knock, knock, knock...

Funny story:

Last night we were on our way to dinner and were stopped at a light before getting onto the freeway. (not stopped by a cop!) As we were waiting for the light to turn green we heard a knock at our window (it was dark outside, and we were NOT at a place where people should be standing, let alone knocking on our car window!) We looked over and could see that someone was standing outside holding shoes! Bobby opened the door and a guy handed him Brody's Nike's and said "these were on your bumper!". We cracked up! We could not stop laughing all night! I couldn't believe I had left his shoes on the back of our car AND we were absolutely AMAZED that they hadn't fallen off. By that point... Bobby had made a U-turn, went around a "round-a-bout", made 2 right turns, and gone up a slight hill! Good shoes, huh?! We are so thankful that someone stopped to bring them to us before they fell off and were lost for good! (they had Brody's orthotics in them- that would NOT have been good!) MY BAD!

BOOOOOOO!!!! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Here are some pictures from Halloween. This year, we went to my parent's house for dinner- chili and cornbread, a family tradition for as long as I can remember! Then, we went trick-or-treating around their neighborhood with bobby's sister, Natalie, our brother-in-law, Jeff, and our nephew, McCoy, who was a spider. After getting candy in that neighborhood, we went back to our house and I took Brody around again. He got used to the whole idea of trick-or-treating. He didn't like it at first, and hated anyone in a mask or big costume. He saw a little boy who was dressed as buzz lightyear and he thought that was pretty cool! When we went home, Bobby handed out candy to the kids in our neighborhood- we bought tons and by the time brody and I walked in the door most of it was gone. Bobby said he was giving "handfuls"- I'm sure the kids loved that! Brody enjoyed dumping out his candy and eating a few starbursts... Brody and Bobby both love the fruit candies- I love the chocolate! More for me!Bobby pretending to throw Gavin- the football!

Cutest football I've ever seen!! (my mom made the outfit! thanks mommy!)

Gav looking at Brody's BYU helmet!

Brody (BYU football player), Gavin (football), Jayden (horse), Braxton (cowboy)

Jayden, Brody, Braxton (I love how B is holding his helmet- looks like he just won a big game! probably beat UTAH!)

Brody and Braxton

Brody's favorite find from his candy stash. Thanks to whoever handed out the eyeballs. Brody's been playing golf with this thing all day!

Checking out his treasures!

WOW!

Brody got a wart burned off of his thumb. It's just an open wound now. he has to have a band-aid on it at all times- his orders!

We stopped by one of my friends homes and Brody peeked his head in her house. He stood still looking at something for a while and when I noticed what he was doing I said "do you have sports on tv?" she laughed and said yes. The world series was on and he was hooked!

Attempting to take pictures of the football, football player, and the spider.

Take 2

Take 3

playing football

yeah yeah!

Gavin started eating solids this week. He likes prunes, and we tried giving him avocado's- he didn't like them very much which made me sad (seriously) but, it wasn't the best "cado" I've had so we'll try again later! I told him he has to like "cado's" to be in our family! :) KIDDING! We love him, and we also love avocados!

A guy bobby works with- he won BEST COSTUME. How awesome does this look?!

Our family at Bobby's work trick-or-treat! Everyone loved Gavin's costume, but Brody... well, let's just say Bobby's office is a little too close to the U. OOPS! :) They still thought he was cute though! (one girl said Gavin was her favorite costume of all. How sweet!) and... look at that amazing view! hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Real Quick...

I have to write down what Brody did at the Dr's office today.
I took Gavin in for his 6 month well check- I'll put up his stats later. Ah, heck! I'll do it now...

He weighs 16 pounds = 40%
Length... I don't have the paper in front of me but I know it's 55%
head... no paper, but it was about 15 % (I think?)

(Now I have my papers in front of me... height: 26.5 inches. Weight: 16.5 lbs. head: 16.5 in)

See why i wanted to do this later? But, see why I did it now?
Are you confused?

Anyway, Brody had to get his flu shot (and HIB) and a wart burned off. Needless to say, it was NOT a pleasant experience. Brody cried for about an hour because of his wart- poor guy. He cried because he got 2 shots (that makes 3 total in the last 2 days- we got our swine flu shots yesterday! YAHOO! I stood in line, in the snow, for 2 1/2 hours. I didn't mind at all. My mom, Bobby, and the boys made good company!) Gavin got 4 shots today, equaling to be 5 in the last 2 days.

So, as we were in the room waiting, Brody got in the drawer and pulled out some latex gloves. I put them on him! (I wasn't about to put gloves back to be used on someone else!) He thought they were pretty cool. I was holding Gavin on my lap and Brody decided to put his hands on Gavin's head and start to pray. (Bobby gave both of them blessings the morning of getting the swine flu vaccine) Brody always says the same prayer..

"heavenly father, thank you for this day, thank you for the food, bless daddy be safe, in the name... Jesus Christ... amen."

So, as he put his hands on Gavin, he began this prayer- I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do, so I just put his hands down and started asking him about when daddy gave him a blessing. Brody tried to do it one more time, then ended up taking his gloves off. Sweet boy!

Today.

I was watching my little neighbor girl until her mom got home from SLC. She's 6. Brody loves to play with her and her sister out back. While we were outside playing, she sat on a chair next to me and said "Tomorrow I'm going to babysit some kids with my mom. She needs my help because the kids are wild like your boy is".... She was dead serious!

Potty-trained... again, but for good!

Last Monday Brody woke up and took off his diaper. I didn't feel like putting another one on, so I just let him roam naked... what? you don't do that?

After about an hour, he came to me and said, "pee pee on the potty". Surprised, I took him into the bathroom and sure enough, he peed!

(A little background on potty-training in our house): I leave Brody undressed and take him to the toilet every 15 minutes or so. I stay at home for that whole day and that's usually all it takes. As soon as I put underwear on him, he would pee once, notice he got wet, and most likely not do it again. I have gone thru this process about 4 or 5 times in the last 5 months. I started training just after he turned two. So... after all of those failing attempts, I decided I would just wait it out a little bit longer, but what do you know? It corrected itself! He remembered the process and has been doing great!

Anyway, he loves to go pee pee on the potty "like daddy" (standing up). He's actually pretty good at making it into the toilet! He had a harder time going poop... for this reason, we bribed him with a FIRE TRUCK! As you can see from the picture, he got it! We are so proud of him! (In order for us to get him to poop we told him there was a "snake" in his belly that needed to come out. Now, whenever he has to go, he says "I need to poop a snake" haha! My cousin used this trick on her son, and sure enough, it worked!)

What's new?

Here are some pictures of what we've been up to!

Gavin in his Jumperoo!

one day, while I was cleaning downstairs, I heard Brody say "I'm taking a bath". I went in the bathroom to find this! He had filled the sink and got undressed on his own! Stinker!!

Brody's "rock-star" grandpa took him on stage at one of his gigs! Brody LOVED every minute of it!

Emily and me! (we've been friend's since 5th grade!)

Karli - my BFF since 7th grade.

Brody got a package from the UPS man! He made me open it right away!

His "Halloween costume"- and his BYU football uniform. He's going to be a BYU football player for Halloween. He has been wearing it almost every day since we got it- one of my smartest purchases!

Opening his jersey

McGuire 14!! (that was always Bobby's number when he played sports... plus, it's Brody's birthDAY) :)

"NO WAY!!" (one of Brody's favorite sayings!)

Me, Brody, Karli, Gavin

Take 2

Me and Kar

Brody and Gavin waiting for Nana and Grandpa to pick up Brody for a day at Lagoon!

Ready to go! (He keeps saying "I wanna do again!") Braxton's in the truck, too.

Early present from Santa. I bought this Christmas Present early because it was on sale and I also had a coupon. I hid it in the garage for one day and that night Bobby said "let's just give it to him now!". I said "it's your call"... guess what ended up happening? He got it! And he loves it!

opening his new motorcycle!

first ride!

Daddy putting on the stickers, er, I mean, headlights!

Brothers sharing- how nice!

Brody taking Gavin for a ride :) he didn't like it, but now he does!

Brody's favorite thing to do... kick a football. He usually has someone hold it for him, but he figured out how to twist it into the grass so it would stay. Notice his uniform!

Getting ready to run

here it goes!

We had a fun summer and are loving the fall... not so much the cold weather, but it's a nice change.

Brody loves his baby brother and always goes into his room while he's asleep, ends up waking him up, then yells "baby brother waked up!".

Brody has been playing his sports non-stop. When my friend Karli came into town she looked at my living room and said "there's nothing but balls in here"... it's the truth! I guess that's what happens when you have 2 little boys and 1 big boy! Brody kicks his ball anywhere he can... he even has you hold it if your at a store! He LOVES it! And, he's darn good at it!

Brody talks all the time- some of his favorite words right now are:

"no way!!"

"I not!" (when he's mad)

"PERFECT!"

He is officially potty-trained (for real this time)

He still doesn't sleep well... he ends up in our bed at night. His feet still bother him quite often, he wears orthotics but we just have to wait this out... I guess.

GAVIN: turned 5 months old and:

Can sit up!

Loves to play with Brody

Rolls over from his front to back and back to front.

Scoots around in circles on his belly.

got his FIRST cold :( (pretty mild!)

LOVES his daddy- he LIGHTS up as soon as Bobby walks in the door.

LOVES when Bobby sings to him. If he stops, Gavin looks up at him and fusses until he starts singing again!

When he's hungry, he puts his face in my chest or shoulder and fake coughs. :)

He likes to move his lips like a fish and say "ba ba ba ba"

Our boys are a blast- we love them!!

It all makes sense...NOW!

My cousin wrote this column for BYU. She is amazing! I hope she doesn't mind me copying this onto my blog, but I thought people would like to read it... I know it looks long, but trust me- you'll LOVE it- especially if you're a woman!



Sorry, did you say something?

Submitted by Natali Wyson on Tuesday, 6 October 2009

I think there is little dispute over the fact that men and women are physiologically different … At least I hope there is little dispute over this fact. However, these differences tend to go even deeper than we often realize. The other day in my Political Economy of Women class, we were discussing such physiological differences and my teacher presented some rather clarifying research. Before I get into this research, let me discuss why I find this to be so “clarifying.” Before getting engaged, I did quite a bit of dating. And though I found every guy to be extremely different, I definitely noticed similarities, even with my now fiancé. For example, the other week I went with my fiancé to his friends’ house where they were watching an away football game. During a more dull part of the game, I asked my fiancé a question pertaining to a subject I can’t remember (bear in mind I was sitting right next to him and I definitely do not have a soft, quiet voice). My fiancé did not react to my question in even the slightest bit. No more than two seconds later, one of his male friends asked a question and he instantly responded. I was, to say the least, irritated. But this was certainly not the first of these types of experiences. My fiancé’s defense was, as usual, “Natali, I honestly did not hear you.”

I have also had similar experiences with male professors who will present a question, to which I will give an answer, at a very audible level, and will be completely ignored. Then a couple seconds later, a male member of the class will repeat my exact answer and receive instant credit and acknowledgment from the professor. Now for all of those other women out there who feel their boyfriends/fiancés/husbands/professors don’t listen to them, I hope this research will shed some light on the matter.

Now, I couldn’t find the exact study cited by my professor but there are variations of it circulating the Internet. Basically, this study found that males process female voices and male voices in different areas of the brain. The female voice is processed in the more complicated area dealing with music and noise whereas the male voices are processed in the same area as sight and language. Now what does this say about men and their listening capabilities? Well just as with music and background noise, men need to actually tune themselves in to hearing and processing the female voice. They have to make a conscious decision to listen to women. However, this also seems to mean that men can train themselves to listen to women. So I still have hope that my fiancé will be able to start hearing me, unless he is purposefully blocking me out — as we sometimes do with background noise — in which case, he and I have much bigger issues to deal with ☺.