Style's my middle name

Sorry to be such blog hogs. :-)

I have this tendency to cut my hair off right after I have a baby. It's a combination of things that usually lead up to it. One being that the baby's hands are always getting caught in it. Two, that I NEVER have the time to do it. And three, that my hair falls out it handfuls after I have a baby and I get soooo tired of finding hair on everything.
So I've been thinking a lot about cutting it, but have been trying soooooo hard to control myself and not break down and do it. My loving wonderful husband likes my hair long and I've been making an effort to keep it long for him. But the other day I decided that I'd had it. This is how long and sexy it had gotten...

And this is what it usually looked like 10 min after getting out of the shower and then for the rest of the day (not very attractive I know)...

And this is what it looks like now!!!


I Love it!!! And guess what?!!! My loving wonderful husband LOVES it too!!!

Snowman!!!

Our lame attempt at a snowman, or ice man since it was more solid ice then snow (I know snow is ice, but you know what I mean). The boys had a blast yesterday playing outside for the first time in almost 2 weeks. I have to admit I was excited about it too.

Half a mind

What a relief! I've finally finished the series 7 and 63 FINRA exams! Now that is out of the way, I can get down and do some serious blogging...

Things are going well here on the Jason Gray family front. The boys are over their colds, and Spencer is over his bronchitis. Spencer is rolling around like crazy, and now army crawling using his elbows and toes to inch toward whatever it is he wants at the moment. He is also becoming very forceful in his opinions. Jon-Jon is coming up with some crazy stuff recently. A few nights ago, they were getting ready for bed, and Jonah said to Jon-Jon, "You're out of your mind!" To which Jon-Jon's rejoinder was: "I'm not out of my mind! I'm half in my mind, and half out of my mind!!"

It snowed today, again. I absolutely cannot wait until June and Carlsbad/San Diego!!

Photo Fun and Snow Day

Sorry this is so long.

The other day we woke up to a few inches of fresh snow on the ground which meant that we were stuck indoors for the day. So for entertainment we had a little photo fun. Then I built a fort for the kids in the front room and they got to eat lunch in there. They thought they were so cool. To keep mommy entertained she played around with the pictures on the computer...And here's what I got.








Later that day after Jon got home they all went outside to clean the snow off my car and shovel around it so we'd be able to get in it the next day. The boys took sand shovels out there and had so much fun digging. After they were done cleaning up Jonathan took them sledding on the side of our building. They had sooo much fun, but it was dark by that time and starting to rain a little, so I didn't get any pictures. But I did get pics of their cheeks and hair after they came back in. Aren't they cute?






Oh and here's a picture of our other cute guy.

Read the motherhood one first...

One more thing from the "Psycho Mom"

Ok, so I just read one small article from the church website about being a nurturer and it makes me even more discouraged! And I quote, “I think nurturing looks like disciplining with love. One young mother stops her child when he doesn’t obey. She cups her hands around his face, looking him in the eyes, and says, ‘Listen to my words.’” (By Sister Parkin.) Oh my word! If only I could get Caleb/Peter to slow down long enough to have that small moment to correct him. Another quote, “What does nurturing feel like? Much of the teaching and relationship building in families takes place in those brief, unplanned moments during our daily routine. The dinner table is a place to connect with each other, share our daily activities, listen to and encourage each other, and even laugh together. I know laughter lightens the load. Dear mothers and fathers, make a regular mealtime for the people you love.” Well, my dinnertimes are anything but full of laughter and good conversations. It is more like telling someone every five minutes to “sit down” or “stop pushing your plate around.” Not what I think the first presidency is picturing! What am I doing?

Motherhood.....how is this supposed to go again?

Nurturer or Command Officer? Teacher or Task Master? Peacemaker or Referee? Happiness or Insanity? I am not sure which of these roles I fill most of the time. But oh my goodness, these kids are something else! I think I missed out on the quality of nurturing and patient when they were given out in heaven. I think I was off in Lala Land figuring out how to best torture children. I think that I have come up with the reason that my kids fight me and do not like me most of the time, I make them do things. Shocking, I know! Today I told Caleb that he had to wash himself clean in the bathtub, after ward I told him he had to get dressed, comb his hair and stop kicking his toys all around because he was being too rough. I was given opposition on every front. I know, I am not alone and it sounds like I am throwing a pity party for myself...well if you do not want to read further just click out now! :) I sat down with Caleb and tried to have him eat a dried apricot at lunch time, you would think I was trying to poison him! And at dinner I told him that if he did not want me to always tell him no and do not do that, then he should just have good manners and do what was right. Do not think that Peter was the perfect angel today. Oh by far, he is 2 and follows very closely in Caleb's footsteps. :) Why am I having another one!?! My one cute moment from Caleb, that I can recall at this point in time, was at dinner when he looked at me mid-meal and said, "I bet you can't guess that I want more water?" Oh, it is only for those reasons that people are still alive today! Hopefully Heavenly Father will block from Caleb and Peter's mind the ugly events of their childhood and they can remember me being a somewhat loving, fun and kind mother. If not they have in store the perfect excuses of why they are messed up adults and cannot handle life. :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Just a photo props to my Honey-punkin! I love you

Jon

Valentine's Fun

The boys loved these.

Family tradition. Every year Jonathan's valentine card from the boys has their hands. I've done this since Jackson's first Valentines. It's pretty cool to go back and see how they've grown.

This jello's messy!! He kept saying, "napkin?"

Jackson was very proud of his valentine card he made for daddy

3 1/2 months!!!


Happy late Valentine's day everyone!! Just thought I'd post a few pics of our fun on Valentine's. We had a candlelit dinner of almost all red food! So festive...I know. Spaghetti, red jello hearts, fresh strawberries, and green beans. I know I know but red veggies...come on.

Dave...Mindy...HI!

Dave and Mindy, hello and we miss you! I know you are both so busy with each other, work and school but we have missed hearing from you and seeing your smiling faces. Since I do not have email I am writing a message to you here. :) Mindy, if we forget to call you on the 25th-HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! May it be awesome! We hope you are both loving life and having fun together. -Diedre (and Rob, Caleb and Peter)

Happy Valentine's Day

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Did someone say Valentine's Day?

Well, people are sick at our house too...Jonah and Jonathan have been going in circles with colds (Jonah stayed home from school for a week), and Spencer suffered his first, which caused a double ear infection, and now has settled into bronchitis. Fun fun. He remains very cheerful for the most part, despite the bouts of misery and complaining and foul-tasting drugs, the poor thing.

He received 4 shots at the doctor's office the other day. He cried very boisterously for a few seconds, and when Dacia picked him up, he turned on the biggest smile at the nurse, who gave a startled response, "Well I've never had THAT reaction before!" Yes, he is our smiling baby, and Dacia has nicknamed him "Smiles". Course, with all the drugs he's on at the moment, I still call him "Thunderpants," though perhaps "Lil Windy" is more appropriate. He just goes on and on. Interesting. He has started clapping, and is also now very mobile. His chosen mode of travel is rolling of course, and he becomes quite frustrated when he rolls himself over to an obstacle that arrests his momentum--like daddy's big, fat foot.



Spencer is also eating solid foods (sometimes), and he pretty much hates anything fruit, or rice. He can handle sweet potatoes at this point. It is really funny, because when he objects to what he is eating, he is quite verbal about it, "Dubl, blb, dbler, bllrlblb," while the food is pushed out of his mouth due to the motions of his little tongue. Pushes the mush right back out, much to Dacia's consternation.

I must admit, that I am a huge fan of the photo montages, because I can put a lot of photos in one space on the blog, and people don't have to scroll way down the page to see them all. And the music. Very cool. Kudos to Heidi Mae for showing us the coolness of it all...

I guess I could see this one coming...

Take the Quiz here!

Who would have thought. I really tried to answer to who I really am, and am surprised that I came out as Lizzy. ~Dacia

Birthday Party

Well, Peter's party was tonight and I think it was a success. I am still in the midst of cleaning up after all the fun, I think I am putting it off. :) It really is not that bad, thanks to paper plates and cups (I know, not very "green" minded of me.) Thank you to those of you who came to relish in the noise and food. We missed not having those of you far from us. I do not know if you missed having the chaos, but honestly; the more the merrier I say. The food was good (tacos, fruit and veggies). The horse cake turned out looking good and tasting good. And for not having a fridge, it was not too much of a problem.

And the presents were a definite hit! Peter finally understood what a present was and that you actually rip the paper off to see what it is. He loved the giant green ball, his dump truck with blocks, his cowboy hat, the dinosaur toy and right now he is sleeping with his soft kitty. Thank you again for all your love and for making Peter and Caleb happy. Oh and to think, he only took one bite of cake tonight. Maybe next year I try a different birthday treat for Peter. He does not seem like a cake kid to me. :) Oh, and if you want pictures; talk to Grandpa Gray. Rob used the video camera and Grandpa did the stills. :) Thank you, Ed.

The pregnant lady

Just an update about Diedre, I am still here and alive. :) I am pregnant which means I feel fat, look it too, and wish I had more gumption to go work out more often. I have eaten so much more sugar this pregnancy than at any other time, it is horrible!
Our fridge situation remains the same. I have tried to recognize the blessings of all this. It happened in the winter so that I can keep my food cold outside and not lose it all and it will give me a great opportunity to clean the fridge and have it be shiny clean. However, running out to the garage every time we want to eat is slightly annoying and having the milk sit outside the back door in the snow is slightly amusing. Peter saw his cup sitting out there today and demanded I bring it back in. :)
We have Peter's birthday party on Saturday, he turns 2 on Monday. He loves hearing any happy birthday song and I put a graphic of balloons on my phone and he knows it is for his birthday. We have the party planned for our house so hopefully we get the fridge up and running by Friday evening so I can go shopping for food for the guests. :) Should be fun. Talk to you all later!

January continued

So in response to Rob's photoless blog, here are a few for your viewing pleasure. We haven't had any of the electronic problems he has, but boy can we sympathize, only in my case, it is usually my own fault and doing something very disagreeable to the poor electronic item, whatever it is...

So these fotos are from 3 or so weeks ago. Pretty self explanatory except the one of Dacia--I caught her working (JetBlue) from home on a Sunday afternoon. Fun family!! Remember you can click on a foto to see a larger version!

Jane Austin . . . who?

Thank you, but I have to agree with Dave. None of that feminine hooey for me.

So I need to apologize that there are no visuals with this my 2nd post. I think our electronics are out to get us. About a month ago my lappy started making weird banshee-like screams of agony, then on came the blue-screen-of-death. So we naturally took it into the guy who made it for us. After he hung out with it for a day or so he said, "Wow! I've never had one do that before!"

Sweeeeeeeeeet. ALL of our photos were on dear lappy. All of our movies (yes, all five of them) were on there. All our music was on there. All my architecture software was there too. As of 5:10 this afternoon the computer guy (who has turned our out-of-body hard drive into a retirement project) has yet to be able to recover any data from lappy.

Two weeks ago, while lappy was at the computer hospital, a boy scout wanted to pass off his art merit badge to me, and wanted to use my computer for one of the merit badge requirements. So I pulled out old faithful, my very first computer. And wouldn't you know it, the little bugger wouldn't even turn on. . . and yes, it was plugged in, power was on and flowing. . . but nothin! I think last time Jonah was at our house he cast an "expeliamus" in the direction of old faithful. From what I understand, when a hard drive dies, you have only so much time before it dumps its memory - SO BACK UP YOUR STUFF!!! By the way, did you know you can get an apple external hard drive that will automatically and wirelessly back up your computer every couple of weeks? It only holds a measley terabyte of memory. Pathetic.

Round 3. . .
Saturday I went down to Ralph's cabin to shovel snow off his roof. I enjoyed listening to my ipod all the way. Wonderful life. Upon arriving to the cabin we suited up and I put my ipod in its appropriate (and designed for the purpose) pocket. As I stooped to adjust my snow shoes, an invisible hand reaches in and deftly pick-pockets my ipod and throws it into the snow! I instantly scrambled to save it, brushing off the few flecks of wet snow, then carefully placed it into a zipping pocket for time-out. I went on with the task at hand, completely forgetting about my ipod until Sunday evening. I pulled it out and tried to turn it on . . . and two clicks (did you know an ipod actually can click?) later it turned back off. It now refuses to cooperate with any coaxing I give it. It's not like I threw it into a bath tub! Understand, I had one hope left of recovering our lost photos and some of our music - it was on the ipod. . . which I could not yet back up for lack of computers.

So yesterday when Diedre opened our freezer to find thawing bread dough, water in place of ice cubes and squishy fruit, I started to wonder. As it turns out, the compressor on our refrigerator has given way, so our food is now spread between three coolers and Ralph's basement freezer as we wait for a new compressor to come in from Connecticut.

Believe it or not, we are doing okay. I still stress about work (especially now that I can begin taking the licensing exams), but everything somehow works out. Peter is getting used to sleeping in his big-boy bed, and Caleb is such a good helper, when he wants to be. We've only had three ear infections one strep throat and four colds this last month, so in reality, we are doing well, if not yet addicted to the pink medicine.

Again, sorry about the lack of photos.
We love you guys!

Rob

Full of Pride and Prejudice!

Take the Quiz here!

Hmmm...really? Maybe I should take a Jane Austen "antagonist" (aka men) quiz instead of the heroine one.

-Dave

Me too, I guess. Heidi, I am sure you have seen this movie more than me. I think I watched a small portion of it at one point in life. But I tried to answer the questions truthfully and well, this is who they say I am. Does it fit me? I do not know. :) - Diedre

Let's have some fun!

Sorry guys...well I guess you could take it too. That could be funny! Put who you are in the comments or post a blog with the picture. This will be fun!

Take the Quiz here!

'bought Time

Ahh, life. One day you're a lump in diapers. Then you find yourself sleeping in a crib. Before you know it you're all grown up and sleeping in a big-boy bed. Unfortunately the diapers are still very much a reality. Convenient/efficient for you but boy-oh-boy do Mom n' Dad look forward to the autonomy of voluntary and sanitary toilet use. Before you know it, Mom n' Dad are the proud parents of a potty-trained-sleepin'-in-a-big-boy-bed-runnin'-growin'-learnin' blond of a young man. (see photo 1)

Too bad the potty-training is yet to be, but the rest is here! I guess if you were to really get into it and look far enough down the road you'd find that all-of-a-sudden you're back in diapers...wait a second...

But that whole Diaper part II is way off.

Next thing you know you're washing dishes with Dad (see photo 2). Who knows, if you work hard, study the ways of the porcelain & silverware ninja, Dad might let you do the dishes all the time. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Such an honor takes focus & determination, a few more inches of altitude and maybe a few more pounds...but then...oh, Dad would be so proud & happy.

My, how time flies. One day it's Brothers (1 & 2) sporting the robes of Grandma O's favor (see photo 3). Then you wake up one morning and its Brothers...uh,...(2 & 3)...sporting the same beloved habiliments (see photo 4).

So goes life on the right coast. It's beautiful here but cold. Do those descriptives even belong in the same sentence? Fortunately, however selfish, most of my frustrations with the weather are muttered from the other side of the hospital window. Heidi & the kids have to bear the brunt of the shivers what with all the errands, pre-school, n' such. Still I look forward to Spring. The additional daylight will be nice. Perhaps I'll re-confirm the existence of Earth's closest star on my way to and/or from the hospital. For now the days are seemingly perpetual night with the long hours at work.

For now, I'm going to put the kids in bed, watch the Superbowl commercials, and fast-foward thru the Superbowl (lovin' DVR).

Piece N' Love to all ya'll in cyperspace. I hope the weather's better there.
Jon