All This Heaven

We had such a good time together.  I love being with my family... I'll tell more about our vacation later, but tonight I just had to post a few of my favorite pictures from Thursday when we went to the beach.  The lighting was so bright, beautiful, and soft, even if it was a bit hazy. I used my long lens and captured a bunch of priceless pictures of my two favorite people.  It was hard to pick which ones not to share because I loved how they turned out so much!  Part of that is that our time at the beach that day was so wonderful.  My Christopher got to go surfing.  I love him so much that when he gets to do something that he loves so much and has the opportunity to do so rarely, it really makes me happy.  (It makes him happy too!)  While he was off somewhere in the waves, Noah and I played on the beach.  The tide was way out and so the beach was covered in shallow tide pools.  I could almost see Noah's mind expanding as we explored them together.  What a priceless experie

One of the many reasons I love my Christopher is because he said this to me last night, "Why are we driving half way to Disneyland and not going the rest of the way?".  Chris has a meeting for work this Wednesday in St. George and we had planned to turn it into a little family get away and go with him and then tack on an extra night at Zion National Park.  Well, thanks to my honey, last night we decided to cut out Zion and head straight to southern California after his meeting instead!  Can it really be true that I'm blessed enough to get to go to Disneyland with my sweet little family not once but twice this year?!!!  I'm so excited.  We are going to drive down to St. George on Wed, play for the rest of the afternoon, then Chris will go his meeting that night.  Then early the next morning we'll drive to the beach and Chris can go surfing.  Then Friday we'll spend all day long at Disneyland!!!  Then Saturday we'll have a really long drive home...but it wil

We love our nightly scripture time with Noah.  We use pictures from the gospel art picture kit and tell the stories or sing a song about the picture.  Noah definitely has his favorites, like Jesus washing Peter's feet, Jesus's empty tomb with the startled Roman soldiers, and Moroni burying the plates.  But I think his favorite, at least lately, is the Latter-Day Prophets picture that starts at Joseph Smith and has pictures of all the prophets up to President Hinckley.  We always sing the primary song, "Latter-Day Prophets", when we do the picture. A couple of weeks ago I (daddy) decided to have him fill in some blanks while I sang the song.  To my surprise, he knew a few of them.  He's learning more and more each time we do it.  He loves to answer when we point to a picture.  Much like when I was a kid and misheard song lyrics (I still haven't figured out what a "shallminnow" is from "As I Have Loved You"), Noah doesn't quite know th

I'm so grateful to be able to experience Mommyhood, and, Noah, I'm so grateful for you.  There are so many wonderful moments in it that make me laugh and giggle, feel carefree and fulfilled, and so happy.  We had a lot of fun and funny moments yesterday.  Here are just a couple of them: (I can't really believe I'm admitting this...by the way.)  We went to the Treehouse Museum yesterday and you told me even before we got there that you were excited to play with the "horsies".  They have an entire table of medieval figurines including lots and lots of horses dressed for battle and knights--armed with spears and swords--to ride them.  This is fast becoming one of your favorite parts of the museum.  When we got there though, the firefighter truck and costumes were too much to resist so we spent the whole first hour playing there.  Then I reminded you about the "horsies" upstairs and we headed up.  It'd been a while since you went to the bathroom,

We've pretty much been celebrating Halloween for weeks and weeks now because Noah has loved it so much.  He loves to find all the creepy decorations every time we go to the grocery store, begs to go down the "scary aisle", and wants to push the buttons on all the interactive Halloween decorations over and over whenever we see them.  We got his pirate costume in the mail about a month ago, which he has loved wearing every chance he could.  So, when the actual week of Halloween came for real, we were all set! For FHE we carved a pumpkin while we all rocked out to scary Halloween music.  When we pulled the top off the pumpkin and showed him what was inside, he was totally grossed out and didn't want to touch the slimy pumpkin guts at all.  Daddy and Noah carved the face in it once it was all hollowed out, and then Noah proudly put the pumpkin on our front porch, along with the tiny one he and Daddy colored.  That tiny one is actually my favorite because it has so many

PBS Kids  I love that the cartoons aren't violent in any way, that they totally entertain Noah, they are pretty educational, and they don't have any commercials.  I love snuggling with Noah in the mornings every day while we watch them, and they keep him busy and happy while I get things done.   Dumdums  and that someone thought to make them really small so that I don't feel too guilty when Noah has like 5 or 6 of them a day for potty treats.   Conference talks  available to listen to on the internet, specifically Pres. Uchtdorf's ones on  hope  and  happiness  and Elder Holland's on  angels .   Sisters , sisters, and more sisters.  I love mine!  A wonderful  husband  who works from home on Mondays and is my favorite person in the whole world.   Pandora .  Music.  Books.  Freecell.  Scrabble  with my honey.    Stability  and  security  in a world of in(security/stability).   Pushing Daisies .    Friends , especially Terri Okey.   Neighbors  and how nice it is to go

We've had a busy morning already.  We've been awake for an hour now and the first 40 min. went like this:  "Mommy!  Pirate costume!", so first I made Noah go pee pee on the toilet and then I put him in his pirate costume.  The very second I finished getting it on him I hear, "Mommy!  Full, full!  Change me.  I go poo poos."  So I take his costume off and we take off his diaper to find out that it's completely clean and dry.  So I put him on the toilet.  After about 60 seconds he pronounces he's done, even though nothing has happened.  We put his diaper back on and then his costume, again.  The second we finish getting his entire ensemble on I hear, "Mommy!  Poo poos!".  I verify with him that he needs/wants to go poo poos on the toilet.  Yep, he does even though not two minutes ago we were JUST DOING THAT!  So, off comes the costume and the diaper.  On he goes.  A few minutes later, hooray, the stinkys are in the toilet.  Yay for Noah!  We

I love conference weekend.  And not just because it means I don't have Sunday morning meetings in a tie.  One of my favorite things from yesterday was during  Priesthood Session.  I think it was President Eyring who quoted the song "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go."  As he read the line, "I'll be what you want me to be" I gained an insight I hadn't had before, which is likely a testament to the fact that I rarely pay much attention to the words of songs. Anyway, I've always thought of that line as meaning that I will be whatever the Lord wants me to be: Elder's Quorum President, teacher, counselor, doctor, lawyer, mechanic, whatever.  But it occured to me that at least a part of what it means is that what the Lord really wants me to be is like Him.  That's what I think that lyric means; that I'm prepared to be like Him (or die trying).

(At least these are the top 10 signs at the Parker house right now.) 10.  Your son likes to take off all his clothes  and  his diaper and run around buck naked. 9.  Your son can tell you that he needs his diaper changed. 8.  He tries to change his own poopy diapers. 7.  He disappears into a corner to do his "business". 6.  The smell...you know what I'm talking about! 5.  He's fascinated by the toilet and never wants to get off of it. 4.  He's also fascinated by "captain winkey". 3.  He's been going on the toilet "for fun" for an entire year now. 2.  Yesterday when you were about to buckle him up in the car to drive home from lunch, and you knew he'd just had a lot of lemonade to drink for lunch and that his diaper was never going to hold it all, you told him to hurry up and go pee in his diaper so you could change him.  Then he looked at you with a really funny face and did what you asked him to do! 1.  You just dis

It seems like the older Noah gets, the more often I giggle.  In fact, I think I giggle more now than I did even when I was twelve years old.  He's just so darn charming.  There are so many times when I should be mad, when I should be firm and stern, and yet it's all I can do not to laugh.  More often than not I can't help myself. Tonight Chris and I took Noah to the grocery store.  He held our hands all the way across the parking lot and into the store, but the second he realized I wasn't going to succumb to his playful pleadings to let him walk by my side in the store instead of riding in the cart he took off.  Boy can he run.  He had run all the way to the end of the produce department and around the corner faster than I could realize that he wasn't going to stop.  Chris followed and I took off in a different direction to cut him off.  He was on the complete opposite side of the store before we caught up to him.  And that was with both parents there.  Somehow h

I'm learning that with a child you have to use every ounce of creativity you have on a daily basis, and this is why a "sugar bug family" lives in Noah's mouth.  I picture sugar bugs as smaller versions of the Tweedle Bugs that lived in Ernie's window flower box on Sesame Street.  Remember how cute they were and how they were always having adventures and getting into mischeif?  They were one of my favoite parts of Sesame Street.  Well, Noah's sugar bugs have adventures too and every morning and night when we brush his teeth we find out what they are up to.  Big surprise - normally they are doing whatever we've been doing during the day, only I try to make it sound exciting!  I used to have a huge battle with Noah every time we brushed, holding him down in a wrestling move that I'm sure could beat any high school wrestler at the State Meet.  Now he will lie down, open his mouth and giggle when I tell him what "Mommy sugar bug, Noah sugar bug, and D

Lately Noah has been showing some major two-year old characteristics and by the end of the day we are both exhausted from it all.  He is learning so much and I swear he does 90% of the talking in our family.  He doesn't do the classic toddler, "Why, Mommy?  Why?  Why?  Why?" thing yet, but he has his own versions.  He is constantly asking me "Where _________?" and "What_________?"  For instance, one of his favorites to ask when we are in the car is, "Mommy, what you doing in my car?"  I will tell him, "I'm driving you to Aunt Heidi's house (or whatever we're doing), and he will immediately ask me all over again, "Mommy, what you doing in my car?" and then ask me the same thing 5 more times.  I've noticed a big change in his language skills.  He is getting so good at talking!  He gives me an almost constant jibber jabber of his stream of conciousness and the big change is that he wants me to always be paying att

Tonight we went out to dinner with one of my old law school friends who was in town from Palm Springs where he's a prosecutor.  He has a little boy who's four.  He's named Wyatt.  Well, when I intorduced him to Noah, Noah became fast friends as he always does.  The only problem in the little relationship is that Noah couldn't quite say "Wyatt."  Instead, he was saying "Qwyatt" (pronounced "quiet") all night.  Poor kid must've thought Noah was shooshing him all night.

Noah's memory is so fun.  Sometimes he surprises us with the things he remembers and when they come up.  He was upstairs playing just a few minutes ago and I was a bit worried about what mischief he might be getting into so I went upstairs.  He was playing in his room and I snuck to the door and watched for a minute. He was fishing.  His blanket was the rod and line and he was on his bed, like it was the boat.  He was casting his line into the water (floor) and kept yelling, "Brendan caught one!"  At Tony Grove Lake a couple of weeks ago he went out with Grandpa and Uncle Brendan and they caught a whole mess of fish in short order.  Brendan caught most of them.  So, in Noah's mind, successful fisherman = Uncle Brendan.  I guess I've got some fishing and teaching to do!

Someone coined the term staycation recently to recognize that more people are staying near home for vacation because of high gas prices.  We just wanted to stay home for my week off because it sounded nice to have a mellow, relaxed time where we woke up each day and said, "what do we want to do today?".  It's been great.  Today we had a bit of a wild west kind of day, without the gunplay. We got up and decided to go out for breakfast and then head out to Antelope Island, which is just down the street, albeit 15 miles down the street.  Last time Noah went, he decided to make a hybrid out of the name of the island and the animals he saw.  Since then, he calls buffalo "buffalope."  It's super cute.  Well, there are hundreds of them on Antelope Island.  Like at Yellowstone, they tend to walk around like the behemoths they are, pretty much indifferent toward the presence of people.  One time we even had to pull forward or I swear the beast would have stuck his