WATER TIME!

I almost forgot I had these pictures until I was deleting pictures off my camera today and noticed they were on there! When I drove back to Dallas from Louisiana, I drove in Kristin's car with the kids to help her out (well ateast help her out half way there). They were able to stay a day in Dallas with us and even though it was just a day, it really seems like we did alot in 24 hours! One of the things we did was of course hit up the sun and play at the pool. Kristin's friend has this GREAT pool with this zero entry pool for kids! Can I just say that I LOVE IT and so did the kids! I'm SOOO having one of these in my backyard one day!

If you can't tell in this picture, the water is only a few inches and it gradually get about 1 1/2 ft deep..PERFECT for little kids ESPECIALLY mine since he LOVES to get in and out, in and out of the pool. This was FABULOUS!

Little Chuck even joined in the fun and got in the nude (well almost, he put on one of Boston's swim diapers which SUPRISINGLY fit!) and sat with Cherise in the water!

You KNOW that Boston LOVED IT! He kept walking in front of these little water guns that shot out water and he'd just stop right in front of them with the water getting all in his face. It was pretty funny!

THAT'S IT! Please excuse the not so flattering shot of myself...

MY WISH LIST....can you tell I'm bored today?

I want this....

So I can edit pictures on this...

I won't be getting either until we get into a house...I'll have the update for you with that in about a week!

14 MONTHS AND STILL GROWING!

Kent says Boston looks gay in this picture but I was trying to keep him entertained in our car ride yesterday! Boston thought it was funny but had the glasses riped off in 2 seconds..he's a boy!

On Thursday Boston officially turned 14 months! WOW! I can NOT believe that I have a little boy that old! He is doing so much so quickly now that I'd thought I'd write down a quick update of my little man because you know he's changing every day!

• Will give you five although he doesn't usually just slap hands once, he does it like 4 times.
• When you ask for kisses, Boston puts his head down so you can kiss his forehead. Hopefully he'll do that too when he's older and girls are trying to kiss him!
• He knows what a cow, duck, snake, lion, fish, cat, dog, and sheep say (lion and cat are my personal favorite).
• He has started saying "Uh oh!" but doesn't always say it when it's necessary.
• If Boston wants something and can't do it by himself, he'll come over, grab my hand and direct me to what he wants (LOVE IT!)
• Stella is Boston's FAVORITE toy! He LOVES to bring her her toys and tries to get her to play tug-a-war with him although generally Stella never has interest in him so he brings the rope to me to get me to play with her which usually she will fall for while Boston just sits on my lap and laughs! He also thinks it's funny to have Stella lick his fingers while he's in his high chair (GROSS I know!) and secretly slip Stella food when I'm not watching...smart boy!
• He has learned to say "Stella" although it sounds more like "WELL-WAH!" (that is capitalized with an exclamation point because he always YELLS it...probably because Kent and I are always yelling her name!) This is his FAVORITE thing to say and says it ALL the time!
• Other words that Boston says besides mama and dada are duck, cat, dog, more
• Boston can show you where his head is (which is also one of my favorite things). When Boston watches one of his Baby Einstein DVD's they say "bed" and it never fails that every time Boston starts to pat his HEAD! Can't quite distinguish the two yet!
• He is a VERY persistent boy who always wants to know what's going on around him. If he hears us doing something in the other room, he'll come peek and see what it is, if he's interested he stinks around, if not he's out! 99.9% of the time he's interested!
• He has learned how to climb up on the kitchen chairs...I'm sure just the beginning of many climbing adventures!
• LOVES to laugh and me while I over dramatically lip sync to songs...especially Celine Deon! Oh if there were only a hidden camera to catch our crazy moments when no one else is around!
• We always have to make sure the front door is locked because Boston has officially escaped 3 times because he can officially open the door!

We love our little man and are soo excited about his progress everyday! It seems like within the past month he's changed so much and I'm sure over the next month he will be changing that much more! Every time I see him I just want to squeeze him and smother him with kisses!

MY MOVIE REVIEW:

Surprisingly I feel like I have seen quite a few movies lately! A few were rentals but I've also been able to go catch a few on the BIG SCREEN the past month of so. I thought I'd share my thoughts on these movies with you and let you know what I have thought...

LOVED this movie! I didn't really think I would to be honest but Kent and I rented it last night and it was one of those feel good movies that makes you want to do all you can in life before you die. It really got me thinking about the important things in life and what matters most. It got Kent and I thinking about life when we're older...Who will die first? Would we want to know when we're going to die? etc. Sounds depressing probably now that I'm writing about this but really it's NOT a depressing movie AT ALL!

**A MUST SEE**

HILARIOUS! Can I just say that I didn't know it was a musical on Broadway until like the day before! Now I don't know if Meryl Streep is really singing OR Pierce Brosnan (and if they are they definately DO NOT have the BEST voices) but regardless it was entertaining! I couldn't help but SING "MAMA MIA...HERE WE GO AGAIN!" over the past few days! Kiers and I were laughing all throughout this movie!

**A MUST SEE**

L-O-V-E IT!!! Kent and I went and saw this the night it opened and it was COMPLETELY WORTH IT! AHH! Favorite movie in a LONG LONG TIME! Heath Ledger=A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! "Do you wanna know how I got these scars?" Every night since we've seen it, I tell Kent I want to go see it again that night! HA! I can't get ENOUGH! I've got to see it again in the theatre! This is one that you MUST see in the theatre...I think we're going to go revisit it at the Imax next because apparently it was made for the Imax?

**A DEFINATELY MUST SEE!**

POLITICAL therefore resulting in me not caring too much. They had some funny parts but this movie to me was built up much more than what it actually was. There was NO talking until the end and that in itself was weird. He's a cute little robot..."EEEVA!" But that's about the only thing he could say! Plus it bugs that everything has to be about politics now especially in a children's movie...UGH!

TOTALLY worth seeing this twice! I watched this in Fairfax when I went to visit Amanda and then I made Kent watch it when I got home. This is such a motivational, uplifting movie. It kind of makes you ashamed of how us as white americans treated blacks back in those days...I just can't understand it.

**A MUST SEE MOVIE**

So those are my thoughts on it all! Take it or leave it!

A FEW LAST SHOTS

Other than a few outings in Louisiana, I realize I didn't take very many pictures over the 2 week span of time that we were there! Here are the last few pictures that I took with my phone/camera during our visit. I know we did alot more than what I posted...everytime we are in Louisiana we always stay extremely busy. It was of course a fun visit with family and friends and it was a bittersweet goodbye! I was excited to get back and see Kent after 2 weeks of his absence. Can I just brag again on my husband and say that when we got home that night we were greeted by SUNFLOWERS (I've NEVER gotten sunflowers before which brings me to why I called them daisys originally and also why I didn't know that they 'go to sleep' at night and move towards the sun in the morning hence the name 'SUN' flowers...I'm retarded), a set table WITH placemats, hamburgers prepared with condiments, chips, and fruit all on the table ready and waiting! With me going on all these trips, Kent is sure becoming a pro and this whole welcome home thing! What can I say, I DO have a great husband!

Sorry this picture is blurry, it was taken with my phone. We took a walk one Sunday with Mimi and Papa around their neighborhood trying to be noisy and check out the mansions being built in their neighborhood but unfortunately people were there and we couldn't look through them so we just enjoyed our family walk instead!

Okay, don't think my son is gay or anything but my mom has all kinds of floaties at her pool for the kids when they come swimming. I found this one in there (I think it used to be Sophie's) and thought this would help Boston alot in the pool. He doesn't care for his floaty anymore since he learned that it was more fun to swim in mommy's arms instead! I know this looks retarded BUT Boston LOVED being in this "leotard" as Rylee called it. He swam in it SOO well and I wasn't as nervous with him walking around the pool. HILARIOUS don't you think?

Auntie Kelli with our Boss man! We were SOO happy to be able to spend all this time with Kelli! She's SUCH a great aunt and is incredible with children! She'll probably have 8 of her own one day!

Boston taking over the driving while Kristin took the girls inside to go potty on our way back to Dallas. He is now officially OBSESSED with wanting to be in the driver's seat and move the stearing wheel...umm like father like son?!?

NOLA!

What was a trip to New Orleans to take the kids to the Children's Museum turned into a 3 hour car around, with NO children's museum visit and instead a few last minute change in plans to make our time down in New Orleans fun and useful for the kids! Unfortunately, while driving down there, we missed our exit. If you've been to N.O. you know it's not always easy to find streets because they cut off and start back up again in the most random places. Well, since we missed our exit we headed over to the Westbank (very SCARY!) and were lost trying to find our way FOREVER!!!! My mom for some reason didn't have an updated map with certain streets on it which didn't help the situation PLUS I'm a 21st century girl who is used to GPS NOT a paper map! Terrible, I know! We called my dad but after much struggle with trying to get his help, we finally remembered that my new and improved phone could help us get there!!! Modern day technology is the best thing! So we eventually found our way, just 3 hrs later then expected! Wanna know the funniest part? As we park, I go to put the map back in the glove box and I notice my dad's GPS in my mom's car!!!!! It was there the WHOLE TIME!! AH! That would have been useful to have...

Anway, since we were so late getting there, it was too late to go to the Children's Museum and we instead got a bite to eat at Hard Rock and then treated the kids (and ourselves) to a carriage ride around New Orleans (which is VERY OVER priced) but it was actually VERY enjoyable aside from the fact that you could hardly understand our driver because of his STRONG New Orleans accent! Even though we didn't get to do our original plans, we still had a great time topped with a little Cafe Du Monde! Thanks mom for the GREAT day!

Before the crazy adventure

Look how RED Boston's face is! It was SOO hot but the kids pulled through...as long as the driver kept going and didn't stop the carriage!

Funny how those girls standing in front of Cafe Du Monde are matching the sign!

Taking this trip down to New Orleans makes me miss the south! I would LOVE to own a condo in downtown New Orleans some day, but then again I don't know if I want any drunkerds coming and banging on my door at 3 in the morning! While we were down there during the day you could LITERALLY SMELL the alcohol on people who were 10 ft away from you! It's CRAZY down there!

JUMP N JIVE!
Kent was only in town from Friday until Sunday but Boston and I stayed for 2 weeks! We did alot in 2 weeks it seemed! Looking back at my pictures, it doesn't look like I took very many but I'll post what I have!

One of the days we were there, Mimi took us to JUMP N JIVE! We've been to a place like this in Kansas City for Rylee's birthday but Boston was still a little too young to enjoy it. This place he REALLY enjoyed now that he's older! He LOVED going down the huge slide and wanted me to take him over and over. He wasn't too sure about the other blow up things that you jump in but they had some other things for him to play with that he enjoyed instead!

Playing with Mimi

Rylee and Sophie racing down the slide...I think Rylee won but I'm sure Sophie said afterwards, "It's not a race Ry!"

One of the bazillion times we went down this slide! I'll tell you what, it WEARS YOU OUT!

Boston didn't want me to put him down on this one but he didn't mind me holding him and jumping!

THE 4TH OF JULY!!!

We are finally back in town! We came back last Wednesday but there has been so much to catch up on and stuff to do that I'm just now getting a chance to catch up on blogging! I know you have all just been DYING to have me post!

So where have we been? Louisiana of course! We went there for the 4th of July and luckily Kent was able to break away for a weekend to hang with the fam! For our 4th, we had family and friends to my parents house for a great bbq, swimming, and the best firework show around (yes we even had random strangers drive over this year to watch)!!

Boston must have been napping during this pic...

Kelli got to come back to LA for the big occasion!

Turns out that Boston LOVES watermelon! He ate about a million pieces on the 4th!

Kari and Brandon made the trip down for the 4th too! We were SOO happy to see them since we don't get to see them very often since they're so far away!

The Richardson boys and all the sons-in-laws had their annual pool basketball game! I don't think anyone came out with TOO many scratches like last year but I know their feet were pretty scraped up!

Sid was in BR and she came with Grandma Hooper to the festivities!

Kent and Boston watching the crazy firework show!

The one shot I got of the show!

HAPPY LATE 4TH!!

IF THE SAVIOR STOOD BESIDE ME

If the Savior stood beside me, would I do the things I do?

Would I think of His commandments and try harder to be true?

Would I follow His example? Would I live more righteously,

If I could see the Savior standing nigh, watching over me?

If the Savior stood beside me, would I say the things I say?

Would my words be true and kind if He were never far away?

Would I try to share the gospel? Would I speak more reverently,

If I could see the Savior standing nigh, watching over me?

He is always near me, though I do not see Him there

And because He loves me dearly, I am in His watchful care,

So I'll be the kind of person that I know I'd like to be,

If I could see the Savior standing nigh, watching over me.

This is now my favorite song the primary kids sing! I learned this for girl's camp when I was in high school and I LOVED it and when the primary kids learned it this year, I was SOOO happy! Hearing these children sing this song brings tears to my eyes everytime they sing it! I now sing this song to Boston every night because I love it so much!