Lanny's Graduation

Lanny graduated this May with his Master's degree in Near Eastern and Judaic studies with an emphasis in Islamic studies and Arabic from Brandeis University! Whoa what a mouth full. I am seriously proud of him! He worked so hard and got all A's. He even finished his thesis right after he underwent reconstructive knee surgery. This stud is dedicated! He loved school so much he is considering a PHD. I am all for that! I think a professor is one of the sexiest occupations....big brains =good looks....right? Well Lanny definitely has both! Way to go honey, I couldn't be any more proud of you!

Our little family

I feel like this degree is a 10th mine...I had to do all the background work you know!


His pleased parents! We are sooooo blessed to have their love and support. I loved that they got to come out and celebrate this occasion with us! The boys love spending time with Grandma and Grandpa!

Feel the love

Ugh....this is the only shot I got of Lanny receiving his diploma. You try and take a three second shot and chase a 1 year old!

This is one of the buildings at Brandeis. Ethan loves it because it was a castle.



Grandpa Lee asked to go and see Walden pond again. This is one of my favorite places around Boston. I feel instant peace when I walk around this beautiful pond. Ethan ran full speed into the water without asking if he could go swimming. Good thing I know Ethan's tendencies and had an extra set of clothes in the car. Now that I think about it I should have put him in his swimsuit and brought a towel!


Ethan enjoying the pond!


Lanny and his Mommy! We love you Grandma!

Grandpa and Grandma Las Vegas with Asher enjoying the nice spring weather at Walden!

Ethan's graduation

I did Joy school with Ethan this year. I really wanted to send him to preschool but since we

live in Boston the tuition was more than I paid a semester for my undergrad degree....crazy hu!

Thankfully some of the other Mom's in our ward decided they wanted to do a joy school.

For those of you who don't know what Joy school is...it is a preschool that you do in your home.

You buy the curriculum online and then each of the mom's take turns teaching a week at a time. The curriculum is value based rather than academic based. I had fun doing it with Ethan most of the time. Sometimes he thought he had to be a clown and spent most of the morning in his room in time out. Oh well! These pics are from his graduation. We had a picnic with the families to celebrate this fun day!

The cute kids: Benjamin, Aliya, Julia, and Ethan

Stacy made these cute cupcakes ...it was a little warm and the cute hats started to melt.

Yes! I got my diploma :)

Kids and Mommies

I like this picture because you can totally see their personalities. Benjamin and Ethan do not like performing in front of a group and Aliya and Julia love it!

Go Ethan! I love my little stud!

Before Lanny's knee surgery, he received his blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with his good friend Eric Bischoff. He really worked hard to advance to this level, so I thought I would give him some recognition.

Hanging out with my boys

Asher is awesome at building with big Lego's but I didn't know my food storage would keep him entertained. While I was doing dishes he got in the cupboard and pulled these cans out and stacked them all by himself. I was pretty impressed.




Asher is pretty good about smiling for the camera. This was taken on Easter Sunday. I really wish I would have gotten the boys hair cut. Oh well!




Me and my sweet little boys. I love their matching Easter outfits (thank you Grandma Laurie)!!!




Ethan and Asher found Lanny's Jiu Jitsu belts and wanted me to wrap them around them so they could be warriors.



I love this "look" Ethan thinks he is soooo tough.



Just a fun picture of my sweet Asher.




Asher takes only one nap now and it is around lunch time. I try to get him to eat lunch before he goes down but lately he has been falling asleep in his high chair.



We have been trying to get Asher to sleep through the night since he was 8 months old. He is now 21 months and he is finally pretty good at it but every time he gets sick we have to re-sleep train him. He recently got a runny nose and so we had to start again....I decided to let him cry it out and it took over an hour...he would cry and whine then run around his crib and yell at us. When he was finally quiet I went in to check on him and I found this. He fell asleep sitting up in the corner of his crib. Man he is so stubborn.

Ethan's 5th Birthday

I can't believe Ethan is already 5! Time flies when you are sleep deprived...I mean having fun! :) He is such an awesome little boy and I am oh so lucky to be his mom! He told me I am his best friend and I honestly can't think of anything better than that! He is still obsessed with Superheroes. He has branched out a little lately and has gotten into Lego's and video games. I asked him if he wanted a friend birthday party and he said no, just family. I was excited I didn't have to put anything on but then the day of his birthday he asked when his friends were coming over to have cake. AHHHH! We were already having Joy School at our house the next day so we had Birthday cake with his Joy School class mates and he was happy.




Ethan loved blowing out his candles so we did it a couple times. Don't you just love a little spit with your birthday cake? :)




Ethan was thrilled with the Yoda cake but was disappointed that Yoda's light saber was red. I know red light sabers are only used by the sith...but the gel colors were limited at the grocery store and they didn't have another shade of green. Oh well!




I asked Ethan what kind of cake he wanted. He said he wanted a Yoda Cake. I was actually asking about the flavor but I guess I should have been more specific. I looked on-line to try and think of how to do a Yoda cake and they had really cool molds and stuff but it was the day before so I had to come up with my own idea. This is what I ended up doing....I took a coloring page of Yoda and placed a piece of wax paper over it. I then traced it with frosting gel and then flipped it over onto the frosted cake. I gently rubbed the wax paper and pulled it off slowly. It worked perfectly.



Pirate Legos- I actually ended up building the set the first time for him because he was so impatient, but he has since taken it apart and built lots of cool lego pirate things. He has a great imagination.




It is our tradition to open presents right after we wake up, this is why he is in his pj's and sporting the cute bed head hair. He is really into Batman the Brave and the Bold series...this is Aquaman.

New York with Family

Lanny's parents were coming to New York City with his father's job so they wanted to know if we could meet them there. We said yes of course!!! Getting to see family and see New York City...perfect combo!



Sorry I got my pics a little out of order.....but anyway. I have a cousin that lives in New Jersey so I asked if we could see her over the weekend and she came with her cute family and meet us in the city. She was a lovely tour guide and showed us the American Museum of Natural History, Central Park, and took us to the Brooklyn Diner. (Very Yummy) [Picture- Laura with her cute kids Kate and Ben (her husband, Brian was taking the pic)...then of course Lanny, Ethan, Asher and I)]




Ethan and I in the Ellis Island Museum. This is actually the room where the immigrants would come to register. Very cool but Ethan and Asher basically were into running around the museum and trying to play hide and seek. Oh well.




Ethan and Daddy in front of the Ellis Island monument/museum.




Asher running around the Statue of Liberty. I love him in this puffy coat (thank you Amber) It is kind of funny, he can't put his arms all the way down...reminds me of that movie...I think it is called A Christmas Story?




Daddy chasing Asher by the Statue of Liberty....I love the picture of New York City behind them. It was a very cold Spring Day...it was just lightly snowing a few hours before.



Lanny, Asher,Grandpa Lee,Grandma Laurie, and Ethan in front of the Statue of Liberty.




Grandpa and Ethan in front of the Dinosaur at the Toys R Us in New York City. It was very life like (Roar and all) and the boys loved it!



The Toys R Us also had a ferris wheel inside the store...how cool is that! Grandma treated us to a ride and we lucked out and got the megablocks car to ride in. (We were crossing our fingers hoping we didn't get the Barbie or Cabbage Patch car) Ethan also got to pick out toys for his birthday from his grandparents since it was only a few days away. He was so thrilled with this, he kept saying I am soooooo happy!



We got to take the subway around New York and Ethan thought is was the coolest. Most of the time it was very crowded but this just happened to be a time when we got the car all to ourselves.



Ethan playing on the subway!

I have to say we had a blast with our family and thought New York was very exciting. But I would just like to warn those of you with small children...not the most children friendly city. Public bathrooms are very hard to find and the monuments were not so exciting for the kids...but it was a great adventure. So if you can come with out your kids it would be a blast...but if you take your small children it will be a wild adventure! (I wish I could have taken more pictures but I found myself chasing my little monkeys more than usual)

My Second Honeymoon!

So Lanny got tired of waiting for me to post our Hawaii pictures. I kept telling him I had to blog about Christmas first...but life just kept happening and I never found the time so Lanny got on and blogged about Hawaii but I feel like I want to blog about it too...so here it goes.

Last Spring Lanny told me about a conference being held in Hawaii and wanted to know if he should submit a paper for publication so we could go to Hawaii and present it. I said that would be the coolest so to go for it. Well we heard back in the summer that the paper was accepted and that he was invited to present it at the conference in January. I kept trying to think of ways to justify the expense and decided that since we only got a three day honeymoon in Utah...that we should take a second honeymoon in Hawaii. My parents took the kids and we got to spend 5 days alone! Well it ended up 2 days of travel so only three real days in Hawaii but hey I will take anything I can get. I must warn all of you though....if you go to Hawaii don't just spend three days there...there is too much to see and do...let alone you need time to relax and sit on the beach. We were so busy with the conference that we only got to sight see one full day and only got some walks on the beach at sunset...no tan :( I missed my boys like crazy and cried a couple times but overall I loved just staring at the love of my life and enjoying an uninterupted conversation. It was fun to see Lanny present his paper and learn more about his area of study. Returning home was sweet too, Ethan gave the best hugs and kisses and Asher gave me the sweetest smile and just stroked my face (I wonder if he was making sure it wasn't a dream). Oh I love my boys...all three of them!