Alright, Fine....I've Been Tagged...

What’s his name? Brian David Hobbs, although many might refer to him as 'the Dog'...long story, almost funny...

How long have you been together? Well, we have known each other for nearly eight years. We met about the second week of fall semester 1999 in a dance class. I thought he was handsome, he thought I had a boyfriend.

How long did you date? Technically I didn't know we were dating. You see, he would come up for reasons for us to get together...choreography and dance team things mostly...and then mention how it would be a shame to waste the rest of the evening, and that we should definately go catch a movie or something. It took me longer than necessary to figure out he was trying to date me....but by then it was too late, I was hooked! So, according to me we started dating in April 2000, our first date being the Second Chance Prom, that led to our second date at Remo's that we won a dinner for in a swing contest....that would have us dating for about four months before we got engaged (July 17, 2000). According to Brian we were dating long before that, probably sometime in October....when he was inviting me over to cook for me and serving me reheated leftovers.....

How old is he? 30

Who eats more? I want to say him, but if I'm honest with myself....me, most of the time. Except when it comes to entire bags of Oreos or packages of Whoppers...then it is not me. Unless we're talking about Doritos....then it is me. Or pizza....or peanut butter. Hmmm...or chocolate....but let's get some perspective, after all....I need to keep up my strength to chase after my two kids...well, to make sure the one kid at home doesn't get into stuff...never mind that he can't crawl and mostly plays with stuffed animals on the floor and doesn't move....hmmm...

Who said I Love You first? Me...although he tricked me into it. We were at a drive-inn movie (on a school night...hehe), I think it was The Fast and the Furious (ugh, no wonder he was able to trick me into saying it, I was bored out of my mind!), and he kept asking me if I liked him. The worst part is that instead of saying it back, he just smiled smugly and let me suffer in agony wondering if he loved me back.

Who is taller? That's easy...him, of course. I was born into a family of shorties...so it was inevitable the guy I married would be taller. And I would like to offer a belated apology to all those tall girls out there that didn't get to marry Brian (a very tall guy) because I did. Hehe...I'm not sorry...neener neener.

Who is smarter? What a terrible question. Well, I'm smarter at the stuff I do, and he's smarter at the stuff he does. It baffles me, for instance, that he can sit in a room full of teenagers day after day, teaching them things and not wanting to kill them all. He also knows a whole lot more than me about art history, art techniques, being a guy and packing a suitcase. I would like to think I am pretty smart about cultural things (hopefully I didn't waste all those years in college), and I have a whole lot of useless trivia at my disposal. Oh, and I know how to load the dishwasher better, but I still appreciate him doing it for me.

Who does laundry? This question is a sore spot at our house. Brian does the laundry, even though I've asked him repeatedly to leave it to me. We've been married seven years and he still shrinks my clothes....but I do have to admit that it can be nice to come home and find all of Ben's clothes washed, folded and put away. And I guess I shouldn't be bothered by him not using the special baby laundry soap, as long as it got done. Sometimes it's hard being an obsessed person....*sigh*

Who does the dishes? As previously mentioned, we both do them...some of us just do them once, while others have to run them through again. But like I said, it is still nice to have them done for me.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? For now, me...but only because the outlet is on the left side of the bed, and it provides power for the alarm clock and the sleep machine, so Brian gets to be the lucky lefty.

Who pays the bills? I pay the bills, but he brings home the bacon...ehehhehehe. We both do the finances, but he is busy so I take care of the paperwork.

Who mows the lawn? Don't tell my dad, but I don't even know how to turn our mower on. Thank goodness for my husband who has made it his mission to have our grass cut short.

Who cooks dinner? Usually me. I think we both agree that I'm the better cook, although lately he has revealed his talents for tuna sandwiches, instant mashed potatoes, and marinating steaks.....and for now, that's enough!

Who drives when you are together? Brian, I guess. I used to want to drive all the time, now I would rather back-seat drive, unless we are late. In which case I'm with Melanie, and I need to drive or there will usually be a fight.

Who is more stubborn? Equally stubborn, I guess that's why we get along.

Who kissed who first? He kissed me first. And then he giggled like a little girl. It was so cute.

Who asked out who first? Like I said, I wasn't actually aware that he was asking me out at first...but I still think it was him. And for our first official date (that I think was the first date) he asked me. I can actually remember the phone call...and I apologize to my roommates for my unexcusable corniness during the following week. I was just so excited that he finally asked me on a date...I was worried that he didn't like me. He was just so darned adored by every girl I knew (he could dance and he was tall and handsome...and dark...hmmm....) that I thought some other girl had snagged him.

Who proposed? He did. And it was very old-fashioned and romantic, and I didn't know it was coming. Not to say that I didn't hope he would....I just didn't know he was going to. He told me he had a present for me...and he had told me the night before that he was moving to Utah and wanted to celebrate my birthday early, which was the fabricated reason for the date, and so I thought he was giving me an early birthday present. I remember thinking that he looked kind of sick that night, and I didn't realize until later that he was nervous that I would say no....silly Brian....and when he took out the ring box I got to experience a moment of pure surprise...since that was probably the only time in my life that I hadn't expected what was happening. It was awesome.

Who has more siblings? Same number of siblings, and same number of boys and girls.

Who wears the pants in the family? Brian lets everyone think that I do, but really we are both pretty opinionated, and we like to make each other happy...so we share the pants.


Okay, there you go people, are you happy? You all know by now that I don't do tagging, not because I don't enjoy reading other people's, but because I'm lazy and stubborn. So I tag Nanci and my Aunt Cheryl, who are probably the only two people likely to do it...and if I know you, and you haven't been tagged, you can do it, too!

Christmas With The Hobbs

Here are my men in their matching pj's...
And Madi and I in ours.
This takes a bit of explanation. See, Madison has apparently been paying a lot of attention to what Santa has to do on Christmas, and recently she has been expressing concern over him having to eat that many cookies and drink that much milk in one night. So when I went to make some cookies for Santa (I had some cookie dough leftover in the fridge) so they would be fresh for him, she insisted that we give him somthing healthy instead. She said that he would probably get a stomach ache if we fed him more cookies, so she dug through the fridge and got him out some salad. The piece of fudge was a concession she made when Brian expressed concern that Santa may not eat the salad if there wasn't something good to eat afterward. She cracks me up.
And here are Madison and Benjamin opening up their presents on Christmas morning. I know that these pictures are REALLY late, and there is really no excuse...so..sorry? Anyway, we had a great time this year. After we opened presents and talked to our families, we went to our friends the Jensen's house for dinner and let the kids ransack the bedrooms while we all played Rook. Then when Ben couldn't stand being awake any longer and Madison had driven everyone insane, we went home and went to bed. Pretty laid back, and I really liked not having to clean up after the big dinner...or to have to cook the big dinner, really. Hopefully next year I'll get on the ball earlier and have everything done before Christmas so we can post regularly.....well, we can always hope!

A Christmas Card For You

Well, we didn't get our Christmas cards out this year, so consider this our card to you! Think of it this way, now you get to look at these adorable pictures of our children without having to wonder what to do with them when you're done looking at them! Okay, I know it's lame...but it's somthing!!! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas Lights

This year we finally had a house to put lights on...a first for us in our seven years...so I made Brian put them up along with my awesome decorations on the columns. Don't they look like candy canes? I was so excited to have it look so Christmassy this year, and a day after I decorated, it snowed! Perfect!

Hello New Room!

Here's the old trim getting painted and the spikey plaster walls being primed......

New wall color and trim!!
New windows! OK, crappy picture, but really they are awesome. You can't feel a breeze blowing through her windows anymore, and that is a major improvement!

Goodbye Wallpaper..

We decided to get rid of Madison's old wallpaper and nasty dirty walls, since we were replacing her drafty old windows. First to go was the wallpaper, which was surprisingly easy to remove. I think it took all of fifteen minutes from the time we started spraying the dissolver stuff on.

Two Teeth In One Day

I knew it would happen eventually, and that day finally arrived when Madison came up to me to show me her loose teeth...the two bottom front ones, to be exact. She wiggled and wiggled and played with them for a week or so, and one night she showed me that she could even twist one of them almost all the way around (EWWW!) I knew she was going to lose it, and I hoped she wouldn't swallow it in her sleep. The next day when I picked her up from school, she had the tooth in a little plastic bag, and was so proud to have lost it that it made me laugh. Later that night Brian noticed the other tooth hanging on by a thread and asked her if she would let him tie a string to it and pull it out. She agreed to having the string tied on, but not to the pulling....she was pretty scared that it was going to hurt. Eventually Brian convinced her and....well...watch the video.

Benjamin Is 8 Months Old!

I know this is way late, but here is a little synopsis of our 8th month with our precious Benj...

This month Ben got two teeth...one on the top, and the corresponding one on the bottom. It was just so darned cute to look at those little chompers...he kind of looked like a hillbilly. He also perfected sitting in one spot and reaching really far to get a toy without having to actually get down and move anywhere. When he does fall onto his stomach, instead of continuing to strain to reach whatever it was that he wanted, he just lays his head down in defeat and starts to cry. He really hasn't been very motivated to crawl, and I guess it may have something to do with his three slaves that anticipate his every desire.

Early in the month I took him to get some shots and had a talk with his pediatrician about him not bearing weight on his legs. He has always been a little bit awkward on his feet, standing on the sides of them rather than on the bottoms. So our pediatrician gave us some exercises to practice with him, and basically told me that he was just a little bit lazy....hehe...I like to tell Brian that comes from his side of the family, but I'm inclined to think it is from me....

Anyway, we started working with him and have been pretty successful. In fact the draw-back to teaching him to stand up is that he now wants to stand up all the time...and this can be a problem if, say, you want to lay him down to change his diaper or to sit in his high chair.

Ben is still the happiest little guy I know, and loves to pillage through his sister's play dishes and dance (bounce, really) to any music. It's funny to watch Madison with him. Whenever I put him in the jumper, she comes out and starts doing an original full-scale Broadway production for him; singing, dancing and acting out scenes she is working on. Hilarious. And he just sits there and enthusiatically claps (did I mention that he learned to clap?) and tries to sing along. I think he is biding him time until he's big enough to join in on the fun.

Another month gone!