Flag Football

This was Trey's first flag football practice and of course Breton wanted to be like the big boys and play football too.

Trey at his first practice and he's loving every minute of it. I think he looks like a little Matt.

Here is a video below of the boys warming up before Trey's first game. The ref asked if Breton was playing...duh, he's only a foot and half shorter than the other kids and it's completely obvious that he's not the same age, what was he thinking? Breton was pretty upset when he had to take his flags off, he's sad he's not on the team.

The second video is Trey's first run of his football career. What was the outcome you may ask? Yep, you guessed it...a touchdown! Was there ever any doubt?

First Day of School

This is Trey on his first day of school. He's really liking it, well most of the time. He's still struggling with school being EVERY day. But since he gets to do Karate at school, he's thrilled to go every Tuesday!

We can't leave out Breton; whatever big brother does, so does little brother. This is Breton on Trey's first day of school.

Night at Nova

Our friends invited us to a back to school BBQ at the medical school a few weeks ago. We fit in just fine with all the other young LDS students with kids, so no one questioned our attendance. They had this awesome blow-up maze thing and filled it with bubbles for the kids to run around in, oh they also supplied them with squirt guns. Needless to say, Trey loved it!

I must admit that I'm a lame mom; this was our first stop at the BBQ. Duh! As we did the other activities Trey was still wet as I had forgotten to bring a towel. Oh well. Breton didn't venture in the maze since the bubbles were taller than him in most places.

This is as far as Trey got. When the guy went to hook up the other side of the bungies, Trey totally freaked out and didn't want to do it anymore. I'm surprised he actually got up there at all. We'll just say that Trey is our cautious child. Well after looking at that guy, he does seem a little creepy, that may have scared Trey too.

Come on

Come on, this has got to be the cutest kid, right? Breton you are one handsome boy!

Our little photographer

Trey has become quite the photography student. The other day I found our camera lying on the floor of his room, but it wasn't until a few days later that I found several (upwards of 20) pictures like the one above. Trey had artistically displayed his cars and was taking very tasteful photographs.

He's been doing this the past year here and there. We would scroll through our memory card to find odd pictures of completely random toys or strange pictures of Breton. At first I wondered why Matt was taking pictures of such insignificant things, but we finally realized Trey loved the other side of the camera.

Our most favorite picture is one Trey took of his 'little people' sheep, it was his first endeavor with our camera and even then he showed his skills. He certainly has the eye for artistry because the shots are never the conventional straight on, he'll tilt the camera and zoom in for an off centered photo that only the truly gifted can master.

Getting out of the heat

It's so dang hot here that even going to the pool isn't cutting it these days. The pool feels like bath water and is far from refreshing! So some girlfriends and I decided to take our kids to this indoor play space. The idea is that mom's can relax and chat while the kids just play on their various slides, dress up areas, theater area, etc. The concept is great, but in reality it doesn't work because with so many ill mannered kids running around, one is forced to stand guard for fear of their child being beaten or his toy maliciously stolen. But the kids did love it and it was 2 hours in an air conditioned space while they expended some energy. Breton found these motorcycles (his newest love) and bounced from one to the other. He didn't mind the color of the motorcycle or if it was currently occupied, he kept about his business for a good 20 minutes. Pretty cute!

Home to Oregon

The boys and I headed home to Oregon to spend a few weeks with my parents and sisters! It was so great being home, I've missed being around family. My parents took us straight from the airport to the St. Paul Rodeo...it's a sort of tradition for the Myers' family. The boys loved it! Well I loved it too, they had this crazy buffalo act where this one-armed cowboy (no joke) got two buffalo to climb on top of his trailer. Weird, but oddly entertaining.

Trey and Breton have really missed having a backyard. Every morning after breakfast, they would head out to grandma's backyard and just play, play, play. We have a little patio at our apartment, it's about 2 feet wide and 6 feet long. The boys do play out there, but it's a depressing sight. So having a whole backyard with lots of fun toys was so exciting for them.

Every year when my sisters and I get together my mom always wants a picture with all the grandkids. We used to go somewhere and have them professionally done, but it's getting too hard with so many kids and logistically getting all of us there is a nightmare with only two cars. So we opted to take a snapshot when they were all in a good mood. In every picture but one, Zack is pulling a face...like father, like son.

Jarvis Family Reunion

A few weeks ago we went to Utah for the Jarvis Family Reunion. My family is scattered across the country so we don't get all together very often. My parents live in Midway, UT close to Park City so we gathered at their place and a condo at The Canyons resort. The weekend was packed with different activities.  

Friday morning the guys went golfing and in the afternoon the entire family played various games with our newly made tie dye t-shirts.  The night before my Mom organized the family into teams and we made our uniforms. We ended up mostly playing kick ball and wiffle ball as the entire family could play together and then we went swimming. That evening some of my parents friends prepared a Cafe Rio style dinner for us. It was seriously just like Cafe Rio but homemade.  Then we had a family trivia game where my parents told stories of us kids when we were little and the grandkids tried to guess which sibling they were referring to. It was a fun evening.

On Saturday we met our cousins the Wilsons at Deer Creek Reservoir with their two boats and went boating for most of the day. This was actually the only thing we got pictures of throughout the trip (see below). That evening we had a surprise baby shower for my sister Angie and it was actually a family affair with the ladies inviting everyone. Needless to say it was the first baby shower I had been to. It was actually a lot of fun. My sisters set up a fun game where they compiled pictures of the entire family when they were babies and we all filled out our own sheet guessing who was who. 

Sunday was church and a big Sunday dinner. We took family pictures and are still waiting to see the results. We'll post them as soon as they get to us.  That was pretty much the reunion...sorry if it wasn't the most interesting post but I wanted to give the recap so we remember the details for the reunion down the road.  

Breton's 2nd Birthday

It was Breton's turn for his birthday 8 days after Trey. Unfortunately, that meant it fell on a Sunday so there was no Chuck-E-Cheese for his big day. Fortunately, Breton doesn't really know the difference at this age.  

The highlight of his birthday was when he opened his first present and found a truck similar to the one truck they play with on the beach.  He was so happy to now have his own truck so they wouldn't have to fight over the other one.  After that he didn't care to open any other presents (although we were able to open them with some cooperation on his part).

Aside from the truck, Breton's big present was his new baseball bat. Up until now Trey had a big blue bat and Breton used Trey's old bat that was really little. He was so happy to have his own big bat now that he's a big boy! Oh, and yes, he's a lefty...just like his mom!

Kristi slaved over Breton's cake and made him a green dinosaur cake. Not too shabby, huh? For Breton's 1st birthday he didn't want anything to do with his cake...but this time around he jumped right in!

Trey's 4th Birthday

Trey turned 4 a couple of weeks ago on May 23rd.  Here are a few of the highlights from the big day...

For some reason Trey really likes football (I'm sure it has nothing to do with his dad's job) so of course he needed to wear his football shirt and mommy made football cupcakes.  

We picked up three of Trey's friends and took them all to Chuck E Cheese to play games.  We're totally bargain shoppers as Kristi got a coupon for 20 frees tokens when its your birthday. Then we paid $10 for 50 tokens and the boys played a ton of games for over an hour for just ten bucks. Their reward from the tickets won were packets of Pop Rocks.  It was hilarious watching them eat those as I'm sure it was a bizarre first experience for them to have candy popping in their mouths.  Oh, and Trey's dad set the new Pop-A-Shot record picking up where he left off at Game Face! :)

By the way, the kids in the middle in the picture above...you're probably thinking he's maybe a year older than the other kids.  Nope.  He's two months older than Trey and almost a foot taller.  Of course, his parents are really tall...and you should see his little sister!  She'll be three soon and she is as big as Trey!

Trey's new Marlins baseball glove!

As most of you know, Kristi is always either looking for a bargain or making one on her own. For Trey's birthday she wanted to have a pinata but of course she didn't want to pay what stores were selling them for.  So she and her mom got the materials and made a Dolphins Pinata for a grand total of $2.38.  The best part was when the kids had hit it like 50 times and barely put a small hole in the side...I took a peak in the hole and found that the inside had been reinforced with duct tape!  It had to be the toughest pinata known to man...if four energetic four year olds couldn't break it open!  Moral of the story: don't use duct tape to make a pinata.  

Cruising

A couple of weekends ago we took a much needed vacation without the kids for three nights on a cruise to the Bahamas. We couldn't remember the last time we spent that much time together without the kids. It really was the perfect length though as we were refreshed and ready to get back to normal life after the weekend. And certainly after three days we missed the little guys back at home. Special thanks to Grandma Myers for coming down to babysit. Below are a few of the highlights from the trip.

Yes, that's three desserts for two people. You gotta love the food on cruises...not sure about Kristi but I gained a good 10 pounds over the weekend. And of course, the next day I was back down about 7. What does a guy gotta do to gain some weight around here?

  
Our first shore excursion was on Nassau and we visited the famous Atlantis Resort. We bit the bullet and went for full access at the resort. It wasn't cheap but it was certainly worth it. Definitely a one timer but we figured we're probably never going back anyway. It was by far the coolest water park I've ever been to as there were plenty of awesome slides, including one that went through a huge aquarium (see Exhibit A below...yes, that's me on the slide and that's a shark tank that the slide goes through below the Pyramid) and they had several lazy rivers throughout the park that were part lazy and part white water rafting. Fun stuff.  

The rest of the resort was a mix of pools, aquariums, private beaches, etc. You could stay there for a week and probably not see the entire resort. The place was huge. The main aquarium was called The Pit and was by far the biggest aquarium I've ever been too.  

Our other excursion day was spent on a private island that Norwegian Cruise Line owns. Sounds a lot cooler than it actually was but basically it was a day laying on the beach. As you can see from the picture behind us that is our ship in the distance and you can see all the people from our cruise on the beach. It ended up being one of the crowdiest beaches we've ever been to. The cruiseline was nice enough to put beach chairs on the beach but there were so many people that it was essentially beach chair, beach chair, beach chair, etc. We ended up sitting by two young couples that were smoking and chatting it up nonstop. Not as relaxing as we were hoping. And then there were people coming by every 20 minutes trying to steal our umbrella. But other than that it was good...my team won the beach volleyball tournament. Nevermind the fact that there were only two teams that entered the tournament!! I won a beer can sleeve (or whatever you call it) and I brought it home and it's a perfect football tee for Trey to kick field goals.  And I thought I wouldn't be able to use it. :)

HSM3

So I finally watched HSM3...I'm about a year late.  Well Trey watched it with me because Matt was not having any part of that.  When Troy and Gabriella were dancing on the roof and he was lifting her up and twirling her around, Trey kept saying, "that girl is strong mom.  She's so strong." Well apparently Trey thinks Troy is a girl...the hair must have been confusing him. I tried to explain that Troy was a boy, but he wasn't buying it.

Needless to say we're both fans.  Duh, the opening scene is basketball so naturally Trey was instantly hooked.  Trey's new number for all of his sports is #14...Matt is having a hard time with the move away from the Jarvis 25.  My take on the movie?  FREAKING LOVED IT!!!! 

I'm a Marathoner...well 1/2 Marathoner

My sisters and cousins and I ran the Provo City Half Marathon and 5 K on April 4th 2009! It was a great weekend! Well the race itself was less than desirable, but the weekend as a whole was very memorable. 

This was my first big race and I had trained faithfully for 14 weeks (well really 16 since I started too early, I was a little over zealous). I had high hopes for the 1/2 marathon, but training in Florida for a race that was in Utah came back to bite me. I had been training in 70 degree weather to arrive in Utah with a bitter 29 degrees on race day. 

It snowed the whole race with mile 7 being the worst because the snow was moving horizontally into our faces the entire time. At mile 9 I started hyperventilating while I was crying because I couldn't run the whole thing. (Who knew running was so emotional, that wasn't the only time I cried during the race). So, I had to stop because my knee was killing me. I started running again after a short break and then met up with my sisters and dad at mile 10. 

Well I made it another 1/2 mile and my hip, knee and ankle were shooting pain with every hit of the pavement. Then my knee gave out and I could barely walk, Kelly was basically carrying me for a while. But freak I had already run 10 1/2 miles, I wasn't going to stop now! So reluctantly I walked the last 2 1/2 miles to finish my 1/2 marathon. It was great to have the support of my sisters and cousins to help get me through it.

So my first big race didn't go at all how I had planned, but I'm not giving up...I'll start training for the next 1/2 marathon this month! My new plan is to run faster so that I won't have to run so long! Oh, and I'm going to run it down here so that I can actually finish while running the entire race. 

P.S. We all wore tutu's because we're "tutu fast"! EVERYONE loved them. We got comments on them all throughout the race. Even the guys liked them. I'll think we'll keep them around and use the tutu's for our next family race. 

Jet Setting

The boys and I have been flying all over the place, well mostly to Utah. It's been great since we've moved to Florida, I think we've seen our family more often since then. The boys are really good fliers, smarties and suckers are the "reward" (aka bribe) of choice for a job well done. We've got the routine down really good; one mom, two boys, two suitcases, two carry-ons, one double stroller, and two car seats. I'm a spectacle walking into the airport, but it's worth it to visit family especially when we're so far away. Here are the boys just relaxing watching a movie...thank goodness Delta has satellite TV!

Just Your Average Thursday

So last week me and the kids went to get Breton's blood work done...we got there at 10 am with a waiting room filled with tons of old people (probably on their last leg :)), but we checked in and waited.  There was a sign that said no food or drink, so I stuck with that for about 15 minutes, but my kids are only quiet with food in their mouths.  So to the benefit of us all, I broke out the snacks.

Well, an hour later I watch 3 or 4 people that had checked in behind me go back and get their tests done.  So I go up and ask if they had called our name yet and she says, "Yes, I called James."  Well, our last name isn't James!!!  So she had called the wrong name and we missed our chance!!!  Hello?!?!  I've been stuck in the waiting room with 2 crazy kids for an hour because of illiteracy (oh Florida)!  It was a Seinfeld moment.  "Cartwright...Cartwright..?"  Anyone on board?  Remember that episode (the one at the Chinese restaurant), Matt and I laughed about that one.  

Another 30 minutes later we go back (yeah, apparently we didn't get our place back in line even though she called the wrong name) and she asks for Breton's stool sample.  So I hand her the diaper (that I had carried around with me since 8:30 am) and she says, "you have it in a pamper?"  (Pamper? Really, they don't say diaper here. Weird.)  She tells me this is not how they do it...um, how else will I get his stool sample to the lab?  I mean, Breton isn't even 2 yet so he's obviously not potty trained.  I still want to know how they expected to get that stool sample from him. 

So then we get to the blood--6 vials.  That's like half of Breton's blood!  Well, he was instantly bawling and I was crying too.  Trey's in the background saying (in a loud 3 year old way) "Mom, why are you sad? Why is your face all red?"  The nurse is asking me if I'm scared?  Duh, lady I'm not stupid...I just feel bad that I'm subjecting my baby to this torture.  Well, about 10 minutes later we're done with blood, both of us crying the whole time through.

Then I have to take the diaper in the bathroom and smear stool on three sample cards and then scoop the rest in two specimen bottles all the while I'm playing referee between the boys and trying to keep them away from the toilet.  Oh geez, it smelled bad in there. 

Well, that was my day.  An hour and 45 minutes in a lab with two energetic boys and me on 3 1/2 hours sleep (I forgot to mention that I worked the night before and didn't get in bed until 4 am).  So imagine this whole story with me and even less patience than normal...not a pretty sight!  Well, I'm laughing about the situation now, hopefully it will put a smile on your face too!

Lion Country Safari Website Pic

Last fall we took a trip up to Lion Country Safari.  We have a friend that does the marketing for the park and she asked us afterwards if we took any pictures while we were there that might be "website worthy".  

Check out the following link and see if you recognize the kid feeding the giraffe. 

www.lioncountrysafari.com/safariworld_entertainment.html

Say It Ain't Tebow!

I would be remiss if I didn't add a post on the most exciting and disappointing experience of our new life here in Florida.  

I've been a huge Sooner fan for as long as I can remember so it is always a dream come true when they advance to play in the National Championship game.   This year it was particularly special though because that game was to be played in the stadium where I go to work.  Any other year I'd have to pay at least $1,000 just to get in the game (not to mention airfare) but this year I could go for free!  It seemed like fate that I would be able to see my Sooners win the big one live and in person.  

But then a man named Tebow turned my dream into a nightmare.  We definitely shot ourselves in the foot one too many times for a guy like him not to take advantage.  Ultimately it was still one of the greatest times of my life...not only the game itself (watching most of it from my own private suite with a few co-workers) but the whole week leading up to the game.  It's a time that I won't soon forget.

Our First Family Christmas

This was our first Christmas with just our little family.  I was pretty worried that it would be uneventful and lonely, but we loved it.  Christmas in Florida has it's advantages...we were going to head to the beach for the day, but Trey had other plans after he saw his new bike. 

This is Trey's face when he opened his first present...a barbie.  Well, it's a Ken barbie so that doesn't really count, right? He calls him "my boy".  He came with a swim suit and a basketball outfit, pretty much perfect for Trey.  It's February now and Trey still plays with him.  He's not very good at getting him dressed (but maybe that's a good thing). 

Breton opened a train for his first present and he was content for the next week. We tried to get him to open the rest of his presents, but he wasn't having it...he was too excited about his new train.  Ahhh the simplicity of little kids.  

Here is Trey learning to ride his new bike from Santa Claus.  He caught on pretty fast.  I think we get demoted for not getting our kid a bike until he was 3 1/2, we should be fired...we're lame parents!

Breton was happy just to run around and play football.  Can you believe the beautiful weather on Christmas day?  Seriously, the weather is keeping me sane while we're so far away from family!