So so so so so sad

This is a picture of Samuel when he was one and he is crying because we took some gum away.

Right now I want to freak out just like this.

I have been having computer problems. It totally crashed to the point that my brother had to do some pretty time consuming and extensive surgery on it to recover all my stuff. He put all my pictures on an external hard drive for me. That was what I was the most worried about because those pictures are priceless to me.

So, last night I was trying to find some pictures from March and I couldn't find them. The folders were there but the pictures weren't. I have been using Picassa and what I think happened is that when I unknowingly deleted some pictures from Picassa it went and sucked them out of my external hard drive too. It scares me that I could do something so stupid. So after looking through what was left and what I have backed up on CDs... I no longer have any pictures from January and February of 2006 and then from November of 2006 all the way to March of THIS YEAR.

Gone.

I am so so so so so sad. I could only sleep one hour last night because I was so sick about it.

I am a picture freak and always have my camera.

I am glad I blogged a little of March.

If I sent you any photos of my family from the missing months, will you please share?

I love to look at them when they are asleep

Samuel and Eva asleep on Eva's bed We went up to Logan for Memorial Day. The kids played and swam so hard at their Grandma and Geddes' house. We told them to get in the car so we could go up to Grandma Gutke's house. They fell asleep right away and slept through the whole visit with Grandma Gutke and the visit to family graves. When Eva woke up she said, "Grandma Gutke has been waiting for us for a long time." She didn't realize that we had already gone.

Samuel's Celebrity Look Alike

Why are beautiful asian women trying to look like my son?

Karl and Christina's Celebrity Look Alike

Perfect, I have always admired Maya Angelou http://www.myheritage.com/collage

Israelsen Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Free family tree maker - Roots

Israelsen Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Free family tree - Family name origins

Samuel Samuel Samuel

Eva and Samuel spend a lot of time playing together. Samuel, being Samuel, teases Eva and frustrates her every once in a while. From the looks of this sign on her door it looks like she needed a break.

Here are some quotes from Samuel from the past couple of days that I don't want to forget:

To me, referring to the wrinkles on my forhead while I am focusing- "Do those bumps make you mad?"

Describing what made him happy today- "That you have a body, that I have a body, that Santa is my friend, for you, and my house."

When he was trying to get out of going to sleep tonight- "Is is Sunday?" Me, "Yes." Samuel, "Then it is time to get out of bed." I guess the idea of the sun and daytime? Kind of makes sense, huh? I had to explain that even though it is Sunday, the moon was out and it was, in fact, night.

Friday night Karl and I were up watching my all time favorite show So You Think You Can Dance that I recorded the day before. 12:30 a.m., Samuel comes walking out of his room, looks in the cupboard, then walks straight out to the garage. We had no idea what he was doing. He was like a little animal scurrying around. He came back in and said he was looking for his "Crunchies." My mom had given him a bag of Japanese crackers earlier that evening. We gave him the (unopened) bag and he walked into his room to go to bed. He wanted to sleep with the bag!

eva loves her brother, really

Samuel

The Kids "Helping" Karl Make Dinner

I've Heard of Magazines and even books, but...

One of my biggest challenges is that I feel like I am always trying to speed Eva up and slow Samuel down. There are times that I try to let Eva take her time. Well, today, I walked into the bathroom to find this...She cracks me up.

One Hundred Twenty Six Dollars and Twenty Eight Cents Later...

After disappointing Karl with their lack of gear, we took a trip to Sports Authority...
I think we bought almost everything you could possibly buy for to two toddlers to play t-ball.
As you can see, the equipment does not a t-ball player make.

Here is the glove being used as a mask...

...or a hat.

Here is the glove being abandoned in the outfield for cartwheels...

...or for some relaxing.

Not shown are the times that the stuff was abandoned because the playground was way more appealing than the game.

Here is Samuel on third base.
So, t-ball is over for the season and here are some reasons you may see us at t-ball again.

1)The kids begged us to sign up again (seems unlikely)

2)We need some more good laughs

3)We need to get our money's worth out of this equipment

Mostly for Abbi

Abbi's mom was in the hospital recovering from back surgery a little while back and so we went to visit her. Gail has always been so kind to our family. These flowers are from Cactus and Tropicals, my favorite garden store ever. I highly recommend it. It is worth it just to stroll around that place. Eva drew a picture of "Grandma Gail" in her hospital bed.

From Eva for Mothers Day

This might only be funny to me. She told her teacher that I was, "14, no I think she is 15." The eyelash thing, she is super interested when I pluck my eyeBROWS but I guess she doesn't really realize that I consider it a curse.

Eva Eva Eva

Eva's year end recital.

Eva's bounce and facial expressions cracked us up. Thanks Grandma Geddes for taping this for us.

Things to love about Eva:

• "You have the ability to see beauty in things that others see as nothing but ordinary." That was what her fortune said at Asian Buffet (Eva's favorite place to eat) and it was so true.

• Today while in the tub you looked at the soap and said, "I know what that says, it says, 'Dove'!" I asked her how she knew (because the word is not very phonetic). She said, "Because it is like love but with a d." I thought to myself, "Of course you know how to spell love. It is just so you."

• I asked you who your favorite princess was and after a while of thinking you said, "I know who the coolest is, it is that one that pretended to be a soldier." Mulan? How cool is that? There are so many reasons I am glad that you said that.

• She is so patient with her mega energetic little brother. Watching (and hearing, they are quite vocal, those two) them play together is one of my favorite things ever.

• I asked her what her favorite thing about the whole night was and she said getting a treat from her teachers.

A Quiet Dinner

These first two photos are just to prove that Eva and Samuel were actually at the restaurant. One day I will post about how much I love it that they eat

all my crazy food but this post is about what happened AFTER they ate.

One minute they were chowing and yelling, "I want more noodles" like the best of them. The next minute we notice that it is kind of quiet. Samuel has curled up on his tiny chair and is completely asleep. All his days of pretending to be a cat paid off. He was sleeping just like one.

Not long after Samuel fell asleep, Eva joined him in dream land. It was so quiet!

Update: I just out of Samuel's room. I had to comfort him. He is a horrible sleeper and usually wakes up several times a night. He slept so soundly at Orchid I am wondering if instead of a bath, a story and a bed we should change to a big ol' plate of oversweet pad thai and a tiny chair every night. It would really open up a lot of space in his room.

Comments

You will never hear me call myself a blogging genius. So, I messed up somehow and lost the comments buttons on my last two post and cannot seem to find them. If you would like to comment (which I would love for you to do) please comment here. If you would like to help me on my blog skills, feel free. The lamest thing is that Kris Tina asked me a week ago how to comment on my non commentable posts and I gave her some dumb answer. Sorry, T.

Update: Hooray! Heather helped me and now you can post. You know, just in case you have been losing sleep over it. Thanks Heather!

It may seem like we are out all the time...

But don't worry we are home plenty enough for Samuel to do things like THIS. As if I didn't hate potty training enough already (I actually quit the process with him twice before) he came running out of the bathroom and said, "the toilet paper won't go down." Yeah, that is what happens when you put the ENTIRE roll in the toilet. He, unlike Eva when she did this two years ago, was kind enough to unravel the whole thing and put the cardboard tube in the trash can.

The amazing thing was that it all made it down with a second flush, no plunger needed. Eva's incident recquired a call to my brother in law because we had just moved in and we didn't own a plunger yet, it was too late to load the kids up to go get one, and Karl was out of town.

So, maybe this is why I hate getting dressed every morning...

It is so much more fun to dress Eva. Clothes are so much cuter when they are small like that. Since she grows, I can justifiably get her new stuff. I love it. From what I hear, I need to enjoy the fact that she will let me choose her clothes while I can, right?

She did this self-portrait at school. Can you tell which outfit she was wearing?


Hmmm, now which jeans and which lame t-shirt am I going to wear today?

Another blog

I started another blog. I figured those people that don't want to see 62 pictures of my kids attempting t-ball can look that the CYI blog and those people that don't want to see 14 pictures of cake stands can look at this one. Just click on the link on the right, where it says "Christina's other blog."

Womens Conference

Somehow we all managed to get the whole day Friday "off" from our jobs and take a "business trip" down to the BYU Women's Conference. Now, this is a worthy cause for babysitting in my mind.

It was so good to get a refresher course on the important things in life. Thomas S. Monson reminded me that I need to enjoy the journey.

I packed a salad for each of us because Kristi (the pro and our personal guide for the whole day) let us know the lines were insane. I posted the recipe for the Quinoa salad on my new CYI blog.

One fabulous person (I will let you remain anonymous as long as no one knows how to match your jeans to your face) loved the whole experience so much that she um... sat on a melted chocolate covered pretzel.

I did it!

I arranged babysitting (thanks, Dad, April & Alex for being willing). In the end Karl stayed with Eva and Samuel (I will not say babysat because it is a contraversial issue of whether or not you can babysit your own kids or if it is just called parenting). I got there and they let us go after half an hour of nothing. I got a little bit of reading done and there was a guy there that was so Dwight from the Office-esque that it was entertaining. He was amazing people about his job as a security guy at some correctional facility. I was ready for him to talk about bears, beets or Battle Star Galactica at any time. Along with a detailed education about this guy's job I walked away with a check for $18.50 (also made out to my maiden name?).

Jury Duty

I have jury duty selection tomorrow. I faxed the judge to try and get out of it. It was declined. I have gotten all kinds of advice on how to get out of it and have even researched it on line. Yuck. I hate having to waste precious babysitting time on that. A couple of people suggested just walking in there with Samuel and Eva. Can you imagine? I would just be like, "Oh, don't mind them, they are really supportive of me fulfilling my civic duties." I better go to bed, I wonder if they will let me go because I am asleep when they are trying to talk to me...