Brighton Mitchell Glass

Here are some pictures of sweet little Brighton, taken earlier this week (when he was 10 days old). Today he is 2 weeks old. I have yet to write the birth story and post his very first pictures, but I wanted to at least share these beauties! We are all in love with our precious little man...

 

First Day of School

This year Weston started Kindergarten and Sophie (after barely turning 3) started pre-school! Both kids love school...especially Sophie.  Their classrooms are in the same hallway, and they begin and end at the same time.  This makes my life easier!  They even play on the same playground in the morning when we get there. These are pictures from their first day. Here is Sophie showing off her new dress (courtesy of Grandma Laurie).

And the cute hair clip (a blue butterfly) that Auntie Shae-Leigh gave her for her birthday...

Weston was pretty excited too, as you can see!  His teacher this year is Ms. McBreen, who is a WONDERFUL kindergarten teacher!!  We couldn't be happier with her.  Weston likes her too, but was rather disappointed when he realized that he only gets 5 minutes on the playground every morning ...he was used to the 30 minutes of playing that he got in preschool.  He also kept telling us that he had no friends in class, which I found out wasn't true at all!  In fact, he is so friendly and chatty that the teacher had to kept moving kids around until she found the only two students in the entire class that he doesn't care to talk with (one because he's super shy and one because she's the "smelly kid")!  He seems to finally be settling into his new routine and is pretty content with it.

 

How can I not love this?  On the first day, I kept telling Weston to look after Sophie on the playground and take care of her - you know, since she's the youngest in her class and had never been to school before. 

 

 He dutifully (and lovingly) held her hand...until they got inside the playground area!  He immediately found a friend from last year and ran off in utter glee.  Meanwhile, Sophie ran off and started making her own friends...and I think she hardly even noticed that Weston wasn't there any more!

 Jason and I stayed a while, watching them play.  At some point, Sophie noticed that we were there and came over for one last pic... 

I felt a twinge of sadness leaving them both, but was pleased to see this note from Sophie's teachers after picking them up:

 Sophie was thrilled to show me her first picture!

 

Weston was much less excited about his, but I loved it and thought it was adorable.  It is still hanging on my fridge!

One of the highlights of my day is picking the kids up from school.  Every day, the kids are so excited to see each other!  They always give each other a big hug, and often times one or the other will yell, "Yay, Weston (or Sophie)! You are my best friend!" They may spend the entire car ride home fighting, but in that moment, they are always pretty thrilled with each other.  I am happy they have such great teachers and are learning so many new things...and that Summer is FINALLY over!  How I love the Fall!!

Trunk or Treat

We had so much fun tonight at our ward trunk or treat! Jason was the committee chair person in charge of the activity, so we are relieved that it was such a success. There was a wonderful chilli cook-off, cornbread contest (too bad I didn't get to taste any of those), pumpkin carving contest, costume contest, and best decorated car contest. It was a wonderful, fun evening for the family. I wish I would have taken some pictures while we were there. Fortunately, I DID get some pictures of the kids before we left! I am proud to say that we did not buy the kids' costumes this year...we made them! I did the robe and the dress, while Jason did the props (light saber and blaster). I think they look pretty great...

Introducing one happy & irresistibly cute Princess Leia  AND a handsome jedi (he has gone back and forth between Luke, Obiwan, and Anakin for a long time...but I think tonight he was probably Anakin).

Showing off their weapons...and Weston practicing his "evil" Anakin look.

Awww...

July moments

Weston: "Stop breaking all the tunnels in my fort!  You have to be more careful, Sophie!"
Sophie: "I will be more careful this time.  I will!"
Weston: "Sorry for yelling at you."
Sophie: "It's okay."

I still remember Weston and Sophie's first real conversation, ever, which was an endless round of "guess what, chicken butt," that eventually morphed into, "guess what, chicken poopy...ewwww!"  That was last September, shortly after Sophie turned 2. 

Now they talk and play and sometimes fight all the day long, each and every day.  There are so many hilarious and sweet exchanges that I think I will remember, that are worth remembering (but of course I don't).  I hope to record at least some of them, because at the rate they are growing up, these adorable conversations will not last forever! Here are a few funny things that the kids have said (not necessarily to each other) during this past month:

July 27
Sophie (during night-time prayer): "Please bless Heavenly Father for the yummy dinner, and please bless daddy that he can deserve his movie (???), and please bless this earth that we like."

July 25
Weston (saying dinner prayer): "Please bless grandma Ruth that she will feel better, and please bless grandma Laurie that she will feel better..."
Sophie (very emphatically, in an almost scolding tone): "You don't need to pray for grandma Laurie any more!! She is all better now!"
She does have a habit of correcting Weston during prayers (much to our chagrin), and if you glance at the expression on her face while Weston prays, it is almost always one of consternation, as if she never quite approves of what he is saying! 

July 24
After watching the preview for "Mirror Mirror," Weston tells me that he saw a bad part where someone wasn't wearing all of his clothes (turns out it was a man with his shirt off). He then he says (in that sing songy voice), "awk-ward!!!"

July 20
While eating some delicious Trader Joe's beef jerky, Weston says, "I love cow bodies!" When I gave him a funny look, he explained to me that beef jerky is made out of a cow's body. lol!

July 21
At pioneer days, Weston exclaimed that the fireworks (which were spectacular, by the way) sounded like a planet being "hammered."

July 18
Me: "why didn't you play with the other kids at the park today?"
Sophie: "I don't know, they just were being really emotional."
I'm still trying to figure out what she thinks "emotional" means!

July 16
Weston: "I just feel like I want to go to the store and buy a toy for me."
Don't we all!

July 13
Weston keeps saying "oh snap!" Where did he hear this? I find it amusing! When I asked him why he keeps saying it, he said "I don't know, I think I am addicted to it!"

July 6
After showing the kids a time-lapsed view of a baby's face developing in the womb, Weston said "that was cool, but not as cool as Spider Man!" 

July 3
Sophie: "I like that outfit, mommy. I like the way your baby looks on it!"

July 1
A moment after hearing Weston tell me that the dental floss accidentally fell in the toilet, I see Sophie - one hand dripping in toilet water, the other one holding chips she is still eating...she didn't say anything, but you should have seen the look on her face.  As though fishing things out of the toilet with one hand while eating a snack out of the other was the most natural thing in the world!  At least she was trying to be helpful...

Chef Photo Shoot

Last night the kids put on their aprons to "help" me cook, and I thought they looked too cute to not capture on camera! Sophie is actually modeling my favorite apron, which is a half apron...but since she's little she wears it kind of like a dress...

This pretty apron was made by my good friend Shannon.  I won it from a drawing off her blog a few years back.  I think it just might be the only thing I have ever won... although I could be forgetting something (pregnancy brain is a very real symptom for me right now)!

After her little glam poses, she got silly and went for the monkey pose. 

Weston went into "tough guy" mode when I started snapping pictures, probably because this apron is slightly girly with the purple.  He didn't really want to wear the hat at first, but it's just so cute that I convinced him to leave it on for a few minutes.

Despite the somewhat psycho look on Weston's face, I thought this was cute.

Love my little kitchen helpers!

The Season

As we are sitting around the kitchen table this morning eating cereal, Sophie says: "I wish daddy was here eating cereal too.  We need more of daddy!"  Then she remembered that we hadn't said a prayer before eating.  She volunteered to say it.  Here is an excerpt of her prayer:"Please bless daddy because he is working so hard.  Please bless Weston that he can be safe.  Please bless mommy that her baby can pop out..."
That last part was followed by many giggles.
Then, about two seconds after we all said amen, she asks if she can touch her bum.  When I ask why, she says, "because it's nummy!"  Again, many giggles follow.  What a silly girl my Sophie is.  She seems so grown up for her age... most of the time!
She misses Jason so much during "The Season" (as do we all).

By Season, I mean Fireworks Season.  It begins in May.  By June, it is in full swing, and we never quite know how late Jason will be working, or what emergency might arise.  The day after Father's Day is always the first day of a working spree that lasts about a month.  What do I mean by working spree?  No days off, and no telling what hours Jason will be working.  The fireworks business owns him.  Sometimes he gets calls at 4:00 in the morning and has to rush in to resolve a crisis.  Sometimes he has to make an emergency trip to Arizona and doesn't get home until 1:00 in the morning.  During "The Season," anything can happen, and it does! Many days are spent running frantically around town, dealing with a seemingly unending variety of problems.  Jason usually comes home, eats something, then passes out...but we never know what time that will be.  At the beginning of June, we continue our normal schedule.  Sometime around the first of July, I realize that our schedule has completely shifted so that we get a few minutes with daddy while he is eating, before he crashes.  Sometimes this happens WAY too late for little people, and we all end up sleeping in very late...yikes!  Well, except for Jason, who leaves around 5:30 or 6:00.
At the moment, we only have 7 days left of the official season, and I frankly cannot wait!
I thought it would be fun to make a post about some of the things the kids and I have been doing to keep busy these past few weeks...
1. Playing at the splash pad at the park.  The kids have so much fun running around, that it is virtually impossible to snap a non-blurry picture while we're there!

Weston usually flies around Spider Man style, which involves a lot of crouching and leaping.

If I'm really lucky, they'll pause for a split second...

2. Since sitting outside in the heat completely wipes out my pregnant body, we have spent a lot more time inside playing.  And for Weston, that has translated into hours of drawing, coloring, and learning to write words.  I thought this was a pretty good picture of Sponge Bob that he drew, although Spider Man, Star Wars, and Ghostbusters are the usual themes of his masterpieces.

3. This year we had a special treat and got to visit daddy at his temporary Season office, which is a double-wide trailer out at the Speedway.  You may notice the awesome Spider Man picture on Jason's wall, courtesy of Weston. On the window sill, you will also notice our family picture, the one that usually sits on our piano.  I told Jason to take it to work so that while all of his groups are coming in to settle their accounts and pay what is owed, they can remember that he is a real person with a family too!  (Sometimes in the past a few people have refused to pay, using the argument that TNT is a big company that can absorb the cost of their failure.)  Most people do very well so this is not an issue, but it is always helpful to have a picture of your adorable kids to remind the wanna-be free loaders that you have a family to feed too!  Apparently he has received many compliments on his beautiful family...who can blame them with kids as cute as ours!? :)

Weston and Sophie loved visiting daddy's office, and he even let them sit at his desk!  Weston, of course, immediately found some markers and began to draw...

4. Another thing we did this year for the first time was visit a fireworks booth!  The kids had never been to one, so one night we were able to go visit the booth that the Caron's were running (Taylor and Jason are good friends).  It was impressive!  They did a great job and thus raised a lot of money.     Good for them!                                                                                          

5. There has also been a fair share of general merriment and trouble making between these two:

I don't know why, but this Elmo costume is really popular.  I think I have at least a hundred pictures of the kids wearing it.  I don't know why I keep taking pictures of them being Elmo, except that they are so darn cute in that costume!

 

6. We have also been visiting family.  On the 4th, we went to Grandma Laurie's house.  Uncle Trevor always attempts to avoid the camera, but since he is a kid magnet (and I am always taking pics of the kids), his attempts are generally futile...

Aunt Shae-Leigh was looking particularly beautiful that day.

7. Fireworks, on the 4th of course!!  Usually we invite a bunch of people and make it a social occasion, but this year we decided instead to just stay at home and do fireworks with the kids in front of our own house.  I was initially really disappointed at the idea, but Jason was way to exhausted this year from his extra work load (he took on more territory than he has had in the past), so I just went with it.  To my surprise, it turned out to be super fun!  And the neighborhood kids really enjoyed the extra show, too.  I don't have the proper camera to take a good shot of the actual fireworks, but here is my attempt. Lame, I know!

This was the first year that Weston got into it and actually enjoyed the experience. He really liked sparklers and smoke bombs. Every time I tried to snap a shot of him, he struck a Spider Man pose.

Sophie was afraid of the loud noises this year, so she got to cuddle safely on the couch and watch Tangled.  I came in every few minutes to check on her...

8. Contrary to popular belief, the Season does not end on the 5th of July!  There is much work still to be done.  Meanwhile, since the young women are such an important part of my life, I cannot simply ignore them all for a month!  Especially when two of them just graduated from high school and one turned 18 on July 6.  Since Jason hasn't been around, the kids have been coming with me to visit these lovely ladies... which Weston and Sophie love!

Here is Shawna with Weston and Jessica with Sophie.  This picture is from Shawna's birthday!  Adorable.

9. Lots of doctor's appointments.  There is nothing fun to say about those!  Except, of course, when I had the ultrasound...but I already blogged about that.

10. Shae-Leigh always comes to spend time with us in June and July.  She has come twice already, and is spending the night again tonight... which we are looking forward to!  We want to spend as much time as possible with her since she'll be moving to Utah soon.

So, the marathon is almost over.  We have spent it well, I think!  I don't know how I would make it through without family.  My mom, Jason's mom, and Shae have all been life savers this year - per usual.  I look forward to a sense of normalcy gradually returning.  But until then, I really need to find a way to squeeze in as many chick flicks as possible!