Losing my brain?

I think all of the blogging and Facebooking (I'm using this word even though I do not consider Facebook a verb.) I've been doing is making me start to lose my brain. That, or it's making me completely careless.

I'm a total grammar and spelling nazi. I hate announcing this because it worries me that people will start scrutinizing the things I write. But I notice detail. I would say that's why I LOVE doing math. I love that you have to get every little detail correct in order to get the correct answer. So I don't go looking for grammar or spelling mistakes, I just naturally notice them. And I'm not saying that I am the best at using proper grammar, but I do try really hard to write things the correct way. I keep my English 1 book from college at my computer, and I use it a lot to check myself. And I also keep a dictionary close by to make sure I'm using words the way they are supposed to be used and to check my spelling.

So you can imagine my horror when I go back and read some of the comments I've left for people on their blogs or on Facebook, and I've used "their" instead of "they're" or some other incorrect homonym. And I misspell words all of the time now! I'm appalled at some of things I've posted for the world to see!

I never took keyboarding, so I never learned how to type correctly. I know that's where the misspellings are coming from, but I AT LEAST used to be good at proofreading what I'd written before I posted it. I spend a lot of time reading about other people, whether it be on personal blogs or on Facebook, and I really like to comment if a thought pops into my head about a person's post. I consider myself an over-commenter sometimes. And I think the past few years of reading blogs and Facebook posts has made me get too comfortable with commenting to the point that I don't check anything I say anymore! I just type and post, type and post, etc.

I want to change. I don't want to be careless with my comments anymore. I'm doing this post because I want to be more aware of the things I am posting FROM NOW ON! Now that it is written, I will try to be better.

Feel free to attack any grammatical errors I make all the time that drive you nuts.

Golden Birthday

Today is my baby's 2nd birthday. Here are a few fun facts about Braden right now:

- He takes a binky like a champ! And I'm okay with that since he sucks his thumb if I don't give him a binky. I get anxiety thinking about trying to get another kid to stop sucking his thumb. Maybe taking the binky away later will be just as hard, but I'm hoping it will be a little bit easier.

- He's a little violent. We call him Brutus sometimes because he's so rough with his brother and sister. We have to keep tennis rackets and William's mini hockey sticks and golf clubs out of Braden's reach because he likes to use them as weapons.

- He has two blanket babies that he loves and has to sleep with every night. If I put him to bed without them, he'll instantly ask for his "babies".

- He likes to try to pray like his brother and sister do, but so far he'll only copy "Heavny Father" and "Amen".

- He's been sleeping in his new big boy bunk bed for about a week now, and he is doing great! Now every bed he sees is a "bunka bed".

- He LOVES all three Toy Story movies right now. He asks for "Stoy Stowy" when he wants to watch a movie. He also likes to say, "To infiny and benon!" with the same inflection as Buzz Lightyear.

- He likes to jump on the "jumpeen" or trampoline, and he knows how to climb in and out of it all by himself.

- He gets to go to school in the morning on Tuesdays through Thursdays and hang out with the big preschoolers. His teacher told me today that even though he is the youngest (he's two years younger than the youngest kids in the class), he wants to do everything that the big kids are doing. A few weeks ago the music teacher Mr. S had the kids play "American Idol" during music time. Each preschooler got to go on stage and sing a song using the microphone. Braden wanted to participate, so he sang the "may me maw mo moo" warm-up song when it was his turn.

- He calls William "Bub" or "Bubba". He calls Rebecca "Becca". And he calls me "Mom" and Kevin "Daaaadyyyy". I love that he calls us all by name.

Braden is such a fun boy. He makes us laugh every day. We're so happy to have him in our family.

Happy birthday, Braden!!

Yo Quiero Taco Bell

We got a dog. My friend Holly offered him up on Facebook after her husband brought him home from work. The dog had been hanging around her husband's work for a few days acting cold and hungry, and since they already have a dog, they decided to give him to anyone who wanted him.

And that was us.

He's a chihuahua, and his name is Guillermo (pronounced ge-yer-mo). He is friendly to everyone (including our kids who constantly invade his personal space), but his favorite person is Kevin. When Kevin is home, he follows him wherever he goes. We're not sure how old he is, but he seems young.

I've wanted a dog for a little while now, and a chihuahua is the type of dog I've been considering. Two of my brothers have chihuahuas, and their dogs don't shed much, they hardly bark, and they are pretty good with kids - all things I was looking for in a pet.

And we've been loving this new addition to our family. Thanks, Holly!

Has it seriously been a month already?!

I haven't missed a month on my blog so far, and I don't want to start neglecting it because this is the only time that I ever journal anything. Journal can be used as a verb, right?

So here's a pictureless post just to make sure I don't miss a month.

January has been a month of free entertainment for us. Kevin took me on a totally free date. He has been working A LOT this month, which I'm grateful for, but our schedules don't ever seem to match. When I'm working, he's at home, or when he's working, I'm at home. We needed to go do something together. He had $100 gift certificate for dinner that his mom had given him for a place she didn't really like. And he had two sets of free movie passes that he got from giving blood. (He's a universal donor, so he goes in as often as he can to donate.) We had a nice free dinner, we toured the new Cosmopolitan hotel, which is now my new favorite on the Strip, and we watched The Dilemma with one set of his movie passes.

The next week we used his other free movie passes and a free ticket that Rebecca got with her Tangled Wii game to take the kids to Tangled. We'd already seen it, but we liked it so much that we thought the kids would have fun seeing it again. And they did.

Lately free or discounted is about all we can do, and I perfectly happy with that. We have been very blessed over the past year, and we have things that most other struggling students don't have, so I'm okay with cutting back.

My other free entertainment is watching the new season of The Bachelor with some girls in my ward.

I guess this post isn't completely pictureless.

Yes. I am a Bachelor fan. And I've been really excited for this season since I was really disappointed a few seasons ago when Brad didn't choose ANYONE. A few of us decided to watch it together since a couple of girls in our ward have decided to give up TV in their homes. We've just been inviting those fans that we know of because of the racy nature of the show. But if you're a closet fan and you're reading this post, please join us. Sometimes our chatting makes us miss a few things during the show, but you can always rewatch it online the next day, and it really is a fun Monday night party.

And that's about it for January. I hope everyone else had a great month.

Merry Christmas

I woke up this morning to three elves on my trampoline!

I hope you all have nice holiday!

Train Field Trip

Today we all went on a school field trip for Rebecca out in Boulder City. They do a Christmas train ride with Santa out there, and Rebecca loved it last year, so we all decided to go this year.

William and Braden sat with Kevin and me.

And Rebecca sat with her friends. Way too much growing up from this girl lately!

That had an open train car that all the kids loved.

And all of the workers were dressed like this. I loved it.

We took our short ride out and back, and then they unloaded us from the train. I thought maybe Santa was somewhere at the station waiting. Turns out he wasn't there at all today. And Rebecca and William were really hoping to tell him what they wanted for Christmas, and I was happy that we wouldn't have to go stand in a long line for it. Oh well. Bass Pro Shops is fun, and close, and Santa is always there at Christmas time.

Braden lasted about five muntes on the freeway home before he fell asleep. That's candy cane all over his face. I think William fell asleep a few minutes after I took this picture, but you could probably already tell that from his face.

It's not often that we do stuff like this as a family. Even though we didn't get to see Santa we still had fun riding the train together.

Almost a month ago...

Rebecca turned 6. I'd like to say that I'm posting this late because I'm lazy or really busy, but that's not true. I wasn't going to post about her party for fear I would hurt feelings of anyone who wasn't invited, but today while looking through my pictures, I realized that I really want her party documented.

This party was Rebecca's first friend birthday party. We invited all the 6-year-olds and 5-turning-6-year-olds from church, our next door neighbor, 2 cousins, and 2 friends from across town, which turned out to be 15 friends! I told her not to tell anyone at school she was having a party because I don't think I could handle any more little girls! We sent cupcakes to school instead, and Rebecca has a nice party with mostly church friends.

The girls started out decorating sugar cookies and eating pizza. My sister-law Emily made the cookies and brought icing, food coloring, and sprinkles for decorating. The cookie decorating was a hit!

Then we moved to the couch for presents. This is where most of the girls started out.

Except for Natalie who sweetly helped Rebecca with her gifts.

Then they all started moving in to get a closer look. I love this picture of Braden in stride.

Lately Rebecca loves gumball machines at the store, so she was very happy to get her own personal gumball machine from Kaylie and Marissa.

We ended with cake and ice cream. I had some other girly activities planned, like painting fingernails, but the girls just wanted to jump on the trampoline and play upstairs for the rest of the party.

Rebecca had a great time, and I am glad to have my first kid party out of the way. It was not as bad as I expected it to be.