Time

So for a few months now, Marshall has been telling me he wanted to have a "Boy Party."  So I started thinking of all kinds of things boys do and threw it into a party.  Haha.  It was super low key, but I thought it was fun.  I stressed a little over how many kids to invite since we were doing a combined party for the boys and our playgroup friends were an obvious choice, but then Marshall had kids from Preschool he wanted to invite but I didn't know how to go about that without inviting everyone, so we ended up with a larger scale party than I really wanted, but it was still totally fun.

This is their invitation.  

It was a front and back card, but I've put it side to side here so it is all visible.

Here's some pictures of the guests and all the fun they were having.

Despite his cast, Tyler was able to have fun with everything there was to do.

We made bugs.

The favors were shovels and had a bunch of Marshall & Tyler's favorite candy 

as well as glow in the dark bugs that Marshall found at Target.

The boys got spoiled.  Here's a few of them opening gifts (and all their friends that were watching).

Time for cake!

I let the boys choose their own candles.  

Marshall was really excited about some star ones and Tyler chose Lightning McQueen candles.

Here's a shot of all the kids.  

I'm not sure why Tyler was sad... he actually had a lot more sad moments than I anticipated.  

It was his party though... you know how it goes.