Potty Patrol

Like I said earlier, Liam is OBSESSED with the potty.

He has a sixth sense. If he suspects you of using the facilities, he will scream, "POOT!" and run to the bathroom to observe. Now, when I say observe, I mean squat down so he can see if he can get a better view. Sometimes he even tries to move you. Its awkward, to say the least. Zoey tries to be nice, and says, "Liam, please go out. Shut the door, you're buggin' me." Sometimes he obliges, most of the time, he doesn't. Then its the screaming from the bathroom. "MOOOOOMMMMM!!!!! LIAM IS NOT LETTING ME BE MODEST!!!!!!" When you finish, he starts the potty dance. Hopping around the bathroom yelling, "YAY POOT! YAY POOT!"

Now its a race to get to the bathroom and lock the door before he gets there. 2 year old boys are so much fun...

Wedding Day

(consolidating and organizing photos seem tedious until you run across a photograph like this)

This and That

Its has been a long while since I have done and update on the kids.

Zoey is in Kindergarten and loving it. She had her first progress report and she is excelling in all areas except she loves to chit chat during class. I was not surprised. Zoey is a favorite in the class and she gets a class full of "BYE ZOEY!!! SEE YOU TOMORROW!!!" She is really loving it and she has learned so much already. Her and Liam are entering the 'love/hate' stage of their relationship. They love to play together and can be seen playing monster, or singing a variety of songs. They also hate each other, yelling and screaming if one gets to close, or if one looks at the other a certain way, or is stinky... the reason doesn't matter, its the screaming and yelling that is the bulk of it.

Photo by my bro Cody. Playing in grandmas back yard

Zoey has had some really good one liners lately too

If you ask a question she will start her answer with ''Well..." Like Max calling from Latvia when we picked him up asked how old Liam was, and she replied "Well, two or one."

We were on the plane and I was doing the crossword in the coloring book the flight attendant gave us, and she looks at me and says, very slowly, "Mom... that's for children..."

Her school has a lot of character development and moral sayings, and the latest is "I will make good choices and I will grow from my mistakes". I made the mistake of saying it wrong. I said 'learn from my mistakes" She corrected me saying "Mom, you said it wrong. Its "I will GROW from my mistakes." Then she looked at me and said, "Mom, I hope you will grow from this mistake."

Damon called her a cutie patootie. She had a full on melt down, ran to me and said "MOM!!! DAD CALLED ME A TOOTIE!!! I AM NOT A TOOTIE! HE NEEDS TO GO TO TIME OUT!!!"

We still have not got her totally convinced that cutie patootie is a good thing.

Liam is a copy cat. Thus all the fighting lately. He will mimic Zoey in any and everything she does. He will say anything, and his language is miles ahead of where Zoey was at the same age. Its so fun to have a baby who preforms. (most of the time) We have made some new friends in the ward and Liam is in love with JD. As soon as they come in, Liam bestows the ultimate honor on JD, giving him Dot to hold.

Liam the bobble head at the go cart race track

Now this is cool. I think Liam will be potty trained very soon. He will find me and demand to be changed if he is wet or if he poops, he will take off his shoes, pants and diaper and then not move and scream "i poot!! i poot!" until I find him and take care of it. He got McQueen pull ups and will show you them proudly if you ask.

He loves dot, thomas the train, his mommy, and food. But never at meal times.

They are the best kids in the whole wide world.

(transferring all my photos to one source I have run into some really great old photos of the kids. This one Liam is 3 days old)

The 411

This is the big news that we have actually known about for a month but have not been able to announce for a myriad of reasons. (mainly dealing with Damon's company and such)

drum roll please.........


DAMON GOT PROMOTED!!!!!!!!


he is now the incredibly good looking District Manager for DEY L.P. in


second drumroll please..........


HOUSTON, TEXAS

(this is the Houston, Texas Temple. Its in Spring, TX, where we will most likely live.)


We are moving the first week in November.

I can not describe how nice it is to know where we are going to be.

I already bought a pair of slouchy cowboy boots that are amazing.


Congrats to my exceptionally business savvy husband. You are amazing.

Larainy Days

My beautiful Mother is blogging.  She is really good.  She has written a few short stories, and even a young adult novel. You all should go and read and follow and comment, since no one is commenting on my blog (sarcastic glare at all of you out there)

My Jetsetting Mom. Shown here in Riga, Latvia

Larainy Days  click and prepare to be entertained.

St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad

Did you know that St. Petersburg was called 2 other names at some point in history? Me either.

THE HIGHLIGHTS.

Flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

They didn't even check my passport. Not Once. Boo. I don't know why but carrying that makes me feel soo cool.

They serve you breakfast for a one hour flight. A croissant no less. With a banana and OJ. Suddenly peanuts and a child size pop look even more lame than they did before.

SERGEI- Our Russian guide and driver. He is amazing at his job, and makes American patriotism look like child's play. Russian Pride all the way. He loved taking jabs at the US at any opportunity, and also did it in that nice way. Ya know, the way where some one us saying it nice but really insulting you? Yeah. It was a love/annoyed relationship. We also learned from Sergei that even though nearly EVERYTHING, from the Winter Palace to the Peterhof, was a replica of the original, it was, in fact, still original, because of one reason or another that makes sense only if you are Russian. I think the criteria was if it had something in it from the original than that makes the whole thing original. The second day he warmed up to us and even smiled revealing braces. He is also quite a gentleman. Always helping me up the stairs and telling me my camera lens isn't quite clean...

SERGEI. He is quite the guide...

Hermitage and Winter Palace- Amazing and yet slightly underwhelmed. I mean, Sergei was disappointed when we insisted on Dutch and Flemish art instead of the Renaissance art, but can you blame us? 27 (yes 27) Rembrandt. And Van Dykes, and Rubens. All behind glass. ?????? AND ya know how museums are usually strictly controlled? Light, humidity, temperature ect. Nyet. If a room was too hot, they opened a window. There was so special lighting. You were looking at PRICELESS works of art and you had to position yourself so you cold actually see the painting through the glare on the glass from the OPEN window. Weird. But if you go. Don't miss it. Just to see the Winter Palace is worth it.

The grand staircase in the Winter Palace. Old guy not included.

THE WINTER PALACE

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood- weird name, I know. Alexander the Second (?) had is legs blown off by a terrorist. They built a memorial to that. What is really impressive was the interior. Every inch of the floor and ceiling was completely covered in mosaic scenes from the bible. Unbelievable. This was Damon's favorite place in Russia

Yes. All of that is mosaics. Every inch.

The outside of the church. at least part of it.

We also saw many palaces that nobles lived in and even saw where the Stroganoffs lived. Yes. I know. They invented beef Stroganoff. Thank you Stroganoff Family. I give due credit to you. Here I was thanking Betty Crocker all these years... (Anything of minute historical significance like that is now restored and made into a museum.)

MUSHROOM PEROGI IS THE BOMB. I wish I had a picture to show you.

Cathrine's Palace was crowded and looked like King Midas had been there. Everything was gold. The famous Amber Room is also here. I didn't take many photos because I though the whole thing was in bad taste.

GRAND BALLROOM.
Royal booties. I am halfway shocked they didn't have gold ones for us.

This photo isn't a mistake. Short people have a disadvantage. And I am not looking in a mirror either. All those doorways are different rooms. And they all have gold everywhere.

The best part of the whole thing was a little hole in the wall blini place. Russian cottage cheese is different. Its really creamy and smooth, but still firm, and with some honey and apricots in a blini it was to die for.

BEHOLD, THE PETERHOF

That is all one building. All of it. One. I have been there and I still can't believe it.

This is my favorite thing in Russian, besides the cottage cheese and apricot blini and the cream of mushroom soup.

VIEW FROM THE BACK OF THE PETERHOF. all the fountains are natural. No pumps. not one.

I can't even begin to describe this place. Even in all its excessiveness, I found it to be so beautiful. Damon made Sergei sooo mad by guessing all three names of the fountains that people get wrong. "YOU READ!!!! YOU KNOW!!! ADMIT IT!!!"

My smarty pants husband. He looks like he could take some one out in this photo. His co-workers even call him "The Asset"

After the Peterhof, Sergei dropped us off and we walked up and down Nevsky Prospekt, looking for dinner. We (not really sure how) ended up at this CRAPPY hole complete with black light above each table, techno music, and a tiny tea light candle, for ambiance, of course. We were in a rush, and had to ketch our train and they took an eternity to get our food out to us, so we got it to go and ran to the VOXALL (train station) This is where I stop this post. The Russian Trains deserve a post all their own.

The Real World

I. Love. This.


Love him or hate him , he sure hits the nail on the head with this!
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.


Rule 1 : Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world doesn't care about your Self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6 : If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault , so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7 : Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10 : Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds. Chances are you' ll end up working for one.


Well said.

DONE

I am done editing the photos from the trip. All 14 GB, 1472 photos. I promise I will post more soon.