lately

its funny that when mason was younger i would always post about the smallest things; his first food, his first tooth, pretty much any little movement he made i blogged. poor sophie hasn't been in the spotlight nearly as much. part of the reason why could be that much of my time is taken up by two kids and by the time they go to bed i'm too exhausted to do anything but also go to sleep. well in honor of my neglected daughter, i am trying to write this post in as short as time as possible to update everyone on the happening of our lives. this is mostly reading so if you aren't interested i don't blame you!

a few months after we first moved to texas, mason showed interest in potty training so we decided to give it a shot. he was doing really well and i didn't have to change a poopy diaper on him for a couple weeks. it was awesome! then we moved and he transgressed. he got lazy and knew it didn't matter if he went in his pull up. i gave him some time to adjust to the new house, got advice from lots of people and decided to give it another try. i did away with the pull ups (except at night) and aimed for training with "naked time". mason didn't like not having any pants on so i let him wear his pants without anything on underneath. mason doesn't like to be dirty and if he peed in his pants he hated it so this technique worked like a charm! he earned his underwear and has been wearing them for almost 2 weeks. he still has a few accidents (its usually when he gets too busy playing and forgets to go to the bathroom) but he is doing really well. i'm going to give him some time before we start working on going at night because some mornings he wakes basically dry and others he is soaked. he has made some friends and loves to go to play group and nursery. there is a little group from church that has several boys masons age so its fun to do a lot of things together. he is still super smart and it amazes me how much more grown up he acts everyday.

sophie, (also known as loaf, D, and little :) is growing like a weed. she has mastered crawling and is pulling herself up to everything. she is also getting herself into trouble; eating things that she shouldn't, getting into cupboards that we apparently need to lock. she is so different from mason. mason never really got into anything, was not fond of putting things in his mouth and this girl already has an attitude to a degree which i don't recall mason having. she flips out if she doesn't get her way and is super stubborn. not only does she look like her mom, she acts like her too :) she hasn't slept a good night since we left utah and i am dieing. i thought after i got my medication fixed it would help but it didn't and i have tried everything. cry it out worked for mason but it just makes sophie even more upset and it takes longer for her to fall asleep. i just ordered yet another sleep book to try and some lavender oil to see if that will help. on the plus side she is so funny and i love to hear her laugh. she claps her hands, shakes her head and waves (though none of those happen on cue). she still has gorgeous blue eyes and i love her blonde hair which is getting long! her and mason are starting to play together more and its fun to watch them together!curtis has been working A TON!! some days he is gone for 16 hours and there have been weeks when the kids haven't seen him for days on end. it has been so hard. we knew it would be crazy but we weren't prepared for it to be this bad. curtis is the only production supervisor and is basically acting like a manager too. he has turned into his dad...always gone at work and even when he is home he is on the phone :) they are getting another supervisor today and getting a ton of problems worked on at the plant so maybe, just maybe things will start to slow down in the next little while. he is also the sunday school president so he usually has meetings to go to on sundays and people to meet with so it just adds to the stress. i miss him and the worst part is that even when he is home the kids keep us separated. why did no one tell me life was so hard?! :) i really am doing better than i was. for a while i usually didn't have a car and was stuck at home. we sold my car before we moved and brought curtis' car and the truck down. curtis doesn't like to commute in the truck (for obvious reasons if you know anything about gas prices) and it isn't a vehicle i can load both kids into and cruise around town. however, thanks to my awesome in laws, tony took the truck and left casey's car here so curtis takes that to work and i get to use our car. now we can go to the library, park, play group, or wherever we want whenever we want!! i used to tell people i felt like a teenager..."curtis? can i have to car today?" :) hopefully we can get another car (family friendly!!) in the near future but in the mean time this works out just fine! i am also the new choir director and it scares me to death!! i have played the piano forever but never ever had any singing experience. there are a lot of great people willing to help me out but there are still days when i wish i could run to the bishop and ask for something else :)

right before christmas, my grandpa went in for surgery to get a new pacemaker put in. for some reason there were complications and he died almost a month later. they still aren't sure what happened...his body looked fine from the cat scans but for some reason his brain just never came out of the fog from the anesthesia. one day he would know who everyone was and be talking, the next he wouldn't wake up, then he wouldn't know any names. luckily curtis was able to get off work and we got to go back to utah for his funeral. even though it was for a sad event, it was good to see my entire family. the only one missing was my brother who is still on his mission in mexico. the funeral went smoothly and i actually learned a lot of things about my grandpa that i hadn't previously known. it was also good to just be there for my grandma. she seems to be hanging in there but we still tried to help as much as we could. i tried to do some cleaning for her (which was hard with a house full of people) and we bought her some groceries before we left and just let her know we were there for her. we also got to see our good friends kurt and noelle and tony and cheryl and it was so fun to hang out with them and thier families for one night of our visit! so that is us lately! as usual hope everyone is doing well and we love you all!