Barenaked Ladies Concert

I've been a Barenaked Ladies fan for nearly 20 years. I've seen them in concert probably a dozen times over the years and they always put on such an entertaining show. I even met Ed Robertson one of those times, and I love him. They are hilarious on stage, often playing spontaneous and relevant little jingles (Uncle Elwyn, for example, and last night they played a funny rendition of Highway to Hell), and sharing amusing little narratives. Such great stage presence. And for me, they are nostalgic and fun. I also happen to think they are smart, witty songwriters, and that they always sound strong even live. So when Chris and I saw that they were coming to Vegas, we jumped on it. It was a really fun show!

the only decent picture I got all night

Snakes!

We took the kids to Springs Preserve today to see a venomous snake exhibit. After the presentation, we made a craft and then played with all the kid-friendly toys. It was fun!

Big Girl Beds

We got Olive and Lucy's "big girl beds" last Monday. They've been really excited about them, but for all the wrong reasons...

I was worried that it would be a tough transition, but it hasn't been any different than when they were in cribs. I was also worried that they would fall out of bed, but so far so good; and even if they do it's not the end of the world. So, the only difference in our lives is that now we are making a big push to have them stay in their beds all night long -- they go to bed really well at 7 PM, but then they're usually at our bedside around 2 AM asking to get in bed with us, and we're usually way too tired to do anything but oblige. We obviously need to nip that in the bud, especially before Penelope gets here. We tried incentivizing them with losing the privilege of playing games on my iPhone the next day if they don't stay in bed all night, but that hasn't been stiff enough. I'm still sticking to that, though. Our next idea was telling them that if they got out, then we'd lock their bedroom door. That worked one night -- they were too scared we'd lock the door so they didn't get out -- but the next night when they figured out that I was actually too scared to follow through on that threat, they were out a bunch of times. So, now we're just trying good old-fashioned sternness. It wears on my emotions, but I'm a big believer that you don't do your kid any favors by "sparing" them a very necessary transition, like this one, especially when the "sparing" is more about the mom's emotions than the kid's. So, no matter how emotional it is for me to upset them, we gotta stick this through.

An Evening With Chris Barragan

As tradition mandates, Chris donated "An Evening With Chris Barragan" to the ward auction to raise money for the kids to go to camp. Our friend Tyson won the prize. His wife, Mary, and I decided we'd tag along. We went to Lagasse's and had a delicious dinner, and watched sports on a thousand monitors while we dined. We also took some silly pictures of the guys throughout the evening. Here are a few favorites:

Our 4th of July