Ben & Me

This is a tag I took on from our friend Ashley.

What is his name? Ben

How long have you been married? 5 years in October

How long did you date? 9 months, engaged for 3 months

How old is he? 28 (Going on 12)

Who eats more? It depends....I have my days where I just have craving after craving, but I think overall he eats more.

Who said I love you first? Ben did. I think I felt it first though. I was scared to get too mushy too fast. Shaunie, tell them how you chased me to Utah and tried to put the moves on me in the conference center! Not to worry anyone, there was absolutely no making out in General Conference. This part of our dating story is too long to put into a blog.

Who is smarter? It depends on what you're talking about. Health/Science stuff and kid/parenting stuff are my strengths. Music/Literature/Cultural/Movie stuff are Ben's strengths. I think I'm the more scatterbrained of us both. After I've stayed up late though or all night, and fall asleep after work because I'm exhausted, and Shaunie tries to wake me up, I always have to ask what day and time it is before I can function. He really does not know what is going on in situations like these. He usually doesn't even remember the conversation. We have hilarious stories because of this.

Whose temper is worse? As I type this, Ben says, "well, that's easy." I wouldn't call it a temper here, he just gets frustrated when things, especially technology, are not working like they should. We both used to get really frustrated with Evelyn, which only happened when she was being Capt. Whiny-pants, but we've been working on being more patient with both girls and are making some good progress. It just doesn't work to be mad in most situations. And how can you get mad at a face like this?!

Who does the laundry? Usually me. Once in a while he'll start a load, and help me sort and fold. But where he's so busy with school, I do it most of the time. I don't mind it. I kind of like doing laundry. I like doing laundry too, our washer/dryer are just real loud so daytime is best to run them. I really like dryers for some reason.

Who does the dishes? We both hate doing dishes. But Ben hates it a little more than I do, which is why I usually do them. Once again, he's got lots of homework. Now that we have a dishwasher, it's not such a big deal to do them. Before dishwasher days, we would do them together. After they had piled up for 3 days and we had no utensils, bowls or plates left. Pretty sad. I must admit he is really good at rinsing his dishes after a meal. I'm terrible in that department.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Right now, Ben does. We've switched sides more times than I can count. The deciding factor is whichever side is closest to the door, so I can get to the baby faster in the middle of the night. Which side is the right side? Why do we think North is up, it's not, North America could very well be on the bottom of the map, it doesn't matter. Derrida would say that this is another binary opposition where our culture has ingrained the superiority of our position blah blah blah blah... Ben is a bit of a philosopher and thinker, if you can't tell.

Who pays the bills? I think it's about half and half. If I haven't been able to catch Quicken up that week and bills, Ben will do them on the weekend. Thankfully, or else we'd be financially sunk. Shaunie made a nifty budget and bless her heart, I have an allowance!!!!! BOOKS BOOKS AND MOOOOOORE BOOKS!

Who cooks dinner? I do. Ben cooked dinners when we were dating, but I'm the better cook, so I do it. He says he wants to learn though. (I cross my fingers when I say that. Food is good, but I'd rather be reading).

Who drives when you are together? Ben drives when we're together, if I'm not taking him to BYU. Then I drive. I trust his instincts and reaction time more in all this crazy Utah traffic. I like to drive like a Californian sometimes. I can out drive any of these Utards any day of the week...armatures. (Sorry Ashley, this doesn't apply to any of our friends/family, but your fellow states-people don't know how to drive).

Who is more stubborn? We both are, but we're not stubborn about a lot of things. So it doesn't come up much. Our first argument was about whether or not the BYU-I modern dance troupe was dancing correctly. After that we realized how dumb it is to argue and it hasn't happened much since.

Who proposed? Ben did, twice. Once in his apartment at Rexburg, when we were having a nice leisurely conversation about the future. He says he doesn't remember it, but I do. We went ring shopping a few weeks later. The official proposal was in California at Laguna Bay, the same place Howard W. Hunter proposed to his wife. It was the 4th of July, so Independence Day has a little double meaning for us. Ahh, nostalgia, I used to go there all the time as a kid and watch the waves and the sunsets.

Who has more friends? I think Ben does. He's got a lot of grad student friends he sees everyday that are like a little family. I'm more limited to the blogging world, e-mail and telephone. Which help people stay in contact, but I've still lost contact with a lot of people. And I still have a slight bit of shyness hanging around from my childhood. My friends all use me as an excuse to visit Shaunie and the girls, I don't blame them.

Who has more siblings? I do. He's got 2, I have 5.

Who wears the pants in the family? We make big decisions together, but I do defer to Ben as the patriarch of our family and priesthood holder. But Shaunie does all the stuff that makes our apartment look nice. I decorated once, someone referred to it as a 'bachelor's pad', so I felt bad and let Shaunie do whatever she wants and the place always looks great! She also helps me eat well, exercise, and remember important things because basically I am a space case and I live in the fictional world of books and film right now. If we weren't married Shaunie could probably earn money as my personal manager. But I like things the way they are. My pants are too tight anyway, so I usually put on my pajama pants at home, that have pictures of hamburgers and fries on them.

As you can tell, we really do love each other and have a great relationship with added humor and ridiculousness. Ben is the only reason I'm not as serious as I was 6 years ago. I Hope you all have some love for the Valentine in your life! (yes, that was really cheesy, but I felt like I had to tie Valentine's Day in there somewhere). Alright, someone else out there can do this. I love reading these things on other's blogs!

The last month in pictures

I've been meaning to post pictures for a couple weeks now, but never got around to it. So this lengthy post is the result of my procrastination. I guess we haven't been up to anything really exciting lately, just trying to keep warm and busy until this arctic cold decides to go away. It seems to just keep snowing and snowing here, but we're supposedly supposed to have a break this weekend. At least everything is white and pretty, instead of dead-looking. I've taken the girls out to play in the snow, and they enjoy it more each time they're out playing, until their hands start freezing. Then the whining begins. I look forward to next winter, when they'll both be bigger and better able to get around in the snow.

They just wanted to stand on the sidewalk most of the time and step a little ways into the snow. Evelyn attempted making snowballs, and would then throw them at Jilly. I wouldn't really call them snowballs though. More like snow puffs.
Jill walks around with this face when she's happy. If you click on the picture, you can see her little buck teeth biting her lip.

This is probably their favorite snow activity, eating it.
A cat wanders our complex, I don't know if it's a stray, but he's sure friendly. He lets these two do just about whatever. Evelyn told the cat, "Go to sleep, kitty." And then just pushed him over. He laid there, maybe listening to Boss Evelyn's command. Jilly just likes to follow him and get really close to his face and say, "ne-ow, ne-ow."
Ben likes to make forts of all kinds with the girls. So he brought out our camping tent, which barely fit in the front room. Evelyn thought it was time to go to sleep, so she got a blanket and pretended to sleep with Dad.
Evelyn raided my drawer one day, found my black slip, and pronounced it her dress. I used a hair clip to tighten it, and she put on my black shoes. She's holding my new purse, which I made out of a place mat. It is very cute.
Jilly has a "surprised" face that she likes to make. She likes to do it whenever something is really exciting, or we do it and she imitates.
Evelyn has an obsession with my make-up, and she pulled out my eye shadow and put it on herself. Her entire face was a shade of pale pink. She put some on Jilly too, but not much because Jilly didn't tolerate her eyes almost being poked out by the make-up brush. This picture also looks like one of myself when I was about 4, in Grandpa Gibbons' motor home, using my crayons to 'put make-up on.'
This is crazy to me, Jilly just barely turned 15 months, and she already wants to go potty. She'll go in with her diaper on, and do something. Maybe I'll get lucky and she'll potty train before she's two!
Evelyn decided last week that it was time for Daddy to go to bed, so she brought out her blanket, Pooh bear and baby, gave them to him, and tucked her blanket in around him. He actually did go to sleep for about hour.
Evelyn is going to be my little chef. She always has to be right there with me when I'm cooking. She wants to help chop, mix, stir, and anything else I might be doing. It's scary when I am chopping something up, and I tell her she can't help. So she grabs a butter knife, and takes a piece of whatever it is I am chopping and tries to cut with a butter knife. She's happy doing it, and I know she won't chop a finger off. And the dress she's wearing is Jilly's. This day she decided it was her favorite, put it on and said, "Ohhh, so warm!" It's made out of fleece.
Last picture off all. I got all the toys re-organized, and Jilly couldn't reach something in the bottom of the bin, so she climbed in. And had a mischevious face to go along with it.

Evelynese and other Evelyn phrases

Evelyn is always talking now, and she says some funny things. This is how she prays, with help.
"Heavly Fader, tank you dis day...."
And then you keep telling her phrases to say. But instead of repeating them, she says:
"I wash-a ma tar?" (I wash my car?)
Next phrase: "I nee-a washa my tar." (I need to wash my car.)
Next phrase: "Dad-a wash-a ma tar?" (Dad washed my car?)
She started doing this the night after we got our car washed at an automatic car wash station last week. A worker drives the car through the machine, and you can stand at a window into the washing station and watch the whole process. Evelyn was enthralled. And for some reason, it made it into the prayers.
Last night we had pasta, broccoli and Alfredo sauce for dinner. In the lowest and growliest Evelyn voice possible, "I WANNA PAS-A. I WANNA SAUCE. I WANNA BOCC-EE."And it persisted through dinner, and Jilly picked up on it and repeated gibberish in a growly voice.
Some of you know about Evelyn's pooping problem. (I hope no one is offended I am saying 'poop.' That's what we call it around here! :) She won't go for a week or more. We got her on a prescription laxative, and she's doing a little better. It makes her have to go though, really bad, and she will fight it for HOURS. And she's grouchy, uncooperative, etc. Once she finally goes, she's sooo happy and tells me, "my poop come out!" and keeps repeating it. Then she must go through list of at least 8 people who also poop. Today, Tyler, Nicole, Kaden and Jaren were the honorable mentions, along with Ben, Jilly and I. "Tywer poop? Tol (nicole) poop? Kaden poop? Ja-en poop?" To which I must answer in the affirmative. Last week it was her little friends Maggie, Graysen, their baby brothers, and Evelyn's Grandmas and Grandpas. And of course, Ben, Jilly, and I. We always make the list. We should feel special. I hope Evelyn doesn't disown me at age 15 for telling you all this.

The price of airhead-edness

Ben and I have frequently told each other that we both married an airhead. And it's true. We put stuff down, usually things like wallets, keys, cell phones, and then it takes forever to find them again. And that's not so bad. You usually don't end up paying for things like that. But locking your keys in the car like I did, cost me $30. And tonight, our neighbor upstairs was returning something and informed us we had a boot on our car. Whhhhhhyyyyyy?! Well, our parking tag for our complex hangs on our rear-view mirror and rattles loudly when we drive over 40 mph. So we took it down while we were driving during vacation, and forgot to put it back up when we got back. We tried telling that to the ruthless bootman, but he was less than merciful and charged us $50 anyway. Which is ridiculous in the fact they make their living off of our 'airhead-ed' mistake, but also because of the dozens of parking spots in our complex, only half are full all the time. So this is just my little rant. $80 could have gotten me the new dishes I've been wanting, paying bills, etc. Maybe airhead-edness dissipates over time. One can only hope.
Excluding this, we're onto a great start for the weekend!

Loooooong Vacation

We had a good Christmas, surprisingly with snow. I expected to have a dead, brown, and wet Christmas, like so many have been in the Pacific Northwest. So it was fun, except for the fact I didn't pack any of the girls' snow stuff so they could go outside and play in it. So we tried to make the most of what we could inside the house. We ate a ton of good food, whenever I'm at Ben's house, I think every dinner is gourmet, and eat too much. There was a lot of chocolate lying around and that was another downfall. It's all part of Christmas Tradition though, and I do look forward to it every year. Christmas morning was kind of a bust this year, Evelyn and Jilly were both so grouchy from staying up late the night before and all the partying, they didn't really want to open presents. We got through about 3 of Evelyn's presents, the last of which was a new movie, and she wanted to watch it NOW. We tried to coax her to open the rest of the gifts, but only received a tantrum. So we saved the rest for later in the day when she wasn't so grumpy. Jilly just wanted to sit on my lap the whole time with her blanket while I opened her presents. Note to self: children must go to bed on time Christmas Eve. The girls got a lot of toys, enough that I now need to go and buy some sort of storage unit to get them all off of the floor in their room. Ev and Jill love all the toys, and it keeps them busy instead of watching movies, their other favorite past time. We spent some time in Washington after New Year's, which was too short, but got some work done on our car, and more presents from Grandpa and Grandma Gibbons. I was also glad the Gibbons family get-together got moved a couple of days later, which enabled us to see the extended family. I made it out to the trampoline with Evelyn and the tire swing, both of which she was really excited about. We almost got stuck in Washington, with the really bad winds that kept closing the freeway back to Idaho. Luckily the weather cooperated and we made it back here to Utah on Sunday, avoiding the need to buy Ben a plane ticket so he would be back to school on time. We are glad to be home, and back to our little routine.

I think the was one of the favorite presents: a collapsible tunnel in the form of a Chinese dragon. The girls were scared of it at first, but quickly got over that. See those penguin pajama pants? This was Ben's parents gift to all of the kids on Christmas Eve. They even had a photographer come over to take our picture wearing them together. Our family was all in light blue. It was a funny surprise.

Playing in the dragon together. Jilly will sit in the middle while Evelyn crawls over her repeatedly, and they both squeal. It's a lot of fun to watch.

Evelyn coloring with her new crayons and coloring book. Her hair looks fabulous, don't you think?

Jilly's favorite pastime, crawling up and down the stairs. She only fell down them twice, and since the house is a split-level, there were only half as many stairs to fall down. I like this face, she was really excited I guess. Her hair is fabulous as well.

Evelyn made cupcakes for the first time, with a lot of help. She got a little apron for Christmas, but didn't want to keep it on for some two-year-old reason.

I think frosting them was her favorite part, what do you think?

While the face is a little weird, this was definitely Evelyn's favorite thing to do. This is Nate and Michelle's dog Bailey, a teacup Chihuahua, who is full grown if I understand correctly. The perfect size for Evelyn to cart around. Bailey would let Evelyn push her in the baby stroller, and chase her around the house. I think Bailey liked that part. She would wait for Evelyn to get about three feet away before running away at top speed and then repeat the process.

This picture is for Grandma Cluff, as she bought the outfit in Disney World. This is Jilly's Halloween costume that she didn't get a chance to wear. It fits now, and is so cute on her. Evelyn is very jealous of it in fact, and when we came home yesterday, this was her outfit of choice.

The waist of the pants rides below her hips, and the sleeves are way too short. I indulge her in her goofiness because it is so funny sometimes.

It is good to be at home, sweet home. 

Happy Holidays to You!

Here is the picture we took in October by ourselves. Ben set the timer on the camera, ran over, and Evelyn actually looked. Jilly wouldn't though. Her face is like, what are we looking at here? Why are you telling me to look over there? It was the first and best picture. The rest look like Evelyn is trying to escape.

Looking over the last year, its been a whirlwind. Each year passes more quickly, and I expect it will remain so. We lived in three different houses, Evelyn started talking, and Jilly is growing from a baby to a toddler. We enjoyed our time with family this summer, and with friends here in Provo. Ben is fully immersed in his Master's program, and that's an entire story unto itself. It certainly makes him busier than he's ever been. I'm just trying to keep up with the girls and the demands of running a household. My visions of scrapbooking and quilting are on hold for now. I'll have more time to do it (I hope) this summer. And as I'm trying to get cleaned up and packed for our trip to Idaho, I hope to remember and reflect on the birth of Christ and the wonderful gift of His life. To all of you, where ever you may be this holiday, we hope you have a Merry Christmas and make some good resolutions for New Year's!

P.S. Jillian has finally broken the 16 pound weight barrier. She's been 15 pounds for nearly 5 months. Most one-year-olds should weigh somewhere around 22 pounds. She fell below the growth charts, and the doctor was all worried, but I guess she's just a shrimp. She is actually starting to wear 9-12 month clothes instead if 6 months. So hooray for Jilly!

Disasters and Silliness

I've been meaning to put up a post with pictures of the latest Ev and Jill antics for about a month now, so there are just going to be a lot of random pictures and short explanations. They are both so busy, playing together, fighting together, eating together, watching movies together, it's like raising twins. I really almost have to buy two of everything in the toy department so they aren't constantly fighting. I try to explain sharing, but how do you reason with a 1 and 2 year old? The person who comes up with that fix should win the Nobel Peace Prize. No pun intended.

Jilly loves electronics and power cords. This one isn't plugged in of course, what kind of mom would I be? She loves to crawl over to the power strips where all the computer hardware is attached to and turn it off in the middle of something important. The TV, DVD player and X-box are all on a power strip as well. She'll get this mischievous grin, crawl over and turn it off in the middle of Daddy's virtual soccer match. He loves that.

The daily disaster of books. At least they're reading. Sort of.

Jilly likes to carry around the little board books, and since she can't walk yet, this is the best way she figured out how to do it. I think it's really cute.

Both girls love the piano, and not just banging on it. I usually get one song played before Jilly crawls over and whines until I pick her up and hold her while I play. Evelyn likes singing all the Primary songs with my accompaniment.

The weekly disaster of the Sunday paper, made worse this time of year by tripling the amount of Holiday ads arriving in the paper. It seems worse than ever before!

So this is a terrible picture, but the only one that shows what is going on. I was catching bills up, and it was quiet. Too quiet. I look down the hall and see Jilly gleefully pulling out all the Kleenex from the box. Evelyn was then helping her tear them into smaller pieces. Lovely.

Not 20 minutes later, Evelyn had quietly raided the pantry for a box of cereal, carried it to her room, and figured out a way Jilly could have some too. At least they were sharing. Jilly had a huge pile she was sitting on, you can see it around her diaper and legs.

Jilly thinks bibs are for wearing on your head or not at all. I do lots of laundry for this kid.

And Evelyn's new passion is my make-up. She's watched me put it on one too many times, and now feels welcome to get into it whenever she pleases. My shimmery cover stick has ended up on her face more than once. It's all over her lips in this picture, and then she proceeded to wipe it all over my aquamarine towel. Thanks dearest daughter. I still love you.

Evelyn is the typical little girl who loves to dress up. She likes to pretend she's going shopping. She gets her purse, some high heeled shoes, preferably mine. This time she grabbed Dad's tie for an accessory.