Stories...

Well, despite the weather fighting us, we have decided to continue on in summer fashion, come rain (a whole lot of it) or shine.

This weekend we went to the Eagle Fun Days parade. Parker was thrilled to see the fire trucks at the beginning, thought the tiny little girls doing cartwheels, back handsprings, and back flips were quite inspirational (as evidenced by his later attempts at back flips on to our couch... awesome) and was enthusiastic about any other truck he saw. The parade over all... kinda lame, but I mustered up an impressive amount of fake enthusiasm to keep the kids entertained and excited. Afterwards we wandered around downtown, enjoyed some cotton candy and listened to some 90's cover bands playing at the gazebo. We had quite a bit of fun until later that day we realized the stroller was not as sufficient of a sun shield as we hoped and poor Rylan was as pink as a tomato :(

Waiting for the parade.

Waiting and waiting for that darn parade.

Rylan has her very own face- a signature face that she makes just about every time someone smiles at her. She scrunches up her nose, squints her eyes, and smiles as big as her petite little face and jumbo cheeks will let her. It looks a lot like this.....

I LOVE THIS LITTLE FACE!

The other night we went on a little drive. As we were driving we came across this in the middle of the road:

The biggest frog I have ever seen in real life. It was a monster toad. I was half tempted to kiss it to see if I could score my sister some basketball player of a prince but thought better of it thinking it might actually produce a Sumo wrestling type prince.. Yikes. Unfortunately Parker was asleep in the car so he didn't get to see mom and dad's awesome wild life discovery. I was also tempted to take the thing home and let Parker have a pet for a day or so but who knows what you need to house and feed a frog that size? He could eat small Rylan-ish babies for all I know?

My last story is about my funny little Parker. My sister got me my favorite flowers for my birthday (isn't she nice :) As I put them in the jar, I sprinkled in the powdered plant food that comes with flowers. Parker watched, asking me what I was putting in the water. I answered "Well, it's kinda like food for my flowers," to which he said, "So they don't get hungry?" Exactly.

Well through out the couple of weeks that those flowers sat on the table, I noticed Parker kept climbing on to the table and playing with my flowers, taking them out of the jar and I would have to ask him over and over again to get down and leave the poor flowers alone. Just the other day I walked by the jar and noticed the water was really cloudy and kinda nasty looking. Upon further observation I found tiny pieces of a variety of Parker's snacks floating in the bottom. He has been feeding my flowers all this time. So they don't get hungry. No wonder they have lasted so long!

What a funny little boy.

Alive and Kickin'

Don't worry, I am alive. My internet has been and remains touch and go, resulting in a month of no blogging. But if you need a recap of May... it was all about yours truly!

I had a super duper Mother's day. The friday before, Parker invited me to a Mother's day brunch at preschool. Is that just cute or what. We enjoyed sandwiches, salad, chocolate covered strawberries (delish!) cookies and lemonade. But the food wasn't even the best part, it was actually sitting next to my handsome little preschooler, who was So excited to have me there and even more excited to give me my presents he made (he told me well in advance that he had presents for me, like a week in advance) a cute little laminated book mark with a picture of him on it and a cute baby food jar decorated in colorful tissue paper with tiny little flowers planted inside. Am I the luckiest or what?

Then it was my birthday. I was royally spoiled by Tyler, his family and my family. May is just my favorite, can you blame me for loving it so? Two days of spoilings.

So enough about me, because really I hate talking about me. Until next time.... hopefully it wont be another month away.

Easter

This week I had the worst day of my life. Ever. I know people who have suffered far worse days than my worst day ever but for me it was terribly rotten. But as a few days have passed, the anger is starting to diminish, and I am starting to recover from the little ache in my stomach because it is Easter and I know my Savior lives and loves me. For anyone who doesn't believe me, I have proof that he does indeed love me.

My two-year-old little boy told me so.

As I was frosting cinnamon rolls the morning after my worst day ever, I was consumed with thoughts of "what good reason could there possibly be for that to have happened?" and "If the Lord loves me, why didn't we get any help in this situation?" and lastly, "I guess we must deserve this somehow". I was kind of hurting in a way. Then I turned to meet the purest blue eyes of my little Parker as he stood there with his arms reached out to hug me. As I embraced that warm little boy he said so sweetly,

"Mommy, I love you."

And I hugged him tighter. But he pulled away from me, put his hands on my shoulders and looked at me again with his innocent eyes and said,

"Mommy, Jesus love you too."

Wow.

How is it I can forget that so quickly and my 2-year-old, who has 22 years less of life and experience in the gospel, can bring me back so quickly and make me feel so silly for thinking those thoughts.

Then we sang Jesus wants me for a sunbeam :)

Today, I will be thinking of the atonement and of the healing power it has in our lives, to heal broken hearts, to help us bear our burdens, and eventually to help us forgive others. I hope you have a great Easter as well.

(and just to clarify, everyone n my life is just fine... so I am thankful that my worst day ever was completely unrelated to the well being of my loved ones so don't worry about us!)

And here is an Easter message for you!

Events

The latest haps around the Pooley home...

She crawls!

She has for about a month, after an additional month of rocking back and forth on all fours and making more forward progress via face planting than actually crawling. But now, she means business. This means my life will now consist of getting her out of trouble. Yay. But she is rather adorable when she crawls. Back in the face planting days, Tyler, Parker and I would crawl around, overemphasizing the "move your arms forward" part in the crawling process. Apparently it stuck with her because she now looks like she is half swimming as she lifts her hands up past her ears and plants them up ahead of her. Go Rylan, Go!

He wears "undies"!

That is right. After two months of experimenting with the potty, Parker and I are finally confident enough to make the undies a permanent gig in life. He just decided one day he was ready and he hasn't looked back since. I must say I am really enjoying this decreased quota of diaper changing in my life.

Once upon a time....

Once upon a time I met this boy.... his name was Tyler. And we had a really cute story together.... a story that has lasted more than four years! That is a long story right? But let me tell you, the story is getting longer and happier, and funnier, and prettier, and exciting-er, and wonderful-er :) And it will continue to do so because we are going to be together forever!

I heard a song on the radio and it is strangely similar to our story. I think Tyler secretly wrote me a song and sold it to this country band because how would Thompson Square know our story this well? If you've heard this one, you now know how Tyler and I began our story, if you want more, you'll just have to keep reading.

We were sittin' up there on your momma's roof

Talkin' bout everything under the moon

With the smell of honeysuckle and your perfume

All I could think about was my next move

Oh, but you were so shy and so was I

Maybe that's why it was so hard to believe

When you smiled and said to me

Are you gonna kiss me or not

Are we gonna do this or what

I think you know I like you a lot

But you're bout to miss your shot

Are you gonna kiss me or not

It was the best dang kiss that I'd ever had

Except for that long one after that

And I knew if I wanted this thing to last

Sooner or later I'd have to ask

For your hand

So I took a chance

Bought a wedding band

And I got down on one knee

And you smiled and said to me

Are you gonna kiss me or not

Are we gonna do this or what

I think you know I love you a lot

I think we've got a real good shot

Are you gonna kiss me or not

So, we planned it all out for the middle of June

From the wedding cake to the honeymoon

And your momma cried when you walked down the aisle

When the preacher man said say I Do

I did, and you did, too

Then I lifted that veil and saw your pretty smile

And I said

Are you gonna kiss me or not

Are we gonna do this or what

Look at all the love that we've got

And it ain't never gonna stop

Are you gonna kiss me or not

Yeah baby I love you a lot

I really think we've got a shot

Are you gonna kiss me or not

March 24 marked four years post-wedding for us. I sure do love that boy who kissed me under the stars. I love him so much I spent our anniversary watching BYU basketball play in the sweet 16! Ok so it might that he loves me so much he was ok with these plans... Regardless we love each other a lot more than we love BYU basketball. The next day we took the kiddos to see Rango (strange but funny movie) and then we let Grandma take the kids and we went to our fave restaurant, Lock Stock and Barrel, and stuffed ourselves with prime rib and lobster because it was our anniversary so we were allowed to! And in case you were wondering, I love that boy who married me in the temple even more than I love lobster! It's only been four years and yet I cant remember life with out him. I'm pretty glad he kissed me.

Story Time

Parker, Rylan and I have been especially loving story time lately. We read books and then we read some more books, and then we read some more books, and then we read all those books again. But it keeps them happy for more than an hour at a time. Sometimes I decide to spice up the stories with a few additions of my own. Parker is too smart for that though- he calls me out on it- "That's not how it goes!". But he laughs at my renditions anyway. Rylan more prefers to eat the books. I used to think she was trying to help me turn the pages until I noticed every time she happened to get her pretty little fingers on a page she would instantly attempt to devour it. That is pretty much how it goes with everything in her little world. If she can get ahold of it, she assumes it must be edible. Speaking of stories, and Rylan eating everything, the other day Tyler and I were trying to convince Parker that he is too big to need a bottle at bedtime. As he began his rebuttal with several well thought out points, such as, "Bottles are not for babies, they are for Parker too" (I mean how can you argue that one?) anyway, as he made his points, he did not notice his bottle had fallen into the clenches of his baby sister, who especially loves bottles seeing how near and dear they are to her brother's heart. As she helped herself, Parker finally noticed, turned to Tyler and I and while resignedly shaking his head said, "Oh my man, she is drinking my bottle". I don't know what was so funny about it but we laughed about that one for a while.... we're still laughing.

Tomorrow is April Fools Day... I need a good prank and fast.

Oh my man.... March is over! (Had to use Parker's coined phrase there).

On an entirely different note, I have learned something. I have been spending a lot of time watching HGTV and DIY network shows. I love that kinda stuff (decorating, fixing up, beautifying houses). Houses are fun but I have noticed that a "home" is kinda like a little bubble that envelopes you no matter where you are. If home is a happy place, filled with love and security, and the Holy Ghost, you carry that with you no matter what kind of house you live in. I know this because we have moved 5 times in 9 months!! Yes you read that correctly. But in each house we have easily felt at home because of the joy we share when we are together. So the thing to remember is that it doesn't matter what the house looks like after all that decorating, fixing, and beautifying ... all that matters is what it feels like inside your home, and our home is a good one!

I almost forgot... Parker called me pretty today. I don't even know where he learned the word pretty but isn't that just melt-your-heart cute. That little gem is what mommyhood is made of!

My Corn Dogs

First off, don't you just want to smooch these two? I do!

Valentine's Day can be described by the following three words: Roses, donuts and Novacaine. Tyler unfortunately spent most of his Valentine's with the dentist. I would be jealous but I know he loves dentists about as much as he loves terrorists. Which is not at all just in case the government is reading this and thinks my husband is a terrorist-lover. He is most definitely not! He hates the dentist! So a root canal on Valentine's was so not ideal. However, he did manage to snag me some roses and a chocolate donut when he ran into Albertson's to get his prescription. What a sweet little Valentine he was with his drooping, half-numb smile :)

Then we ventured across the frozen foreverness of Idaho and Montana to visit Tyler's family and appraise in Bozeman. Tyler cannot appraise with out his assistant appraisers you know. He would die of boredom otherwise. Parker spent lots of time with Julia, Isaac and Cece and was pretty much in play-mate heaven. We had to take advantage of the snow so we went sledding and snowmobiling and just had a good ol' time with his family.

Defrosting after sledding.

Montana or so we would guess, who knows under all that snow?

And we stopped off to play trucks with Great Grandma Rice before rushing home as another snow storm hit. I think my grandma must play trucks in her free time. She is just too good at crawling around with her dump truck in hand, picking up trash from places such as the zoo. Parker loved it!

And to close, an awesome glimpse into the helplessness of men. We are moving this week so our kitchen, and all means with which to cook, are now in boxes. So the question arose, what's for dinner? I was busy with my sick and very sad baby so when Tyler mentioned we had some frozen corn dogs I said "Throw them in them oven!" to which he responded, "Ummm, I don't know how." So I proceeded to tell him each of the two steps to cooking frozen corn dogs, in great detail, just to find him five minutes later with a bag of frozen corn dogs and a puzzled look on his face. So I told him how to do it again. To make a long story short, I ended up putting them on the baking sheet and putting them in the oven. After they were done, he made it up to me by singing his very best rendition of The Star Spangled Banner into his corn dog as if it were a microphone. Men, what can you even say about that?

oh and one last picture of Rylan and her pig tails.

The End