A blog post…….finally

Ok, I know it’s been a while since my last posting.  I’ll try to be better, but here’s at least a few pictures and a quick video that hopefully brings a smile to your face.

So here are a couple pictures from Halloween… I know, it’s obviously been a while if I’m just now posting Halloween pictures – thus the title of this blog post.  So, Tyler was an Astronaut.  As part of his astronaut training I taught him to put his hand to his brow and say “Yes, Sir.”  I’ve tried to parlay that into other areas of his day, but for some reason things haven’t seemed to have worked out that way.  Instead, he’s clung to a quote from Buzz Lightyear… well, kind of.  He loves to jump off the furniture and shout “To infinity and be gone.” 

Reagan went as a little lady bug.  She was as cute as a bug, that’s for sure.  We went to the trunk-or-treat at the church and all the 8 to 12 year old girls wanted to play with Reagan like she was their little doll.  She got swarmed.  It was really fun to see her running around all dressed up.

Outside of Halloween, things have been pretty quiet.  We spent Thanksgiving with some friends from church (the family of the pirate in the picture above).  The biggest news, however, is that Tyler is finally potty-trained.  It took a few rounds of us getting frustrated and giving up, but now he’s finally got it.  Yeah, there are the occasional accidents, but we’ll never have to buy him another diaper. 

Since we won’t be able to go back to Utah for Christmas, I wanted to give everyone a chance to see a glimpse of Reagan’s personality.  She is so different from Tyler.  Obviously kids are kids and they’re going to get into mischief, but Reagan’s reaction is so different from Tyler’s when we get mad at her for doing something wrong.  Tyler was always apologetic and tried to do what we told him.  Reagan is… well… you’ll see. 

In the clip below, Reagan is making a mess at dinner time (as usual).  We've gotten upset with her in the past - telling her not to dump her food.  You can see that she’s already started to throw her food off her plate and I started to say “No, No.” when I figured it was time to capture some video evidence of the attitude we were getting so I could use it when she was older to show her why I had lost my mind.  Instead of responding apologetically to the reprimand and correcting the behavior, she turns it right around on you.  First she makes fun of you by imitating your angry face, then she laughs at your pitiful attempt to get her to do something she doesn't want to do.  Notice how she looks over to Tyler to get him laughing at me as well.  Then she goes about doing whatever it is she wants – in this case dumping out all her food and plopping the plate onto her head.  Then just to top it all off, she makes sure to look back at you to make sure you got the message. 

I realize that the brown hair came from my side of the family, but I didn’t realize that attitude was hereditary.  All I can say is that it’s a good thing she’s as cute as she is.  As frustrating as the attitude can be at times, the reality is that we end up laughing along with her most of the time.  I believe that’s called playing me like a fiddle.  Our daughter – the fiddle playing prodigy.

Tyler Turns Three

It’s amazing how fast time flies.  It doesn’t seem like that long ago that we brought our little miracle baby home from the hospital.  Of course it also seems like we just barely had Tyler’s 1st birthday party at the park behind our Roy house.  Yet somehow time has flown by and here I am blogging about Tyler’s 3rd birthday. 

Tyler’s birthday actually got a bit of an early start when Thesha’s folks came out to visit over the summer while I was at scout camp.  Rather than ship a present out, they decided to bring their gift with them so they could see his reaction first hand.  I don’t think they were disappointed as he gazed intently as the little motorized car zipped around the racetrack.  This actually set the theme for most of Tyler’s birthday celebration – transportation in all it’s various forms.  As much as Tyler loves cars, he loves trains, airplanes, horses, and apparently frogs as well.  Frogs, you ask?  You’ll see what I mean.

So to start things off, Thesha made Tyler this really cool train birthday cake.  It was made of cookies, cakes, ding dongs, frosting, and a bunch of other candy.  It was so cool and pretty freakin’ good, if I do say so myself.  Then after gorging on a big red caboose, we started opening presents.  Grandpa Choate sent a bunch of Cars items like a sticker book, Lightning McQueen, and a Mack Truck.  Of course, it just wouldn’t be a car-themed gift from Grandpa Choate without a corvette with a flag decal running the length of the car.  Tyler loved it all.  We got Tyler a train table that had a bunch of tracks, buildings, and toy trains.  It was a little anti-climatic because all he could see was the box the first night, but when he came out the next day and saw it all put together he was so excited.

All of the trains and cars got Tyler prepped and ready for his big day out.  We loaded up the car and even though our destination was just over an hour away, we decided to stay in a hotel overnight to make it seem like we had gone on a long trip.  It worked on me when I was a kid, so hopefully it seemed that way to Tyler as well.  After spending the night in the hotel, we went to a really cool amusement park called Dutch Wonderland.  It’s not the biggest amusement park, but it’s full of rides and activities that are perfect for younger kids.  A lot of the other amusement parks are full of big roller coasters and rides that are too scary for little ones, but this one was perfect.  We started out on the little train that takes you on a ride around the park.  After just shelling out a lot more money than you’d want to for a bunch of kiddie rides, it all seemed worth it to hear Tyler scream in excitement and jump up and down when he saw that we were going to actually ride on the train.  In the pictures below you can see one of Tyler sitting on the train yelling CHOO-CHOO! 

While we were there we got to see a water show based on the Princess and the Frog, go for a pony ride, and ride on a handful of rides that both Tyler and Reagan were able to enjoy.  Tyler’s favorite, however, was the leaping frog ride.  As it went around-and-around the frogs would randomly JUMP up and lift the kids up off their seat.  Tyler was having the time of his life.  Our trip got cut a little short as the rain started to move in shortly after lunch.  At first it was upsetting because we had a lot of other things we wanted to try and get in.  We weren’t 10 minutes into the drive, however, when both kids fell fast asleep.  As exciting as sleeping in a hotel is, it is not the best place to get a good night’s rest.  Then running around all morning had worn them out.  As I’ve thought about it more, I realize that the rain was actually a good thing because now we can go back again some day and see all the other rides as well.

Here is a slideshow of Tyler’s birthday pictures.

As the sugar rush from the cake wore off and the novelty of all the new toys started to lose its appeal, Tyler was welcomed into a new era in his short but eventful life.  An era which includes visits to the dentist.  Party’s over kid-o.  All that sugar from the days gone past was now about to have its revenge.  To prepare him, we read him stories about the dentist and what would be going on there, but it wasn’t until they sat him in the chair and he realized that this wasn’t some crappy story about Dento-saurus but was his real life that the whole dentist idea really sank in.  As you can see from the picture below, he was about as excited to be in that chair as I was to be handing over my debit card to the receptionist.

After slowly warming up to the events unfolding in the dentist chair, Tyler was given a clean checkup with no cavities.  Plus the hygienist promised him a balloon, so he eventually came to the conclusion that the dentist wasn’t so bad.  Thankfully for him he has a mom who not only makes awesome cakes but also makes sure he brushes every morning and evening.  So at the end of the day we were all smiles.

So, Happy Birthday Tyler.  I hope it was memorable.  I know for me and Thesha the past few years have certainly been an experience of a lifetime.  We look forward to seeing all the fun adventures that life holds for you as you continue to grow up.

Heroic Tales of Survival

As I’m sure you all know, the east coast has gone through quite a bit over the last week or so.  First an earthquake measuring 5.8 then Hurricane Irene.  The east coast is all abuzz about the great Hurriquake of 2011.   It’s been a series of natural disasters we never thought we’d actually have to face, let alone have to face both in a single week.  So how did we do it?  How did we ever survive?  Here’s our nail-biting, jaw dropping, bowel releasing recount of how we managed to come out alive.

First there was The Great Earthquake.  It began like any other day.  I went off to work while Thesha stayed home with the kids.  As the afternoon approached, I sat at my desk conjuring up ways to look busy while Thesha sat at the computer at home gathering ideas from her food blogs on how to make me even fatter.  Then out of the blue I swear someone started pounding on the wall next to me.  “Who’s the idiot shaking the air conditioning ducts?”  I thought to myself.  Then I heard it again.  “What in the world is that moron doing?”  But then a bunch of people started leaving our building.  As I looked out the window there were people leaving buildings all around.  “Hmmm, I wonder if that was an earthquake?” I thought.  “I guess I’ll casually follow the masses all wandering towards the exits.”  Moments later, as Thesha found another recipe with the words “fabulous” in the title, she started to feel a rumble as well.  Then the TV started to move as if someone had bumped the TV stand.  It was all she could do to stay calm through the movement that while quite common when the kids were awake was unusual for nap time.  She held the TV for a moment and then, as quickly as it started it was over.  The only casualty was that Tyler was just about to fall asleep and now he was crying because “someone shook his bed” right as he was falling asleep.

Ok, that’s about as exciting as I can make it sound.  Yes, it was an earthquake, but really aside from a little shaking there wasn’t that much to talk about.  I can honestly say that I think I’ve felt Dad’s house shake more when a really big train has gone by.   So, yes, we survived The Great Wobble… The Great Shimmy… The Great “uhhh, what was that?”  of 2011.  Please... hold your applause.  The story is just beginning.

Yes, as if the frightening lack of events from Tuesday weren’t enough, next we had to face the terrible thought of Hurricane Irene ripping through our little town.  Uncertain of just how devastating the storm would be, Thesha wisely went out on Friday morning to gather a few extra supplies – some water, batteries, a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts… just some essentials.  To her dismay, Wal-Mart was already out of batteries and water was scarce.  Somehow the Krispy Kreme’s had been spared so she quickly grabbed a box.  Obviously the locals who’ve been through hurricanes like this know better than we do what the appropriate level of panic is and we had clearly underestimated things.  So with cell service finally restored after The Great Head Bob of 2011, Thesha called me at work to advise me to leave early, search everywhere for some batteries and some propane for our camp stove.  As I walked up and down the camping isle at Target I realized two things.  One, we really were in trouble since all the camping supplies had been cleaned out, and two, I’ve sunk to a new low when I think that Target would be a suitable place to look for camping gear.  In my defense, there’s not a Sportsman’s Warehouse or Cabela’s in the entire state of Maryland and there’s only one Bass Pro Shop and it’s apparently all the way downtown in Baltimore.  If Wal-Mart’s sold out, Target’s about the only other choice you’ve got around here.  But I digress… back to the saga. 

So there we were, panic stricken but apparently not panicked enough.  We finally found a grocery store where we could grab a few cases of bottled water.  We made it to Home Depot just in time to grab the last propane stove converter so we could buy a propane tank for our stove.  We still couldn’t find any D batteries so we drowned our sorrows in the box of doughnuts (which were delicious, by the way).  Then, late Saturday night as the clouds and wind started to move in we got word via email that church had been cancelled.  Surely this was a sign that we were in for oppression of unfathomable proportions.  The rain began late Saturday night and between 2:00 and 4:00 AM the noise was enough to actually wake me up.  Considering I slept through the burglars breaking into our house in Albuquerque, I guess you could say that it was a substantial noise (but I’d rather not relive that experience in Albuquerque).  About that same time the inevitable finally struck as the lights flickered and then the house went dark.  At least we were all snug in bed and it wasn’t too cold or too hot.  Although it was kind of difficult to sleep with all the noise, it was actually kind of nice to be able to sleep in a little. 

We woke up around 7:00 and got the kids up.  With no power and overcast skies, it was a little bit darker than usual in the apartment, but with the blinds open it wasn’t that bad.  It was funny to see Tyler’s reaction as he flipped one switch and nothing happened so then he flipped the next switch, then the next, all to get the same reaction – nothing.  We explained to him that the power was out and we were going to have to struggle through it for a while.  Thankfully a bowl of cereal didn’t require any cooking, so breakfast was pretty easy.  As the morning went on, we tried to find ways to entertain ourselves without the internet, cable TV, or the DVD player.   “What kind of world are we living in,” I thought to myself “when we have to live like it’s freakin’ 1982 or something.”  Just as I was about to start looking through my old things to find a bandana and some parachute pants, I heard it.  There it was… the faint buzz of electrons zipping through wires… of fans blowing to cool electronic circuits… of water automatically refilling an ice tray in the freezer.  Yes! Yes! Yes! It was about 10:00 AM and we had survived long enough to see our precious conveniences returned to lull us back into a cathartic state of laziness.   I gave Tyler a hug and reassured him that he could flip any switch he wanted and he would now get the expected result – light, precious light.

Ok, theatrics aside, we basically had a few hours awake without any power and for all our panic we had to endure a dimly lit breakfast table.   That’s pretty much it.

I know.  You’re sitting there wondering why I even bothered to blog about this – and to make such a long blog of it – when basically nothing happened.  Well I’m sitting here wondering why you’re still reading.  BOOOM, I just blew your mind.

Actually, the events of this last week were a bit of a blessing in disguise for us.  There are lots of people around us who were not nearly as lucky.  Some are still without power and others are still wondering when the water will subside so they can return to what’s left of their homes.  We have been truly blessed.  Plus it gave us an opportunity to discuss our emergency preparedness and to help us restore some of our food and supply levels that had been depleted with our move a couple years ago.  So tonight for Family Night we took time to talk about giving thanks to Heavenly Father for all our blessings, and we thank all our friends and family for your prayers on our behalf.  We’re doing just fine and have some more life experiences that help us appreciate what we have.  I mean really, 1982 is so three decades ago.

I know, I know… Get with the program

I know…. I’ve been slacking.  It’s not like there hasn’t been stuff to write about – an anniversary, a birthday, a visit from Grandma and Grandpa… What can I say.  Since no excuse will do, I’ll just get writing.

So, let’s start back in May.  It was 10 years ago that I popped out of the sunroof of a limousine from under Thesha’s wedding dress and we began our crazy adventures as a married couple.  It’s funny how things both change and stay the same over the years.  May 17th, 2001 started with a lot of frantic activity to get everything ready, then a drive down to the temple, and finishing up the day with the family.  Ten years later and there is still a flurry of activity trying to get everything ready to leave the houase, but this time it was about getting diapers changed, snacks together, pony tails in Reagan’s hair, strollers in the car, etc.  Then it was off to the temple, but instead of the SLC temple it was the DC temple.  It was a completely different experience then it was at the SLC temple 10 years ago, but as you can imagine the spirit we felt was the same.  Then instead of a nice lunch in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, it was a chicken sandwich from Wendy’s.  I guess lunch is lunch, right.   Last but not least, it was time for an afternoon with the family, but this time instead of dozens of family members it was our little family.   Of course this time we didn’t come home to a bunch of housewarming gifts like toasters, hand towels, and waffle makers. 

Here are some pictures of our trip to the D.C. temple.

When we were at the temple, we went to the visitor’s center and watched some of the church videos they had as part of the information displays.  All Tyler would ask about for weeks after was when we were going to go to the movie center again.

Ok, next line for catching up is Reagan’s birthday.  It’s hard to believe that when we first moved out to Maryland Reagan was just a little peanut in Thesha’s belly.  Now our little Maryland (actually Delaware) baby is a year old.  To celebrate, Thesha made her an awesome cake using the techniques she’s been picking up from the Cake Boss.  

Reagan loved it so much she went ahead and reached for it while the candle was still lit.  The good news is that it was easy to get her to stop crying by giving her a giant slice of cake. 

In addition to the cake, Reagan got lots of cute stuff to start filling out her room with toys and Mom and Dad got a bunch of new crap to pick up at the end of the day. 

The most exciting gift for us was to get a chair for Reagan like Tyler’s so that they would finally stop fighting over who got to sit in the little chair.  Of course, we apparently underestimate the power of the Little Tikes farm animals.  So on the one hand we solved the chair problem, on the other hand we created the farmer problem – as illustrated below.

Ahh, how cute.  He’s ripping the toy from her with one hand and using the other one to snap her wrist.  I love birthdays. 

Yes, Reagan is really growing up fast.  Her favorite words are “tak ooh” for “thank you”, “Hi, Dahh” for “Hi, Dad”, and “whaaaaaaah” for “Tyler, you big jerk, stop pushing me.”  She’s also learning some animal noises, a couple songs, and she even knows her alphabet…well, she knows one letter of the alphabet.  Watch below and you’ll see what I mean.

Reagan’s Learning the Alphabet

 

Reagan’s learning what animals say

 

Reagan loves to play Ring Around the Rosie

 

Ashes…Ashes…we all fall…. Z

It’s really fun to see both kids growing up and developing such fun personalities.   Reagan obviously gives us plenty to laugh and have fun with, but she has a good example from Tyler on how to make us laugh.  Tyler always wakes up early and Reagan likes to sleep in.  During the time Tyler is awake and Reagan is asleep, we’re constantly having to remind him to keep his voice down.  “Shhhh, use your quiet voice.”  we usually say.  Of course, one morning I changed it up just a little.  “Shhhh.  Tyler, where’s your quiet voice?”  Was totally caught off guard by the response…  “Playing soccer,” he said.  Now I’m the one cracking up and making too much noise.

The only other thing that’s been going on since the last post was that I went with the local Boy Scout troop to Scout Camp.  We went to a camp in Eastern Ohio called the Muskingham Valley Scout Camp.  We went there because of the cost and because they have an LDS week so they incorporate Duty to God requirements throughout the week as well as merit badges.  The best part was that since I just went along as a second advisor, I really didn’t have to do any planning or organizing.  Just show up and have fun.  While I was there, I got a fly fishing lesson from the Scoutmaster.  He helped me get set up, gave me a couple pointers, then believe it or not, before he could even get himself set up I had already caught a fish.  Granted, I probably could have caught a fish about the same size by casting a line in Dad’s fish tank, but a fish is a fish.  Over the course of the week I probably caught a couple dozen fish. 

Since I was able to pick it up pretty quickly, the Scoutmaster was able to wander further and further away from me and I realized that fishing is a bit of a solitary activity.  As it turns out, that’s a good thing.  I lost track of how many times I found myself trying to get my line untangled when a huge bug started flying around me.  As I quickly jerked away or swatted at the bug, I realized it was actually the fly at the end of the very line I was trying to untangle.  Nothing garners the respect of a teenager like seeing one of his Scout leaders swat at his own fishing line, suddenly stop, then start looking around trying to act cool and seeing if anyone saw him make a jackass of himself. 

While I was away at Scout camp, Grandma and Grandpa Checketts came out to keep Thesha and the kids company.  It was a relief for me to know that there was some family around while I was away, and I know that Thesha and the kids loved having Grandma and Grandpa around.  They were able to go to the Delaware Children’s Museum, the lighthouse, and a local dairy/petting zoo called Kilby Cream for some ice cream. 

Here are some pictures from this summer – including pictures of the visit from Grandma and Grandpa.

Alright, I guess that’s probably enough catching up for one blog.   We’ve got Tyler’s birthday coming up in about a month, so I’m sure I’ll have another blog post by around Christmas or so.

Work it…Work it… Own it…

So there is a lady in our ward that runs an online baby boutique called Babybonkin.  A while ago they asked if we would be ok letting Reagan model some of their baby girl clothes for her website.  We would be able to keep the clothes as well as get copies of the pictures.  About a nano-second later we said yes.  She has another lady from our ward take the pictures so last week Thesha took Tyler over to play with the other kids while Reagan strutted her stuff for the camera. 

Like any good model, she was overly demanding, required 2 grown women to constantly primp and pose her, and (of course) she threw up a little just before the photo shoot.  The little outfit was adorable and the photographer did such a good job bringing out the cuteness in our little girl we just had to share a few of the pictures.  Enjoy!

Happy Easter 2011

I remember back when we were struggling to have kids that there were times when we thought maybe we would never actually have kids.  Of course everyone would tell us that some day it would be our turn.  Well, this Easter it was definitely “our turn” to experience all the joys that come with having kids.

We had a great time taking the kids to the church Easter Egg hunt.  Because of the rain it had to be moved into the church, but the Primary still made it lots of fun.  Like any dad who’s ever taken their 2 and a half year old to an Easter Egg hunt, it was my turn to encourage my son to actually pick up the Easter eggs and put them in his basket instead of just kicking them around like a soccer ball.  Then, of course, when I convinced him of that, I couldn’t help but laugh as he stuck his whole arm through the handle and dropped the eggs out the other side of the basket instead of dropping them in the basket.  He was amazed that the eggs never seemed to end!  Of course he eventually figured it out and was able to enjoy the fruits of his labors - drooling pink and yellow down his chin as the Easter candy melted in his mouth.

Then of course there was Easter morning.  Thankfully our church starts at 9:30 instead of 9:00 which gave us a little more time to pull things together.  The kids both had their cute new Easter Sunday outfits and we wanted to get some pictures.  We may not be the brightest parents out there, but we’re at least smart enough to realize that we better get them first thing in the morning or who knows what we’ll end up with.  I only had to tuck Tyler’s shirt in about 8 or 9 times from the time he first got dressed until it was time to actually take the pictures (about 45 minutes after he got dressed).  Then we had to wait a few extra minutes for the redness around Reagan’s eyes to go away since she was bawling her head off while Thesha gave her cute little pig-tails.  Luckily we finally got a few good pictures to share.

For any readers out there who are wondering why we only have a few pictures posted, I assure you it was not for lack of trying to get more.  Unfortunately I have a ton of pictures that look like this…

Or this…

Or even this…

(yeah, I have no idea what happened to that one) but the 4 you see above are about the only ones that actually turned out cute.  Of course it didn’t take long for us to realize that those pictures would just have to do. 

As Thesha was getting Reagan ready, Tyler tripped and slammed his head into the wall leaving a huge red mark on his forehead.  Then Reagan took a short nap during Sacrament meeting and when she woke up her hair was all over the place.  As we were walking out of church, Tyler ran over to a water puddle and started jumping in it – splashing muddy water everywhere.  I rushed over to try and save his pants from being destroyed only to have him throw a mini-tantrum on the wet asphalt adding a permanent black hue to the knees of the pants.  Sigh… they were nice while they lasted.  Then…oh, but then… the coup d'état. 

As I’m going through the pictures Sunday afternoon trying to find the decent ones worth Photoshopping out the giant red mark on Tyler’s forehead, I overhear Thesha asking Tyler if he pooped.  “This couldn’t be better for me”, I think to myself.  I’m doing something for the family, so I have an excuse to get out of changing a poopy diaper while still coming across as the good family man.  As she checks him to confirm her suspicion, she sees that no, he didn’t poop.  A few minutes go by and as I eliminate the runny nose in Reagan’s picture I hear Thesha ask if Tyler stepped in poop or something.  I quickly put my head down as though it’s taking all of my concentration to click the auto-fix button.  No, no poop on the shoe.  Hmmm.  So Thesha and Tyler go about watching the Disney movie as Reagan plays on the floor behind the couch. 

For those of you who already know where this story is headed, I salute you.  For those of you who don’t, you may want to stop reading now as what you’re about to read cannot be un-read and will persist in your thoughts to the point of revulsion and dry-heaving. 

I finally figure I’ve doddled around in Photoshop long enough and I start to walk away when I see it.  Playing peacefully behind the couch where Thesha and Tyler are quietly watching a movie, Reagan has pulled her poopy diaper out of the trash and started tearing it apart, playing with the poop, and ….ughhh… putting it in her…. ughhh…. mouth!  She’s eaten some smelly crap before but never actual smelly crap.  We’ve called her a little turd before so I guess they’re right that you are what you eat.  And to borrow one from Adam Sandler…“He called the $#!T ‘poop’”.

Needless to say none of us had much of a stomach for the Reese’s Peanut Butter and Chocolate eggs after that.  I’m just glad we got some good pictures before the onset of the chaos.  Yes, last night it was our turn to climb into bed together after a long day, look at each other and laugh together like only a couple who has pulled poop out of their child’s mouth with their bare hands can.

Tonight Reagan reminded us why we do it, however.  She’s been standing for a while now and walks really well as long as she’s holding on to something.  Tonight, though, she finally started to make an effort to walk.  We’d get her walking and then let go of her hand and she’d make her first toddle as she tried to keep her feet underneath her while falling forward.  That’s the best part about being a parent – you know you’ll eventually get your turn with the good as well as the bad, and yes, sometimes even the stinky.

Visit from Gma and Gpa Checketts

Well, I honestly thought I was going to have a lot of free time on my hands with the anticipated shut down of the federal government.  I was not only going to get caught up on my blog, but I was finally going to write that novel I’ve been working on, fix the brakes on the car, work on my free-lance photography………ok, I was going to try and finally defeat Angry Birds but at least I had a plan.  If there was a furlough, I had thought about trying to go to the workforce services office to look for a temporary job, but as I started to list my skills I realized my only hope was for the government to stay open.  I mean, really, only the government sees bullets on a resume like “skillfully attends meetings”, “adequately applies 6th grade grammar to email correspondence”, and “usually stays awake” as commendable attributes.  Thankfully Congress came together and worked things out so I was able to return to “work” today.

In spite of my hard day’s labor (actually I ended up taking most of the day off because I accidentally left my laptop at home – yes that’s true), I figured I had procrastinated blogging long enough and that I needed to at least post something.  Thankfully we actually had something to blog about.  Grandma and Grandpa Checketts were in the neighborhood on business so they stayed in town over conference weekend to spend some time with us and the kids.  It was a great chance for Tyler and Reagan to reunite with Grandma and Grandpa and it was also nice for me and Thesha to have a few helping hands around to keep the kids occupied.  We really enjoyed watching conference and sharing some time with them too. 

Here’s a quick picture of the kids with Gma and Gpa Checketts.

Now, usually I would have at least a handful of pictures here but unfortunately we ran into some technical difficulties with our computer and the camera.  For some reason when we move our pictures from the camera to the computer, the images come out distorted, discolored, or fragmented.  This has happened in the past and I am usually able to get around it eventually, but this time was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.  It took about 10 minutes just to finally get this one picture over and even then I had to crop it a little to get rid of the distortion at the bottom of the picture.  So, we finally broke down and bought a new computer.  Of course, it will take a week to get here, so you’ll all just have to come back in a week or so.  By then we’ll have a computer that will match the performance of our camera, we’ll hopefully have something else to blog about, and maybe there will even be a federal budget that gets approved for the rest of the year instead of just another week.  Ok, well, we should at least have a computer.  I’ll just have to make up the rest.

Date Night and Other Fun Stuff

Well thanks to some of our good friends from the ward, Thesha and I were finally able to go on a date.  This was the first date since… well… probably since we were in Utah and we snuck out for lunch while Thesha’s parents watched the kids.  Needless to say, it was a much-needed break.  The kids stayed with the Nair’s who have two boys that are right around Tyler’s age.  As we pulled up and Brittany opened her door, Tyler headed straight in and never looked back.  Seriously, he was in the door, saying “Hi, guys!” to his friends and headed for their toys.  We literally didn’t even get to say good bye to him.  Thankfully Reagan was still willing to show us some love and at least shed a tear or two over leaving her with someone else.

For our date we decided to go out for sushi.  Tyler has a hard enough time with fish sticks so we don’t usually waste our money taking him to places like that.   Plus we wanted to go to a fairly nice restaurant.  Ok, as nice a restaurant as you can find that’s still next to a Quizno’s and a Verizon store.  As we entered the restaurant and asked for a table for two, the hostess asked if we had a reservation.   A reservation?  Now if I was joking about the Quizno’s and Verizon store I may have expected this, but when I literally parked in the same parking lot as the Quizno’s customers, I really didn’t think a reservation would be necessary.  The fact that there were ten open tables and that when we said “No” the hostess just said “Ok, follow me.” and sat us at a table just confirmed how ridiculous of a question this really was. 

As we were seated, however, I began to realize just what a reservation could have meant for us.  We were taken all the way to the back to a small table in a corner right next to the doorway to the kitchen.  To make it even more romantic, on the other side of our table there was a family of five with two boys (probably 5 and 8) and a little baby girl (about 6 or 7 months).  Here we were, finally out on a date and to one side of us we hear the suite serenade of Spanish vulgarities by the Mexicans preparing fine Japanese cuisine and an occasional “CORNER” shouted by the waiters and waitresses as they come in and around the corner leading into the kitchen.  On the other side is a gentle reminder of the life we not only tried to leave behind for the evening but also the life that awaits us as our kids get older and their kicking and kneeing and elbowing becomes more and more violent.  It’s amazing we were able to overcome the romantic ambiance and contain our overwhelming urge to start making out.

So instead we just stuffed our faces with spicy tuna rolls.

Ok, actually the family next to us was pretty well behaved and the food was pretty good so it probably wasn’t as bad as I’ve made it out to be.   And after all, a night out is a night out, right?

The next day was Saturday and after recovering from all the tuna rolls, I figured it was a nice enough day to go ahead and break out the Harley and take a little ride.  It was a little chilly, but I was bundled up so I figured I’d be ok.  As I started to pull out of the apartment complex, I didn’t even make it to the end of the road and a van started to make a left turn in front of me.  I’m sure in the back of their mind they were thinking “Hmmm, that looks like a guy on a motorcycle, but it’s obviously way too cold for that to be true so I guess it’s ok to go ahead and make the turn.”   Thankfully they realized they were wrong and there was a guy on a motorcycle headed straight for them and they stopped with just enough room for me to sneak by.  After about another five minutes on the motorcycle, however, I realized that this person’s inner voice was actually smarter than I had originally given him credit for.  It was quite a bit colder than I had originally anticipated and I froze my… uhhh… chaps off.  

I only ended up riding for about a half hour, but it was at least far enough to check out when our favorite crab shack will be opening.  As it turns out, they don’t open until May 1st.  I guess I could have waited a few more weeks to take my ride.

Like a smoked salmon sashimi prepared by a guy named Jose and served to you by a waitress named Karen, sometimes you just have to look on the bright side and just enjoy the experience as best you can. 

Ok, this next part is for all of you who read my last blog and called me names for treating Tyler like he was the intern who’s only purpose was to make my life easier.  I’ll have you know I’ve decided to use my powers for good as well.  Today after wiping Tyler’s nose with a Kleenex for the 5th time in a single hour, I was done.  So when he started to have a runny nose yet again, I told him to go get a Kleenex, told him to pull one out (accompanied by “hurry, hurry”) and then told him to wipe his nose (“hurry, Bud, I’ll time you.)   Like an old pro he wiped his nose.  Of course then he wiped his hands and then wiped off his clothes all with the same Kleenex, but hey it’s progress.  Now you may be thinking this is just me still being lazy, but wiping your nose is a critical life skill that will serve him well throughout his life.  Just like bringing his dad a Mt. Dew.

They grow up so fast

Well, once again there’s not too much to blog about in terms of fun activities or sightseeing adventures so I’ll just take a few minutes to share a few of the latest developments with the kids. 

Tyler is growing up into quiet a young boy.  He’s talking so well and is able to understand and respond appropriately.  So, for example, he was repeating Thesha word-for-word as she was trying to ask him to do something and she said, “Are you just going to repeat everything I say or what?” and his appropriate response was “Yes.”  Well, ok then.

The best part about him understanding and responding accordingly is that I now have someone who can start to do those menial tasks that aren’t real difficult but are just a hassle.  For example, we were getting ready to go out and I needed to change Tyler’s diaper.  So I just asked him to run get me a diaper.  Amazingly he ran and not only got a diaper but grabbed the tub of wipes as well.  Sweet.  “Ok,” I thought, “let’s see how well he REALLY understands.”  So I asked him to go to the fridge and get me a soda.  AWESOME – he totally just brought me a Mt. Dew and I didn’t even have to leave my indentation in the couch.  I felt bad that I had reached a new level of laziness, but I figure I’ve earned it and sooner or later he’s going to figure out that the whole “Hurry, I’ll time you.” bit is just a hoax to get him to do stuff he really doesn’t want to do.  I have to be careful with my new-found powers, however.  The other day we were at the grocery store and as we were checking out I almost tossed him the keys and asked him to pull the car up to the door.  Yeah, I really need to save that one for later when I can really use it to my advantage.

Another fun thing that Tyler’s been doing is stretching his imagination.  I don’t know where he picked this up, but lately he’s been “hopping” around on his hands and knees and referring to himself as “little froggy”.  “C’mon, little froggy.”  “It’s time for lunch, little froggy.”  “Stop kicking your sister, little froggy.”  I would worry about this but every once in a while he still comes up to me and says “Hi Dad it’s me Tyler.” so I guess it’s all normal.  Plus as long as that little froggy can bring me some chocolate donuts from the pantry he can hop all he wants.

Here’s our little froggy… ready to serve.

The other really fun thing lately has been Reagan’s furniture surfing.  She learned how to pull herself up on the furniture a couple weeks ago and there was no stopping her.  You can’t sit anywhere without a scene like this…

I know you’re sitting there thinking, “Ahhh, how cute.” and Thesha and I would agree with you.  Our pants that have puke stains all over them, however, would probably disagree.  Sigh… I’m sure some day she’ll stop puking all over.  I never thought I would want something more than a kid that was pottie trained until we had Reagan and found out what it was like to have a puker.  I haven’t walked through this many wet spots on the carpet since I had a puppy in the house as a kid.  But like the puppy, Reagan is too freakin’ cute to be too upset at.

The latest, however, is that Reagan took her surfing to a new level yesterday.  We have a couple of the little walker toys and yesterday Thesha stood her up to one of them and like a rocket Reagan took off across the room.  As if the speed crawling didn’t make her mobile enough, now she’s moving around upright. 

Reagan taking her first steps with the walker

Thankfully she hasn’t learned how to go backwards or turn around yet. 

As for us, it’s been pretty much life as usual.  Thesha’s been having fun learning all the in’s and out’s of our camera lately and stumbled on a neat trick.  She was able to make it look like Tyler is disappearing.

Now you see him…

Now you don’t…

I don’t know whether to be creeped out by that picture or not.  I mean, I know it’s just a weird effect with the shutter speed and aperture setting and stuff but that’s just creepy.  I mean, what if he really disappeared.  I might have to get off my lazy butt and actually walk five feet across the room to get the TV remote.  AHHHHHHH! Frightening.

Winters are So Boring in Maryland

Ok, so I know it’s been a while since I blogged, but winters out here are so boring.  Most of the things that we like to go see and do are outdoors.  Even though there’s not much going on, I figured I had still better go ahead and blog before I get any more hate mail.  So, here are some mostly-true stories that hopefully brighten up your day.

Well, Reagan is officially mobile.  She’s crawling all over the place these days.  As exciting as that is, it’s been a nice little reminder that we have a bunch of stuff that we now have to guard.  Baskets stand watch in front of the computer as chairs take their post as centurions blocking the pathway into the kitchen. 

The other day it all became worth it though.  Normally when I arrive home from work, Tyler will run and meet me at the door and give me a big hug.  Then I’ll give him either my lunch box or a piece of mail or something and while he’s distracted I’ll say hello to Thesha (or as Tyler like’s to say, “Hi to babe” – I give Thesha a kiss and say “Hi, babe.”).  Then I’ll go and find Reagan and hold her for a few minutes.  Well the other day she was following Tyler around so as I came in the door and got my hug from Tyler, here came Reagan following close behind.  She crawled – well, she was still lunging at that point – down the hallway to meet me at the door.  She came the whole way and was laughing and smiling the whole way.  It was adorable.

In addition to gaining mobility, Reagan’s personality is really starting to shine through these days.  I’m sure parent’s of daughters know exactly what I mean by that sentence.  When Tyler is upset he’ll cry or throw a tantrum or something.  When Reagan gets upset, she just yells at me.  Yes, she looks me straight in the face and her demeanor goes from this…

to this…

Yes, we’re all learning to get (and stay) on Reagan’s good side.

In addition to crawling all over the place, Reagan is learning to pull herself up onto toys, the couch, our legs, or whatever’s in her way.  One day she was crawling up on the little push cart (I don’t know what they’re really called, but you’ll see what I mean in the picture) so we decided to sit her in it and let her push herself around. 

I instantly became the dad in the car insurance commercials nervously watching as his daughter started to “drive” for the first time.  A proud but nervous moment.  Here she is so excited to go out and explore on her new toy.

In my mind I thought of all the scary, dangerous, and life-changing events that might happen when she’s really out on her own.  It went a little something like this…

It’s late on a Friday night.  Everyone was celebrating the homecoming victory of the local high school football team.  Suddenly the silence of the cool fall evening is disrupted by flashing red and blue lights.  Now pulled off to the side of the road, an officer shines his flashlight into the driver’s side window of a classic 1st driver car and asks, “Excuse me miss…

… but have you been drinking?”

To her relief, her brother is there to distract the officer.

“Whu sheems to be the problem… Occifer?

As the Officer turns his head to avoid getting contact drunk from their breath, Reagan quickly throws the half-empty cup from the car.  Looking back at the officer with her big blue eyes she asks…

“Can’t we just make this a warning?  Wink…wink…”

NO…No…, oh… it was just a nightmare.

Still.  I’ve already grounded Reagan for life and explained to her that driving is a total drag and that she should never learn how to do it.   Tyler’s punishment is that he now has to clean up Reagan’s spit-up off the carpet so he realizes how bad it would really be to spend time with a bunch of drunks.

Ok, back to reality.  If you look down to our blog about this year’s Christmas, you’ll see a picture of Tyler opening up a present that is full of books.  Those of you from Thesha’s family are probably thinking, “Oh that’s so great that you’re getting him interested in reading.”  Those of you from my side of the family are probably thinking, “You got him something cool, too, right?”  Actually, Tyler has gotten more enjoyment out of these books than probably any other gift we’ve ever given him.  I can’t imagine where he get’s his love of books from, but it looks like Thesha won’t be the only one around here getting books for every birthday, Christmas, or Cinco de Mayo … what? Mexican’s love to read.

Every night we get to sit together and read about Lego City, or Lightning McQueen, or the Cat in the Hat. 

Reagan loves to reach out and touch the pictures and this drives Tyler nuts.  He’s always pushing her hands away and sighing at her for disrupting the story.  Ahh the start of wrestling matches which are sure to come.

As the final thought for this blog, we are excited that Reagan’s hair has started to get long enough that Thesha can do a little styling.  We thought the earrings would be enough to help people realize she wasn’t a little boy (as if all the pink crap wasn’t enough) but apparently there are still some nice but dumb people out there.  With her hair done, it’s impossible to mistake her for a boy anymore.  Here are some glamour shots.  (Well, as glamorous as you can get with a runny nose and a bib on.)

If anyone mistakes her for a boy now I’m pretty sure I’m legally bound to kick them in the throat.

Little Gems

Well, there’s not much to blog about this week, but I couldn’t help but share one of the little gems that keep us smiling.

Ever since we got back from our trip, for some reason Tyler has started using a lot more adverbs, adjectives, and superlatives.  Things that used to be hot are now “really, really hot” and things that used to be fast are now “more fast.”  Well, tonight as we sat down to a bowl of ice cream for our family night refreshment, Tyler gave us all a nice little chuckle.  As he sat there shoveling the ice cream into his mouth as fast as Chadli at Oktoberfest, he looked up with a drip of melted vanilla goodness oozing down his chin and said, “It’s freezin’ cold.”  What are we going to do with this kid?

We also thought it would be good to share our family calendar pictures for those interested. 

Happy Holidays 2010/2011

Well, there are probably a lot of you reading this that have been waiting for several weeks for us to finally post our pictures of our trip back to Utah.  Well hold your horses a little longer ‘cause first you have to read through the obligatory Christmas Day stuff.

Well, we made it through our 2nd Christmas in Maryland.  With the trip to Utah scheduled for the day after Christmas we tried to keep the gifts pretty modest this year but Tyler and Reagan still seemed to love it.  It was really fun to see Tyler start to understand a little bit more about what Christmas is.  We found this site where you could enter information in about your kid then it would generate a movie of Santa Claus talking to your child.  When Tyler saw Santa and heard him say his name he was instantly mesmerized by it.  It was really fun.

We decided this year to get Tyler a little kitchen set.  For the last two months he had been walking around with Mr. Potato Head parts in a cup sipping it like it was soup and asking us if it tasted good.  Maybe it was all the times we had him help Thesha make cookies or something, but that kid loves to be in the kitchen.  Since we’re in a little apartment, however, having him in the actual kitchen with us is a pain because there’s just not enough room for us all.  So now we just let him pretend to cook in his kitchen and everyone’s happy.  Of course now I have to pretend to eat a plastic piece of pizza and say “mmmm, it’s good” but that’s better than potato head soup.  At 6 months old, Reagan was just happy to have something new to put in her mouth.  I could go on about what we actually got her but the reality is that we basically got her a bunch of different things to stick in her mouth or puke on. 

Here are some pictures of Christmas morning

Alright, assuming you didn’t just skip through that and jump to the pictures below, here’s the scoop on our trip.

It was kind of a different Christmas for us because once the Christmas morning activities were done we pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for our trip.  As we started to see a few snowflakes fall we began to worry about our flight.  I kept checking and checking throughout the day and everything seemed fine until about 8:00 at night (keep in mind that we were supposed to get up at 4:00 the next morning to get to the airport in time).  With basically no snow on the ground we found out our flight had been cancelled due to the weather.  We spent the next 2-3 hours trying to get rebooked on another flight but the website kept giving us errors and when you called the customer service center you got a standard message that “Due to extreme weather conditions, we’re unable to take your call.”  I realize different locations have different uses for words and phrases, but I’m pretty sure that “extreme weather conditions” means something a little more than just a few snowflakes. 

After hours of frustration we finally got rebooked but not until the day after our original plans.  We assumed we’d probably end up stuck at some airport half-way across the country, but we figured we should at least give it a shot.  If nothing else it would give us some material for the blog.  When our direct flight turned into a flight to Minneapolis then to Denver then to SLC, we thought for sure we were screwed.  Then when our flight out of Baltimore was 40 minutes late and we only had a 45 minute layover in Minneapolis we pretty much resigned ourselves to the reality that we would be stuck in icy Minnesota for the evening.  Luckily we got there early enough that they were able to fit us on a red-eye flight from Minneapolis to SLC arriving at Midnight (that’d be 2:00 AM for those of us on the East coast).  Oh the kids loved that one.  Actually they both did really well.  And in Minneapolis we actually bumped into a pilot who was really nice and gave us a little more information about why our flight was probably cancelled even though our weather was fine.  Apparently he was still trying to get home to see his kids for Christmas and he’d gotten stuck on the East coast as well.  When he hadn’t even seen his kids for Christmas yet, we pretty much had to come to terms with our anger about the whole situation and realize that it could have been worse.

So at 2:30 in the morning on I can’t remember which day we finally laid down to rest at Thesha’s mom’s house.  They made it so nice for us and the kids absolutely loved being with their Grandma and Grandpa Checketts.

Here are a few pictures of us catching up with Thesha’s family.

It was so much fun to see Tyler and Reagan with their Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and Grandparents.  It was especially exciting for us to be able to introduce everyone to our little Reagan.  It’s great that we have this blog to be able to share pictures, but there’s just no way to share her personality except through first-hand interactions.

For New Years Eve, we got together with my family at the Spare Time Fun Center in Syracuse.  We were able to bowl, have some pizza, jump on the trampolines, play laser tag (which the guys totally kicked butt at, by the way), and just have a good time laughing and spending time together.

My favorite part of the evening, however, was watching Tyler climb in the inflatable jungle gym.  The first time through it was funny to see Corbin hoisting Tyler up the climbing walls, shoving him over the top, then sliding him down the slides.  It was fun to see him have a chance to interact with his cousins.  Although I’m sure Tyler enjoyed it too, I think he preferred going through the obstacles without a diaper-wedgie, however, so he quickly learned how to get himself up the climbing wall and down the slide. 

When he started up the climbing wall for the first time by himself I thought, “well, at least he’ll be falling onto something soft.”  I was pretty shocked to see him navigate up the wall all by himself, figuring out how to reposition his feet, reach up, then steadily move up each obstacle until he reached the top.  I spent time with 30 year olds that didn’t know how to climb up a wall when I was going to all those military trips a couple years ago yet here was Tyler figuring it out at the age of 2.  I was a pretty proud papa that night and I could have watched him do that over and over again. 

Here are some pictures of our New Year’s Eve party.  By the way, I think Reagan beat us all at bowling.  Whatever…

I know there are a lot of people out in Utah that we would have loved to see, but there seemed to be so many places to go and so little time to do it all.  Thanks to everyone who helped make this trip a reality.  We’re hopeful we’ll be able to get out there again soon – maybe for good if we’re lucky.  Until then, thanks for the memories and we’ll see you all again soon.