Got a Match?

I learned to appreciate crude and off-color humor growing up from my brother, Adam.  He introduced us to many a fine joke and insult back in the day.  I'm sure every one of his siblings knows exactly how to respond if someone should ask him or her for a match.

Question:  Got a match?
Response:  Yeah, I got a match.  My butt and your face.

We didn't get much opportunity to use this joke...we weren't often approached as children by people looking for a light, but perhaps on a birthday or camping trip we would be so lucky.  I'd almost always get it wrong, though, and say, "Your butt and my face!"  Haha.  Wait a minute...

One of my father's favorite jokes was to ask one of us if our face hurt.  Whether we responded "yes" or "no," he could then say, "Well its killing me!"  Haha, but back to matches.

A couple of days ago, I was sitting on the floor folding a massive pile of laundry.  Israel was sitting near me at the computer playing a game, when I heard him give a little nervous cry.  I looked over at him to see him extending a lit match to me.  "Hot," he said.  I quickly blew it out, wet it with my fingers, and threw it away.  Who knew the kid could light a match?  Monkey see, monkey do, I guess.  I'll have to practice extreme diligence now and never leave matches just lying around anymore.

This is Brigham about a week before his Birthday.  I must have taken about 20 pictures of him eating this apple cause he was just so dang cute.

Israel got this injury while play fighting with his cousin.  It looked really cool when it scabbed over.

We had our power turned on Monday.  Until yesterday, though, we only had the living room rigged up and I had to first go outside and plug in this extension cord for anything to work.  (I think its amazing what Hiram can do.  He's done all of the rewiring completely on his own and with no formal training whatsoever.  He just gets this kind of stuff and does a lot of research on the internet.)  Anyway, yesterday he finished doing all of the lower electrical outlets and connected them, so I have electricity in my house!

Here is my TV working!  Israel watched  our Care Bears movie five times, I think, in the last four days.  It is so awesome to have him entertained so I could get a little more work done.  I've painted my bathroom and the boys' room.  They aren't quite ready to have their pictures taken, but they are turning out SO AWESOME, if I do say so myself.  Notice all the dust--one of the consequences of having no yard.  Until we have grass put in, I will be fighting a losing battle I'm afraid.

 

 

 This post was supposed to be about Brigham's Birthday.  Here's the boy himself in his new birthday outfit from his grandma.  He's a handsome little devil.

As I've mentioned before, nothing makes this boy happier than being put behind a steering wheel.  Man, he is so cute.

This turned out kinda blurry, but it was the best one I got of the two boys together.  They were being stinkers.

Israel helped me make Brigham's cake.

Brigham had been sick with a fever Friday, but he seemed almost completely normal the whole day.  Then, sadly, his fever jumped in the evening.  He had zero desire to touch his little cake, and he had to be kept home from church today.  Poor guy.  Well, he is officially one year old, and it has been a wonderful year.  We are so happy to have our two beautiful boys.

 I ended up getting the best Mother's Day presents ever.  Yesterday, we went to an auction being held here in town.  A lot of stuff was getting bid up so high that people could pretty much go buy the same thing new for the price they were paying, so I started to think it would be a waste of time.  I am not willing to get into a bidding war.  What I wanted was a super deal on something cool.  I got what I wanted.  I won this set of lockers for $10.  I really wanted it for the boys' room.  I'm going to paint it to match their room and put shelves in them for their books and toys.  Its going to be adorable when I'm done with it. 

 I had to leave the auction to meet with one of my Activity Days girls, so Hiram came to take my place and was instructed to bid on this shop desk for me.  He got it for $40.  It is simply the coolest desk I've ever seen, and I am in love with it.  It weighs about 1000 pounds and had to be set in the truck with a fork lift, so Hiram says we can't get it in our house, but we will have a shop someday to put this in.

At church today, we passed out little gift boxes filled with Hershey's nuggets and Dove and Lindt chocolates to the women that the Activity Day girls helped put together for Mother's Day.  This picture is not real in focus, but you get the idea of how cute they were.  And they were a big hit.  There is nothing wrong with getting a flower on Mother's Day at church, but the ladies here have had nothing but a single carnation every Mother's Day since anyone can remember, and I think most everyone appreciated the change. Its been a good week and the last couple days have been great.

All Work and No Play

Tuesday morning, we did some re-wiring in the house and tore up the bathroom floor.  Then we decided to take a well-deserved drive in the desert.  We hadn't been on one since Karin's visit in March.  So, we loaded up the boys and a picnic lunch and took off into the hills. 

Brigham's favorite thing in the world is to be put behind a steering wheel

As we were roasting our hot dogs, we saw a little family coming down the canyon on a 4-wheeler.  We waved just to be polite and then realized we recognized them.  They were a cute little family from our ward.  This is their daughter Sadie with Israel.

Hiram tried to help Israel catch a fish, but he was just too loud.  Hiram did catch four fish while Is was engaged in other pursuits.

Here's one of the fish in a can.

Israel loves fish...from a distance.  The idea of touching one is completely terrifying to him, and almost as bad is having to hold a string with a fish attached to it.  I had to force him to take this picture.  

We love Nevada.  We love its seeming desolateness, its hidden beauties.  We had a wonderful day together as a family.

On an unrelated note, Brigham is sleeping SO well on his own.  I put him down at night and don't generally hear a peep out of him til morning.  I love, love, love, love getting a restful, uninterrupted sleep.  I love knowing my children are happily and comfortably asleep in their beds.  Last night, I came home from Activity Days to find Brigham awake but totally exhausted, so I quickly set about getting his room ready to put him down in.  When I brought Brig in, I thought I would cuddle and rock him for a bit before depositing him in his pack-n-play, but he wanted none of that.  He almost threw himself into his bed.  He grabbed a little corner of his blanket and pulled it up to his face and went to sleep.  This is very different from how things used to go down.  I'm totally thrilled.