Rice anyone?!

My great friend Chamaine (thanks for letting me steal your thunder) had this website on her blog so I checked it out....now I am addicted! If anyone has some time to kill while waiting for their rice to cook, as I did last night, and is as big a nerd as I am, will LOVE this site. You get to exercise your brain, look smarter than your husband AND help hungry people around the world. What more could you ask for in a website?! Enjoy!

Effect of Dawn

For the past two days my great friend Dawn and her little boy Nathan Kai came for a visit. Dawn and I have been best friends since ninth grade and now our little boys are learning to love each other as well. If anyone has ever wondered why my email address is "beffers" you only have Dawn to blame for that bit of ridiculousness. That is how I was announced at her wedding and I'm pretty sure Nathan is going to call me Auntie Beffers for the rest of my life... I will secretly love it!

Dondo and Nathan (the blue hat peaking out of the jacket) taking a quick snooze on the long trip down the 6 line to Brooklyn Bridge during the morning rush hour.

Although the weather wasn't the best, we all had a lovely walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

The boys however missed the whole thing since they were both in the middle of their morning naps. I highly recommend that walk to anyone who hasn't ventured down that way before, quite picturesque.

After the Brooklyn Bridge, we headed up Broadway through Chinatown, SOHO, NOHO, Greenwich Village and eventually made our way to Union Square. We did some shopping and relaxed at one of my favorites Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man.

Everyone enjoyed both their meals. Morgan apparently loves spinach and asparagus crepes as much as me and did not turn down a single bite of truffle or melted heart chocolate cake. Surprising!

Nathan didn't get to sample any of the fine fair but you can tell he was excited just to be in the same room as all that yummy food! And yes that is a Harlemade hat that stylish little boy is wearing. Tres Chic!

Besides our activities yesterday we took a stroll through Central Park on Monday, played lots of fun games after the boys went to bed and ate from a great new burger place we discovered on 100th and Lexington called Joy Burger Bar. Delicious!!!

Thanks for coming you two and please visit us again real soon...and next time you can bring Garrett if you feel like it! We love you guys!

Happy Birthday Joshua!

Joshua, good job on turning the big 0-5! You are now a whole hand worth of fingers old. We hope you have a great day and get lots of birthday hugs and kisses and presents! We love you!


Love,
Auntie Beth, Uncle Cody, Cousin Morgan and Gramma

Gramma brought the snow from Florida!

This has been a very mild winter thus far and apparently what it took to get started was a visit from my mother the Floridian. We are all very excited to have her staying with us for awhile...Morgan is also even if he doesn't know it, I mean show it!

Evidence that Morgan is so overjoyed to be with Gramma...happy tears!

A little break from laundry to check out the backyard. Morgan wasn't quite sure about the white things falling on him but he's not sure of most things these days since he is in a cranky stage. My not-so-favorite!

I know it doesn't compare to Utah but it was nice to get a little white ambiance here to help with the dreary gray winter.

Pretty sure he's a Genius!

My super intelligent son figured out how to blow spit bubbles all on his own and is also fascinated by his mother's ability to do the same. Yep, he's going to Harvard!

Comment or the Birthday Cake gets it!

So once again I'm pretty far behind in posting these pics about Morgan's birthday but they were too cute to ignore. Since the birthday cake did not go over so well at his party, Cody and I decided to try again on Morgan's actual birthday the 29th. So Cody came home early and we sang "Happy Birthday" and gave him a piece of cake sans candles this time. At first Morgan seemed reluctant but once Cody stuck the spoon in the frosting and then gave it to Morgan it was all over.

Morgan's thoughts: "Oh this is so rich and creamy!"

"Do my cheeks look huge or is it just me?!"

"Thanks Great-Grandpa Goodier for my Elephant card. It also tastes great with frosting!"

"Watch my video and enjoy so cake destruction action!"

"Alphabet blocks to throw all over the house and make a huge mess. Yay! My favorite!"

Thanks again to all our friends and family who made Morgan's 1st birthday so special. You're the best!

Happy Valentine’s Day to you… Beth!

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone… but especially to the love of my life! Beth, I just want to take a few minutes and let you to know that I love you. Here are some roses that I want to buy for you but can’t and some candy that tastes delicious but we really shouldn’t eat…

I thought, in the long run these flowers will last longer and the candy won’t spend any time on our lips or hips!

Today I spent the train ride thinking of all the things you mean to me. Here’s a quick sample…

You a are my wife, my friend, my back scratcher, my chef, you manage the Netflix cue, you are a wonderful mother, you take care of our son even when he fights taking his bottle, you make me laugh when I’m down, you are a VERY diligent blogger, you make me think when I just want to go to bed, you laugh at my stories, you giggle along when we read Patrick F. McManus together, you don’t roll your eyes too much at all my goofy tics, you do a great vaudeville dance routine, you know all the words to the song “Shoop,” you opened my eyes to theater, you have a beautiful voice, you like girly things, you made me watch Mansfield Park, you look good in pink, you have gorgeous hair, your smile always catches me off guard, you are smart and getting smarter, you like meat and potatoes, you make a mean pie and, in short, YOU ARE PERFECT FOR ME.

I love you very much and can’t wait to be more in love with you tomorrow.

Big hug, big kiss

Cody “that was my nickname in high school” Adams

Birthday Monkey Extravaganza!

So finally the moment has arrived that I know you have all been anxiously awaiting. Pictures and videos from Morgan the Monkey's birthday spectacular! We had an awesome time celebrating Morgan's 1st Birthday and all of our wonderful friends made it a truly memorable event (at least for us). Here are some highlights from January 26th.

This is my first attempt at a slideshow so hopefully you all enjoy and below are some of my favorite moments from the party.

Here is my new favorite picture in the world. This picture captures the essence of Morgan: happy, content, ready for anything and on the move!

Morgan got a little help getting the monkey party started from his friend Eliot who is wearing a monkey shirt that says "Crazy". Very fitting for these two!

Ethan helped supervise the younger boys in how to make a cool fort.

The cake was a product of my creation and said "Morgan's 1st" since that's all I could fit and had a blob that was suppossed to be a monkey head in the middle. Earlier that day Cody had tried to teach Morgan how to blow out the candle. All he suceeded in doing was burning Morgan's hand and making Morgan terrified of the whole thing. Good job dad!

I think the fact that 30 something people were staring at him, the flame had just been near him and he didn't really enjoy the hat lead to a birthday cake meltdown.

The cutest tears in the world!

After the torchurous birthday cake ordeal, we let Morgan enjoy the rest of his party with a cool new Megablocks dump truck. He loves pushing it and filling the back with everything he can find to throw in it. Thanks Gramma and Papa Goodier!

A little taste of how crazy our apartment was...too much fun!

The men giving Morgan truck advice and discussing the finer points of dumptruck maintenance.

Morgan had a blast watching the older boys play with a ball, so here's a little video of him giggling at them. My nursery buddy Kian helped me make the video.

So what Ward are you from?

Last night our ward had a Valentine's Dance for all the adults. Cody and I realized, although we danced together at our wedding and at a party or two back in our pre-marriage days, we have never danced together at a real dance and as a real married couple (weddings don't count). After one or two slow dances, we realized why we were okay with this absence.

Our reasons are three-fold:

1. We (and when I say "we" I really mean me) frequently dance around our home creating quite a spectacle of ourselves much to the amusment of our family members and I'm sure all neighbors and passersby.

2. Cody and I enjoy upbeat music where we can shake our groove things...Shoop anyone?!

3. Cody and I have absolutely no idea what we are doing when it comes to slow dances (thanks Jill for even attempting to help us out prior to our "first dance"). I'm not good at following, Cody has no idea how to lead and we feel like we are 15 years old at a Stake dance everytime we try.

All those reasons for not going to dances aside, we had a fabulous time bopping about with our good friends and eating all the chocolatey treats...who can go wrong with 15 different types of brownies to choose from?). And if I do say so myself we looked pretty darn cute doing it!

Excuse me while I self indulge

So of course these pictures were meant to be seen during the holiday season but life got in the way and too many posts needed to be made and so on and so forth. However, I decided I was so in love with seeing pictures of my little family, especially my two favorite men, that I had to share them with the rest of the world. There are a lot of them because I decided they were really for those of you who enjoy us and therefore enjoy looking at us all dolled up and smiling in a lovely Central Park in fall setting. So if you have the time take a peek and feel the love.

Even though a lot of time has passed since the holidays, the Royal Adams wanted to write a little note to let everyone know how grateful we are to have you in our lives. For your love and support we are eternally grateful. We love each other, life, our home in Harlem, our wonderful Harlem 1st Ward and all our friends and family scattered throughout the world. We hope this year is treating you as it should and life is behaving for you. God bless us everyone!

A little frightened!

I took a political quiz on a website my friend Sharon had on her blog. I must admit I didn't really know how to answer all the questions so I guessed on a few but was never expecting the results that emerged! I am definitely not voting for Hillary but do feel slightly better about McCain now. I really can't stand Edwards, Giuliani and Huckabee and really don't know Biden, Dodd and most of the others so I'm not sure how to feel about all those. In my mind Romney is second after McCain and then Obama so we'll just ignore the quiz but it was interesting to see how I felt about certain things. Just go to this website and enjoy!

73% Hillary Clinton
69% John McCain
67% John Edwards
67% Joe Biden
67% Barack Obama
61% Chris Dodd
60% Rudy Giuliani
58% Mike Huckabee
57% Mitt Romney
56% Bill Richardson
49% Fred Thompson
47% Dennis Kucinich
46% Tom Tancredo
45% Mike Gravel
23% Ron Paul

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Morgan's Nursery

I have been waiting to show everyone Morgan's nursery until I felt it was pretty near finished. It only took me over a year to complete but now I really love his room! We went with a safari animal theme because Cody lived in Africa on and off during his formative years and we felt it was a fairly neutral theme for a nursery. With the help of Uppercase Living, Babies 'r' us Zanzibar nursery decor and a few other odds and ends here's Morgan's room.

His name and the animals are from Uppercase Living. I mounted the animals on scrapbook paper and got some $1 frames from the Dollar Store.

I have really loved my chair and boppy pillow and could not imagine having a baby without them. You can also see Lambert the Lion peeking out from behind the hamper thanks to Auntie Mesha!
Morgan was helping me sort his sock drawer...mainly by throwing all the socks on the floor or on top of his hamper. The beautiful quilt on the wall is thanks to Grandma Adams. She really has a gift!

This wall use to be the home of a hockey jersey (which now has made its way into my room) but I think this goes a bit better with the overall theme.

"Morgan" is in Chocolate Brown and "Gray" is Copper. I love the color combo and I think "Gray" looks like it's from Willie Wonka World. Love it!

As always if anyone is interested in using Uppercase Living to decorate with just let me know or visit the wesite at Customer Corner. Use my ID# 304841 and Token: BAdams.