My Funny Valentines

sweet comic valentines

you make me smile with my heart.  

your looks are not laughable, 

but you are sometimes unphotographable (no matter how hard I try!)...

still you're my faaaaaavorite works of art!

My mom had a Linda Rondstadt CD when I was growing up that I would listen to all the time.  I loved when she sang this song and I can still hear her voice in my head as I type this.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's my other favorite work of art... Love you so much, Phil!!

A New Post... Finally!

I got a text from my Mom yesterday pleading for a blog update.  She said it had been almost a month, which is a slight exaggeration :) but almost true.  We have had a busy month!  My sister and her family were here visiting us all last week, which is the main reason for the lack of posts.  We had a wonderful time together and I'm working on a separate post with all of the pics from their visit.  But here's what else we've been up to (and just a warning... this post is heavy on videos that may only be interesting to grandparents!)...

We have started a little tradition of going to Baskin Robbins on Tuesdays for their dollar scoop night.  The boys love it, but it's hard for mom and dad who are trying to watch their weight!  And the BR lowfat stuff is just not the same.... blech. 

Reid had his first taste of ice cream that night.  He approved.  :)

Jackson just looked so grown up and cute before school the other day that I had to take his picture...

And then Emmett wanted his picture taken, too!  He also looked grown-up and cute, just with a little messier hair.  :)

Here are two little videos of J and E.  I asked J to recite the little verse he was supposed to memorize for school that week.  It goes, "Big Q, Little Q.  What begins with Q?  The quick queen of Quincy and her quacking quackeroo."  Emmett memorized it almost before Jackson did.  But, as you can see, it took some convincing to get E to recite it on camera.  Oh, how I love my little E.  :)

Untitled from Phil Gilcreast on Vimeo.

Then a few seconds later, on his own terms, he happily said the verse.  Go figure!

Untitled from Phil Gilcreast on Vimeo.

Here are the boys watching Little Einsteins the other morning.  Jackson has his favorite buddy with him... his leopard, Leo.  Emmett will sometimes go into his room and bring out every single stuffed animal on his bed all in one trip.  He did that the morning I took this picture...

Here are two cute videos of Reid. The first one is long and probably boring, but I love it because you can see his sweet little personality coming through.  The second one is shorter and features Reid showing off his new skill (as of two weeks ago)...

Jackson and Emmett were playing outside the other day and Reid stood at the sliding glass door for about 15 minutes just watching them and "talking" and laughing.  So cute.

Emmett just loves to line up all of his cars.  He does this all the time... either in two rows (like I posted about before) or just one like this along the back of the couch.

And finally, this is another long video, but one of my favorites.  Yesterday Jackson and I were snuggling together before his nap and I was asking him about school that day.  I asked if he went to chapel (which they usually do on Wednesdays) and what they did there.  All of a sudden he starts talking away a mile a minute and I realize that he's telling me about the creation of the world.  Apparently they only learned about the first four days that day, and apparently I need to go back and read my Old Testament because I was a little mixed up about what happened on each day.  He was mostly right, though.  I thought "Let there be light" was on the fourth day when God made the sun, but it was on day one.  Oops.  Yes, I know that was a really dumb mistake.  I think I get a little dumber each time I have a child.  :)  J had it right to begin with but then I mixed him up.  And the second time J says "Let there be light" in this video he actually says "Leopard day light" I think because he was looking at his stuffed Leo the Leopard.  Oh, and at the very end when he asks to pick a tree that made me crack up because that's how we pick the different filters for the Instagram app on my phone... you click on different pictures of trees to see how the filters look.  Anyway... here's the video... :)

Oh, and just so I can remember this... we have been noticing lately that J sometimes has a real southern drawl when he says certain words!  I have no idea how since he learned to talk in Oregon and Phil and I don't speak southern.  But sometimes when he says words like "will" they come out like "way-uhl" and "saw-may-uhl" (sawmill).  It makes us chuckle!

Snow and Pink Chairs and Other Things

We finally got some snow the other day!  We were all kind of excited about this since it had been so long since our last snow!  After naps the boys got all bundled up and went outside to play and build a snowman with Dad...

As it turned out, Dad did most of the "building a snowman" and the boys took care of the "eating the snow".  :)

It was perfect snowman-building snow and obviously tasted amazing, too.  :)

And here's the finished product!  Looks pretty good, I think!  The boys' snowsuits are way too small on them, but they still pretty much work and we are trying to make it through this winter without buying new ones.

After the snowman was done they all went out front to shovel the driveway (which turned into watching our neighbor kindly plow our driveway with his 4-wheeler and give Phil major ATV envy.  I don't think we will make it another winter without one! ).  :)  They had a ball rolling around in the snow in the front yard and stayed out for a while.  Emmett's cheeks are always SO rosy when he comes in from the cold... I love them!

Jackson's aren't quite as bad, but I love his cheeks, too...

And then the next day it rained and the snowman started to melt away.  He started leaning to the side as he melted and it looked like he was trying to peep in the house through the sliding glass door.  Kinda creepy... until his eyes fell out.  :)

Reid now has two teeth (both on the bottom.. and his nursing days are numbered if he continues to nip at me like he does every now and then!)  and he has taken several steps on his own!  I hope I can catch a video of that soon.  He is so cute when he does it... he starts giggling and gets so excited.  And he's learned now how to climb up onto the fireplace hearth and get down without falling. He looks so proud of himself when he gets up there...

Oh, I just want to eat him!  And we got a new coffee table and he's learned how to crawl up and down on that, too...

My friend and I went to Portland for one night last weekend.  We were on a very tight budget and tight schedule and boy... are we ever good at banging out all of our shopping and cramming in some good eats in a short amount of time.  We ate lunch at PF Chang's on our way up there, then shopped and shopped (staying within our budgets, amazingly... we deserved an award), stopped for a quick champagne drink, shopped some more, went back to our hotel (which was the Marriott right downtown that Michelle managed to get for $60 on priceline by naming her own price... amazing and Phil was very happy), changed quickly for dinner and ate an amazing meal at 10 P.M.  Then it was back to the hotel for lights out and early rising in the morning (but not too early... this was our day off for goodness sake) for our drive home.  Sheesh!  Portland is such a cool city... I love it there.

I had to take a pic of my dessert because I almost left Phil and ran away to marry this trio of creme brulee.  It was seriously one of the best desserts I've had in my life.

And back at home, the boys had smoothies...  :)

Okay, now I feel that I have to address the pink chairs that are in almost every picture I take lately.  One of my "resolutions" is to stop putting down and being unsatisfied with my house and just be thankful for it and enjoy it and be proud of it and love it for what it is.  And I'm going to try to be confident about the things I put in my house and not worry so much about what anyone else thinks.  If I/we like them (or don't mind them) then that's all that matters.  And I want to stop having ridiculous house envy (I have some friends here that have some a-mazing houses) and be thankful for what we've been totally blessed with.  Seriously, the devil sure knows my weaknesses and he really gets me with the envy and insecurity stuff.  Ugh!  But I recognize it now and am working on it.  Anyway... I digress...   I guess explaining the pink chairs kind of goes against my resolution, but I'm just going to quickly stand up for them.  :)

I've been wanting a pair of matching chairs to flank the fireplace for a while.  Chairs are very expensive and since we live on one income I have a really limited budget for buying things that I "want" but we don't "need".  So when I saw these guys on craigslist within my little price range I kind of loved them at first sight.  Especially because I could buy them using my "special-money-for-buying-kind-of-ridiculous-things-we-don't-need" and Phil wouldn't be mad.  :)  One is stationary and one swivels, which reminds me of the pair that my Mimi has and I love that.  And they hardly have any wear at all.  And someday I will have them recovered in a great fabric, but I have to save up for that and I really kind of love the pink velvet right now.  I mean, I'm the only girl in this household!  I'm allowed to have pink somewhere, right?  :)  And they are actually really comfortable and they are the perfect size for our small family room.  So there ya go.  They look better in instagram pictures, I've noticed...

And the boys love watching TV in them...

And Phil came home for lunch the other day and went right over and sat in one without even thinking!  Then got annoyed when I took his picture.  :)

He admitted that they are comfortable and said that he likes sitting in them because you can see out into the rest of the room.  I agree, that is nice.  But then he had to make a face to show that he really doesn't like them that much...  :)

If you know Phil well, he said this in his loud monotone voice, "Stop-taking-my-picture!"

Hahaha!  Those chairs make me laugh and I love them.  So if you hate them just be glad you don't live here and hope that I never make you sit in them if you ever come over.  Hahaha!  :)

Here are all of my boys in another more normal chair.  So cute!

Jackson and I went to the dentist the other morning and he was so brave!  The hygenist tried to get x-rays of his teeth but then decided to wait until his mouth is a little bigger.  The x-ray film wouldn't fit and made him gag and when she leaned him back to clean his teeth he starting leaking tears but never really cried out loud.  Then he totally let her clean and scrape his teeth and was so brave.  This is a big deal for J.

She could tell he was upset so she asked him if he wanted to wear some cool sunglasses while she finished cleaning.  That made him very happy.  :)

Here he is showing off his clean teeth...

Next dental cleaning I get to bring Emmett, too, which should be lots of fun!  :)  And speaking of Emmett, here's a parting shot for you...

He walked around the house all morning the other day with these on.  We were cracking up.  Oh, Emmett!  He always keeps us on our toes and laughing at the same time!  :)