Be Right Back... in a day or so...

My job was switched up a bit.. working more.. painted the BLUE dresser.. and getting for Charlie's birthday party tomorrow - a dinosaur party! Can you believe that he's 4? Details later though!

Seriously. Don't touch my belly.

No, I'm not pregnant, but when I am, I'd love this shirt:



"I saw this knowing shirt by Molly Anna and want to buy one for every pregnant woman I know. From the product description:

'Maternity Wardrobe $2,408

Nursery Furniture $1,317

Touching my Belly $5

Some things money can't buy.

For everything else, you need cold hard cash.'

I mean how sick are you of random strangers touching your belly?"

via GoodyBlog and Design Mom

A fun project..

Have you ever distressed a picture frame? I've done in the past, but this tutorial shows you how to do it step by step... I found this link on one of my favorite blogs How about orange...

Toy Recalls

There have been a lot of toy recalls due to lead paint. Enough so that it made me wonder if any of our toys have been recalled. So, I googled it and found this great site for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. It lists all of the toy recalls (back to 1975 it says). After scrolling through several of them, I came across one toy that we own, but luckily it wasn't recalled because of lead paint but for a part that breaks off, and ours did. But I can't find it. Maybe I threw it away???

Okay - I totally just found another one. It's Jack's beloved puppy! He got it last Christmas at a neighborhood party and sleeps with it all the time. But honestly, the recall is because the pom poms can come off and pose a choking hazard, but I knew that when I gave it to him. (I just checked, the pom poms are still intact.)

Funny stuff...

Steve sent me these pictures today from our Ohio trip.



One night while we were there, Charlie came screaming to me that a rock was stuck up his nose. Sure enough! I could see the very tip of it. It was actually a little piece of smoothed glass that we'd found on the beach.. he'd been carrying it around all night. It only took a minute to get out.. I just held closed his one nostril while he blew really hard. Once we realized a trip to the emergency room wouldn't be necessary on a Sunday night I asked him WHY did he put the rock up his nose? And he said, "Because I wanted to pretend it was a booger." I always wondered why kids stick things up their nose... and now I know why. I don't think he will ever do anything like that again. It was very traumatic. When Greg was 4--- he stuck a RedHot up his nose while he was with his family at Raging Waters.. it got stuck. History always seems to repeat itself.

Today, today...

We're just hanging around at home today.
My project is to put away all of the food storage I bought at the case lot sale. Simple? Well, in order to put it away I have to first clean off the pantry shelves in the laundry room... but before I do that I need to clean off the shelf above the washer and dryer to make way for some of the STUFF from the pantry shelves. Being unorganized is such a WASTE OF TIME!

P.S. Don't use milk jugs to store liquids. I just found a gallon jug of car cleaning soap that disintegrated... luckily it had been placed in a cleaning bucket so it's massive soapy mess was contained.


I also want to devote some time to Charlie's blue dresser which sort of got abandoned in July... it turned out too streaky.. so I'm trying to decide what to do next. Buy a new dresser??? Maybe. I'll let that be plan B. Plan A will be to try painting it again with a sponge brush. We'll see how far I get today. I'm always too ambitious in my plans.

The STREP!

Greg has been really sick this weekend so he went into the doctor's this morning-- He has strep.

So.. we thought it would be a good idea for all of us to be tested--- WE ALL TESTED POSITIVE FOR STREP!

I don't even feel sick (Wait a minute, do I feel sick? Maybe I should take it easy-- YEAH RIGHT!). That always happened to me as a kid too... one of my siblings would get it, we'd all be tested, and sure enough, I always had it and got a nice big poke in the behind for it. Luckily our doctor is nice and let us all get off with antibiotics. So--- we're home bound for a couple of days. We'll keep our germs to ourselves, but I'll feel TERRIBLE if we infected anyone else over the weekend... SO SORRY!!!

Harvest Time

Yesterday, Charlie harvested the sunflower that he's been growing this summer.

He started it from a seed in our kitchen in a yogurt cup then transplanted it to our flower bed. It went crazy.

At first he was horrified at what we were going to do to his baby... "You're going to CUT THE HEAD OFF OF MY SUNFLOWER? NOOOOOO....." But after we explained what we were going to do with the seeds he was all for it. We're going to save some of the seeds for next summer and see if we can keep the same monster plant going. The rest we're going to eat!

In this book I've been reading, Preparedness Principles, there's a chapter on indoor gardening! I had no idea that you can grow several vegetables in pots inside your house - it claims that lettuce, onions, carrots, and broccoli work great (along with herbs, of course). I think that we're going to give indoor farming a try this winter. I love houseplants and why not grow something that we could eat! The boys will love it and now is the perfect time to more get gardening supplies on clearance (You know how I love saving money!).

Jack's birthday...

For Jack's birthday we just had a fun family day.

We went to the Springville are museum for a little children's art festival and did a really fun scavenger hunt. Chief Massasoit was one tall Indian. I'm seriously considering starting to do some volunteer work at the museum. I love going there and I'd love to reconnect with my artistic side. There were several art students there doing different drawings and sketching demonstrations and I thought to myself, "oh yeah, I used to do that kind of thing all of the time." I'm sad to admit that even when I draw for the boys I really don't give them too much more than stick figures. Pictures.. I still take pictures.. okay, but only with my digital camera.. Please don't make me admit that the film in my Nikon is over 2 years old. Shame on me!

After running a few errands--- and going to a park to look for my keys--- first time I've EVER lost them (and didn't find them)!--- we went swimming. Well, the boys did. It was a little windy and cool. But they had a blast! Jack is finally (now that swimming season is over) in love with swimming. He will even jump in and go totally under water (unlike Mr. Don'tGetMyEyesWet Charlie)

We went up to Mel and Steve's house to watch the BYU game with Greg's family and had Jack's cake up there to celebrate. When Jack saw his birthday cake he yelled, "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!" And he sang along to his birthday song. It was too cute. He put on a good show and loved all of his gifts. Below is a video clip of him opening his present from my mom. I thought you'd like to see him opening his gift, Mom. He loved it!

Saturday, September 15th - Jack is TWO!!!

Jack is two today! And Greg will attest to it... about a week ago - he developed a 'serious two-year-old attitude'. It must have come to him one morning while he was talking to himself in his crib. He has realized that he doesn't have to listen to ANYONE!!!












As I looked through all of the pictures of our little baby I can't believe how quickly these past two years have gone. I want to run upstairs and wake him up before he grows anymore. He has a great sense of humor. I love what makes him laugh. As Greg was getting ready to walk out the door for work yesterday morning he said, "Daddy, you're ORANGE JUICE! Mommy, you're JELLY BEAN!" ~ And those have been our new silly-nick-names (Charlie is PEANUT BUTTER).

He loves puppies, and ponies, and Charlie - his hero. He asks for funny things when he first wakes up and is lying in bed... "Dadddddddy.. can I have soda?" "Mommmmmmmy.. can I have a slushy?"

When someone tickles him he doesn't yell "STOP! Stop!" Like a lot of kids (or like his mommy).. he begs for "MORE! MORE! Tickle me! Do't'gain!" He has a lot of little phrases that he repeats over and over and says really fast-- he's practicing to be an auctioneer when he grows up, "Can'I'ge'down? Can'I'ge'down? Can'I'ge'down?"

If he could eat whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, he would eat grapes and fruit snacks. When he won't eat his dinner we say, "Let me have this food to feed my little birdy." Then we pop tiny little pieces of food in his mouth while he says "Tweet! Tweet!"

Happy Birthday, Jackie! I dedicate this song to you!

Concert clip of Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband singing "2 year old attitude" (Which Jack now totally has!):

What NOT to wear...

I know.. I know.. pick your battles.. it's not that big of a deal.

I know.

BUT SERIOUSLY?

Light and dark green striped shirt, with gray and blue shorts?

At least he picked the right flip flops.

It's kind of cute.
But I still trumped the outfit by declaring the shirt a Sunday-shirt.

He does have his own style though.

Good times and my "Brein-aversary"

I like to really pack in the FUN. If we're going to go have fun... we're going to go have a lot of it!

Charlie was a born competitor.
He discovered tug-of-wars at our ward activity last Thursday.

Last friday we took a little play group field trip to Thanksgiving Point's Petting Zoo. Jack had his very first pony ride. While Charlie contentedly watched. They ran around, fed the animals, and played.

Our next fun stop - Ikea. I've thourghly brainwashed the boys into believing that Ikea is their absolutely most favorite store in all of the world... they BEG to go to Ikea... (insert evil laughter here).

Charlie sort of regretted not riding the pony at the farm. He realized, in the car, that everybody else had done it except for him. He said, "Cole and Jack were both brave and rode the pony all by themselves." - It was a little sad. BUT-- I had a family work party that night and told him there would be pony rides there. He was determined that he was going to ride the pony there. And he did! You can see their different reactions to pony rides in the video below.. they are definitely different in how they approach new experiences.

My work party was great. They had food, games, and tons of activities. (The picture on the left is me and Jack in a 3-legged race - he was laughing his head off.) I was one space away from 'black out' on my bingo board - I came SO CLOSE to winning a nice big $100 gift card.

Charlie and Greg rocked the water balloon toss.

For my birthday Greg got me Peter Breinholt concert tickets for Saturday evening! So we rounded up our babysitting crew and headed up to Sundance. My first Peter Breinholt concert was with Greg - on one of our very first dates - 9 years ago. This was Peter's 10th anniversary preforming at Sundance. It was a fantastic "Brein-aversary".

On Sunday... we finished off the weekend by celebrating Al's 24th birthday with dinner and carrot cake - yummmmmm... It was so fun. But dang. Last weekend wore me out. It took me all week to recover (and blog)... now... for this next weekend o'fun!!!

I love where we live...

Greg took these pictures from our back yard after a passing rain storm.

September 2, 2007

18 month CT Scan clear except.....

I have a KIDNEY STONE!

Grrrrrrrrrrr........

It's in my right kidney. It's something that's just developed in the last 3 months. I guess that's the annoying things about these CT scans--- they give you way too much information. Information I don't even want to know!

A kidney stone? How annoying. A ticking time bomb. Something that was probably totally avoidable if I'd just taken a little better care of myself this summer. Something I can't to a dang thing about now.

I tried to cheer up over Sushi with Greg. Sushi... hummmmm... I've been eating a lot of Sushi in the last 3 months... it's really the only thing that's changed. Greg said I can't blame the Sushi though (he also reminded me that only old ladies get kidney stones). I opted for the low sodium soy sauce and stared down Bill (or Ted - I can't tell them apart) until he brought me a second glass of water. (No, seriously, there are two water boys at Sushi Ya and they look like they're having a very 'excellent adventure').

It's getting late.. I'd better wikipedia 'kidney stone' and see what the heck I'm supposed to do to prevent getting more of them. So annoying...

Football already???

BYU Season tickets for us this year! I can't believe it's time already. I didn't think we'd make it through the first quarter of the game.. it was like 97 degrees... who sits out in that kind of heat at 3:30 in the afternoon? Apparently we do!.. along with a completely sold out Lavell Edward's Stadium. But there was an occasional breeze and it eventually started to cool down, and our cougars won.

We enjoyed the game, and the boys were so good we were able to stay for the whole thing.

And as Jack would say, "It was AWE-thumb!" (Pictured left)