Happy Birthday Wes

Since I just did a tribute to Wes' brother, perhaps I should now take the time to wish Wes a Happy Magic Birthday. It's his 31st birthday on the 31st of March, that's why it's magic. May the party never end.

For more great pictures of Wes, might I refer you to my sister's blog http://lancealaynaaz.blogspot.com/

IHEARTJACOB

The end is coming. Jacob is the 18 y/o baby of Wes' family, about to graduate high school, go to Snow for a semester then leave on a mission.

Let me take you back a few years to when I met Jacob. He was probably about 10 or 11 y/o and the most annoying chatter box I'd ever met. And I'll admit I was openly as mean to him as I would be to my own brother. All in my misguided attempt to correct what I viewed as his social backwardness. A few examples of this besides that he talked more than I do: we would play games and he wouldn't play to win, but to keep others from winning; or he would make up jokes like, "OK, so the pope, a rabbi and Pres. Hinckley all got on a plane..."; or at 12 couldn't get himself a bowl of cereal on his own and memorized the song and dance at the end of Shrek; last of all singing Lovely Ladies from Les Miserables and not knowing what he was singing about, when I told him it was about prostitutes he asked what that was.

But in the last couple years he has really come into his own, and I find myself on the way home from some family event saying, "Jacob is really turning into a cool kid that I like to hang out with." He's really smart, he's had sex ed so now we can say lewd things around him and he gets it, he plays to win, he has a job, can drive, has a plan, he's a fabulous uncle, a good-looking dating machine who is so sensitive and always thinking of others, but a disturbing dancer.

I really am going to miss having someone to tease about their prom date, and how he was almost not VL anymore, but she was a really good hugger. (Apparently she have him all the signs that would lead up to a doorway kiss, but it didn't happen.) I do love watching him blush as the whole family is trying to extract the juicy details. I'm just saying that I'm going to miss the days of having a sibling (in-law) who is almost not VL and all of the fun that that entails.

I love Jacob and I think he's turned into an amazing, smart and handsome young man (when he finishes growing into his arms, hands and feet and is taller than his brothers). And I'm looking forward to the day when he's not VL (and I have the whole story of how it happened), because that means that he met someone as cool as he is.

Who's Your Daddy?

I decided to take my own advise and repost this. Wes loves his son and really is a good dad.

It's just whenever there's a camera around everyone who doesn't live with Dylan ends up with him.

Release Me!!

I give up. I think the YW are suffering under my reign. Attendance and accountability have fallen to an all time low since I was put in as music director 4 years ago. As second counselor I just did what the president said. Now I'm the one who's supposed to know what to do. This must be that situation where the results of what I'm doing won't show up for years to come, once I'm long gone.

This comes from a situation that occurred on Sunday. I needed to get a count for the stake of how many girls planned on coming to the dinner prior to YW General Conference this Saturday. Complete silence. You could have heard the crickets chirping in the background. I was astounded that not one girl raised her hand. Where are the priorities??!! A couple of the comments I heard were "if I remember", "I've never watched Conference in my life, and I"m just fine." As far as the "if I remember" comment goes, that's laughable. There have been a couple of Saturday events this month where all of the YW conveniently forgot. Anyway, today I wrote a letter to all of the moms about what happened on Sunday to see if they could get their girls to come. But in my pessimism this is a long shot. The parents are 1/2 the problem being equally as inactive and irresponsible. And yet I've had some come to me with concerns about their girls not coming when they never come. I also sent them a copy of the activities for next month. I'm tired of being the parent. There are about 10 families in this ward who hold all of the positions of responsibility, and for the most part they are not the long time residents but the younger move ins like us. It's so frustrating. I work with amazing women with great ideas, but our guilt trips and reminders make no difference in increasing the level of responsibility in these girls. I hope our push to make them more responsible for their activities and class presidencies goes better than getting them to do the basic things their supposed to. I have my doubts.

On a happier note...look how cute my kid is on his 1st Easter Egg Hunt in his "My 1st Easter" shirt.

Happy Easter

Layna- Happy Easter. I love you and miss you so much.

Baby Update for the Fam

Dylan is over 12lbs now and has lost his neck somewhere between his cheeks and shoulders. In the last week he's started making his little baby noises like he's having a conversation with you. He's also started pushing all the way up on his hands when he's on his tummy, not just lifting his head. He has slept for 6 hours the last couple of nights. I just wish it was something like 10-4 instead of 8-2.

I also started working again last week, and it's a hard thing. Even though it's chaotic, I really do love being a physical therapist. I have an awesome job where I usually work less than a week/month. So this month I worked an equivalent of 3 days. Next month a day and a half. And I really appreciate grandparent babysitters. The thing I really don't like is the, so you're taking him and I'm picking him up, is his diaper bag packed, so we'll switch the car seat at noon.

We had another first today. Dylan went on his 1st motorcycle ride. The really scary part of all of this is: 1st Evan went into 4th gear; and 2nd the faster he went, the bigger he smiled. I'm in trouble when he gets older. Fear not, I'm not too irresponsible. I won't take him water skiing or probably knee boarding 1st, until next year.

Anyway, his smiles crack me up. For those who haven't put it together yet, his initials are DVS. And he has a very devious smile that lifts one side 1st. It can even break through Wes' hardened exterior. He does it most often when you're feeding him, and it means he probably won't finish eating and will be hungry again in an hour and a half. It's tough to decide whether it's funny or frustrating. I guess that would depend on when you asked me.

Last thing is Wes was joking that he's a genius baby because he could sit up. Truthfully, it's falling with style.

Hair

I am a vain person and I love my hair. That's not the only thing I love about me, so it's rare for me to look at someone else and think "I wish I had their___." Well actually long legs comes to mind. I do wish I had longer legs, but I digress. I spend a junk load of money on my hair and consequently hair products. Wes I think pretends that I don't because he just wants me to cut it all off. Anyway, I'd like to do a little hair products review, because I've recently found some pretty great stuff.

Top of the list is BioSilk. I put this on after I blow dry but before I flat iron when I do flat iron. It makes your hair smell like you just stepped out of the salon, and it's so touchably soft I can't keep my hands out of my own hair. Also helps a lot with the smooth and shiny aspect. I used to use Chi before I flat ironed and it made my hair very shiny, but crunchier and I don't love the way it smelled. Chi is still a very good product though.

Next, Dikson shampoo. This stuff is great. If you are a Pureology fan you would like this and it's $11/bottle instead of $25. It still smells good and does a great job, especially if you have really dry hair like mine. I also found out that you shouldn't buy the big bottle because it has protein in it and it can go bad over time. This was important for me to know because it takes me months to finish a bottle of shampoo, because I only wash my hair 1-2x's/week. I do still use a Pureology serum of some type as a heat protector before I blow dry my hair. I used to use this stuff called Phyto, but it is packaged ridiculously and it doesn't smell all that great even though it does a good job. At this point I would call it pretentious shampoo.

As far as conditioners go, I do still have some Phyto left and it's decent. Again it doesn't smell great. What I like more is this Herblean Pack it's green and has that clear your nostrils smell to it. I love that. It's also super moisturizing, my hair just soaks it up. I'll be looking for something to replace the Phyto soon, so let me know if you have any suggestions. Otherwise, I leave myself to those wonderful girls at GotBeauty for their recommendations. I'm such a sucker and I buy anything they say, but I'm usually happy that I did.

To finish on a product note, I already mentioned my Pureology serum. When I let my hair curl (aka I'm too lazy to blow dry it) some Curls Rock by Catwalk works really well. It keeps the frizz to a minimum. Occasionally, I'll help it out with a little Bed Head Manipulator. That hearkens back to my short hair days when Manipulator ruled my world. What I'm looking forward to trying out this summer is Bumble and Bumble's Surf Spray. It should really help when I'm water skiing all the time so I don't have to style my hair. It's supposed to give you the ocean hair look, which will hopefully work with my curl. I'll let you know about that one later. I think I have a sickness that I love hair products so much.