computer nightmare

So...I crashed the computer. I have lost tons of stuff and my husband has been working for days to try to get it all back. Here's some backstory: it was Monday morning I was furiously doing genealogy work on ancestry.com trying to get all of these people's names onto my PAF program. I clicked on 1 person and all of a sudden I find that someone has traced their genealogy to 1515. I don't even know how I found this first person he was someone who married into the Russian family but I could trace them back to England and it was all pretty exciting, but at the same time a lot of work. Darrell had a meeting I had to be at and I knew if I closed out of the site I would never find this line again so I just had Ancestry.com running and my PAF program on and left. When I got home the computer wouldn't let me do anything. I had to shut it down, and when I turned it back on everything was crazy. Our finance program is a mess, itunes has deleted everything in it, and a ton of other problems. Jason ran a recovery program but only a few things have come back. This is my first big problem with the computer, usually Jason messes everything up and I scream at him for days. It is sad to now be the one who messed everything up. On a bright note, it didn't delete my PAF program and I went to the temple yesterday to print out more cards. I now have 120 baptisms to do on Saturday when our ward goes! That's on top of the 105 the young men and young women did for me already this month. August is our blockbuster baptism month (that's what I'm calling it anyway). I guess September will be our fabulous initiatory month :)

home improvements

We are coming along with the home improvements. We (I mean Jason) got the blue up on the wall and I really like it. Which is a good thing, if I didn't like it that would be a problem. It's not that I don't like the cream/peach and red we have already done. I was just a little nervous about them. But I really like the blue. Our house finally has some character and doesn't look like an institution!

Jason took this picture, He was trying to show the three colors we've painted so far. The red, blue and cream/peach. We (I mean Jason) still have crown molding, and a chair rail in the kitchen to install. It sure is a big project, Tyson tells me every morning,"Mom, you need to get this big house painted." He's a good task master :)

And last but not least, we FINALLY got a new TV. The one on the ground is the one we are getting rid of. I bought it when I lived at BYU, I bought it from a used store and that was 11 years ago! To make it work you have to slap it on the side and wiggle the back cord until the picture comes up. Even then the picture will only stay for 5 minutes tops. We were due! I do love the new TV, but we have never had a flat screen before and for sure never one that big, it seems like the people are huge when you're watching.

But I am dedicated to liking the new TV and will spend countless hours getting use to it if I have to!! One day I'll have pictures of everything done AND no mess in the background.

Nickel the dog

This dog drives me crazy!

She follows me from room to room, she steals the kids food if they set it down, she chews up anything left outside, and the newest thing bothering me about this dog: she is in almost every photo I take. For some reason she thinks if I am taking pictures of the kids she must be involved. She has somehow wormed her way into 6 of the 7 pictures on this very post!Whenever I complain about this stinkin' dog, people say oh, just get rid of her. The problem is the kids would miss her tons. Nickel is Taylor's favorite toy. If Nickel is laying down Taylor will find her and then proceed to sit right on top of her. Does Nickel mind? No, she's finally getting some attention!

Here is Taylor with her two favorite loves. My cell phone and Nickel.
She is actually pulling Nickel's lips apart and poking her in the teeth. The dog is unmoved.

Here Taylor is pulling at Nickel's feet and nails, still the dog takes the abuse.

I'm glad Jason will play dinosaur with the kids, they love it. Our new favorite thing to play is chase Taylor. She runs so fast and laughs her head off, it's hilarious. Here is Tyson riding the "dinosaur" catching Taylor.

Dinosaur always leads to dog pile. And of course Nickel must be involved as well. Side note, we don't make Mark sit like that in the living room, he was waiting for his brother in law to pick him up for dinner and he will not be moved from looking at the front door until they come.

We were at Walmart yesterday and they had Batman costumes for $9. I was trying to be sneaky and save it for a special occasion but Tyson found it in the cart and held it in his hands through our entire shopping trip. He wore it the rest of the afternoon. I told him we needed to take a picture to send it to Grandma and he was so happy, he is posing here with his "happy face smile".

Dang that dog! Get out of the freakin' picture!

Thrift store treasures

I know I'm a big dork, but I found these She-ra Princess of Power dolls at the thrift store and HAD to buy them. They make me smile and remember how crazy I was about She-ra. She was SO cool (back in the day of course). My brother had all the He-man dolls and we would play for hours. Good times, good times...Growing up I always resented that we had to shop at thrift stores but now I love them. I can tell Tyson he can have ANY toy he wants and actually mean it. What's the worst he could do $5? I know a lot of people would never dream of buying things from a thrift store (one is my snotty husband, I love him and he knows he's a snot), but soap and water sure do wonders on anything I bring home. This is a huge puzzle that Tyson and I put together this afternoon. The cost, you ask? A whopping $1, and it has all it's pieces and I can start Tyson on his lifelong love of puzzles. (I personally LOVE puzzles :)
I also love to buy VHS movies from the thrift store. I can shell out $2 to see if Tyson really likes a movie before I pay the full price for a DVD. And VHS' are more hardy than DVDs. Tyson is in a "I can do everything myself" stage and wants to put all the DVDs in the machine and holder. The Tale of Desperaux may never be the same.

I bought Snow White at the thrift store and put it on for Tyson before going upstairs to put Taylor down. I was up there for a good 20 minutes. When I came back down I found Tyson under the foose ball table scared to death of the Wicked Queen. He even followed me in the bathroom and wouldn't let me out of his sight. I had to sit by him on the couch and watch the rest of the movie until the Wicked Queen was gone.
Lastly, I finally got a new purse. My last purse (another thrift store treasure) has been beat to heck. I don't know if you can see but it actually has a prada label on it. Now I will look super fancy and only people who read my blog will ever know I only paid $1.99 for it.

Yeah for thrift stores!

My son

My son is really worrying me. You see he has no dance moves. Oh he thinks he does, as evidenced by these photos. But honestly he doesn't, he just cracks me up. I take this picture and he wants to see it. I thought he'd laugh about how silly he looks, instead he shouts, "Rock and Roll!" and goes right back to dancing like a crazy. What am I raising?

I think this is a move out of Thriller, I'm not too sure though.

Here he is busting some Lord of the Dance action.

He tried to get Taylor in on the dancing marathon but...

...there was food to eat and she couldn't be bothered.

Later after all the dancing was over Tyson decided to walk all over the house with this garbage can on his head. Then he decided to lay down with the garbage can on his head and what happened next?

You guessed it. He fell asleep inside the garbage can. (quick note) We do not use this garbage can for garbage. We use it as a laundry basket. It's too small to do any good as a garbage can, it is not gross and disgusting and has never had garbage in it.

He was passed out cold. We did think about just leaving him, could you imagine the freak out when he woke up though?

So I made Jason drag him out of the garbage can, which was a major fight.

We got him up to bed and he screamed for 15 minutes about how he wanted to sleep in the garbage can. To answer my earlier question, What am I raising? I am now going to call him a crazy dancing Oscar the Grouch!

$100 cucumber

This is my planter box. Jason's dad built it for us last year. A little back story, Jason's dad is a great gardener and lives in Napa California were things grow like crazy. He built us a garden 5 years ago at our old house and it died a horrible, neglected death (at our hands). So this time I decide I will really try to garden. I went to the gardening enrichment, I got a book, and really tried to plant things that would grow well in Vegas. As you can see everything is dead or dying except for this one crazy bush. I thought it was lettuce. It keeps growing these lovely flowers and then they shrivel and die.
Then Tyson decides to throw the wheelbarrow on top of my one plant. It broke a few leaves and things and when I go to get the wheelbarrow off of it. I find a cucumber!!!

I tried to calculate how much this 1 cucumber cost. The dirt, seeds and watering system cost a bit over $100. So here it is: my $100 cucumber. I just don't think it was worth it.

our little bruiser

Taylor is turning into a little bruiser. Her new favorite thing to do is pick up toys and then bash them into things. Here she is with one of her favorite weapons: the microphone. Taylor sucks her left thumb so I thought darn, I have to deal with another lefty, I am already married to one. But she is bashing things with her right hand so I am holding out hope that she may join our righty team. Go righty's!! *Disclaimer* I have no problems with people who are left handed. It's just that it's a right handed world and I'm just a material girl, no that's not right. I mean, well OK maybe I do have a problem with them. I just want my kids to be normal is that so wrong? If you are left handed and offended, tough luck, the truth is out: I have a problem with you and your left handed ways! Taylor's other favorite thing to do is bash toys into the dog. We are constantly telling Nickel to run when we see Taylor headed towards her with weapons in hand.
Her she is doing another favorite, pulling Mom's hair. I tell you it is the cheapest and best toy she has!

I blame these things for the aggression and bruiser ways Taylor has adopted. Teething has been a nightmare! Taylor had a fever for 3 straight days cutting these bad boys. Now she has 4 teeth total 2 on bottom 2 on top.
She can also be sweet, she is the cutest little kisser and will give us kisses out of the blue. She is such a ham and loves flirting with anyone.

I have two Tyson sleeping stories. The first I actually have a picture for. We went to Lowe's to buy chair rails and crown molding for the kitchen. Tyson loves their race car carts, but when we got there he was dead asleep. We thought we'd put him in one anyway, in case he woke up. These carts are horrible to drive and I always run into something or someone while pushing them through the store. Well we were there for 30 minutes, up and down every isle. The boy didn't wake up once! I had to drag this dang Cadillac cart through the store for half an hour for nothing!

The second story is last Thursday we decide to go to Chilli's for dinner. We get there Tyson is dead asleep. We drag him out of the car, have to wait 15 minutes to be seated, he's still dead. We are seated, we put him on the bench next to us, he slept through appetiser, main course and dessert! We pay the check and load him back in the car and go home. It was the craziest I had ever seen him sleep. He's just a nut, what can I say?!