alligator starts with the letter 'a'

today, i worked in grace's preschool class. we had tons of fun learning about the letter 'a', apples, alligators, and much more. when we came home from school and we were getting lunch ready, gracie says, 'alligator starts with the letter 'a'!' then, she made the letter 'a' in sign language. i really think she loves learning at school! while i was working, i was able to snap a picture of her and ms. barbara. grace loves ms. barbara and thinks she looks like nana. i think it is because of the dark skin and hair. also, ms. barbara's personality is very much like nana's personality. they are both very fun and love to sing silly songs! :) i am glad that grace was able to associate ms. barbara with someone she loves so much because it helped them become fast friends, and she wasn't too afraid to go to school by herself. well, here is the picture!


yesterday, we got raegan's halloween costume. we have decided that we will all be characters from the wizard of oz. grace will be dorothy (nana is making her costume), raegan will be the cowardly lion, i will be the wicked witch, and bryan, the scarecrow. well, i tried the costume on raegs (it looks super cute) and then, grace wanted to wear it. i think she is getting really excited about dressing up! she keeps asking if she can wear the red sparkly shoes!


also, yesterday was grace's second soccer class. again, they worked on dribbling and then also learned about passing. she is pretty good, but i think she got a little tired towards the end of class. it was pretty hot! you can see her red cheeks in the picture (she gets that from me...) next week, they will be working on goalkeeping!



our good friends, dan and cathy fong, went to china in august for a trip and brought back grace and raegan some little china dresses. grace wore hers on sunday (raegs was sick and didn't go, but we will get a picture with hers soon). everyone thought she looked so pretty in her red dress.

schrute bucks

ok, recently, rachel and i have been exchanging schrute bucks on facebook... i love the office, so i wanted to show this video on the blog to share my love of dwight and stanley....

"she is a beautiful baby, and i want you to have a baby just like her"

so that is what this little boy in grace's class told his mom about grace. it was so funny, grant's mom was talking to me and alison and she told us this story. she said grant came home from preschool and was talking about this beautiful baby and that baby was so pretty and he wanted his mom to have a baby just like her. well, grant's mom thought he was talking about alison's new baby, kenzie. then today, grant's mom volunteered in the class and grace was laying on the floor doing a puzzle and grant came up to grace and started to pat her on the head and rub her hair and then he told his mom that grace was the beautiful baby that he wanted his mom to have. it was so funny because grant is a pretty small boy, not that much bigger than grace, but he thinks she is a baby. at the playground, grant's mom asked if he wanted to take a picture with grace, but he said, 'no, she is just the baby.' so apparently, they aren't friends, grace is just the baby. well, needless to say, we were cracking up.

the trash can - contains trash, grace's toys, and who knows what else

ok, i have got to tell the happenings around here. raegan seriously has a problem with throwing things away. she throws everything in the trash. grace got some polly pockets for her birthday and one day she asked, 'where are the cat and monkey for my polly pockets?' we searched high and low.... then we thought to look in the trash. well, there they were... along with 4 other toys grace got for her birthday. yesterday, i found 5 toys in the trash. today, 2 already... its only 10:45. we didn't realize what a problem this is until a few days ago. about a month ago, i lost my sunglasses... i'm sure the trash ate them... courtesy of raegs... ok, so one month of toys/stuff/sunglasses in the trash with an average of 3 items/day = about 100 things missing... and who knows what they are. well, i guess it's ok if we don't miss them... but man oh man, i miss my sunglasses. i think we will have to check the trash several times a day until she gets over this... its like, sometimes she is just playing with a toy, then all of the sudden she runs away, and the toy has disappeared to the trash. crazy child.

also, gracie had her first soccer class yesterday. she loved it! jaxson and her friend lily, from the nursery, are also in the class. her coach's name is fabian and he is from brazil. he worked really well with all the kids and i think she will love it! i practiced with her yesterday afternoon and she was remembering all of the things he taught them. i think she will be a great soccer player! oh, i will take pictures of her at soccer next week... of course, i forgot my camera!

oh yeah, i totally forgot. yesterday after soccer practice, we went with alison and jax to the park to play and eat lunch. so, grace finds a dandelion... you know the ones you blow in the wind. she picks it and brings it over to me and says, 'look mom, it's all hairy!' oh, man, alison and i just died laughing. it was so funny. then she blew it in the wind!

happy birthday grace!

on friday night we had grace's birthday party at the park. we barbecued hot dogs and hamburgers and had tons of fun. all of grace's friends and cousins were there and they played all night! i made her a tinkerbell cake for her party and she loved it!




on saturday, i found raegan in the kitchen again on the table eating another pear. this time we took some pictures! what a cutie!



saturday, was also the byu game against tulsa. unfortunately, they lost, however we did get some good pictures of the kids in the byu shirts! go cougs!




sunday was grace's real birthday and she woke up and we ate a yummy french toast breakfast! i can't believe that she is 3! she is getting to be such a big girl! for her birthday, we bought her some dress up clothes. they are her favorite thing to play with at all of her friend's houses, so, i thought she should have some. she gets so excited when she gets dressed up. she puts on an outfit, all the jewelery, the shoes, and the head band! she goes all out. it is pretty funny!

crazy raegs

ok, so, seriously funny story happened last night. i was at my book club, and bryan calls to tell me what has just happened at home. he is playing with grace in one of the back rooms and he periodically hears raegan crying, then she is quiet, then she makes a little more noise, then quiet... so eventually, he goes to see what is going on. bryan finds raegan sitting on the kitchen table (i'm kicking myself for not telling him to get a picture), eating a pear. she has completely devoured the first half and was starting to move on to the second half. the funny thing is... how did she get on the table? i fear we have a climber on our hands... she is such a sneaky girl!

grace's preschool adventures

this tuesday began grace's first week of preschool. she goes to school every tuesday and thursday. we signed her up with her good friend, jaxson, and they have tons of fun together. on tuesday, we arrived about 15 minutes early to help her get acquainted with her teacher, ms. barbara, and for her to get used to being here. she was a little nervous at first, but we figured that she would do fine. i had been telling her all week about her new preschool class and how mommy wouldn't be able to stay with her, it would just be her, ms. barbara, jaxson, and the rest of the kids. so, i think she was prepared. i left and when i returned at noon, she was full of excitement and couldn't wait to tell me about her day and all the things they did. the first thing she said was, 'ms. barbara looks like nana.' ms. barbara has dark skin like nana and a similar hairstyle, and i think that made her feel more comfortable, having a somewhat familiar face to look at. they read the book, 'the kissing hand', which she loved and talked about for 2 days. of course, i forgot my camera, so alison took some pictures and i will post them soon.


today, was her second day of class and she loved it as much as the first. i remembered to take some pictures of grace and raegan before we left for school. i think next week i will take some with ms. barbara. today, i stayed for about 15 minutes and watched her, and she is very quiet, but listens to ms. barbara very well. after class, we went with jaxson and alison to the playground at the preschool and had lunch and let the kids play. there was a big grasshopper on the slide. grace was so interested in it and wanted to hold it really bad. alison got it climb onto a branch, and then grace held it in her hand. she loved it, until it jumped to her leg and then she screamed. she is so silly around bugs. sometimes she loves them, sometimes she hates them.




well, i have been recently reading sense and sensibility for the first time. i usually spend most of my jane austen time with pride and prejudice, but i decided to branch out. i have never seen the movie, so i have no idea what to expect, but that willoughby is a terrible person. i just can't believe how awful he is. it makes me very sad for marianne. anyway, just wanted to vent my anger about him! hmmmm!

my love of twilight

i suppose it is time to share with the world my love of all things stephenie meyer and twilight. i have just added to the blog a countdown to her 4th book in the vampire love story, breaking dawn, and figured i needed to blog about it. after reading each book so many times i can't count them, they deserve a spot on the chaos blog.

book 1 (my favorite) - twilight... we love edward and bella...


book 2 - new moon... boo edward for leaving and forcing her to find jacob...


book 3 - eclipse... bella makes me crazy... but in the end... how could she choose anything else?


ok, seriously, i think i may have given you a glimpse into the obsession that has consumed my life for the past month. now all we have to do is wait for breaking dawn...

d.c., camping, and go cougs!

well, we have severely been slacking in the department of blogging. we have had a very packed couple of weeks. it started off with a trip out to maryland to visit my sister, rachel, and her family. we were so excited to get to see her new addition to the family, baby ty. he is such a cutie, i can't even stand it! our visit out there was packed with fun. the first few days, we just relaxed and hung out. then on thursday we began our sightseeing adventures.


thursday, we headed up to philadelphia for some good eats and a history lesson. we started off by stopping at a famous philadelphia cheese steak place. yum. they were delicious. the first one we ate was with provolone cheese, the second we had was philly style, with cheez whiz. they were both so good, we couldn't decide which one we liked better. our next stop was the liberty bell and independence hall. it was great to learn all of the history behind the cracking of the bell and also the important events that took place in independence hall.


our final destination in philadelphia was the rocky steps. we walked up the steps, put our arms in the air, sang the theme song, then walked back down. it was a lot of fun. friday, we set out for d.c. we started at the world war ii memorial and really enjoyed it. we walked up to the lincoln memorial next, however, we were not able to go inside. some idiot chained himself to abraham lincoln and so it was blocked off by the police! we headed back to the museums afterwards and visited the bureau of printing and engraving. we saw how they make money and even measured our worth in dollars!


saturday, we checked out a famous crab cake place in annapolis on the water. it was delicious. bryan and danny had all you can eat crab cakes (they had to take a lesson from the waiter on how to crack them!) and i had crab cakes, while rachel ate salmon. grace and aurora had tons of fun playing on the dock below the restaurant. it was pretty hard to get to the restaurant, and they say it is easier to find by boat! crazy! grace ate the meat from one crab claw and on sunday broke out in a major rash. i guess she has a shellfish allergy. yikes!


we headed back home on monday night and relaxed for about 2.5 seconds, then started packing up for our camping trip with the thompsons. we camped from 2 nights at san mateo campground in san clemente. we had tons of fun. the kids were filthy dirty, but they had a lot of fun too! on thursday, we headed down to the beach for a day of fun in the sun. the dutch oven cooking was so yummy, and the weather was perfect.


for labor day weekend, we dropped the kids off at grandma's and headed up to provo to see aaron and catch the byu opening game. aaron is doing well... completely adjusted to life on his own, and the game was great.... but super hot! byu won, and all was well. by the way, aren't we great at taking pictures of ourselves!


this past saturday, we headed up to the rose bowl with mike and amber to see byu play ucla. that was a fun game. byu probably had about 15,000 fans there! we had awesome seats. 3rd row! the picture of cosmo shows our view of the field! we were level with the field. i have never seen a game so close and it was awesome. byu played well, but a couple of turnovers cost them the game. still, we had tons of fun! i have included a video of our view of the first touchdown byu made!





hopefully, our next post will be much sooner. gracie starts preschool tomorrow, so i will have to post some pictures of her first day and maybe she will have some funny stories to tell!

summer fun

well, things have been happening so fast around here that it is hard to remember what we've done. to start, i have some pretty funny pictures of jaxson's birthday party. he turned 3 recently and his party was at a place called scooters jungle. it is awesome. mostly bounce houses, a huge inflatable slide, tons of fun for kids and adults. (too bad my toe was in such bad shape... i couldn't do anything fun!) well, here are some pictures to enjoy and some videos.



here are bry, grace, and raegs in the ball room. they had a ton of fun throwing those little bouncy balls all over the place and at each other. raegan looks so funny with her little goggles on!






in the picture of gracie going down the slide, she is turning sideways. she was so small that she couldn't keep herself straight! she had a blast, as did raegan.

well, this next picture is what we found in the kitchen right before we left to go to the party!


silly raegs! i guess she was still hungry

well, we have been trying to lay low with my toe and stuff, so we haven't been doing too much stuff, but last saturday, pam, dan, hannah, sarah, and their friend haley came down from las vegas to go to the beach. we got there early, got a fire pit, and prepared for a fun beach day. hannah and sarah loved boogie boarding! brooke and tami met us for a few hours and we had fun with all the kids. in these pictures, gracie is like dancing around. it was so funny. pam was taking lots of pictures! we, of course forgot to take any with our camera!





we are heading to go to the beach again tomorrow, so hopefully we will take some pictures and put them up... brooke and tami, as well as mike and amber will be going, so it should be a blast!

then, on monday we will be going to maryland to see rachel and danny for a week! we are so excited and can't wait to see them. we will have lots to share when we return!

oh, ok, i have the funniest story to share. so, last night we were getting ready to go out to eat. bry had put raegan in her carseat and i was putting grace in hers... well, all of the sudden there is this massively loud buzzing around my head... i freaked out when i saw this huge (and i mean huge, like the size of a fun size candy bar huge.... ok, maybe a little smaller, but not much) bug... like the iridescent beetles (bryan calls them june bugs). well, i threw myself in the car and scooted along the floor to the other door of the van and bryan pulled me out... and the bug was gone. so, we're driving to the california fish grill and all of the sudden we hear the massively loud buzzing again! the bug is in the car and then there is the blood curdling scream from grace. i swear we have never heard her scream so loud. then raegan starts flipping out. of course, i was freaked too, so we rolled down the windows, but unfortunately, we were at a stop light... so everyone around us with their windows down could hear us screaming and see us trying to find the bug. i'm sure the sight was hilarious. eventually, the bug flew out and we were safe, but grace was pretty shaken, she was so jumpy. and poor raegs didn't even know what was going on, she just new that gracie was scared stiff!