built for power and speed

We had so much fun this weekend driving down to Cedar City and St. George where Buck did the Kokopelli Triathlon. The weather was beautiful and Buck did great...well, I think so. He hardly trained for this thing. Not even close to how he trained for his marathon anyway. So for a first timer, I think he was awesome. His overall time was 1 hour 44 minutes. This was just a tri-sprint so he swam a 1/2 mile, biked 13.something miles and then ran a 5k (3.1 miles) to finish. Way to go Buck! I think his next event is going to be a half marathon on Halloween.
We stayed the night in Cedar City at Buck's brother's beautiful new house. Beautiful because of all the work he's done on it. He and his wife are fixing it up beautifully. I forget how annoying it is to sleep in the same room as Lucas until we go somewhere on vacation and I do it. He is such a noisy sleeper. He tosses and turns and makes little grunts and snorts almost all night. Grace makes the perfect roommate for him because I sure can't sleep with him in the room. The cute thing is that he tossed all over the room until he finally snuggled up close to Grace here. I think he just needs something or someone to snuggle while he sleeps. He loads his bed with stuffed animals and I wonder if that is why. He must get it from me as I used to sleep with a zillion stuffed animals on my bed when I was little. He's a thumb sucker too which I also was for a good portion of my childhood.
This is Buck after his race (obviously). We got there about 10 minutes after he had finished so I didn't get to take any finish line shots.
This random picture is of a preying mantis that was on our porch when we got home. The sticker on the porch is one that Grace put there to share with him. She threw a fit when I tried to make her come inside without him so we made him a little cage and he lived in our house for the afternoon. She named him Charlie. She put his little cage into her backpack and zipped him in and walked all around the house with him on her back. I finally let him go while she was distracted in the bathtub and then hid the parts of his cage so as not to remind her he was gone. I have a feeling she might remember at school today when she unzips her bag and realizes he's not in there anymore....

something new

Well, I am finally doing it. I have started a blog to sell my pettiskirts on. You can find it by clicking here or by clicking on Barefoot Creations over on the right. It's still a little scant but I am working on getting as much info. and more pictures on there ASAP!
Also on the right are some of my extended family's blogs. My cousin Bekah has some amazing vinyl items you should definitely check out. And Jeri's (I call her my cousin but actually she is my mom's) Budget Menu blog is AWESOME for those of us on budgets! If you are like me and the worst part of the day is trying to decide what to feed your family, she does it all for you! She gives you 3 meals for all 7 days of the week and then where to buy, ON SALE, the items to make those meals and what it should cost you. That's not all, she then gives you the recipes to make them too. She lives in AZ so it requires some translation for those of us in Utah. We don't have a Bashas' or Sprout's and she generally has listed produce items on those lists so I try to substitute Ream's or Sunflower Market for those items. Also, FYI, Fry's down there is the same as Smith's up here.

Happy Days

I switched my blogger editor over to the new one and am having a heck of a time figuring out how to get pictures on here the way I want. So these pictures are all kind of out of order but hey, atleast I finally got them on here. Now if I could just figure out how to add video...

Here are some pictures I've taken of the kids playing together lately. They are best friends and worst enemies...just depends on the day. Here are the ones where they are best friends. They love to drag this big old blanket up the swing set and then ride down the slide together as a train. We had a big rainstorm the other day and wanted to play outside in the rain. Luke wanted to wear his McQueen sweatshirt but wanted a hood like Grace so I used the hood zipped off his winter coat to make it work. They were soaked after about 2 minutes out there but still didn't want to come in.

I switched back to the old editor so I could add this video. I was taping them secretly.

silly boy

Lucas finally figured out that he can climb out of the crib by himself so it has been converted into a toddler bed to avoid all the falls he was having.  He loves his new freedom to get up from his bed when he should be sleeping.  Luckily, he still hasn't mastered opening doors.  Sometimes he can do it, but most of the time he can't.  This particular day, it was taking him a while to fall asleep for his nap.  I went to find out his final resting place and put him in to bed once I stopped hearing little noises coming from him.  I found his cute little fingers out below the door in his last ditch effort to get out of his room.  He was jamming up the door so I had to leave him to sleep his whole nap this way because I would have hurt his hand to open it.

Dear Sir,

If you absolutely cannot wait for me to pass you before you make your right hand turn at your red light, please have the courtesy to speed up to the speed I am going so I don't have to slam on my brakes while traveling through my green light.

kids

I've been a lazy blogger again. I've had a bunch of other stuff come up that I just haven't even thought about getting on the computer much for anything besides working. I finally took all the pictures and videos off my camera from the last few weeks today only to realize that most all the pictures I took were of Lucas not really doing anything but being cute or funny to me.
Here he is watching a movie while I cleaned all the carpets in the house. I hadn't done it in all the 5 years that we have been here so I thought it was about time. Buck said that I caused an "extreme home makeover" because I ended up re-arranging every single room in the house that had re-arrangeable furniture in it.
He carried his new McQueen box around the house for several days. He is wearing his McQueen hat which he put on (backwards) all by himself.
We went to Lagoon one last time for the summer and it was soooo hot that day. This is Grace's absolute favorite ride.
Luke, not so much. He didn't like it the first time we went on it on our first trip to Lagoon but we thought he might not be as scared this time. He was. This was before the ride even started. Poor guy. I felt like a horrible mom for even trying to take him again. I should have known better. Oh well. At least he's still alive.
This was the best face I could get from Grace on her first day of school. She was too busy licking the butter off of her blueberry muffin.
Luke was being so cute walking around with his hands in his pockets. I've discovered that he'll keep his tie on if I tell him he "looks so handsome just like Daddy."
Grace left for school one morning with a jacket on so right after she was gone, Luke came out of his room with his own jacket (his winter coat in this case) so he could be like sister.
I really need to find something to put on this shelf. It obviously has to be something that if the kids touch it, it won't break. As I'm looking closely at this picture, he looks like he's scared of falling off but actually, he thought he was so funny doing this and he was laughing (he has this crazy sinister laugh like he's plotting to take over the world which was the laugh he was doing here).
Below is a video of my monkey girl. I was trying to get a shot of when she hangs from the main bar and then kind of swings her way down the legs but she wasn't cooperating with me. She just kept jumping once she got up to the top. Either way, I love to watch her climb like this. I need to get her in to gymnastics or something since most of her day is spent in a "stand-head" (that's what she calls a headstand) or climbing something.