I heard this song today, let me first off say I am not a country fan. I promise I'm not! But I just loved this song. Honestly, I can't say I ever remember a time that my dad has told me he's loves me--BUT, I know without a doubt that he does.
He is always doing stuff for me. Stuff like unhooking my hose in the front yard so it wouldn't freeze and break a pipe. Stuff like building shelves in the cold storage room so I have somewhere to store all my food storage. Stuff like planting an enormous garden and way too many fruit trees so that all of his kids have food to put up for the winter months. I love my Dad!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1VRjEl8C60

New Carpet, New Job

When we were looking to buy this house, one of the main and only things I hated about it was the carpet. The people who lived here before us were renters and they must have had animals. It was gross! I have been dreaming of getting new carpet since then. My mom made the mistake of taking me to the carpet store with her to help her choose some she was laying at her house, when I found this really good deal. They were marking this carpet down because it was last years style, plus offering free installation. Bressain and I talked it over for quite awhile and decided to just go for it. It was crazy getting it installed though. I didn't realize how much work it was going to be, we basically had to move everything from room to room 3 separate times. Thank goodness I have such an awesome family! My brothers and brother in law rock, they helped us out a ton! Now that its all done, I am so happy we did it, I am loving it!

The other exciting news that has been going on, Bressain switched jobs this week. He had been at Caselle for a little over 5 yrs. It was sad to say goodbye to that company, they treated us well. It was Bressain's first "real" programming job, and he learned and grew a lot there. But, it was time to move on to bigger and better things. He now works at Dentrix, which is in American Fork (luckily right off the freeway, to help with the commute). He is now making dental software rather than accounting software. They are a much bigger company than we are used to, but so far he thinks he is going to like it. Hopefully it continues to go well!

Finished Pumpkins

So apparently I forgot to include the pumpkins--but aren't my boys cute. There are times I feel outnumbered and wish I had a girl to be with me, but life would be so boring without my boys!

Yep, he's weird! But, that is why I love him!
Cool Pumpkins!!

Carving Pumpkins

Getting ready to carve the pumpkins, Daddy got his apron on so the boys had to as well. Parker had to wear Mommy's, but he didn't care, he was just happy to be included!
All Parker needed was the bowl of pumpkin "guts" and a spoon. He played with that stuff the whole time. I thought he'd be a little grossed out by it, but nope not at all.
Gavin actually helped clean his out this year, years past he's been too worried about getting dirty. He still complained about it, but he wasn't going to let it bother him enough to miss out on it.

My job is cleaning them out, Bressain's job is doing the actual carving. He has much more artistic ability than I'd ever hope to have. They decided to do a mean scary one for Gavin and a silly one for Parker's. I'll show the finished products in the next post. I think they turned out pretty good.

Halloween

Well I guess I'd better do the tradition Halloween post. The kids got to dress up quite a few times this year. Gavin did for school, Bressain's work party, a church party and then trunk or treat. He chose to be Darth Vader a couple times and Spiderman a couple times. Parker was a Monkey a few times and a Tiger once. They had fun and got entirely too much candy. We ended up dumping their buckets into a big bowl and used that for giving to our Trick or Treaters. (is that mean?)

Parker did not understand what was going on. Someone would give him a piece of candy and he wanted to eat it right then and there. He would get so mad when we made him stick it in his bag for later. This was the first year that Gavin cared so much about his candy--he had to choose which one you could have, and if you didn't ask first he would get upset with you. I'm just happy to have it all out of the house!

Parker

Parker has gotten so much fun lately! I am thinking that the terrible 2's aren't so bad, or we just haven't reached the worst of it yet. Don't get me wrong, he still tries me everyday, but maybe I am either getting used to it, or learning how to deal with him better. He does not have a shy bone in his body, we took him into nursery for the first day and he walked in, said "Bye Mommy", and was a happy little boy when we picked him up. So not what I was used to with Gavin, but hey we'll take it!
He knows all of his animal sounds and if you ask him to say them he loves to tell you. He loves airplanes, but for some reason he calls them zzzzz-Pa's. He is constantly pointing to the sky saying "zzzzzPa". When you ask him to say Batman- he starts dancing and singing "NaaNaaNaaNaa, Batman!" He is so full of energy, it just blows me away! I took him to the mall a few days ago, I forgot the stroller, I thought he'd be ok because we were just running to one place. He RAN that entire mall, screaming and laughing the whole way. Neither Gavin nor I could catch him.
He has learned how to be mischievous and hide when he is doing something he knows is naughty. A few days ago, Gavin threw a piece of gum in the garbage, well Parker wanted it, so he grabbed it out of the garbage, shoved it in his mouth and then ran to his bedroom as fast as his little legs would carry him and slammed the door shut.
He is so full of personality. He has always been a high maintenance child--and he still is. He is loud, he has little patience and he has a temper--oh this kid has a temper! But on the flip side to that he is so loving--he loves to give hugs and kisses, he loves to be snuggled and rocked. He cracks me up with the things he does and says and the faces he makes. I just love him to pieces!!

Gavin

I thought I'd do a post about what Gavin is up to lately, simply to have a record of this age. He will turn 5 in almost one month exactly. He has become very independent lately, and is usually successful in what he is trying to accomplish. He loves school, every morning he asks if its a school day today or not. If it is a school day he gets excited and can get himself almost completely ready to go, the only thing he can't do is comb his hair. He has a best friend in his class named Kanyon, he talks about him all the time. He has learned how to write his own name, and loves to practice writing his letters. He is learning so much, he tells me things all the time that I had no idea he knew.
He loves to tease his little brother, but they are starting to play well together too. He idolizes his Daddy, Bressain can do no wrong in his eyes. If Bressain is home, Gavin is right next to him, he follows him around everywhere he goes. He loves Star Wars, ANYTHING about Star Wars--he has the figurines, the lightsabers, the movies, the costumes and he speaks about it daily.
He is generally pretty laid back and easy to get along with. But, he does know how to show some attitude when he wants to.
We love him and are so thankful that he is a healthy and happy little 5 old!

Cornbelly's!

Both the kids and I needed out of the house one day, So I decided that we would go up to Cornbelly's and see what it was all about. I called Bressain to see if he'd want to leave work a little early and go up with us, but he couldn't get out of work, so then I called and talked my mom into coming. I was amazed at how awesome this place was! I think we are putting this into our yearly Halloween tradition. We went on a hay ride, watched pig races, raced rubber duckies, jumped on a huge inflatable pillow (Parker's favorite), rode in a cow train, sat around a fire listening to stories, rode tricycles, and I even got Gavin into the scary inflatable dragon. About that dragon though, he walked in about 5 steps and ran back out--so we tried again, and we got half way in and all the sudden a blow horn went off. Poor Gavin jumped right out of his skin and ran as fast as he possibly could to get out of that dragon. I sorta felt bad, but man it was funny to see! We spent about 3 hrs there but then it got dark and cold on us and I had to drag the kids out crying cause they didn't want to leave.

Taking it Easy!

When I am getting ready for the day, I usually try to lock the kids out of the bathroom and turn on a TV show for them. It rarely happens that they actually stay and watch TV without coming in and destroying the bathroom-but I try. I got lucky this day though, when I opened up my bathroom door this is what I saw. I had to go get my camera, cause they are just so cute!

I am so blessed to have these 2 boys! They can frustrate me to no end some (more like most) days, and I often lose my patience with them. But, there are many times throughout my day that I just look at their sweet little faces and am overwhelmed with love for them. It is those little moments that make it all worth it!

On a side note--Parker is becoming quite the little TV watcher. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I don't like him watching so much TV cause its really not good for him, but on the other hand, I FINALLY have 2 minutes to get something accomplished. His favorite show is "Monkey George" (aka Curious George)--I love to listen to him watch this show, it makes him crack up laughing, full on uncontrollable belly laugh. Oh, it is the cutest thing!

The Zoo

I took the boys to the Zoo before it got too cold. This was Parker's first time ever going. He LOVED it, he was amazed by all the animals. He would point to them and make his animal sounds as we strolled around.

They were in the middle of remodeling while we were there, so we got to see the big bulldozer and backhoe take down a tree. This was the highlight of the trip for both boys. It scared them a little, but yet they couldn't stop watching it.





My mom is always a good sport and comes with me to these kinds of things--its nice to have an extra set of hands, and for the adult conversation while we are there. I don't know what I would do without her!

Parker was a little nervous about the train ride, he just sat real still and didn't say a word. And believe it or not, but Gavin was afraid of the carousel ride, we had to bribe him to get on his animal. Once he was on for a minute, he got used to it and liked it. Parker wasn't scared but didn't seem too amused by it either. I should have saved my 2 dollars!

Bye Bye Binky!

The boys both had dentist appts (no cavities, woohoo!!), but the dentist said that we really needed to get rid of Parker's bink. I had planned on it happening soon I just couldn't bring myself to do it. He was such a great sleeper with it, and he can be a demanding, loud child--it was my one thing that would help him be quiet for just a little bit. But, once the dentist showed me it was making his mouth do weird things, it gave me the motivation to do it.
I couldn't believe it but it actually went very well. When he was down for a nap, I got the scissors out and cut the tip off all the binky's. When we put him to bed that night he screamed for about 1o min, then went to sleep and slept all night. The next day for nap time he screamed for about 10-15 min and then went to sleep and took a good nap. The hardest part was seeing him so sad that it was broken. He had a few moments where he was missed it pretty bad, but other than that it went well. Much better than the week from hell when I took Gavin's away! It's nice to be done with it--next up potty training!

Dinkelman Family Reunion

Bressain's parents held a family reunion at a huge, beautiful home in Midway. His parents and all his siblings with their families came. We did a lot of card playing, relaxing, chatting, eating treats, watching movies and sitting in the hot tub. It was great to get away and catch up with each other. Gavin enjoyed himself, I really didn't see much of him the whole time, he was so busy playing with his cousins. It is sad but I only got these few pic's of Parker playing in our bath tub. The kid thought it was the coolest thing ever, and would get so ticked whenever we made him get out.