Would you care for some intensity with your dinner?

When I was a little girl my mother used to tell me stories about me. You know, "Once upon a time there was a little girl named [pregnant pause] Robyn, and one day..." I loved it. Mom is a great story teller. She always seemed to have a husky, intense voice that filled the stories with lots of suspense and intrigue. I really can't remember if the stories were moral little tales to help me be better or if they were stories of me catching unicorns with my rainbow lasso. I simply know that I felt so special and so amazed to think that I was in a real, live story!

The other day I decided to tell Jacob a story about himself and Nicholas. He fell in love. We have definitely not ventured out of the realm of solid reality, but it's pretty amazing to see his genuine interest in these little tales. (Although part of me wishes I'd never started "Once upon a time"ing it. The demand is amazing and Jacob is quite the taskmaster. )

Last night Jacob was asking for "Once upon a time" and so I started telling away and the look on his face told me that he was in, he was all in. This video is a bit long, and I'm sure you won't understand every word he says, but I think you'll get a glimpse at what our days are filled with lately. (I actually just spent the last 30 minutes telling a convoluted tale about my kids and their friends.)

A lot of the time what I am saying is just repeating Jacob because he now can really drive a plot. He fills them with lots of characters (his friends from nursery & the neighborhood), violence (bonks), and emotion (crying). Enjoy!

What are you doing looking at blogs?

Go vote! (That is if your state is voting today.)

We did.















That reminds me of the old BYU Annual Fund ads with people like President Bateman saying, "Choose to give, I did." Which made me think of this beauty that was hung up around campus in response to those ads.



















Get it? It's the little stream, eh? Get it? Anyway, I love it.

But I digress. The boys and I did go down to the "Good Age Building" (huh?) to cast our vote for _____. My blog is a politically neutral endeavor. So we voted for "Mint" (as Jacob calls our unknown candidate). I came prepared with toys, snacks and a bottle for 'Colas. Imagine my surprise when there was NO LINE! There were just lots of happy poll workers ready to get me a-votin'. At each station in the room (and in less than three minutes) three different poll workers said, "Looks like you've got your hands full." I wonder what they would have said if the boys were screaming, yelling or doing any of their typical heck raisin'. Look at my little boys fulfilling their civic duty in their red and blue. (And look at Jacob's shiner he got yesterday after a tumble near our coffee table!)






























By the time we had left the building no less than 5 people had said to Jacob, "You're too young to vote!" Who knew?! Obviously the poll workers didn't because look what they gave him. His very own "I'm a Georgia voter" sticker, which he mistook for his patch. Jacob even had an ink stained hand (from making hand-turkeys with markers last night) to show his support for the democratic process.



















Nicholas was good, good, gooooood. He didn't make a peep and didn't even need the bottle. What a champ.














Oh, and exercising our right to vote has its perks, like seeing a real live tractor-ish machine! Woo-hooo! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

So bright they blind me!

That's right. These boys don't stop! Look at them go to town with their new crazy skillz. Also enjoy some "Wubba wubba" with Nicholas.

I'd be adorable even without all of my hair

He calls them (the loud, garish PJs) his "boots"

There's nothin' like wearin' boots and shootin' hoops before bedtime.

Some very important links

I have felt that introducing Jacob to the fun aspects of the computer could wait as long as possible. (Stay away pbs.org!) That being said, my sister Jana has proven my downfall. She made us a CD of old Sesame Street songs and it has brought me to (sigh) YouTube. Now, I have also never really cared for YouTube. But did you know that there are lots of copyright infringement clips on there? I don't want to see what you made with your camera at home, I want to see what you've uploaded to the computer (probably illegally)!

We searched some of the Sesame Street songs and found this little beauty. It is Jacob's favorite and he asks for the "Lum-de-dum" song quite often. Some observations:

1. Whoah, was Sesame Street ghetto back then. There's trash everywhere and not a primary color in sight. Quite a change from today's look.

2. Gordon has aged very well. In fact, he looks EXACTLY THE SAME. Check out the last five minutes of Sesame Street to see "Trash Gordon" and you too will be stunned at how young he looks.

3. What's up with Luis's whole outfit?

4. Maria is such a little chica.

5. Mr. Hooper. I have vague memories of him & I frankly don't feel much emotion about him, but it was very funny to read a comment on this video where someone said that "today's kids" don't know who Mr. Hooper was and that she thinks that's awful. It's not like he's Einstein! Come on!

6. Did I mention how dirty and ghetto Sesame Street used to be?

Matt and I also found what we remember most from Sesame Street. Here's his and here is mine.

Lastly, here is another clip that Jacob loves to watch and here's a link to some of our Utah fun. (I promise I'll blog about it soon...waiting for pics since I didn't bring my camera.)

Happy watching!

Defining "normal"

After Jacob's stomach bug he was different. Jacob, like most children his age, has a wide & varied range of normal...but there's still a range! Last week he seemed to have crossed over into a whole new world of crying and confusion. He truly didn't know whether to, "scratch his watch or wind his butt" (thanks Steel Magnolias). Monday, however, started a bit of a reprieve. He only had one tantrum (15 minutes long!) and the rest of the day was his old "normal" self. Since then we've had some smoother waters. Like I say, there are always outbursts and frustrations for our little guy, but nothing like last week. Let us all pray that "Angry-J" never returns. We don't miss him!

Here are some of Jacob's more recent goings-on.

1. He loves me again. (He was very anti-mommy last week.)














2. He is actually playing with his toys.


















(And trying desperately to keep Nicholas from playing with them.)














3. He's going to church and carrying his own dang bag!


















4. He's curious. I made cheesecake and he was fascinated by the whole process. (As you can tell he's resumed eating...check out that belly against that shirt!)














5. Lastly, he's talking. Talking about silly things all of the time. Lately he jokes that roosters say, "moo" and not "cockadoodledoo". He also requests "I-am-a-child-of-God-in-Spanish-really-fast" every night for his bedtime song. He just said, after about 5 minutes of quiet time, "Jacob's funny!" And you know what? He's right!

I'm glad he's back, baby!

Nicholas! He's the cheeky one...

I find myself staring at Nicholas just wishing I could somehow capture the pure incredibleness of his cheeks on film. It's impossible! He is not a chubby baby (don't let those love handles fool you, he's a lithe 16 pounds). But those cheeks. I know where he got them from. I know how much he will hate being known as the chubby cheeked kid. But, dag gum, they're amazing! Now I get why old ladies would pinch my cheeks. I get why my full face was always commented on. CHUBBY CHEEKS ARE FUN, PEOPLE! Here are some of the better pictures of his cheekiness.

Health and Cleanliness

Firstly, Jacob seems to be on the mend. He even asked me for a "glass of cheese" today...but I don't want to jinx it so I will say no more here. (I have become very superstitious when it comes to his tummy.) I'll report more after a few more "spill"-free days.

Secondly, look at cute Nicholas in the tub!!!! Aw man, I love it. Hello love handles!










































I'm Batman. (Gotham tubby.)

Spilling the beans and throwing down

It's hard for a two year old to understand being sick, especially throwing-up. Yesterday evening Jacob was sick 5 times in 3 hours and trust me, he was confused. He tried to bring it back to some sort of understandable level. Firstly, he noticed the nature of his "sick" and told me to "clean up the beans". Jacob had already dubbed throwing up "spilling" in November so, last night after a couple of sick times he said, "Jacob spill beans". I was impressed.

Later in the evening we told Jacob that throwing up was no fun. He said, "throw up in the sky" and so we said, no, um, we guess you threw down. So now he thinks throwing up is either "spilling beans" or "throwing down"...noooot quite.

He's doing much better now, but he was sick, sick, sick all last night and this morning. Here's the proof (and rest assured, there are no "beans" in these pictures).



































Nicholas has yet to get sick, and we are hoping and praying that he doesn't. Meanwhile he is enjoying his newfound friend the exersaucer in an attempt to keep him out of contaminated zones. (I am a germ freak and so my imagination is going wild with visions of invisible sick-germs getting at my little guy.) Lookee how cute he is.


















(By the way, we had a wonderful time in Utah...posts to come!)