Dad - this one is for you!

On Friday Mylie and I were driving to Pocatello to meet my Mom to go to Utah for a quick trip. Now you'll recall the story of the "Big A" which is what she calls my Dad. She calls him this because of the logo of the company he works for (Doug Andrus trucking). All their trucks have a big A on the side. So we play a little game when we are traveling and we look for "Big A trucks". Well we are looking and looking while we are driving and from Boise all the way until Raft River we don't see any. We kept talking about where the trucks might be. Mylie inherited this talent of making up silly songs from Jeff and from the backseat I hear:

"Big A, Big A
are you asleep
or just far away?"

*Waiting for lightening to strike*

Mylie and I have had some interesting conversations about death lately. Our friends had to put their dog down last week which has sparked a lot of questions from Mylie about how Grover (their dog) got to Heaven when his body was in the ground. She also has been asking a lot about Heaven. Today we were in the car driving and she was looking out the window and asking why she couldn't see Heaven and I explained that it was far away but that Heavenly Father could see us. She kept asking how so Jeff said "with binoculars" . . . yikes!

Random things I miss about my Grandma.

• Her cooking. A couple weeks ago, out of nowhere, I got this craving for this bisquick chicken she used to make. She would use the bisquick mix to bread the chicken and then added some spice to it as well. I can't even think of the last time I had that.
• Her emails and instant messages. Although Grandma was 82 years old, she was pretty technologically savvy. I would often get emails and chat with Grandma on Instant Messenger. C'mon, I know you can see her in the office, in her jeans and pink sweatshirt on the computer.
• Watching her with Mylie. I like to tell myself that Mylie will have some memory of Grandma, but know she won't, she was just shy of 2 when Grandma died. I still remember the 4th of July 2004, Jeff and I were in Idaho Falls. For some reason, Jeff, Grandma and I were the only ones at the house, I think everyone else was at the parade. We had just had our ultrasound and told her that we had decided to name our baby Mylie Kona (Grandma's name is Kona). She cried. I have sweet memories of Grandma snuggling Mylie as a baby and then playing with her as a toddler.
• Her voice. I can still hear it in my head, but it seems so much longer than 2 years since I have heard it. I still miss her so much.

Observations...

This time of year the majority of my working hours are spent in high schools. Sometimes I am speaking in classes or sometimes (like today) I sit in the lunch room for an hour and a half and talk to students who come to my table. Here are some observations after a day in high school:

1. I am not letting Mylie go to high school! LOL. Now remember, for the past 10 years I have worked with high school aged kids, so this is nothing new to me, but my word, kids seriously have bad mouths! Apparently the F-bomb is a vocabulary word these days. I don't know if kids actually have worse mouths or if they just don't care about using them in front of authority figures. I had a big sign up that said "Youth Court" and some kid comes up to me and tells me that the people who do that are "a$$holes." I'm not so sure if he was calling me that or what, but I just can't imagine ever going up to some authority figure when I was 16 years old and saying that.
2. And although I am 32 years old, high school boys still look at my breasts instead of my eyes. Nice.

And lucky me ... another lunch period tomorrow!

Silly kids!

Today after church we decided to go on a little drive. Jeff and I were busy chatting away in the front seat and all of a sudden both kids started giggling like crazy in the back. (Oh, how I wish I had my camera with me for this one.) Mylie has gotten her hand wet (using her own spit) and was spiking Blakey's hair. Oh my!

7 years ago today ...

is when Jeff and I's love story began. At that time, I lived in Boise, was working for the Canyon County Probation Department and was teaching at BSU (in fact, Jeff's younger Matt was in my class that semester, I met him before I met Jeff). Jeff was living and working in Emmett as a parole officer and was also a K-9 officer. My friend Chrissy's husband, Rick, worked with Jeff and he mentioned that he might introduce us. I didn't think much of it. I had a pretty busy social life back then.

7 years ago today Chrissy, her sister-in-law, Tammy and I were going out to lunch. I remember that I was driving my red Jeep and we were headed down the Boulevard going to Great Western Pizza. I knew that Rick was meeting us for lunch but as we were driving Chrissy mentioned that Jeff was coming too. I totally remember checking my hair and make-up in the rear-view mirror. We met and chatted, but there were six of us there, so it was a little busy. We realized that we would both be attending a conference the next week and figured we could visit more then.

At the conference we hung out a little bit together and at the last class we attended Jeff leaned over to me and whispered, "When are you going to let me take you out to dinner?" I got butterflies in my stomach. That was on a Tuesday and I was going to Moscow to see some friends on the upcoming weekend, so we made plans for the following weekend. We emailed back and forth a bit and ended up going to lunch one day the next week. We were already getting to know each other by the time our date rolled around. Our date was for that Friday night and instead of going out for dinner, I offered to cook, which Jeff the bachelor readily agreed to. I still remember exactly what I made (pepper steak, baked potatoes, green beans, french bread and pie). Jeff showed up with a teddy bear and flowers, so cute! We ate and talked and then went to a movie. We went to see "Training Day" and it was kind of funny, because a guy that Jeff supervised on parole sat right in front of us. So romantic.

The following Monday was Columbus Day and both of us had it off of work. We decided we would drive to McCall for the day (about a 4 hour round trip). It is a gorgeous drive in the fall with all the leaves changing. We drove and laughed and talked and that was the day I knew. I knew this was the man that I would love forever, who I would have babies with, grow old with, laugh and cry with. I knew we were meant to be together.

Apparently Jeff knew too. Within a month we were engaged, within another month we had bought a house and two months after that we were married. I laugh, because I always said I would have to know someone for a year before I would marry them. I had a rule called the "seasons rule." I had to see what someone was like during very season before I could marry them. Apparently Jeff did well in fall and winter, because we were Mr. and Mrs. Breach before spring ever hit!

Lots of things have changed in those 7 years. We have had job changes and financial changes. We went from two working professionals to a family with two kids. We have learned together how to be parents. I remember thinking that I couldn't possibly love Jeff more than I already did, that is until I saw him hold Mylie for the first time. My heart nearly burst. And in the nearly 4 years since we have been parents, we have laughed more than we ever have, we have had more challenges than ever, and have been happier than we knew we could be.

If would have asked me 7 years and 1 day ago if I ever thought I would be this happy, I would have said no. I didn't know my heart had the capacity to love this much, but it must keep growing, because I keep loving Jeff, Mylie and Blake even more. 7 years and 1 day ago I didn't know what was in store for me, but true love snuck up on me and I am grateful for that every single day.

Domestic

I have been wanting to get a food processor for quite awhile and today I found a big one at Wal-Mart for $25. So tonight I made salsa (for the first time ever), oh my. It was super good. Then I made some yummy tomatillo ranch salad dressing. We had chicken taco salads for dinner and they totally hit the spot. Then I made about 12 servings of baby food. I am feeling super domestic today!

Time for pictures!

I feel like my blog went from picture overload to hardly any pictures. This month has just been so busy we have hardly had time to have any fun, let alone take any pictures of it. Ha ha. But hooray for Friday! I don't work on Fridays so we have just been playing this morning. Here are some pictures of my cuties. And yes, Mylie is wearing make-up. Grandma B. bought her a make-up kit and I still need to teach her the rules of eyeshadow, such as blue eye shadow may be a little excessive and you don't need to draw a unibrow with it. She is still cute regardless though.
And this is Mr. Big Boy. He is so proud of himself, that he can sit up all by himself.
Although Mylie looks like she is doing a little gangster pose here, she is actually trying to show off her fingernails. Her make-up kit has little fingernail stickers. I may have flower stickers on my nails right now too.
"I'm ready to crawl Mom!" I'm pretty sure that is what he would say if he could talk right now. He can *kind of* do it and he gets frustrated because he wants to move even more than he does. I think I'm in trouble though when he does start moving.
And this is what Mylie and I call his "ballerina boy" pose. He sicks his little butt up in the air and then scoots himself forward. So hilarious! Mylie and I are very entertained by him.

He is growing like mad though, wearing 12 month sized pants and already some 18 month sized shirts. He loves to eat and cracks me up. When he sees the spoon he just opens his mouth as big as it can go and scoots his whole face to the spoon. Mylie is still so cute with him. She is very protective of him and relishes her role as a big sister. They love each other to pieces and get the best smiles out of each other. If Blake is fussy in the car, Mylie sings to him and he instantly calms down. They make me happy!

Is it bad

that Mylie may love the Rocky movies? Tonight we watched Rocky 2 and she got a kick out of it. As Rocky is doing all his workouts she was telling us, "Oh, I can do that." or ""Ya, that's easy." Hilarious! She did decide that maybe she needs to wear a mouthguard when she works out in the garage from now on. I'm pretty sure that she is as entertaining as the movie. Oh, and I will add that I still get teared up at the end when he beats Apollo. Wow, I'm a nerd!

Crazy busy.

Just a quick recap of our week. It was crazy-busy!! September is inasane for me with work, I spend the whole month in all the high schools recruiting kids for as Youth Court volunteers. On top of this, yesterday and today I was in meetings all day for the Idaho Juvenile Justice Commission, then tomorrow I leave for Lewiston and will fly back Sunday night. I'll be helping set up and get registration ready for the Idaho Juvenile Justice Association Conference. I am on the board and should be going for 5 days, but pulled my Mommy card, no way I can leave the baby for that long.

Mylie started soccer again last Saturday and loves it! She did a great job and remembered a lot of what she has learned. Blakey is just a happy little dude. He is going to be crawling so soon ... ahhh! They both do a good job adjusting when I have crazy weeks. Mylie got to spend the day with Grandma Breach yesterday and they had so fun. She came home with an electric guitar, which she calls a violin ... ha ha ha. She serenaded Blake this morning at 7 (while he was still sleeping) with a little song she called "Wake Up Brother" She is a funny kid.

That's it. It's 10:30 and I had better go pack the few things I need for my quick trip. I will miss the kids like mad, but may get to sleep in past 7.

Ding, ding. We've got a winner.

Mary Poppins! Yep, we have found another movie that Mylie totally adores. Tonight we had a "movie party" and Jeff had been telling Mylie about Mary Poppins and that is what she picked. We guessed with her newfound love for "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" that this would be a success also.

I can't even think how many times she exclaimed, "What the heck?" For instance, when Mary Poppins was unloading the coat rack, lamp and plant out of her bag. Or when the horses came off the merry-go-round. Or when Uncle Albert laughed so hard he floated to the ceiling. She loved the music and was already singing along by the end of the show.

It reminded me of watching Disney movies when I was a kid. We didn't have fancy DVDs ... Ben, Courtney, Bailey remember VHS tapes with masking tape on the front with either Mom or Grandma's writing on them? Remember how we would occassionally get the Disney Channel free for a weekend and they would record everything so we could watch it over and over again. I loved it and remember watching those movies over and over again. I remember that one of my favorites was "Superdad" (wonder why?). One of my other favorites I thought was called something like My Mother is a Freshman ... or something like that. But I just spent the last 10 minutes googling and searching disney.com's old movie list and I can't come up with the name of it. It is an old movie, black and white and set in the 50s maybe, a mom enrolls in college when her daughter does. It is now going to drive me nuts! If anyone (Mom) can think of the name, please help me.

Check out this link though (http://www.ultimatedisney.com/oldliveaction.htm). I totally just thought of tons of other Disney movies I loved, Pollyanna, Swiss Family Robinson, Absent-Minded Professor, Parent Trap, The Love Bug. I think I am going to see if I can add some of these to our Nexflix list. I remember Ben's favorite movie was Bedknobs and Broomsticks, I already have that one on our list for Mylie.

Something you may not know about me is I love old movies. Elvis movies, my favorites. The Beach Blanket Bingo movies, I love them. Doris Day movies with Rock Hudson or James Garner, sigh. In fact, someday I am going to break down and buy a collection of Doris Day DVDs. Oh and what about Jerry Lee Lewis and Dean Martin comedies? Hmmm, I may just have to up our Netflix plan!

Just me and my guy.

Grandma and Grandpa Breach took Mylie to the movies today and Jeff was at work. I don't work on Fridays so it was just me and Blakey today. Mylie said I should put Blake down for a nap and do chores while she was gone, but we didn't. Blake had had a cold and I have the beginning of one so we just had laid back afternoon, he fell asleep snuggled on my lap and I just let him stay there ... for an hour and a half. There is something pretty sweet about baby boys.

This is picture overload and they probably all look the same to you, but I love all the different expressions on his face.

"Getting the camera out, huh Mom?" "I'd better smile and show you my teeth."
"This one is my mischevious look."
He always sucks in his bottom lip, even when he was a brand new baby. He is sure a sweet little boy!
Mylie had so much fun with Grandma and Grandpa. They went to "Kung Fu Panda" and then out to lunch. She was dressed in one of her new dresses and ready to go at 7:30, it was a long wait until 11:15. She was ready for her date! She reported that the movie was funny, she got tootsie rolls, popcorn AND soda at the movies. Lucky kiddo.

New tricks

Blake is pretty interested in moving around. This is him yesterday. "See Mom, I can get my head up ..."
"and get up on my tip toes ..."
"and get on my knees. I'm just not sure what to do next!"
"I like to play with my big sister ..."
"well, most of the time."

Our three day weekend.

We had a nice laid back weekend and it totally feels like the end of summer and the night before school starts. For me it is, I go back to a more regular work schedule tomorrow and the kids go back to a regular day care schedule. It didn't get out of the 70s today and it really feels like fall is upon us.

A couple pictures from early in the weekend. From Friday at lunch ... what are you hiding there Blake?
Yep, his first french fry and boy did he love it. He had this major happy grin and he was gumming that thing.
Friday night while I was confined to the recliner, Mylie got our her notebook and we were practicing writing her letters and then we were practicing writing people's names, I would tell her the letters and she would write them. She wanted to write Papa, so I told her P-A-P-A and she started writing it, then started giggling and said, "That sounds like Big A." (You may remember the story of how Mylie calls my Dad the Big A.) So I did what any good Christian mom would do and taught her how to spell Big A. Of course I had to get a pictures, I love her drawings. This one is for you Dad!
Saturday I was finally feeling a bit better, Jeff's Mom took the kids for the day and Jeff and I went out to lunch and then to the "Dark Knight." Batman has definitely come a long was since Michael Keaton. It was a great show and so fun to go on an actual date. We ran a few errands and then went back to Melba and stayed for a while and had dinner with Mary. Mike and Devin were out of town for the weekend, it was fun to just sit around and chat. Mylie had tons of fun and hates leaving.

Sunday was a quiet day (as quiet as days can get with two little ones). We went to church, came home, ate a yummy dinner and then went on a drive. The weather was nice and cool and I just love the feel of fall!

Today was busy with some errands and work. Jeff and I both had to go into our respective offices for a bit to get a few things done. He took Mylie and I took Blake. Blake was not content to sit while I worked. Today he was totally up on all fours shaking and wiggling, trying to figure out how to move. Good thing I didn't have too much to do, he was not up for working today. I called over to Jeff's office when I was done (our offices are about 3 minutes away from each other) and Mylie answered the phone, "This is the boss' office." Jeff got on the phone and apparently he wasn't getting too much done with Mylie there either. I reminded him that I know full well how difficult it is to work with Mylie around. I went over to pick her up and she and Blakey and I sat in the car in the parking lot listening to music so Jeff could hurry and finish up what he had to do. I asked her what she had been doing at Daddy's office and if she had drawn any pictures. She told me no and then launched into this long explanation about how she had been writing checks and then putting them on the jail chair (there is a chair at their office with handcuffs in case they have to arrest someone and are waiting for the jail to come and pick them up.) She told me that if she gave checks to the guys on the jail chair then they wouldn't need to go to jail. I asked Jeff what in the world they were talking about that brought on this conversation and he had no idea. I would seriously like to get in her mind sometimes.

After more errands we finally made it home. Both kids were a bit grumpy by then. Mylie was sitting on the couch trying to play with something and kept yelling, "I am so frus-ter-a-ted!" I had to hide my face. But eventually their smiles came back. Mylie was eating a sucker after dinner and Blake was quite interested in it. He is such a super cute super happy little dude. You can kind of see his two little bottom teeth in this one. He's growing so fast and will be 7 months this week. He gets a smile like this almost everytime he sees his sis.
So that is pretty much our weekend in review. It is 7:30 and the kids are both in bed, I am going to go make some cookies and we are going to watch "The Bucket List." I have such a busy week a head of me, but I am grateful for the structure that comes along with fall.