Horatio Thelonious Ignacious Crustaceous Sebastian

No, not that one.

This one.

This is Sebastian. His dad does construction work on the house next door everyday between drinking a beer and yakking on his cell phone, and for some reason, he brings his five year old son with him. So we invite his bored little boy over to play. Tyler calls him "my best friend Dastin."

They get into all sorts of mischief together.

Mainly tearing the house apart in record time.

And when I snap, I banish them to the living room to watch Wall-e.

And Jamie seizes the opportunity to sneak into Tyler's room to play with all the abandoned toys.

The only problem is that I don't know how to kick him out at dinnertime. The few times he has stayed, he told me he doesn't like the dinners I make and suggested we order pizza instead. So he's banned from dinnertime at our house.

Anyway, some days we have to walk him to the door, put him on our porch, and close the door behind him. Sad, but also sadly necessary.

Anyway, how do you kick your kids' clingy friends out the door at the end of the day?

Come One, Come All

Our good friends invited us along to the CIRCUS last week.

I don't think I had ever been to an actual circus. I was so excited that when someone flagged us down outside the parking lot and threw pamphlets in our car I just assumed it was a helpful parking attendent giving us programs.


Thanks for ruining the circus, PETA.



Regardless, we had a really fun afternoon. It was kind of a low budget circus, so the death defying acts were really quite terrifying, either because the eqipment didn't seem safe enough or the circus folk weren't good enough. We were pretty sure someone was going to die in front of us.



These silver spandex guys fell so many times, it was so scary.



This guy is a contortionist. McKay thought it was cool. I thought it was kind of gross.

Oh, by the way, we rode an elephant.

An elephant! Yes, our fun was their misery, but what fun it was! Just kidding, this elephant looked pretty happy to me. He got these huge snacks everytime he dragged another passel of kids around the ring.

I felt a little silly up there with all the little kids: I think I was more excited than Tyler. He kept asking where the elephant was, so I'm not entirely sure he knew what was going on.

Dancing elephants!

This girl gave up part of the way through the elephants dancing. A circus is no match for jetlag! (This was about 48 hours after our plane landed from California.) Speaking of jetlag, we all followed suit and crashed when we got home.

Birthday Fun!

Tyler had a joint birthday party last week at the park with his friend Sam. We had cupcakes, play dough and swings! What else could a group of toddlers need?

On Monday, Tyler got a fun package in the mail. See if you can guess where this sweatshirt came from!

Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa Hinckley! (And David and Marie for the rest of the presents!)

We got Tyler his own piece of cake for his birthday cake because we don't need an entire cake sitting in the kitchen calling my name. Last year, Tyler seemed somewhat mesmerized by the candle flame, but this year, he was terrified of it! He kept saying, "Hot! Hot!" and backing away from it. I think this may stem from me training him never to touch the oven, the stove, candles, etc. Either way, he wanted nothing to do with the cake...

...until we blew out the candle for him. Then all he wanted to do was play with the candle itself.

Happy Birthday, Little Man!

Pool Party!

We threw a party at my Uncle Craig's pool last week for all our friends in the ward.

We sent summer out with a splash...

...and we're welcoming the cold! Wednesday's high is 54 degrees!

Black Friday?

My good friend Tiffany agreed to be my partner in crime at 5:00 AM this morning outside of the Provo Robert's Crafts. The first 50 customers got a free $25 gift card! Since most of Provo is poor college students, we figured we needed to get there extra early to be in the first 50.

Here we are, #1 and #2 in line! I think it took at least another hour and a half for the line to get to 50 people.

Tiffany and her well-earned gift certificate!

Here's my loot! I was really into all the Halloween and Thanksgiving decor for some reason. We don't have a lot of decorations for this time of year, but I think that celebrating the little things in life like season changes and the first day of the month and silly holidays like Pirate Day and Pi Day makes everyday life new and exciting for your family.

At any rate, I bought more than I should have. I think sleep deprivation may have been a part of that decision making process.

This actually says "Give Thanks," although we do love us some Tom Hanks.

There were a few smaller things, but the minute they entered our home, they disappeared.

I think he knows something.

PS: Our lovely neighbors are hosting another party tonight. I'm really glad they're making a habit of this. And just to shake it up tonight, they've been honking their car horns and they've played "Gimme Gimme More" three times already. Love it.

California Trip Dos

It's a good summer to get married! Here's some pictures of Mary Anne Case Byer's wedding (#2 out of 4 we've been invited to so far this summer). I have known this girl since fourth grade, when I stole some Jolly Ranchers out of her bag on the school bus.

at her bridal shower.

Left to right: Brittany Ellis, Mary Anne, me, Shaundra Palhegyi. All friends since grade school.

This was my present to Mary Anne. She opened it, gasped, put it back in the bag, and said "Thank you, Katie!!" before any mothers or grandmothers could see what it was :)

the wedding.

I didn't get any pictures of the actual ceremony, which was at Kimberly Crest, but this was Tyler's little wedding outfit. Cute little man!

Kristen and I at the ceremony. We got asked three times if we were twins.

the reception.

Lauren and me at the reception. Her little preggo belly is getting so cute! She and her hubby Brandon found out last week that it's going to be a girl! They decided on Annie Skye Parsons for her name.

Mary Anne and Robbie.

High fives for Shaundra, for a job well done as maid of honor.

swimming.

Swimming in Grandma's pool.

Oh, if only any of these three could reach that tennis ball.

going home.

Fun times at Circus Circus! Aunt Kristen drove home with us, and is staying at our place until my family comes up on Wednesday for the Eatough family reunion! Woo!