Sometimes, I just can't help but brag

I just uploaded the photos on my camera and found a few jewels that I'd forgotten I'd snapped. I'll try and narrate a bit. Enjoy!

After 11.5 long months, I finally gave Josh a hair cut. I hope you can see his comb over in the before picture. It was classic! Andy got a cut too. Nice, breezy buzz cuts for summer. I've such handsome boys! Who knew they could grow so much hair. They both entered this world so bald!

I gave Josh black beans for the first time last night. He loved them. He kept signing, "Please! please! More! Please!" I probably overloaded him for a first timer, and man, I was regretting it come diaper change time, but he sure loved them!

I also hunted down and found Andy's "first black bean" photo. Josh definitely out did his older brother in the Dirty Face game. I was probably a little more reserved in the amount of beans I gave to Andrew, though. You know, he was the first child. I'm not nearly as careful now. It's all about entertainment value :) I can't believe Andy was ever this small...

...because look at him now! He's handsome just like his daddy.

If Josh had any idea, he'd probably kill me for posting this photo, but I snapped this gem during the black bean incident. I think he made it up past the first knuckle :) At least I'll have fun photos to show future girlfriends of his...

Oooo...that hurts

I loaned Robin my car to drive to Utah yesterday. She turned around 30 miles down the road because of this:

Apparently a rock was thrown from the other side of the freeway that crossed the median and smashed the back driver side quarter glass. So she cleaned up the mess, called the glass guy to come and fix it and was going to get on her way except for one thing: the glass man brought the wrong glass to fix it.

Here's the problem: our van was manufactured by Dodge in Oct 1995 so they consider it a 1996 model with the new body style. That's great but halfway through 1996 the whole "two sliding doors" thing caught on and they redesigned it again, making our little van obsolete and therefore making the driver side quarter glass impossible to find. We checked all across the country for a new pane with no luck. Our next step is salvage yards, but we've yet to find our exact same van model. We'll try again tomorrow, but until then, here's our solution:

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the finished product, but it's a sight to behold. Let me just say, "Plexiglas, wood strips, and bolts." It's pretty impressive. I might fore go looking for the real glass and just hang onto this little beauty :) The only way it could be more redneck is if it were garbage bags and mudflaps covering up the window :) But at least it's not plywood and duct tape.

A chunky jam packed week

I would be remiss if I didn't start off this post honoring the wonderful Fathers in my life:

Kraig, the Father of my children: I'm so lucky that I chose so well. Kraig is a wonderful father and example for our children. He loves to make our kids laugh, teach them right from wrong, and see their smiles when he comes home at the end of the day. I thank my stars for his every day.

My Dad: I know very few people in this world who work harder than my Dad. He is also one of the most generous men that I know. He taught me to work hard at everything I do and to play just as hard. He's the best napper I know, loves his kids and grandkids, and knows the answer to every question.

Kraig's Dad: I scored in the Father-in-law department. Ken has taught Kraig how to be a good dad, provider, and friend simply by his example. That's the best gift he could ever give me. He welcomed me into the family with open arms, and never ceases to make me feel my place is important.

My Brother and Brothers-in-law: All the men that surround my family are amazing. Each has qualities that I want my sons to grow up to have: hardworking, playful, funny, smart, athletic, and generous. (Keith's not pictured)

Next topic: We started Andy's swim lesson this week. We got through one lesson with no tears and then the rest of the week was cancelled for bad weather. SO he gets to start it all over again today. Here are a few photos from his lessons:

That's Andy off to the left, far, far away from his teachers. It took about a third of the lesson for him to warm up to his teachers (there are 3 instructors in his "Primary Swim" class)

Here's his first turn in the cold, cold big pool. Notice the death grip on the teacher. He practiced his back float, bubble blowing, kicking and "monkey walk" along the edge of the pool.

So we'll see how this week goes with lessons. It's been super hot the last few days and then this morning we woke up to cool and cloudy. Hopefully they won't postpone lessons again.

In other news, I found an AWESOME deal on raspberries. 10/$10. I scanned in my receipt where it totalled my savings on the 20 cartons I bought, but you can't read it. So you'll all just have to believe me when I confess that I saved $89 on raspberries. That's definitely a record high for me. Needless to say I made my raspberry-jam-loving-Honey 16 pints to get us through the year. Robin thought it was such a great idea too that we went back to the store, bought 20 more cartons and made 19 more pints (we used a different pectin)--12 for our Dad for Father's day and 7 for Brenny just because. It was lots of fun.

We also made a wonderful acquisition this weekend. We are now the proud owners of a Professional 600 Kitchen Aid Mixer. It's SO beautiful, I can hardly stand it. I made pizza dough as the inaugural mix and it turned out fantastic, dare I say the best pizza dough I've ever made!

So it was a great week. I have high hopes for this one too...

Between the hours of 1:30-4:30am

To start off this post, it's important to spend a moment or two catching things up. I've mentioned that my sister Robin is in town, but I think I failed to mention that I watched her kids for 4 days while she took a mommy vacation to visit some girlfriends. It all went really well (much better than I had anticipated with a 6 year old, 2-2 year olds, and an 11 month old). One of the great discoveries from the sleepovers was that both my kids did great having someone else sleep in his room. So I decided when everyone left that I'd move Joshua downstairs to Andrew's room and begin their childhood roommate journey.

We shuffled around the cribs, added a bookshelf, took out the toys (they ended up upstairs in the guest room/new toy room) and viola! My kids are roommates!

The first night was a definite party for them. It took them over an hour to settle down they were having so much fun talking and playing. Why sleep when there's a friend to talk to? The next night took less time to get to "quiet," and since they've been sick (see below), sleep has come almost immediately for both of them.

One of my hesitations in putting the kids in the same room before now was that I didn't want TWO screaming kids in the middle of the night. I just figured that if one woke up, the other would too. So far it hasn't been bad at all, with just a few exceptions:

Joshua and Andy are sick. It started with Joshy and a runny nose, progressed into a cough and a fever making both kids miserable. For whatever reason, when Andy got it, he got it a lot worse than Joshua. His fever's been higher, his cough has been yuckier, and he's had a worse time sleeping.

Last night progressed as follows:

7:30 bedtime. After a dose of Tylenol, both kids fall asleep quickly.

10:30 Kraig and I make to it bed after a movie.

1:30 I wake from a weird dream to Andy screaming. I run downstairs and he's yelling about the bugs that are all over him. His fever has spiked so I dose him with Motrin, give him some water and try and assure him that there are no bugs. It's just a bad dream.

1:40-2:30 Andy screams every 10-15 minutes about the bugs. The fever's not broken yet and I think he's just revisiting the really bad fever dream every time he closes his eyes. He finally settles down and I get to lay back down and sleep. Josh gets up a few times also because of the screaming. His fever's returned too. Where did I put the Motrin?!?!?

3:30 It's the bugs again this time, but he's not awake, just yelling in his sleep. Fever's gone down. I reassure him and he settles back down.

4:30 Just moaning and crying out mentioning the bugs. Quiets down quickly when I come in.

5:30 Kraig's alarm rings to get him out of bed and to work by 6am. He leaves and Josh awakes and starts crying. I crawl under his crib to find the missing binkys, praying that he won't wake Andy. Thankfully he settles back down quickly.

7:55 Robin calls and wakes me to see if I'm going to church (she's coming to my 8am ward). Nope! I go back to sleep.

8:40 Josh wakes up happy! I go and get him so Andy can keep sleeping. We share a banana and wait for Andy.

9:30 Andy wakes up. He's calmly asking about the bugs that were all over him last night. We get up and have breakfast.

Sigh. I can't imagine how scary it was for Andy last night. I specifically remember one fever dream I had when I was a little girl--my second grade teacher was giving me homework--and how terrified I was. I hope this bug thing doesn't scar him for life.

A little male bonding

Our ward's Fathers and Sons outing is scheduled for tonight and tomorrow. Kraig was planning on going, but his work schedule is such that he can't make the four hour round trip drive to the campground. So we explored lots of other options, keeping a close eye on the weather. We've had a bit of a cold, rainy spell the last few days so a lot of choices in the mountains were just out of the question. Solution? The backyard!

Andy helped Daddy set up the tent.

He discovered that the tent poles make good swords.

"OK, Daddy, I'll help."

Getting things arranged.

Snuggled in for the night.

Lights out!

Early morning sun warming the tent.

Kraig and Andy had lots of fun eating snacks and reading stories by lantern-light. I think it was such a success that it can definitely go on the list of fun, easy activities.

Things that make me tense--a rant and raver

Walmart. Does Walmart do this to anyone else? I walk in there for a quick little something and I leave frustrated, annoyed, and tense at the hastle of this one-stop shopping experience. Examples:

• What I'm looking for is never where I expect it to be. Matches. Where do you think would be a logical place to find matches? On the candle aisle? With the Duraflame logs? No. After wandering the store I discovered them hidden on the bottom shelf with the cooking utensils. Go figure.

• There's NEVER a sales associate around when I need help. If I do manage to hunt a blue-vester down, it's a mind numbing experience with me walking away more misdirected than I was before.

• Checkout. I don't know about other Walmarts in the world, but my Walmart only has 3 check stands open at a time. That's right, 3. Oh there are at least 25 to choose from, but there are only ever 3.

• Customer Service. I think they should rename it. I remember when I got married that Walmart would take anything back, with or without a receipt, whether they stocked it or not. Those were the days. I tried to exchange a pair of Andy's jammies (unworn, still in the packaging) for a larger size without a receipt and they wouldn't let me because the bar codes weren't the same. Grrr!

What makes you tense? Please feel free to rant and rave. It helps.

Memorial Day

We had a fun rainy Memorial day. When I was a little girl we used to go out to Daniel's Park on Saturday mornings and have a picnic breakfast. Dad would cook eggs on the Coleman stove and we would get to hike and climb around in the rocks and brush. Lots of fun.


So we resurrected the tradition this Memorial Day. Kraig and I took the kids and met my parents, and Robi and her kids. We picnicked on french toast on the Coleman stove, bacon, bananas, strawberries and OJ. Mmm Mmm Mmm! Delicious! The kiddos had a great time climbing around and exploring. But I don't remember there being so many dangerous cliffs when I was a kid :) But there were no injuries to report. It was so beautiful and the rain held off until we were driving home so Kraig would get to work at Noon.

More Veggie Tales

Andrew loves to sing. He's very good at picking up tunes and words of songs, but sometimes he gets them mixed up when songs have the same words. He also will focus on a song and have us sing it over and over. Right now his favorite song is Latter Day Prophets. We sing it at least 25 times a day.

Because I want to encourage his music, I try and choose activities that involve music. We sing in the car, on walks, to remind him of a principle I'm trying to teach him (like to be kind to Joshy or to be obedient to Mama), and before bedtime. The movies and shows he watches usually have a lot of music too. His favorites right now are Cars (great soundtrack) and Veggie Tales (catchy, funny songs).

Well we reached a new height today. We were singing I'm trying to be like Jesus and he stopped and told me, "Mom! I found Jesus!"



"Oh really, Andy, where did you find him?"



"In the produce aisle!"
What a kid!

What I've been spending my time on

For certain pressing reasons (my sister Robin is coming into town), I've been very active in getting some projects done that I've been planning for months. The reason these projects haven't materialized before now was two fold: 1)Money (snowy months are pretty slow at the Golf Club) and 2)Motivation (Snowy months don't lend to high energy to get things above and beyond the norm done)


So here's what I've been working on:

1. WEBB--I realized that I don't have any family identifying features in our home. I'd been researching vinyl lettering for a few months for another project (see post at future date when I actually finish that project) when my sister Brenda told me about a project that she was going to do (or have done) in vinyl lettering for her new kitchen. I liked the idea a lot, but I couldn't copy it exactly and she told me what it would cost to have the "professional" put it together and it was a little out of my price range. Anyway, I just happened to eat dinner at my neighbor's home and she was doing the exact same "FAMILY" thing for one of her walls, only instead of vinyl lettering on the glass she was painting it on. Eureka! That was my solution! So this is what I came up with: I did WEBB first, and put it on the wall, but it seemed like something was missing. So I added this: Both Kraig and I think it looks more complete now. Frames $6 (garage sales and walmart) Paint $1 Glue $3.50 Total Project $10.50


2. I planted flowers. I've been gathering flower pots at garage sales all spring. I'm not totally set on the arrangement of the pots, but I'm pretty pleased how they turned out. I'm excited for how pretty and full they'll be in a few weeks after a lot of good water and sun. I did end up over-buying flowers, so I'm keeping a lookout for more pots.

I was RUNNIN'!

Saturday morning I ran (and walked) the Gift of Life and Breath 5K to support lung cancer early detection. Brenda and Darren came down to run it too.

It's been over two years since I ran that far (I'm much more of a yoga, elliptical machine, aerobics kind of athlete), but all things considered, I think I did ok. I finished :)

My mom stayed with the kids while I ran.

Andy was out of the stroller when I was coming up to the finish line so he ran out and helped me across. I was glad to have his hand to hold onto.