. . . well, to one side at least. Zander turned six months old on the 7th of this month. I can't believe how quickly time flies. He only weighs 11 pounds and 11 ounces right now. He is in the .03 percentile for his weight. Basically, out of 10,000 babies his age, there are two smaller than him. This is a little concerning, but he is doing great. He is almost sitting alone, loves to suck on his feet, and rolls all around. I can't get enough of his smiles and laughter even though he shares them with us constantly. He is such a joy to have around.Hopefully, he will pick up some weight (these pictures are the chubbiest looking ones I have) and then we will work on sleeping through the night :)

About a week and a half ago, we had a niece get baptized. One of Steve's sister and her family were able to fly down and it was so great to see them. That night, we all went up to Temple Square to see the lights. There was no parking close, so we ended up parking at the library and then we rode trax.Brinton and his cousins loved riding the "train" and seeing the lights. Brinton was mesmerized by the Christus statue. When we walked up the hallway to see the statue, Brinton pointed right at the statue and said, "Jesuh Chrise." He loved it. If you haven't noticed this before, we found that if you walk behind the statue, you will see the reflection move across the curved windows. It's pretty cool. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and SO beautiful.

At the beginning of this week, I decided that I wanted to get my neighbor gifts out of the way. I ended up having a lot of fun with them. I made a little card that said, "May Your Christmas be Merry and 'Sprite'." Then I attached it to a 2-liter bottle of Sprite, of course. It wasn't enough to have the card, so I made little reindeer out of them. It was definitely nothing fancy, but it was so funny to me when they were all grouped together for the different stages.If you are reading this, chances are you probably received one of these gifts. If you are interested in doing this for a gift yourself, there are a few things you should know. First, if you fill your ENTIRE cart up with Sprite bottles at the grocery store, people cannot resist asking you what you are doing or making a comment about how you must really love Sprite. Second, it is required to get an additional, empty cart at the checkout so there are not a million bags piling up at the end of the lane. And third, no matter how you pack these in your car, they will roll at some point. Hopefully they didn't get too shook up :) It was a fun, easy gift to do and I am so glad to have it out of the way. Oh, and I am done shopping and also have my Christmas cards out in the mail already, too. I am so on top of it this year! It's so nice that now I can just enjoy the holiday and not stress about anything. Hopefully, you are all feeling the same way . . . it's wonderful.

Every once in a while, someone will ask me if Brinton is potty training.

He is definately not :) We have a little potty and he loves to play with it. He has asked me to make him popcorn in the white bowl (which I did not do even though he hasn't used it . . . gross), and he loves especially to play with the soft blue ring that he would sit on. It has many uses. It can be a hat, a bracelet, and even a walking prohibitor. At least he's creative!

Last Saturday, Steve went with some of the guys in my family to chop down our Christmas tree. We have had a tradition for several years to get a permit sometime in October and then go together to get our trees. Lately, the men have been doing all the work because of the kids, but they are getting older and some go along. It's pretty funny going up the snowy mountain, shaking off trees to find a good one, and then attempting to drag it back to your car without falling down the mountain. We have also learned that you need to get a smaller tree than you would guess. They are much bigger in your house than they look on the mountain. One year, my parents got a tree that was so heavy, it was hard for six men and me to carry it. We also learned, that you should trek uphill to find the tree and then drag it downhill. Common sense, right? Well, that year, we took the tree up hills and even over some water. At some point, someone typically slides down the mountain (not always on purpose), so you have to be careful. It is a lot of fun and I love having a nice live tree for the holidays.Once we got the tree home, it was too tall, so Steve cut off an extra foot or two and we decorated it that night. It was a perfect jump-start into the Christmas season since Thanksgiving was so late in the month.

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone. It is crazy how time flies. We had a wonderful holiday at my parent's house with most of my family. This year, we had all the adults sit at one table and the kids sit at another. It was really nice to sit and talk with everyone after the kids went out to play. We all know they eat in like five minutes when there are so many friends to play with :) We have a lot to be grateful for and try to remember our blessings everyday. Even with our best attempts, it is so easy to forget. We stayed late at my parent's house on Thanksgiving and watched a movie in their theatre. We used to do that often, but haven't for a while with how busy life is, so it was a fun. We would just put Brinton to bed and watch the show which would usually work nicely for us. This time, it was just the same. He slept the whole time. When it was time to go, I went into the bedroom to get Brinton and he woke up right away. He is easy to wake up and is typically good-natured about it. I forgot how sweet he can be during the midnight hours. He just woke up and gave me a hug. He was saying, "bye bye and lubbee" to Grandpa and Nana like he would have any other time. On the way home, he was excited to see lights on houses and do the "wee" (going down a big hill).We let him have a little midnight snack at home before putting him back to bed. He has some good bed-head and a cracker in his mouth, ha ha. It's crazy to me that I forgot how this was typical with him. I don't know many kids that aren't grumpy when you wake them and I am thankful for that. I am so very thankful for my family. We are truly blessed.

So, I was getting sick of my blog design. Here's a Christmas one. If you can't see it all, sorry. I just made it fit to the size of my computer screen and then that was enough for me :)

Last week, I started feeding Zander solids. He is still so little and hopefully they will make him grow a little faster. Also, I was really hoping that he would stop waking up every two to three hours at night. So far, no such luck. Good thing he is so cute.It was pretty funny feeding him because he made some good faces. Sometimes it was okay and other times, he thought I was feeding him liver or something!

Zander has learned to roll over recently, and now I can't stop him from doing it all day long.

I took these pictures just yesterday and I was so glad that I did because today, he is an expert. I wouldn't have been able to get all the steps like in these pictures. It is just one movement now. I love how happy he is! Once he was almost all the way over, I got in front of him and he was so excited that he couldn't stop smiling and totally forgot about the toy he was trying to get in the first place.

Every year, my family does a service project. We rotate who is in charge, so it is always something different. This year, we made flannel boards that will be sent to churches in Kenya. They don't have chalk boards or anything like that so they will really love having some visual aids to go along with different scripture stories in their primaries. On Monday, for Family Night, we started working on the boards and got over 50 ready! I love that we do something every year and I am excited for my boys to be older and learn more about giving.While we were at my brother's house, his wife took a picture of all the grandkids that were there. That would be 16 out of 19. Some of them got cut off, but I just wanted to include it in my collage. I can't believe so many kids were even still for long enough to get anything!

So, I sort of forgot to post some pictures about our tiling experience. Steve and I got a great deal on some tile and were able to borrow most of the tools needed. I have connections! Thanks to my Dad, Scott, Nate, Sam and Brandie for your help. First, we took all the tile home in our Sequoia. It was ridiculously heavy (over 2,000 lbs) so it really weighed down the vehicle. Here are some not so pretty pictures of me in comparison to the car before and after the tile was taken out:In case you can't tell, the bottom of the car was at my knee with the tile in it and then it was raised to the bottom of my hand. We drove home carefully. Once we started tiling, we used this paint-on waterproofing and anti-fracture membrane with elasticity in it. Basically, it waterproofs and helps to prevent cracking. It is very smelly and I had to take a few breaks so I didn't pass out. It paints on pink and dries red, which was weird. We started out not using enough, so I had to do the kitchen again. We all helped, here's the proof!Okay, so Zander just slept there and Brinton was mostly parked in front of the TV, but that was helpful to me and Steve. Tiling isn't very hard to do, but it does take some time. We were up until 4:00 in the morning almost every night for a week straight. We just didn't have enough time to do everything that we wanted to during Steve's, Fall Break from school. At the end, our house had collected quite a bit of dust. I shouldn't have mixed the grout inside the house!No, the comb is not really there. That is just a dust outline. This was our table after I started taking the vases and other things off. I was shocked at how much dust we collected. We kept forgetting to get a before and after shot, so we really don't have anything of our old linoleum. We did a backsplash in our kitchen, and do have a before and after of that though.We ended up doing a pattern that I fell in love with for our entry way and kitchen.

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Then, we did the laundry room with just the big tiles and the bathrooms with just the little tiles.I really liked the brick layout for the laundry and bathrooms and then we did the bathrooms on an angle, too. I don't think I make anything easy! We had some left over backsplash tile that we used as baseboards in the bathrooms, which turned out even better than expected.I love how it all turned out and I am so glad to be done.

This Halloween, we started our evening out at Steve's Dad's house. The Halloween carnival mentioned earlier required dressing up and then I undressed the boys from their costumes after. Needless to say, we weren't quite ready again when we got to Grandpa Bodell's. No worries though, we just did it there. Here is my favorite picture of Zander that I got.He is so adorable. Anyway, we had some chili and donuts there and then went back home to trick or treat. I took Briton to some select houses and he totally loved it. He would wait at the door and as soon as someone would answer, he would just laugh because he was so excited. Then, he would softly say, "trick a trick" and get his candy. We would say thanks, leave, and immediately he would ask me to "trick a trick, again." It was adorable. We trick or treated to Steve at home twice and Brinton thought that was great. After we trick or treated around our neighborhood, we ended the night at my parents. Brinton wasn't sure why we were going to the front door, but when he realized we were trick or treating some more, he was cool with it. Most of his cousins were there and he had tons of fun playing. It was a busy day and I am so glad that it is over, but I wouldn't have traded it because there were some great memories.

On Halloween, Brinton's cousin, Kate (and her mom), invited us to their school's Halloween carnival. I was so glad they did because Brinton had a lot of fun. There were so many different games that were perfect for his age and he got a lot of prizes and treats, too.He loved the blow up slide the most. The picture in my collage is his first time (click on the collage to see it bigger). He looks like he isn't so sure about it, but he jumped right up after and went again, and again, and again, and again. . .Brinton was a knight and Kate was a princess. How cute! They are only three weeks apart. If they were twins, their outfits would have been perfect together. Thanks for the fun, Jamie!

Thanks Amie! This is the most random tag ever. You're supposed to find the 4th picture in the 4th folder and then tag 4 people.The forth folder for me was April of 2007. Here's Brinton at about 7 - 8 months old for his first Easter celebration. We are at my parents' house for an Easter Egg Hunt. He got to pick a prize after getting some eggs. I am sure he appreciated the bunny ears I chose for him. So, now I will tag Marcie, Jamie Boc., Kaija and Kim. At least it's easy to do :)

Because we were tiling our house, I didn't really get into my Halloween decorations. I was quite content with that until last night (the night before Halloween). Steve made me a light bulb connector for my big pumpkin because candles just don't do the job, and then I just felt like I needed something more. I didn't use even half of my stuff, but I did decorate my door a little and I had Steve hang a strobe light up above my door. My neighbors are probably going to be annoyed with that. Anyway, I usually do a huge spider web around and above the door, but it wasn't worth the time this year, being the night before Halloween. I must have a problem. I am not sure why I couldn't follow through with leaving it alone, but I was just compelled.

For Family Night last week, we let Brinton make a haunted castle. It was a pre-made kit that is just like a gingerbread house kit, but with a chocolate house cookie with Halloween decorating stuff. Earlier that afternoon, we were leaving his favorite friend and cousin,Jackson's,house. He didn't want to leave (when does he), so I told him we were going to have some "fun" when we got home. We broke out the kit and taught him how it was all edible and he loved it SO much. Of course he didn't want to stop eating it and got pretty messy. His face and hands got a little gross, so I had him scare me - that's the beautiful picture with black on his face and hands. He did a pretty good job. I took care of the frosting (not so wonderfully), but he put the candies all over and chose where he wanted the ghosts on the front.There have been quite a few times since then that he has asked if we will have "fun" when we get home. Apparently nothing else we do at home is fun and the new reference for the word fun is to make something you can get a sugar high on.

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Then, for Family Night this week, we carved pumpkins with my side of the family. My parents have a tradition to have all their kids and grandkids come over on the last Monday before Halloween to carve pumpkins. First we have a soup dinner. Whoever made the soups this time is pretty much awesome! (It was me, haha.) After we all eat, everyone picks their pumpkin. My Dad loves to garden, and grows more than enough pumpkins for all of us and our kids.I, of course, always claim one of the biggest ones. I am pretty sure no one minds, because they are a little tough to carve sometimes. It takes some leverage and a sheetrock saw in this case. This Family Night is something I look forward to every year, even though I end up carving all the pumpkins. Steve usually guts them all out for me because he doesn't like to carve for some odd reason. Give me a knife and I can get to work! I did one for me, Brinton, and Zander. In all honesty, I probably would have carved one on Steve's behalf, but there wasn't enough time.This year, Steve got Brinton to help gut his pumpkin. I had to take quite a few pictures because, as you can tell, he was REALLY disgusted. I was laughing so hard. If Zander could talk, I bet he would appreciate the "Z" I carved on the top of his pumpkin. Brinton wanted a cat, so that is what his pumpkin ended up being. It was fun for him to chose and be excited about it on the doorstep.

This weekend, we had some good Halloween Fun! On Friday, we had the Ward Halloween Party (for some reason, I want to call it the Christmas Party - I guess I am just excited for Christmas). Anyway, we all dressed up and got there late, oops. We didn't really have a theme, which I usually try to. This year, it's kind of random.Steve is a pharaoh, I am a geisha, Brinton is a knight, and Zander is a bat. I was surprised at how many people were at the party. The cultural center was jam-packed. They had a chili cook-off with over 20 different kinds of chili to vote for. I never knew there could be so many different kinds of chili.

Brinton had fun with his friend, Thayne, and then after the dinner, they had a little "cat walk" for the kids to show off their costumes. Isn't Brinton cute?

After that was all over, we met in the parking lot for the trunk-or-treat. It was adorable to hear Brinton go around saying, "trick a trick." Pretty good for just working on it that night :) He of course liked eating the candy even more than walking around, so he parked in the back of the car for the last part of the night and went through his goodies.

On Saturday, Steve and I went on a date with some of his friends from way back when. I had a babysitter for BOTH of my kids (for the first time, so that was fun.) I brought my camera but felt a little silly to want to take pictures, so we just didn't. We went to Teppanyaki Japanese Steakhouse for delicious eats and some entertainment. It is one of my favorite restaurants and we had an awesome chef this time. After that, we drove up to Salt Lake to go the the Castle of Chaos (haunted house). By the way, it was LAME! I have never been easily scared, so I wasn't expecting much. It was even worse than I thought it would be. Oh well, that's what happens sometimes. It was really nice to just get out with Steve and do something though. And, we tried to be in the spirit of Halloween.

This past week, Steve and I have been tiling our floors like crazy people (more on that later). Anyway, we were going to do our laundry room and we found a little surprise when we pulled out our washer and dryer. Mold! So the sewer line was apparently not tight enough and some water leaked a while back. I know, that's gross. My brother informed me that it is really about 90% dishwater and shower water, and only 10% toilet water. That 10% is enough for me to think it's disgusting. Well, Steve cut out a section of our wall where the mold was and we bleached it off the concrete (it got under the linoleum). In an attempt to move forward with our tiling, we needed to have that repaired. Steve got some supplies from my Dad who seems to always have everything we need (ThAnKS) . . . including sheetrock. Steve patched it all up and we were on our way. As we were looking at the tile in the bathroom, we hear Brinton really excited about something. Steve sees him just a little bit messy. By a little bit, I mean a lot.

He had played in the drywall mud that was on the wall. He pulled off the tape where you make a seam from the old sheetrock and the new sheet rock joint and went to town in there. Normally, there wouldn't be so much mud, because you can usually just put it over the tape. However, the sheetrock we were using was thinner than the sheetrock originally there, so Steve had to cover all of it with mud to fill it to the same thickness. (Maybe we should have just gone to Home Depot to get the right stuff?) The first thing Steve tells me is to get the camera, so I did. Our curious little artist was using a new medium (drywall mud) and new tools (feet and hands) to make his masterpiece. Good thing we love him and I must say I am surprised that neither Steve or I even got a tiny bit mad about it, even though we were cleaning footprints off our newly laid tile and screws that were scattered all over the room. Just a minor setback to our tile, I guess.

On Friday of last week, we went with my sister-in-law to get our family pictures taken. It was so so so so so so so (do you get it?) cold. Anyway, I was really worried that none of them would turn out because we were just rushing to get it over with and I had Zander wrapped in a blanket pretty much the whole time. Well, I'm happy to say, that they turned out great. You can see them through her blog. I had a girl in my ward make my boys some hats to match the outfits and they turned out really cute. I was so glad I had them because I think their heads may have frozen right off. I am sure I will have some of them on my blog in the near future, but in the meantime . . .

Every conference weekend, during the priesthood session we have a fun tradition. All the girls in my family go to my parents house while the boys go to the session with my dad. We try to do something productive, usually. This time, I started painting halloween decorations that I bought like two years ago. Anyway, after the guys get back, we all have banana splits and just visit. It is so fun and I always look forward to it. Thanks, Mom, for always letting us come trash your house (and then clean it up as good as we can before we leave). What traditions do you have that you look forward to?

Okay, this really isn't about how we love bedtime. I do though. I wish I could sleep all day sometimes and Brinton is usually really good about it (he even asks to go to bed a lot). Brinton's little imagination is growing and it is so cute. He has liked to put his stuffed bear to bed lately, which is adorable to me. He lays the bear on his pillow and puts his blanket on top. Then he says, "Nye night, bear," and leaves the room closing the door behind him. Well, just the other day, he was putting his "guy" to bed. He has some little people that came with his Geo Tracks train set that he got for his birthday. The people are about two inches tall and he calls them his "guys." It was so hilarious to see him putting this tiny little thing under a blanket on his pillow and then telling him he loves him and good night. I had to take a couple pictures :)

There's not really a lot to post about here. I just love my boys and think Zander is adorable in this picture :) By the way, his hair seems to be changing more and more from brown to a bit reddish. You can kind of tell if you look closely.

Okay, I have just started a survey for the first time. I thought I would try it out. It is right there in the left column. Just vote one time per person and we will see what the consensus is!

Just this morning, I found Brinton sticking his hand in the back of our speaker. There is a hole in the back that I can barely fit my hand through. He, of course, has no troubles. I told him not to put things in there and he started to take out what he had shoved in there recently. (Be aware that I have taken many things out from time to time and it had only been about two weeks since I had last cleared it all out.) He pulled out a wrapper, a small toy, a burp cloth, a bulb syringe, a fish bean bag, and fifteen balls! I was amazed as he continued to pull more and more out. It was quite the pile at the end.This got me thinking about all the things that he puts in random places just because he can fit them. Some of the best are a penny in the shredder, his blanket and binky inside a small compartment in his step stool and a dust pan and small broom behind our bed (we bought another set before we found it and still haven't got the old one because there is too much food storage under our bed). His binky has had its own number of random homes: The inside of Brint's pillowcase, under a number of dressers, through the hole in a toothbrush holder, in the movie drawer (placed right between two DVDs), and inside shoes. Seriously, anywhere he can fit something, it must belong. He makes me laugh all the time when I find where he put something because it is usually so random.

Brinton has loved watching shows (movies) for quite a while now and he likes them too much. Does anyone else have kids that just seem to need the TV on in the background? He wants to watch a show for a few minutes and then leaves to go play, so I turn off the TV. He then notices within a minute and is begging for me to put something else on. It's so bad that he knows the songs that play during the credits of his favorite shows so if he hears those songs from the other room, he is asking for a new show!!! I have been trying to have him be occupied with other things, and it is getting better. Hopefully someday, he might go a full day without asking to watch a movie. If only I had a back yard :)

My brother, Nate, was commenting on all of our family's blogs and how the moms only post the good stuff they do so they look like "super moms." He requested that we start posting about letting our children play in the road and other things. Well, I don't let my kids play in the road, but I am not a "super mom."

So this is random, but I had to share. I got some bubbles from Gymboree the other day as an impulse buy and tried them out that night. They are the best bubbles I have ever used. Some of you may be wondering if one brand of bubbles is really different than another. Well, I will vouch that they are. These bubbles were so much more fun. They floated in the air longer and (the really cool part) they don't pop as easy. Not to mention that the wand you use produces a lot more at one time (oh wait, I just did mention it). I had to take some pictures because it was so funny to me to have un-popped bubbles sticking to my hand, Brinton's head, and Zander's tummy. The fact that the packaging matches Brinton's room colors was just an added bonus. Don't worry, you can enjoy them even if they don't match your decor :)

During the summers, Steve works at the Riverside Country Club pool. Yes, he is a pool boy. No, he can't be convinced to work in his speedo (we've all tried, ha ha). Anyway, on Labor Day is their last day and they have a carnival and some swimming games to end the season.Zander did what he always does, laid there and looked around. Brinton loved the duck game the most because it had water he could splash around (surprise, surprise).

Brinton enjoyed cotton candy for the first time.

Last week, Brinton was able to go to the Farm at Thanksgiving Point for the first time. We saw a lot of animals and even fed them some corn. I wasn't sure how Brinton would like a calf to lick his hand, but he seemed just fine with it. He had a lot of fun running around with his friend, Thayne. He loved to look at the ducks and point to the water in their pond. When we got to the horses, Brinton wouldn't pet them and got a little scared because they were so big. Because of that, I wasn't sure if he would like the pony ride. Of course he loved it! When they stopped, he said "ah done," with a smile. I took him off the pony and he said, "a more horsh." Well, they only let the kids have one ride, so we had a little fit and then were on our way. Who says that our fun has to end just because older kids start school?

I was tagged from a friend. Does a picture really paint a thousand words? Here's how it works: For each question, look up the answer on Google image search. Then choose your favorite image from the FIRST PAGE OF RESULTS ONLY. I've tagged Four people below...and I'll be watching for your posts!

I can hardly believe that Brinton is already two! His birthday was just yesterday, the 22nd. It's so crazy how quickly time flies.

I remember his first birthday like it was just yesterday and he basically shoved his whole face into his cake. Now, he won't even eat cake or almost any bread-type food. He is definitely getting a little more defiant, which can only be expected. Even still, he is a lot of fun. I have been training him for a couple weeks to say "two" when we ask how old he is. He even tries to do the hand gestures sometimes (like in the picture to above . . . yes, that means two).

For his birthday, I had him invite two of his friends, Thayne and Jackson, over to play. I wasn't originally going to do anything like a party because well, he's just two. However, he really loves to have friends come over, so I figured it would be fun for him. Turns out that he and his friends had such a blast. Steve and I got Brinton a little blow-up bounce house that we had him open right as his friends arrived. They had a lot of fun jumping, climbing through holes, and throwing balls around.

After they played for about a half hour, they did some finger painting. Thanks, Steve for the awesome shirts to keep their clothes clean. We cleaned the boys up and they (and by they I mean Brinton) ate some cookies and ice cream and played some more. At the end of his one-hour party, Brinton opened the presents from his two friends. He loved both of them and has been playing with them today as well. He had such a fun time, he was sad when everyone left. I guess we will just have to have them over again for some non-birthday fun! I know it's not really about Zander, but he was sleeping the whole time Brint's friends were over. Just after the party, I was able to get a picture with both my boys in party hats :) Steve and I decided to have the grandparents come over that evening for cake and ice cream so Brinton could just play at his little party and then spend time with them later.

Grandpa and Nana Bishop and Grandpa Bodell were able to make it over and it was really nice for Brinton. He opened some more fabulous presents and played for a bit. Then, we had brownies, cupcakes, and ice cream. I already mentioned that he won't eat cake, but sometimes he will eat brownies, so I gave that a whirl. No such luck. He didn't care for the dessert, but he did a great job blowing out the candles. He actually blew them out on his own and clapped after. He got to bed late because he was so excited about everything. All in all, I think it was a huge success.