Apparently the traditional method of getting food down one's gullet was too doggone slow. Cody tried to bypass all of the tubes and pipes and get that strawberry straight into his belly. What else is a really hungry kid to do?
We have completed the final chapter in "The Summer of Weddings." And since I wasn't blogging when the first 2 chapters happened, I thought I'd give a little recap.
Trevor and Liz. Married April 12 in the Mesa Arizona temple.
Run 'em so ragged that they have no choice but to fall dead asleep on the ride home. Works like a charm.
He is working so hard to pump that water! Funny that with all of the various things to play with, he's drawn to the things that he needs to "work" on. Mr. Serious.
Cody had such a great day-I let him walk (after all, pioneer children did sing as they walked and walked and walked...) He loves being one of the big guys. This is clearly at the beginning of the day, since he is so relatively clean. You see, in his quest to be one of the big guys, he inevitably "runs faster than he has strength" and bites it. A lot. But he has a great time, even when his face is planted in the dirt.
Uh-oh, brother! I think they want this teepee back!
Well, at least it was, 6 years ago. Yep fellas, we've been married for 6 years today. In-credible. Look at that picture-six years and only slightly worse for the wear. ;) If I had a scanner, I'd include a few from the actual wedding day, so that you could see what good lookin' guys we were, but then again, maybe it's better that you don't have the comparison staring you so starkly in the face.
Dear Employee of the Great Satan, The Axis of Evil Itself, Walmart-
I am trying very hard not to loathe you. I recognize that it is not entirely your fault that I spent a hearty 20 minutes waiting in your line. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt when I saw the woman with the booklet of coupons. Then, I realized that it's not so much her fault that she has coupons-who doesn't need them with the all of the rising prices? It took so long because someone missed the piece in your training where you should have learned how to scan them. Alright, now I see that we can share the blame around with whatever supervisor never taught you how to scan a coupon. At this point, perhaps I should have cut my losses and headed to another line. But of course, I rationalized that any other line would have been just as bad as yours and I had already put in 10 minutes, how much longer could it possibly take? So I waited.
My patience took another hit with the next customer who had many produce items. Unfortunately, you had not taken it upon yourself to commit any of the produce numbers to memory, so we spent a small eternity looking up each and every one in the handy dandy little booklet, which comes complete with pictures. Which is a good feature, for your sake. But I was there, and I obviously was not leaving now, so I tried to stay pleasant and simply use the time to catch up on my celebrity gossip.
When I got a little closer, I realized that there are a few very logical reasons why it took so long to look up the produce numbers. First, you are partially cross-eyed. Again, I told myself, this is not your fault! Much more the fault of your parents and grandparents, who were actually one and the same. Second, you clearly come from a long line of proud Walmart employees. How could I tell? Well, easy, first by the obvious crossing of your eyes and second, by the spelling of your name. It all screams of your Walmart Employee Heritage.
(ok, so I realize that it's very low to pick on your parents/grandparents. I'm a little bit sorry and feel a little bit guilty now. Does that mean that I'm going to erase what I just wrote? Nope, sorry, I'm venting here.)
So finally, there we were, you and I, my few items making their way slowly over your scanner. You noticed the reusable bag that I brought and place 2 items in it. "Oh no," I very pleasantly say (supremely pleasantly, under the circumstances). "You can put lots more in it-it will hold." (That's kind of the beauty of the big, thick bag-you can put plenty of stuff in it. Tuck that away in your memory, so that in case anyone who brought their own bag ever has the misfortune of choosing your line again, they will be spared some of the anguish that I experienced.) So, loudly disputing my judgment all the way, you complied. I have many thoughts on why perhaps my judgment might be better than yours in only this one instance, but again, trying my best to be pleasant, I keep these thoughts to myself.
Well, as you will recall, it turned out that my bag didn't quite fit every single item (perhaps it would have, had it been properly packed, but hey, I'm going to let bygones be bygones.) So, my painstakingly priced produce had to go into another bag. Well, I thought to myself, I saved a number of bags today and I will definitely be using this one for stinky baby diapers. Alright, it's not so bad.
But then, the straw that broke the over-tired mother's back. You quadruple bagged my produce! You bagged the bananas separately, the potatoes separately, then you combined them in a bag and double bagged it! 4 bags! For 2 items of produce! (And I'm not even talking about a whole sack of potatoes, I'm talking about literally 4 potatoes!)
May I ask you why you think I bring my own bag? Do you think that I will feel bad if I leave Walmart with efficiently packed goods? That I will not have gotten my money's worth if I don't receive a year's supply of bags in one trip? You just totally negated any effort I made at saving bags. And this, my friend, is what has pushed me from annoyance to the edge of loathing.
Because of you, I have had to seriously reevaluate my understanding of where various humans fit on the evolutionary food chain. Prior to my encounter with you, I was very convinced that carnies were the lowest of the low. But now, I'm not so sure. Excuse me while I go to ponder the merits of the carnie worker as compared to the walmie world worker.
Most sincerely,
BWeed
PS-If anyone feels the need to point out to me that Walmart is the Great Satan, and yet, obviously I'm still shopping there, don't. Don't even bother. I already felt guilty about it, and yet it was late and I needed some stuff.
So Cody wakes up really kissy. I guess he always has, I just didn't realize it until the other day, when he kissed his bite of oatmeal before consuming it. (I guess that's polite, though. Kind of like the old Indian ritual of giving thanks to your food before you eat it.) Anyway, so since I realized it, I have decided to document a few examples of Cody's kissy-ness.
So you wanna kiss? Because Cody's givin' 'em out. (Look at those lips! Honestly! Look at those lips! They kill me! Sorry the pic is a bit blurry, but it was the best I could do. Cody did not at all understand why I would ask him to make kissing lips and then offer him nothing for him to plant that big ole kiss on.)
Never fear, our resident smile-producer, Cody is here!
We received a letter from Grandma today, in the which she stated that she wished she could hear Cody laugh. Well, wish granted, Grandma. That's what we do here at Weed's Seeds. We make wishes come true. :)
I was so ready to pin a parenting medal on myself after that post a bit ago where I chronicled the great time my boys had. But today, I freely admit that I must not be allowed to have that shiny medal.
When Nathan gets up, he turns the cartoons on for himself so I can sleep. (What? Dude gets up at like 6:00-or, now I realize that sometimes I don't even know when he gets up-and Cody's not up until about 7:30. Can you blame me?) Anyway, so I feel a little bad that he starts his day watching cartoons, but then I rationalize about it being PBS and educational and he's learning and whatever and then I roll over and go back to sleep.Yes, well, today he says,
"Mommy, guess what, there were no cartoons on this morning." (read: he started watching TV before 6am, because that's when PBS programming starts.)
"Oh, really? Well, then what were you doing?"
"I was watching about the irons."
"The irons?"
"Yes, they were very special irons, like for your clothes, but you go like this..." And he proceeded to demonstrate the correct way to maneuver these special irons.
"Hm. Wow." (Brain reeling as I realize that my kid spent the first blush of the day watching INFOMERCIALS!)
"Yes, and for only 99 of dollars, we can get the complete set and they will send it to us right away!" He may have even included other infomercial language such as call in the next 30 minutes to receive a free egg slicer, but I had already run to flush my hard earned medal down the toilet. Dang.
So yeah, he's been learning lots in the early hours of the morning when his brain is fresh and ready to soak up new information: marketing, advertisement, sales, and the proper usage of the SteamClean 2000.
Well, we had an adventure in anatomy the other day (which I will not be posting a picture of, for obvious reasons.) It all started when I discovered a new favorite pastime-kissing Nathan's dimple. I don't know why I hadn't ever really realized (or perhaps I had just forgotten), but that big dimple makes a really very satisfying kiss. I'm pretty sure that dimple was created to fit exactly my smoochy lips because it's just perfect. (Please see the post A Big Day to see the dimple to which I refer). Anyway, so we were playing and laughing and wrestling around, as I'm trying to kiss and kiss and kiss his dimple. After we stopped, he was trying to taunt me into wrestling him again, so he said, "Mom! Kiss my Nimple!!" This is, of course, a hybrid between nipple and dimple-the nipple piece being on his mind as he recently discovered his. Those tiny little protuberances have somehow escaped his notice thus far in his life, but now that he's discovered them, he's quite fascinated by them.
Ryan and I got some great amusement out of that, so I wanted to offer you the same opportunity.
To the Nimple! Three cheers for the Nimple!
So the other day, Nathan came up to me with a pen and paper and asked if I would help him write a letter to daddy. Sure. Here's the letter:
Dear Daddy-
I know that the gospel is true in our church and I really really really know the gospel is true. And I know that we can say nice words and not mean words and I know that the gospel is true. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Love, Nathan
SO sweet, huh?
As two separate and distinct, entities, that is. That's what I love about this place. They say that, and they don't just mean, "Bless America, and more specifically, please bless Texas." No no, they really mean, "Bless America, and also bless Texas, which is different, and therefore worthy of a separate mention in our prayer." Ha ha ha ha, I love it. I enjoy it so much that I now own a little tchotchke (did you know that that's how you spell "chotch-kee?") that proclaims that precise sentiment. Now, wherever we go, we'll have a little Texas pride to carry with us.
Holding hands-which they proudly did all over the pancake breakfast. 
They were also seen hugging... so sweet!
And telling secrets-look at her little foot! So darling! At one time I was Audrey's nursery teacher, so I know for myself what a cute, sweet, adorable girl she is. We think Nathan has made a great choice. (And her father is a BYU fan, so she comes from good BYU blood, which pleases Nathan's father.)
So I was sitting here feeling bad about how bad my boys seem to think that they have it-and then I remembered! My boys had about the most killer 24 hours a week or so ago and I totally forgot to blog about it. So, lest you go to bed thinking that my boys really do have it rough, I thought I would add some photographic proof that occasionally, they do have a good time.
Can you see how hard Nathan is concentrating on being sweet and loving with this poor little thing? It was very scared to be out of it's cage, so Nathan was trying to radiate calm and serenity.
It didn't so much work, however, and I ended up having to hold the poor quivering little guy. This is another example of Nathan's photographic handiwork, by the way. And some of my jewelry handiwork, by the way. 
Then, in the afternoon when Daddy got home, we went to Old Town Lewisville Water Park-we LOVE that place! And doesn't this picture just smack of sparkling summer?
The boys and I got our faces painted. Nathan got a fire-breathing dragon. Cody's is a dragonfly and mine is a dragon... flower? I don't know, I'm just trying to fit in with the dragon theme. For dinner, we went out to pizza, though I didn't didn't take pictures of that, so I hope you'll just take my word for it. Mix in a bit of sleep, and then in the morning, Daddy took the boys to the Dallas Zoo with his cousin Paige and her husband and kiddos.
Maybe Nathan inadvertently invited the extra spiders (featured in the two posts below) with his romp on the spider web. (Also please note the monstrous size of Nathan's foot. Do you even see? Kid is huge.)
Yeah, so they had a great time-though in this picture, Nathan is a bit concerned about the whereabouts of his zoo map, which was probably his favorite part of the whole experience. It just makes his little analytical brain feel so good to be able to look at a map-orderly, numbers, stuff to figure out and lines to follow... both zoo maps are posted proudly on his walls, so that he can get his map fix any time he needs.
