raise 'em up

Raise your hand if you're tired of seeing the backsides of girls whose pants are too low, their shirts are too short and their midsections are too large.

(I'm not complaining about midsections, I've got no room to talk, I'm complaining about visible midsections.)


Now raise your hand if you think this same low pants/short shirt/large midsection combination is adorable on babies.


Raise your hand if you think I need to clean my refrigerator.

And raise your hand if you want to be the one to clean it for me. First one with their hand up, wins.


Raise your hand if you think it's gross that I have a container of worms in my refrigerator.

I do, that's for sure. But Jeremy insists they stay. Compromise--that's marriage, folks.

I wish I could see when you're raising your hand.


Raise your hand if you think it's funny when your baby gets trapped between the legs of a chair, and then stays there for 15 minutes, perfectly happy.

I'm teaching him that there are consequences to his actions. Also, it was the only time in the last 2 months that he's stayed in the same spot for longer than 30 seconds (when he's awake, that is).

On a related note, I'm not typically able to change a diaper (especially not a poopy one) in faster than 30 seconds. Which explains the scene upstairs 2 minutes ago where Ryan was naked from the waist down, mid-crawl and reaching for something, while I was holding him back by one of his legs with one hand and simultaneously trying to grab a diaper out of his drawer with my other.

I don't even have to tell you to raise your hands if you've ever done that, I know you already are.


Raise your hand if you think it's funny that when the baby is under the chair, his toy falls just out of his reach and he cannot figure out a way to get to it.

Raise your hand if you think this blog post is going nowhere.


Raise your hand if you wish I would learn how to use my camera so that instead of a blurry picture, I could produce a picture that actually shows Ryan's new tooth.


Raise your hand if you are tired of snotty noses and gunky eyes, and are just ready for spring to show up.

I'm going to assume you are all in agreement with me on all of these things. Especially the last one.

Raise your hand if you never want to hear the phrase "raise your hand" again.

Lucky for you then, that Ryan is crying and in desperate need of his mama.

today I learned how to spell "chronicling"

So, maybe you've all figured out by now, but I'm kind of a boring person. I don't much care for parties and I generally do my best to not ever host one. Which, of course, is why I was sent a child who has grand ideas for a party she'd like to throw at least weekly and is constantly begging me to let her have one.

Go ahead and feel sorry for her. I do.

This weekend Jeremy is going to snowboarding with most of the boys in his family, so the girls decided to get together and have a "girls night", plus nine kids, held at my house. Alexis caught wind of this yesterday and has been going nuts ever since. You see, Alexis is the oldest cousin, loves to plan things, and has a million ideas racing through her head at all times. This makes her a "triple threat". Last night she asked if we could make a list of things to do on Saturday night, and I knew there was no way she'd sleep until we did it, so I sat down with her to brainstorm. And boy did she ever have some ideas! The first idea she introduced to me was a 3 legged race, which she was calling a 2 footed race. I tried to sway her from this idea since there's not a lot of room in my house for that sort of thing, but she already had ideas for how to get around that hang-up.

I took a picture of the list she came up with because it's so funny to me. After each item on the list she drew a box, and then after we wrote down all the ideas she went through and put a check next to the ones she wants to do for sure, and any ideas that fall under the "maybe" category, she drew a check in half the box, and then colored in the other half. There were no "for sure no" items, no matter how hard I tried.

Because this way of thinking is so foreign to me, it takes a lot of energy for me to not get annoyed by this and brush her off. And a "planning" session like this can be exhausting for me, especially at the end of the day. BUT! But, I love who Alexis is and I don't want her to ever feel like she should be different. If anything, I should be more like her. She is determined, she is prepared, she is fun to be around, she is full of good ideas, she is a leader, and she has a zest for life! And I always want her to know I think she's the most special girl I've ever met, so if that means that I will be participating in a 3 legged race in my living room on Saturday night, so be it.

This kind of leads me into the next thing I wanted to talk about. You may have noticed my blogging has seriously slacked off lately. Life seems to have grabbed me by the wrists and started running, with me bouncing and dragging behind. As a result I've discovered lots of things that I DON'T want to be (mostly by becoming them), most especially in regards to the type of mother I am. So I sat down and thought about the kind of mom I DO want to be, and figured out what kinds of things I need to be doing to become that mom. This is all well and good, but it doesn't leave me much free time, so my blogging will probably continue to be slow for awhile. I'm not going to stop blogging because I love chronicling this fleeting time of life, but I just don't have as much time as I used to, and it's not top on my list of priorities. So you will most likely be hearing less from me, for awhile anyway.

Now for Ryan's adoring public:
I put him in a swing at the park for the first time, and he loved it. Though most of the time he just laid back like this:

Now, a few quick tidbits to round up this long post:

-Alexis, since Saturday, has been snapping nonstop. She snaps while talking about something, she uses it for emphasis, she snaps while dancing, she snaps while using the bathroom, she snaps while eating (or when she's supposed to be eating), she snaps while reading, doing homework, and I'm SURE she snaps during school too. It is incredibly cute, and it's always with both hands, never just one.

-Ryan has another ear infection, and I can't decide which is worse: the ear infection and subsequent lack of sleep, or the medicine I have to give him and the never ending, foul smelling diarrhea that results. Amazingly enough, he is still his happy charming self throughout the day, no matter what is bothering him.

-Tyler is still misusing the word "heck" and if I have paper nearby I write down some of the things he says. Here are a few examples:
*Does this thing heck come off?
*Are you heck sitting here?
*Is this heck a movie?
*Is it heck okay if Ryan plays in the laundry basket?

Believe me when I say, it is the cutest heck thing.

See you in a few weeks. Or tomorrow. You never really know.

more of the same

Wow, I forgot how much more work a baby becomes once they are mobile! I spend half my day moving things out of Ryan's destructive path and making sure he doesn't fall off of something or onto something dangerous. Time may have faded my memory, but I SWEAR Ryan is more intense with this whole standing thing than my first two kids were. He MUST stand at all times. When you put him down for a nap you have to go back in there usually about 5 times and lay him down again before he actually falls asleep. One time, shortly after he learned to crawl and stand, I went into his room a few minutes after laying him down for bed just to find him crawling around his crib with his eyes shut while tiredly whimpering. He was so exhausted that he wanted to sleep but it's like his brain was saying, "MUST KEEP MOVING! DO NOT STOP!" So, you know, that's a lot of fun. Did someone request a fat tummy picture? You've come to the right place!

Also, the past few weeks I've been weaning him from breastfeeding. If you've ever done that than you can feel my pain, and you probably know what I mean when I say that Benadryl and cabbage leaves are my new best friends. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's better that way. Did someone request a cute picture of him drinking his bottle? I happily oblige!

It rained over the weekend, which melted a lot of snow, and yesterday was sunny enough and barely warm enough to take the boys outside. Tyler got to ride his scooter with some friends, but probably spent more time eating really old snow.

Tyler has also been doing some pretty funny stuff lately. Currently his favorite thing to do is hide when he hears someone coming into the same room as him, and then jump out and say "BOO!" I remember Alexis doing something similar around this age too. The problem with Tyler is that he's not at all quiet about it, so it's never a surprise. And he does it about 100 times a day, but I can only act surprised for the first 3 times before it gets old.

Also, he has started throwing the word "heck" into sentences randomly, and it almost is never used correctly, which makes it really funny. Today he said to me, "What is this heck thing?"

Finally, when he's telling you a story, he uses the phrase "and guess what?" a lot. Like, A LOT. Just a minute ago he was telling me a story about a dream he had last night and it went something like this:

"Mom, guess what! Last night I had a dream about a bakugan, and guess what? It went tick tock, and guess what? I was hiding from it, and guess what? It tried to find me, and guess what? Alexis and grandma found it, and guess what? They killed it! And guess what? I was happy they killed it, and guess what? It wanted to kill me!" And so on and so forth.

Then there's Alexis. She's still beautiful. She still keeps me on my toes and scratching my head.

The other night I tried to take a quick video of Ryan in his bouncer while we were finishing up dinner. As a result you get a quick peek at what dinner is like around here: Tyler is always still hungry and we always have to ask Alexis if she is done eating, and Ryan just ignores us all. In addition to that, in this video we get a burp from Jeremy, Alexis telling us the date so we'll always remember, and Tyler being really annoying. Amazingly enough, I didn't yell at any of them!

Ryan's taking a stand

Ryan has been crawling for a few weeks now, but it's more like he's swimming the butterfly stroke than crawling. While laying on his stomach he brings his arms up, drops them on the ground in front of him and drags his body forward. I figured that since most of the time he's crawling he is not actually on his hands and knees I had a little while longer before he started trying anything new. But two days ago I was sitting on the living room floor watching Ryan play, while talking to my mom on the phone. As I was talking to her I realized that Ryan had crawled over to a little toy and had pulled himself up onto his knees. Next thing I knew he pulled himself up to stand, then knelt back down, then stood up again. I couldn't believe it--he's just barely 7 months! A few minutes later he crawled over to the toy box and acted like he wanted to pull himself up there too. I wasn't sure he'd be able to, but I pulled the camera out just in case. Good thing I did because he pulled himself up there, but then quickly fell over. See for yourself:




It was fun watching him do that, but I kind of hoped he would forget all about it the next day because I still want him to sit happily in one place. But of course he didn't forget, and the whole next day I followed him around taking pictures of the places he decided to stand up next. Again, see for yourself (a few are taken with my cell phone):


I think he had help getting up to the couch, but he did the rest all by himself. You can't tell from this picture, but I think standing up in the bathtub made him a little nervous because it was kind of slippery.

I guess he's out to prove that those stumpy legs are good for more than just decoration. And really, this is quite the feat considering the weight he's hauling around!

The award for "Most Memorable Event of 2010"...

...goes to the birth of Ryan! (Was there any question?) This is also the event I'm most grateful for. (Was there any doubt?) There was never a baby more loved than this one. You can't help but smile when you see his fat cheeks, pinch his chubby legs, or kiss his round belly. He's the easiest baby I've had yet, and a pure delight to have in our family. Every second of every day I'm grateful that he is mine. And now, at 7 months old I'm wishing time would stop. All the signs that he's growing up (crawling, teething, weaning, eating solids) sadden me. I should be happy about them, but I just want him to stay a baby forever. Ryan's existence has also taught me what it really means to be tired. I thought I was tired when Alexis was born--I had no idea. I thought I was tired when Tyler was a baby--I was very wrong. And if it's possible to be more tired than I am now, I don't care to find out. His sleep has been so beyond horrible the past two months (there's reasons but it's a long story) that I've learned just how little sleep I can function on--it's pretty remarkable actually. Despite that, he still is absolutely perfect! That may not make sense to you, but that's just how awesome he is. Even if I were never able to sleep again, I would still keep him. (But let's hope it doesn't come to that!)

Runner-up for the Most Memorable Event of 2010:
Being unemployed for 6 months.
Half the year.
Beginning of May through the end of October.
Basically, a long time!
This is also the event I'm second most grateful for. (Surprised?) I've tried to sit down and write about this at least 5 or 6 times, but I just can't do it justice so I quit. And I still can't give it an adequate description. It was awesome and not awesome all at the same time (but more awesome than not). It was a blessing in disguise. It was exactly what we needed. It was good for our family and our faith. It allowed us to see just how loved we are. It taught us to accept service. It strengthened our marriage. Alexis, Tyler and Ryan all got to know their dad even better. Jeremy had the best summer ever, a time we jokingly refer to as "The Summer of Jeremy". I was able to relax and enjoy Ryan as a baby because I had help. We learned to better distinguish between needs and wants. We had confirmed to us that paying a full tithe is more important than anything else we could do with our money. We had more time to give to others. We saw that prayers are answered. We understood better that our lives are not in our hands. We learned lessons on patience. And we developed empathy for those in a similar situation (which, unfortunately, we know many).

Overall it was a good experience for us, which is kind of odd, but not every day was easy. I know our experience isn't what every one's is like, and my attitude about it may not be what most people's is, but I can provide a listening ear if you find yourself in the same situation. Also, Jeremy's opinion varies a little from mine because he was the one that was putting all the work into looking for a new job. I know at times it felt overwhelming, frustrating, and pointless. But we kept confident and optimistic (most of the time) because we knew there was something out there for him--and he did find something great. It's not his dream job, but he enjoys it, it pays the bills, and the schedule is a trillion times better than his old job. In fact, even on the worst day of unemployment he NEVER once wished he had his old job back. (And neither did I--we were burnt out there!)
Honorable Mentions of 2010:
Tyler played itty bitty basketball
I helped out a lot in Alexis' kindergarten class
Family vacation to Phoenix (and missed our return flight)
Alexis played soccer
Last Rhino trip (to Hole in the Rock with Jeremy's parents and brother) before the baby
Jeremy and Tyler participated in their first father/son camp out
Alexis "graduated" kindergarten
Jeremy and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary
Jeremy and the kids went on lots of camping or Rhino trips
Ryan and I stayed home and napped!
Weekend trip to a cabin with friends
Alexis turned 6 (and celebrated with a friends party)
Jeremy built us new bedroom furniture
Family reunion with Jeremy's family
Jeremy hiked King's Peak (quite the accomplishment!)
Ryan gained a lot of weight
Tyler learned to ride a 2-wheeler
Alexis started 1st grade
Tyler started a weekly playgroup/preschool with friends and neighbors
Tyler turned 4 (and had his first party with friends)
Alexis lost her first (and second!) tooth
Ryan learned to crawl
We bought a new car, and the old one reached 200,000 miles!
Quick trip to Las Vegas for a baby blessing
My little sister got married
and we welcomed a total of 4 new nieces and nephews!

2010 was quite the year, and while I loved it, I really hope 2011 is a lot less eventful!

Christmas 2010

Time for the obligatory Christmas post, I suppose. We had an absolutely fantastic Christmas and Christmas Eve, and the rest of the month has been alright as well, but I'm not sorry to see it go. Get out of here December, I'm done with you!

(I've been a little grumpy the past few days, so this post might seem a bit bitter. I apologize.)

This year I tried harder to focus more on Christ and giving, and less on Santa and gimmes. It's hard to strike the perfect balance with young children, but we did a little better than last year. And hopefully next year will be even better. Even if the kids don't notice it as much, I know I'm a lot happier when I cut back on some of the unnecessary aspects of the holiday and spend more time reflecting on the birth, life, and death of Jesus Christ.

We took video of the kids coming down the stairs Christmas morning, so we didn't take as many pictures. But here's a few worth sharing:

Tyler opening "How to Train Your Dragon" DVD. They did get Pillow Pets, you can see his dolphin in the background.

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law made this present for Tyler. They used that spray insulation stuff, an old hard top suitcase, paint, trees, etc. to make a dinosaur landscape for all Tyler's dinosaurs. This suitcase sat under our tree for weeks and the suspense was KILLING Tyler. It was worth the wait, it's a perfect present for him!

Here's Jeremy pretending to be surprised about the drill he got.

Proof that Ryan and I (and Ryan's other chin) were there too. Alexis gave him this chicken. You squeeze it and it looks like it's laying an egg. Ryan's saying, "What the...?"

This is the present I was most excited for. I had several things I wanted to make for people this Christmas, but this is really the only one that got done. I bought some Fancy Nancy fabric awhile ago with the idea of making something out of it for Alexis, but I wasn't sure what. I finally decided to make her a messenger bag because she likes to take stuff everywhere we go, so I found this red corduroy fabric to match and drew out plans for what I wanted it to look like. But since it's a Fancy Nancy bag I had to make it fancy, without being too annoying. So I added a cute button on the front, all that red fringe (which was pretty annoying to sew with), some blue ric rac on the back, and that blue sequined ribbon that's down the middle of the strap. I LOVE how it turned out and was so excited that she LOVES it too. She was happy to get it and has since taken it everywhere we've gone.

Later that day we went to my parents house to celebrate with my family. Jeremy took a nap and Aaron and Tricia's dog curled up right next to him. We thought it was funny because Jeremy is definitely not a dog person (or an animal person in general).

And because he amazes me every year, here's what Jeremy made when my family got together to make gingerbread houses:
Of course, every year he gets mad at himself because he spends too much time constructing something, then he always runs out of time for decorating.

December 21st

In case you missed the memo, today is the First Day of Winter.

Five and a half inches of snow fell last night, according to the Garfield ruler (the most scientific measuring tool there is).

the wedding

In an effort to put off all the millions of things I have to do today and tomorrow and the next day, I'm going to share some pictures with you.

This past weekend my sister, Rachel, got married. We're very excited for her and are happy to welcome her groom into our family--I think he'll fit well. And because I happen to be married to a talented guy, and our labor is very cheap (very cheap=free), Jeremy and I tackled the project of the wedding cake. They wanted a cupcake tier cake with a small cake on top. Jeremy built the tier and it turned out beautifully (of course). Rachel and Nick baked 137 cupcakes and froze them a week before the wedding. Then with the help of YouTube and with the encouragement of a friend who makes awesome cakes but lives in Denver, I tried my hand at frosting them. Another friend, who lives around the corner, also saved us by making the top cake (which looked beautiful!) for us and came over and helped frost the cupcakes. We definitely could not have done all of this without their help!



And this is what my Christmas present from Jeremy looked like (still looks like...) after making at least 4 batches of frosting. I definitely broke that thing in!

We didn't pull the camera out much, their photographer was walking around taking pictures so I didn't worry about doing that. But I'm wishing now that I had taken pictures of my kids with Rachel and Nick, and maybe a picture of me with Rachel. Oh well, too late now. This is the only picture we did take of them. Jeremy took it when Rachel and Nick just happened to be standing over there, and I thought it was pretty clever.

But I did make sure we took a family picture since we rarely all look this nice at the same time. But just because we looked nice doesn't mean we can take a decent family picture--these will have to do.

Also this weekend we discovered Ryan has an ear infection--the first of my kids to ever get one. Unfortunately we didn't discover this until after a VERY long night of a lot of crying (mostly his). I'm learning that it is possible to function on very little amounts of sleep, it's just really painful to do so. Hopefully we've turned a corner though, and things will start improving!

upgrade

I think this year's tree is going to give last year's tree a complex.

P.S. Look at what the little man has been doing recently:
You know what that leads to.

And, isn't he cute?
I suppose I can forgive him for never letting me sleep...

Ryan's new girlfriend

Lately I've sat down to write several blog posts and I get almost done but then I'm interrupted. So I leave it sitting up on my computer for several hours until I can come back to it, and then when I come back to it I don't like what I've written anymore. It always happens to the posts that are more personal and share some of my feelings.

Feelings.

Feelings!

I always tease Jeremy about not having any feelings. I am 93% sure he has some, he's just really bad at sharing them! But lately I've realized I'm not much better than him, I usually like to keep things light and fluffy.

Anyway, this was one of those posts. I started it, got interrupted, came back to it and didn't like it. Basically what I was getting at is that I have lots of good friends in my life. Friends from the past who I know I could still feel comfortable with, and good friends in my present life who help me and sustain me and keep me sane. I don't know why I'm so blessed to be surrounded by so many good people, but I'm thankful for it. And I have feelings about it, but I guess I'm not going to share them!

What spurred all this is the little baby in the picture below, holding Ryan's hand. Her name is Emmy, and she was born two days after Ryan. Her mom is my good friend Karly that I met at BYU. I've written before (and shared some feelings) about my group of friends from BYU, here and here.

This is Karly's first baby and I think it's really cool that our babies were born so close together. She lives in California, so I was really excited to find out she would be in town for Thanksgiving, and I pestered her until she squeezed me in at the last minute for a visit! Oh and in case any of you are familiar enough with Ryan's wardrobe to recognize that Emmy is wearing his clothes, she had a blowout within minutes of getting to our house and thus had to wear boy clothes.


I tried my hardest to hate Karly because she's even skinnier than she was before she got pregnant and I'm...not. But I like her too much so I was unsuccessful. Also, she threw up A LOT throughout her whole pregnancy and it's hard to hate a person who has to deal with that. She has some pretty good throwing up stories though, and that's another reason I'm glad she's my friend--she keeps me entertained!

Lastly, I've been trying for at least a month now to write a post about an experience that has shaped our year, but the whole thing about my feelings is getting in the way. I can't seem to write about it to do it justice without getting too personal on this public forum. Hopefully soon I'll be able to handle it.