Ramblings as of Lately

Lately we have been adapting to our new life as a family of four.  We have 2 boys and 2 girls now and are loving it. Things might get competitive in the long run here, you never know. 

I am still trying to train for my half marathon that is in a few weeks, and T and I have found a couple new parks in our neighbiorhood that we always stop at and play for a bit. 

Baby D gets bigger and bigger, she is almost 2 months old already.  T loves to share his stuffed animals with her and is a good big brother.

And if you want to see some adorable babies chow down on some cupcakes, then go HERE or HERE.  Aren't they adorable?  Happy Friday, enjoy this last snow storm that we are having today, because I hear it will be warm warm warm from here on out. 

Is Halloween the best holiday??

By the looks of this video, it just may be.   Nothing better than kids and their candy!

Now I am sure that many of you have already seen this, but it is too funny not to share. Jimmy Kimmel challenged parents to tease their children and tell them that they ate all their Halloween candy and then to video tape it. Here are the kids reactions.

Enjoy!

5 Year Old White Girl Raps Nicki Minaj's Superbass

Have you seen this video? It kills me, I love it! These kids must have radio junkie parents like me, ha! This girl is 5 and really kills is while singing the Nicki Manaj song. Now, I am not a fan on Nicki my any means, but this song is just great when sung by a 5 year old girl wearing a princess dress, ha!

Seriously watch this and enjoy the rainy/snowy day today!

We Are Utah!

The other night I was able to catch the new show, "We Are Utah."  It was a fun show!  Being from UT and having lived in a couple different states, I can appreciate a show like this and I am sure you can too. 

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Each episode they are going to explore all of the unique traits of Utah.  For example, Utah's bad driving record, to all of the beautiful people here, to all of their amazing talents.  They will also cover all of the different cultural quirks that most think are weird!  They will also explore the businesses and the new top restaurants. 

You should watch it too, it's a funny show!  Go to their Facebook page HERE and like it, and here is the link to their website HERE.  You can watch the show on Monday nights at 9 pm on KSL Channel 5. 

Church.

Every Sunday we go to Church.  We like church and now baby T likes church.  Since we are new in our ward, we do not have callings......yet.  We are still getting to know people in the ward and try to introduce ourselves to new people every week. 

Baby T spends his time in the nursery and I have been asked to substitute in the nursery for 2 weeks now.  It's been great!  Although, it may be a little harder for Baby T because now he can't get away with some things because I am around, ha!  I enjoy spending 2 hours with these babies, well toddlers.  We have 2 nurseries in our ward because there are so many young kids.  It's awesome!  It's just what we wanted.  That is why we built out house where we did.  We wanted to be surrounded by other 'young' families who are in the same stage of life as we are.  There were 9 kids there last week and some are just barely 18 months old and others are way too big and should be moving onto Primary real soon.  They just look at the younger kids, like they are babies.  Well they are babies, they can't talk and they aren't potty trained yet.  It all makes sense, right!?

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It feels nice to be with these kids.  I have never done it before and it has to be a hard calling.  I give props to those couples that do this every week.  And it is nice to see the other grown men in there.  I am not someone who thinks that the woman has specific roles and the man has specific roles.  I am not someone who thinks that the husband works all day and makes the money where the wife raises the children, cooks and cleans, does laundry all day.  I think that the husband gets to participate in these other activities with his wife.  I enjoy cleaning, doing laundry and making dinner and spending time with the wifey and baby T. Maybe I am odd, or not as manly, but isn't that how it's supposed to be?  I guess I am not as traditional as I thought.  I see some couples where the husband works all day, comes home late from work and expects this lavish and fancy dinner to be on the table ready to go every night.  And then he gets to have his time, to read, play video games, watch tv, etc.... it's weird.   But maybe it works for them.  Every family is different, I keep having to remind myself of that. 

As for me and my role as a husband and father, I want to be there and be involved.  I don't expect specific roles to be given and just want to enjoy all the time that we have together.  Ok, enough rambling for today.  Here is a funny clip of a little giddy AC laughing on tv, ha ha!  He sounds like a little school girl. 

Enjoy it and happy weekend! 

Prison Break Done - Check that off the list!

We finally finished all the seasons of Prison Break!  We have been hooked since we moved back from Denver and watched every chance we could with the LMP's before they left us and moved to CA......  We had 3 disks left and never got the chance to finish them because this summer has been cray busy and our schedules did not match up.

So the wifey and I finally broke down, rented them from Blockbuster last weekend (where you can get $.99 rentals now) and finished it.  We liked it, but were a little disappointed in the 'Final Break.'  There is a movie that came out after the final episode.  I think they just wanted to milk it for more money and that is why they made it.  It was good, but just kept going and going. 

You should probably still watch it though, it's totally worth it all of the late late nights! 

 

It just feels good

Being organized just feels good.  It makes you feel like you have conquered and accomplished something great.  Who doesn't want that feeling?  This picture makes me feel good.  It is in our storage room in our basement.  We have new shelves to keep our food, storage, 72 hour kits and 'extra' stuff all there, and it's organized. 

We have the necessities like, cereal, soda and water, ha!  We also have lots of canned foods and stuff from the church cannery.  The wifey's grandparents work in the cannery and always give us food storage for Christmas each year.  It works out perfectly!  We have backpacks which are the 72 hour kits and then just extra food, lantern, sleeping bags, etc...... We are trying to be prepared now that we have the space to keep all of this stuff. 

It feels good though, really good.  Try it and you will see what I am talking about. 

Church these days.......

I thought that as soon as baby T was 18 months old, we would actually get to go to class without having interruptions, but I was wrong.  He struggled with nursery every week and either myself or the wifey would have to stay with him and then sneak out after what seemed like an eternity, ha.  But seriously, it has been a struggle. 

Sacrament meeting is filled with toys, books, food, fruit snacks, juice, etc..... and he won't last the whole time.  Which is fine, I get it.  But you would think that in Nursery, he would be begging to go in there.  They have cool toys, there are other kids, they feed them good snacks and you get to go on a walk.  That all seems pretty appealing to me. 

Last week, we met the official Nursery leaders in our new ward and they are great!  We have been off and on since we moved in because of family things and going out of town.  But the leaders (a lovely couple) said they won't bring the toddler to their parents if they are just crying and are whiny.  This way, the toddler will have to deal with it and make the best of it.  They said it usually takes a few weeks, but before you know it they are comfortable in nursery and are ok with their new surroundings and the other children.  Some of the leaders run to the parents when the kid makes a little cry or whimper.  These leaders have it down and know what they are doing, so thank you!  Now I can go to EQ and the wifey can relax in RS and we can participate in Sunday School. 

Here's to nursery (high five) and hoping that every week gets better. 

{baby T dressed in his Sunday best, back in January} 

Music Monday - Aqualung - Strange & Beautiful

Last week we watched the movie Wicker Park with some friends. I love this movie. I own this movie, which is weird because we only own about 25 movies. The movie is great, the love story is so messy and complicated and the soundtrack just makes it that much better.

This song is obviously a good one, and so is the Coldplay song The Scientist at the last scene when they are finally reunited in the airport. Such a great scene.  It makes me want to go to Chicago and visit Wicker Park for myself, someday I will do that, until then I will enjoy this song and all of the other good ones on this soundtrack, you should too!

Music Monday-Dashboard Confessional-Unplugged

I have always had a love for Dashboard Confessional.  I have been to 4, well  maybe 5 of their concerts and want to go to another one.  Their lyrics just ring true to me and a few of my cousins are right there with me, right?!  Their live CD that I got at their last show is amazing too and they do a bunch of covers that are so great! 

This song is one of my favorites and I hope you enjoy it too!  Happy Monday, make it a good week and for some inspiration go HERE.

What's on my iphone??

I love my iphone.  It is great.  If you don't have one, you should probably get one.  They are only $49 bucks right now and they will change your life, in a good way that is.  I am still old skool, with the 3G S, but I don't mind.  I love it, the wifey loves hers and baby T even enjoys it from time to time (if he is lucky).

Anyway, I thought I would do a short series of my favorite and most used apps.  Not quite sure what it will end up covering, as I have not outlined anything before hand.  I will flip through the screens on my phone and pick out the favorites.  Ok, here it goes.

SOCIAL APPS:

Facebook:  Of course, so easy to use and upload pics, etc...

Blog Press: To keep up on the posts wherever I am. 

Twitter: Just started using it for work purposes.  Maybe I will start to follow you...maybe?!

Food Spotting: This app will give you the best restaurants around town and lets you post pics of what you eat, rate the food, restaurant, etc....  I use it when traveling to find new, fun and good places to chow down at. 

TOOLS:

Google: Of course.

Wikipedia:  You can learn anything super fast.  I try to look up 1 thing a day, at least. 

Opera Mini- Easy to use for all of your web browsing needs.  Try it! 

PHOTOGRAPHY:

Instagram: Love this one.  Lets you choose 16 different types of filters for your photos where you post and share with others, or not.  Follow me my username is markielane

Hipstamatic:  Has a few good lens options to add color, light etc..... fun to play around with. 

Vintage B&W:  Classic black and white photos. 

Camera + : Easy to use, has zoom, you can crop, edit, etc.....

Retro Camera:   Just another photo app that has some cool edits to it. 

ENTERTAINMENT:

Pandora:  Love it!  Listen often, have station after station loaded. 

I Heart Radio:  I am a radio junkie at heart and love listening to the morning shows on my way too work. 

Yahoo Music:  Another good one to switch up the music scene a little. 

Fandango:  Browsing movies to think about going someday when you have a break from the rest of life. 

RedBox:  This is used more where while at home.  We can pick up movies quickly and return them just as fast.  Lets you reserve a movie, pre pay etc.... 


GAMES: 

Words With Friends: Best game out there.  Challenge me, I dare you!  markielane is the username

Word Search: Who doesn't like a classic word search

Angry Birds:  Duh?  Doesn't everyone play this.  Little kids seem to be really good at this game. 

Scramble:  Another good word game. 

CHURCH:

Scriptures:  Use it daily.  Has quick access to all scriptures, manuals, ensign, conference talks, etc.... Updates happen often too. 

Mormon Channel:  Lets you choose different channels of music, talks, scriptures, videos, etc.... 

LDS Hymns:  We usually end up in the back of the chapel where the Hymnals are easy to find.  I can pull up all the Hymns with this app. 

The list goes on and on but you get the idea.  I have some baby flashcards and animal sound apps that baby T likes.  And of course ESPN Sports Center and Run Keeper are used on a daily basis.  Along with  the local news, weather and banking apps. If I am missing any amazing apps, then please send them my way so I can look into them.

run!

Yesterday after work I took my last run before the big race this weekend.  I left from my parents house in Salt Lake City. (That's what you do when you don't have your own home- only 6 more week!)  It was cloudy, and a but windy and I thought to myself, maybe it will rain and I should wait to go.  That thought didn't stop me though.  I quickly put in my headphones and took off down the street. 

It felt good to go out and run.  I enjoy running because it lets me listen to my tunes and think about oh so many things.  It felt good to run in my parents neighborhood too.  I did grow up there, ya know?!  As I ran up and down the tree lined streets in that east side neighborhood all of these memories were flooding back to me.  It's as if I was reliving experiences as I passed a particular house, park, church or school.  The streets all looked perfect to me.  The older houses have all been remodeled and each look so unique.  Secretly, I want to buy one of these houses and re-do it all to my personal liking.  Maybe someday I will do this.  I love the small architectural details that they have and the old hard wood floors get to me.  Enough of the houses though, back to the run.....

After the first mile or so, it started to rain.  I began to run faster and the rain just fell harder.  It felt good.  I was refreshed and continued to keep running.  I glanced at my run keeper app to see what my current pace was.  It seems to be a little faster than normal.  That was probably because I wasn't pushing baby T in the jogging stroller.  I miss pushing him and seeing his little face as he looks up at me every few minutes to make sure I was still there.

I ended up running almost 5 miles in 38 minutes and thought this will do, bring on the race.  Plus it had started to rain again and I was beyond wet at this point and baby T was probably up from his nap and he would want to play and eat his dinner.  I walked around on the sidewalk outside the front door to cool off before I went inside and thought,  good run.  Ready for the race.  Eat some pasta for the rest of the week.  Sleep good and stretch. 

I am ready. 

just a pic of T practicing.