Never in my wildest dreams....

Hey Everybody, It's A Guest Post on Robyn's Blog By Brian!!!

I have to say, the last five years have been unbelievably cool. I would have never guessed that my life would turn out this way ten years ago.

I get these sudden rushes of happiness to think about what has happened in my life since I met Robyn. Every day I think about how much joy my life has in it because of her and my boys. This is what's it's ALL ABOUT :-) It's the little things that bring about the most happiness.

I want to spend all my time with them. The last six months, since I've been doing a lot of work from home, have been totally rad because I could wake up and know that I could be with them all day - we're working on getting it back to that.

Even with our humble beginnings, and not having all the luxuries that would be great to have, I'm still the happiest I've ever been. It shows to me that it really is the simple stuff. Hearing Teagan laugh, seeing the many awesome little faces he pulls, watching Hayden jump off the stair, or run around healthy and strong, having a LOVING, beautiful wife to hang out with, loving family and good friends are HUGE blessings, what more can you ask for, you know?

Of course there's always problems you're trying to solve, things you're trying to make work and other crap you're dealing with. Certain parts of life suck sometimes, it wouldn't be life without it, but it's trivial to sit and dwell on it when you've got so much to look forward to and so many people that want to see you do well. I was reading this book yesterday and it had this part about how dwelling on negative crap just makes it worse in your mind and the best thing to do is take some form of action. Alright, I'm officially rambling on now... I better stop :)

I just never in my wildest dreams thought that life would turn out this way and I'm grateful to Heavenly Father for all my joy and blessings.

Teagan's 7 month pictures

Teagan got his first tooth on his 6 month birthday but I forgot to blog about it-I think. It was really weird because both of my kids got the exact same tooth on their exact 6 month birthday! Although some think I may be crazy, I thought that was pretty cool. He got just one more tooth between month 6 and 7. I am not sure if I can remember how much he weighed but if I find it, it will replace this previous phrase! That's what you get when you post things late! Here are some of my favorite pictures from his 7 month batch:

Such a sweet face

Sporting his awesome fohawk (not sure how you are supposed to spell that)

Giving himself "bones"
Baby blue eyes
We usually try and get a picture with Gavinator. I usually take Gavin's monthly picture the same time I take Teagan's. Teagan loves his friend! I'm sure the feeling will become more mutual but for now, Gavin is more partial toward Hayden.

Oquirrh Mountain Temple

We have had the chance to attend the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house twice. The first time was for Daybreak residence only and Brian had to work so I loaded up the kids and went solo. Hayden was sooo excited. I didn't know a 3 year old could be so excited for something like this. As soon as we parked and I was getting the kids out of the car, I could hear a song playing. I don't consider myself someone who gets "touched" easily, but when I saw the temple, my kids, and heard the song, I was amazed by the spirit I felt. While we were walking around inside the temple Hayden started to sing "I love to see the Temple" pretty loud. He had some people chuckling. It was so cute to watch him and hear the things he said. I enjoyed explaining things to him and was so glad he got to see what it looked like on the inside. I was very disappointed to learn I had missed out on the whole lunch afterward. I just headed to my car and went home. I didn't know anything about it until everyone started raving about how good it was. He

The second time we went with Steve and Kacey and her brother and sister in law. We lost them inside so it just ended up being the four of us. Teagan fell asleep and I was happy to have Brian there to carry him through. Pretty sure the time before, there were times I was holding both kiddos. Exhausting!

Hayden loves to see Temples lit up at night and is just learning the names of all the local ones. He does call the Oquirrh Temple the "Ogre" temple. I'm glad he went inside so he didn't think it was a place a ton of Shreks just ran a muck. One night he kept confusing Jordan River and Oquirrh so we took him to a spot where he could see Jordan River, Oquirrh, and Draper. It's been fun to have him retain so much of what we teach him.

Here are my several attempts to take a decent picture of my boys:

And finally someone offered to take a picture of all three of us:

Not fantastic but it will have to do right?The night all of us were able to go. It's nice to have a husband every once in awhile. I looked absolutely fabulous since I was given 5 minutes notice to go.

We enjoy being able to see it outside Hayden's window at night (master bedroom doesn't have such scenic views). It will be nice to have the temple so close, but mainly, I love the purpose Temples provide.

Head Obsession

Hayden plays so cute with his brother and I've never had to worry about leaving him alone with Teagan. However, I have on a number of occasions, found him with various things on his head. Here is how I have found him a couple of times:

The first thing is just a little baby toy of Teagan's. What can I say, after lots of practice, this kid has amazing balance!Yeeha Cowboy!

A kitchen bowl and Hayden with his fireman hat.
GO UTES! Now, if I had found a BYU helmet on him, I would have worried and that would have been terms to never leave Hayden alone with him again! Phew, good thing we don't own one of those! Teagan actually got upset when I tried to remove this from his head. Guess he is used to this.

Goodbye Binkie- The Process!

I think I had a harder time with this than Hayden, at first anyways. I dreaded the day when Hayden and the binkie would part ways. I had prepared Hayden for quite some time before it actually happened. We had limited his time with the binkie to just "sleeping hours" and that seemed to work really well. He would ask for it in the car occasionally and sneak it every now and then while kicking back and watching cartoons. He was also very anxious to take naps and go to bed at night knowing he would get his binkie. You can now see why I was not looking forward to ending that certain aspect of it.

I think that "3" was pretty old to have the binkie, but it was my ABSOLUTE cutoff. I had told Brian that being the sensitive mom that I am, I wanted him to be able to understand why we were ripping away his "comfort." I also wanted to do the process in a not so "traumatizing" manner.

A few days after his Birthday, I decided I had made up enough excuses to not get rid of it yet. I made a day of it. We called bff Cooper and asked if they would like to join us at Build-A-Bear, where we would be stuffing all the binkies I could find, into a bear of Hayden's choice. A friend of mine had done this with her little girl (thank you Lindsey). Here is our process:

First you take the binkies and you boil, you boil:

Then you take them out and let them coolNext, Bag em' up

Then, take them to Build-A-Bear Workshop, pick a bear, stuff it, shove in all binkies plus cloth heart, sew it up, and then...go give him a bath.

Last, pose with Binkie Bear in front of store. Look happy because this may be the last smile for a couple days.

He liked his bear until he got tired. He actually hated this thing for quite some time. I kind of expected it. He would chuck it, say he hated it, etc. He still doesn't really care for it, but he doesn't despise it anymore. It took a few days and a few napless days and then things returned back to normal. He still likes nap time and goes to bed without trouble. He does however, like to be "in charge" of Teagan's binkie and let him know when he "needs" it. Funny boy!

4 years baby!

Our Anniversary was on June 8th. I can't believe Brian and I have been married for 4 years! Wow! It seems like yesterday we were getting married. Does there seem to be a trend in my posts? Yes, I have a concept of time, it is just extremely fast around here! It's been such a fun adventure. Fairy Tale stories annoy me and I am not here to gag you all. Yes, we are in love, but all marriages have up's and down's. Go ahead finish the joke...Seriously though, life couldn't get any better right now. Brian gave me the most precious gift ever. I have the 2 most handsome, healthy, funny, well behaved boys this world has to offer. I love being a mom. I have not once regretted the decision to start having kids soon after we were married. I also don't regret getting married at the young age of 20. Best thing that ever happened to me. I am so amazed by Brian everyday. The recent experience of Brian losing his job was one of our biggest blessings ever. Brian is finally doing what he wants and I don't think I would have allowed him to quit a job and do this. He is sweet enough to never go against something I want (stability), so again, a blessing. I won't lie, I never knew that Brian had this business sense in him. I am so proud of him. He really is a goal setter and achiever. I love that about him. I am the type to never set goals because I am afraid of failure. He is not that person. I respect him for so many things. He is such a good husband and father. His career now allows us much more time with him. We have become closer as a family and this has been so good for us.

For our anniversary, we went to "a hole in the wall" Mexican joint. I love this kind of food. That is what we were in the mood for that night. Since we can't be gone long, we then went and joined my parents and Hayden for the movie, "UP." It was a good time, yet a bit non-traditional.

Let me just share something with you all. The first anniversary was spent with a Relief Society dinner since Hayden had been born 3 days prior. If I remember right, it wasn't the most delicious, but I'm sure whoever made it was not aware they were supplying us with our 1st Anniversary meal. We then loaded up 3 day old Hayden and post-pregnancy Robyn, and headed over to my parents for some frozen 1 year old wedding cake. It was memorable but again, non-traditional. Honestly, I don't really remember Anniversaries 2 and 3. 4 wasn't exciting either. Hang tight because I straight up told Brian that #5 better be freaking AMAZING!

In four years we have had 2 kids, been pregnant 4 times, lived 3 different places, bought our first home, both graduated school, had many of job changes, several church callings, made new friends and many other fun and exciting things. Truly an amazing journey. I love you Babe!

The Birthday Bash

Hayden's big obsession right now is bugs. Don't ask why, it is a rather odd love/hate relationship with them. He will dig for them, look for them, talk about them, etc., but as soon as there is an unexpected close encounter, he goes crazy. Sometimes he will let an occasional bug crawl on his fingers but not too often. I can't explain his relationship with creepy crawlies. Anyways, we threw him a bug party for his friend party. This year he had more of his own friends to invite to his birthday. Funny that until then, it is your friends that are their friends. It was a lot of fun. We had a bug (brown sprinkles) eating contest, bug hunt, pin the spider on the web, bug juice, caterpillar cupcakes, spider cakes, gummy worms, and all things bugs. We even made ladybug and bumble bee balloons. It was so much fun to have a house full of toddlers and their parents. Thanks to all those who were in attendance. I will post the pictures in a short while!

Hayden took it upon himself to open a present while I was upstairs getting ready. I heard him doing something and I asked him what he was up to. He replied, "just reading this book."

Bug (brown sprinkles) eating contest. Some of the kids were not too into it but caught on a little bit later.

And here they are again digging in.

Close-up of Hayden

At this age, apparently, opening presents is a group activity. Spider cakeCaterpillar cupcakesSinging "Happy Birthday To You"Eating spider legs. Mmmm.Playing outside with some of the gifts.