The Year in Pictures

Ready or not, it’s time to bid farewell to 2009 and welcome 2010! It seems like just yesterday everyone was worried about Y2K; now it’s H1N1.Where did the year—let alone the decade—go? I had to look through my photos to remember it all and decided to share some of my favorites. Overall, aught-nine was a great year. Here’s to hoping that the big one-oh will be even better!

WINTER

Daddy's Little Girl --- Christmas 2009

Makenzie the Human Snowplow --- November 2009

"ZZZZ!" Hey kids, wake up!! It's a freaking winter wonderland! --- Snowshoeing Adventures, January 2009

FALL

This one just may be my favorite. . . if only I had my real camera instead of just my cell phone! ---October 2009

Enjoying ourselves at Island Lake --- Hiking Adventures, September 2009

SUMMERFuture fashionista or movie star? --- August 2009

Hiking is always funner when we do it hand in hand! --- Trail to Donut Falls, August 2009

Brayden proudly showing off his "Bronco Blue" pedicure --- One of Many Rainy Days, June 2009

Birthday Bugs Getting Grandpa Hugs! --- July 2009

Striking a pose at Ledgefork ---More Hiking Adventures, July 2009

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! --- August 2009

Never to young to learn the fundamentals of basketball! --- June 2009






SPRING
"Aaaah!" That water is a bit chilly! --- May 2009

There were so many photos I loved from our trip to Moab I had a hard time choosing just one, but this little girl's smile sums up how much fun we all had. --- April 2009

Bubbles! --- April 2009

Tulip Festival --- April 2009

If you made it all the way to the end of this post, THANK YOU for taking a trip down memory lane with me. My intent was to only post the top ten. Obviously I had a hard time picking and choosing. I am curious, however, which photo is your favorite?

Sesame Street. . .LIVE!

When I was younger, I was obsessed with all things Smurfs. Much like the twins are now obsessed with all things Sesame Street. My mom even bought me this Smurfette sweatshirt, hoping it would motivate me to want to go to kindergarten. I LOVED that sweatshirt. I would've worn it every singe day if my mom had let me.
I even got to meet the Smurfs when they were doing a mall tour. I'm pretty sure it was the highlight of that year (1984-ish). The t-shirt I was wearing was also a Smurf shirt, although you can't tell in this high quality Polaroid.

Fast forward 25 years when, to what to my wondering eyes did appear? A catalog featuring personalized Sesame Street shirts, in which my twins would look so dear! I immediately ordered them for Christmas. But then I heard that Sesame Street Live: When Elmo Grows Up was coming to the E-Center. So I called in a favor to our friend who works at the E-Center and he hooked us up with some sweet tickets (Thanks, Polk!!). Of course, then I couldn't wait until Christmas to give them their shirts. They had to wear them to the show. The were very excited!

The excitement didn't stop with their wardrobe, however. Brayden was mesmerized during the first song by the huge characters singing and dancing. Makenzie would squeal with delight and yell out each characters name when she saw them on stage. She was especially fond of Elmo and Abby. They both got up and danced and jumped and had a great time.

Andy and I didn't mind the show. It was pretty well done, although it was a little long. We had more fun watching the twins and seeing how much fun they were having. It was a sunny day!

The District Leads the Nation in Twi-Tards!

In case you haven’t heard, there is a little series of books called Twilight and they decided to make them into movies. This has lead to a bunch of sexually-charged women pining for love and who we affectionately call Twi-tards. I thought this series was for teenagers, but boy was I wrong. Our demographic was 1% men (who must have done something wrong and are being punished), 10% teenage girls, and the remaining 89% women (sometimes referred to as cougars). They come wearing their Team Jacob and Team Egghead t-shirts, although the best t-shirt I saw said “The Book Version.” At least I was able to put Team Football and Team Utah Jazz on our video walls to try and get more testosterone in the building. However, I think a couple of my single managers were enjoying the scenery for the weekend. But I can’t complain too much. For the 2nd year in a row my theatre, The District, has led the entire nation in total dollars and attendance for the Twilight movies! All 20 screens were sold out for the midnight show Friday morning. On Saturday alone, we were sooo close to reaching 20,000 for the day. Fun fact: that is how many people the Energy Solutions Arena holds and we beat the attendance at the Jazz game that day.

The calm before the storm. . .

. . .and after the Twi-Hard Twi-Tards descended upon our lobby for the midnight show.

Lost

LOST:
My Marbles

WHERE:
If I knew that they wouldn’t be lost.

WHEN:
A few here and there over the last few years, but the majority in the last few months.

HOW MANY:
A lot. Have you seen the size of my head?

Lately it seems that I forget the simplest of tasks. It is really getting irritating.


Last night I had a bowl of ice cream. DE-LISH! This morning when I went to put the milk back in the fridge after breakfast I noticed a strange container in there as well. That’s right. I put the ice cream away in the fridge. It was a soupy mess. At least it wasn’t in the pantry.

A few days ago I put dinner in the oven and went downstairs to play with the kids. I felt just like June Cleaver. When the oven timer went off we all came upstairs to eat. That’s when I noticed that there wasn’t any rice cooking on the stove. I yelled, “Oh crap!” Two small voices behind me repeated my words in unison. (At least I said crap, right?) Anyway, rice was a key ingredient to that meal. How did I forget that? I have no idea. But dinner was delayed and we were all hungry and ornery.

Last week Andy asked me to pick up some shampoo for him at Target. When I got home, he pointed out that it was conditioner. Oops. We were going out on a “date” the next night and he said we could pick some up then. I use the term “date” loosely, as dinner was followed by a romantic stroll down the toy aisle at WalMart. We found some great Christmas presents for the twins. When we got home, however, we realized that we both forgot the shampoo. So Andy said he would run over to the Target next to his theater and pick some up the next day. I asked him to see if they also had a pair of glittery red Fancy Nancy dress up shoes for Makenzie since they were out of stock at the Target by our house. He kindly obliged and also found some cute snow toys for the kids. When he pulled the stuff out of the bag to show me I noticed there wasn’t any shampoo in the bag. I won’t repeat the words he uttered at that time.

A few months ago I would have blamed my stupidity on the phenomenon known in the medical community as “Momnesia.” Based on Andy’s recent behavior, however, I feel that it is caused by something deeper. I am convinced that there are some toxic fumes seeping into our house that are causing this. Perhaps it is the compost pile that my neighbor to the north (DAD!) has been baking all summer. He recently stirred it up putting more leaves in there and it is quite ripe. Or maybe we have changed one two many toxic diapers. But more than likely the answer is simply that Andy & I both need more sleep. Nonetheless, I really miss having all of my marbles. So please, be on the look out for them. Or at the very least buy me some for Christmas.

Broke Back Bathroom

It broke Andy's back. . .again.
It broke our budget.
And it caused many breakdowns on my behalf.
But the downstairs bathroom is finally done!

Well, 99% done anyway. We are still waiting for 2 pieces of tile that are out of stock to come in. I've decided, however, that it may take another 3 months for that to happen.

That's just one of the many problems we encountered during the course of this project. I'm pretty sure that we had more problems finishing this bathroom than we did building our entire house. No exaggeration. But was it worth it? The answer is a resounding YES!

We spend a lot of time in the basement, especially in the winter months. I love the fact that I don't have to walk all the way upstairs whenever I have to use the bathroom. Especially because that is a frequent event these days. Not to mention that I get winded walking up 13 steps now. It was only a month and a half ago that I hiked for miles in the Arizona desert heat. Now I feel like Sir Edmund Hilary just by climbing a flight of stairs. If only the two little people in my house would let go in there and take care of business by myself. . .

But I digress. I am really happy with the way it turned out. Kudos to Andy for all of his hard work. My dad and brother also deserve a shout out for their help. Way to go boys!

Seeing Spots

Introducing Lucky (Brayden), Pongo (Andy), and Penny (Makenzie). They sure know how to shake it, don't ya think?





Do call me Ella; Cruella sounds so, cruel.

Can I get a woot-woot. . . I mean a WOOF-WOOF?Everyone asked me how I convinced Andy to dress up like this. It was quite simple, really: I keep him on a very short leash.

Happy Halloween! That's the exclamation from the Dalmation Nation! We took back the streets with some old-fashioned trick-or-treating and had a great time! Hope everyone else out there had as much fun as we did!

Fall Fun

The pumpkins have been harvested, the leaves are falling and the air is crisp. I do believe Summer is officially over. But Fall is lots of fun too! Just look what we've been doing. Last week we picked pumpkins from Grandpa Mildon's garden and painted them. The twins are quite proud of their masterpieces and enjoy showing them off to everyone who comes to the door.

Today we went outside and played in the leaves. I was sad to see all of the red leaves fall off of my favorite tree, but all was forgotten as soon as I saw how much fun Brayden and Makenzie had playing in them.

Soundbites

One of my favorite features in Entertainment Weekly is the Soundbite page. So naturally, I decided to totally rip it off. Here is a sampling of what has been overheard in the Rhodes household lately:

The End of an Era

It is so exciting to watch the twins grow up and see all of the new things they do. But at the same time it is bittersweet. I am sad that they aren’t going to be my babies anymore; sad that they are trading their cribs for “big-kid beds;” pastels for bold and bright.
Nonetheless, the transition had to be made. We’ve been talking up the new room for weeks as we slowly put it together and Friday night we read Bye-bye, Crib by Alison McGhee and Ross MacDonald and officially moved them in.

It’s a bit cramped with two beds and nightstands in there. But when we were building our house, we weren’t exactly planning on having twins. Our basement bedrooms are larger than our upstairs bedrooms and we thought our oldest kid would be old enough to move downstairs before anyone ever had to share a room upstairs. Silly us! So why didn’t we get bunk beds you ask? Let me count the whys: they are three-fold. First, Brayden sometimes kicks his legs when he is trying to go to sleep. I didn’t think Makenzie would particularly enjoy sleeping underneath that ruckus. Second, if Makenzie was on top, I had visions of Brayden pulling her off by her pigtails because he wanted to sleep up there. And finally, I don’t think they will be sharing a room for more than a few years and I wanted to buy pieces could be separated and would last for years to come.

And so the shopping. . .errr, bargain hunting began. I coveted some beds from Pottery Barn Kids for a while, but just couldn’t justify spending $800 on each bed when I could get both beds and both nightstands for the same amount at a great little store called Bed Haven. I found the comforters on clearance at Target and pulled the color scheme together from there. I wanted the room to be whimsical and fun for toddlers, yet sophisticated enough to grow with them. Since we painted the room a cocoa color, I used the accessories to add other splashes of color.

Makenzie gave the ultimate approval on accessories. After I hung up the bulletin board, she was running down the hall and stopped dead in her tracks. “Mama, wooow!” she exclaimed. I was very excited to hear that. They both love the tree and frequently look at pictures, especially the ones I hung between the bed of the two of them together.

In retrospect, maybe I made the room a little too fun. The first night they played in there for two hours before they finally dozed off. I had to go in there numerous times and tell them to get back in their beds and go to sleep. And unfortunately, when Makenzie tried to do as I asked, Brayden pulled her out of bed by her PJ’s because he wanted a playmate. (Good call on the bunk beds, eh?!)

That wasn’t the only excitement for the night, however. Around 2 am I was awoken by a loud thud and the sound of Makenzie crying. Poor little girl had rolled out of bed. I was afraid that might happen so I put some pillows in between the two beds to cushion the fall. But I’m sure it was still a rude awakening. I ran in there, picked her up and was consoling her when I noticed that Brayden’s bed was empty. That’s when I had a small heart attack! Where was he? I looked around the room and couldn’t see him. Was he roaming the house somewhere? Did Andy put him back in his crib for some reason and I didn’t know? I put Makenzie back in bed and went to the nursery—no Brayden in the crib. I went back in their room and turned on the light to get a better view—still no Brayden. So I got down on my hands and knees and looked under his bed—no sign of him there either. But then I caught a glimpse of a little tuft of his blonde hair in between the pillows and Kenzie's bed. He had climbed out of bed, crawled under her bed and shimmied up against the wall and fell asleep. Apparently his fung shui was off or something and he wanted to sleep East/West like he did in his crib instead of North/South like his bed. I really don’t know what inspired him to do that. But he had the foresight to take his beloved black bear with him. I pulled him out from under there and put him back in bed. Amazingly, he didn’t wake up when I did that.

After that, I couldn’t sleep. The adrenalin was pumping through my body. Not that it mattered anyway, as there were a few more thuds during the night. Last night there was only one thud. Here’s to hoping that tonight is thud-free!