snow, snow white, sleep, and a really good book

Snow? Really? I don't know that I am ready. This is a pic I took with my iphone of Chase outside Target a few days ago enjoying the snow fall. She loves it. She keeps telling me "Lets get a huge snowflake". Umm, OK.

We had our ward Halloween party 2 nights ago. Pure insanity. Chase and candy do NOT mix. To much candy = major tantrums. So unfortunatly Jamison and I will be eating all the candy from the party, and all the candy she will be obtaining tomorrow night.

She loved dressing up as Snow White and getting her makeup done. Cohen was a monkey. He lasted about 2 seconds in the costume, so I didn't get a picture.

(Did anyone watch The Office last night? I liked Jim's costume...and Kellys. Hilarious. 30 Rock was equally as funny.)

Since I was a bad Mom and didn't get any sort of costume pic of Cohen (theres still tomorrow), here we have Cohen asleep. Do you want to squeeze his cheeks? Me to. I find it funny that ever since Chase was born people constantly say "Wow, she is so tall". When people see Cohen they say "Wow, he eats really well doesn't he." Yes, yes he does.

And if any of you lovely people out there are looking for a good book to read, The Historian comes highly recommended. I am only about 1/2 way through,but so far, I am hooked. Why? you may wonder. Well, it is about vampires, specifically Dracula (trust me when I say it is nothing like Twilight...much much better). It is a mystery, and the whole story unfolds all across Europe and a few other places, all of which I want to travel to even more now, after reading this book, than before (if thats possible.). I love the way the author, Elizabeth Kostova, describes all the different locations the book takes place in. Trust me when I say you to will be wanting to catch the next flight to Istanbul, or Paris, or Amsterdam, or Rome when you are done reading.

Now I am off to make carmel apples for the Halloween party we will be attending tonight. I am going as a butterfly, and Jamison is going as himself, but the version of himself that was in a horror movie spoof we made with friends a few yrs back. Does that make sense? If not, pictures to come in a few days.

BEWARE!

If your pumpkins come up missing, you are being haunted by the little pumpkin snatching ghost.

MUAAAHAHAHAH!

Whats up with us?

Well, nothing extremely exciting....and yet today I felt like posting an undate.

Me!! : My life consists mostly of hanging out with my two munchkins, and coming up with new and creative ways to keep them entertained daily. I have been discovering lots of blogs with cute crafty things to do with your kids....but I will save that for another post. After Mr. Cohen was born I stepped down as a manager, but chose to stay on as just a part time associate which means I work about 4 hrs a week, which is pretty pointless. I keep wondering if I should look for another job, but honestly its so nice to hardly ever work, but at the same time have a few hours to get out without the kiddos.

On a totally different subject, I just finished re-reading the 7TH Harry Potter book. Um, how do I not recall how heart renching it is from the first time? After watching the last Harry Potter movie I wanted to re-read it because you forget how much stuff they leave out of the movies. Am I the biggest nerd ever? Its possible. Do I want to be Harry Potter for Halloween? No. Now I am reading The Historian. Just started it last night, so I can't yet say if its good or not.

Which brings me to the question of the week. What should Jamison and I be for Halloween? We are going to a Halloween party on Fri where the best costume wins a prize (but not literally). We are debating between Jamison being Axel Rose and me Slash, or, Jamison being Mike Myers, and me being some chick with pig tails he kills. Apparently its a specific scene from one of the Halloween movies, but like I would know anything about that. Jamison is the expert.

Also, we FINALLY sold our condo. Being landlords kindof sucked. I'll be honest. It was really hard finding good renters, so we would go months at a time without tenants until we found someone we trusted. Luckily we had some good renters over the few yrs we owned it...but with how crazy our lifes are right now it was just to stressful. So, goodbye condo! I won't miss you.

Jamison: His life is insane. All he does is go to work, then go to school Mon-Thurs. Friday he actually gets to come home after work. He will be done next summer. It can not get here soon enough. He says he is to old to skateboard still. This is a lie. A LIE! He is also a pumpkin growing farmer. We have about 9 pumpkins on our front porch, one of which is as large as our house. Jamison grew them all. He is going to carve the ginormous one when he has time. I refuse.

Cohen: This little guy is now 3 1/2 months. He is a chub. He loves to babble and coo and blow bubbles, and concentrate really hard on bringing his hands togethor in front his face,then trying to eat them. He is a minnie Jamison through and through. Red hair and all. Although he has really blue eyes which is wierd since Jamison and I both have brown. I think they will change eventually. He has the cutest laugh ever in the world and everyday it is my goal to get him to laugh out loud at least once.

Chase: Where do I even begin with this girl? First she is insanely tall. She looks like a 4 yr old. She is actually 2 1/2. As I have previously said we are looking into different preschools for her. I must say I am beyond proud of her. As some people may recall she was in speech therapy for almost a year. The only reason being she just wasn't talking for awhile. Whether it was speech apraxia, or the fact that she just didn't want to, I don't know. But now you would never know. She talks NON STOP. All day. She no longer qualifies for speech therapy. To determine this the speech therapist did some testing on her, which not only tests her speech but other areas as well. She blew us all out of the water! I have come to realize that while she wasn't talking she was observing the crap out of everything and remembering all of it. She tested in all areas WAY above her age range. So, yes, after the worry of "why the heck won't she talk!?" I am very proud of her. She does have a nemesis named Becham. The funny thing is that when they aren't togethor they talk about each other like they are the greatest of friends, but whenever his mom and I get them togethor they fight like there is no tomorrow. I think it means they will probably grow up and get married. She loves Halloween, and reminds me daily. She loves to fix my hair, then tell me I look crazy. If you ask her a "why?" question she isn't sure about the answer she will say "Because, ummm, I love ya". I think her favorite things are jumping on the tramp, and dancing, and dressing up.

So there you go.

This is what happens

when Chase stays up until 11pm, then wakes up at 6am. Try as she might she can't keep her eyes open. Not even to watch Lion King, her favorite.

And this is what happens when Chase is left alone for a moment with Cohen.

And this is what happens when I discover the best app ever. Shakeit. I have been annoying Chase to no end making her smile for pictures all day.

Days of endless conversation

It started today at 6:30am. Right when Jamison got up to head to work she was awake....talking, asking, telling, and explaining. She told us all about lightening, fireworks, pillows,and pirates. I tried to talk her into going back to sleep, and she told me no. She started jumping on the bed singing her ABC's. I told her to stop. She told me she would only do it for 3 more minutes. And its not just how she says it, but what she does while shes saying it. She tilts her head to the side and shrugs her shoulders, like that will make it O.K. And usually it does make it O.K. I think my favorite conversations are the ones I have with this 2 (almost 3) year old munchkin.

I have been looking into different pre schools for her. It kills me. I hate the thought of dropping her off at preschool. I tend to imagine the worst. I think about mean kids, mean teachers. Will she have fun? Will she cry when I leave her? It literally keeps me awake at night thinking about all the worst case scenarios. I just want to keep her with me forever, nice and safe...but I know thats impossible. I think thats the hardest part of being a parent. Realizing as your kids get older you can't shield them from all the painful, scary, or hard things life might throw at them.

And its only preschool.

Imagine how I will unravel when she leaves for college.

Fall Break

Jamison has this whole week off of school. It has been so nice. He is actually home everyday at 4:30ish, instead of 9:00 at night. How wonderful life will be next June when he is done, and I get to enjoy this Mon-Fri.

In celebration of having him home with us, tonight we decided to go out to dinner, make carmel apples, then walk to the Halloween house. "What is the Halloween house?" you ask. Well, our neighbors go ALL OUT every Halloween with there Halloween decor. They decorate the inside and outside of there house every year so amazingly I can't even begin to describe it...so I took a few pictures. The past few years they have gone with a pirate theme. All the detail they put into it is incredible. Sound effects and all. I feel like I am on the Pirates of the Carribean ride everytime we walk down there (and we walk there daily because Chase loves it so much).

Making the carmel apples (which I must say, we used Honey Crisp apples, and they were amazing)

The end result, which we let cool while we walked down to the Halloween house.

When ever we walk there, Chase insists on dressing up. This is her witch costume from last year.

We told Chase to stand next to this scary guy and make a scary face. This was her "scary" face.

We came home and ate our apples. Well, Jamison and I ate our apples, Chase mostly licked/scraped all the carmel off and ate that minus the apple.

It was a fun night. We are wanting to do it again before the Halloween season is over... Whos in?

What to blog?

Today as I drove around I thought to myself "What is something, funny/whitty/awesome I could blog about?" I got nothing. So instead, the 2 people that may or may not read my blog get to enjoy the Cohen Collage.
(FYI: we have some fun plans tonight which I may blog about later. Get excited)

Delicious

That is the perfect word to describe him. All I have to do is smile, then he smiles back, so big his eyes close, and I just want to eat him up, and kiss his cheeks forever.

Sometimes I wish there was a handbook.

Today I almost had a nervous breakdown, infront of lots of people while at the mall. I am fairly certain that some sort of demon possessed my 2 yr old daughter. Picture if you will, me desperatly looking for an outfit for Cohen to get his pictures taken in (why are there no cute baby boy clothes?), all while Chase is screaming at the top of her lungs that she doesn't like me anymore and she wants me to leave, while kicking the diaper bag repeatedly off the stroller, then picking up my phone, which I mistakenly put in one of the cup holders, and hucking it at me. I was literally trying to hold back the tears. People were staring. I felt like I was on Nanny 911, and everyone watching was thinking "that poor mother, I am so glad MY kids aren't like that." I only say that because whenever I watch that show, thats what I think. In my face I guess.

We left the mall, and I sat in my car and took a few deep breaths, and was beyond greatful that Cohen slept through the whole thing. I could not have handled 2 screaming children.

I then turned around, and told Chase "We have to have a talk. You can't act like that. You can't scream like that at Mom. It hurts my feelings, and makes me angry at you."

She then told me, "Its not your fault Mom. I tired."

I couldn't help but laugh. Here are some pictures of the perpetrator. Do not be fooled by the sweet smile. If you tick her off, and theres anything around she can lift, she may attempt to throw it at you.

Please be warned.

A few things I Jamie would like to share with you.

1. I got a hair cut 2 days ago (thank you Emily). I decided to go with the straight across bang. 2 things came about from this haircut. We discussed "the compound", and agreed that "the compound" is way to creepy a phrase and should not be used (if you don't know what I'm talking about its probably for the better). The second thing that happened was I came home and Jamison said "let me try something", and he proceeded to do some wierd stuff with my hair. He then said "Look, a she mullett". I got really offended, then realized I should probably just laugh because I give him so much crap when it comes to his hair.

2. Today I took some pictures of myself. Taking pictures of ones self reminds me of when girls look in the mirror and they get that look. You know, the "I am looking in the mirror so I am going to make a sexy/ridiculous face". My Mom does it. I observe her when we pass a mirror and she quickly does "the look", and I think "You never do that look in real life, why do you do it in the mirror?" I am sure I do it to. I notice lots of people do it. I think its funny.

3. Sometimes while I work I like to just observe people. Sometimes we get the wierdest customers and I can't help but wonder "What happened in your life that made you act this way??" Last night I happened to be working when a young engaged couple came in with the girls Mom. The girls Mom had offered to take them shopping to pick out some stuff for there soon to be new house. It was pretty clear from the get go that the girl was a brat, that the Mom had every intention of spending hundreds of dollars on her daughters new home decor, and that the soon to be husband didn't want to be there. I felt bad for him. As I was helping them I pictured what this couples marriage would be like, and I couldn't help but imagine a spoiled girl wanting lots of things, a stressed out husband not able to provide everything, and this girl going to her Mom, and her Mom buying her whatever she wanted. Mainly I thought "I hope Chase never acts this way. I have only been around this girl for 10 minutes and I have already had all I can handle." I also had visions of telling her to shut up. Her voice was extremely annoying. And just so you know, she did the funniest look when ever we walked past a mirror. Full on puckered lips and pose for that split second she was infront of the mirror ( you will find my very accurate impression on the top right picture above). We had a good laugh about it after she left the store. Bless her heart.