Long, lost and in Kentucky

I know most have probably stopped following our blog as I have stopped posting, but now that we have moved, are somewhat settled and I am currently not working-I am making a goal to be a little more diligent in my blogging so as to keep connected to all of our friends and family that are no longer living near. Quick catch up (pictures to follow on another day as I just went through photos on 4 different memory cards and these were really the only ones I could find . . . now I just have to find more of our memory cards which could be interesting).

Dave graduated from Dental School and passed boards so now I get to mock him and call him Dr. Butler anytime I feel he is being ostentatious Well, if you know us, you know I may have already used that title a few times as we love a little friendly banter. But all joking aside, I am really proud of all that he's accomplished. Moving on from dental school is bitter-sweet as I can already look back and recall the fond memories more than the long hours and hard work it took as a family to get through the last four years. We were happy to leave the rain, sad to leave the scenery, friends and family. Change is hard but good and so far we really are loving our new surroundings.

We had a nice long and pleasantly less painful than anticipated drive across the country in the odyssey. Dave's parents took Dallas back to Salt Lake after Dave's graduation so we didn't have him for the first leg of the trip which worked out wonderfully. We spent four days with Dave's family in Utah and then drove to Colorado where we stayed with one of my roomates from college for a night. They were so nice to open up there home to us and feed us dinner and how did we thank them? Dallas took a leak on their deck in plain view of all the neighbors and Lexi decided to projectile vomit with 3 of 4 large heaves all over their living room carpet. Needless to say we were horribly embarassed and won't be returning with the kids anytime in soon. So sorry Tracie and Troy . .we figure the best thank you is going to be to not come again =). We got up early the next morning and took off and drove for 15 1/2 hours before crashing at a hotel. That left us with just 3 or 4 hours on the road the next day to Louisville. Unfortunately, they still had to unload some other things off the trailer so we didn't get our stuff until the following day. We slept on the floor tried to acclimate ourselves to the humid air and the kids and I got to see fireflies or lightning bugs for the first time. I've decided I would take humidity and a/c anyday over our place in Portland where it would get in the high 90s inside our condo.

Our new ward is huge, active and friendly. Fourth of July ward barbecue shot:

Lexi's new favorite place to scoot/roll is under our bed. The first time she did it we were laying on our bed hearing her babble but she was nowhere in sight . .we were laughing hysterically when we found her underneath us happy as a clam.

Schedules have pretty much been thrown out the window so I'll find Lexi asleep under our bed, in her highchair, on the floor. etc.

There's always time for this, ha! ha!

Not officially crawling yet, but she'll hold poses like this forever which I personally find even more challenging than crawling. She's going to have some great looking abs and shoulders once she gets rid of all those rolls if she keeps this up.

Dave still finds time to shoot random photos and these are two that I like as they represent the kids' personalities: Brooklyn who thinks she is pretty pretty princess and Trenton who is desitned to be some kind of geeky science loving guy.

Recent Photographs

Lexington and I took a day trip to San Francisco to visit my sister and meet her new boyfriend before we move away. The weather was gorgeous, loved my sister's new beau and had a blast!

Lexi turned 6 months old and got her first taste of something other than breastmilk . .rice cereal.

The little princess Brooklyn turned two on May 4th. Grandpa and Grandma came over for cake, ice cream and presents. She loved singing happy birthday to herself, opening presents and eating sherbert.

Although a little short and chubby and generally pretty dirty, maybe he's got a future in dancing. I took the boys to a fundraiser dance at Trenton's Elementary school on Friday night. These shots totally capture the true goofy, loveable and out of control little guy.

I even got the one in a lifetime experience of teaching him the chicken dance!

Trenton had a blast being torn by his friends in 5 different directions. He told me how nervous he was walking into the dance, but left beaming, proudly declaring that he actually wasn't nervous at all. We'll miss his wonderful little school and he'll surely miss his first real set of friends.

More commentary from Dallas

I know every child is different, but Dallas is truly one of a kind. Some kids make women proud to be mothers and other kids perhaps just embarass their mothers. I haven't blogged in quite a while. We've been busy trying to get the condo we're living in sold (a total nightmare trying to keep this place clean with all the kids and then disappear when it needs to be shown . .an offer has been accpeted though so cross your fingers that everything works out as planned). We're also preparing for the upcoming changes, moving (although exactly when and where is still TBD) and then right near the top of list of things that have been keeping me busy is Dallas. His latest tricks, embarassments, blunders, call them whatever you want include:

1. A new found passion for peeing in the garbage cans that are next to the toilets in our house.
2. Eating half a mini meatloaf yesterday before I put them in the oven (yes totally raw . .gross!)
3. Somehow managing to wear a diaper to bed and still completely fill the dipaer and either take it off in the middle of the night and wet the bed or just completely leak through the diaper so that I get to wash his sheets daily.
4. Great reviews every time I pick the kid up from preschool. great= "you, me and dallas need to sit down and have a little talk", "he had a really rough day today", "today was really bad", etc, etc., etc. They're very nice about it, but I have a feeling his preschool teachers aren't mourning too much the fact that we're moving and he won't be returning next year.
5.Underage drinking. Dallas has already done something in life that I've never done=taste alcohol. At a talent show at the dental school sneaky little Dallas always looking for something more to eat or drink regardless of what it is or who it belongs to grabbed a nearly empty glass of beer off of a table and gulped it down.. As I turned around I see him spitting all over the floor, shaking his head and saying matter of factly "That is so yucky!"

I'm going to ramble off a few recent experiences with Dallas for journal purposes. Feel free to read on if you're bored.

Sunday we had just gotten home from church and the kids are playing outside in our courtyard with the front door open. Suddenly I hear a male voice (not Dave's at the front door so I peak my head around from the kitchen and there is one of our neighbors, "I just wanted to let you know your son is out here with no pants on. That may fly in Europe but not so much here. I hurry out the door to see the kid totally popping a squat next to the community mailboxes. Embarassed, I run after him as my neighbor calls out, "Oh, and Happy Mothers Day" Yeah thanks buddy.

We get to the grocery store, Dallas jumps out of the car and darts across the parking lot. I chase after him, drag him back to the car to get the girls and explain to him that he can't just run in the street like because he's going to get hit by a car, die and never see Daddy, Mommy, Trenton, Brooklyn or Lexi again. (I purposefully left out the whole gospel perspective just trying to scare some sense into the kid). His response . . .. yes huh . .I can get to see them on Easter. Good job primary teachers . . .he kind of gets the whole concept of resurrection, but now I don't know how to keep him from running out in the street.

Dallas was fascinated by a recent visit from a plumber fixing a pipe leak under our place. I couldn't get the kid to come inside and he was pestering the poor plumber with 101 questions and some advice on his work as well. I finally bring Dallas inside and explain to him that he needs to leave the man alone so he can do his work or he's going to get in trouble from his boss. "What's a boss?" he asks. It's the person in charge of you at work . .like at the gym I have a boss. He thought on this and the next time I turned around he was back outside announcing to the plumber that daddy was his boss and mommy was daddy's boss. The plumber chuckled and told Dallas that's usually the way it is.

Several days after Dallas's hours spent with the plumber the boys and daddy were outside searching for cool rocks (Trenton's latest obsession). Trenton decides he wants to be a guy that studies rocks so Dave tells him that's called a geologist and Dallas follows it up with "And I want to be the guy that sucks water from under the house."

So Soft

Can't quite figure out why I'm a such a fan of this photo. Maybe it's because it makes her skin look so baby soft, and her eyelashes so long.

What Is She Thinking?

This is my best guess...

Time

Some days motherhood can be divided into potty time, baby time and lego time. Here are some pics from last week with one of those kind of days.


I tried putting pomade in Brookyln's hair and she woke up from her nap with this killer do. She also woke up totally ready to put in some quality toilet time if you know what I mean. Every time I told her to push, she would do this face which was just too cute not to photograph.

Then she gave Dallas this face when he tried to take her cards away. I took a picture of her successful results, but Dave would kill me if I posted those. We'll leave it at this . .Trenton's comment after looking in the toilet post Brooklyn's "success" was "Woah, that's BIG" Lexi makes baby time more fun now that she smiles giggles and plays with toys.I've packed probably 90% of the boys' toys, with legos being one of the things I haven't packed. They are getting quite good at their creations, although this picture isn't really of one of the cool ones.

Proud Moments of Parenthod

Dallas has a great history of performing with the other 3 year olds in his class at preschool.

He had his first appearance in the Fall program they put on back in October. Dave was out of town for interviews at the time but I managed to meet my dad there a little late as Lexi was just 3 days old. It was well worth the effort it took getting my postpartum body and baby out of the house. The kid is just plain loud and top that off with the fact that he struggles with pronouncing certain sounds and it ends up being downright hilarious to listen to him.

Dave made it to the Christmas program in December, but all he got to witness there was

1. Dallas acting like a clown by turning his little sheep hat backwards so it covered his face

2. Dallas and the kid next to him fighting until they actually started hitting each other. The kid next to Dallas eventually being removed from the stage by the teachers as they were being that disruptive to the performance.

3. Dallas literally rolling around on the floor of the stage unable to control his apparent ADHD until he finally got off the stage all by himself .

Well, Dave finally got a taste of how entertaining it can be as Dallas had his final performance last week, My mom, Dave, and I were just cracking up the entire time and you'll see why as you watch their final song being peformed: The video quality is poor, but you should have no problem hearing Dallas, slighty out of tune, off on his timing and super loud . .good thing his teacher encouraged them to sing louder for the second round!

Mom Quiz

I had to do it too Jillian . One of those quizes where you ask the kids questions and record their responses. I asked Dallas all the questions and then asked Trenton the same ones once he got home from school and their answers are:

1. What is something mom always says to you?
D: Go to time out
T: Stop doing that
(Don't I feel like a good mom)

2. What makes mom happy?
D: Do good stuff
T: Being nice
(Okay, so do it already!)

3. What makes mom sad?
D: Do bad stuff
T: Not being very good
(No wonder I'm so sad all the time . . okay just sometimes)

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
D: Do funny fings
T: By saying silly things

5. What was your mom like as a child?
D: You were a child of God
T: little
(I like to think I still am a Child of God . .but maybe he's onto something here)

6. How old is your mom?
D: that a hard one . . .20
T: Ummm . . . . . . .26
(That a boy Trenton!)

7. How tall is your mom?
D: 13
T: 25
(No suprise here as they think they get on the scale to see how old they are)

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
D: Cook
T: feed Lexi

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
D: Do other stuff, cook, and watch grown up movies
T: Wash the dishes
(What an exciting life I have . . .grown up movies huh?)

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
D: Umm . . . .cooking
T: Food

11. What is your mom really good at?
D: Ummm . . .cooking
T:Running
(sure, they go hand in hand right . .eat food and then run it off?)

12. What is your mom not very good at?
D: Monsters
T: Climbing

13. What does your mom do for a job?
D: Cook and make sure the babies don't get hurt
T: Go to the gym

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
D: Peas, I mean carrots
T: Ice cream

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
D: Do nice stuff
T: Playing with me

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
D: Mommy
T: Bakugan

17. What do you and your mom do together?
D: cook, play monsters
T: Play uno

18. How are you and your mom the same?
D: WE do the samey stuff and we bof have 2 eyes
T: Umm. . .we both have hair

19. How are you and your mom different?
D: We not wearing the same shirt
T: We don't have boobs
(Someone's growing up . . .I had to work so hard not to bust up when he said this and now I'll have to work even harder to be a little more discreet when nursing in his presence)

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
D: I do Yoga with her
T: Because she likes me

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?
D: He hugs her
T: That's a hard one . . . .ummm to kiss him
(and here I thought we weren't all that affectionate anymore, at least enough that the kids pick up on it I guess)

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
D: To the store
T:gym
(I'd enjoy going to the store a whole lot more if it weren't with 1, 2, 3 or 4 kids!)

All in all, it's amazing how perceptive they are. . .hopefully they'll enjoy reading this someday.