Target {in pictures}

This is what my shopping experience looks like.
Uh-oh.

After yelling every object he saw as loud as he could he found these...
Sweet!
Did his best to get the lid off.
Then begged me to do it. Of course, the only way to distract him from ingesting 800 cheese puffs was to ride the carousel.

Unfortunately he wasn't too thrilled that it was out of order.
Wait a minute...
Tow Trucks! Bulldozers!


Oh yeah.

Very into the steering wheel.
He calls this the "loader."


"Hey baby." He was checking out the three year old with the pig tails.
Time to go...
After he begged and begged to go back to the loaders I said, "Landon we're going to go home."

Major emotional blow. (apparently)
He was processing it.NO Mom!! I want to ride the loader.
But it's cool...I'll just eat my shoe lace.

And sing really loud.

Sometimes I'm Outnumbered.

Most of the time I love being the Queen of the Castle. I love my two guys. I like that they like testosterone type things. But when NBA playoff games are on, I get a snapshot of the future...

And I'm not to excited about it...I better get a girl at some point or else I'm going to have to start to like watching sports. Ugh.

Well aren't these two just a ray of sunshine.

Just a snapshot of our morning routine. Two very happy people who can't wait to start the day.

Happy Monday to you too!

2 Weddings and a Missionary (2 of 3)

Rod's younger brother Tod got married to Betsy on Mexican Independence day in the Bountiful, Utah temple. Arrrrriba! They were a very happy, handsome couple and I am glad we got to be a part of the big day.
I didn't get a lot of great pics but here are few I did happen to take.
I see three Mr. Bean's and one Creeper in this picture.
They had their reception where we did, at "The Point" and I have to say, I enjoyed their reception more than ours because I actually got to eat, relax, and enjoy the view. Not to say that I didn't love my wedding, but it was just kind of funny to be back in the same place I was married only this time toting the little Prime Minister Landon. Didn't the little PML look dapper in his prep-school suit?
Us, pretending like we have it together.
Married BABIES!!! Andie Marshall (Landon's cousin) and Landon . jk.
This is a little more accurate.
And of course we had to get the all testosterone picture. Luckily Landon learned how to "fold his arms" last week.
Congrats to Tod and Betsy!

Funny, New York

Hey, look at me guys! I'm on the subway! With sunglasses on!
Well, now that we got that nonsense out of the way...
Just a few things you wouldn't see in your typical American suburb. Honestly, as much as the convenience of the suburbs is just waaay easier when raising a family, hoofing it around NYC made me fantasize about moving into a 500 sqft apt so I could see signs in the subway like this everyday.
What IDIOT does that? Honestly. (Clearly idiots of all nations must do it because the sign was in 15 different languages.)

Hmmm. Good to know.
Not that HIV or anal cancer is a laughing matter but the public service announcements were definitely...interesting. What you can't see very well on this one is the picture of the skeleton in the bottom corner with his anus ablaze. I think the red letters were enough to get the picture. Yikes.
These next few were taken from this glorious little "Pinkberry" style rice pudding dessert shop called Rice to Riches. Best Marketing EVER. Delicious too, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Wise, wise words.
Phew. Thank goodness Rod saw this sign. He was just about to sit on the curb to do his business (as depicted in the rendering) and luckily we looked up and saw this painted on the side of the building. TRAGEDY AVOIDED.

We kind of went all reckless on this last one...

(Dude, it was freaking chilly...)
It's true. It was a ten day whirlwind, especially if that whirlwind was 40 degrees and humid with a wind chill. I took 578 pictures because I was so excited to blog about something other than the backyard.

Landon was a champ. Here is the short rundown.

Wed, March 30--my mom Nan, me, and Landon fly to Louisiana. Landon did pretty well on the plane. I felt spoiled because I had my mom with me to help. Otherwise I would have hit the "delete" button for sure.

Fri Apr 1, Rod joins us (after I drive to the airport at 1am to pick him up). We spend the next few days visiting with my Louisiana family and eating obscene amounts of fried food and crawfish.

Tuesday, Apr 5-Rod and I wake up at 3:45 am, ditch the kid, and drive to the airport and hang in NYC from the Apr 5-10. My mom agrees to fly with Landon back to Denver and then take him to Oakland to do the grandparent hand-off. BIG props to my mom (and all those years of being a flight attend so she is fearless in the face of a strong-willed toddler and fuselage)! The sole purpose of the NYC trip was to be an eating one, and we also wanted to pick a place we would never, I repeat, NEVER dream of taking a toddler. New York fit the bill. We both gained close to 10 lbs in 10 days. This is where I hit the "pause" button on HealthGirl. :)
View from our hotel room
It was great. And I am going to be posting individual posts of the vaycay in reverse order because NYC is still fresh in my mind and Louisiana is definitely going to be a baby-overload.

Some things we do...occasionally

Some of my favorite memories growing up are of when my Dad used to take me and my brothers on walks/hikes in the mountains and nature preserves in the Denver area. I love some good nostalgia, and since I'm terrible at doing holiday crafts, I am trying to drag my husband out for little family walks once a week or so for our own little family traditions. Luckily my cousin Melanie, who is practically a Bay Area native, introduced me to this lovely park/nature preserve (right off the freeway...you'd never know it) called Rancho San Antonio. Look at that GREEN?! It almost hurts my eyes. I love.
Dorky pic of me (probably should have put on some make-up)...but since I am the designated family photographer, every once and a while I like to prove that I was there too, you know? Look at Rod in the back, he's like "Hurry up! Let's get this hike over with!"
Did I mention we ran into God on the hike?
At the end of the walk, there is a little farm and usually the kids can walk up to the animals and see them. Landon loves this, but what this experience has taught me is that pigs are just kind of huge, disgusting animals. Sorry to you pig lovers out there, but look at this gal.
Even Landon looked amazed at her grossness.

This is Landon's favorite guy. Ah, the memories. :)

Butchered.

Little buddy got a hair cut on Friday. It always makes me sad to do it because I think it makes him look and seem SO much OLDER. And he kind of looks like he's a Marine on his first day of boot camp.

{sigh}

Luckily little kids don't know when they have a terrible hair cut.
They are just pumped to get a bubble bath.

Pixar, wet shoes, and a canole {from ScarJo}

It all started out with a really wet, really unnecessary drive to Berkeley to look at a holistic-based culinary school. (I've been stalking this idea for a LONG time now and decided to take some necessary steps to give it a try).

Of course I picked the wettest day of the year. And wore mary janes for the occasion. Genius.

Anyway, after parking, walking (with a toddler in my arms) for 6 blocks in a driving deluge of rain with my inverted umbrella (which blew up because of the hurricane-like winds); I arrived for my "interest" meeting looking like a chihuahua who had been hosed down with high-powered sprinkler head, and a blue-lipped, shivering child on my hip.

The meeting was supposed to last an hour, but because my toddler wouldn't stop yelling and pulling glass items off the metal industrial shelving hanging around, the counselor I spoke to said, "You know what? I'm a little distracted. I think we should reschedule for a phone interview."

This, after the lady told me that she was a grandma and great with kids.

Hmmm. Wish I would have known that a phone interview was a possibility BEFORE I drove over an hour and braved the highway water slide to "check out the campus" during nap time. Love that.

The day wasn't a total bust. My friend from the BYU dance days has been working as an animator for Pixar (because he's amazing like that) for the last few years and, in spite of my swamp-thing appearance--he invited us to Pixar for lunch.
I think Pixar is maybe the next best place to Disneyland because they have all these life-sized statues and really cool sketches from all the great movies they make. Plus they have a really amazing food court with all compostable utensils and gourmet health food. Landon's happy and so was Mom.
Cute little pic of Emron and Landon. We ate lunch at said food court and in the middle of our deliciousness, one of Emron's coworkers came by and said, "Here's a Scarlett Johansson canole for the baby." I figured it was some inside joke that they had. Emron told me that Scarlett Johansson had been into to meet with casting (this delightful canole-giver was apparently in charge of casting) so we figured he was just making reference to the previous day.

Don't worry, Landon wolfed that canole down and even did the double "more"--saying it and the "more" in sign language--which I equate with something like, "More! Damn it!"
Me and Landon with the Incredibles.
Don't worry, the shark wasn't real.
He didn't quite know what to make of these.
Why is this so hilarious?
Landon was going crazy with the toy packaging.

After our little tour of Pixar and nice visit with Emron, he texts me to say that the canole actually was FROM Scarlett Johansson. She apparently sent it to casting as a "thank you" after the meeting. It was fun to have a little Hollywood experience even though I have been out of Hollywood for a few years now. If I had only known that canole's secured roles...