Happy Birthday Mike!

Mike turned 37...wow, that's old!

I hope he had a good day. We went down to Orem and went to dinner with my family...thanks guys! Mom watched the kids while we went to a movie at the dollar theater... it's a dollar fifty now, but that's still a pretty cheap date. Thanks Mom!

We didn't get Mike much for gifts. He said he just wanted tires for his truck, and those don't come cheap, so I let each of the kids pick him out something small. Allie gave him Billy Bob teeth. I'll post the pictures when I get them off my Mom's camera. I died laughing when Allie and Jake put them on. Mike looks like they belong on him.

Anyway, Jake gave Dad a Batman remote control car...

Who was he kidding?

Happy Birthday Mike...we love you!

What a kid will do for a Tootsie Pop

The other day I let Jake stay awake instead of napping. He had slept in, and I wanted an earlier bed time for once this summer. He was getting hungry for a treat, so I told him he could have one if he did a few jobs for me. I was unloading the dishwasher, so I let him sort the silverware. He did it perfectly. That seemed like too easy of a job for a sucker (it was a tootsie pop after all), so I had him put away the books in his room. He also put away his jammies, and put all the blankets and stuffed animals on the bed. I was shocked. I guess overall, it was actually a good thing for me, bad thing for Jake. I know what he can do now and I will expect more from him. Actually, I think he loved every minute of it. He was so proud of himself when he heard my exclamations of delight when I walked into his room and saw carpet instead of books. When I started to look around for the books, and their new hiding place (he used to just shove them all under the bed) I was surprised to see a neat pile on the floor of the closet. He had even separated the board books that Allie likes from his books. What a good boy. He savored that sucker, and took until well after Allie woke up to finish it, so of course there were cries of “I want one too” , “Ayyee too Mom?” Unfortunately that sucker was a one of a kind in our house (it was leftover Halloween candy that Jake found in some obscure place). Allie was content with fruit snacks.

The mystery of the plums...solved

This year, we discovered that our flowering plum tree bears fruit. They are small, and really tart, but Allie loves them. Our neighbor knew that Allie loves those plums, and that she had eaten all of ours, so she gave her a whole bag for her birthday. I brought them outside once and let her have a few. The bag never made it back inside, and I wondered what had happened to it. Then last week, every time Allie would play in the sand box, she would find a sandy plum and eat it. They were so sandy in fact, that the evidence of sand intake would be apparent in her diaper the next day. (we discovered last year that sand comes out the other end when you eat it by the spoonful). This new plum mystery was disgusting, and sometimes scary…I’d check in on her only to find her mouth and hands covered in what looked like blood. I’d panic and go in to get a closer look and discover that it was just a gross sandy plum. After a few days of this mystery, I decided that she must have buried the pile of plums and was getting one out at a time. I searched the sand box. I uncovered lost toys, but no plums. The next day, the neighbor kids were even getting grossed out, coming to tell me that Allie was eating something red and sandy from the sand box. I went out and told her to show me where she got it. She pointed to the blue watering can. Yeah, it was a stash; the mother lode of rotting fruit. What is wrong with that girl? We have caught her eating rocks, shovels full of sand, bugs, leaves, cigarette butts on the ground at Lagoon…you’d think by the age of two, she would stop doing these gross things. I guess the temptation of rotting, sand covered plums is just too great. I thought I had thrown them all away, but every now and then she comes in from being outside and her shirt has suspicious red stains on the front. What do you do…the kid likes food.

Those were my words, but I swear I didn't open my mouth...

Today I walked in the room to hear this conversation between the kids...

Allie: (in an angry voice) "Wanna walk!!" (she wanted to go outside for a walk).

Jake: (in my pseudo patient tone) "That's not how we ask, could you please ask nicely?"

Allie: (with head tilted, and in a sweet voice) "Pease?"

Jake: (moving on to something else, sounding distracted) "Maybe in a minute"

It was seriously as if I just walked in on me talking to her. My brain is usually moving a lot faster than their pace, so I'm sure I seem distracted and distant a lot. I say "maybe in a minute" a lot, hoping that they will forget and move on to something else. Apparently Jake has picked up on that and used the same technique to pacify Allie...and it worked.

"No, Ah do it"

This silly girl is in an independent phase. She wants to do everything by herself, and surprisingly enough, she is pretty good at doing most things. Jake has picked up on the fact that he is falling behind in some categories. That means that he is trying to be more independent too...resulting in shorts that are on backwards, and shoes that are on the wrong feet more often than not.

Allie decided she wanted her helmet on, and decided "no, Ah do it" (yelled many decibels too loud). So this is the result of her handy work. You gotta love the tongue, sticking out in concentration for the ride.

I am kinda bummed, Saturday when Mike took the old car out for a ride this cute princess helmut was under his wheels and it got crunched. Don't tell Allie...We'll have to get her a new one.

Bear Lake

I'm ridiculously late in posting this entry. We had our family reunion, and had a blast. The big Belnap family met up in Idaho this year. We went to the American Falls Reservoir. It was so much fun to see some of the cousins and play in the water. Thank heavens for life jackets...Allie decided to jump off the dock. She was at my feet one minute, and under water the next. I heard a splash and looked down to see her, under water, eyes wide open looking shocked. I was in shock and didn't jump right in after her (shame on me as a mother, good for the camera in my hand.) Luckily, her Uncle Ben was right there to pick her up. She didn't even cry. I hate to think about what could have happened if she didn't have a life jacket on. This water isn't exactly see through.

Allie was the first of four baby girls born in our family in one year. They will all be cute friends. Savana is Jenny's daughter and has the fiery red hair. Taylor is Warren and Kim's daughter, Aspen has the dark hair and is the youngest of the bunch. They all have strong wills and can be very stubborn at times. But they are all pretty cute...that wins out.

The Belnap family has a tradition of wearing shirts that number where we fit in the family. The first generation are red shirts. Their kids are blue shirts, and the blue shirt's kids are green shirts. I am 8 and Mike is 8A. Jake is the 25th great grandchild and Allie is #30. Jake has been begging to wear his number shirt ever since we got home.

We went straight from this reunion to Bear Lake for our Johnson family reunion. My mom rented us some condos right on the beach and we had a great time.

It was a little bit of a walk down to the beach, and when the sand got too hot, I became the pack horse.

We rented wave runners one of the days. I went out with my little brother Steve. We had a blast. He threw me off 3 times...but I got him once. The passenger would ride backwards, only holding on with one hand (like a bull rider) and the driver would try to knock the passenger off. Totally safe (insert sarcasm), totally fun

The other crazy thing were the swarms of carp. They swam in packs, and were kindof agressive. Steve would jump off his wave runner and try to catch them...crazy boy.

We had a great time. The kids loved playing with eachother. It's amazing how much you come to need family, and want to be around them. I've got an amazing family.

My sweet toothed boy

Jake is a funny boy. Some days he gets a craving for candy so bad that he breaks rules to indulge in the craving. He wakes up wanting sugar. Since I am a lazy slacker, he is usually awake before me...who am I kidding, he is my alarm clock. I am always grateful when he lets me snooze past 7:00. On the days that he wakes up wanting sugar, he won't come in to wake me up at all. He'll just go help himself to whatever he can find. Sometimes he is even desperate enough to raid the semi-sweet chocolate chips...ew. The other day, he found a few jolly ranchers from Halloween...I have no idea where they were. I seriously need to employ his nose to find all the stashes of candy that I have hidden from Mike and can't find now. Anyway, the only reason that I know of this at all is that he couldn't get the package open by himself. So he came in to wake me. I told him he had to share with Allie and he had to wait until after naps. He was broken hearted, as you can imagine. A few minutes later, I came into the kitchen to find this...

They were carefully placed on the table, waiting for the time he could eat them. He likes to have everything in a cup, and he knows Allie does too. What a cute little kid...I hope his teeth last long enough to be a cute teenager.

Italy here we come...in a few months...

It old news now, but I'll tell the story anyway. My passport came in the mail, and I started a blog entry about the event...then I wanted to add a picture of me holding my passport, but you know the story. Bad hair day, bad clothes day, no one to take the picture, etc. Oh well, now I've got it. (it's not the best picture, but Mike is not easily persuaded to have anything to do with a camera, even if it isn't pointed at him.) My mom e-mailed our itinerary today, and it sounds like a party. I am so excited to go...nervous about Mike and the kids getting along without me, but way excited anyway. Italy is on my list of top 10 places to go. Who would have thought I'd get there...thanks for planning it all Mom!

May the force be with you

When Allie was born, Jake was still a baby himself...we were crazy. I had heard that if you have the baby give the older sibling a gift, they would like the baby more. Jake was into light sabers (sorry if I spelled it wrong all you Star Wars fans) at the time, so I thought they could give eachother those as gifts. Not too smart, as they can be used as weapons regardless of if you were born with the "force". They have been in lots of time outs since then, and there have been many tears shed. Then the other day, I looked over and my kids were playing with them as they were designed to be used. No hitting, no screaming, no revenge hits for accidental hits...just play. I took a picture to show that even if they had to wait two years, those light sabers came in handy!

Happy Birthday Allie Baby!

Wow! Allie is 2 years old! The other day, I sat her on my lap and we looked back at some of the pictures of her over the past two years. It's amazing how much she has grown. I guess that's just how it goes when you are that young. Anyway, I thought I'd show you all some pictures of our sweet little Allie Baby...

Allie Susanne Schwab was born on August 8th. It made for a pretty cool birthday this year 8/8/08. In case some of you smart folks made the connection, yes we do know what her initials spell. I wanted her to be Allie McCall Schwab, but I lost the fight to "A.S.S." Mike thought it would be funny, and our pediatrician laughed his head off.

We decided not to find out the gender of this pregnancy, so we were excited to find out the day she was born that we had a little sister for Jake. I made two different blankets, one for a boy and one for a girl. I secretly hoped that I could use this one. Allie calls it her "pink squares" blankie. (Jake has a yellow "squares blankie"). This is what we took her home from the hospital in.

This is the picture I used for her birth announcement.

I love the fall, mostly because there are so many good picture opportunities. When Jake was a baby, I bought a big pumpkin and took "naked in a pumpkin" pictures of him...how could I resist taking them of Allie too. She didn't like it very much in the beginning, but who cares when I get this as a result?

Allie started to get pretty chunky, especially in the bum region. We really started to think about her initials and wonder if we had cursed her for life...hee, hee sorry girl, you do have a big bum.

Allie turned 1 in McCall, Idaho at our family reunion (wouldn't McCall have been a great name?)

Too big for naked pumpkin pictures, but she was the cutest frog ever. All the little girls that were dressed as princesses wanted to get pictures kissing her. You can see why I love fall pictures can't you?

This is one of my favorite pictures of her last spring. She loves animals.

Allie had a great birthday. She was spoiled, as usual. She started it out with a birthday cereal...Cocoa Puffs (can you tell by the chocolate face?). In this picture she is trying to show me that she is 2. Her face cracks me up, maybe if she moves her lips just right, the fingers will follow.









Aunt Dixie gave her this enormous balloon. She has dragged it around the house all week. She sings "Happy Birthday to me" as she walks.




My friend Heidi made her this super cute cake...if any of you need one, she's getting a little business up and running...I'll hook you up!



Grandma Bonnie gave her a little puppy in a carrying case, and a dress-up magnetic bear. She loves those too. Aunt Tara gave her a fairy cell phone.

We gave her a Fisher Price Doll house, and a new baby...this one is named "Pink Brooke". Her other baby is named Brooke too. I can't decide if she will be a good little mommy, or try to smother her baby in its sleep.

The most requested gift to play with are these sparkly pink "flops" and spill proof bubbles (I consider these a miracle). About the "flops", Allie's friend Aubrey got sick of leaving her shoes at the trampoline, only to find them on Allie's feet a few minutes later. So she got Allie her own special pair of flops...thanks guys!

I think she had a great birthday. Allie is an amazing daughter. She tries my patience, like any other kid would, but she shows me how to enjoy life too. She is so exuberant, she can put you in a good mood right away. I love having her in my life, and she is one of a kind and we love her!