Halloween Pictures!!

I don't have very many pics....I'll have to look at my friend Madi's Facebook to see if she posted any pictures of the party we went to.

But here Orion's costume!! I was actually a big hit, most people knew who he was supposed to be, even if they couldn't remember his name. They all associated him with the movie and that made him so excited!

He would run around singing, "I am JACK the Pumpkin King!!" and sometimes he would be like, "Mom, it's me, Orion, I'm just kidding being Jack, he is my costume."

So....

I dug through my boxes in the the Basement to find my camera cord, only to find out my batteries need to charged. I guess I didn't think about that because I usually just use the SD card reader on my printer, but the laptop doesn't have that luxury, well, it does it just doesn't work....

I'll charge them now and hopefully can figure out how to use my camera cord (I've never used it before) and I can post them tonight.

So lucky us, we are picking up a faint signal of wireless internet in the house, that I will be able to use! At least for now I guess, better than hauling the kiddos to the library to use the internet, or looking creepy sitting in Victor's car across the street.

I'm pretty much just so excited to be able to read all of your updates!! Love you all!

Oh, and I've been asked a few times, but we aren't going to be able to make it for Thanksgiving and the reunion! I'm sad about it, but it's hard for Victor to take work off mid-week, and I just started babysitting a little boy a few weeks ago and I don't want to leave the mom hanging like that...

Update!!

Thank you Pablo and you unsecured connection!!

So, I am writing this on our laptop that conveniently does not pick up an unsecured wireless network in our house. Sometimes Victor and his brother stand by the curb to pick up “Pablo’s” unsecured connection, but since it is snowing outside, I will wait until I can use the library’s free wireless.

We are all moved in, and as settled is as we can be for now. I’m still getting used to the lack of cable tv and internet, but we’ll probably upgrade in the next few weeks.

Halloween was great. Our friends, Madi and Wes hosted our first annual friends Halloween party which was fun. It was supposed to be couples themed but most everyone wasn’t. Victor and I went as Border Patrol and an illegal Mexican immigrant, I’ll post pictures as soon as Madi does… It was so nice on Halloween, it reminded me of the great Halloween’s we had in Arizona. It rained, but wasn’t cold, it was like 70 degrees outside! Orion looked great in his Jack the Pumpkin King costume. Not to brag or anything, but it turned out better than I thought it would. Orion would walk around everywhere singing songs from the movie. It was so cute! Cyrus didn’t really know what was going on, but loved his candies he got! We actually didn’t go to very many houses because of our party we went to and because our first stop was at Victor’s boss’s house, and they always feed us yummy food, which is better than candy to us, and Orion got to sneak like half their bowl of candy because they don’t get very many trick-or-treaters due to the Truck-or-Treating craze.

My First Homemade Halloween Costume.....

....not including that time that Roo and I made bellbottom pants in 6th grade without a pattern....

So what do you think?? I didn't paint his face because it was a family Halloween party and he was just going to be running around playing with kids. He didn't even want to settle down for these pictures, can you tell by his sympathy smile?

He also has some Skeleton hand gloves that make it better! I couldn't get him to keep them on for the picture though!

For those of you that don't know, this has been one of my favorite movies since I was very young, yes, even before if because a "cult classic" (ask my dad if you don't believe me, I'm positive it was him who started it). My friend April didn't believe me that this was ALL ORION'S idea. He started walking around the house singing, "I'm JACK the Pumpkin King" and then he said one day, "Mom, I be Jack the Pumpkin King for Halloween" and I said, "I thought you were going to be Thomas the Train?" and he said, "NO, I be JACK the Skeh-eh-en". So, I couldn't argue with him, and we went to DI to look for stuff for it. I told Victor I wouldn't tell anyone, but the pants are from Limited too (from DI, but from that store originally), I couldn't find any pants in the boys section that were tight enough to look like Jack's, plus they were only $2 :) The suit (it has pants, he's not wearing them) I got from the local kids consignment shop. It was $9....I little more that I expected to pay, but DI and Savers didn't have any his size. But, he is also going to be in Jeff and Courtney's wedding as the Ring Bearer, so maybe he can wear it for that too.

And, yes, I made Zero too. He doubles as a Trick or Treat bag :)

Total cost: $15 (including new church shoes he already needed)

Orion's Halloweens

Brothers

Look at my babies! I can't believe how fast they are growing! We went to our first Halloween party of the season last night and had a BLAST! My camera batteries died and I forgot to charge them so I made Roo take a bunch of pictures of my kids in costume.

I'm so excited for you to see Orion's costume. He changed his mind last minute so we searched Saver's and DI for some great pieces for his costume. I won't tell you what he was yet, I'll wait for the pictures!

Picasa 3 is pretty cool!

My cousin,Lyndsie, introduced me to the new Picasa, and I'm hooked! Look at these cute collages I made of my baby boys!

Moving and Camera Malfunctions...

So....last week the most horrible thing happened to me. .....

Somehow (probably because my kids bang on the keyboard while my camera card is in the printer) my SD card fro my camera got reformatted and deleted ALL of my pictures on it. ALL....every single picture I had from Cyrus's birth to last week.

I seriously was pretty much having a panic attack. So I Googled "SD Card Recovery" and I was able to find a TON of programs for it. However, only the demo to the programs work. Like, it will run the actual diagnostic part, but won't let you save the pictures you recover.

I downloaded the first Demo I found and was able to actually SEE my pictures and that recovery was possible (phew!). So, that was a relief.

BUT.....I didn't want to pay for the download (the program from the first demo I used was $60).

SO...I called Best Buy Geek Squad (seriously, I did) to see what they would charge for recovery. I explained my situation to the lady on the phone and she replied, "SD recovery is impossible." She seriously said that, and she sounded all snobby and stuff, not Geeky like I was expecting. I wanted to ask if I could speak to someone else, but I am SO LAME, when it comes to things like that. I told her a little about what I was able to recover with the demo program and she says, "Oh, well, maybe we can do something, but it might take a long time and I don't know what we would charge, and then recovery is not guaranteed."

Uh, huh, okay. So, I took that as they charge by the hour. I hung up on her and looked for a cheaper program.

So, to make a super long story only sorta long, I was able to find a really good program that was WAY faster than the first one I tried and bought it. It was $40...I guess a small price to pay for 800 pictures of your kids. The good thing though was I was able to use the $40.00 I had earned reading and writing reviews on Ciao to pay for it.

After I retrieved all my pictures I loaded my kids up and went to Wal-Mart to make a CD back up copy. I don't know why I didn't so that a LONG time ago, it's what I usually do with my cards.


Anyway, sorry that was long.

So, I mentioned that we were moving to my inlaws. I haven't taken any picks yet, but the carpet is ready to come in! Victor had connections through a guy at work and was able to get us nice carpet, materials and installation (there aren't even tack strips in the room!) for only $150, so I was was happy about that.

We will probably be moving over this weekend! Orion is unbelievably excited to live at "Uh-La's" (Abuela's, grandma's in Espanol).

I will take pictures of my hard work tomorrow when the carpet goes in!

Proof that my camera still works :)

Eating Spaghetti-O's

Orion said that this was is "Sad Face".....

Coolest Website Ever!

So, I learned about this site on one of my Mom-Blogs. It's a consumer website where you can read different reviews for different products; electronics, appliances, phones, movies, etc.

The cool part though is they pay you for reading, writing, and rating reviews. It's like $1.00 if you write a "full" review (120 words) and 1, 2, 0r 3 cents for the other stuff. They keep track and then you can send it all to your PayPal account.

I signed up yesterday and I have already made $10.00!

Anyway, it's called Ciao and if any of you want to join PLEASE leave me a comment with your e-mail address so I can be your referral, I will earn commission :) Oh, and I have to confirm comments, so I will delete them after so your e-mails aren't on my un-private blog.

Thanks guys!

My Sugar Monster and Potty Training

Cyrus has been SO ornery lately. I don't know what's up with him. So, I left the pantry open today and he, being his curious little self crawled over to it. I let him, because I thought the only thing he could reach were the unopened formula cans, no harm in that.

Well, apparently there was an opened bag of powdered sugar in arms reach. He had fun and it kept him happy.



Cyrus is so funny. He HATES the flash on the camera. He blinks every time I take a picture of him, unless it's a sneak up picture. However just recently he remembers that the camera flashes, and so he closes his eyes BEFORE I take the picture......hence the closed eyes.


Another note....we are trying to Potty Train Orion. Wish me luck!

Do you guys remember......

.........my skinny little man?


Well, look at him now! He is a little over 20 lbs now and doing so well! He is even bigger than Orion was at this age.







In other news.....we are moving!! We are hoping to get some money saved and stuff so we are moving in with Victor's parents. They have had an extra room since Victor's sister got married so we are taking advantage. It's been crazy cleaning out the stuff that's been stored in there and painting and making it livable. I'll take pictures of our little room later! Our lease ends Oct 31st, so we will be out of here by then!!

Cyrus looks like Mommy too!

Back here it was determined that Orion looked more like me by 3%. I thought for sure Cyrus would be more of Daddy, at least I think so. Lately I have had people tell me that Orion looks SO much like his daddy and Cyrus looks like me. What do you think? I'll have to do Orion's again and see what it thinks.

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Exciting!

While I was disappointed to hear about the Harry Potter movie postponed to be released next Summer, I was much more excited to hear about this.

My Mosaic

Here's how it works:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Mosaic Maker. Choose 3 columns with 4 rows.


The Questions & (my answers):
1. What is your first name? Alyssa
2. What is your favorite food? Bajio
3. What high school did you go to? Timpanogos High
4. What is your favorite color? Red
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Johnny Depp
6. Favorite drink? Ice Water
7. Dream vacation? Australia
8. Favorite dessert? Lemon Bars
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Baby Nurse
10. What do you love most in life? My Boys!
11. One Word to describe you. Hungry.......
12. Your flickr name. (yahoo name) (kid version: favorite animal?) Jackalope (they do exist!)

Basically, as you enter your answer into the search box, a selection of pictures will show up. Choose the one that you like the best and enter the URL into the Mosaic maker. After you have all the questions answered, a mosaic will be created that is all about you. (sorta.) Sometimes the pictures were completely random and weird.

1. the lovely alyssa milano, 2. Bajio's Mexican Grill, 3. Advice From on High, 4. Bosque by Twilight Star Trails, 5. More Johnny Depp..., 6. Ice Water Blues, 7. Opera House (Sidney-Sydney-Australia), 8. Lemon Bars, 9. Navy Nurse Holds Baby, 10. For my boys..., 11. Hungry Hippos, 12. HPIM0493

Orion's survey about Mom

1. What does Mommy always say to you?

"put my toys away"

2. What makes Mommy happy?

"babies"

3. What makes Mommy sad?

"when me rery naughty" "when me up high" (he climbs on our entertainment center to push play on his dvds)

4. How does Mommy make you laugh?

"tickles"

5. What was Mommy like when I was little?

"crawl"

7. How tall is Mommy?

"really tall"

8. What does Mommy like to do?

"play with me"

9. What does Mommy do for a job?

"you don't have work, dada have work" (he got mad at me when I asked this one :)

10. What is Mommy's favorites food?

"chilis"(haha, we went there yesterday)

11. What do Mommy and Orion do together?

"play games"

12. How do you know Mommy loves you?

"hold on......mom I have poopoo" (He was sick of this, can you tell?)

The AMAZING Cyrus!

Cyrus never ceases to amaze me. He started scooting at 5 months, the same wee he cut his first tooth, and he just took off from there! He started crawling (with his knees) at 6 months and pulling his self up to things soon after. Right now, he's 7 months old and has 4 teeth (with 4 more coming in, I'll give him a week to cut them all), crawls like a mad man, pulls his self up to almost ANYTHING, and can stand up by only holding on to something with one hand.

No offense to Orion, but he didn't do any of these things this early. He didn't crawl until maybe 9 months. The only thing Orion had on him was weight and hair :)

Orion insisted on trying Cyrus's new shirt on.....

Look at all those chompers!!

Cyrus trying to get in the Tub

Orion's 3rd Birthday!

I cannot believe how fast my baby boy is growing up!! Orion turned 3 on July 9th. We had a small friends party at Chuck E Cheese's after Victor got off work. Orion had a blast and so did all of the adults (it was mostly an adult party.....) together we earned 2,000 tickets! And we stayed until we were kicked out (which was actually an hour after closing time!)

I made Spiderman Cupcakes, with THE BEST recipe ever! I made them coconut with yellow cake mix, coconut pudding and pina colada yogurt. They were a big hit. And yes, I frosted them myself, actually my friend, April, helped with the blue :)

I was super excited to be on my own to make the cake/cupcakes. His other 2 birthday's I've been disappointed because my MiL and SiL INSISTED on getting one (store bought) and I LOVE making and decorating cakes, so I had a lot of fun.

Orion got some great presents, including puzzles (his absolute favorite) and this hilarious Spiderman costume (see pic below), he puts it on and we play Spiderman (he's the "nice" Spiderman and I'm either the "Meanie one" (Venom) or the "Octopus")

Thank you everyone for helping make Orion's Birthday a great one!

Las Vegas Trip

I haven't been doing so swell on posting......anyway, we went to Las Vegas over the 4th of July Weekend and had a BLAST!

Of course, as mentioned in the previous post it started with a trip to the ER. But Orion was okay and SO excited to go to M & M World.

We left on Thursday and got to Las Vegas in a timely manner, which included some screaming and crying, a major poopy diaper and throw up in a bag (THANK YOU! Orion for telling me you needed to barf).

We checked my inlaws into their hotel that I reserved for them (since they wouldn't be there until about midnight) and went to my Aunt Serena's. My Aunt let us stay at her house right outside of Las Vegas even though they were on vacation in AZ at the time!

The Wedding was fun (Victor's cousin) and we had a lot of fun. Some fun things we did there were; Lion Habitat at MGM, M & M World/3-D Movie, Arcade at Excalibur, Adventure Dome at Circus Circus, Slots of Fun 99 cent foot long hot dogs, etc.

So, our A/C in our car went out there (due to our battery being low....) and we had to jump our car with my Uncle Trevor's Suburban before we left home....we have a new battery now though, I'm so glad for a handy mechanic-knowing hubby!

Orion eating fruit snacks

Cyrus climbing around at Serena's

Lions

By the fountains

My happy boy

Me and my boys at M&M World

Orion with the real M&M Race Car

Orion and his "Favorite Color 'Lemanem'"

Meeting Red and Green

Orion's First Trip to the ER

I honestly thought that this day would come alot sooner than it did. Orion has always been a jumper and a climber, so I thought he'd have broken bones or stitches as an infant, but he didn't. On Thursday I was packing the car for our Las Vegas trip and Orion, of course, has to help. Then Victor came home from work. Orion waited for him to park and then rushed to greet him.

Victor was getting something out of the back seat and Orion was playing by the drivers side. Victor closed the door and told Orion to followed him inside. Orion kind of whined and said, "Daddy?!". He is such a tough little kid....anyway, Victor looked back and realized he had closed his fingers in the car door. The big, steel, old Crown Victoria door. He opened the door and freed Orion's fingers and THEN Orion started crying.

We switched kids (I was holding Cyrus) so I could evaluate the damage. They were still attached (that was seriously my first instinct, to check if he still had fingers), but bleeding and pretty swollen. I told Orion I had to take him to the Dr. This made him cry the hardest because he wanted to leave to go to M&M World :)

Luckily we beat the ER rush and were only at the hospital for about 2 hours total (seems like a long time, but not for an ER visit). They made sure he didn't need stitches, checked if he was up to date on his shots and x-rayed his hand, then sent us home with Neosporin and band aids.

He was a big hit with the Dr's and Nurses, and was excited to see all the fun equipment (he is so fascinated by that kind of stuff, maybe he'll be a doctor).

Oh, and luckily he was accepted for CHIP so we didn't have to pay absurd amounts for the visit :)

My FIRST Concert!

Seriously! I went to my first concert last night and it was AMAZING! It was the big celebration of UVSC becoming UVU and Josh Gracin, Collin Ray, and Joe Nichols came a performed! THANK YOU Danny for the tickets! I asked Victor weeks ago to get tickets for this concert and they sold out. Danny called a few hours before it started saying his date couldn't make it and gave us the tickets. His sister had saved spots pretty close in the grass so it was super cool!

My camera isn't that great, but here are some shots I got.

I didn't get any shots of Collin Ray, but is is AWESOME in concert. I wasn't as excited for him at first but he really knows how to get a crowd going! He was by far the most energetic out of all of them!

Josh Gracin

Josh Gracin on the jumbotron

Me and my Baby

Joe Nichols on Jumbotron


Joe Nichols (with cowboy hat)


I LOVE country music, did you know? I wanted to go see Tim McGraw last week and of course wasn't able to get tickets (and they are super expensive!) This I think was way better. It was nice outside and everyone did a great job!

A few video clips

Josh Gracin - Stay With Me

Joe Nichols - The Impossible