Top moments this week:

1) Believe it or not....... we have entered the new century... we now have DVR. Thank you, Brooke! Yosh insisted on getting it to watch American Idol so that he wouldn't have to wait through all the commercials to support his AI pick! Has it changed my life? Yes, for the worse. My husband used to never watch the NFL and now he is thrilled that it only takes 30 minutes to watch a game. That means 30 minutes of way-below-quality-time together to replace our oh-so-blissful nights we used to pass together. Am I thrilled? Not so much but that's ok, I'm sure I will convert.

2) I always get yelled at for touching Yosh with my feet. When we are in bed I like to have just a little physical contact so I put my feet kind of on his so that we're touching yet we both totally have our space. Well, he hates it. He compares my feet to sand paper. Possibly true. The other night he told me that he hates me putting my feet on him as much as I would hate him wiping a booger on my face. In fact, he went on to say that if I touched him with my feet again, he in deed would wipe a booger on my face. I touched him with my feet again...

3) Yesterday at the gym, the boys saw their friends while all of us girls did a class. The truth about the happenings came out in DB's prayer. I was praying and he was randomly inserting. These were his inserts. "And I tackle Madeleine." I repeated after him and tried to keep going. His next insert was quick and insistent... "And she no like it..." ! Totally laughing (that would be me; DB was dead serious!) This kid is a sincere pray-er, just says things like they are!

And because no post is complete without a picture...

My cute boys right out of the bath tub. Call it a cliche or corny or whatever, but I really like hanging out with these two little ones. They're a riot!

I started a different post today, oh yeah i just remembered it's saved. Anyway, mid post my computer malfunctioned and we had to restart. In between then and now, my post has drastically changed because of the most unfortunate news... I can't find my wedding ring. I'm freaking out. I know exactly where I left it(which was in somewhat of an irresponsible spot... I put it on the counter when I was making cookies- rookie mistake). So I haven't been able to find it, but I really think it is going to show up. I went through all the trash- that's right, piece by piece. And it didn't go down the disposal so it has to turn up. Until then I have to just wait and try to control my anxiety.

These last few weeks have been pretty fun-filled! We stayed home for the Holidays this year because Yosh's schedule is a lot slower around these couple of weeks and so we get to spend a lot of time together as a family without him taking any time off of work. Now that I'm writing I'm realizing I should say we mostly stayed home for the Holidays. To jump start the whole season, we did go down to Vegas to witness the Cougar's victory in the Las Vegas Bowl. It ended up being a pretty sweet weekend. Our friends, Dave and Brooke, found this amazing hotel for an amazing price. It's called Red Rock Resort. It's about 12 miles off the strip, but you feel like you're miles away from anything and it is so relaxing. The decor was so chic and everything was done so luxurious. It was amazing. The bathtub had a TV on the wall right there so that you could bathe and watch TV at the same time. I think all of us took a bath watching TV. Then you should have seen the pools. There were so many of them in somewhat of a sun formation. We actually took advantage of them despite the cold weather. They had them heated to a nice 88 degrees!

We were freezing (or maybe I should say I was freezing) at the game! But it was fun as always!

Take notice to the TV above the bath tub...sweet. (Please excuse the nudity...)

The pool has this like 10 foot kid rim all the way around so that even little people like Porter could walk all the way around the pool!

Can you believe all these pools?!! And you can't even see some of the hot tubs.

We got home from Vegas on the 23rd. On Christmas Eve we had lunch with friends and then that night we took the boys to the temple to see the lights. They do a real good job. The boys kind of enjoyed the lights but really just liked running around. Here they are in their handsome Christmas Eve sweaters...

Not the best pic, or maybe it is just a very candid one!

Christmas Day was very relaxed... no time schedule and no where to really be. We opened presents in the morning and went to our neighbor's house for brunch. Denny made probably the best Egg's Benedict I've ever had with crisp bacon and tomatoe. He was not messing around- it was delicious! After naps we went over to the Neilsen's for dinner and games... and somehow ended up having a sleep over. I really don't know why we thought that was necessary when we only live 6 streets apart. But whatever! The idea was more fun than the actual event as we didn't get the best sleep but it was spontaneous so that made up for it!

The day after Christmas. Nancy came in town for a couple of days. We went to the Aquarium in Long Beach. It was pretty fun and something new for us! Dallin and Porter both enjoyed looking at all the fish. Although I will say what Dallin was probably the most enthused about was the men in the tanks moving the rocks. He kept wanting to go back to look for the "guys". It's funny what catches their attention.

So we have had a fun few weeks but are liking having a routine back. It's funny how you're always ready to return to the norm...

Yes, I am posting yet again. But let's be honest, how long did you really think I was going to leave that other picture up to be the first thing seen when our site came up? I can't look at it anymore...
We didn't send out a Christmas letter this year, but had we, my highlight of the year would have been not being pregnant the whole 2007. To some of you that sounds like no feat at all, for me on the other hand, it was something that I did not accomplish in 2004, 2005, or 2006. That is right, 3 years in a row I have been pregnant a good part of the year. So I am pleased to say there was none of that this year.
So a couple of Saturdays ago- this is a whole new subject by the way, that previous paragraph was just a random insert- Yosh had his company party at Universal Studios. The boys got to meet Shrek (the absolute highlight of the trip), Scooby Doo, Curious George, Spiderman, and Spongebob Square Pants. Loved it! They were in heaven. B's interaction with Spiderman was especially funny, probably because there was a lot more time with him. Spiderman came to the private party so all the kids could talk with him the whole night if they wanted- and of course B wanted. It was funny. He was just sitting there chatting it up with him. When Spiderman would go on a break, Dallin would come up to me and Say, "Mom, Fiderman will be right back." I'll tell you what, my little boy is growing up. It is crazy!

Here are a few pictures of the day...

In case you can't tell, Dallin is supposedly imitating Spiderman's pose in this pic.

Our new birth control:

This is what I go to bed looking like every night... need I say more!

Yosh had a b-day

So I'll be honest, I have a lot of good posts in the workings, but I have to do it little by little so that I don't run out of material and leave the blog high and dry for too long. That being said, they are going to be out of order chronologically, but this first one I feel like it deserves to be posted somewhat close to the time of its occurrence... Yosh's birthday. It just wouldn't have the same effect if it were posted two months after the fact.
Anyways, the Yosh Train McGain turned the big 2-7 on Tuesday. I have to say I feel like 27 is a whole different playing field that 26. When you turn 27, all of a sudden it feels a lot closer to 30 that 25 or, more obviously, 20. But 26 still has you feeling like you're a young one. I for the last 5 months have been in the era of "late twenties" while Yosh has been relishing in the "mid-twenties" so it is good to have that gap closed and not having me feeling like an old woman compared to the young lad I married!
The birthday festivities were a lot of fun. Monday night we pulled a quick one on him and had a surprise dinner for him at one of his favorite restaurants, "Fogo de Chao". It was funny, Yosh and I pulled up as the friends were still waiting to be seated. Through the glass doors, I catch onto this very quickly. I see heads looking out the window and then disappearing in a haste. As most of you know, my husband is not the most observant person when it comes to things like this, so there was really no reason to worry. Timing worked out perfectly and they were literally probably seated 45 seconds before we were and all in position to be waiting to surprise him. The food was enjoyable and the company was great. Overall it made for an incredible night and Yosh thoroughly enjoyed it. That night after we left and the next day, he made the comment more that once, "That was such a rich experience." It was fun to do something he really enjoyed.

This is the crew that went: (L to R) Dave and Brooke, Yosh and I, Matt and Laura, Anneli and Jon-o (who Yosh said was in rare form that night, muchos funny comments apparently), Carrie and Xander.

Of course this was only day 1 as Yosh has two lovely boys that needed to celebrate as well. So on Tuesday, the boys and I went to Ralph's and they each picked a milestone balloon to bring to him at work. This was more of a celebration that you would ever think because every time , that's right- every time- we walk in to Ralph's, the boys start going nuts looking at the balloons. They love balloons. I always let them hold one as we go grocery shopping if they want to, but this time they actually got to leave the store with one. That's a big deal. When we got to Josh's office, Dallin was in control, marching around with balloons in hand, and asking everyone matter-of-factly, "Where's Yosh? I have balloons for him." It was cute. So we had a nice little visit with Yosh. When he got home from work we had a nice homemade dinner waiting for him with a cake that Dallin helped me make. This year we did a huge homemade Oreo cookie for a cake. It was fabulous. As you can see the boys helped him blow out the candles.
Then Dallin wanted to continue relighting the candles, singing "Happy Dirtday" as he was saying, and blow them out again. So Yosh had a moment of glory but as always the focus quickly shifted to the little ones! It was a fun day.

So Yosh, to let the special day linger out a little longer, Happy Birthday. I love being on the journey of life with you! You make it fun and interesting!!! Love you!


Upcoming features: Our new birth control. Don't get nervous it is very clean.

You may think because I haven't posted in so long that nothing interesting has been going on in our lives. Al contrario my friend. A lot has been happening. So why haven't I posted? Just lazy. Maybe selfish- I prefer to read everyone else's instead of work on my own. And to be honest, i'm not even giving an interesting post this time. I know, boring. But that's okay. So anyway we had a lovely weekend in Utah over Thanksgiving. it was fun seeing everybody. We ate a lot of food, played some games, and mainly relaxed. We hid out on Black Friday and didn't do an ounce of shopping. I wonder if I'll ever do that.... I hate crowds, so probably not. Despite my dislike of crowded places (and cold weather), I did accompany my sweet husband to the BYU/Utah game. Well-worth it? Absolutely. First off, on the way down to the game Yosh was seriously smiling from ear to ear the whole ride. I asked what he was so happy about. He replied that he just loved that he was taking his whole family to the game. So simple to please! I'm glad I didn't bail as I had been planning to do the whole week. And it really wasn't bad. We went all bundled up and had blankets, so we weren't cold and we missed all the traffic on the way out. And we still saw the incredible ending, which would be the second reason it was worth going to. Exciting ending to a somewhat boring game. Overall, great week.
I do have to say, I came home being reminded that I LOVE southern California's weather and that i still do not like cold weather. Period. Don't think there is much hope in that arena. That wouldn't be so depressing and so heavily on my mind except that... we are most likely leaving our piece of heaven on earth to a lot less sunny and warm place, London. It sounds like Josh's work is pretty serious about opening an office over there and they've asked him to go. For better or worse, that usually means I tag along! I'm sure it will be a great experience/opportunity blah, blah, blah, but let's get down to the bottom line... it's going to be overcast and chilly. Oh well, we'll deal with it. And I will be back. In fact, Ive decided that when we move back, we'll be living much closer to the beach. Executive decision I made all on my own.
So that's the dirt.

PS I just finished reading a good, informing book called "Enrique's Journey" if anyone is looking for a good read. Thought provoking. Read at your own risk.

I can start to feel down on life and feel like I don't have, and will never have, enough energy to make it through. But then you get little breaks. Without me even asking to sleep in, Josh got up with the kids on Sunday and let me stay in never-never land... loved it! (I think it kind of helps when you end your Saturday night by saying something to the sorts of, "I can't live my life this way. I am tired all the time!") Then not to mention, he brought me toast in bed. And didn't smack me when I barely looked at it and then rolled over and put my back to him. I did eat it later, so that was officially breakfast in bed. I'm spoiled. Every now and then. And I'll take it.
But life is good despite those reoccurring tired moments. Tomorrow the boys and I pack it up to go to Utah for Thanksgiving and Wednesday Josh will join us there. We get to see all our family and the BYU/Utah game also. In some people's eyes (ie. YOSH) life doesn't get better than that. This is a real fun stage of life. The boys are so cute and have started playing rather well together. Last week, a momentous moment... they were playing football together! They were both down in the starting position, after yelling, "Hut hut hike" they took off running. A couple steps into it, Porter threw up his hands and yelled, "Touchdown." Yes, my 14-month can say touchdown. You may not understand it, but I definitely can. It is crazy. Anyway, they have done that quite often since and it is a lot of fun to watch and be a part of. Sweet boys. Tonight when I layed DB down for bed (in his pack n play, I know it is pathetic and I shouldn't admit that he still sleeps in a pack and play) he said, "I love you, Gay" before I even told him that I loved him. Just touches my heart. Sweet little moments like that... indescribable. Yes, they are good kids.

Anyway, this should be a great week. Happy Thanksgiving!