The Holbrook Family

Friday, May 18, 2012

Oh Kids...

Kenya was upstairs getting ready for church, when I told her it was time to go she came down with this beautiful blue eye shadow on. She was so proud it was hard for me to tell her she needed to take it off.

Leila has been sneaking into my makeup a lot lately. One day I caught them both in my room, you can't see very well but Leila has lipstick all over and Kenya has eye shadow. I just love their guilty little faces in these pictures.

Later that day I caught Leila in my room again being very quiet. She went to town this time.

My lipstick is definitely ruined. I have since secured my makeup a little bit better.

A couple times this spring we've ridden our bikes or walked over to Farmington Station to go to a couple stores, eat lunch and play on the playground. This is when Leila learned about horses (she calls them "doddies", she calls all animals doddies and gets super excited when she sees one, which is a lot around here.) On our way home we walked right by these horses and stopped to feed them. Although Leila loves them if she gets too close she freaks out so it was all Kenya.

Charlie now has his cast off but he got it replaced with a purple cast half way through, which he ended up getting signed by a Utah football player. We went to artcic circle after. He also has a gash on his forehead in this picture, I can't believe how many calls I've got from the school nurse for this boy this year. "Charlie's ok but I just wanted you to know he cut his head on the fire extinguisher on the wall." Or "Charlie's ok but I just wanted you to know he got hit in the head with a hockey stick at gym." Or "Charlie's ok but I just wanted to let you know he fell off the monkey bars, landed on his back and got the wind knocked out of him." I am prepared for a lifetime of this, I just hope the calls continue to start out with "Charlie's ok but..."

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Red Butte Gardens

Charlie had a field trip to Red Butte Gardens that I got to go on with him. I have never been there so it was a first for both of us. It was a beautiful day, the highlight for Charlie was that we saw 3 snakes. They were climbing through the trees, I hate snakes but it was kind of cool to see them slither through trees. Charlie's teacher put me in charge of Spencer and Charlie. She figured that would keep me busy, :) They were the only two boys in the group. "Girl trapped" as Charlie would say.

All the girls and Charlie

All the girls.

The boys

The race.

Beautiful wisteria was growing over this arbor. It was amazing.

After we went to Liberty Park for lunch and some playtime. A crazy little storm came in real quick and made us leave a few minutes early, but it was a fun day and nice to spend some time with Charlie and his classmates.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Discovery Gateway

Kenya had her last field trip to Discovery Gateway. We haven't been for a long time and the girls loved it.

Kenya loves Cruz but I'm pretty sure Cruz loves Brighton. They all play together though. :)

Sometimes Kenya stops playing with Brighton to play with her little brother Carter, and they play well together. Pretty funny.

Leila was certain that this was her car. She rode around in it forever and was not about to share.

We went upstairs where the kids put on the dress ups that were way small to put on a little play. Brighton was off with Cruz so Kenya stuck with Carter again.

Too funny.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Mothers Day

For mothers day Mark and the kids brought me breakfast in bed. Cottage cheese pancakes with buttermilk syrup. My favorite. Charlie and Kenya gave me their cute gifts they made from school. I love seeing how excited they are to give me those. I am so blessed to be a mom to my three beautiful kids. It is a hard job, but I am grateful that its my job, even though I might complain a lot and need a lot of breaks from it I wouldn't want it any other way!

Saturday, May 12, 2012

New Pets!

Mark and I have been talking for a couple years about getting chickens. Cage free organic eggs are expensive and we both love the idea of trying to be a little more self reliant. It took some time but we eventually got our neighbors Jeff and Chelsa talked into sharing the chickens with us and putting the coop in the very back of both of our yards, it's actually just beyond our property line in the easement but the city won't mind. :) Well our husbands are busy and not super handy (sorry guys) so they found a chicken coop on KSL that was perfect. Chelsa and I picked out some paint and our families got together for FHE and painted the cute little coop.

It was a fun little cage for the kids to play in until we finally got the chickens. We have six Rhode Island Red hens. Our stake president let us have some of his, he has about a hundred so he was happy to give us some. So far they've been easy and give us about 5 eggs a day, perfect to split between the two families. One even escaped when Chelsa went in the run to grab an egg that somehow got in there, it scurried away really fast and was gone. We searched for it and a few hours later it came back! That night Mark decided to let them out and let them roam while he was weeding and they walked around pecking at the weeds, as soon as it started getting dark they headed right into the house and perched themselves on their wood bench to sleep for the night. What great little pets!

Leila was out playing in the sandbox the morning after we got the chickens when she noticed them for the first time. She started yelling "doddy! Doddy!" (this is what she calls every animal) She kept pointing at them and slowly walking back to their cage. It was so cute and such a beautiful morning I grabbed my camera and snapped a few pics of her and her discovery of our new little pets.

The kids can lift up these little doors and check for eggs.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Mr. Ironman

My oldest brother Jared has done triathlons for a few years, he decided 3 months ago that he was going to do the St. George IRONMAN. The concept of completing an ironman is absolutely unfathomable to me. Swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, then run a marathon 26.2 miles, what? The human body was not made for that, I swear, but lots of people do them, and lots of people attempt and do not complete them. I can't even imagine, a marathon is hard enough.

Anyway, I went down to St. George to support him in this crazy idea. This was the last year that St. George was going to host this race, the numbers drop every year because it is one of, if not the most difficult course as far as Ironmans go. Well to make matters worse it was very windy the day of the race. The athletes started out with the swim, 4 foot swells. They pulled 400 people out of the water. Jared blew threw the swim 1:18, great time for such crappy conditions. Up next was the bike, still windy, one of the pros, actually the one who ended up winning (in 9 hours, crazy) got blown off the road and had to strap back in while on the bike ride. Plus it is a crazy hilly bike ride. Took Jared about 8.5 hours, still doing good...

Here he is just getting off the bike, just 26.2 miles of running left. I can't even imagine how my legs would feel after getting off that 8.5 hour uphill windy bike ride. We caught him at mile 6ish, still looking pretty good, caught him again at mile 8, then we went back to put kids to bed and come back for the big finish. Colby and I parked it at mile 22ish waiting for him, and waiting for him. After an hour of waiting we were worried and started walking back on the path until we ran into him. His poor body was beat, feet were swollen and blistered and he could do nothing but walk, he just wanted to finish. You have to finish in under 17 hours to officially complete and ironman and he would be able to do that so we walked the last 4ish miles with him, headed down to the finish line to watch him run across the finish. 16:37 was his time. Amazing, to even finish this course was unbelievable. The guy who was announcing those crossing the finish line said he has never seen a harder course in the 100 or so that he has been at or competed in. What an accomplishment! I was very inspired and feeling like such a wimp for doing half marathons and not wanting to do a marathon again.

Crossing the finish line at 11:30 at night.

He did it! So proud.

The rest of the trip was spent at the pool, I brought Kenya down and watched Jared's girls when he needed me to.

The girls did a kids ironman event the day before.

She slept half of the way home, too much fun in the sun!

The World Through Kids Eyes

August 2013

Leila has officially stopped saying "I wanna hold you" :( She would always say that to us and I have never corrected her but I guess she figured it out for herself because tonight she said "hold me". She's growing up too fast!

November 2011
I told Kenya tonight that I was glad Heavenly Father sent her to me. She said "Why did Heavenly Father send me to you?" I said "well we were all a family before we came to earth, in heaven." She said "Mom, how did you get up in the sky?" "I don't know." I said. "Did Santa give you a ride?" Followed with giggles by both of us.

November 2010
Today I was telling Mark about how angry I got at Kenya for coloring on the table for like the millionth time. She heard me talking about it and said "You're not a nice mom, you're like the BEAST! I'm gonna put you in da gawbage and get a new mommy!" Then later Mark asked her when he was reading her a bedtime story "Kenya, am I the King?" She said "No, you're the debil (devil)." Charlie was drawing a picture of our family for school and drew me with my mouth open he said "Look mom, you're yelling." I don't think we're leaving the right kind of impression on our kids here.

July2010
Today Kenya came up to Mark and said "Daddy I have to tell you something." She then made him bend down so she could whisper in his ear "You're the best dad in the whole wide world." He thought maybe I told her to say that but she came up with it all on her own. She then did the same thing to me. I love hearing that little whisper in my ear.

June 2010
Kenya randomly makes comments on the baby in my belly, it usually goes something like this. "I like your big belly mom" then "I like your baby Leila." Then it's followed by "I have a big belly too." Tonight that was followed by "It's hooge."

March 2010
When Kenya is demanding something I will tell her she needs to ask nicely. She then yells at me "NICELY!" Not quite what I was meaning.
If you say something like "How are you doing?" She'll say "Kenya" instead of good, or bad, or sad, or happy. Kinda cute.
She's really starting to put her sentences together and express herself a lot better. It's fun to have conversations with her.

March 2010
At dinner we were discussing how babies just drink when they're newborns and don't eat food. We asked Charlie if he knew what they drank and he said "yes, milk from your..." he paused for a few seconds and we were anticipating what was going to come out, then he said "from your belly!" What innocence.
February 2010-
Kenya has been saying some cute things lately most mornings she comes into our bed and snuggles in right in the middle of us. This morning she snuggled up next to Mark, put her hand on his cheek and said "daddy you're my sweetie girl." We had to laugh. Last night we were in the car, Mark was on the phone and Charlie was being really loud so he turned around and grabbed his leg to get him to be quiet. Charlie started crying and Kenya got really mad "don't hurt my sista! You otay Charlay?" We explained it was her brother and she said it all over again, this time with brother. She's been calling a lot of people her sister lately, she's a bit confused.
I made chocolate football cake bites for the superbowl and whenever she finishes her food she says "I want a hapball!" The first couple times I didn't know what she was saying until she ran over to them and pointed, now we know that hapball is football.

July 2009-
Charlie was asking me if his dreams would come true (I thought he was referring to bad dreams because he's been so scared of having bad dreams lately thanks to watching "Thriller") I told him they wouldn't come true and he kept asking me about it. Finally he said "Well daddy's dream came true when you were his wife!" Awww, thanks bud!

June 2009-
Yesterday Charlie randomly said to me "You know mom Jesus is sad when you're mean to me." I guess what goes around comes around. He also told me as we were reading "Little Red Cap" (the real Little Red Riding Hood story) "She shouldn't have lied to her mom" he said. I said "No she should've minded her mom and not gone off the path." He said "well sometimes I lie to you." At least he's honest, well sometimes. :)
May 2009-
Kenya loves the park. Every time we drive by one she freaks out "side, side! Mama side mease, meeease!" (slide please) she says "mease" all the time, it kills me! So cute. She also loves to say "go way!" Every time she's mad at someone or we're trying to get her to do something she doesn't want to its "go way!"

February 2009-Charlie said a prayer the other day that went like this "Grateful we could go to Disneyland, grateful for Halloween, grateful for Christmas, in the name..." That was it! Kind of funny.

December 2008-Last night when Mark was putting Charlie to bed Charlie said "Dad, I think Jaxon isn't choosing the right." Mark said "Yeah, how come? " Charlie said "Because he likes BYU and that's not choosing the right." Mark was pretty proud.

December 2008-

Charlie had a Christmas pajama party at preschool. He got a gift from his teachers. He opened it up and it was a blanket they had made for him, "Wow, a blanket!" I said. Charlie said "It's beautiful!" Then a bit later he was doing a puzzle while I was on the computer and out of nowhere he just says "Merry Christmas mom." He can be so sweet.

November 2008- With Christmas right around the corner and his birthday a couple weeks ago Charlie wants everything he sees on TV. He'll be upstairs watching TV and you'll just hear him say "How 'bout that!" And if it's a girl toy it's "How 'bout that for Kenya!" I don't know why it's "how 'bout that" but it puts a smile on my face every time he says it. It's too cute.

I love how honest Charlie is. The other day he went to the bathroom and when he came out I said "wash your hands" as he came out he got distracted for a minute and then said "Oh yeah, I got poop on my finger." And went to the bathroom. The same day he told me that while he was playing outside with his friend Brady he peed in our dirt, just randomly told me later that afternoon with a guilty look on his face. I was surprised because he hates peeing outside!

I took Charlie to Target to pick out a Halloween costume. I thought he would pick one out immediately and probably choose spider man or batman, well he wasn't really jumping on anything he saw, until he saw a transformer costume he said "I want to be a transformer!" I said "Ok do you want to be Bumble Bee?" "No, I want to be Octopus Prime!" I think it's so cute to hear him say it I haven't told him it's Optimus Prime.

One morning while we were getting ready for church Charlie in his best little sick voice says to me "Mom, (cough cough) I can't go to church, I'm sick (cough cough) see I have a cough.! Isn't he a little young to be doing that?

Last night I was kneeling down by Charlie as he said his prayers. This is what he said- "...Grateful I could go to preschool, grateful for daddy and Kenya," then he reached out and stroked my hair, "and grateful for mommy's hair." He was so happy yesterday when I came home from work and my hair was done and not in a pony tail anymore.

Charlie's Aunt Kristen asked him one day "Charlie what did you do today?" He said " I played with Samara." She said "Oh, is that your friend?" "No!" He said, " she's my husband!"

Mark sold his car and Charlie was with us as we dropped it off to the new owner. Charlie said "Dad, where is your car going?" Mark said " I sold it, it's going bye bye." Charlie said "All our of our stuff going bye bye?" I hope we're not traumatizing him! :)

Charlie has been learning about the Holy Ghost and he seems a bit confused at the concept. Today out of the blue he asked me "Mom, where is the Holy Ghost?" I tried to explain to him that he's a spirit and he can bring good feelings to you etc.. Then he said "Oh, can I touch his blanket?" (This is what a ghost is to him, somebody with a blanket over them.) So then I explained that he's not a real ghost he's a spirit and he doesn't have a body etc. Then he said "Yeah, but he almost has a body, and when I pull off it's blanket is the Holy Ghost a girl or a boy?" Let's just say he's still confused. :)

We went to Discovery Gateway today and as we were walking in there was a little person standing by the entrance. Charlie looks at me and says "Mom, that was a wittle mom." I thought that was pretty politically correct. :)

Today at church Charlie was playing with some cards on the bench during sacrament when I looked over at him he seemed to be pondering something and said to me "mom, am I going to get baptized?" I said "Yes, when you're 8 you can get baptized." "But I want to get baptized now!" (The lady sitting in front of us turns around and whispers "precious." :)) I told him again he could when he's eight. Then he said "Can daddy help me get baptized?" I guess he is learning something in primary and FHE!

Almost every morning I have a battle with Charlie on what he's going to wear. At least the mornings when I care what he wears and want him to look decent. Last night he got to pick out a movie to rent, he chose a Buzz Lightyear one (this is his latest obsession.) This morning I brought out some clothes and he saw them and said "No, not that shirt! That shirt won't make me Buzz Lightyear!" I said "Oh, what shirt will?" "Come here, I'll show you." And he took me into his room and insisted that he wear a white baseball T with green sleeves. This is the closest shirt he has that resembles Buzz Lightyear's costume. Pretty creative kid.

Charlie is in sunbeams now but we've been watching Cami's kids this weekend at her house so he went to nursery today with his cousin Luke. When we got home I asked him what he learned in nursery. He said "nothing." I said "didn't you have a lesson, you must have learned something." Very adamantly he responded "No we don't learn anything in nursery, we just have snacks!" No wonder why he loves it! :)

Cami has a piano in her house and yesterday towards the end of Charlie's nap Luke started softly touching the keys. Charlie woke up and came out of the bedroom with his hands out to the side palms facing up and said in a sweet surprised voice "I wake up and heard the piano singing." Mark and I thought it was too funny.

Those of you who have been around us probably know that Charlie hates my hair in a pony tail. I have no idea where this came from but for about a year he has been like this. It's getting better but at first he would throw a huge fit and say "Don't cutta your hair!" Then I explained to him it was a pony tail so it became "Take out your ponytail!" And he would grab my hair and try and get the elastic out. He's made progress over the past year, it went from forbidding it to throwing a fit but on occasion after I explained to him I was going to the gym or didn't have time to do my hair a few times a day I could make it through the day. Now He doesn't immediately respond to it when he sees it but at some point through out the day he'll comment on it. The other day he was going down for his nap and he said "Mom when I wake up will you take your ponytail out?" I can't believe a three year old boy could care so much about a ponytail! So much for short hair, he probably wouldn't speak to me for weeks! :)

After we sold our house we moved into my dad's. Charlie loves being around his grandpa and the other day he was sitting on the potty and I said "Charlie, do you need help?" and he said "no, I want grandpa to wipe me!" I said "no, grandpa doesn't wipe you, just mommy." So a couple days later he says to grandpa "Grandpa, are you a boy or a girl?" Grandpa said "I'm a boy." Charlie said "if you're a boy then you can wipe me!" Don't know how he decided that one but I guess he's got it all figured out!

Kenya has been sick the past day and tonight at dinner Charlie said "why isn't Kenya eating?" I said "Because she's sick." He said "Oh, does she have a snotty nose?" I said "No, she has a tummy ache." "Oh, did she eat an egg?" "No, I said ache, not egg, it means her tummy hurts." In classic Charlie response to everything "Oh." :)