Cabin Craziness

I know I have been a total slacker when it comes to blogging! Sorry, it's a lot at once, but life gets busy this time of year. Melanie and Carl invited us up to Carl's family's cabin this weekend. It was such a blast, and very crazy! We got up there Friday night and played games and talked until about 1 am. We had the great idea to put Preston and Carter in the same room, which meant that when Carter woke up at 6:30 so did Preston. We were so exhausted. We rode 4 wheelers and hung out until we had to drive back to run a ward activity Saturday afternoon. We were going to just stay home but Carter was freaking out to stay, so we left the boys up there and James and I got to have some alone time on the drive down and back. I am glad we came back because Sat. night we laughed our guts out playing games with my parents! My mom always comes up with the best answers for things! So much fun! Thanks Whitings!

This is Carter waking up really early Sat. with cousin Blake
the view from the deck of the cabin. Much prettier in person I promise!
4 wheeler ride with Daddy
Whiting boys getting ready to ride the 4 wheeler Austin, Blake, and Ryan

Carter's Day Out

My sister in law Bethany needed me to watch her kids while she went to work the other day so we went and hung out at her house because Carter loves it. Well as I have said in previous posts, Carter and Kale, his cousin, have a love/hate relationship. You never know how they are going to act toward each other. I think the hate is starting to fade away, because these two played non stop for 3 hours with no fighting. It was so fun to see them have so much fun playing outside and having little conversations. These two are so funny! Here is a play by play with pictures of their fun adventures! (Preston and Brynlee were asleep in case you wondered)

First stop was the tramp. They played here for about an hour. Well actually around the edge with all the bark. The found a shovel and bucket and filled it with the bark. Then it was dumped on the tramp. Let me tell you how fun that was to clean up!
They loved to jump because none of the bigger kids were there to bounce them too high!
Next stop, the slide. Notice Carter saying CHEESE!!!
3rd stop, Playing with Lady. I think this was Carter's favorite. He loves this dog! She is so good to let them chase her and pull her tail.
Stop 4, back to the tramp to take a rest.
Last stop, pushing each other in the stroller while screaming and laughing really loud. They had so much fun together! They are only a month apart so it is fun to see them grow up together and finally (hopefully) become best buds.

Fratelli Restaurant Review

In this picture I am smiling, but it is fake. We went to this restaurant to try something new and were pretty disappointed. Well the real reason I wanted to go here was the name. Fratelli. Just like in the Goonies, my favorite movie! Mama Fratelli ring a bell? Anyway, moving on, I ordered the chicken parmesan, a classic. Isn't it usually breaded? Nope not this one. It was just a grilled(burned) chicken breast smothered in marinara with some cheddar cheese melted on the top. I had taken probably 3 bites and then noticed that my chicken breast was completely raw in the middle. I'm not talking "lightly pink" I'm talking raw people! So they brought me a cooked one and gave me my meal and dessert free which was very nice. The dessert was a pistachio, raspberry, and lemon cake which was fantastic. I think this made up for the chicken! I would recommend it! The waitress was actually really great, and we had good company, so all in all it ended up being an okay experience. Just don't order the chicken parmesan, it's nasty.

Preston is 1!

I can't believe that Preston is one year old today! He still seems like a baby, which he is, but is moving into the toddler stage. He got very spoiled on his birthday with cards and presents from aunts,uncles, parents, and grandparents far and wide. We had the annual McDonalds birthday party(which we did for Carter this year) because all the kids love the playland and the McDonalds cleaning crew gets to wipe up all the leftover frosting! Unfortunately the birthday boy wasn't in a great mood due to lack of sleep and also a cold, but he did perk up when he received his present from Grandma and Grandad English just before bedtime!

" Hmmm, I wonder who this is from..."
He got some very cute birthday cards

How cute is this fire truck cake? We soon found out no matter how much red food coloring you put in, it won't go completely red! We settled for a dark pink. James thinks he made progress from Carter's Dora birthday cake!
I love the pretzel ladder Preston liked the Oreos better than the birthday cake and was mad I took them away finally!
Opening presents

All of the family and friends who came, thank you!

Prestons First Car from james_english1 on Vimeo.



Carter loved to push Preston around but was definitely ready to take a seat and drive the car himself too. Thank you for the great gift Grandma and Grandad! Thank you for all the gifts from everyone in fact! These will keep him (and Carter) entertained for hours, we appreciate it. Happy Birthday Preston! We love you so much and are so glad that you are in our family!

"Do you want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?"

Carter found our games closet and has been loving to take out all the peices to each game. Dice, timers, pads of paper, you name it, it has been on the floor. Eventually he happened upon Scattergories. This timer has been his favorite thing to play with for about the last 3 to 4 days. He takes it in the car, wants to take it to bed, carries it all over the house. Off. On. Off.Ooooonnnnn. It is just so cool to him that it can make noise and stop making noise with a push of a button. Here he is carrying it in his "briefcase" to work. He is so funny. But it's driving me crazy.

Good News of the Week

I thought I would share some fun things that happened to me this week. The first being that we received a birthday card in the mail for Preston from England because he is turning one next Friday! It was addressed to "Master Preston English". Does anyone else thinks that sounds hilarious? I guess it is to distinguish that they are not a "Mr." yet, so they are called "Master". For all of you British people reading this, I'm sorry, I know it makes complete sense to you. To me, it is just another reason why I love that my husband is a Brit. I love that my children sound like they could be a prince like William or Harry!
The second thing being that the Cheesecake Factory opened in Murray on November 1st. Can I tell you how much I love this restaurant? Half of the reason I ever go to Vegas is just to eat there, if that tells you anything! I really order something different almost every time and I have never come away disappointed. The banana cream pie cheesecake is to die for!
Third, Kosy 106.5 the radio station, starting November 1st, started playing Christmas music all the time! James can attest that I really do listen to Christmas music ALL year long so it is nice to hear something besides Amy Grant every now and again. Secretly I think he likes it too but just doesn't want to admit it. Yay Kosy!
Lastly, I did all my laundry today (including the boys clothes, towels, blankets) and have it all washed, dryed, folded and put away. Go me!
Just thought you all should know. Thank you for your time.

"Creepy" Halloween Night

I already unveiled the boys costumes, but James as the hotdog vendor, it is complete! He got all of the clothes from work including the red apron (I did make the hotdog hat). We went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood with Leah and Dan, and her friends with their kids. We had quite a group! At our neighbors house they had a scary ghost hanging from their porch and gravestones in the front yard etc. As we were walking away Carter says, "That house was creepy." Creepy? What two year old knows the word creepy? Carter does I guess! We all had a good laugh about that one!

The hotdog sucking his thumb and the vendor
my cute family
Leah made ghost cupcakes for us after a long hard night of trick or treating! Yummy! We hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween!

Mess Maker

Preston is officially into everything! I don't think it is possible for me to ever get my house completely clean, because I always have someone right behind me undoing it all!

Exhibit A: The laundry. If I ever try to fold laundry and put it into piles when he is around, he will either crawl on top of the piles until they are no longer piles, or pull it out of the basket when it is all folded. Atleast he looks like he is having a good time right?
Exhibit B: The big utensil drawer. He has learned how to open it now and just like his older brother loves to get every spoon, spatula and whisk that he can. By the way, these pictures were not staged, and did take place within two hours of each other! One final picture that is a flashback from about 2 years ago when Carter was in this stage. They must be brothers!

Halloween Fun

Yesterday was quite eventful! We for some reason decided to pack all of our Halloween fun into one day. The zoo was doing "Boo at the Zoo" where they have different booths that hand out candy while you also get to check out the animals. We got there at 9:30 and the place was packed! There was no parking to be found. After parking about 2 miles away, we got into the zoo and got some candy. People were waiting in line for 30 minutes to get a stupid lollipop, it was a bit ridiculous. We found all the short lines and had fun seeing all the animals. No pictures of that since we already have about 15 from past posts. I think we are zooed out for awhile! That night we decided to go to Lehi Legacy Center's Halloween party, the kids had a blast! There was trick or treating upstairs, which Carter was given a glow necklace and was thrilled about it! Then they had a haystack maze with people handing out candy throughout it. Here is us trying to find our way through it...


For dinner they served sloppy joes, we decided to pass, but Carter and Preston loved it. The corpse bride was playing on a huge screen and so it was a movie and food, Carter's two favorite things! Notice how his hair is all wet, he was sweating like crazy in that dragon costume! Preston was the hit of the party with the hot dog outfit. I had SO many people come up to me and ask where I got it, or I would see people nudge their friend and laugh.I thought the costume was pretty hilarious myself. Old Navy, if you were wondering! They also had tons of games to play and Carter had a ball!We needed a date night, and a friend Brett from James' work invited us to go to Frightmares at Lagoon with them. We thought that sounded fun so we said we would go. We decided to look on the internet to see the pricing...$27.50 with $7 parking!!! We quickly called him back and said, We are not paying 60 bucks for a night out. We got my mom to babysit anyway, and were going to go to dinner and maybe to the mall. While dropping the kids off they called back and said they had gotten 2 free tickets for us, so we went. I'm cheap, I know. I haven't been to Lagoon since 9th grade, and not much has changed since then. We rode the REALLY OLD white roller coaster which I think they are tearing down after this season, along with the Clossus or now named Fire Dragon. I was pretty proud of myself because the last few years I have hated roller coasters because I always get sick and have a headache. I was doing great until about 30 minutes before we left we decided to go on the Jet Star 2. Don't do it people, it gave me the worst headache ever! All in all, we had a great time and laughed a lot. I love date nights! It was a busy, fun day for us.

Tagged

I have already done something like this already a while back, but saw Ashleigh's blog and was "tagged" again. The game is you write 6 things about yourself that most people don't know and then you tag six more people to do the same thing. Here goes...
1. I HATE feet. They are disgusting. They smell, have hard, flaky skin, yellow toenails, yuck. I don't like them near me, even if you have socks on. The funny part is that people try to convince me that I will like their feet because they are so well groomed. Sorry to break it to you, but I don't even like my own feet! You know that I really love James a lot because his feet encompass all of the above on said "disgusting" feet.
2. I am a magazine junkie. I love them. Gossip magazines, mainly People, is my favorite. I think this is why I wasn't a reader for so long because I was used to reading a little blurb on a page and being done.
3. I bite my fingernails. I know, it's gross. I have done it ever since I can remember. I actually stopped doing it during both pregnancies, but somehow started back up again. Most of the time I don't even realize I am doing it. The funny thing is Carter bites his nails too now. Hey atleast I don't have to clip them I guess!
4. I am a big journal writer. My grandma got all of the grandkids a journal when they turned 8. I have since filled I think about 8-9 more journals. It is really fun to look back at how boy crazy I was. I love Jon Nelson blah blah blah... :)
5. I know a lot about music. Or atleast I like to think I do. I can be somewhat of a music snob at times.Whenever I need a self esteem boost I have my family play name that tune with me. I always win, which makes them crazy. For some reason my brain seems to retain artists, song titles, and album names. Why couldn't it be math?!
6. I dress WAY too casual. I love t-shirts, jeans, pajama pants, anything comfortable. When I have to be dressed nice, i am scrambling to find ANYTHING in my closet. I am hoping to change this one, I need a new style.

Well that's me, take it or leave it! I am not going to tag 6 people. If you want to do it, great, I would love to hear some fun things about you!

Families are Forever

Last week was not the best for me since my Uncle Richard (my mom's brother) passed away on Tuesday. He died of pancreatic cancer at only 59, and was diagnosed less than a year ago. He will be very missed. We had his funeral on Saturday and everyone came over to my mom's house afterward to just be together, eat, and chat. I love my extended family so much, they are so much fun. My uncles Scott and Andy are great storytellers and have us rolling before the night is over. Although it was a hard and sad day, we did enjoy being together. As a side note, I had to give a big thank you to my awesome husband. The viewing was on Friday night, so he decided to stay home and watch the boys. Not only did he do that, he scrubbed the oven and stovetop until it looked brand new! How nice is that? Also thank you to Megan & Alli for watching the boys during the funeral. It was much appreciated!!

My mom and her siblings L to R Chris,Scott,Kerry,Doug, Mary, Andy, and my mom
My cousin April, me , and an old friend Jen

Scarecrow Festival

Sorry about the blogging hiatus, just have not really felt like it. Here are a bunch of pictures from the last week of some of the fun fall festivities we have been doing with the boys. We went to the Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point on Monday with our friends Leah and Dan. It was a blast! I was pleasantly surprised. Carter loved every minute of it, which made it totally worth it to me. Preston was still a little too young to know what was going on, but did get a pony ride and acted like he was enjoying himself. Can I just say that I love that Thanksgiving Point is so close to my house? They always seem to have so many fun things going on and it is so nice to drive about 2 minutes and be there. We still are thinking about doing Cornbellys Corn Maze over there, but we want to wait until we get a little closer to Halloween. I love this time of year...

While waiting for their pony ride James and Dan took all the boys around the petting zoo while me and Leah chatted in line. I love this picture because Preston is doing his classic move of sucking his thumb and grabbing his hair. He actually prefers it if he has my hair wrapped around his thumb but his own little snippet of hair will suffice I guess. He cracks me up.
A statue of a sheep. What is this about?
This picture is so Carter. We got there and he was all timid and worried about the whole thing. We think he is going to love something, and then he will totally surprise us and act all scared. This was that moment. It only took him about 5 minutes until he heard pony ride for him to snap out of it. He did end up having a great time.
His favorite blow up slide was the shark. This was the whale, but you get the idea. I couldn't believe he climbed up those things. They were high! You could tell where he was when you had a big crowd of kids piling up because they had to wait for the "little kid". Some of the kids tried to climb over him but Carter told them to be nice. I am not worried about him standing up for himself that is for sure! This picture is of him going up the slide...

...and down the slide. He always went down backwards on his stomach. I suddenly had a flashback of him like he was a baby again going down the stairs. It definitely wore the boys out and they both slept in the next day. Wahoo!

Zoo Break

James was nice to give me a break last Saturday and took Carter to the zoo (Preston was napping of course). They had lots of fun while I got to just lay around, finish my book, and procrastinate all the things that needed to get done. I have been in such a reading mode lately, I don't know why. Anyway, here are the cute pics of Carter on his fun day out with Dad.

Cool Picture huh? Face to face with a snow leopard (I think) James thinks it is a jaguar. Which one of us is right? Anyone know?
He wanted to ride on the elephant's trunk but then got scared and wanted to get down which gave the crowd a laugh. "Get me down Daddy, get me down!"
The albino crocodile again(I posted a pic about 3 months ago), but a way better picture on this post. I am not a very good photographer I admit it, James kills me in that department. It must be a guy thing.
Carter was so scared to go down this slide last time we were there, but James said this time he didn't give it a second thought. Go figure.

Flower Farewell

Here are all of the annuals that I dug up out of my yard this morning! It was a sad day to pull all of the happy yellow flowers out, but I didn't want to wait until there was snow on the ground. I also didn't realize how many weeds that had grown in the last little while. Morning glory is the bane of my existance!!
Now for the bulbs...my favorite flowers, tulips! I only bought this small pack to see if they come up in the spring. I am new to this whole gardening thing so it is all trial and error. I am glad I got this project overwith. Saturday's duties are now weeding the backyard and getting CLR to get all of the rust water off of my fence. Thanks Lehi City!! We shall see how much I actually get done...

Carving Pumpkins

Family Night=Pumpkin Carving. It is amazing to me that we started this blog about the same time a year ago. We have pictures of us carving a pumpkin with Carter and I am 9 months pregnant with Preston. Weird. Here is Carter sitting next to "his" pumpkin, with Preston's on the bottom step and Mommy and Daddy's on the top step.
We are proud of our pumpkins! (I look weird I know)
I love putting candles in them to see their faces glow. Happy Halloween!

Hand Me Downs

Strike a Pose
Having fun together
Preston's signature move-Grab the face!

Since the first snowfall happened last week, I decided it was definitely time to put away the shorts and tshirts and get out all of the fall/winter clothes. I found the box for Preston of Carter's hand me downs and it was so much fun looking through and finding all the cute sweaters etc. that Carter used to wear. Having two boys close together has really come in handy! This was one of my favorite shirts that Carter had, and I am happy that Preston now gets to show his cute self off in it too. They are so funny together. Preston loves to bug Carter in any way possible, I think it is to get back at Carter for bossing him around all the time! In case any of you were wondering, Preston is no longer my little vampire. He has grown a front tooth, so now he just looks like a jack-o-lantern (see bottom picture). I love my boys!!