Happy New Year

There are several things that I have neglected to post recently. Henry turned 2 (end of September). I had this whole long thing about him being 2 and his birthday party. Halloween has come and gone, without so much as a single picture. November, also picture and post-less. Christmas, and the whole month it gets, same thing. Oh well. The truth is, it's been a busy few months and sometimes you just have to prioritize and, for me, the blog isn't usually at/near the top of the list.

I do however like keeping a historical record of/for my family.

September

September brought Henry's birthday. He loved his "beep beep" cake and scored big time, present wise. Presents were wrapped in various paper, but he wasn't interested in opening them if they weren't wrapped in "beep beep" paper. We had to cover presents in "beep beep" paper and pretend like it was so that he would be interested.





He started to get up in the middle of naps, move to the hall, then resume his nap. I do remember the floor being a great place for a nap.

October

In October, we enjoyed a beautiful Indian Summer, followed by Halloween festivities. Henry was a puppy for Halloween. It was hard to get a good shot of him as a puppy, seeing as how he doesn't like having things on his head. (It is actually very odd that he will wear the army helmet. This is a very rare picture.)





November

Not much happened in November. Henry's stuffed monkey, aka "Ha Ha", went on a lot of our errands with us this month. One trip, he got to wear Henry's pjs. Henry watched a whole lot of Tangled. Our copy is about worn out already. Also, we got to put up our Christmas tree Thanksgiving weekend. Henry LOVED Christmas things this year! I'm glad we got the season started asap. It was a fun Christmas year.





December

December has been pretty exciting, but VERY busy. Biggest news: I got my real estate license!! It's official!! I can now sell houses in Utah!! So, if you're looking to buy or sell, you know who to call!! It's taken a lot of time and work this year, but it's finally done. I'm pretty excited about it. I think I will really enjoy it.

Henry LOVES trains, or "choo choos". He got to ride the Polar Express this year. It's an old train, all decorated for Christmas. We got cookies, drank hot chocolate, sang songs, and MET SANTA!! He knew Henry's name and gave him a bell. Henry still talks about it every day!

Christmas was fun. We spent Christmas eve at Nate's parents, eating the traditional Christmas Eve supper, exchanging a few gifts, and reading the Christmas story. It was a lovely evening. Emily and Ian came down from Idaho later that night and spent Christmas day with us. I'm glad they could come. It made Christmas extra special.

Extra Pockets

I thought of another plus to winter yesterday. This would be my Winter Happy Thought #3.

As much as I dislike jackets, at least they provide extra pockets so I don’t have to carry everything around with me. My dislike of carrying a purse all the time stems from the same dislike of carrying a jacket all of the time. I just don’t care for extra stuff. When I go shopping I prefer to stick my ID and debit card in my back pocket and go in accessory free. I don’t, however, like to unbutton and re-button back pocket buttons and somehow all of my pants have back pocket buttons. (I dislike doing this because you forget to re-button once and you end up with the corners of the button flap all curled up, never to lay totally flat again. My bum already pokes out enough without the help of unruly fabric.) Hence being glad for jacket/sweater pockets. Home Depot was much more enjoyable last night without my purse.

Am I the only girl in the world that does not care for accessories? I enjoy myself a nice pair of earrings and (before Henry came along and started pulling on jewelry) a nice necklace, but besides that, not so much. Even rings. Before I got married, the only ring I remember wearing for more than a week was a CTR ring I got for Christmas some time during our Fox Run years. (Middle school, maybe? I don’t remember ages, just where we lived at the time). That one I wore off and on for a long time. Maybe I’m weird. Oh well. At least my hands are free to enjoy stores AND keep my son from running around like a wild child.

Winter Happy Thought II

This is only day #2 and I have another winter happy thought. You get better gas mileage! No A.C = less $$ on gas. Yay!

Winter Happy Thoughts

A few days ago, I wrote this big long thing about winter. It was mostly about how much I dislike different aspects of the season, such as how I don’t like being concerned with the conditions of the roads and planning my life accordingly and how much I dislike things such as coats, shoes, socks, etc. Instead of posting all of my winter grievances, I’ve decided to stick that one in my journal and not subject my (limited) internet audience to my hatred of beef with winter.
Instead, I will skip to the positive parts of that never to be published post. The whole point of it, before it turned into a vent-fest, was to share my winter plan. I have decided that it might be beneficial to note down anything that I think I like about winter. Any time I think “I love that…” or “It’s so nice that..”, and it has to do with snow or cold, I am going to take note and share it. At the end of the winter, I am going to compile it so that I can pull it out next winter and remind myself about all the happy things about winter.

As a side note, I believe in setting realistic goals. It is unrealistic for me to say that I will try to not have a negative thought about winter. Complaining is just going to happen. My realistic goal, for this year, is to take note of and appreciate the positive aspects of winter.

So my #1, favorite thing about winter is:

You get to LEAVE YOUR GROCERIES IN THE CAR!!! You can leave them there for hours! You can go to Costco, buy a bag of chicken, and then decide you aren’t quite ready to go home yet and that you should take advantage of being out of the house and the already spent gas and go to the mall. Not that you need to, you just want to walk around for a while and look at all the pretty things. Also you can buy your groceries, remember you were supposed to buy the dog his special, hypo-allergenic food at some other store besides the grocery store, and go (even take your time) because nothing’s going bad in a trunk that’s colder than your refrigerator at home. Honestly, this is the only thing I miss about winter when it’s over. Summer requires a little more planning in the sequence and timing of city outings.

Well, there’s my #1 FAVORITE THING about winter. Honestly, at this moment I am having a hard time even imagining that my list is going to be very long, but we’ll see. I am sure I will still snarl at the snow. I’ll curse having to drive anywhere with snow on the roads. I’ll swear about every time I have to gather all of the accessories necessary to keep a toddler (and myself) warm and healthy/alive in a trip out of the house. I’ll want to leave the state and realize we’re pretty much snowed in this (thankfully large) valley. By March I will feel completely distant from any sort of civilization that cannot see a giant rock wall (mountains) just to the east. By April or May, when it starts warming up just enough to guarantee that all of the moisture that comes through here will undoubtedly turn into a snowy mess, I will want to move someplace warm and sunny even if it costs me my right arm. But summer will come again (spring is just snow with the occasional teaser day of “warmth”). I’ll almost cry out of happiness when the tree outside starts to turn green. (Okay, Utah has more than one tree, but not by many. I will count them next time I have a good vantage point and let you know an exact number. Just kidding.) I’ll break out my slippers and enjoy another 4 or 5 months before it starts snowing again. Happy day!!



P.S. I don’t hate living here. There are a lot of pros. I just get a little grumpy when I think about winter, so I’m going to stop now and get back to what I should be doing.

P.P.S. Yes, this is shorter than the original post on the subject.

MIA

I have been very much a MIA blogger this summer, but especially the last month. Working on two... I'm not going to try to catch up on everything we've been up to, just because that sounds like a lot of work to cover nothing particularly exciting.

In general, we're just doing our thing and enjoying summer! Nate is working and being employee extraordinaire.

I'm still working on becoming a real estate agent. I stink at test taking. Always have, so the last little bit of this process where I have to take and pass a bazillion tests is starting to get old. I'm making progress, but when you stink at testing plus you're out of practice, it can be difficult. If only I could just skip this part!

Henry is just busy growing up. We started potty training last month. We've now progressed to minimal accidents at home, occasional accidents outside (why would you stop playing long enough to go to the bathroom?), and knowing the location and quickest route to every restroom at all of the stores we even occasionally visit. I think today was our first accident free church block and it didn't involve me leaving primary every 30 seconds to pry him out of Nursery to visit the restroom! Go Henry!! Henry's been up to other fun stuff, but his birthday is coming up and I'll save it for then.

Due to the slow and painful death of our camera, I don't have many pictures from the last couple of months. It's not totally dead, but IF it doesn't shut off when you push the picture taking button, the display goes black so it's a surprise what comes out.

Here is what I do have pictures of. Don't worry. There really aren't many.

Sorry for the poor quality.
Moving toddler + dumb camera = this picture
I made that giant ruler! It's a growth chart that looks like an old wooden ruler. Now, if we ever move, we don't have to leave kids measurements in a door frame. I think it's darker in the picture than in real life.

I just thought that was funny. He walked around like that for a while that day. It was entertaining. You can see his training potty in the background. He picked it out and it sat in our kitchen until this past week. It makes sounds when you potty in it.

I made this too! It's car seat liner with a rubbery table cloth bottom to keep Henry's car seat from stinking up our car if he has an accident while we're on the road. I just take it out, put the other one in and wash the wet one.

We went camping in Idaho last weekend! Mama was up there, taking Chelsie back to school. This is the only picture we got because of our sad camera, but I think it's a sweet one. G.G. is reading Henry his new truck book. (Note the teeny bit of yellow under the blue blanket at the head of the bed. That is one of a few of Henry's trucks that he felt needed to be nearby while he slept).

Lunch!

Today I was looking on the Weight Watchers website for a good recipe that would use up the rest of our arugula. I found this exciting little recipe. I picked the tomatoes out of our garden and we even made bread this weekend, so I happened to have fresh french bread. I ate the tomato arugula mixture with a spoon and about ate it up before the toast part was ready. After I put the tomato mixture on the toast it was even more amazing. Yumm!! It was so yummy, I even blogged about it. Amazing, I know.

Just in case you're interested, here is the recipe.

4 med plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped (I did not seed them)
2 C fresh arugula, chopped
1/2 C grated Parmesan
1T extra virgin olive oil
2t balsamic vinegar, white variety (I did not use the white variety)
1/4t kosher salt
1/4t black pepper
4 slices of Italian Bread (about 3/4 inch thick)
1 clove of garlic, halved (I used the chopped garlic stuff from the bottle in my fridge)

Combine the first 7 ingredients. Let stand 20 min.

Preheat broiler or prepare grill.

Rub bread with cut side of garlic and toast 2-3 min.

Top with tomato mixture.

Enjoy!

Teton Vacation! (Part 2)

Saturday, we failed to take pictures again. Nate, Henry, and I went to Jackson Hole and walked around. After walking around for about 5.2 seconds, we decided that it was Park City, a mall, and a town square with antlers, combined into one. We kept walking around (why not?) , but didn't for long. We then decided to ask a local where the best bbq place was. She directed us to the old Village Inn building (where we had eaten before). It was pretty yummy! Henry got corn on the cob and was in heaven!

Later, we met up with Mama, Daddy, Chelsie and Caleb, and went on a picnic on the Idaho side of the Tetons. It was a pretty camp site. I wouldn't mind camping there some day, but given the bear warning signs, I'll be taking some bear mace with me.

Sunday, we went to church.

We also went on a ride up the tram in Teton Village. Mama, Daddy, Chelsie, Caleb, Nate, Henry and I all went to the Wyoming side of the mountains. It was worth the view and the opportunity to take a short hike on top of one of the summits of the Tetons.

Daddy and Henry riding up to the top together and checking out the view! This is a closed in tram. There was no risk of falling out.


View from the top.


L-R: Daddy, Mama, Chelsie, Henry, Me, Random guy in pink shirt
You can see the little hike we went on. We walked down a big-ish hill, wrapped around, then walked back up a smaller hill.


We went up a lot higher than I thought we were going to. It was a fun little adventure!

Monday it was time to go home. We packed up and cleaned out the condo "cabin" we rented, had lunch at a park in Rexburg, said bye to everyone and headed home. It was sad that Emily couldn't join us for a lot of the fun stuff and that Ian couldn't join us for any of it, but we're glad he's home from the hospital and getting better. I'm sure we'll do fun stuff again!

Driving Home

Teton Vacation!

Emily graduated from BYU-Idaho this month! So, to celebrate, we all met in Idaho for her graduation and a little family vacation. It is a little tradition that started when my whole family went to Hawaii for my graduation. We got a little "cabin" in Driggs, which was the perfect amount of in between from the Tetons and Rexburg.

Before we went up to Idaho, Mama, Daddy, and Caleb came down to our house to deliver our piano! We have a piano now! They had neighbors that were giving it away and they couldn't find anyone in Eugene that wanted it, so my parents gladly took it off their hands, stored it in their living room for at least a year, and then delivered it to us! We are very grateful to have this piano! It is a good piano and is even relatively in tune, even after it's nearly 1000 mile drive from Oregon.

Henry found this chair and dragged it most of the way to the piano. He loves playing it!

Oh! I forgot again. They came on my birthday. We all kept forgetting it was my birthday, but I got one heck of a present!

The morning after they came, we all left for Idaho. It was good to go up and see Chelsie, Emily, and Ian. Unfortunately, Ian was in the hospital the whole time and missed out on all of the action. Fortunately, he is out now! That's what really matters.

Thursday was not very eventful and we got zero pictures.

Friday, there was college student moving going on, so Nate, Henry, and I went to Bear World, near Rexburg. It is absolutely a cheesy tourist trap type of experience, but it was fun. I'll admit it.

You get to drive right by bears!


Our zoom doesn't work. He was right outside our car. Got even closer after we took the picture.


I wanted to step out and pet the sleeping bear. Probably a bad idea.


Baby bears! I want to pet one! You can actually bottle feed them for $35/person. It didn't happen this trip, but some day, I WILL hug a baby bear. It is on my bucket list.


There was also a petting zoo included in the admission price. This looks like Goatie!


We got to pet deer!


I got to feed AND pet a baby deer! This is, no, WAS on my bucket list. Check!

After Bear World, we went back to Rexburg for a pre-graduation pic nic with everyone (minus Ian). We then all went to change and head to graduation. I got no pictures of this on our camera because we were in charge of Emilys point and shoot and totally forgot ours. Oops. Emilys departments part was the coolest graduation thing I've ever been to. Instead of boring speaches about how "we made it!", we got performances and visual presentations. The dance part was weird, but it was still entertaining! Congratulations to Emily! I'm glad we got to be there for your graduation!

(The rest of the vacation will be continued in Teton Vacation! Part 2).

July Minus Vacation

I love summer! July is always full of stuff and so busy that it just flies by. I love that there is so much to do, but I do not love how quickly it disappears. August comes, kids go back to school, and before you know it, it's Christmas. (We're not thinking about though. I'm still bitter about snow and the length of this past winter.)

So, back to the sun, warmth, thunderstorms, holidays, vacations, movies coming out, yard work, and just completely enjoying everything about this summer.

I did not get many pictures of the 4th of July. That is because we didn't really do much. We did, however, make a birthday cake and enjoy the fireworks of family and several neighbors.


I got the idea for the cake off of Pinterest (check out my pins if you'd like to see the site I got the idea from). I'm not super happy with my decorating work, but I was pretty done with baking by the time I got to decorating. Also, next time I'm going to mix raspberries into the icing for the filing.

With Harry Potter 7.2 coming out in July, we decided to re-watch all of the previous movies. One Friday evening, we decided to have a Harry Potter Picnic Night. We went and got Subway sandwiches (bought one for $5 the had enough points to get one free!!), bought a bag of chips from the grocery store, went home and setup a picnic on the floor. It was a lot of fun. Henry especially enjoyed being able to eat on the family room floor. It took a couple of days to get him to go to the table when we said it was supper time.

Henry hadn't paid the least bit of attention to any of the previous movies, so we were a little worried about nightmares when he decided to pay attention to this one (#5, I think). He didn't seem to have any nightmares. Hopefully we didn't scar him for life.

We did have to do it again a different night. Monkey had to join this time.

Another "fun" July activity has been vacuuming. Almost every day, Henry will pull out the vacuum and want us to vacuum the whole house. Honestly, I do not vacuum every day. Nope. Not even. If Henry had his way though, we would!

So helpful!

A Lunchtime Conversation

I just needed to write this down. It is too funny to get lost in the memory mush that happens over time.

Henry had a peanut butter and honey sandwich for lunch yesterday. Henry LOVES peanut butter, so this is one of his favorite lunches. He had his sandwich, his cup of water and a spoon. Who doesn’t need a spoon when eating a sandwich? He’s still not big on talking, so he pointed to his mostly devoured half of a sandwich, did his “eh, eh” almost grunting sound (meaning he wants something), then pointed to the counter where the sandwich making supplies still sat and said “eh, eh”. The rest of our “conversation” went like this:

Mama: Do you need more peanut butter?
Henry: (Shakes his head no style.)
Mama: No… Do you need more honey?
Henry: (Shakes his head no again.)
Mama: No… What do you need Henry?
Henry: Raaarrrrrrr!
Mama: Do you need more of this? (Pointing to the honey bear)
Henry: Jeah!!


He may not be big into talking, but the boy does communicate!

No Soliciting!

I usually do not do these little letters, but it seems appropriate.




Dear sales guy that just rang my doorbell,

I have a sleeping baby and a noisy dog. I only answered the door because I thought you would be someone else. I'm sorry if I was a little rude. I was trying to get dumb dog to stop barking and I was on the phone taking care of an unexpected charge on my Verizon bill. I know you are just doing your job and I am sorry it involves walking from door to door, but I do not love that you just did that. We're not in the clear yet, but I REALLY hope you didn't just wake up that really tired and grumpy kid. Please no! I still have a lot to get done before he wakes up.

A little annoyed but still apologetic,
The lady behind the door of the next to the last house on the street.

P.S. If you were selling No Soliciting signs, PLEASE COME BACK!! I would probably buy one from you. Just quietly knock this time.

Booooo!

I love spending time with this little guy! He's been pretty cute lately. Here are some of my favorite things that he does right now.


He loves to help. He's an ambitious cleaner. Overly ambitious at times. I think it's genetic. I have a funny husband that loves to put dishes away. It's nice! It is sometimes funny though because he will practically take a glass out of my hand and put it in the sink or dishwasher. So, I constantly pull them out of the cupboard and he puts them in the sink/dishwasher. (I can't take a glass out of the "dirty" dishwasher/sink even if I know it was JUST put there. Once it's there, it's dirty.) Henry likes to throw his diapers away, help rotate laundry, unload/load the dishwasher, etc. Well, he will occasionally try to put dishes away while I am loading the dishwasher. I will put silverware in the dishwasher, he will it in the drawer. See! It has to be genetic. (Don't worry, people who visit us. I manage to catch him before he actually puts things in with clean dishes.)

Ooo! Wow!! I think these are his favorite words right now. Those and "Mmmm!", if that's a word. A lot of things deserve an "Ooo! Wow!". He doesn't say much (at all), but he says that a lot. It's fun when everything in the world is new and amazing. It kind of puts things into perspective. Things like trees, flowers, bugs, dirt, rocks, etc can be pretty amazing.

Kisses. He loves to give kisses! He just figured it out a couple of weeks ago. Now I get them all day long. I LOVE it! He also gives really good hugs. Nice and tight, then usually followed by a kiss.



Booooo! He thinks cows say "Booooo!". I think it's hilarious! I'm torn between letting him think that for a few years and teaching him that it's actually "Moo". Right now I'm going with "Boo". He also makes random sounds for other things. For example, trucks, cars, and trains all usually say "toot toot". There are others, but I can't remember at this late hour. Other animals and things make the correct sounds. Some he even says more realistically than I do. He barks better than any person I've ever met. He does a pretty good horse and he "tweet"s pretty well.


There are other things, but it is getting late. As I am going through my pictures looking for some good ones for this post, I am realizing that I have neglected to blog about some fun stuff, but that will have to wait for another day.

I just thought this was funny.

P.S. Why isn't it Thursday. It feels like Thursday. I am in denial that I have to wake up early.

Saving Mama Duck

This is Mama duck. I think it was one of the first toys we got before we had Henry. You can see three little circles on her back that can hold three little baby ducks. It's pretty cute. Mama duck has a problem though. She easily sucks up water but it is impossible to get it out of her, so she gets all moldy and gross. The mold finally got out, but the bleach remained. It would occasionally drip out and ruin whatever it happened to drip on. I had thought about throwing her away several times and very nearly did. I decided to make one last life saving attempt. I decided to try a tracheotomy. One large nail through the throat, a wiggle around, and I was able to squeeze all of the bleach out of her (after a million squeezes). Mama duck has been saved! Hooray!

Big Boy Bed

Towards the end of April, we took the front off of Henry’s crib. I still have not decided if this a good thing or not, but I’m starting to lean towards it being good. We did this for a couple of reasons.



Reason #1
Henry is not the type to happily wake up in his bed and play or even let us know he is awake. It does not matter if it is night time or nap time. If he wakes up in his crib and no one happens to be there in the room with him, he gets ticked! He just screams this heartbroken, abandoned scream until someone comes to rescue him. When you do finally rescue him from his terrible prison, he cuddles in until I guess he feels like he is loved again. I like that part, but not enough to torture him on purpose, so the crib railing is no more.


Reason #2
He likes to end the night/start the day in our bed. We thought that if he can get himself out of bed and come to us, we’d have to wake up less for the process. That part has worked. Now, instead of screaming Henry needing to be rescued, we have cute Henry dragging his favorite blanket and monkey into our room then standing on the floor by our tower height bed going “eh, eh, eh” ‘til we lift him up. This is happening later and later most mornings, so that’s good. A lot of mornings he doesn’t come to our bed until just after 5 and I have to get up shortly thereafter anyways, so it was cute. Henry hugs is a nice way to start the morning.

**Note his Care Bear blanket and pillow. He actually has two Care Bear blankets, but this one recently got dragged through the mud, so it is in the laundry. His Care Bear blankets (both, which were mine when I was little) and his monkey are his favorite things. When he comes to our bed every morning he has to bring all three things with him. He will bring in two or three of the three, go back for whatever he left behind, shut his door, then he will reach up to us. The pillow (also mine when I was little) frequently makes its way to our bed too even though he RARELY sleeps on it in either bed.

18 Month Henry

Henry had his 18 month check up earlier this month (Make that last month. I write them then post when I can.), so I decided it was time for an update. He is such a sweet little boy are so glad that we have him! Here are a few things that are worth writing down.




He is such a good helper. He likes to do everything that we’re doing. If I’m cleaning the toilet, he’ll grab a rag and go “scrub” the bathtub. This grosses me out a little bit. I just make sure that when he’s done helping, he gets a good hand washing.

He has started saying “te-ta” (Thank you). Most of his words sound similar (have t’s and/or d’s in them), but he is really good at inflections, so we’re sorting out all of the differences. He also says “te-di” (bye-bye), then he does this “Uueuuh” thing that we haven’t decided if it’s “See you later” or “I love you”. Sometimes it sounds more like one, sometimes the other. Either way, it’s cute.


He LOVES being outside. For Christmas, Henry got a push tricycle that he loves! Every time he sees it or hears the word “trike”, he wants to go for a ride. It has been kind of cold and rainy for the last few weeks and I think that has been a great source of frustration for him. Every time I open the door to let Teddy outside (in the rain), Henry makes a run for it and then is heartbroken when I don’t let him go. Maybe I’m a mean mama, but I’m just not going to go out in the rain when it’s 40’s outside. Not my idea of a good or even tolerable time. Let’s hope it warms up soon! (A month later, I am still hoping for this. Weatherman, if you're reading this, please make this cold stuff stop!)