Who's Who?

Andy & I were amazed at how much Alexis looked like Makenzie when she was born. Can you tell who's who?

The photo on the left is Makenzie when she was just one week old. The photo on the right is Alexis the day she was born. The biggest difference is the height of Makenzie's forehead. Otherwise, they have the same eyes, nose and chin.

Coming Home

Alexis and I got to come home from the hospital yesterday. Here are a few more cute pics I had to share.

The twins are so precious with their baby sister. I makes my Mommy heart grow three sizes every time they say or do something cute with her. In fact, even before she was born they were very concerned about her. I had very strong contractions for three long days before she was delivered. One day Brayden wanted me to get out of the recliner and play with him. I asked him to wait just a minute because Mommy hurt right then. He got a very concerned look on his face and asked, "Baby hurt too?" I assured him that the baby didn't hurt and was OK. He uncrinkled his brow, smiled and said, "Oh, good." Aaaaaaaw!

Announcing. . .

. . .the long-awaited, much-anticipated arrival of ALEXIS ELAINE RHODES!

January 5, 2010 @ 5:20 am

6 lbs 10 oz
20-1/2 in long

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.