COMING SOON...

We're back from Mexico and had an amazing time! Diving in underground freshwater pools, hanging on the beach, more tacos than anyone can stand, swimming with sea turtles, exploring ancient ruins, biking in the jungle, tons of stuff to blog about. I need to get the pictures organized and I will give a wonderful play by play of all our adventures soon. Stay tuned while I organize my crap for the next couple of days.

Let the Itri summer of fun begin!!

Tax season's over, the weather is getting warmer, and we're ready to have fun this summer!!
First off, we're going on vacation, WITHOUT the kids. We keep telling everyone we're going to Cancun, because they know where that is, but technically, we're going to a beach town a few miles further south on the same coast, called Tulum. This is what it looks like:


It's just as nice as Cancun, but without the crowds, which is utterly awesome since both Lisa and Scott hate crowds. Why do we hate crowds? Go to walmart on a Saturday afternoon or a Holiday and ask that again. Observe exhibit A:



Just LOOKING at this picture is making me grind my teeth. My issues with crowded grocery stores are even worse than my road rage, a weakness that will probably get me shot by some old lady packing heat.



Anyway, the fewer people on the beach, the better. So that's the plan. We're taking off next Friday and we'll be gone 9 days. Am I excited? Obviously. The only problem? I'm going to miss my babies. Yes it will be wonderful to take a break, and yes sometimes I want to slam my head against the wall in frustration at the quirks of motherhood from time to time, but I love my little turds. Not to mention my son is more addicted to me than Lindsey Lohan is to crack. I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back, it's incredibly endearing, and a little empowering, but also makes day to day life inconvenient. The fact that he's a Momma's boy is an understatement. Example? Every time I leave the room to go to the bathroom he bursts into tears. I wish I were exaggerating. The only way we survived Disneyland last October was the fact that I could carry him in the sling, thereby making him feel like Mommy was holding him all day.



Anyway, I'm a little nervous about how my parents are going to handle him during his emotional turmoil. As we speak he's clawing his way into my lap while I type because he thinks it's mandatory to force himself into my lap whenever I sit down for longer than 5 minutes. Honestly though, Scott and I really need to get away. Especially because we hadn't seen much of each other the last 4 months or so because of tax season and his working so hard, so I guess we'll see what happens. When it comes to making time to hang out with your spouse, you've gotta do what you've gotta do.
So that's about it for what's on our mind lately, probably by the next post I'll have cool pictures of our adventure on the Coast of Mexico.

On other news:

2 weeks ago I DID get to hang out with some of my cute gal pals from the high school days, and it had been a super long time since I'd seen all three of them, so it was a treat to catch up on old times and enjoy each others company. Not only that, but I remembered to bring a camera!



The only other thing that's happened in the past month was the MUSE concert on the 5th, which I went to with my sister in law Jenna. If you wanna see pictures of those, they are on her blog on my family linklist to the right...under the names, Mike and Jenna. She already did a whole cute post about it so if you care, you can read all about what we did, how the concert was, and the poser in the green headband who we made fun of the whole time.
...Okay okay, I'll let you see what he looked like. Yes I took a picture of his stupidity, he deserved it.

Gotta love the Utah preppy boy trying to go for the Brett Michaels look. What a tool.

So I guess that's all I've got for the month of April. It's been a pretty good month. We're contemplating on going to Philly in the middle of June, and actually bringing the kids, so they can enjoy the beach with us too, that way we don't rip them off out of a summer vacation. That's not set in stone yet though. My poor babies. I'm so nervous...I don't know how to not worry about them every second of the day. This will be weird.

Easter

So much to say, but very little time. However, since I'm trying to be better at blogging, I'll post a little at a time. I will be continually adding to this post as time continues.

GENERAL CONFERENCE was survived this year. It gets harder and harder when you have kids, as I've noticed, but when you try and do what's right, the Lord blesses you, and even lets you hear parts of the talk, that perhaps, are the parts you needed to hear the most anyway.
Crystal is old enough that we can distract her with coloring activities. We printed up a bunch of coloring conference pages on Sugardoodle.net to keep her busy. For those of you with kids who are unaware of this gem of a website, it's fabulous, and helps your kids get some further involvement in conference. I would love to pick apart all the talks I loved and why, but I don't want to bore you. I am, however reading a talk everyday already thanks to LDS.org and love that I come across things that I didn't notice while hearing it. As a mother, conference was particularly touching and it made me cry several times, like only the gospel can seem to do to me.

EASTER EGG DIPPER TREATS
I made these to be festive for Easter, and they were really good, and looked absolutely adorable in the kids Easter baskets! Super cheap and easy too!!


Here are some pics of my family and my kids in their Easter clothes for your enjoyment:

Why my passport pictures suck

10 years ago I was an 18-19 year old punk rock girl who enjoyed being loud, having fun, and pushing peoples buttons. The joke however, was on me because the way I looked was recorded for all to see for the next ten years.
THIS is my passport picture from 10 years ago:

Okay, so all my hair is to one side with dark roots exposed, I have bushy eyebrows...probably to match my furry collar, and I look like I'm about to make a smart alec remark to the photographer, but other than that, it's not that bad, just really dated. At least the skin color is accurate, unlike my current one.
You'd think that with the next picture, I'd be prepared. Here's what happened. I wore white instead of black this time, my hair was all the same color and I wore red lipstick. The "photographer" tried to put my hair behind my hears for me, but some was sticking out. I was also informed that I wasn't allowed to show any teeth, and I needed a closed mouth smile. The flash made the lipstick pop out a little too strongly...but not too bad. I looked at the pic and thought it wasn't too awesome, but I figured I could live with it. Wrong. Here's why:
When the passport people mailed the actual passport to me, they COMPLETELY washed out my face, making my nose virtually disappear. Not to mention adding wavy blue lines in the front. Also, the black hair, red lipstick, vampire white face doesn't do much for me at all. I've decided that if Michael Jackson and Marilyn Manson had a baby together, it would look like my passport picture. Here's proof:
This is Marilyn's mugshot:


Here is Michael:


And here, ladies and gentlemen, is my passport pic:

Scary how much I look like the two of them isn't it? Especially Michael. Go, scroll back up, look at it again, and then look at me. If you take Marilyn's hair and mix it with Michael's awesome make up, you get this.
My sister suggested I wear mime makeup and cover my nose when I show them my passport at the airport, so they'll be able to recognize me. I'm thinking she has the right idea. The best part? I get to live with this super hot picture for another 10 years. Wonder how bad the 40 year old pic will look, since apparently they're progressively getting worse.

Birthdays and Such

So March is the month of birthdays in my family. All my brothers, and my husband, are all born in March. This means, lots of cake. I cheated on my diet, and ate chocolate cake for dinner on my husband's birthday, which caused me to gain back 2 of the 8 pounds I lost. Boooo!!!
You don't understand. It's a lot of work for me just to loose a pound, so this was a slap in the face. You might want to ask yourself, "How can she gain 2 pounds from a piece of cake?" You make a valid point. The problem is, I had FOUR pieces of cake, because it tasted freaking amazing, and for the 10 seconds it took me to eat all four pieces, I was a frantic, crazed, wide eyed lunatic, who lost all sense of responsibility.
When it comes to making up for days where I fall off the diet wagon, I always say, don't do the crime if you can't do the time. This has caused me to intensify my workouts, and even resort to waking up early in the morning, to have more time to torture myself with treadmills, aerobics and yoga. (Nooooo!!!)
Most people who know me can tell you that I'm NOT a morning person. Causing me to look, and act much like my 21 month old son when he's sleepy:


(This looks much cuter on him than it does me.)

Here's a picture of my man and the two kids on his birthday.

Even though we had a birthday celebration with some family in the middle of the week, on his actual birthday, we did our own, private little family thing at Chili's restaurant, which by the way wasn't very good. Seth was tired and acted like a poop head and Crystal egged him on by fighting with him over who got the red crayon to color on the kids menu with. Even though the food was blah, and the kids were double blah, we still enjoyed ourselves cause we actually got out of the house together. So somehow we came home happy.
I think our biggest problem, is we're addicted to "The Texas Roadhouse" restaurant, where you get high quality food for your money. No other food tastes better than it lately. So that's where we went to eat on Wednesday with my family, to celebrate his, and my brother Jared's birthday.

Anybody who lives in Utah and hasn't eaten there is missing out, and I truly feel sorry for them. Really.
Even though I complain about gaining two stupid pounds, I'm actually really glad that Scott had a good birthday. It's hard with tax season and his working so hard, for him to relax and enjoy himself. I love that man. He truly is my best friend, and getting though life's daily adventures is never boring when he's by my side.

Leprechaun Bread.

This picture is of Irish soda bread. I wanted to make it for St Patty's day yesterday because it was Irish and thought it would be somewhat festive. My daughter helped me make it. She poured the cups of flour, sugar, salt; helped me crack the eggs, stirred the pot, everything. I've never tried having her help me bake before because it never occurred to me. I'm usually so focused on what I'm doing and having it done fast and perfectly, that I don't have my kids help me nearly as often as I should. I'm working on that.
Anyway, we added a little bit of green food coloring to make it green for St. Patrick's day, and we called it Leprechaun Bread. What I didn't anticipate, was that with the white floured top, and green insides, that the bread would look like mold, which it did. My daughter could barely eat one piece without gagging. I took a small bite and it tasted fine, like bread, but it just looked awful. Scott wouldn't eat it either. I would have eaten it myself, cause like I said, it tasted good, but I'm on a diet and can't eat it.
I had to make the best of a bad situation, so before bed, we left the leprechaun bread out for the leprechauns to eat. While the kids were asleep I dumped the bread but left the crumbs in the pan. I left a thank you card from our "house leprechaun", that read:
Dear Crystal, thank you for making me the bread. It was delicious. Hope you had a great St. Patrick's day.
Then I drew a picture of a little leprechaun on it instead of signing it "from the leprechaun"...which didn't sound right. I also left out a few chocolate gold coins for her to eat in the now empty bread pan.
Her smile this morning was from ear to ear. She kept giggling at how great it was that the leprechaun liked her.
So in spite of my baking blunder, I managed to make a bad situation into a good one. Hope you all had a great St. Patrick's day.

Can the words "guilty pleasure" and "workout" both be in the same sentance?

So many of my friends know that I'm not afraid of working out at home to a cheesy aerobics video. This video, however is really cheesy. It's called
"Ministry Of Sound: Pump It Up! The Ultimate Dance Workout [DVD]"

This is what the DVD cover looks like. See? Cheesy.


At first I found the blond barbie like figures in the sports bra's slightly ridiculous along with some of the "dance" movements that the workout entails. There's another blond in the group who's in the video which they seem to have omitted from the cover. I wonder if that pisses her off every time she looks at it. To be fair, she has three brunettes in there too. (If you count the gay guy in the green shorts). This is a little off the subject, but why are the blonds all in two piece outfits and the brunettes in one piece ones? The only brunette belly you see is the one in the ugliest 80's outfit out of all of them, which is saying a lot. I dig the leg warmers though.
Anyway, after giving this workout a try (because, being the curious person that I am, it was necessary to try it) I liked it. I started mixing it in with my other workouts during the week and like has now progressed into love. Since it's a workout, our relationship is mostly physical. ;) If you do all the sections in a row (which ends up to be just under an hour) it's actually a good workout, and I enjoy listening to her somewhat soothing Australian accent. Accents in general make me happy. Another thing I love? Is that through the whole workout she's grimacing. I don't know if she was attempting to smile and can't cause she's working hard, or simply that she doesn't care to hide that she's sweaty and tired. Either way, I love it cause I don't feel like a looser when I get a little winded. So for your viewing enjoyment, I am embedding a 9 minute clip of the DVD on here so you can see what it looks like. You obviously don't have to watch all of it, but if you're curious, here's a peek.

Apologies and Neglect

So apparently it's been over 9 months since we've done anything on this blog. This could be attributed to laziness, neglect, and simple distraction. I'm sitting here and wondering to myself, if I should even bother trying to update what's been up with us the last seven months...I probably only have 2 people left who even look at this blog anymore. Nonetheless, it's good to keep track of life, so for the greater good (and the fact that my son is napping on the couch, thereby impeding me from running errands until he wakes up) I'm going to give a quick overview.

JULY 2009
Um...July was pretty boring, but at least there was sun. We celebrated the 4th with family and also the 8th was Lisa's sister's birthday and we went to one of our favorite places, Tucanos. Here's some quick peeks.
This one is me with Seth on a blanket watching the fireworks on the 4th. Please excuse my ugly face. Not all pictures of people are flattering.


This one is of the family eating Tucano's for Denise's birthday:


So in the quickest nutshell possible, that was July. Okay moving on

AUGUST 2009
The only things I remember happening in August were Crystal's first game of T-ball and a quick trip to Vegas where we ate as much seafood as we could possibly stand.
Here's Crystal:


and here's the seafood:

The trip to Vegas ended up being a pain thanks to our one year old son. We were just staying the weekend, but on the second night he was more hyper and loud than ever. He refused to go to sleep and cried all night. Since we were sharing the hotel suite with Lisa's parents, we realized we were keeping them up, so around 3 or 4 in the morning we packed up and headed back to Utah a little early. It was a grumpy ride home. Oh the joys of parenthood.

SEPTEMBER 2009....
Can't remember a dang thing. Sorry. *snickering* Oh well. There's a month of our lives lost forever. I'm sure all 2 of the readers we have left are distraught.

OCTOBER 2009
I participated in the annual breast cancer walk in SLC with my sister. I'm not a big fan of wearing pink but I did for this. I love pink on other girls, I think they look cute in it, but I feel like one of those desperate housewives on that lame TV show whenever I wear it. (No offense to anyone who loves that show...I may have just lost one of my two readers with that comment.)



Our highlight for October was our trip to Disneyland. It's the second time we've gone in a row and we had a great time with the kids. After we got off the plane we made our usual stop at the beach for a day. This year was much warmer and it was fun. My only complaint is the beach was really dirty and I got GUM stuck on the back of my shorts when I sat in the sand!! Grossest thing ever!! I should have taken pics but I was too mad about it at the time.




That night we went out to the cheesecake factory to eat dinner. The major problem is that it was 10 at night, which was a horrible idea when you have kids as small as ours. This is the first night Seth screamed and embarrassed the crap out of us. Unfortunately it wasn't the last.



My friends Paula and Maqueca with their families planned their trip around the same time so we all got to hang out and see each other for a little bit, which was also a treat.


During that trip we also participated in what turned out to be the craziest dinner ever when we came to Tony Roma's with the whole crew after a full day at Disney. The kids were all loud and hyper.

Notice in this picture that our kids are all squirming to get out of our arms. This is what the whole dinner was like. It was insane, but it's a great memory looking back.

Alas, this is only a small sad preview of all the Disney pics we have. Unfortunately since I have to play catch up I'm going to have to stop posting them for now and maybe publish a small movie of the trip at another time and post it later.

Of course there was also Halloween in October too.

Seth was obsessed with these little dolls that his Grandpa bought him. They scream and make evil laughs when you squeeze them. He thought they were the coolest thing ever.


Our whole family dressed up and we had a mini Halloween party at our house with Scott's family. We ate good food, watched the Phillies play baseball, and watched a scary movie. It was a lot of fun.










NOVEMBER 2009...
All I can remember was thanksgiving. This was the year Scott's family was supposed to spend thanksgiving together, but that didn't pan out due to lack of money and conflicting schedules, so the day before thanksgiving we invented the "Itri Pre-Thanksgiving Pasta Pig Out." Which was also a lot of fun. We ate all Italian food and played games and watched the movie Angels and Deamons. We're going to have to repeat that party next year.





Thanksgiving was spent at my parents house. Aside from the food, we watched our favorite movie to watch on thanksgiving, "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles." Anybody who travels frequently understands why that movie is so fantastic. Plus you cant beat the Steve Martin and John Candy combination. My parents already had Christmas decorations up and Seth was terrified of the giant nutcrackers they had on display. It was hilarious. Here's a video of him overcoming his fear:


That thanksgiving night we also went home and put our Christmas tree up. The kids loved it. It's fun having kids during the holidays because they make it feel more complete and that Christmas magic you felt as a kid comes back to life.






DECEMBER 2009
Was packed with stuff to do as most December's go. Scott and I celebrated our 5th anniversary on the 17th. We went to our favorite restaurant, "The Texas Roadhouse" and to a movie. The kids were with my parents all day long. It was fabulous and one of the best anniversaries we've ever had in my opinion. Even though we didn't do anything really fancy, we had a blast just laughing and hanging out together. Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures. I just want to add that we're pretty proud of ourselves for those 5 years. All marriages require work, but we are still very much in love with each other in spite of our flaws, and are looking forward to another 5 years, and five after that and five after that...etc. Here's a couples picture just to show you that we still take those.


Moving on to Christmas...
Christmas was great with these kids. Crystal was a sheep in the ward Christmas pagent. On Christmas Eve we went to my Grandma's open house and then went back to make a gingerbread house, a tradition we started in our own little family. Then the kids went off to bed and waited for Santa. I'll have to upload a slide show of a bunch of the pictures we took. Seth figured out the joy of opening gifts and Crystal who is now old enough to completely understand the whole Santa concept was in heaven. We ate dinner at my parents that night.

The 29th was Crystal's 4th birthday. It's amazing that she's become so big over the years. We let her go to the store and pick out what she wanted, which was a treat for her and of course the grandparents gave her presents at their house to. She got sick of posing for pictures, that's why she's rolling her eyes in the picture.




JANUARY 2010
Whew...we're getting closer to being caught up! Anyone still reading? LOL We went to my parents annual New year pig out. Mike and Jenna were in town and my cousin Jared and some other family and friends all came. Aside from the amazing food, we played monopoly, rock band, and just hung out and goofed around.
Here's Seth on the drums:


Here's a bunch of us eating food:



Here are Jenna, Me holding Seth, and my cousin Jared playing Monopoly.


Look at the FABULOUS FOOD on that table!!!




The day after I (Lisa) got together with two of my high school friends and their husbands and we ate at the Olive Garden and caught up on old times. Scott stayed with the kids cause we didn't have a babysitter and he wanted me to have fun and not be stressed out.


Lisa Foster, Kathleen Truman, and Me




On the 22nd we celebrated my 30th birthday. I know most people, especially girls, freak out when they turn 30, but I honestly don't understand the drama. I generally like the way I look and feel, and that should be all that matters. I wish I could tell all my friends my age to stop boobing about being 30 cause I'm hearing a lot of it this year. Everyone who's lucky gets to turn 30 cause that means they've lived this long and it's been great. It's just a year away from your twenties for crying out loud! Get over it! Anyway, I had a great birthday. My parents took our whole family out to Rodizio's Grill and after that Scott and I went to go see Avatar in 3D. It was a cool enough movie, but it got too much hype for me to really appreciate it. The plot was predictable, but the technology and animation were really cool. It was good, but not nearly as phenomenal as everyone told us it was. Scott agrees with me on this. Anyway, Scott took pictures of me on my first day as a 30 year old before we went out of the house. So if you want to look at those, here you go:




FEBRUARY 2009
All I can think of for February is Valentine's day...or as Scott likes to call it, "Girl Day" because its the girls that demand it be special.
We celebrated on the 12th, which was a Friday cause actual Valentines day was on a Sunday. Scott got me tickets to see MUSE...one of my favorite bands of all time. They're from England and are currently touring in the U.S. The funny thing is he wanted to give it to me in a creative/funny way, so he hid the tickets in an envelope, inside of a a vacuum.
Let me explain.
The plan was to present the vacuum as my Valentine's gift, and pretend to be excited about it by saying "Hey, lets open it up and load the bag in it right away" and have the envelope hiding inside. When I would open it up to put the bag in, I would find the envelope.
He thought he could make me mad by giving me a vacuum for Valentine's day. For him, it would have been a great gag to watch me freak out about my fake gift before helping me discover my real present. His plan was to get it all on video, that way if my freak out was colossal, he could put it on youtube. Romantic, is't he? Hahaha! The joke was on him though cause when I opened my eyes and saw the vacuum I said "COOL!" Cause we really needed a new vacuum, and after the roses he already got me and being able to go out to eat I didn't expect a present at all. So when he showed me the tickets I was even more happy. I love Muse. I'm excited to see them in person and not just in this picture.



OKAY, SO ON TO MARCH!! YAY!! WE'RE CAUGHT UP!!!
So far since it's only a week into the Month, nothing new has happened. I will say that it's tax season which means Scott works till 8:30 or 9pm. He leaves for work before I wake up, so I'm basically a widow until the end of April. It's given me the time to catch up on this blog though, so that's a good thing. We're planning a trip to Mexico at the end of tax season, just him and me. The kids will be staying with my parents. We'll be gone for 9 days, which will be utterly awesome. Since this will be in 8 weeks, I'm giving up sugar, WHITE bread, pasta, and potatoes until we get out there so I can loose the winter weight and look good in a swimsuit. So I'm eating lots of salad, fruit, meat, fish, and slowly incorporating whole grains back into my diet without the artificial sugars. It sounds tedious, but the diet and the workouts give me something to focus on while Scott's working all day. I didn't realize that this will be during Easter though, so it's already torture walking though the candy isles at the grocery store. Yesterday I saw a huge chocolate bunny looking me right in the eye and begging me to take him home with me. I picked up the packet and took a whiff at the magnificent aroma that can only come from something as excellent as chocolate, then I sadly put it back. I'm pretty sure anyone watching thought I was some psycho crazy lady to pick up a chocolate bunny and smell it for at least 10 seconds. Somehow smelling it makes me feel a little better. I don't know why.

I've only been on this diet a couple of weeks. 7 more weeks to go. This seems long, but if I can do it I will feel like a warrior princess who can do anything. Who doesn't want to feel like that? Anyway, it's taken me a week to complete this entry so I'd better post it. I'm going to make a point of being more diligent about my posts for now on, even if Scott is being a busy working man and can't do it, you get to read my endless rambling about what goes on in my adorable family and complicated brain. Write you soon. I hope. ;)