Los LeSueur

Part 2

2011-09-25T08:31:00.001-07:00

So sad...FOR SALE

2011-09-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

For Sale

2011-09-20T11:20:00.001-07:00

Remember When...

2011-03-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

Halloween: Utah's other Christmas

2009-11-04T17:11:00.001-08:00

People go nuts over Halloween in Utah. I like carving pumpkins especially when they are the ones that we grew in out little garden. Oliver helped a little bit but was distracted by the bowl of candy corns on the counter.

Nicole claims that this is the first year she didn't dress up and that it is my fault since I didn't dress up. I only dress up on days that are not designated for dressing up. And she knew that before she married me, so I don't feel bad.

This is the final product of our pumpkins.

Sam watched from a distance. Nicole says she's not allowed to play with knives yet.

Oliver is silly. This is his idea of "saying cheese." I love this picture.

Oliver was a Star War.

Sam was the goat from Monty Python, though she was meant to be Princess Leia.

The "Trick-o-treat" crew.

Another silly face.

Chillin'

2009-11-04T17:08:00.000-08:00

Oliver doesn't show much interest in Sam yet. But It's cute when he does.

James and Gee Wed

2009-11-04T16:14:00.001-08:00

James and Gee got married a week ago. It was a fantastic weekend. We are glad to add Gee to the LeSueur/Preston clan.

We tried to take a quick family picture. This was the most acceptable. We had to keep promising Oliver candy and toys to sit still long enough to take a few shots. He didn't do very well. He also didn't get any candy or toys.

I love this picture of Juliet. Her and Oliver usually have a hard time getting along. But they had a good time at the Temple together.

Sam likes Casey.

Blessed.

2009-09-06T23:24:00.000-07:00

We started off the day with a marathon sleep fest the night before. A 6 hour stretch and a 5 hour stretch. She was happy all morning, smiling a ton and even laughing.

Everyone came out to celebrate with us.

Nicole's mom and grandma (4 generations in this picture)

Oliver had a good time.

My mom.

Nicole's dad. He drove all the way up from California to be here.

D's and P's. My dad was home from work in Hawaii for 2 days to make it. We are really happy to all of those who came (even those who are not pictured).

Oliver had a fun time on the playground outside of the clubhouse where we had the luncheon.

Sliding...

...and horsing around with Dotty. There are more pictures posted on my Facebook page and on our Picassa site (link to the right).

Sam's First Bath

2009-08-26T10:38:00.001-07:00

She didn't really like it.

She cried the entire time...

...until we got the towel around her. She liked that.

She has graduated to baby baths now, instead of the sponge bath. But she still doesn't like it all too much.

The Fruit of Our Looms

2009-08-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

This is almost ALL that we got out of our garden last year.

This is our garden around July 15th this year.

We grew some bell peppers...

...some jalapeños...

...some tomatoes...

...some onions and more.

Oliver's favorite are the strawberries.

See.

This was the first handful of things we picked this year. We grilled the squash and onions and ate them with Cory and Mary at their house. They were super good. I had the bell pepper on my turkey sandwich the other day.

I took all of these...

...and turned them into salsa with the help of a lime and some garlic. The onions are a bit strong, but it wasn't the worst salsa ever.

We are looking forward to carving the pumpkins we have growing right now into jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. Nicole has also made a few jars of fresh pesto sauce with the basil we have grown. We have more squash than we know what to do with. Any suggestions? They get so big, they don't taste good.

Hawaii Scmawaii

2009-08-05T22:34:00.000-07:00

Hey family. Thanks for posting pictures. Here is what I've been doing. I went swimming with Andy's underwater camera. It was fun but my eyes sting from so much salt water.

This is a picture of Andy just before he got clobbered by a wave. You can see it coming. I saw it coming, but I was more interested in taking the picture than warning him.

The tide was super high because a storm had passed by the day before. The surf was going off for the Big Island. We went to a local beach and watched a few dudes catch the waves of their life.

We went exploring a few waterfall locations. We found a tunnel of trees that was dark and scary. We thought that a monkey might be in there, but there wasn't.

This is us at Akaka falls. it sounds like "a caca." The named it that because it "dumps" thousands of gallons of water a minute.

While I was here, I looked all over for proof that President Obama was really born in Hawaii and not in some "other" country like Stenborgia or Grenyarnia. I found no "birth certificate" but I did find a "certificate of live birth" (who knows what that is) and the New Testament written in Pidgin.

At work after it rained for a few minutes, we found a GIANT snail. It was at least 4 inches long. Tried to bite off my face when I poke it with a stick.

I miss you guys. Hawaii is fun and all, but not as fun as you are. Can't wait to come home...for a few days.

More photos for Dusty

2009-08-03T21:19:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more photos for you Dusten. It is too late for me to think of anything clever or funny to say. We love you and can't wait for you to come home!

Oliver really needs a hair cut when you get home. Its looking awesome!

Samantha looks like a totally different baby with a hat on. She is so dang cute!

We Miss You Daddy!

2009-07-31T16:44:00.001-07:00

Hello blogging world! It has been forever since I have posted on this blog. In fact Dusten took posting rights away from me and I had to sign on under his name to even post today! Dusten is in Hawaii for the next two weeks and I was given strict instructions to post new pictures of Samantha every day while he is gone. Well he has been gone since Monday and I am finally posting a few pictures (I figure that's not too bad given my current mental status!) For those of you who are concerned about Dusten's absence so soon after Samantha was born, have no fear, my great mom is still here and will be here for another week to take care of us. I couldn't do it without her! Here are a few pictures, Dust. Sorry they aren't great. You are right...we need a new camera!
She always has her hands by her face when she sleeps.

Hanging in the swing.

Getting ready for another nap. Sleeping babies are the best!

Oliver rockin his glasses like the cool boy that he is!

Mama, I'm Coming Home.

2009-07-22T14:09:00.001-07:00

Guess who came home this morning?

Oliver celebrated with a dance. He loves the balloon that his grandpa sent.

Oliver finally got to hold Samantha.

We think he likes her.

Now at home it's two girls...

...against two boys

Sam sleeps alot.

And Oliver watches "Bolt." A LOT!

Sammy: Day Three

2009-07-21T20:52:00.001-07:00

Day 3 had its goods and bads.

She got cuter.

But because she is still being monitored, we checked out of the hospital without her.

She's eating a ton now. If she eats steady for 24 hours, we can take her home. Hopefully that will be tomorrow afternoon.

We never imagined that we would have to leave the hospital without her. It was rough.

But we got to go home and hang out with this cooky kid, so that cheered us up.

After we got unpacked and ate a fantastic dinner some good friends dropped off, we took Oliver to meet his seester for the first time. But he could only see her through a pane of glass. The Hospital would normally let siblings in the nursery, but he's got a bit of a cough. So this was as close as he could get.

Did I mention she's tiny?

Last night she weighed 6 lbs. 7 oz. Hopefully she will be back up by the time we take her home tomorrow.

Samantha Dorothy LeSueur

2009-07-20T09:16:00.001-07:00

Nicole slept on it...and chose it under no duress or medication. And we BOTH love her name. It fits her perfectly.

She had a bit of a rough start. She had some respiratory issues that were resolved with a breathing apparatus and some antibiotics.

They took her of the breathing thing this morning around 5:00 and she's been doing great since then

Because she is on antibiotics, she has to stay in the nursery. But they let us go in a hold her for a while and take a few pictures.

At first she looked a lot like Oliver, but now she doesn't at all. Unless she is crying.

She'll be on antibiotics for two days. We are excited to take her home to meet Oliver.

Baby Seester is finally here!

2009-07-19T20:47:00.000-07:00

Nicole was induced around 12:00PM. She was born at 3:43PM. It went super fast.

Nicole did great during the labour. She says it was much harder that it was with Oliver...

...even though she was so tiny. 6 lbs. 9 oz. and 19" long.

It's funny, I think we have all of these same pictures with Oliver. It may have even been the same room.

She's pretty cute. Lots of hair. Big lips. And luckily no back hair like Oliver. We decided to sleep on the name. But it looks like Dad may just win this one.

I guess TV for kids isn't all that bad...

2009-03-17T06:29:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, we decided to have an intervention with Oliver to quit his addiction to television, cold turkey. He vocally disapproved of this but was quickly distracted by his neglected toys. Soon this more active Oliver became "a little bit hyper" Oliver which quickly elevated to "come, come my lady, Crazy Town" Oliver and before I knew it he was running like a maniac all over the house. Having been cursed with my extreem lack of coordination, it didn't take long before he was in mid air, flying head first into the wall/air vent. He put a nice "L" shaped hole in his head. He did score one for the dent he left in the drywall but the house scored two for the hair it pulled out of his head when it was pinched by the cracked paint. After me and Nicole deliberated wether a trip to the ER was necessary, we asked him our names and had him count to ten and decided that a completely coherent Oliver deserved an oversized dose of motrin and a good nap.

The moral of the story: No TV hurts babies.

It's a SEESTER!

2009-03-14T08:24:00.000-07:00

Before we went to get the ultrasound, I was trying to explain to Oliver that it might not be a girl so that he could be let down easy if that were the case. He wouldn't have it. And I don't know why I doubted him. Doc says that she looks fine and that the due date is still on or around July 26th. Nicole and I are already arguing over names.

Olli-E and Wall-E

2009-02-15T14:25:00.001-08:00

I tired to post this a few weeks back, but only the picture made it to the blog. We are so happy that my parents live so close to us because their house has a soda fountain, a bunch of great hi-def TVs with all the Lakers games a guy in Utah can dream of and of course they are great baby-sitters. But Oliver has fallen into some horrible habits at "poppas" house which makes it hard to stop by. As soon as we go over, he grabs my dads hand and says "Comeeeer, downstairs" and pulls him into the theater room and begs incessantly that he put on Wall-E on the BlueRay player (like his father, Oliver prefers all of his shows to be in high definition). For those of you who have not seen Wall-E, it's not a short movie. And the fact that he also has to watch the credits in their entirety extends the minimum amount of time that we can be at their house. He also has to hold onto the DVD case every time he watches any movie. The picture above is of him enjoying the credits with the case in his hand.

Back to work

2009-02-15T13:57:00.001-08:00

Well, my 3 month hiatus has come to an end. I fly out to Southern California tonight and start our first job in Lake Elsinore. My family and I did a lot of water skiing there when we were young. We called the lake "Smell-Some-More" because it was stinky and mossy and conveniently rhymed.

I try and make it a rule to not answer advertisements that are posted on traffic signs, or hand written, or misspelled. On the offramp to the local Home Depot there, I found a three-fer.

Corwin

2009-02-05T23:10:00.000-08:00

I have to give Corwin credit for making the phrase "cat punch" part of my vocabulary.

What a game!

2009-02-05T22:31:00.001-08:00

I love basketball, or as Oliver calls it, dickie-ball. I am on a high from tonight's game, so here's a post for the Lakers.

Man, it felt like we were already into the post season tonight watching the Lakers battle the Celtics in Boston. My dislike for Boston (besides the whole Lakers/Celtics rivalry) comes from two players that I want to cat punch. I wont say their names but they are both in the pictures below.

Kobe shot for crap tonight. Luckily it only made the game more interesting. This was by far the most physical game I have seen this season. Rondo challenged Kobe at one point with a nice big push after a call. This is Kobe telling him to knock it off.

This guy right here is my pick for player of the night. Lamar was by far the most consistent Laker on the floor tonight hitting two clutch free throws to put the Lakers ahead by one in overtime.

I'm not saying that the Lakers never do it. In fact, I think Fisher does it a bit too much. But this guy flops like a fish. A fish named Divac. And as far as whining goes, I know Kobe does it too sometimes, and he has gotten much better, but look at this guy's stupid face. This is what he gets for his stupid face.

Kevin Garnett was said to have pounded his fists on the table shouting, "We are the champs!" during the post game interview. There was little to no contact in the final play where some dude shot the ball and Pau blocked it all over the place. But said dude ended up on the floor and looked at the ref with that same mentality as Garnett's aforementioned comment, expecting a call that wasn't there and wasn't going to come no matter how long he laid there on the floor. "Come in, Ray."

Despite all the jibber jabber about refs and fights that almost broke out, Lakers pulled off a win by the skin of their yellow country teeth. Now if they can beat Labron James and the Cavaliers on Sunday...

Number 2 Latest Pics

2009-02-04T00:49:00.000-08:00

I meant to put these up a while ago. He/She looks like he/she's got balls for hands and feet. But still no sign of the balls that would determine the whole he/she issue.

Hide and Seek

2009-02-04T00:35:00.000-08:00

I guess I should post something about Oliver for all of you since my last few posts have been pretty strange.

It has been so nice being home for the past few months. Oliver likes me a lot more since I'm no longer the dad who only shows up on the weekends. He loves to play hide and seek with me. Usually, I will run and hide and he will wander around the house saying, "Daddy, how are you?" until he finds me. I usually give him a few audible hints to help him out. If he has a hard time, Nicole will usually help him (which I still feel is cheating). When he finds me, I try and encourage him to run and hide, but he's only got one hiding spot.

And it drives Nicole up the wall since he pulls all of her clothes off the hangars.

He loves this spot so much now that he spends large amounts of time hanging out there, trying on Nicole's shoes and creating closet havoc. He often grabs a favorite book of his and brings it in with him when he is planning on spending even more time in there.

A Little Help Here...

2009-02-03T23:58:00.000-08:00

So I shaved off my beard. I'm thinking of leaving it off.

I want to have a mustache like this but Nicole wont let me. Please, Nicole's friends, tell her it is a good look. Mustaches are back in.

It's not like I am going to try to look like this. I can't pull this off the way my friend Monty does.

Crappy Valley

2009-01-31T21:36:00.000-08:00

I love living in Utah. But the people here can get a bit irksome. For example, Grant and I went to the movies tonight to see Taken. Whilst waiting in line for tickets, Grant politely let an elderly gentleman step in front of him because he had a quick question about the available seats in the theater. I thought to myself it was nice of Grant to do that. We got inside and sat down in our assigned seats as many Utah theaters often do nowadays. Lo and behold, the elderly gentleman sat right down next to us and began talk to his wife who's assigned seat was directly behind us. Once again, Grant being the nice guy he is offered to trade places with his wife so they could sit next to each other. A few minutes passed and we noticed that there was a third party to this elderly group who's seat was much further away and the man was shouting to her explaining what Grant had done. The man kept hinting to his wife that maybe Grant would trade seats with the other lady and he did. Then, following suit, I traded my seat with the third party member so that all three of them ended up sitting next to each other, elbow to elbow as the show started. As soon as they all got in their seats the elderly man said to the others in a triumphant tone, "See. I told you I would get us seats next to each other."

It was at that moment that I wished that Liam Nisson would have showed up and Taken our seats back for us.

Bigger family=bigger house

2009-01-31T14:43:00.000-08:00

We have finally started on our basement. Not only will it double the square footage of our house, but it provides much cooler living quarters during the summer (which is hard to think of right now in the dead of winter), and it is nice because we can control what it looks like a lot more than the main level. The framers finished yesterday so I can start doing the electrical in the upcoming weeks before I head back to work on the road. We are hoping that it will be finished before number 2 gets here so that everyone who wants to come visit will have a place to stay.

This is the main room. We are going back and forth on adding a kitchenette. It is such a rediculous word plus that kind of stuff is for millionaires, not us. But it will provide much quicker access to our soda pop whilst down there.

This will be Oliver's play room. We are trying to do an "indoor tree house" theme which is going to take a little work and a lot of imagination.

Nicole is real excited for her new fireplace. All she can think about lately is how cold she is and how she wants it to get warmer. It gives her hope for next year during winter when she will be locked inside the house with two kids.

Best Albums of 2008

2009-01-30T22:27:00.000-08:00

I know this comes a bit late, but it's tradition. These are my top 10 picks for 2008 in no particular order:

Nicole and I got a chance to see Neil Halstead in New York when we were there. It was a fantastic show. I really like Mojave 3 but it's nice to have a fresh batch Neil's more mellow songs. It is a great sing-a-long album. You just have to get by a bit of sacrilege on the best song of the album called "Sometimes the Wheels" and all is well.

Not only does this album solidify TV On The Radio as one of the best new bands of the decade, it also makes you want to revisit their previous album, "Return to Cookie Mountain." There are many similarities between the two, but "Dear Science" has a much less pop feel to it. Almost like they recorded the very first thing that came to mind and, unrepentantly, ran with it. There are not as many catchy songs with memorable lyrics as their first album produced, but that makes it all the better to listen to again and again because you find something new each time you give it a spin.

I really liked this album for the reasons that most other Will Oldham fans may hate it. It has a much more friendly sound and much less references to things of a sexual nature. But more than anything, I am so glad that there wasn't a girl singing back up vocals on every single stinking song like on his previous record. I really enjoy his older work, but it is nice to see that he isn't reproducing the same things over and over, especially since he feels the need to release something new every 4 to 6 months.

If you have never heard of these dudes, download one of their songs and close your eyes when you listen to it. You will probably picture something reminiscent of a bunch of long hair hippies wearing smocks and prancing around in a field holding hands and playing lutes and recorders. When I first heard their self titled album at Amoeba in L.A., I thought it was Jim James singing so it caught my attention. But it was much better than anything My Morning Jacket has put out in the last two years. I bought it right away. Later I purchased the "Sun Giant" EP which has my favorite song of the year, "Drops in the River." Their LP, I would have to say, is my favorite album this year.

If you are not listening to Dr. Dog yet, go buy this album. Everyone thinks Beatles when they hear them, and gets turned off instantly. You have to get over it and enjoy the fact that their songs are flawlessly composed. This album insinuates somewhat of a late 1800's theme and is filled with so many different types of sounds and instruments. Railroad noises can be heard along with ancient and out-of-tune pianos. A few songs get a little preachy in this album as did many albums this year. And the songs are most impressive collectively unlike their previous albums. But it is a great addition to their catalogue and to my collection.

This was the most pleasant surprise this year. I never thought these two guys would do another album, or at least not for a while. Calexico returned to their roots with this album, dialed up the Spanish lyrics and dropped a lot of the ambient sounds that they shoved into their previous album, "Garden Ruin". More classical guitar and mariachi sounds dominate this collection of songs. This is an album that both me and my Mexican friends from Columbia can enjoy whilst at work.

I have only listened to this album 3 or 4 times since I bought it, but I am very impressed with Justin Vernon's writing skills. I think the thing that impresses me the most about this album is that it is the type of music that I would want to write. It is mostly mellow and can easily fade into the background when you listen to it in your car or at work. But it gets my creative juices flowing. I took the time to listen to it in bed when my mind was on nothing else and it really blew my mind. You should try it.

I almost forgot about this album (which doesn't give it much credit for being in my top ten), but when I bought this early in the year, it was the only thing I listened to for weeks. And I spent a lot of time trying to promote it amongst friends. These dudes got a ton of recognition for their first album when they went on tour with Coldplay, but they ditched all of the fruitiness of that album and focused solely on their hard, classic rock sounds for this one. The girl dudes vocals can get a bit reminiscent of Grace Slick on a few of these songs. It fluctuates just enough between the heavy stuff and the slow paced stuff to keep you interested the entire time.

This is a great album from a fantastic two piece band. I appreciate the rawness of a band who wields limited members, but I also enjoy that they fill in their music with more than two instruments when they record...at least they do for the most part. They have a bluesy vibe to them that doesn't get overshadowed in production, even for having DJ Shadow produce this album (there are a lot of puns in that sentence). I had not paid them much attention before this year, but I have purchased quite a few of their prior albums since this one came out and I am very impressed with their versatility on all of their records.

This album is probably up here because it was so much better than their last sucky album "X&Y". I didn't think that this was going to be any good at all so my expectations we very low. And even though every song was not a winner to me, collectively it was simply a great collaboration of some of the most talented musicians around. The last two songs on this album are probably Coldplay's best two songs. And I will admit that the "Prospekts March" EP was icing on the cake which turned this 10 track album into a more complete collection. And I especially appreciated Jay-Z's additional lyrics on the song "Lost."

Honorable Mention:

Ida - "Lovers Prayers"

Sun Kil Moon - "April"

Mates of State - "Rearrange Us"

Not as good as advertised:

My Morning Jacket - "Evil Urges"

Vampire Weekend - "Vampire Weekend"

M83 - "Saturdays=Youth"

Kanye West - "808's and Heartbreaks"

She and Him - "Volume One"

Guns N Roses - "Chinese Democracy"

I'm Not Ready to Make Nice

2009-01-30T22:12:00.000-08:00

I just wanted everyone to know that I am not sorry for the lack of posts. I am also not sorry for any future posts that you may find strange and not funny. Because at the very least Grant will always validate my sense of humor. Nicole is no longer allowed to post here. So if you want updates on our family, you may have to read through some strange things. Good luck.

Seester?

2009-01-30T22:03:00.000-08:00

Whenever we ask Oliver if he wants a baby brother or a baby sister he replies, "Seester?"

Right now we just call him/her number 2. Coming soon in July 2009.

Fall Colors

2008-11-09T15:05:00.001-08:00

It is so nice to be staying with Mary's sister and her family instead of a hotel. They have the most beautiful house in the coolest little neighborhood in Scarsdale. After church today (where Obama came up much less than I thought he would) we went for a little walk around the block. This is a picture from that walk. The trees are gorgeous.

NY Pizza

2008-11-09T15:01:00.001-08:00

We went into the city yesterday (Saturday). We took a car to a train to the subway to Soho. As soon as we stepped off the subway, it was pouring. We bought son cheap $5 umbrellas and ducked into the first pizza joint we saw. It was pretty good, but not as giant as we expected. The rain let up a bit later and the rest of the day was spent shopping.

Los LeSueur vs. New York

2008-11-09T14:55:00.001-08:00

Nicole and I finally got to NY after about 3 years of trying. It was originally supposed to be a graduation trip for me, but I wanted to go to Italy. Once I came to the realization that it wasn't going to happen, Nicole was pregnant with Oliver. Now that Oliver is old enough to ditch at D's & P's for a week, we made it happen. Corwin and Mary are with us cause Mary had some work stuffs to do out here. We are staying at Mary's sister's house in Scarsdale. It's nice. This is a picture of us at Grand Central Station. More iPhone posts will follow.

Halloween Round Two

2008-11-05T22:24:00.000-08:00

On Halloween day Sarah and I took the boys to a nursing home to go trick or treating (I know...sad but they were so happy to see the little kids all dressed up). It didn't take very long so we drove around trying to find something Halloweeny going on. Nothing. So we took the boys to the dinosaur museum and let them run around in their costumes there. They loved it! Then it was time to get home and put Ollie down for a nap, we had a big night ahead of us.

Getting ready for trick or treating. I wanted to curl his hair but a hot curling iron was proving to be troublesome with my wiggly boy so we opted for rollers. He actually let me put them in, I was shocked.

Ta da! The finished product. Dusten made a joke months ago that I looked like Johnny Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. With the hair and the glasses I totally agreed. So I figured it would make a great Halloween costume. The only other thing I needed was an Oompa Loompa. I decided to go with the traditional Oompa Loompa costume. Frankly the ones in the Johnny Depp version freak me out. Our costumes were quite labor intensive but I had fun doing it and they came out so good.

I mean look at this kid. I am pretty impressed with myself. I have to give a big shout out to my li'l sis. She made the pants (without a pattern I must add) and they looked amazing!

Lookin' good Nicole.

Dusten opted out for dressing up. He doesn't usually dress up for Halloween but instead dresses up for strange occasions like a Star Wars movie premiere in which he wore a Frosty the Snowman costume. The LeSueur boys are still a mystery to me.

Spooky Sacry!

2008-11-05T21:49:00.000-08:00

I love Halloween! I love carving pumpkins and dressing up and passing out candy! Its all so fun. This year we actually had a pumpkin to carve from our very own garden. Hopefully next year we will have more than one. P.S. I am sure you are noticing my awesome new haircut! I wanted bangs for a long time but my sister wouldn't cut them until I had wanted them for at least a month (she knows me too well!) A month came and went and I still wanted them cut so she did it. She did a great job and I really like it. Thanks Auntie Em you are the best!

Cory and Mary let us tag along to their trunk or treat. It was a good trial run for the kids, and more candy for the parents which is what trick or treating is all about. Oliver's costume wasn't quite ready yet so we borrowed this Lion costume from his cousin Miles. So cute!

Hey Ollie? Remember when you had your first piece of candy last year for Halloween? If only this was your second piece.

Here's Dotty and Mary. Dotty was a bunny but we kept joking that her and Oliver looked like "the lion and the lamb". I love those cheeks! (Dotty's and Mary's).

Oliver's cute little friend Dayna made this cupcake for him. My friend Catherine (her mom) told me that they were making cupcakes and her son made a bunch to take to his friends but Dayna only wanted to make this one for Oliver! So cute. She came to the door all by herself (she's two) and delivered it to Oliver. He immediately dove into it. Thanks again Dayna!

Olie and the zoo

2008-11-05T21:06:00.000-08:00

Hi friends. Well I am trying to take a stab at this again, if you are nice maybe I won't disappear for six months again. We'll see....Here are a couple of pictures from a trip to Cali last month. It was our last time to fly with Oliver for free. He turns two in a few weeks and then we will have to start paying for his plane tickets. So sad. I am glad that we have traveled as much as we have while he was free. Anyway, while we were there we enjoyed the beautiful sunshine, went to the beach(the beach in October...amazing), bought new Rainbows (the only way to go in footwear) and went to the Santa Ana Zoo. I use the term "zoo" very loosely here. Its mostly monkeys and birds with a llama and a kangaroo. But they also have a petting zoo and Oliver had a great time. He is not snoby when it comes to zoos.

This is him very mad at me after I took the stroller to the car. He insists on pushing it himself and kept running into people. Unfortunately none of his victims were amused by his two year old driving skills. Sorry.

Luckily the monkeys cheered him up right away! He loves the monkeys!

Here I am making him pose for a picture. He can only sit for one second so we have to be fast!

Since U Been Gone

2008-08-25T06:03:00.000-07:00

SING IT, KELLY! Well friends, I am up at 3:00AM Hawaii time finishing up a plethora of posts so that I don't have to hear any more complaints about our sad little blog. To be honest, Grant was the only one complaining. So this is all for you, man. I want everyone to know that Nicole kicked me off of the blog about the same time the posting stopped. So I blame her. I retook control and fired her for that and for losing our camera, another contributing factor to the shortage of posts. She also forgot to bring the new camera we bought to Family Camp so I am going to need a little more time to get a few remaining posts up here before we are completely up to speed. I am really sorry if these posts are lame, as I have been doing this non-stop for 3 and 1/2 hours straight plus I have my own blog I need to keep updated. Geez, I cant feel two of my fingers right now so I am going to bed. Hope you enjoy.

Mommy, WOW! I'm a Big Kid Now!

2008-08-25T05:26:00.000-07:00

I guess it's time for us to have another baby cause this guy is all grown up. I can't believe he is going to be two in a few months. Here is a little bit of info on Oliver.

He loves to say, "hi," and, "good bye," to everyone. He'll say "goodbye" to the cashier when you are walking out of the store. His other favorite thing to say in "all done" weather that's with dinner, or his bath or he is sick of being inside the car.

Oliver's favorite colors are yellow and orange. He will take the yellow and orange items out of any group of things, such as his blocks or his flash cards. His favorite toy varies based on his

attention span at the moment, but he loves his Lego's most

of the time.

His favorite dinner is spaghetti, but it is also the messiest. He loves grapes and raisins, but we can only give him those in limited quantities for obvious reasons...it affects his pooper. Oliver only drinks soy milk and I call him a Hippie all the time for that. But he doesn't care.

Oliver loves watching his Baby Einstein DVDs more than anything just about. I have a few of them on my iPhone for emergency situations, such as eating at a restaurant. Oh, Oliver's least favorite thing to do is eat at a restaurant. More than anything, he simply doesn't like being strapped down.

He loves bath time. He really enjoys splashing so much in the bath that we have to wipe down the walls afterwards and put towels on the floor to soak up the water.

At night when he goes to bed he loves to read a few stories, his favorite of which are Good Night Gorilla and The Going to Bed Book. He has almost completely graduated from his pacifier, he only uses it when he goes to sleep.

I know this is a pretty sappy post, but even though I miss the baby stuff sometimes, I am so glad that he is getting to that age where we will be able to go play frisbee golf at the park or ride bikes or go sky diving. He is a really fun kid to be around. We love him very much.

Happy Late Fourth

2008-08-25T05:13:00.000-07:00

We had a nice mellow 4th of July. I was a little bummed that Oliver didn't make it to see the fireworks. But since it didn't get dark until 10:00PM that night, it was probably a good thing he wasn't awake. Nicole and I did stay up and watch the Thanksgiving Pointe Fireworks. It's a great show...not as good as Disneyland, but still great.

Learning to Communicate

2008-08-25T04:54:00.000-07:00

Oliver is a fun kid, but he's pretty weird. Not weird like a nerd or anything. He's really quirky and way too picky for a 21 month old. But don't get me wrong, he's super cute.

He's doing a great job picking up new words and saying them. He does really good with the sign language that our wonderful friend, Dr. Baby Einstein teaches him. But I am always surprised when I get home on the weekends and he has learned a new word that I don't know about.

One weekend, I came home and Nicole had somewhere to go, so I was watching Oliver during lunch. I opened the fridge to get his usual string cheese and raisins and he says, "Apple!" Then he opens the fruit drawer and pulls out a Washington Red and starts chomping away. I was astonished and proud of his new word. The way he ate it was so funny. He looked very similar to a chimpanzee eating an apple. Anyway, Oliver has had apples before, but we always cut them up before we gave them to him. So I took the apple, cut it into slices and put it on a napkin and gave it back to him. When he saw what I had done to his delicious snack, he screamed and cried and pushed it away. He walked back over to the fridge. I opened it up and he pulled out a new apple and started to eat it.

Weird, right? A that moment I wished that he was fluent in English so that he could explain to me why it was such a problem that I had cut up his apple. Oh well. I took this picture of him munching his second apple.

Summertime

2008-08-25T04:35:00.000-07:00

Winter dragged on and on and on this year here in Utah. We had the usual 2 weeks of Spring at the end of May/beginning of June and then came the heat. Now all Oliver wants to do is go outside and play which is a problem for us because we don't have a fence or window well covers. Sometimes he will spend a few minutes in the morning just staring out the back door. Poor kid.

When we do make it outside, we make it fun...well fun for Oliver. I will work on the yard and Nicole will wash the cars. Oliver loves getting hosed down. We need to get him a Slip-N-Slide for next summer.

Stupid Lakers

2008-08-25T04:11:00.000-07:00

This was us on our way to see Game 1 of the NBA Finals...

We were too sad to film anything on the way home. Stupid Lakers. We got dressed up for a few of the other games, but there wasn't much cheering involved. I don't want to talk about it anymore.

The Last Elder LeSueur

2008-08-25T03:25:00.000-07:00

Brady is the last of eight boys in our family to go out and serve a mission for the LDS Church. We were happy and sad to see him leave the beginning of April of this year to go to Cape Town, South Africa. But he didn't leave us without a handful of new stories to tell. For those of you that know Brady, you know that he is a character that if you could get on paper and into a TV series, you would make millions. He almost slept through his farewell talk at church, walked into the chapel 26 seconds before he was supposed to start his talk and somewhere in the midst of it all said over the pulpit something to the extent of "the LeSueur's are the bomb." Those of you that know Brady may be surprised to hear that he gave one of the most flawless and motivating talks about faith and the simplicity of the gospel. It was very inspiring to see him leave, not only because he completes a legacy of missionaries for our family, but also because he did it whilst leaving a huge impression on many others, including myself. When I left on my mission I was crying and blubbering all over myself. Brady went out strong and poised. We all miss him and wish him success.

Easter 2008

2008-08-25T03:08:00.000-07:00

Nicole and Oliver came down to visit for a few weeks in March. There were a few events going on (see next few posts) and Grandma was in town. I was already down there for work, so I didn't fly home for a weekend. We had a really good time. On Easter Sunday, we had a little easter egg hunt for Oliver. There was a lot of pointing and clapping for a few minutes and afterwards I got to eat all of his candy, which wasn't a bad deal for me since I didn't have to do any of the setup or the hunting.

Nicole got Oliver a little toy guitar that he liked a lot until we got back home and he remembered there was a real guitar there that he's not aloud to touch. I haven't seen that little toy guitar since.

Sk8ter Boi

2008-08-25T02:34:00.000-07:00

Whilst in California, we were lucky enough to participate in a little gathering of friends from my old Stake. We got together at the old Skating rink where we grew up for a night of family fun. It was really good to see all of my old friends. I never expected to really move away from Orange permanently. One day I was simply gone. It was really good to catch up with them all.

Nicole and I were very concerned about how to keep Oliver happy at such an event. Bildo and I came up with the great idea to push them around in their strollers whilst we skated behind them.

However, we quickly realized that although this might seem fun from our perspective, it was ranked by the kids as "a little more fun than a regular stroll and a little less fun than riding in a car seat." As you can see Oliver was thoroughly bored with it. So we threw caution to the wind and let the boys roam free on the floor, trusting that all of the other sk8ters were responsible enough to not run them over.

And that's when the real fun started for Oliver and William who then proceeded to dance all night long. William's signature move was a simple knee bounce, but he surprisingly kept a prefect beat to his bounce. Oliver's moves were much more Mia Michaels inluenced (did I just out myself?). His favorite move was holding his head down and running in a circle always trying to keep his head in the same place.

Oliver's First Taste of Soda

2008-08-25T01:55:00.000-07:00

This one is a little late, but the picture sequence is too good to not show.

We were eating some lunch at a Pizza place near our house sometime in February. I got an Apple Beer to drink as we waited for our food. Of course, since Utah food service workers usually are comprised of 14 to 16 year old kids who have no idea how to serve food, we waited for a good 15 to 20 minutes for our food to get out. And of course, Oliver's patience ran out about 3 1/2 minutes into our wait. He kept pulling at my cup and I got sick of it, so I got out my camera phone and let him take a big old sip. The funniest part (which I sadly did not get on camera) was when he kept scratching his tongue to get the fizz off.

...and of course, he went back for a second swig and we repeated the whole experience.

Happy Birthday Nicole!

2008-08-25T01:17:00.000-07:00

Since I was busy working in Simi Valley in March, Nicole and Oliver came down to California during Nicole's birthday. Both of them had pretty bad cabin fever after the ridiculously long winter in Utah. Plus, Nicole, the true California girl that she is, needs a certain amount of sun every so often or else she will implode. It was especially nice because Nicole's grandma was there to see Oliver.

Nicole's dad threw nicole a little birthday party/bar-b-que in the park. Oliver was not that excited about wearing the party favors, but was very happy to taste cake for the second time in his life.

THERE! ALL CAUGHT UP ON OUR BLOGGIN'!

Greetings from the OC (don't call it that)

2008-05-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

We are in California right now for a little trip to see family and soak up some sunshine. Its been fun to go to the beach and the pool, although Oliver wishes he was bigger and could swim on his own. He gets very mad when I have to hold him in the pool, he is just a little too fearless for my taste. Why is he not more like me and afraid of everything?

For those of you who know me well know that I am very OCD about having a clean house, clean husband and clean son. Its so hard for me to just plop Oliver's food down on his tray and let him go at it. Well here is evidence why I hardly ever do it. The food goes immediately from the tray into his hair! I am not sure if he is happy or sad in this picture but his potato salad hair is rockin!

Hello Again

2008-04-30T19:53:00.001-07:00

Well hello there. After much pleading and begging I am back. Okay I don't think any of you really actually begged but I know you missed me. I can't believe I haven't posted anything in two months. To be honest I was going through a blog funk. I would look at all your blogs and go "Oh look they just went on vacation, oh look she is so crafty, oh look she is such a fun mom," and on and on. Needless to say I was feeling like I didn't have much to offer the blogging world. Also contributing to my funk is the fact that I live in the land where winter never ends! Anyway it was actually above 70 one day this month so I am thinking about coming out of hibernation. I am not making any promises though. Here's a brief over view of what we have been up to the last two months: Dusten went back to work as an electrician. He works out of state so he travels four days out of the week. Its not as bad as it sounds, some days are just longer than others. I celebrated my 28th birthday. 28 feels just like 27, nothing different. Oliver and I have been to California twice and are planning another trip in two weeks. That is one of the good things about Dusten being gone, Oliver and I can come and go as we please. Oliver is 17 months now and has donned the nickname of "The Beast" or "Rascal". He has so much energy and is very independent. He is so much fun and I love watching him experience new things. Here are a few pictures from the petting zoo that we went to the other day. Oliver LOVED the goats! He was so fearless and let them eat out of his hand. I on the other hand stood in the back ground making sure none of the animals made eye contact with me. I am not so much a fan of the animal kingdom.

Oliver wanted to say thanks to Auntie Em for coming with us to the zoo. She is the best aunt a little boy could ask for. I don't know what I will do when she moves away!

This is Oliver's cousin Dot. She had just had a sad run in with the mud and was less then thrilled to be perched atop a pony.

Oliver on the other hand loved the ponies. He is a true Lehi cowboy. I am sort of saddened by that.

P.S. If you hadn't noticed my heavy coat and Oliver's red face it was freezing this day. It is the end of April for goodness sakes! That's it I am going back in hibernation. See you in another two months.

Good Times

2008-02-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

Well, it has started. Oliver is a full fledged toddler. I was sick with the flu earlier this week and so was laying on the couch all day. Oliver is such a good kid and kept himself pretty entertained. I was starting to feel better so I was trying to get the house back together. I was cleaning up something on the floor and I noticed this lovely addition to our couch. Its not a very good picture but Oliver had taken a pen to the back of our couch (this is only a small portion of the whole masterpeice). I couldn't believe it! No wonder he had been so quiet all day! Well after a slight freak out followed by a laugh ( I mean come on, you know he had a good time) I took a damp cloth and just lightly rubbed the marks and to my surprise it came right out! If you are in the market for a new couch I highly recommend microfiber. This couch has seen alot and still looks new, its the best for familys with young kids or husbands. So this crisis was adverted, hopefully we will be so lucky next time. Of course I never found the pen so who knows what Oliver is dreaming up for his next piece.

Following the couch incident we had yet another storm the other day. It was crazy. The wind was blowing so bad and blowing all the snow around that they had to close down the freeway right by our house. People were camping out at the gas station with nowhere to go. People who were stuck on the freeway ran out of gas because their cars had been idiling for hours and had to be evacuated. Crazy. We were lucky to be home when the storm hit but our power went on and off all night. We finally decided to go seek refuge at out friend's house. While we were loading up our stuff for the sleepover Oliver was running around with this light on his head. He loved it! Kids are great.

Snow Snow Snow

2008-02-09T10:09:00.000-08:00

Greetings from Snowy Utah!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but there has been nothing going on in our lives. It literally snows every day and Oliver and I rarely venture out into the frozen tundra. Also contributing to our Hermit life style is Oliver's new schedule. He is down to one nap a day and it is from 11:00 to 2:00. I am a prisoner in my own house. By the time I get him up, feed him lunch and get out the door its 3:00 and we need to be home in a few hours to get dinner going. I don't know how you other moms cope with this nap in the middle of the day stuff but I really don't like it. Of course you might be the kind of mom that is up and dressed and out of the house by 9:00 to run erands. That my friend, is not me. Anyway here are a few pictures of our snow covered yard. This is one of those rare days we went outside.

You can see how the mailboxes are barely poking out of the snow. Crazy!

Most days we just do this. Sit around in our pajamas and play with toys. Who am I kidding? We are livin' the high life here. (For the record, I don't make Oliver play in the closet. That is just his favorite place to sit.)

P.S. Oliver's sweet face is glistening with drool in every picture. Will it ever stop? Did I mention he already has all his teeth? Why the constant drool then? I need answers.

Super Mario Rock

2008-01-30T13:14:00.000-08:00

I got a Nintendo DS a few weeks ago so I have been playing a lot of "Mario Bro.s" oriented games and I LOVE THEM. Especially Mario Kart. Here are some other really nerdy dudes who love the Marios like me.

I think they should get together and form a band. I tried to play them both at the same time to be one spectacular Mario Extravaganza, but it didn't work.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-10T16:14:00.001-08:00

Well this is about three weeks late but oh well. You all know I am not too good about updating very frequently. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. We had a wonderful Holiday and with having four sets of parents we were able to celebrate alot! For Christmas we went to California to see my mom and dad. The weather was absolutely beautiful while we there. I have to admit I was a little sad to give up a white Christmas but a nice swing at the park on Christmas day was very nice too. Oliver could have cared less about the presents which is too bad seeing as how his grandparents totally spoiled him. I still haven't opened half the things he got. I think I will stretch them out through the year.

While we were in California my dad and his wife Rose took us all to Disneyland. Dusten and I love Disneyland and were so excited to go. Apparently so was half of Southern California because it was the most crowded I have ever seen it. The park actually sold out at noon. Crazy! The line for Pirates of the Caribbean stretched all the way to the Haunted Mansion and back 4 times! Seriously so crowded. But with the wonderful invention of Fast Pass we were able to go on almost every ride we wanted to. Oliver had a great time and was so good. He even took a 2 hour nap in his stroller while we there. What a champ.

He almost pulled the Sword out of the Stone. He didn't have as much luck as Uncle Garrett and Dusten once did.

He actually wore those ears all day.

Here we all are on Thunder Mountain. Dusten said this is my Posh picture. I am so proud.

Dusten's Top 5 Albums of the Year

2007-12-31T12:06:00.000-08:00

This might be the first year since I got back from my mission where I didn't buy whatever album I wanted whenever I wanted it. So I may not have covered a respectable amount of area in the music industry this year. However, I would like to give props to the albums that did get me through the year. They are in no particular order.

WILCO - Sky Blue Sky
Wilco fans give Jeff Tweedy a lot of well deserved crap for reforming his band every time they record a new album. I loved their previous album A Ghost Is Born so much that when I first heard this one, it felt empty and week and I blamed it on the new line up as well. But then I saw them live in Denver and it blew my mind. In fact, it was one of the top 3 best shows I have ever been to. After the show, I couldn't get enough of it. Walken is my favorite song.

RADIOHEAD - In Rainbows
This is probably an easy one to pick. How could Radiohead ever go wrong when they are all together? Sorry to Thom Yorke's forgettable solo album. I felt like they took a good step back toward their Kid A sound from their previous album on this one. I was most blown away when I heard track 5 All I Need on my new favorite T.V. show of the season, Life. I can't wait to get my hands on a hard copy of this album.

DR. DOG - We All Belong
I will preface this by saying that I know these guys have ripped of The Beatles/Paul McCartney's sound. But it is one of the happiest, pump-me-up albums I have heard in a while. This album is a nice change to the slower, ambient music that has been so popular from bands like Iron and Wine and their sad album Shepard's Dog. If you want to be happy and clap along to some fresh yet vintage sounding music, give this one a try.

PINBACK - Autumn of the Seraphs
I fell out of love with Pinback a while ago. I regained interest with their album Summer in Abbadon and recommitted myself to them completely with this album. It made me want to listen to all of their stuff over and over again. It shows progression and maturity which I though passed them up a while ago. A lot of people disagree with me, but I feel that this album validates all of their previous work.
ARCADE FIRE - Neon Bible
This one is as obvious as Radiohead. A solid album with enough variety to please my siblings, my co-workers and even my wife, this album is nearly flawless. Everyone can listen to this and enjoy it. The only thing I didn't like was the track order. This was another album that to me was 100 times better after I saw the band live.

Honorable Mention...
Here are some other albums that were close, but not top five:

MODEST MOUSE - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
FEIST - The Reminder
LES SAVY FAV - Lets Stay Friends
THE SHINS - Wincing The Night Away
KANYE WEST - Graduation

Those Books

2007-12-14T15:54:00.000-08:00

Before I begin I must preface this post by saying, if you have not read these books yet and don't want to hear anything about them then you shouldn't read this. I am not going to spoil anything but there are some weirdos out there who like everything to be a mystery. Of course I don't even know how this book series could be a mystery to any woman 12-75 but you never know. Okay with that said I have finally finished the third

book, Eclipse. I finished New Moon months ago but wasn't able

to jump into Eclispe right away. You see New Moon did something to me. I couldn't put that book down. I read it in one day (for a mom that should be doing other things then reading a teen romance novel about vampires that is very fast!). I absolutley devoured that book. I cried my eyes out in that book. I talked and talked and talked about that book to anyone who would listen. For the record, Dusten was a good sport and listened. I dreamt about that book and when it was over I felt empty. Even knowing that Eclipse lay on my nightstand waiting for me I could not pick it up. I was not emotionally ready for it. So after a few months (seriously) and a bunch of prodding from those who have already read it, I picked it up. I am going to go out on a limb here and risk judgement from those who nudged me...I did not like Eclipse (Sorry Ashley). It did nothing for me. I mean after what I felt from reading New Moon I was expecting alot and but still I got nothing. For those of you who loved it, I am sorry. Maybe I just missed something. I think I need to add that the biggest reason I did not like Eclipse was that Bella is just so freakin whiny. I can't handle how she complains when people want to buy her things, and throw her parties and worst of all that her hot boyfriend wants to make an honest woman out of her and marry her! (Sorry) Oh poor you Bella, two hot dudes love you and while they may be part of the fanatsy world they still want plain boring you and would die for you. Yet you just sit around and complain that you have to go to your own graduation party. UGH! You seriously bug me. Enough with that.

For those of you who didn't know they have cast Edward for the movies, here he is. I don't even care to remember what his real name is but he played Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter movies. Boring. Does this look like a sexy hot vampire to any of you? Me neither.

After hearing who they chose for Edward I am less irritated about the choice for Bella. I think Kristen Stewart is all wrong but I don't really like Bella so they can cast who ever they want. Lindsay Lohan might do a good job.

I need to give props to my friend Kelly and say that all though I wasn't a fan at first I am now on board. Hayden Christensen would have done a great job as Edward. I mean look at this picture. Is he not a smoldering vampire?

Christmas Time!

2007-12-11T10:13:00.000-08:00

I hope you all are enjoying this season. It has snowed a ton here in Utah the last few weeks and everything is just so pretty. I really do love the snow. Oliver...not so much. But he does love Christmas decorations, especially lights. I am still shocked that he is barely interested in the Christmas tree. Every once in a while one ornament will catch his eye, but he is over it before I can snag it from him. We are trying to just enjoy these few weeks before Christmas, time in December just seems to vanish! Hope you all can do the same.

My Favorite Song

2007-12-05T13:58:00.000-08:00

This may be old to some, but it is new and dear to me.

One More

2007-12-03T11:11:00.000-08:00

For some reason I couldn't include this picture with the others but I had to share it. If you look at his eyes you can see him slipping into a sugar coma. Oh the power of sugar. Happy Birthday Olie!

Oliver is 1!!!

2007-12-03T10:51:00.000-08:00

I have to first begin with my apologies to Oliver's Grandpa LaBonte and G.G. (his Great Grandma Caldwell). Sorry it took me so long to get this up! Oliver has made it one whole year! We can hardly believe that it has already been that long. Time goes by way too fast. His birthday was on November 21st and we had a little shin dig for him on the 24th complete with presents, cupcakes and grilled cheese (of those three things grilled cheese was his favorite, go figure!) We had an owl themed party for him, which was cute in theory but very hard to find things owl related for a first birthday party. Luckily my husband is super creative, and crafty I might add, I mean he works at a scrap booking company for goodness sakes, so he helped the party to be a smash hit.

We made over sized cupcakes that looked like owls. I have to say they turned out pretty cute, which is crazy since they were my idea! For dinner we served soup and grilled cheese sandwiches which were quite a hit with the kids and adults (the key is to use sourdough bread...delicious). Oliver had a great time although he was very uninterested in unwrapping the presents. Luckily his best bud Jacob helped me and we got those presents opened in no time.

Can you believe that Oliver wore his hat! I am shocked!

Here he is digging into his cupcake. Can you tell that he ate all the icing off first? Smart kid!

Halloween Fun!

2007-11-02T15:12:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. We had a lot of fun dressing up Oliver. I am not sure he enjoyed it so much but he is a nice boy and humored us by leaving his costume on which covered up his hands and had a hood. He is a good sport. Here are a few pictures of the evening. We went over Jacob's house, Oliver's bestest friend, so we could get a few pictures of the boys together. Oliver and Jacob are so nice to tolerate how much Sarah and I fuss over them, what can we say...We love our boys!

Here are the pumpkins we carved this year. Dusten takes this very seriously and does a great job. He did the owl and pirate ship. I did the bat and Bryan's girlfriend, Julia, did the one with flowers.

I had to include a picture of my lovely sister Emily. Do you know who she is dressed up as? I'll give you a hint...Robin Williams in "Night at the Museum" (the absolute worst movie ever made I might add). That's right...Theodore Roosevelt. Emily just might be the only 20 year old girl I know who dressed up as a deceased US prseidnet. What can I say, she loves history!

These are Oliver's cousins Daphne and Miles. My sister-in-law made these adorable costumes for her kids. Miles is serious about being Peter Pan.

Probably the most exciting thing that took place on Halloween was that I let Oliver have his very first candy. Wow, did he love it. I tried to just let him have a few licks put he quickly pulled the sucker out of my hand and wouldn't let it go. He loved every sticky second of that thing.

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

2007-10-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

I just found out that they recorded an entire song. Some college kid put these pictures to it. Enjoy.

Good Times!

2007-10-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

My Grandparents came for a visit from Oregon and boy did we have a good time. They got to see the sites of Lehi which you can imagine took all of 5 minutes but we managed to keep ourselves busy. Luckily we have Oliver to keep us entertained. Actually it was nice to show off the state that I have been so reluctant to call home. There really is so much around here and it was fun to get reacquainted with things that become so hum-drum after awhile. I don't know if you Utes have taken the time to enjoy the gorgeous season change going on around you but it is truly beautiful. I don't know why I don't remember it being this pretty last year. Maybe because I was large with child and very few things held beauty for me that didn't involve babies. If you haven't taken a drive through the canyon you really need to. We went up to Sundance for dinner one night and the drive up was gorgeous. New England has nothing on us. Except for maybe maple sugar candy. Have you ever had it? Its divine.

On one of our outings we went to Thanksgiving Point and walked around. They had all of these fun fall decorations out so we decided to snap a picture of our cute fall baby. You may be thinking to yourself that this picture would have been cuter if Oliver didn't have his "plug" in. But actually he was screaming in crying in the other pictures so I thought the pacifier was a great touch

See.

Happy 9 months!

2007-08-21T18:18:00.001-07:00

Dear Oliver,

I can't believe that you are already 9 months old! It is crazy to think of life before you came, your dad and I must have sat around so lonely and bored. You have brought such joy to our lives. I never knew that I could love someone as much as I love you. Being your mom is the best job that I have ever had! You are growing so quickly that its hard to keep up with all the stages! Here are a few of your many accomplishments in the last 9 months:
You are crawling everywhere! I can't take my eyes off you for a second. You pull yourself up on every surface, your favorite places being the tub, the coffee table, and my legs. You already have 8 teeth, that are very sharp I might add. You have have a very good appetite and have taken to baby food very well. You heart cheerios and vegetables are your absolute favorite. You say "dadadadada" and "mmmmama". And most importantly you have been sleeping through the night since you were 6 months!

I love you so much and want to thank you for being the very bestest baby a mom could ask for.

Love, Mommy

(To our readers: Thank you for letting me be a bit cheesy and sentimental!)

Really?

2007-08-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

I am not really sure what's going on here. I love Kanye and I love Will Oldham, but I'm really not sure about this. It's not that funny...it's just weird.

Good Ol' Faithful

2007-08-08T11:18:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Well we are home again for a few short minutes so I thought I would let you know what we have been up to. We went to Yellowstone a few weekends ago for a Hutchings family reunion. We had such a good time, the cabin we stayed in was really nice and the scenery was beautiful. Some of Dusten's uncles had brought their canoes and so we decided to take them out for a leisurely ride down a calm river. Before we left my sister in law asked me if I was going to bring Oliver and I replied, "Of course, why?" "Do they have life jackets for the babies?" she replied. I looked at her blankly and replied, "Um yeah, I guess." I hadn't even thought about needing to put Oliver in a life jacket! Now this statement may not be so weird to you but you must know that while I had no second thoughts about sending my 8 month old coasting down a river, I shudder and gag at the thought of putting him in those baby seats they have attached to some carts and have near cardiac failure at the idea of him playing in a "ball pit". Anyway after feeling like a horrible mom I inquired about life jackets and there were some in his size so away we went!

We were enjoying our lazy canoe ride when the weather took a turn for the worse very quickly and before we knew it we were having to find shelter on land because we were being pelted by hail and tossed around by wind. Luckily I had my trusty mountain-man husband by my side and he had a dry place for us to sit in no time. He even supplied us with yummy Swedish Fish as we patiently waited for the storm to pass. I have to say I was very impressed by his resourcefulness and if he was writing this he would have to say that he was impressed that I didn't completely freak out. Thanks babe.

When the weather subsided a bit we climbed back in to our canoes and made the rest of the trip in peace. Oliver even fell asleep in my arms (which is so not his style)! Man that kid is a trooper!

Telluride, Colorado

2007-07-31T13:14:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago Nicole and I went to Telluride, Colorado for our anniversary slash my birthday to see Bob Dylan and My Morning Jacket in concert. We stayed in Ouray (pronounced you ray) which is considered the Switzerland of the United States, though I'm not sue why...I didn't see one leprechaun there.

Telluride is a fancy artsy town very similar to Park City. There were lots of quaint little stores and a lot of delicious looking restaurants. We didn't have time to try them all.

We did some light hiking, approximately 20 yards or so. The scenery there is quite impressive. Lots of waterfalls and cliffs. In fact, the town lies in a canyon. There are wall like cliffs on either side. It was very beautiful.

The concert was fabulous. It rained the entire time. During My Morning Jacket, some dude who looked like Nicole's dad gave me a giant high-five. Another dude was next to me playing the air congos during "One Big Holiday." Dylan was great. Nicole really really liked him. He wore a bright whit hat as you can see in the picture above. His voice was so good. I kind of wish he would have done more songs without the band.
I have got to give it to Bob Dylan fans. I don't think that these dudes have ever taken a break from smoking drugs like cigarettes. There were a couple of 60+ year old men next to us lighting their bongs and dancing like hippies. And on the other end of the spectrum, we saw young families of three or four with babies as young as a few months as well.

All in all, it was a great trip.

A First Time For Everything

2007-07-06T22:32:00.000-07:00

Since we were on a blog-break for a while, I wanted to share a list of "firsts" for Oliver:

His first solid food.

His first Teeth.

His first unassisted sit up (lasted about 4 seconds).

His first "X-treem" trick.

His first second chin.

And his first time surfing on a shark.

We are very proud of all of Oliver's accomplishments.

Kissin' Cousins

2007-06-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

This is Oliver and his cousin Dotty. As you can see Oliver loves his cousin Dotty and she is pretty receptive of his love for her. I am watching Dot for two weeks while Mary gets settled into her new job and Cory finishes up his. That's right, Cory is going to be Mr. Mom. The arrangement seems to be working out well for them and I am happy for Mary that she found such a great job with an amazing company.
Cory, Mary and Dot are living with D&P right now and we love having them so close. I am excited that Oliver will grow up near his cousins and from the looks of it they will be good friends. While I have watching dot we have been having a few photo shoots. The babes have a couple of matching outfits so its real fun to pose them. These are cute little pj's from Old Navy. I truly heart the Old Navy. I always find great stuff there, especially for Oliver. Oliver's jammies have a hedgehog on them and Dot's have a squirrel. When Oliver was super tiny he had a brown pair that had an owl on them and I was so sad when he out grew them. So I was delighted when Mary gave him this blue one.
Watching the two babies has been a little difficult but only because I can't really go anywhere. If I had a double stroller I would try to tackle going out but I don't. Mostly we just hang out at home, take naps and watch Baby Einstein. Luckily Dotty is a really good baby and mostly just hangs out and watches Oliver. She is very easy going.
Mary went on a business trip to Chicago a week ago and while she was there she went to H&M and found these adorable outfits. The shirts say "Rockin' the Cradle" and sport a sweet cherub rocking out on a guitar. Very cute and very hip, that's our babies.

Happy Father's Day

2007-06-18T07:35:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone had a nice Father's day. We enjoyed a nice day at church, full of yummy goodies, and then a quite day at home. Dusten played a lot of Nintendo and I don't think I rolled my eyes once, okay, maybe once. I even made a somewhat decent dinner which is a rarity in our home.

Oliver loves his daddy so much and wants to be just like him. He is even trying to dress like his daddy these days. I am sure that Dusten would want me to mention that he would never wear a sweater vest, but for those of you who know him, that goes without saying.

For those who used to love the O.C.

2007-06-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

Andy Sandberg is going to single handedly save SNL from it's giant puddle of suck...unless J.T. is available to join the cast.

Happy Birthday Mommy!

2007-03-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Nicoles 27th birthday yesterday with friends, family and a giant Costco cake (Nicole's favorite).

Ketchup

2007-03-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I am angry at Basketball. So instead of swearing and throwing coca-cola at the t.v., I am going to play ketchup on our blogsite. When last I blogged...Oliver was a few weeks shy of 3 months. We took a trip the beginning of February for Grandpa LeSueur's 80th birthday party. While we were there, we got to meet Oliver's 2 new cousins; The Other Girl Cory Jr. also know as Dotty Brown and WBPVII a.k.a. Seven, Bill and Ashley's new son. Above are all three in action. While there, Oliver went to Disneyland for the very first time. Now, before you all get judgemental and say how crazy Nicole and I are for taking a "less than 3 month old" baby to Disneyland, you should knw that we got in for free. Plus Cory and Mary and Dottie (who also got in for free) and Darin, Suzy and their kids were there. We took turns going on rides, so we all got to have some fun. The one and only ride Oliver participated in was the Jungle Cruise. Now when Oliver is 3 and screams about wanting to go to Disneyland, we can tell him that he already went once and if he doesn't remember, we have pictures to prove it. We got some more pictures taken down in California. They are on our picasa site if you would like to see them. Oliver is getting bigger every day. His head is roughly the size of a bowling ball and his body is trying to ketchup. He teased us last weekend by sleeping all the way through the night, only to have refrained from duplicating this glorious act since. He has graduated from his first round of clothing. Nicole boxed up all of his 0 to 3 month clothes and we are now working on his 3 to 6 and 6 to 9 month collection. He wears everything twice before it doesn't fit or before he poops all over it and ruins it. He does however fit into his Lakers hat now. Its just too bad they are so horrible this year. He try to talk all the time now. But this has caused him to develop an uncontrollable salivating disorder. He wears a bib during the day to mop up this excess of slobber. It goes perfectly with his hound-like jowls that hang off of his face. Nicole told me today that she is teaching Oliver the alphabet. They learn a new letter each day, name words that start with that letter and practice the sound. She says that he seems to be picking up a lot and will actually mimic her when she blows raspberries at him. We got him to laugh for the first time today but it was at the expense of me wearing myself out while jumping around and acting like a monkey. Hopefully we can get it on tape. Him laughing, not me acting like a monkey. It's retardedly cute. So now he is coming up on 4 months of age. Were trying to teach him tricks like sitting up, rolling onto his stomach and using the toilet.

Now that we are all ketched-up, we can go back to our weekly posts.

Oliver and Dot

2007-02-14T10:55:00.000-08:00

Oliver and Dot. More pictures will follow soon.

Guy Smiley

2007-01-31T23:24:00.000-08:00

Our little friend has been smiling a lot lately. Nicole got these great pictures of him today. It's nice to know that beyond all the crying and fussing and not sleeping through the night, he is still a happy baby. And now we have the proof to show it.

Oliver is now 10 weeks old. At some point we are supposed to start saying 2 1/2 months instead of weeks, but I don't know when. Someone told me recently that you start saying months based on their clothes size. But if I said Oliver was 3 to 6 months old, you would be left guessing what the crap that means. And don't even get me started on the 2T, 3T, 4T sizes. I don't even know what they mean.

Another person told me to use weeks up to one year and months from that point until they are two. But I don't think it is right to force people to do that much math. If someone asks how old your baby is and you say 44 weeks, they should no longer be under the obligation to care how old your baby is.

Oliver is really into boots right now.

The Day I Blew Up

2007-01-29T10:12:00.000-08:00

A lot of people have seen my charred body on our "pictures" link and have been asking a lot of questions about what happened. For some reason it is very difficult to explain in e-mails, so I drew a picture and will try to explain using it as a reference.

In the early morning on September 25th, Corwin and I were at work with our Dad in Fontana, California. We were all in the rear electrical room at Wal*Mart where I was working on a 480 volt panel. Suddenly everything around me turned white and became very loud (eerily similar to when the nuclear bomb went off on last weeks "24" episode).

In the back of this panel were three buss bars, each of which carries 277 volts of electricity. Something, probably made of metal, crossed over the bottom of the two left most buss bars and caused an arch. The same concept is used to super heat metal when arch-welding, but obviously that is more controlled. I was on my knees when it happened putting me level with the explosion.

Normally this arch would cause a breaker to shut off the power running to these three buss bars, but something malfunctioned and the searing heat kept shooting at me for about 5 to 8 seconds. My dad, seeing the flames had just about stopped, jumped in front of the panel and pulled me out of the way. Corwin avoided the blast. I thought I was toast (get it, toast?).

I did not get electrocuted like Frank Grimes did. That would have killed me like it killed him. Poor Grimey, as he liked to be called.

When My eyesight came too, I saw that the burns weren't as bad as I imagined. In fact I got up and walked around for a few minutes while my Dad took care of the panel. When the ambulance got there, they introduced me to this stuff called morphine and the next 10 days were a blur.

For those who haven't had the stomach to look at the pictures, I had 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns on my left arm from my wrist to my elbow and on my left leg from my ankle to my knee. I had 2nd degree burns on my right arm, 1st degree burns from the left side of my face (from the corner of my eye to my ear) and a 2nd degree burn on my ear. I also had 1st and 2nd degree burns on the outside of my right hand and on the lower portion of my right palm. I was holding a drill when it happened, so if you make like you're holding a drill and look at your hand you can see how that happened. This is the least graphic picture.

At some point during my 10 day high, I had skin grafting done in surgery. They took skin from my left thigh and covered the deep burns on my right leg and right arm. Everyone who has seen the grafting, Doctors and regular humans alike, have been very impressed with how good it looks. Most burn victims have to wear what they call compression garments for 12 to 18 months. I wore them for three months.

Most people cringe when they think about the pain associated with 3rd degree burn. But The whole ordeal was not unbearable. That is mostly because they kept me so well medicated at the hospital. I want everyone to know that the pain I experienced was very minimal compared to the other people I met in the burn ward at the hospital.

We appreciate every one's help and concern during this time. Nicole is such a trooper, she was 7 1/2 months pregnant while all of this was going on. She went through quite the ordeal simply trying to get down to California to be with me. We moved into our new house a few days after I got home. My family put a lot of work into painting the house before they helped us move in. It is really nice to have people that close to rely on in these types of situations.

And that's that. I am doing great now. Feel free to see the "pictures" if you don't mind the gore.

The White Ninja

2007-01-23T17:40:00.000-08:00

We blessed Oliver a few weeks ago. Nicole's mom was very nice and offered to make his blessing outfit. However, one day when Nicole described it to me, she used the word "feminine" and I freaked out, as I am prone to over react to things. Since then, Nicole's mom has been really nervous about making this outfit. She was working on a second outfit that I thought was going to be perfect for him, but she decided that it didn't look good. Then she found this one at Target in Southern California.

I think Nicole's mom thought it was a negative comment when I said, "He looks like a white Ninja!" All it lacked was the headband and a black belt. To say the least, I absolutely loved it. The blessing went well. Grandpas, Uncles, Great Uncles and Bishops all participated. It was a perfect day. Of course, now the ward knows us as the bearded family since a big percentage of those who participated wore full beards.

Our good friend Kelly McCaleb brought her camera to the after party and got these great pictures. You can see more at our Picassa site (the link is on the right).

This is Olivers cousin Daphne. She is five years old and can't wait to be able to baby sit for us. She will follow Nicole around everywhere waiting for another chance to hold the baby. She is really cute.

This is Nicole's sister Emily. Not much of a resemblance to her sister.

This is mine and Olivers favorite trick, but Mom and Grandma and Grandma and Great Grandma have a borderline heart attack when I do it. So I don't do it that often anymore. Yeah right!

Christmas 2006

2007-01-06T15:52:00.000-08:00

It was a great Christmas. Nice and white. Perfect for Oliver's first and for Nicole's family who came up from California. Grandma Dorothy was there too, which is great cause it was her birthday on Christmas day. She got to see her first great grandchild for the first time.

We decided not to get Oliver any presents because he already had so much stuff just from being born. But he still raked it in with the majority of the presents under our tree. It was so nice to have our own house to host our own Christmas morning.

We went to salt lake to see the lights at Temple Square one night. It was as beautiful as ever...and freezing cold.

I am not the only one that is impressed with how good Nicole looks a month after she gave birth.

It's A Baby!

2007-01-05T15:41:00.000-08:00

The most recent event for Los LeSueur in the crazy year of 2006, and biggest to date, was the birth of our son Oliver Arden. He was born November 21st, on his Great Grandma Hutchings birthday, at 10:24 pm. He weighed in at 8 lbs. 8 oz. and was 20 3/4 inches long. The labor was...well, easy. At least easier than it looks in the movies. The doctor joked that it went so quick and painless that there was no way it could have been Nicole's first pregnancy....?

Oliver is now 6 weeks old and doing great. He has had some rough periods in his short little life. He has so much hair that every day is a bad hair day. He was fed some hippy, soy based formula for a few days because the doctor thought he could be lactose intolerant. And he is now too big for most of his clothes.

Oliver enjoys staring into light fixtures, playing Zelda with his dad, eating every 3 hours and flailing his limbs around. He has had quite a lot of neck strenght since day one...a lot more than we expected. He can put all of his weight on his legs, but he doesn't enjoy doing it. At his two week check-up he was 75th percentile for weight and 95th percentile for height. The doctor said he was as tall as the average two month old baby.

We tried to pick a middle name that starts with "W" so that his initials would spell "O.W.L." But we couldn't think of a good one. He was given "Arden" after his great great uncle who also happens to be his Grandpa LeSusuer's mission president. But Oliver likes owls. A lot of his clothes have owls on them. We decorated his room in a cowyboy and indian theme, but Nicole refused to let me put up the hugh "dream catcher" with the indian throwing a spear on the front of it. I will go ahead and steal this last comment from my friend Sarah. She stated it so perfectly. "Everyday it's like I'm hanging out with the funniest person that I know. I never knew a little baby could make me laugh so much. We're glad he's in our life."

I'm a Blogster!!!

2007-01-05T15:06:00.000-08:00

After looking through a couple of friends' blogs, I decided that it is worth the hassle. That, plus the fact that 2006 was the most eventful year of our lives, we will now joing the world wide blogging family and be posting things from time to time. We are Los LeSueur: Nicole, Dusten and Oliver.