In honor of Lindsay Elizabeth Robison I've decided to write about how fun kids are. Too much I find myself complaining about Shay(don't worry Peter, those days will come, too). Kids really are a blast. They don't mind you laughing at them, and with Shay we do that a lot more than normal. He's just a funny kid, and always has been. He loves to laugh and smile. That makes life a lot easier for us.

Welcome to the ranks of parents, Peter and Becca. May you hold your heads up high, and wipe that baby spit-up off your clean shirt with pride and dignity. :)

This morning Dylan was running around trying to find all of the things he needs to get out the door (id card, wallet, phone, iPod, phone charger, etc.) finally he found them all and headed out to the car. We kissed him goodbye and waved to him from the window. Then he came back in. It seems that he'd forgotten his keys. I put Seamus down and we started to look. 5 minutes later we still hadn't found them, even though we'd looked everywhere twice. All the normal places and some abnormal ones. Like the fridge, since the first thing he did when he came home last night was put away the milk he'd just bought. No luck, so we started to look again. In a quiet moment we heard a jingle. We followed the sound and found Shay on the dining room table playing with Dylan's keys, a big grin on his face. Where he'd found them, and how long he'd had them we don't know.

Just goes to show that paying attention to your kid pays off. And that kids are smart. We cracked up at him, as he grinned up at us. He was so proud of himself, and we all had a good laugh. Good times, good times.

Today was a beautiful day and I just couldn't stay inside. Sunny, 70, blue sky...it was a big change from the rainy, grey weather we've been having all week. I think Seamus was in the same mind as me, because he was being cranky and fussy.

This is my good kid who hardly ever cries anymore. Today he just couldn't handle anything. This is the kid who runs into Nursery without ever looking back at Dylan or me. After 10 minutes in there they had to come and get me out of Sunday School. This has never happened before. Seamus was in the hall all teary and sad. Nobody knew what happened, he just started crying and wouldn't stop. I calmed him down and tried to take him back in, but he kept thinking I was leaving again, and wouldn't stop clinging to me. Poor kid. Maybe we're finally starting to enter the "separation anxiety" phase.

Long story short, church was a little more difficult this week than it has been since Seamus started Nursery. I was hoping that a nice nap would alleviate some of his crabbiness, but no such luck. He was still rather cranky when he woke up, so my solution was nature. I strapped him into the car, told Dylan (who was napping) where we were going, and we headed up into Provo Canyon. It was perfect. We spent about 2 hours up there, throwing pebbles into the pool at the bottom of Bridal Veil Falls, tearing leaves off trees and strewing them around the grass, running around, going for a walk in the stroller, and sliding down the slides at Nunns Park.

I couldn't believe how fast time went and how much fun we had. Seamus is definitely getting funner. His favorite word now is "more", even though it comes out as "ma". It applies to everything, more food, more juice, more throwing pebbles in the stream, more going outside, more Pooh Bear DVD. This kid just can't get enough of anything. He is a cutie, though. :)















Can you believe he was ever this little?

So, we're heading to the beach for a week on the 30th. My family is having a big vacation at Sandbridge, VA. We've rented a house and I'm totally jazzed to go be with family. We're flying, obviously, and I'm a little nervous to fly with Seamus. We can't bring any liquid onboard anymore, and 6 hours without apple juice doesn't seem like fun. He's getting so much more active, I have the feeling that he's going to be one of those annoying kids who cries and kicks seats.

Apparently top al Qaeda members have warned all Muslim Americans to get out of the US, especially out of NYC and Washington, DC. Something big is going to go down in the next little while, and al Qaeda isn't going to let the Muslims living in the US deter them from attacking. The officials say they've given all the warnings they're going to give. Talk like this worries me. It seems so final and absolute. I've decided to stockpile some weapons, duct tape, and plastic sheeting.

Seriously, though, I'm gathering water, food supplies, cash, and some emergency supplies like we've been told to. I know that Provo isn't a priority target, but it still can be affected by world events. Sometimes. The bubble is semi-permeable that way.

The article is here if you want to read it. I don't know why the media isn't reporting anything about it, but it's a little scary to say the least.

So I caved. I finally caved and joined a gym. Yes, I have gone the way of all of the chumps and joined Gold's Gym. And I love it!

The thing is, I'm cheap. I have such a tight hold on my checkbook, I can squeeze pennies out of it. Literally. Ok, maybe not literally. Maybe figuratively. This actually works out to my advantage most of the time. This time is no different. The thought of spending $20/month on a gym just gets my goat. Every minute I'm not at the gym they're taking my money for doing nothing. The thought of just handing people money for nothing makes me tighten up and starts me hyperventilating. That's one of the reasons why I never felt good about skipping classes at BYU. It just seems wrong to walk in, hand the professor $15 and walk back out. The same concept applies to the gym.

So far I've been going about 4-5 nights per week and running 2 miles a night. This is huge for me, as I was a sprinter in high school. High mileage was for the distance kids, not for me. It may sound like nothing for some of you ten-mile-a-day supermen, but for me it's enough. It's already starting to take effect on my body, and it makes me feel really great about myself. Of course, I can only go after Dinomyn goes to bed, but that's perfect anyway.

To recap: chumps, Gold's Gym, 8 miles, feel great. Yay!