When Halloween Costumes Aren't So Cute Anymore...

We bought Gavin's Halloween costume last week. It's a dragon and he absolutely loves it! Originally, he was telling me he wanted to be Superman, which was really confusing me because I don't even think he knows who Superman is! Plus, I had looked all over and was having a really hard time finding a Superman costume in his size (and I really didn't want to make it, being as uncrafty as I am!), so you can imagine my relief when we found this dragon costume at Old Navy, and he fell in love with it. And fortunately, I haven't heard anything about Superman since!

Well, this morning (just like many other days since we bought the costume), Gavin saw it hanging up in his closet and wanted to wear it. So we put it on him and he was running around the house roaring like a dragon. This was the first time Ty had ever seen Gavin in his costume and he was laughing pretty hard at him, so I assumed everything was okay and I went to make Gavin's bed. Well, the next thing I know, I hear Ty screaming bloody murder from his room, so I ran in to see what was going on. The moment I walked into the room, Gavin - being the brutally honest toddler he has become - quickly blurted out, "I bit him!" I was furious, especially because Ty was still screaming hysterically, looking at his brother with complete fear. So instead of giving Gavin a spanking followed by a 1/2 hour timeout (which I probably would have done based on how mad I was!), I decided I needed to pick up Ty and comfort him first, and just try to talk to Gavin about the situation the best I could while taking care of Ty. So the first question I asked him was, "Why did you bite your little brother? You hurt him!" You can imagine my reaction when Gavin said, "Cuz I'm a dragon, Mommy! Dragons bite with mouth!" I was shocked because the most he has ever seen of dragons has been on Dragon Tales, and trust me, those dragons do not bite! If anything, they cry and give hugs and act like anything but dragons! I guess I read Puff the Magic Dragon to him once too, but once again, he's a nice dragon! So, I decided it was time to sit down and talk about pretend, and how we can pretend to be a dragon, but we can't actually do what the dragons do. I honestly have no clue if he understood what I said, but I'm hoping and praying that he did for Ty's sake! (And just a side note, Ty really didn't get any wounds from all this, I think it just terrified him.)

Up until this point, I really thought Gavin's dragon costume was a great idea just for the fact that he loved it and actually wanted to wear it, unlike his past Halloween costumes. But today, I'm thinking that the Superman one would have been a much better choice, even if I had to make it! :) Until next time! -Ash

**I'm sticking some more pictures down here. After all of this happened - Gavin was disciplined and Ty's tears were wiped away - we decided to put on Ty's costume too and take some pictures! (Sorry you will see the costumes again on our Halloween post, they were just too cute to not put on here!)

Gavin and Tyler's Celebrity Look-alikes

This is for my dad, who requested we do the celebrity look-alikes for Gavin! And of course we couldn't leave Tyler out! (If you haven't seen mine or Greg's, look at our last post.) These, however, aren't nearly as funny as ours. In fact, I am a bit concerned that all of Ty's are girls, along with most of Gavin's! I think they both look very boyish, so I'm a bit concerned/confused.

Gavin's:



Tyler's:



Until next time! -Ash

Our Celebrity Look-alikes

So, I was looking at my sister's friend's blog today and found this on her site. I thought it would be fun to try, but I never knew how absolutely HILARIOUS it would be! Basically, you go to MyHeritage.com, download a picture of yourself, and it comes back with the celebrities that you look most like. However, I think something's a little off, which you will see when you look at these!!! So here's mine...



I must say, I am incredibly flattered to hear that I look like Kate Hudson and Christie Brinkley, and even that Smith girl - whoever she is! But seriously, will somebody PLEASE tell me how I look like Fred Durst or Nick Lachey?! I won't complain too much about Nick cuz he is quite attractive :) , but Fred Durst I am so confused by! Oh, but that's not the least of my complaints! Did you see Mother Theresa up there?! Wow, apparently my 2 kids have aged me more than I ever knew! :)

Now, for even more laughs, here's Greg's...



I couldn't stop laughing when I first saw these!!! Wow, apparently Greg is like 6 different nationalities! First, I find it quite hilarious that his looks are 70% comparable to Adriana Lima, but oh well, she is quite pretty! But then, will somebody tell me what's up with Alek Wek and Wayne Brady?! Isn't Alek African and Wayne African American? And then, there's Ricky Martin who is Hispanic (but I'm okay with that one cuz I can actually see a resemblance!), and some Hafez al-Assad (I'm not sure who he is), but he sounds like a member of Al Qaida, which is a bit frightening! Oh, and we can't forget Leos Janacek, who has to be dead since that picture looks like it was taken around 1900 (not to mention, he looks like Einstein). Seriously, I am SO lost as to the connection between all these people and Greg. The only person who comes even close (at least in gender and race) is Bill Paxton, and I still don't think they look a thing alike!

For years, I have always been told I look like Kirsten Dunst, and Greg has been told (at least by me and my mom) that he looks like a mix between Matt Damon and Kevin Bacon. But after doing these, I have come to find that apparently we were completely wrong! Instead, Greg looks like Alek Wek and I look like Mother Theresa! :) We obviously do a good job of hiding our true looks... Until next time! -Ash

One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure

Yesterday was our annual family garage/yard sale. And today, I find myself asking, "Will somebody remind me why we keep doing this?" Maybe that is just because we had it at my house, which we have never done before, but seriously! My recovery today is probably comparable to recovering from surgery! Okay, well maybe not, but I really never thought I would be this tired after a little garage sale! Here's how the whole experience went...

It all started on Friday night when Lindsay and my mom came up to help me get ready. I had asked a few friends if they would like to bring things over, so they did... only, they left without putting all their things out on tables, and they even forgot to price a lot of things which only made more work for us! Linz had to head to bed at about 9:00 because she had to work bright and early in the morning (but don't worry, she did take care of her fair share!), so it was down to myself, my mom, and Greg (after much convincing) for the rest of the night. At about 9:30, I figured out that we had so much stuff that we were going to need more tables. It was extremely hard to leave all the work we had left behind to go searching for a table at Walmart, but we did and I now have a brand new $45 table which I may never use again! (Ha ha, I better find a use for it for that price! Lindsay says I should take up scrapbooking, but of course, I beg to differ...)

So, we got back at 10:30 and went right back to working, and with much begging and pleading, we got Greg to come out and help us. However, looking back now, I'm not sure if that was a help or a hindrance! He sat there and talked about how much "crap" we had at this thing, and that if we wanted to be successful and really make our money's worth, we needed to do some marketing. Here were some of his ideas: Have a crap shoot! In this, the customer finds the items they want, which they then throw about 20 feet into a tiny circle. If they make it into the circle, they get the item for free. If they miss, they have to buy the item for twice the price! :) Another idea was to tape up a bunch of boxes completely full of our junk that we knew would never sell, and give them to customers that spent $50 or more. And last, he suggested that we do a "Drive By Crapping." Yeah, it is not as bad as it sounds! :) He said that anything that didn't sell by the end of the garage sale, we should take the corner and chuck into cars that have their windows down. Seriously, my mom and I were about peeing our pants laughing! And of course, that only made us go even slower! We finally got to bed at about 1:00 AM.

Well, the next day was a busy one! We got a lot of interesting people, to say the least! Seriously, I think they expected us to give them our things for free! One time, Lindsay and I were sitting at our cash table and a lady came up with a pair of kid's knit shorts. They were in great shape, had hardly been worn, and were marked at 50 cents. Well, when I told the lady her total (a measly FIFTY CENTS), she flipped out and said, "Those are worth no more than a quarter! And that's all I'll give you!" Wo... Midol alert! And we had a handful of other customers just like that!

We ended the day with a lot of "crap" left over (as Greg would say), which we ended up taking to DI, but we all did pretty well. I made about $100 - not too bad for all that crap, huh Greg? But honestly, I'm so glad it's done. It was a long two days! Hopefully I got rid of enough junk that I won't have to do this for another 3 or 4 years! Until next time! -Ash

Missing Logan!

It's funny how the saying "the grass is always greener on the other side" can be so true! I moved to Logan in the fall of 2001 for school, met Greg and married him in December of 2002, and we lived there until July 2006. Most of the time, I will admit that I complained about living there saying that it was way too small town for me. I was always complaining about the limited shopping (but only because they didn't have a Target or Gap, which are both crucial for me!) and about all the quiet and empty space that surrounded our neighborhood. We literally had a cow pasture right behind our backyard! So of course, I was always waiting for that day when we would move back down to the Wasatch Front and I could feel like I lived in civilization again! So when Greg got transferred to the Riverdale store and we sold our house last summer, I was so excited and thought life couldn't get much better. Well, this is where the phrase "the grass is always greener on the other side" comes in. After being down here for about a month, both Greg and I really started to miss Logan and it finally hit me that I should have enjoyed living up there instead of always complaining about it! Instead of hating the small town feel, the open space, and the quiet, I totally miss it now! (Of course, maybe that is because we live near a busy street, the Ogden Airport, and train tracks now!) Moving down here also made us realize how down-to-earth people are up there - there is very little competition compared to down here. And even after 14 months of living down here (including finally getting to know our neighbors, having more shopping - including Target and Gap -, and making friends), we are still missing it and looking for any opportunity possible to go back to visit! So we were lucky to be up there twice in the past 5 days!

The first time, we went up to have dinner with my family the night before my Dad competed in the Lotoja bike race (he rode from Logan to Jackson Hole!). My parents actually picked me up early that afternoon so I spent the day with them, and Greg met up with us later. Just driving around Logan was honestly hard for me! I really miss it up there! There are just so many memories of going to school and having Gavin that it made me wish we had never moved. We went to Iron Gate Grill that night, one of our all-time favorite restaurants in Logan, and even saw people from our old ward. It was great to get to do all of that again, but it all made it that much harder too!

Then yesterday, my best friend Kyla called me. She moved up to Logan the same time I did, got married in 2004, and has lived up there ever since. When we were on the phone, we got talking about how we haven't gone out to dinner together in a long time and she said, "Well, what are you guys doing tonight?" Of course, Greg had homework as usual but we decided it would be fun to go hang out for a while! So, we went up to Logan AGAIN for the second time in a week! It was so much fun! We went to Cafe Sabor, another yummy local restaurant in Logan, and even stopped by to see Kristin at her apartment. And once again, it made us miss Logan!

Now I know what my entire family is thinking right now - what is wrong with this girl?! They heard me complain more than anybody about Logan. I guess it just takes moving somewhere like Roy where pipe bombs are left on street corners and SWAT teams have to surround a house with a homicidal man inside to make you realize just how great we had it in Logan! :) Maybe one day we will make it back. In fact, Gavin is starting to sound like us! Everyday for the past week, he has been asking if we can go back to Logan, no joke! Until next time! -Ash