Wook wook, Dada, FIVE cars!!!!

Jack has not yet mastered the capacity to make the 'L' sound. So everything you would say with an l at the front of it or pretty much anywhere in the word is missing in action when Jack tries to say it.
'I wuv you, Dada.'

'No wike it, Mama, no wike it.'

'Wet's watch.............Monster-A-wee-ans?' (Monsters vs. Aliens)

Want some.......choco-wit mee-ook, Dada, want some choco-wit mee-ook?'

'One, two, free.'

'Wook wook Dada, A found a am-bwoo-wance.' (Look look father, I located my ambulance.)

Prayer time is also a lot of fun;

'Pwease bwess fam-bweeee, pwease bwess cars'a'running, pwease bwess Dada job an' Mama job...'

'Pwease bwess Bishop Smiff, pwease bwess Pwesident Mooooooon-soooooon..........'

'Pwease bwess Ameeeee and An-fon-eeeeee.........'

'Pwease bwess chips, and nugg-gets and sawsa ketchup......'

'A tank you a nursery, A tank you a fwendsssssssss......'

Jack can also count to 5. Meaning that if you hand him 3 cars and ask him to count them, he says, 'One, two, free. Wook, wook, Mama, FIVE cars.'

Or if there are 10 toes, he says, 'One, two, free, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Wook, wook, Dada, FIVE toes!'

It's either way cute, or I'm a crappy teacher.

Also, the only pronoun Jack possesses is 'she.' So that means that anytime anything happens to anybody, 'she's' coming, or 'she's' here.

As in, 'Wook wook, Dada, amboowance. She's taking na merrrrrrrr-gency. See a'doctor.'

Yes, Jack.

'Goes whee-ooo, whee-oooo.'
'Wook WOOK Dada, FIRETRUCK!!!!! Goes wheeee-oooooo, wheee-oooooo!!!'

BRASIL!!!! Warning; Delicious Ahead.

One of our favorite places to get our grub on is a Provo establishment called Tucano's. It is a Brazilian style churrascaria; basically you sit and get your drinks delivered to you, you get your salad

from the salad bar, and then you get several different wait staff that bring you meat, piping

hot, fresh off the grill.
Each table has a short little dowel, painted red on one end and green on the other, with yellow in the middle. If you have your little dowel with the red side facing up, it means you don't need any more meat, green means go go go delicious.
They have all kinds of goodness, from bacon wrapped turkey to filet mignon to teriyaki beef to brisket to breaded cod in a mango salsa to chicken wings to, well, you get the picture.

There's also Brazilian lemonade and great desserts, and their salad bar is excellent. I like the Waldorf salad the best, but let's face it, you don't go there for the salad bar. Also, I would be remiss if i spoke about Tucano's and didn't mention the grilled pineapple-it's Heatheraise's favorite.
Kia Monster.
Jack Monster.

Going Back

When you move away from home, there always remains some nostalgia for the places where your favorite food memories reside. The same goes for your favorite places to grub in college, or your favorite cheap eats in grad school, etcetera.

The above picture is me, my college roommate Dan (back in Provo from med school, and a friend of his) eating at Cafe Rio. I like to call it Cafe River, but that's just me. Dan was able to make a quiet quick trip back to the place where we both went to college, and looked me up, and where did we eat? Cafe River.
If you peruse the facebook group 'You know you're from El Paso if.....' you'll soon come to a line about "You know you're from El Paso if the first place you eat at when you get back is Chico's Taco's."

This fine culinary masterpiece you see Heather enjoying is the real deal-Chico's Taco's. To learn more about this place, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zosJA_FGDAY, or or just Google the term. I can't believe this place actually made the Food Networks 'Best Thing I Ever Ate With my Hands," but there you go. Would'ya believe after five years of marriage and numerous trips to El Paso, I realized I had never taken Heather to eat there. That situation has been remedied, and let me tell you, they were as good as I remembered.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.....deep fried crunchy tacos swimming in sauce and topped with the cheapest yellow cheap cheese very little money can buy-there's nothing else like it.
Come'on, you know you want some.

The Binky Wars; Jack 1, Parental units 0

First of all, lets introduce the combatants. On one side, you have the binky(s). Made of colorful plastic, weighing in at a few ounces.

On the other side, you have Heather, tall blue-eyed-brunette, weighing in at, hey honey, how much do you weigh? Never mind, I found your driver's license. Let's see, hear we go-looks like-130. Yeah, that sounds about right.

The Conflict; Heather hates the binky. What it ever did to her I may never understand. I kinda don't care one way or the other, or I thought I didn't, until she put Operation Kill The Binkies into effect.

You see, Jack did not take well to no binky. Heather heard from a friend about how she did it. I guess this friend kept talking to her munchkin about how he was a big boy, and he didn't need it, etc. Finally, one day, on a drive in her mommy wagon, she asked the kid if he was ready for the Big Step. The kid said, "Well yes, Mother, yes I am (or something like that)." So she rolled down the window and the kid chucked his binky right out and never asked for it again. AMAZING. So Heather was heck bent on doing the same thing for Jack. She talked up what a big boy he was and yada yada yada. Garbage day, the binkies went into a bag and Jack chucked them into a garbage bin, and they watched as a garbage truck hauled them away. Except he started crying right after and saying "My binky, MY BINKY!"

Hmmm........experiment fail.

We lasted about a good week, wherein the Jack-Attack learned new tricks like stalling (go potty, change-a diaper, more milk, rinse, repeat), and crying in his pillow. Result, heartbreak. Really, it was me that finally caved. I went and bought my almost-3 yo boy a new set of binkies. (PS, they don't come in that age group, they stop at 18 months-I guess that's when commercially its the acceptable age for breaking the vicious binky cycle).

We'll see how round two goes. Heather just hopes she doesn't have a teenager binky problem.

Bang Bang

While my brother-in-law was in town, we got to go out in the desert and shoot. It was great. My buddy Jason took us and we totally owned those soda cans, man, they didn't stand a chance.
We had a little shooting contest with Jason's 22-250. From about 100 yards, we took 5 shots at a target hanging in a tree. I whiffed on all of mine, and so did Jesse. Jason? Of course he nailed it on the first shot. It was his gun after all. Turkey. Jason, we need to go again-oh wait, you don't read my blog. Amanda, please tell Jason we need to go again.

The Great Length of '09

Ever since I stopped attending BYU on campus (still have those darn 5 credits left-dang you physical science!) I have had longer hair and the facial fuzz. What I have been doing is shaving my hair in the summer months, and then not really doing anything with it starting around October. When it gets hot, the buzzers come out again.
This year, however, it was not a really warm spring. It was actually really cool and rainy, so I never got the huge itch to cut the mop. Plus, it became kind of a challenge to see how long I could go without cutting my hair.
All good things must come to an end, and so it was with the 70's doo. On the day that we took the fall pics, while everyone was preparing dinner, I buzzed.
It felt liberating, like it always does.
Ahhh, freedom.

Cousins!

Better pics, thanks to Tricia. Only now I can't figure out how to delete the crappy pics. Welcome to the blinking 12:00 VCR lights for my generation. Stupid blogger.

Anyways, thanks Tricia!!


Hey, Jason ever heard of 'red-eye reduction?'

Yeah, actually I have, um but, somehow the picture still looked this way.

Also, you can fix this by editing the picture.

Yeah, thanks, I tried that too, and it still didn't work. Short of opening the picture with paintbrush and coloring her eyes, I don't know what else to do.

Awwww, cuteness.
And still more cuteness.
This one is my fave, however.

Fam-Blee Pictures 2009

We took advantage of Utah's beautiful fall foliage and the fact that most of my family was in town to get some great fam-blee (Jack's word) pictures. Not only did we snag some great pics of each other, the wildlife was pretty, too.
Good gracious, man-is that your real hair? Get a haircut you hippie! What do you think this is, a shampoo commercial? The 70's called, they want their hairstyle back...........Heather, at least you look good, but girl, you gotta so something 'bout your man-he's getting kinda nappy.
More deer and pretty trees. It was actually pretty cold, everybody was a trooper for sticking it out. We were all shivering in jackets, then we'd take them off and hurry and snap some pictures then get back in the jackets.
I think this is the one that made our Christmas card.
Ah, Jackers. Thanks for holding still long enough for this.
I don't know what he's doing here......
.............or here.............
..............but I think this one is my favorite.
Dad, just missing you in this one. You need to come visit, we've got tons to show you.

Peeps in Town

In honor of my graduation from nursing school, mi familia (minus my pops) came to visit us. All the way from The Pass of the North. This is a picture of my twin sisters, Fredica with the long hair and Davina with the hair pulled up. Gorgeous, huh? (How am I related to them? Seriously....)
Fun and funny girls. Also, some of my best friends.
This is the Carrera familia, plus my moms. Jesse (Davi's husband), is my FAVORITE brother in law. Ever. Also pictured, Julian and Kia, Davi and Jesse's beautiful progeny.
This is me and the Mama Bird, wandering around at the Riverwoods mall, after feasting at Tuscano's.
Jack and Kia get along so well, it's really cute. Which helps, because they're gonna spending a week with each other here soon.........
Kia is about 5 months older that Jack. She sure is cute, huh?
So, we bring out some of Jack's old toys from when he was a wittle bubba, and guess who hogs it all? As you can see pictured here, Jack and Kia are front and center in the middle of the baby bobber, and Julian is pushed out to the side. Great.

Future Construction Worker? Or Fider-Fighter?

Our 12 building condo unit is expanding to lucky number 13, and during the construction, there have been a myriad of construction type vehicles just hanging around waiting for Jack to play his little heart out.
Jack loves him some excavator-or, as he used to call them, eh-kiss-vator. He actually is better now, but we miss the way he used to say it.

"Wook, wook, Mama, EH-KISS-VAY-DOR!!-Wow, das HUGE!!"

"Yes, Jack, it is huge.
He screamed like a banshee when it was time to drag him off this thing.
These pictures were taken sometime in October or some such, but recently we had a fire alarm go off at our place, also due to previously mentioned construction. I guess when they test the alarm, it causes a water pressure fluctuation blah blah blah, bottom line-our alarm goes off. And if you have ever heard our alarm, you know that there is no ignoring it. Heather was at home with Jackers, on her way to a mommy lunch when the alarm went off, so she was okay and on her way out anyway. Then, magical moment, she realized that if she waited, the fire truck would come.............

It you trigger the alarms, the firetrucks will come.

And Jack-Attack nearly lost his little mind. The firefighters, or 'fider-fiders,' as Jack refers to them, came over and talked to him, gave him stickers, and generally made the kids' day. Driving away, they had their lights on for him and waved at him and really made him happy.
Here's to the future, and endless possibilities.