We made it!!

The news is finally in!! We have hoped and prayed and worked really really hard to get a dermatology residency (well, Paul did most of the working). It seemed so out of reach when we first started going for it. It seemed way too good to be possible. I never thought in my wildest dreams I was marrying a dermatologist, but we got the official acceptance yesterday! We have a spot here in Michigan. It's an amazing blessing and we still haven't really wrapped our brains around what it means yet. Dr. Grekin put his arm around Paul the other day and said, "You don't know what I have done for you yet, but you will." We decided 2 years ago it was Dermatology in Michigan or bust. I'm so proud of Paul. We are so glad we won't have to move. We love our friends here and are looking forward to 3 more years of Michigan.

Paul cracks me up how often he turns to me and says, "I'm going to be a dermatologist." We are both still figuring out what that means.

One of Paul's dreams just came true. And another one is just 3 months away. Since we got married, Paul has yearned for a dog. Being the dog hater I have always been, I have not consented..... until now. I knew the day would come that I would be outnumbered, that Paul's sad puppy dog face and my love for my boys would overcome my lack of interest in the canine type. Luckily Paul has picked for his one and only choice one of the prettiest dogs I've ever seen, and the easy going.est, and the best with children breeds. The Bernese Mountain Dog.


Paul found a breeder and is making the preparations. The litter is due in Jan, so about March we will become parents to a puppy. Now this dog is not small. It's HUGE! I have NO experience with ANY dogs whatsoever. I have never owned a dog. I have never taken care of a dog or wanted to. I have always hated dog hair, dog smell, dog food smell, dog grooming... anyway. You can see this will be a challenge for me. But I know my boys will all LOVE this dog. Every time we are around a dog my three boys go into a state of complete "happy". I know dogs teach children confidence, responsibility, they become a friend and companion. I might have been much improved as a child by having a dog. I know the issues I have with dogs can be overcome as i open my heart to love him. I will have to pray a lot, (and please pray for me) but I really believe that learning to love a dog will help me to be less selfish, (We all know I could use some help with that), more charitable and more loving. I think I will find that the dog will fill a part of my heart that I don't know is missing. I will need a lot of help. I once offered that Paul could get a dog before and then I backed out. It almost broke his heart to pieces. I can't back out. I'm in this. Any advice you have I will accept. I know I can do it. (right?)

He has me wrapped around his finger

The boys were getting to bed late last night because of choir practice and I was in no mood for re-tucking kids over and over again. Yet, Eirik snuck out of his bed again and found me in the hall. He saw the anger on my face and then I visibly calmed myself down, counted to five and walked him back to bed. When he was safely tucked in again he said, "Mom, I'm really proud of you. I could tell you were really upset out there, but you calmed down and controlled your temperature." Then he said, "do you think you could sing us one song. You have such a pretty voice."

Is he for real? And is he manipulating me, because I sang more than one song and I even liked it.

Eirik's secret hideout

Do you remember how in a previous post I said that my house was in a state of repair and things were as I like them? Also, do you remember how much of a hit the beans were from Joren's dinosaur party a month ago?

Well, photographs A, B and C demonstrate the sheer awesome willpower of Tadpole 1. He has cornered out a "secret hideout" in our living room for all of his special things. In it he keeps his favorite things like knives, screwdrivers, swords.. you know, important stuff. And he hides these special things in .. yes.. you guessed it.. the BEANS! The beans have migrated to all corners of my house. I guess I'm ok with it for all the fun they are having. It just goes to show how much control you give up to be a mom. Isn't he cute being so possessive of "his" corner!

Fish Tank

I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how gorgeous this is. We're having to thin things back since everything is growing so well!

Joren is 2!

Our little Joren loves all things Dinosaur. For weeks now he has loved saying, "Guess what mama?" "What Joren?" "Dinosaur!"
He repeats this interaction over and over. I love how enthusiastic he is. He also has this cute habit of answering any of my questions with the phrase, "because the dinosaurs are sleeping." Try it, it works really well as a distraction. IE: "Joren, why did you take your food in the living room?" "because the dinosaurs are sleeping." See.

Well, we just had to have a dinosaur birthday party, and since Eirik had one at 2, we were already experienced. Dinosaur party #2 was far superior to #1 if I do say so myself. (Sorry Eirik.)
My friend Leah is the best party planner I have ever known and she emailed me an entire page of game ideas which were all awesome. The boys had a blast.

1st he got all things dinosaur for his birthday.

We played chase and slay the dinosaur with balloon swords. (Paul got to be T-rex)
We played Dinosaur cave and tunnel and the kids all came out growling like dinos.
We grew dinosaurs from eggs and from the little pills that expand.
Paul told a long dinosaur story with our dino felt set. It was enthralling. The kids were holding on to his every word!

We had a bucket of beans where we let them dig for dino bones. This was a real hit!


We drew dino tracks in chalk up the front walk.
The dino fondant cake from Eirik's party was so cute, but the kids were really confused and didn't really know what to do with all that fondant. Kids really want their own dinosaur cupcake, so that's what they got!





Joren got a blue ribbon and when I asked him how big he was he stuck out his GREAT BIG tummy just as far a it would go.



I LOVE this adorable kid!

Christmas has transormed our tiny space

Paul grew up cutting a tree every year so tradition lives on. Paul and I had a great time choosing our tree, but our boys... well... They pretty much whined and cried through the whole experience. I guess Momma didn't dress them warm enough or something. (Babies! Bah!)

They did love decorating it though, in the warmth of our own home. Eirik got all his favorite stuffed animals and let them live in the tree. They were both so fun with their "helping".

Every once in a while my house looks just how I want it to. For a few minutes this week, it was in a state of complete repair and I had to take some pictures to record the moment before the inevitable chaos ensued. I love decorating for Christmas.


I discovered that my white metal snowflake ornaments look really cool in my big dark stained pressbox. This will be a repeat tradition I think.

I got my new family photos (taken by the ever talented Ashley Pace) framed and hung. It was more of a project than I expected. I had to rearrange all of the art in my house to make room for them, but I love how it turned out.


Eirik has been so excited about Santa coming. He has been listing all the things he wants from Santa over and over again. He made this letter to Santa and decorated it by himself (except I cut out the candy cane). The black feathers are the dark night sky. He wrote his name mostly by himself and dictated all the words. He loved dropping it in the big red Santa mailbox at the library.

Magic lunch dust

Some magic dust of some kind settled on my house today at lunchtime. Eirik's picky eating has been about to get the best of me the past few weeks. But today, both of my boys ate a big handful of raw spinach dipped in ranch, then a handful of frozen blueberries, then each of them drank a cup of water and had a half of a banana, a vitamin and then filled up their tummies on fish sticks. I felt, for a moment like a really good mom. It probably helps that Eirik has not eaten anything except toast and milk for 2 days since he has not liked anything I have made for meals. And when Eirik eats something, Joren usually will too. Eirik is very vocal about what he dislikes (ie: everything) and Joren has started saying, "I hate spaghetti (or whatever we are eating)" while shoveling it by the handful into his mouth. He doesn't understand what hate means, but he knows it gets a reaction when Eirik says it.
I had another euphoric mealtime moment a few weeks ago when Joren ate a whole bowlful of tortilla soup! I was so excited, but tried to stay calm so as not to jinx the moment. Eirik has never, in my recollection eaten something that I actually like to eat that is a "meal". Eirik won't touch foods that are combined or spiced or have a sauce beside ketchup or ranch. He likes pizza with only pepperoni- no cheese. He like tortillas with nothing on them. He likes rice crispies. He likes instant oatmeal and eggs and pancakes and most fruit. umm... hmmm... he'll sometimes eat brocolli or lettuce or carrots, but never cooked, and he will always eat hot dog. It's disgusting really how few foods he will actually eat.
Joren has been eating great. He's actually fun to cook for. He is growing really fast right now and constantly hungry. He likes to eat on the go though. It's like the table is a perpetual jungle gym and he won't sit down. He's either standing on his chair or the table, or getting stuck while climbing through his chair or turning his chair on it's side and balancing on it or climbing under the table or trying to steal the food off of Eirik's plate. Between the "I hate" rants and the jungle gym adventures mealtimes are never tame. And the mess is getting more under control, but it is still exquisite. Will Joren ever learn to drink from a cup?

Anyway, lunch was so nice I wanted to record that once, they actually ate what I prepared and liked it and didn't whine or cry and actually thanked me! The magic dust made my day and whoever sprinkled it.. thank you.

Happy Thanksgiving

"Gratitude is of the very essence of worship. … When you walk with gratitude, you do not walk with arrogance and conceit and egotism, you walk with a spirit of thanksgiving that is becoming to you and will bless your lives”. Sincerely giving thanks not only helps us recognize our blessings, it also unlocks the doors of heaven and helps us feel God’s love”

Gordan B Hinckley

Wait..

Eirik: "Wait mom, I'm going to talk to my brain for a second."

Eirik can write

Eirik asked me how to write "DAD" today. I looked down to see that he had grabbed the D and the A fridge magnets to use as a guide so that he could write a note to Dad.

Back on the "toy" tracks

( I wrote this a few weeks ago, but I'm just posting it now.)

This weekend was tough, and I was up many times last night with crying boys and I had let myself get too busy again, and woke up really grumpy. I knew I couldn't let today go on plummeting, so I worked really hard. I think it's one of my hardest tasks to reverse a bad mood spiral when momentum builds and I just want to roll with it. But I did it. I did the things I knew I needed to do, and it's the end of the day and I'm in a good place now. Experience is a beautiful thing.

Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented. So, to be bodacious enough to invent ourselves is wise. -Maya Angelou

When I was much younger I knew a family that had a star chart in their house. I was intrigued and loved the mystery and passion it represented to me. I promised myself that I would be the kind of mom that put up star charts, and wind chimes and globes and posters with every type of whale and science experiments and all sorts of fascinating, mind opening pockets all over our house. I dreamed of trap doors, telescopes rooms full of books, a dining room table scribbled all over with notes and sketches made during vibrant dinnertime discussions. So when I found this shower curtain on Urban outfitters, I had to have it. For some reason it really fit my vision and I want my boys to grow up with this shower curtain. It makes me really happy.
I knew that part of why I was feeling so down this morning was because I had let other things get in the way of the time I should be devoting to my kids. They could tell, and were in turn driving me CrAzy! So the first thing I did this morning was sit down in the toy room with my boys and play cowboys and indians and build train tracks with trolls under the bridges and rescue baby elephants who have fallen off the circus train and we all got dressed up in cowboy gear head to toe. We played for almost 2 hours after which I had to lock them in for 10 minutes while I decompressed because I actually really hate playing pretend and it was all I could do to pretend to love to prentend for 2 hours. But I did it, and my boys loved it. After "pretend time" I did the mom part I love which is teaching. We practiced writing letters on the chalkboard and Eirik drew his first shapes today. He drew an E with lots of lines going to the right and then said, "mom, it's a sideways swingset." I worked with Joren on his ABC's and then we read a book we have read lots of times but I discovered that Joren has it completely memorized. Good for him little smarty. Then I made this cute little lunch because I knew if I did it I would feel better about myself. (Not really because they would love it, but because I needed a way to be creative and here's how it came out.) They, in fact actually ate lunch and Eirik only begged for different food for half of the meal. After lunch we read more books and Eirik practiced reciting his favorite new book which he knows word for word after only reading it 12 times or so. (I certainly don't have it memorized, but he does!) It's called Bedtime at the Swamp. It's adorable with awesome illustrations. If you don't have it, you should buy it. Then they had naps and I got to paint for 2 hours. When Eirik woke up he painted with me meticulously in his coloring books at my feet for 20 minutes. I was so proud of him. He didn't get paint anywhere it shouldn't be and he actually broke out of his shell and used a color other than blue black and green for the first time in his life. Even if it was only white. He was a delightful painting buddy.
When Paul got home we all had a $6 dinner at Wendy's and then went to Chucky Cheese. The boys had a blast and I felt good because I spent the day as I should, loving my boys. Sometimes I just get off track and worry about too many other things.

Halloween 2009

I just "baked" a cake for an hour with the oven off. Am I crazy or did my 3 1/2 year old turn it off for me? I know it was preheated when I put it in. I am really baffled. I just can't see Eirik turning it off. Really!? I turned off the oven when I put the cake in?? I'm so confused.
Maybe it's a Halloween mystery.
Does anyone else feel like this Halloween season has lasted Foreevveer? There are so many fun fall things to do; pumpkin patches, nature walks, pumpkin carving, pumpkin soup, Halloween decorations, Halloween library books, leaf collecting, Halloween candy and Halloween cakes and cookies and pumpkin crunch. I think I start in on Halloween a little too early. I felt this way last year too. I think 3 weeks of Halloween is my max next year. I'm a little relieved that tomorrow before I go to bed I can take down the bats and spider webs.

These are from the our Ward Halloween party. We have an awesome activities committee.
There was a spook alley for the kids and trunk or treating, a chili cook-off with prizes, and my dear, mustached pumpkin got an honorable mention at the pumpkin carving contest.

The cake ended up cooking fine and it turned out like this: A Ghost town.

it was only half gone at the end of the night because I forgot to cut it.
My witches hats however, were more accessible and were gone in moments. The boys got to be Power Rangers this year! (I got their costumes at mom2 mom sales for $2 each!) They were a great team. 2 minutes before we left for the party Eirik decided he had to be Luke Skywalker in black and was trying to shed his power ranger suit at top speed. Luckily talk of Joren being left to fight all the bad guys by himself without his power ranger team helped talk him into keeping his clothes on. He does have black spider man boots, but will he wear them with the power ranger suit? No," cowboy boots are better mom!" At least I can still dress Joren to look cool. I'm enjoying the last few weeks/ months of having Joren match and dress in the clothes I like. Eirik has been wearing the craziest things lately. Today it was Joren's church sweater vest over his inside out and backward dragon fire shirt and Joren's black sweat pants with cowboy boots. It's really hard to go out in public with him sometimes. :)

I love this picture because it has Eirik's two favorite people to play with; Johnathon and Benjamin. AND, they are all actually facing the camera all at once! Wow!

Paul and I decided to dress up as the scariest thing we could think of:

H1N1!!! Ahhh! We thought we were pretty clever.

You have to see these amazing monster hats my new friend Jena made for her kids. Are those AMAZING or what??!!

We had a fun FHE night carving pumpkins. I used to have to twist Paul's arm, but by now, he knows I'll complain enough that he might as well have fun and get carving. Check out the coral reef he made. Seriously, that's great isn't it?? Joren has been saying one phrase over and over and over and over again. It goes: "Guess what Mom? I'm not a big a dinosaur crying. Huh?" We don't really know what it means, but he says it all the time. Also, he usually makes sense but once in a while he will just jabber and jabber and every phrase ends in T-Rex. It cracks us up. He's picked up a Canadian thing too. After each phrase he says, "Huh?" or "Eh"?" He says, "Scary huh?" It's so cute. So, he got a T-rex pumpkin. Eirk gave Paul very detailed instructions about how to carve his vampire. He had to have a forked tongue. "Scary huh?"

And a few more cuties to make you smile.

Eirik picked up the "Guns" somewhere and I love it. You can't teach someone to be such a ham. That's pure talent.

FINN

My friends Tash and Brandon just had a baby and named him Finn. Tash decorated the nursery so cute. She did the crib skirt in burlap and used this rusty colored velvet with avocado colored yarn accents and chocolate brown as the main color. She used some fabric with dark twigs on light background and orange birds as her pattern. It's really woodsy and warm. When I saw the room I HAD to make this Finn sign for them. It was one of those things that was too perfect to not be done. It gave me fun things to collect on our nature walks too. It was so fun to make and I want one for myself next!

Super Saturday

I am the Relief Society Second counselor at church, which means I am in charge of all the mid-week activities that we plan. Which means I get to do another Super Saturday. I have a great committee leader who is teaching all these great crafts about decopage. She is going to show us how to print a photo on fabric and then decopage it to a piece of glass which ends up giving it a super durable finish and it looks like canvas. It's so cool.

I was inspired by Charyce last year to come up with this craft. She painted wooden figures for her family and I fell in love. I thought they would be cool with a stand, and then I thought they might make a cool family home evening chart. If you haven't heard of FHE, it's one night a week reserved for family time, usually Monday. We rotate responsibilities every week. (At least we WILL, I hope, when my kids are older than 3.) Anyway, I had a great time with Kristen painting our families. Hers turned out so cute,

this is her family and the one below is what she made for her family in CA.


and I loved painting Eirik in Luke Skywalker clothes with a light saber and Joren in my favorite little leather jacket. I gave us an extra space for the "spirit child" we hope will join our family someday.


Then I thought, hmm.. this would make a great Super Saturday craft. Then I thought we better have a simpler option for people who don't love to paint tiny things.



Then I thought we better have another option for people who already have an FHE chart or they don't use one. So this second example emerged. I had a lot of fun making these. I'll make you one if you want. Let's see, how about $15 for a simply painted family, or $30 for details. (you'll have to send me a photo of your family and I'll try to match you.)

The second craft that I am teaching is called Salvaged or Recycled books. My sister Katie made up this idea and hers is so cool that she has received lots of recognition for her salvaged book.

These notebooks are made from paper used or printed on one side and clean on the other side. The cover and back are made from cereal boxes. The whole thing is free and they are so cool for to-do lists or quick notes or for kids... or whatever you can think of. I made a really quick tutorial here.

1. Fold all your used paper with the used side in. Hole punched paper works just fine too as long as you don't mind the extra "character" in your book.

2. Cut your cereal box to fit the cover and the back. I put the fold of the cereal box 3/4" in from the edge to make the front cover open easily. (I used a Diet Coke box for this, but I recommend using a cereal box since the circle impressions did show through.)
3. Decorate your cover and back. I used a glue stick or spray adhesive to adhere magazine clippings, scrapbook paper, photos, wrapping paper or coloring book pages. You could also paint the cover or whatever you want.

4. I put a layer of gloss medium over the top to make it stiffer, more glued and glossy.
5. Get two pieces of Masonite or other stiff material to put around the book, clamp it all together with the open ends of your folded paper on the bound edge. When you open your book you should see only the folded end of the paper. All of the used part is hidden. Mark where you want to drill the holes for your binding. I put the holes 1/2" in from the ends and then 1 1/2 " apart for the other holes. You can clamp directly on the book if you don't mind the clamp marks that they make.

6. Drill your holes with a small drill bit. It should make a large enough hole for your needle to fit through.

7. Thread your needle and "sew" through your holes all the way up one side (leave a long end where you started)
and back down the other creating X's. You can repeat this pattern as many times as you think you need depending on the strength of your string. I used embroidery floss and just went up and down once.

8. Make a tight square not and then start using your new book.

Please let me know if you make one!