such a random post...

When I was growing up, my dad always had our rooms painted in cool and creative ways--especially my brothers' rooms. I remember at one time they had a sports room and my dad hand-painted sports players and then attached real balls (cut in half and filled with foam) to the wall. It was incredible. When they were really young they had the whole sesame street gang painted on their wall. There rooms continued to change as they grew older--Chase graduated to a spongebob room (which he had and loved until his late teenage years;) and Jordan had a Book of Mormon room (complete with a forest and monkeys). I don't know how my dad ever had the time or energy to complete these masterpieces. But he did. And I am SO grateful.

Because we move about every nine months, we can't (or rather, are smart enough not to) paint the walls in the boys room, but I really wanted their walls to be as cool as ours were. SO, when I found out we were having another boy I commissioned my dad to do some paintings on canvas that we could transport from place to place. I honestly don't think he could have done a better job if he tried. PERFECT! Just what I wanted. AMAZING! The boys room is done in a cars/trains theme and the 20X20 paintings my dad did are great.

While the paintings themselves are absolutely perfect, I think my favorite part is that he signed each of them. He told me that my mom made him sign them, and I'm so glad she did. I think it's so special that Pepa had a part in making their room awesome, and I hope they always know how much he loves them.

We went back to Happy Hollow last week and it was a great day. Talmage had fun on the old favorites (the firetruck ride 500 times in a row) and new favorites (the swings. only once. still semi-unsure how we feel about it!)

Evie's new favorite toy. He can spend up to 20 minutes in this baby at a time. Usually T will sit right next to him and play with him. It is so cute to see them interact. Sometimes, however, T gets a little upset when Evie pushes buttons by himself. It makes me realize that in no time I might have two little boys fighting over the same toys. I wish I could just freeze time right now. They are so sweet together.

I made "bones and blood" and "candy corn pizza" for dinner the other night. T is still a little too young to think it was really cool, but I pretty much thought I was the most awesome mom ever! I found the ideas on ourbestbites.com. It is a great food blog that I will be visiting very often from now on.

The boys and I attend storytime at our neighborhood library each week. It is a 10 minute walk from our house, and Talmage has really enjoyed listening to the super-animated librarian read the books. He also likes that we check out 10-15 new books each week...and read them probably at least 5 times each!

This week we decided to mix it up a little bit, and we ventured to the Palo Alto children's library (a whopping ten minute drive from our house!) It was ginormous and gorgeous. They have one HUGE room called the treetop room that is just for young children. T and I spent almost an hour in there without being bothered...or more importantly without bothering anyone else. We'll definitely be going back.

T eats his ice cream with a fork. I gave him a spoon and he refused to use it. To each their own.

I volunteered to make chili for our ward party. I don't know what I was thinking. I am definitely not a domestic diva, and our ward is full to the brim with awesome chefs. I let T do the cooking, I used my Mom's famous chili recipe and luckily it was a hit. I doubled the recipe and gladly came home with an almost empty crock-pot. Next year, however, I'm going to sign up to bring dessert!