Thorax???

I had just pulled a giant blanket out of the dryer, when Ryan sensed its cozy goodness. So he came running full speed on the hardwood floor in his socks and slipped hitting his side on the floor. When I asked him where he got hurt he replied "My Thorax." Maybe we've been reading too much James and the giant peach.

Another good one!

The things that come out of this child's mouth....

Today Ryan was giving me a very hard time in Walmart about not getting what he wanted. So tonight Marshall, Ryan, and I were talking about saving money.

I said: Ryan do you know what it means to save money?

He replied: Yeah like when money falls or gets lost you have to save it.

Uhhh not exactly.

Quality Conversation

While Marshall has been MIA, Ryan has been able to take his much coveted spot on the bed. So the little man and I have had some of the best conversations the past couple of nights.
I asked him a pretty leading question about god and he came up with the best answer ever.

"Hey Ryan Why did God send us here to Earth"
"because if he didn't we would have to live on a rocket ship"

Working Moms

Work makes me a better Mom.
Why you ask?
Take today for example, Brianna pooped her pants on the way to Pocatello from Blackfoot.
That's not so bad you say!
Oh yeah, she was wearing a night gown!!! It wasn't pretty!
Now you agree with me.
Now if I were still at home with her she would probably still be crying and I would still be yelling. However, currently I am at work and thinking that the experience was just a tiny bit funny.

How my mind works.

For all of you who wanted a Shawna eyed view (I know that is most of you, especially you Cindy.)

So here goes.... Marshall told me he was going on a dirt biking trip with his buddies from work for five days in Nevada. My first thoughts were good for him, he's got friends. I actually thought this sincerely so I get points for that. My next thought was he deserves this because he works hard and has put in so much overtime this last year. I also get points for that. However seconds later I had the epiphany and it was not a good epiphany. So if Marshall gets to go on a trip with his buddies sans responsibility... WHAT DO I GET!!!
I tried so hard to put this out of my mind, SO HARD. Unfortunately selflessness is not an endearing quality of mine. So I let it sink in a few days trying really hard to argue Marshall's side.
1. He works a 50 hour week sometimes more.
2. He never takes vacation time, he needs a break.
3. He has never gone on a trip like this before.
4. He normally lets me go dirtbiking with him and doesn't complain about me not being very good.
5. He's a great husband and father!
So I got by for a little while thinking Marshall deserves this, unfortunately it was only a little while. The minute I started arguing a side for Marshall my all too cunning instincts kicked in and said what the heck, you should be arguing for yourself.
My selfish Shawna said
1. I work a 30 hour week and come home and work a 138 hour week.
2. I never take vacation time, but I beg Marshall to so we can go somewhere as a family, because I need a break.
3. I have NEVER gone on a trip like that before, but if I did I am sure it would include kids and diapers and yelling and lots of laundry when I finally came home.
4. I have been pregnant the last 2 dirt biking seasons so reason four lost a lot of credibility. And I'm really a pretty good rider, sort of, for a wife at least, okay maybe not.
5. This reason was hard to argue, but occassionally Marshall made it very easy to argue. I won't go into those details on a public blog, however I will in the church foyer (two very similar entities.)

So my mind got the best of me but I still had a trump card. I would let Marshall plead his case. So a couple nights before Marshall was to leave I played him. I said that we should come up with ideas on how to make our relationship fair without having to resort to score taking. For one because I could never afford to keep up with Marshall (he'll rib me for this one), and second because I once heard that sefishness was the third leading cause of divorce. He ended up failing miserably and I mean miserably. In fact by the end I had a lot more reasons for me going to Nevada than Marshall.

Funny thing is I didn't care to argue about Marshall going on a trip or anything else I just wanted to hear him tell me I was a great wife and mother and that he loved me and that it was warranted how I felt....

Ahhh who am I kidding, I wanted him to tell me I was a bigger person than he was AND I wanted to go to Disneyland.

but really I hope you have fun hunny! Just remember I now have more points.

Child Rearing 101

I have devised a new strategy in rearing my children. It is called neglect. Those of you who know me are thinking "yeah right that's not a NEW strategy for her, that's what she's always done."
An example... I am lousy at remembering to make lunch. I just don't get hungry at that time. Brianna on the other hand has food constantly on her mind. So one late afternoon I spied Brianna walking into the kitchen and grabbing a spoon out of the drawer. She then opened up the freezer got the ice cream out. She ate it for about five minutes then put it back and threw her spoon in the sink. I can't even get Marshall to complete all those steps. He's great at the first two but lousy at the last two. So I made my hypothesis (psst Julie, that means an educated guess) if I neglect my children they will, out of necessity, learn to be more self sufficient.
So to continue my experiment on child raising I forgot about lunch on another occassion and was able to document another account. I remained a silent observer while Brianna came in to the kitchen, pulled a loaf of bread off of the counter, retrieved the toaster from the cabinet, and proceeded to put the bread in the toaster, after which she very happily yelled TOAST at the top of her lungs.
Eventually I may publish my findings, but as for know I will just leave you with the gist of my research.
Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day..... ...starve your child and they'll learn to make toast, or eat ice cream, or something along those lines.

Weekend Update

Yeah for the weekend! For your special treat I thought I would fill you all (all 6 of you that read this blog) in on how the Reynolds' have been progressing.

Marshall: Cheers for the big guy! He has lost almost 25 pounds in the last 2 months. The treadmill has become his new best friend, and the kids and I have his ipod workout mix dedicated to memory. So a word to Brianna's nursery leader, Don't be surprised if Brianna begins singing Shinedown's 'The Sound of Madness' after The Itsy Bitsy Spider. But we would gladly give up 30 minutes of Marshall a day to the treadmill so he can be here well into his years. Speaking of which he'll be the big 3 6 tomorrow so Happy birthday to ya honey!

Me: Not much new here. I got a new ipod nano and within minutes of it's delivery Ryan had claimed it as his "movie watching thingy." Now after 3 days of ownership I have no idea where it is. Thanks a lot Ryan!
I am trying to be a better all around person, which is something easily attained because my bar is set pretty low. I've decided our food budget has been way out of control and decided to half it this month, so far so good. I've made dinner rather than buy dinner which has gone a long way in helping me save.
I have recently become a gymboree addict, luckily I have also been listening to Dave Ramsey's radio show, so I credit the financial guru for keeping me on the wagon as far as SUPER cute children's clothes are concerned.
Oh yeah, I also had to apologize to my mother this week. She loves to use the word "ironical", after years of hounding her that it was not a real word and she could just say ironic I finally looked it up. Sorry mom your right.

Ryan: We went swimming for FHE last night, I work mondays so we pick another day of the week for our FHE. Ryan has been in swimming lessons at Blackfoot pool and last night I got to see him in action. I was really impressed (wow a mom impressed by something her kid could not do before and now can.) But really I was impressed. He was actually swimming which gave me a little relief cause now that we have three kids swimming is not an easy family activity without the intervention of a lifeguard.
My other brag for Ryan moment is last week for FhE we went to Randy's Tumbling Gym (love it.) If you refer to one of my previous posts you would probably realize this wasn't one of the safest activities I could do with my kids due to my lack of regard for their well-being. So true to my nature I asked (no told, uh no made) Ryan do a backflip into the foam pit. And to my surprise he did, without even a hesistation. He's such a cool kid.
Wednesday I was driving Ryan to gymnastics and he said "mom your not cute." I had tried really hard that day (sad I know) so I said "What!" Then he replied "you're not awesome either." So I put on my sad looking face, which prompted him to put on his mischevious grin. After a sufficient amount of time had passed with me looking forlorn he exclaimed "You're CUTE and AWESOME!"
Julie had to call me the other day because of something ryan had said. My mom was watching him and Julie was there. She told Ryan she was stealing some of grandma's pizza, so Ryan yelled "grandma Julie is stealing your pizza" to which Julie replied 'Ryan you're a snot." Ryan didn't hear her reply so Ed told Ryan what Julie had called him. Ryan calmly told Ed "that's okay Julie's uncool." Ryan really gets people.

Brianna: I learned a new lesson this week from Brianna. Apparently you don't have to try as hard to be a mom for your 2nd and 3rd children as you do your first. Somehow magically they can learn things without being taught. I remember spending hours with Ryan trying to get him to count to three. This week Ryan and Brianna were playing hide and seek and when it was Brianna's turn to count she put her hands on her eyes to keep from peeking and said 1--2--3. Where did she learn that? Then during her next turn Ryan told her he wasn't ready yet and to keep counting and I heard a 4--5--6--7--8--10. Of course my mom took credit for her math skills stating it was because of all the times they've played bubblegum bubblegum in a dish.
Brianna has also been doing well with potty training. She got panties for Christmas and has been sans diaper for about a month now. Sorry to Monica for the added pressure, besides it was Julie who told Jon not me, she's so uncool.
Also thank you to Brianna's nursery leader! She has been singing songs all week which I have never sung to her. So far I have heard some very interesting reditions of twinkle twinkle and itsy bitsy spider.

Case: This baby has definately been on my good side lately. For the past 2 weeks he has been going to bed at 9:00 and not even stirring until 6:30. I believe he has been my smiliest baby and he doesn't just half smile he goes all the way. He looks like a little monkey when he smiles which most people think is so cute, unfortunately I really hate monkeys. Luckily I really, really love Case.
Case got a new gift this week. We brought up Brianna's old baby swing for him. Good thing Case is already a tough guy cause if not the other babies would make fun of him for chillin in a baby pink swing with sheer fabric and butterflies. More than once Brianna has shown us how jealous she is that Case has her swing and more than twice I have found her in the swing. Which wouldn't be a big deal except Case has been in there under her.
I was looking through pictures that my mom had taken of Case (being that Case is the third child there aren't a lot of pictures that I have taken of him) and I found one that I love. So I put on my sidebar for your enjoyment. The reason I love it is because it reminds me of one of those photos of professional people like bankers and university presidents. Maybe if he ever does become a professional and has his picture on the wall of a university or bank I'll play a prank on him and switch it with the picture on my sidebar, now that would be funny!

Sorry for such a long post, I'm glad you hung in there until the end. Just thought I would let you know how jealous I am of you. That is why I do all these crazy things just to keep up with you and all the fun things I read about you doing on your blog.

Add the Caption...

Now while I would like to add beautiful pictures of myself and family on this blog and omit the ones that cast us in a lesser light I couldn't help but post these two pictures my mom clicked of Marshall and I sitting on Santa's lap. I thought it was so ironic that both of us have pictures that we are doing something not so nice to the jolly guy. I should have a contest on whoever can come up with the best caption. Marshall is going to KILL me!

Reasons I should not be a Mom!

Lately most of my conversations with people have been revolving around my general lack of concern for my children's safety (I mean heck I have an aflac accident policy, I might as well use it.) So I thought perhaps I should compile a list and post it publicly on the internet for your enjoyment, just as long as you promise not to call CPS, you promise right?

1. I had to talk my son Ryan into wanting a dirt bike, and went shopping for it before he could even ride a bicycle. Then when he learned how to ride I pushed him to go down a "too steep hill" and he fell into a thorny bush.

2. I got chastised by the Doctor I work for, because I don't have a carbon monoxide monitor. Oh yeah and also because I am so non-chalant about how I handle my 2 month-old and his lack of neck support. But he was amazed about how well he could hold his head up at this age. You don't get that kind of neck strength if your mom is constantly helping you hold it up, the kids got to work at it.

3. Ryan is in gymnastics in a very organized and supervised program. However I felt it a necessity to buy him a mini trampoline (Thanks to my neighbor Heather's idea.) when ryan asked if we should put the safety pad around it I told him "No, it won't let you jump as high if we do."

4. Ryan asked me to play soccer with him while we were upstairs in the bonus room. So I reared back and told him to get ready cause' I was going to bring the thunder. I reared back ready to kick the ball hard against the wall and instead of the wall it hit Brianna right in the face who was standing only eight feet away. Now to my credit I got to her almost as fast as the ball did. And because it was an extremely soft nerf ball there wasn't even a mark on her. It may have been because I am really not that strong but I like to think it is because the ball was really soft.

5. We have been watching nitro circus lately at our house, which is a show with a crazy bunch of guys who do motorcross stunts and the like. So I wanted to get into the action (by proxy), so I told Ryan to jump off of our second story "catwalk." He wasn't game at first but as in bad mommism #1 he agreed after a little coaxing so I lifted him over the handrail and he jumped down to his father (Marshall acts innocent like he was against it but don't be fooled.) To my credit Ryan loved it and wanted to do it again and again, to my detriment now he will probably do it by himself sooner than I should have expected it.

Now remember no phone calls to the authorities, cause tonight I have plans to pull out the crib mattress (cause' it's made of slick material) and take the kids on a trip down the stairs, and we don't want to be interrupted.

Our New Little Man

CASE STEVEN REYNOLDS

8 pounds 7 ounces, 20.5 inches long, born on 11-13-09

After a long 9 months our little guy is here at last. Marshall and I woke up early on Friday the 13th and headed for the hospital for an induction. They started me at 8:00 and Case Steven Reynolds met us for the first time at 3:15. He was by far my easiest delivery, and we are all doing well at home. Due to the swine flu kids are not allowed in the hospital so Ryan and Brianna had to wait to see him until we came home. About an hour after we were home Ryan came to me all choked up, I asked him what the matter was because he looked close to tears and he told me that he was so happy Case was home that he wanted to cry. That was a very perfect ending to the day we brought him home.

My Little Thumper

I have been counting down the days until we could get Ryan a dirtbike since he was born. This summer the time finally came. We jumped the gun a little and bought him his bike before he knew how to ride a bicycle without training wheels and he seemed a little short on his dirtbike, with his feet not quite able to touch the ground. Well, to my surprise he mastered his bicycle in a few short days and a week later was riding his dirtbike with no help at all. He has been riding for a couple weeks now so I decided we should take him up to a little riding hill not far from where we live. He did awesome! He did so good that I talked him into going down a hill that ended up being a little too much for him and he crashed at the bottom. After his crash down the hill he wasn't riding so well and seemed to lose a lot of confidence. Later I found that the real reason he wasn't riding well. He bent his handle bars when he crashed down the hill. Ooops! We still had a lot of fun and I am proud of Ryan for being so tough.

Fort Ryan

Last Weekend I built a fort for Ryan and we put a little bed in it. He wanted be to lay down by him, so while we were laying there I asked him what we should name his fort. He replied "Uh, maybe the Awesome Man Fort, with Ladies in it."

Then I asked Ryan what would happen if we never went to sleep again, thinking he would reply we would get tired. Instead he said "Santa would be very sad."

Can you Guess?

Here is a picture Ryan drew of me the other day. See if you can guess what we are trying to let everyone know.

Like Father Like Son

Ryan drew on himself with his markers the other day so before I put him in the bath I gave him some pretty awesome whiskers.

Can you see any resemblance?

Valentines already!

I Love having a little girl! Today I really got in the Valentine's Day mood (I know it's early) and made Brianna a Valentine's tutu. The Valentine's tutu was purposely made large to grow into so I made her an extra tutu that would fit her now. She also had to have a hairbow to match so I made four, man I love having a little girl.

...to shine for him each day.

Introducing the newest Sunbeam on the block. Ryan is so happy to finally be in primary, now he has his own class rather than tagging along with his mom and dad to their classes.

Sledding in the Driveway

Apparently you don't need a hill to go sledding.

All you need is one of these...

...a sled......and someone to test it out.

Oh Yeah, it helps to have an awesome daddy to do it all for you.

Merry Christmas!

The Reynold's Family hopes everyone had a great Christmas, and we wish you a happy New Year!

When Ryan first woke up on Christmas Morning he skipped right past his pile of presents from Santa because he was more excited to move the poinsettia to the Christmas Day stocking.

Brianna was much more fun than I had anticipated her being for her first Christmas. She absolutely loved our Christmas Eve dinner and was all smiles with every present she opened.

Your Friendly Neighorhood...

...SPIDERMAN

I had some halloween make-up crayons that I bought to put whiskers on Brianna for a Halloween costume. Well they didn't get used but they did get opened so I went to throw them away and thought why does it have to be Halloween to have some make-believe fun. So Ryan was a very willing participant and let me go through two different spider-man faces. The second time he wasn't as still and neither was the camera taker (sorry for the blurry picture.) Daddy sure was surprised to come home and find his wife saved by the friendly neighborhood spider-man.

A very Late Halloween Post

So I never EVER take pictures. I just prod my camera happy mother to take all the pictures I want with the intention of having her send them to me on disc or something. Unfortunately my laziness for picture taking translates into laziness for getting copies of the pictures my mom takes. So these are some of the pictures she posted to her blog of my family on Halloween. I know they are late so enjoy, or don't either way I completely understand.

Ryan went as a motorcross guy. I bought him some riding gear a year ago for 80% off and he has yet to grow into it so it made a great costume, very thrifty and he loved it. He was most excited about putting mom's eyeshadow on his face to look like dirt.


For Brianna's costume I had a jersey that Ryan used to wear when he was two and it ended up fitting her very well. I just added a pair of Ryan's old red nikes, some jeans, and one of the world's largest hair bows, cause you know without it I would have had a lot of what a cute boy comments.


Here we are as a family. Marshall hates this picture, I think we are going to buy a treadmill because of it. But it was a fun halloween with Julie's in-laws and I didn't have to spend hardly a dime, and I have already bought the kid's costumes for next year from gymboree for 70% off. We'll see if they wear them, or if my grand plan for my family themed mario party comes to fruition (me-mario, marshall-liugi, Ryan-bowser, brianna-mushroom)