It's Official!

She will kill us someday for having this blackmail picture of her on her potty, but she can blame her daddy, he took the pictures! It's true! I can't believe it is finally official and before her 3rd birthday too! Sydney is potty trained! Whoopee! Thanks for all the suggestions - I think I used a little bit of each suggestion I got, and she really finally caught on:)

Oh Yeah, I forgot I'd been tagged

Here are the rules: You answer the questions below and at the end of the post you tag 4 people. Then go to their blog and comment to them that they have been tagged.
What is your husband's name? Eran Douglas Bair
How long have you been married? six and a half years
How long did you date? about 2 months, it's hard to say when we officially started dating since I was in fierce denial that I even liked him at first. We were engaged for 4 months and got married pretty close to 6 months after we met.
Who eats sweets? What a strange question - of course we both do even though I'm the diabetic:)
Who said "I Love You" first? He did, I think I tried to say it in return, but I was still debating if that were true, so it came out quite mumbled. I said it more clearly the next day when I'd had time to decide that yes, I did, and he wasn't shocking me by saying it for the first time.
Who is taller? It's really about dead even. I think it depends on the day and our choice of footwear.
Who can sing best? I can, he plays music on his guitar. He can sing, but I don't know if I've ever heard him do it in a serious manner.
Who is smarter? He is, I've killed too many brain cells with my low blood sugar episodes. Just try playing trivial pursuit with him...
Who does the laundry? Mostly me, although he helps on occasion.
Who pays the bills? Eran, except for my specific bills like for my medical supplies and tithing.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you are standing at the foot of the bed, facing it, then he sleeps on the right.
Who cooks dinner? Me. Eran will occasionally when we're bbqing stakes, but he's left that up to me plenty of times too.
Who drives? Eran
Who is the first to admit they are wrong? Me
Who kissed who first? He kissed me first, I'd never kissed anyone before - I wasn't about to initiate it.
Who asked who out first? Eran asked me to the BYU Homecoming football game even though we were over at his house trying to set him up with my roommate.
Who wears the pants? Eran - I often tease him about his constant "it's my way or the highway" attitude
How did you meet? My roommate was stocking his roommate. My roommate Melissa wanted to set him up with our roommate Laura. Since Melissa liked his roommate (and cousin) Richard, she was often looking in the direction of their house in our neighborhood. One day, we were walking past their street on the way home from visiting teaching, and Melissa saw Eran outside taking the top off of his Jeep. She begged me to come meet him, so I could tell Laura what he was like. I was grouchy about it because I wanted to go home a start my Sunday nap. I guess I impressed him by being rude and asking if he was inactive from church since I hadn't met him before. When Laura asked what he was like, I responded, "I don't know, he seemed kind of bitter." Ha!
Now I'm supposed to tag 4 people. I tag Karalenn, Shelly, Sunny, and Heidi

progress...but, any more suggestions?

So I have a cute picture of Sydney sitting on her potty, but because Zach used our computer one time to try to look up porn, we got a virus, and Eran took care of it, but now I can't open photoshop to download the picture.
Sydney is doing great going on the potty as long as she has no pants on. Every time we put panties, or pull-ups on, she goes in those. A girl in my ward suggested putting pants on her with no underwear, and we might try that later today. Help! I am tired of feeling a bit of a prisoner in my own house because I don't want to go somewhere and have Sydney have an accident. I know I will have to use pull-ups for a while at night with her because she sleeps deeply like I do and she never wakes up dry. I hope she's not too much like me though, I wet the bed until I was somewhere around 10 years old...

Patience - and I need advise!

The first picture here is a cute one of Sydney on her new pride and joy - her big wheel! It also shows her cute new haircut. I have been learning lately what true patience parents of 2 year olds have to learn to have. My sister Heather described it well when she said that 2 year olds are just a tiny body so full of emotions, and they often don't know how to handle all their feelings. So, I have been doing a little better being patient when she has emotional outbursts - most often having to do with wanting to be independent and do things "all by herself". It wasn't a big deal to me today when it took 30 mins. to go from our house on her big wheel to the church (which is less than a block away from our house) because she is still learning how to pedal. The neighborhood kids made me feel old when they saw her riding the big wheel and asked why her bike looked so funny. I guess they had never seen a "big wheel".

The thing I don't know if I need more patience or just more stubbornness is for Sydney's potty training! Many parents have told me to not push her until she is at least 3, but then others have told me the older she gets, the harder the battle will be because she will get more stubborn. Right now, if I even mention trying to go potty, she throws a fit. She likes talking about "someday" she will be big and go potty like her older friends and cousins. I have tried bribing her with stickers and candy, etc. She of course loves those two things, but when it comes to going to the potty, she wants nothing to do with them. Help! Should I stop pushing for a while, or conquer this battle while it is still young?

The other pictures here are from Zach's talent show performance of Weird Al's "White and Nerdy" again. He wanted to do a Snoop Dog song or a Chris Brown song, but I told him that the lyrics had to be clean for a general public audience. He said he could do the edited version, but I told him he needed the edited version on CD as well. I guess life is full of disappointments.

Fun in Cali

So it has been a while since I posted. Some of the reasons are because of business as school starts, some because we went out of town to California for a while, but mostly because we only have the one computer and whenever Eran is home he is on it. I've been thinking lately how I need to come post, but we were all sick last week, yada, yada...

so we went to Cali for Eran's grandma's 90 birthday party. The top picture is Sydney at the Sacramento temple, then in Eran's uncle's pool, then at the train museum in old Sacramento, then on the Nye Family (the family friends we stayed with) trampoline that Sydney thoroughly enjoyed.

Bear Lake

Most of my life I have lived in Utah, and I had never been to Bear Lake until a spur of the moment trip that my old roommate crazy Jenny planned. Bear Lake was so beautiful, I am sad I had missed out on it until now! Sydney loved it too!

I doubt anyone has anything blackmail worthy!

More tag
Tag! Here's the drill (This one's kind of interesting...)1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

Sydney feeding the ducks

With gas

prices as high as they are, I tried to accomplish as many things in one trip down to Provo as I could. I turned in paperwork for Zach, I went running on the Provo River Trail, and Sydney got to feed the ducks at Paul Ream Park. Of course only one of those activities was worthy of pulling the camera out. I love how Sydney sticks her butt out to throw, as the last picture shows.

Update

One of the many reasons I haven't posted lately is that we were gone camping with Eran's cousins. It was so much fun! We were a bit concerned because it was our first camping trip as parents, but the kids both did great. Sydney even keeps asking if we can go camping again. The pictures are just a small sampling of how dirty we all were. Sydney was dirty because she played in the dirt like it was sand at a beach. The rest of us were dirty mostly from taking rides on 4 wheelers and 5 days without a shower will do that to you.

Oh boy - TAG

The rules are as follows: List 3 Joys, 3 Fears, 3 Goals, 3 Current Obsessions/Collections, and 3 Random Surprising Facts About Yourself. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names.

Three Joys
1. Being sealed to my family forever!
2. The knowledge of the gospel
3. dogs

Three Fears
1. drunk drivers
2. pornography
3. aging

Three goals
1. stay sane - oops, too late
2. independently wealthy
3. get next Friday night off from work

Three current obsessions/collections
1. clutter all over every surface in my house - it drives me crazy, but do I change it? HOW?!
2. sleep - I may be obsessed, but do I get enough of it? NO!
3. black dog hair(collection)

Three random surprising facts about me
1. I fight laziness daily and often loose
2. depression and anxiety are big factors in my #1 answer
3. oh, these are supposed to be surprising - I am going to a Motley Crue concert next month

Tag, you're it!
I tag:
1. Messy
2. Seth
3. Heidi
4. Joellen
5. Nila

Thomas the Tank Engine

I've been meaning to post this for a while now, but is it just me or is May/June a crazy busy time of year for everybody? I am currently feeling guilty for blogging instead of five other urgent things that need to get done - let alone that I want to be in bed too! We had a fun family outing the other day that Sydney just can't stop talking about!

We got to go for a ride on Thomas the Tank Engine! It was just a short little ride on the Heber Valley Railroad, but Sydney was thrilled! We live right next to some railroad tracks, and most days we hear at least four or five trains go by. Sydney will often start talking about how Thomas is giving rides to some of his other friends. That is how we explained why Thomas was gone again when we were leaving the Heber train station to come home.

To you other parents out there, I pose a question. What is a good length of time to allow your children to watch T.V. a day? Sydney loves watching hours upon hours of TV, and I have been justifying it lately because it gives me a little free time to get my things done (cleaning, etc). I am worried that I am teaching her bad habits of watching too much TV. I'm thinking of putting a 4 hour time limit on for her. Is that too much, or too extreme in my expectations for a 2 year old?

Owies

So I guess Sydney is in a bit of a klutzy stage in life. I took this first photo this morning to show how she crawled into Grandma's fireplace with her forehead. I think seeing a huge hole in my daughter's head that was bleeding did more to me as her mother than it hurt her. I nearly passed out! The funny thing was, as I drove up there, I was listening to the Blue Collar Channel on Sirius (LOVE the satellite radio!). A comedian was talking about how parents nowadays don't like taking their children to their parent's houses because nothing is child proofed. He said, "Come on, we all stuck our fingers in light sockets and lived!" That comedy routine was very appropriate for our visit to grandma's that day.

Then, before I could even post that first picture, Sydney tripped on the sidewalk and got owies on her elbow and knee and bonked her forehead again and made that first owie bleed again! Poor girl! If I had gotten a picture of her with her mouth open you could see her chipped front tooth - this was a previous injury though, not from today. My poor, beat up kiddo.

Funnies

So I thought I'd share some funny pictures I took recently of some of the funny things I run into on a daily basis staying home with Sydney and the dogs. The first picture is of Sydney wearing some of mommy's pretty colorful underwear! She found it recently in a bottom drawer of my dresser that I rarely use any more. At least it saw some action! I should probably reorganize and place the contents of this drawer on my shelf in my closet and the sweatshirts on my closet shelf can go in that drawer:)




The next picture, I took because I sat down on the floor in Sydney's room to get her dressed. I told her to come over to me so I could put her clothes on. She was not swiftly obeying that day, but Cal did. He came right over when I said, "Come here!"
This proves what I tell my dog training students all the time, "Dogs are simple. Human children are way over my head as to how to train them."

Thankful

So after a day of glorying in my major accomplishment of finishing the marathon - I realized I need to thank everyone who helped me get there. Of course I have to thank the Lord! You better believe I kept praying for His help to finish. I also need to thank all those who helped babysit Sydney so she didn't have to go on all those extra long runs. Those babysitters include my honey Eran, Karalenn, my mom, Holly, and Hillory, Laura Meek, and Rachel Palmer. I also need to thank those who were my examples and did this crazy goal before me and offered pointers for my training - Dad most especially, Monica Broadbent, Lyle, Marcia, and Jena Anderson. Of course I have to thank everyone who cheered me on both in person and in spirit - Thank You!

I FINISHED!!!

I accomplished a huge goal today of finishing the Salt Lake City Marathon! 26.2 miles was grueling, but thank goodness it's over! I finished in just under 5 hours, I believe my time was 4:59 in fact. I was expecting to do closer to 5.5 hours because my knee had been killing me in previous training runs. I took some ib profen before the race and my knee felt great the whole time, so I finished faster - yeehaw! Eran was my photographer for these few pictures we got - he got some cute ones of Sydney though -

The first one is of me fairly close to the finish line. I have a distressed look on my face because the finish line was on a bit of a whindy path and at that point in the race, I was so tired I just wanted to see the finish, but it was around the bend! The next picture is me holding Sydney and elated to be DONE! You can see by Sydney's hair that it was quite windy today, but other than that, the weather was beautiful (thank goodness)! Here is another picture of Sydney in the wind.

nothing new

I don't have much new to report on, but I had some funny pictures to share. Sydney got this butterfly costume for her birthday, and she has found it to be fun to put it on Sunny. He, of course is thrilled by the fun she has, as you can see by the look on his face:)

Zach is the MAN!

This is a picture of Zach and a few of his many female admire-ers. This was a Valentine's dance he went to for kids with special needs. I guess the blond girl is the one he is going to ask on his first date during spring break! He even asked her to prom, but she already has a date. He is quite the ladies man, and I also think I now know why he likes high school so much more than Jr. High - the girls! He has a subscription to the New Era and the only one he has really even looked at is the one with a pretty girl on the cover. As much as we like to, teasing him about this might get me in real trouble since I stole this picture from his room to share with y'all. So please don't blow my cover!

MTC Memories

Hey I just collected these photos from my parents and thought some of you might enjoy the trip down memory lane as I did. These are pictures of the day I went into the MTC; June 2, 1999. The day before Seth and Karalenn got married (there's a reason they have such funny looks on their faces). Of course you all know how I value photos - I was so sad that I left these pictures in my purse and something spilled on them and made them stick together which is why the middle picture has that big tare through it.

Happy Birthday Babe!

Glitter Graphics & Comments

Happy 38th Birthday to my sweetie! Just 2 more years to the big 4 - 0! Wow, we're getting old, oh well have a happy one anyway:)

HOPPY EASTER!

We had a great day today! Sydney had so much fun with her first real Easter egg hunt (she was too young these last 2 years). I had to explain about eating good food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner before devouring those goodie-filled eggs. The weather was absolutely beautiful! I got to visit with many of our neighbors outside with their dogs socializing with my dogs. It was sad when Eran had to go in to work to fix a computer problem. Since that was my only complaint for the day - we did great! I hope lots of you had nearly perfect days too. If I go get a cord to attach our camcorder to the computer, I will download some video from today to share with y'all.

Glitter Graphics & Comments

Still surviving

I haven't had much to report on lately, I have been busier than I ever like to be but not doing anything worth writing about.

Here is Eran with Sunny, our billy goat, or that could just be a nice wrestling move. Just because I have nothing exciting to report doesn't mean I don't have cute pictures to share! This next one is of a very cool family who have signed up for all of my training classes at Petsmart. This is their graduation from intermediate class, and their advanced class starts on Wednesday. Baylee is their dog's name and he is better behaved than Sunny - no, it's just great when owners take the time to train their dogs this well. If only all human's parents were this dedicated!

dating is a good thing

I just wanted to share one of my favorite of the more professional photos we had taken at the dance Eran and I went to on Valentine's weekend. It definitely is a good thing to date when you are married! It reminds you of why you got married and everyone needs a time -out away from kids! Eran took me shooting for the first time in my life this last weekend (thank you again Hillory for babysitting!). We went to a shooting range, and it was fun! I am using too many exclamation points again! Oh well!

Here is one of the targets Eran shot. Notice how there is a hole right in the bull's eye? I had a similar target with a shot like that, but I also had a tendency to shoot the clip that was holding the target, so my target with the bull's eye is still on the floor of the shooting range. Shooting was very loud and much harder than it looks, but thank goodness for the man I married!

Jenny Hoover showed me a clip that she recorded off the TV last week of another boy I dated (Aaron Pond). He was giving a motivational speech to teenagers that was on KBYU. It made me think about how different my life could be with different decisions made in the past, and thank goodness it is not! I love my life and especially how almost opposite from that Aaron, my Eran is! Does that say something bad about me that I prefer going shooting with my husband than listening to a cheesy-motivational speech to teenagers? Oh well, the point really is to say, "Go on dates with your spouse!"

Busyness Abounds!

Last week was so crazy and busy with things to do, and I am just realizing it is already Thursday of this week and I haven't written to report on any of it! Monday the 11th, I tried to find someplace I could get my long distance run in without imposing on any one too much. I decided to try Gold's Gym since when I signed Eran up for a membership, they told me to come in and use a free VIP day pass sometime. Well, the girl I talked to there was obviously not trying to impress me since she just kept looking at Sydney saying, "I think our day care is full," and "We can give you a day pass for $10, but I think the day care is full..." By the time I frustratedly walked out without my run, the day care at the Lehi Legacy Center was going to close in a 1/2 hour. My long runs are getting to be 3+ hours long - that would never work. The next day was Zach's 16th birthday!

I am such a slacker for not posting something on this earlier! Happy Birthday buddy! He had a fun party with his parents and sisters at his family visit that day. 2 of his friends from Heber came, and a girl from school even showed up! She is one of his peer toutors.

Wednesday I found a friend in my ward that owns a treadmill. I helped her with a sewing project, so she tended Sydney while I did my run. Then we took Zach out for his birthday dinner while a crazy snow storm hit our area. Our power went out, the major roads all around us were shut down - it was crazy!

Thursday was Valentine's, but I don't remember anything super special about it. Eran and I celebrated over the next 2 days. He took me out to Market Street Grill for lunch on Friday - yummy yum! Then he took this cute picture of Sydney sleeping in the TV watching chair.

Finally, as an only request for Valentine's this year, despite plenty of protesting from Eran, he took me to our stake adult sweetheart ball! We had some more professional pictures taken at the dance, but the photographer has yet to email them to me. Eran kept complaining that he thought he was done with dancing since he got married. I told him he was sadly mistaken. Even with all the grumbling and groaning - I had fun! We tried to do the cha cha lessons, but failed miserably. When we were slow dancing, Eran said, "You get this close to me every night when you're hogging the bed, blah, blah, blah..."

Then Monday was President's Day. Zach was out of school and Eran off work, so we went to the zoo! Can you see how I accidentally turned my white coat pink when I washed it with Zach's red one - oops! The first 2 photos are of us feeding the geese and ducks, and the 3rd is enjoying the elephants. It was hard to get that photo, because Sydney didn't want to turn around to look at the camera, the elephants were too interesting!

As soon as we got home from the zoo, I took Zach, and we met up with Holly and her kids, Hillory and her girls, and watched the movie "The Spiderwick Chronicles". It was very fun and very imaginative! It would have been a bit scary for Sydney so I'm glad she was home napping with Daddy.

Vote for Sunny!

Anyone who has been to our house knows how plauged we are with dog hair everywhere! Bissell vaccums is having a contest every week to give away a pet hair eraser vaccum, so go to this link to vote for Sunny to be the winner! Okay, I will be the winner, Sunny is of course afraid of vaccums, but we want to win!