Jeff, Kristi, Gunnar & Brecken

It's All Ours

2012-01-11T16:52:00.003-07:00

Don't you find it interesting that people (me included) always say that we own our cars or we own our house. Have you ever thought about that? We don't own squat until the balance on our statements say $0.00. The bank owns everything. This last week we can say that we officially own our car! In fact, we now own outright both of our vehicles. They certainly are not the newest things on the block but I can say that I own them. I do not owe anymore money to anyone and I love it! It almost makes me not want to ever take out another car loan. I despise them.

I actually thought that I had paid the loan off in November. All was good until I received a statement from the credit union stating that we owed $.22. Can you believe that! It had me laughing so hard. And the dumb thing was that it also said that we owed our entire monthly payment still and that we missed a payment in December so that one was passed due. BUT the balance still said $.22. So I called and talked to this crazy guy. He informed me that we did in fact just owe change but he went on and on about how the credit union is like a force field and things get sucked into it and .... I really don't know what he was talking about and stopped listening to him half way through. Then I asked him where the closest branch would be. I really, really did not want to drive into Boise for that. He informed me that they just acquired a new branch at the beginning of the year and it was in Nampa. Awesome! He also told me that I could go eat lunch and use the extra change to pay off the loan. I told him that I could just look around the house and find the extra change. He then goes back to telling me I could go eat lunch and use the extra change. He was SO weird. So the next day I traveled over to the branch and had to wait for this one lady to get back from her lunch break. When she did, she informed me that it was true, they are now part of that credit union but did not have any of the systems until February. How annoying! She did tell me about the shared branch thing and how I could go into a number of local credit unions and with my account number, do whatever I needed to do. I had no idea. So she gave me the closest one. I realized that I did not bring my account number and had to head home for it anyway. On the way home and a couple of errands later, I looked on my phone for the location of that branch. It did not exist! BUT one literally just down the road from my house in Caldwell did. I went in and paid off that $.22 loan! I am so thrilled!

I made a post of Facebook about this and got the funniest responses. One friend said that I should get change from Gunnar's bank and pay it off. Then we can say Gunnar paid off the loan. One commented on how the stamp to send the statement was more than the loan total. And another asked if they accepted checks. Everyone had me laughing.

So the next day I was on the laptop in the morning. I got on but then it died. I tried again and it was dead, dead, DEAD! I knew the battery was slowly losing its efficiency but it was plugged into the wall. I would have assumed it still worked but it wasn't working at all. I started looking up batteries on my phone and options that we had. Finally I called Dell to make sure it really was the battery. The guy had me doing all sorts of things. I was taking the battery in and out. Trying over and over again. He finally asked me if the light on the charger was on. Maybe that was faulty. I looked and it wasn't but I also noticed a plug in laying on the floor. Now the charger was plugged in...so I thought. I started busting up laughing and told this man from India that this may have been the dumbest thing he heard all day. Jeff was ironing that morning and plugged in the iron and unplugged the computer. This entire time I had been feeling the ironing cord and not the computer cord. The man started laughing, I plugged in the computer charger and the computer started right up. Seriously!? Such a blonde moment. Jeff later informed me that he never unplugged the cord and he was wondering why the night before the computer was struggling to stay charged. I have a feeling a little toddler named Brecken came along and unplugged it. He loves to do that.

The night before the Dell problem, my poor sewing machine went stupid. I was working on Mindy's birthday present when it decided to be dumb and jam up. I was not happy at all and now he gets to go see the sewing machine doctor for a tune up. I was a little frustrated because I had other sewing projects I wanted to work on this week. I headed over to Michael's to get the last of Mindy's birthday present and they were still out of what I needed. They ran out before Christmas! So frustrating...so that gift is a little delayed. I'm excited about it though.

When things still go wrong, it is so important to remind myself that it is not the end of the world. Life for me right now is great. We are all healthy, Jeff has a job, I have my business that is doing well, Gunnar is enjoying school and Brecken is a happy toddler. I couldn't ask for more than that. I found the quote at the top of this post on Pinterest today and loved it. Thought I would share.

2012 Goals

2012-01-03T16:05:00.002-07:00

I always have intentions of writing out my list of goals at the beginning of the year. It never happens until this year. I need to do it. I need to focus on a few things and really strive to achieve them. The longer I do them, the hopes is that it becomes habit right?

Today I was reading yesterdays paper and it had snippets from local people about new year's resolutions. One of the local, elected people said, "If I made a New Year's resolution, which I don't, I would not tell anyone due to the likely event of failure to follow through. I wish everyone a very happy new year and good luck with your resolution." Seriously!? That just rubbed me completely the wrong way for some reason. What a loser is what keeps going through my mind. His response was almost in a mocking way too. Does he realize that making goals is good. In fact our church leaders and most likely very successful people will say that making goals is key to progression and improvement with oneself. Plus, writing them down and/or making them known to someone increases the likelihood of actually achieving that goal. That other person or persons helps keep you accountable. It would also make me more aware of my goals. It would solidify what I really want to work on by writing them down. I like how he used the work "likely". Sounds like he never follows through on anything. Interesting to know when he is one of our elected officials in our town. And his last line is the best..."and good luck with your resolution". Totally making fun of everyone that has made goals for themselves. Anyway, it all just hit me completely wrong today.

So with that being said. I made goals! I made goals for myself and for my business. Last year I didn't really make any so I have no gauge for my progress. This year is a fresh start with a new perspective on where I want to be by the end. I broke them down by Daily Life Goals and Spiritual goals.

-I want to read my scriptures daily. It just needs to happen. My life moves more smoothly by doing so.

-I need to act on promptings sooner. You know when you get that prompting that you should just call someone up, or take them cookies, or go up and talk to them. Yep, I get those and usually don't do a darn thing. My life would be so much fuller and richer if I did it. I just know I will be blessed by doing so. You never know where those promptings lead or who they will in turn bless.

-I want to have someone new over for dinner or drop off treats to someone once per month. My awesome friend last month makes cinnamon rolls and gives them out to friends for Christmas gifts. She mentioned how she wished she could give them to everyone and had to whittle down the list. It got me thinking about giving. Why couldn't we make treats throughout the year and give them away for no reason really except we were thinking about that family. That is what I want to do.

-Go to bed by 10:30pm at night and wake up at 6am every morning. I have been going to bed way too late and waking up way late and then kicking myself every morning about my choices. It frustrates me that I don't eagerly wake up at 6am like I did before Gunnar started school.

-Continue to purge the stuff. We've been pretty good with this. Just one of those things we can always be better at. Gunnar heads back to school tomorrow which means I can get rid of those things that need to be gone when he is not around.

-Tidy up the house every night. Makes morning worth waking up to if it is clean and easier to do if I don't let it get out of control.

-Keep the kitchen table cleared every day. Do you know how hard that is? At least it is at our house. The table tends to be the dumping ground sometimes. Keeping it clear is freeing to the soul I think.

-Coupon more. I've fallen off the bandwagon and really need to jump back on. I know the potential to save and how nice it is to have food built up. Our stockpile is getting low and I am sick of paying too much for basic items I should have downstairs already.

-Pay off unnecessary credit card debt. This stuff has to go. I think we can all agree. And by couponing, I can shift my money saved towards paying off debt. That is the plan anyway.

So this is the 2012 plan. I am excited about these goals. I think they are attainable. They feel attainable anyway and that is what you want right? Why would you set a bunch of goals so far fetched that you end up failing.

I do have my Paparazzi goals too which I am excited about. I would hate to bore you with them but I am excited and the company is absolutely exploding with growth. 2012 is the year to join!

Here's to 2012. I'm feeling it will be a great year!

He Melts My Heart

2012-01-01T23:37:00.003-07:00

These were taken November 7th not long after he learned to really walk. At this point in his walking career, he was working on standing up from where ever he happened to be. Before he would have to crawl over to something so he could pull himself up and then continue on.

This day was nice and my little guy needed to get a little fresh air. I am so in love with this little boy. He is so funny. He has the best, random personality quirks. He is similar to Gunnar in some ways but most definitely his own little individual. He loves to cuddle far more than Gunnar ever did. He is SO talkative. Can't understand a single thing he says but he will carry on a full blown conversation in "Brecken" with you as if you did. He is a jokester and works pretty hard at making you laugh. He LOVED music! Gunnar did too but it was not as strong as Brecken's love. This kid moves to the sound of the piano in church. We know we can keep him entertained when a hymn is being sung. During the speakers, forget it. He is way too busy. He loves beating on anything to hear the noise, he loves the radio and starts shaking his little body. His dance moves have even evolved. It went from normal baby/toddler movements to this move he makes with his arms and fingers that looks like he is a flamenco dancer. I told Jeff that if he doesn't sing, dance, or play a musical instrument somewhere down the road, something seriously happened. He has rhythm in his soul. This kid has Hawaiian blood running through him. He can tan pretty easily, he loves the music, the food and he is a stocky, thick little thing. Just tonight I was noticing that he is all torso and no legs as he was running around in a onesie. With a big head of course. Our friend April calls it the HPH. I asked her one day what that meant...the Hundred Pound Head. I found that pretty funny. Most recently he has been folding is chubby little arms and mumbling his own prayer as someone is giving it. Pretty darn cute. Within the last week as Gunnar finishes his night prayers, Brecken runs over to him, gives him a little hug (while patting his back) and then a kiss. He knows it is time for bed and has the routine down. The other night, he did that in the middle of the prayer. Gunnar had no idea what to do and managed to get through the prayer as he was being tackled with a hug and kiss. Brecken is also the most accident prone kid I know. He always has some sort of bruise or owie on his head. It is is mainly on his head and no where else. And the closer it gets to something important...wedding, holiday...the more hurt we know he will become. It just happens that way. He also bangs his head on the ground to get attention when he is super mad. Something we are not a fan of.

This guy melts my heart. I just love him so much. These little Robeez boots were something he was obsessed with. He wanted them on all of the time. They were warm and easy to walk in without the huge hard soles. We just wear them as indoor shoes now. They looked brand new when Gunnar wore them. He did not crawl as long as Brecken did, which we thought would be foever.

Halloween 2011

2012-01-01T23:09:00.002-07:00

A few days before Halloween, I signed up to be a vendor at a Trunk or Treat So People Can Eat event. A big local coupon blogger in our area and a community college teamed up to collect canned food for the food bank as admission and provide lots of vendors handing out candy and information along with food vendors, emergency vehicles/personnel there and kids inflatables. While I manned my trunk, Jeff took the kids around. It was SO much fun and the weather wasn't too bad. A little cold but doable.
Gunnar wanted to be a mechanic. I found these super cute overalls at Savers with the half price colored tag on it in his size. He loves them and uses them a lot when he goes over to Grandpa's to help him work on things. Sadly they are getting too small and hard to find. Brecken was a frog. Same costume Gunnar wore at this age. They look quite different in the same costume.

Amazingly, I had several people call me for Paparazzi open houses from this event. It was free to be in and worth it. I had a great time and so did the boys. I will definitely be there next year.

We always head to the court house on Halloween to trick or treat. We go from department to department for candy. The areas are all decorated and we have a lot of fun. Plus Jeff knows several people over there so they love to see what the boys look like.I can't wait until one day Heidi doesn't have to work a lot or Cami is old enough to walk on her own with Brecken and I can take her with us. She would love it.

Jeff always dresses up every year and the last couple of years have been pretty extreme. The ladies hardly recognize him. This year he must have looked too normal because the reaction wasn't as big.
That night, we headed out with our friend's the Sartell's sans Jared. April and Paige joined us and we had a lot of fun. We went further than we thought we ever would. We went to so many houses and the kids kept going and going. Paige and Gunnar are super buddies. They are about a year and a half apart but adore each other. They are always talking about how each other is their best friend. If one day 20 years down the road, they decided to reconnect and get married. We would be thrilled. We love these guys. It's always awesome when you can find those friends that you connect with. It's doubly awesome that they literally live 3 minutes around the corner, we go to church together, our kids are close in age, Jeff and Jared work together and also serve the Young Men's in church together and we just plain love doing stuff with them all of the time. We are blessed to have them in our lives. Oh yes, and Gunnar's costume is different. He wanted to be a safari person...or bug collector or...whatever he wanted to be. Gone are the days that I get to pick out that perfect costume for him.

Hawaii: Part 3

2012-01-01T22:23:00.006-07:00

September 19th was just a day of whatever. Mindy and Rillz had random stuff to do with family or for their wedding so we did our own thing. We packed a lunch and headed out. We wanted to head to North Shore and go to the beach. Along the way, we stopped at the Dole Plantation. I wanted to show Gunnar how pineapples grew. I remember when I went the first time with my family and was amazed at how they grew. I guess growing up I never really thought about it. I think they are cool. And to know that it takes about 2 years for one to mature is incredible.

As we made our way around the place, we knew we were in trouble. We had plans to spend like $0. When Gunnar heard the sound of the little train, we knew we were in big trouble. We ended up forking over $20 something dollars to go on that. We figured if that was Gunnar's big splurge, it would be worth it. It also rained while we were on it and cleared up some when we were walking around.

They have a huge pond with tons of koi fish. Gunnar and I had fun feeding them and watching them fight on top of each other for food. We also had fun taking pictures in those silly little displays.

After the plantation we made our way to the beach. The drive through the island this way is really pretty and rural. I enjoyed the drive. The weather was awesome again. We found a great spot to play. It was right next to these people running a board rental on the beach. It was really interesting watching people rent surf or paddle boards and give it a shot. This was also the day I rolled my capris up to my knees and didn't put a lot of thought into it...until later and I had burned legs from the knees down.

This little dude was not happy. He had sand in his mouth and all over so we would have to take him in the ocean and dunk him in the water and try to clean him off. He still hasn't learned on day 3. One of the problems is that he still crawled. He would crawl through the sand, then rub his eyes or get a little bit in his mouth, go to get it out but his hand was covered too. It was a never ending problem.

This guy and his wife were the ones that ran the rentals on the beach. He took his son way out there at one point to practice surfing. It was fun to watch and this little guy had great balance. This guy had crazy tattoos all over and was SO dark skinned. They also had a newborn. The baby looked to be a couple of months old. He also took the baby out in the shallow waters and laid him belly down on a board. It was so cute!

We had so much fun in the sand. Thanks to someone else the day before, we found sand toys unclaimed on the beach. They provided ours of fun for us. Gunnar also hit it off well with another little boy and loved playing with him. The interesting things was that their family including the little boy and girl did not speak any English. I love how language is not a barrier for little kids at all.

Our boys were so exhausted on the way home. I loved the picture of Brecken in the car seat. He was so relaxed making his face look so fat!

Hawaii: Part 2

2012-01-01T21:56:00.005-07:00

So here we are at day 2. It was Sunday and we were so exhausted! The time change just killed us plus Brecken was not contained in a play pen or anything. He slept on a blanket with Gunnar. That was interesting in itself. Gunnar hated it because Brecken moves around way to much. I would randomly wake up and Brecken would be near the bottom of the blanket, then almost under the bed, then practically on top of Gunnar. It was pretty funny but drove Gunnar nuts.

Really we just wasted the day away. I believe this was the day we decided to walk down to Don Quiote's. It was way down this hill and made for a nice walk. All along the way, Rillz would tell us funny things about how he worked at the library for a short time because of a girl, the police station was right there too or stories about the school we walked by. We also walked by the backside of the house his parent's used to own. I can't quite remember but this may have been the day we searched out Walmart too because I didn't pack Brecken any jammies. Go figure. There had to be something forgotten.

We headed to Ala Moana beach for the first time that afternoon/evening. It was awesome! It was Brecken's first time seeing the ocean and both of their times playing on the beach/ocean. It was fun! The weather was absolutely beautiful and the sunset was incredible. We had a blast.

Is anyone surprised that this little stinker had to eat before he even checked out the sand or water. We aren't. This kid has a bottomless stomach. Eventually that piece of sandwich ended up being a nasty mush of sandwich and sand.

He had no idea what you should really be doing with sand. He'll learn. He was covered everywhere. We found it in every roll on his body including in his ears and mouth. It was bad.

Gunnar can make friends where ever he goes. He is not shy at all and thrives on friends.

Gunnar is my water boy but Brecken also loved the ocean. As Brecken was crawling everywhere, he went into this huge crater that someone dug and couldn't get back out. I found it funny and just sat on the edge as he toddled around. As I was sitting there, this girl from Nepal, India, somewhere around there came over and started playing with Brecken. She loved it. She was there as a student and lived right in the heart of downtown Honolulu. She was studying hospitality and tourism. Perfect place to be going to school. After graduation she wanted to remain living there. She was fun to talk to .

I just love this boy...

Oh Boy...

2011-12-02T15:58:00.005-07:00

Where have I been. I feel like I am reuniting with a long lost friend. I looked at the date on my last post and couldn't believe it had been that long since I last posted. It makes me sad but then at the same time I know how busy I have been.

This is the all time busiest time of year for me with my Etsy advent calendars and Paparazzi Jewelry business. It is nuts. I always get a huge influx of calendar orders right before December 1st and then a few that trickle in after because people just flat out forgot or didn't think of them early. So at this very moment, I have 4 that I need to complete. It is a lot of fun to do and I love other's reactions to them. However, I received two wedding album orders at the beginning of the craziness. It really messed with my groove. It made things all off to start. Hopefully I get caught up with very few coming in this next week and things will mellow out.

However I don't anticipate life slowing down because of Paparazzi. It is also the busiest time of year right now. Things are insane. People are after Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers. This business has been so fun and so easy. Easy because I don't have to convince anyone to like it and buy it. It literally sells itself. This last week I had two open houses with me intentionally not scheduling anything on Saturday because of a family tradition at the Caldwell night parade. But next week, I have 6 open houses!! Two of them being on the same day. Craziness...and then next week I have 4 with two being on the same day. Then the week before Christmas it just dies. Nobody wants to venture into the full week before Christmas so far.

I have had tons of fun doing this and the compensation/commission plan is pretty great too. One of my favorite things is that I have 3 fantastic ladies signed up under me with a potential in the works! They are so fun to work with and I love bouncing ideas off of each other. One of my consultants had been one for 12 days when she had her first person sign up under her. That is insane! She was a little surprised herself. We have had a lot of fun and can't wait to see what the new year brings for us. Want to check out more of what I am talking about? Visit my Facebook page. Like it while you are there because I love to do giveaways!

My kids keep me busy too. Gunnar is in full day kindergarten but twice a week I watch Cami too. Since she is only 3.5 months younger than Brecken, they keep busy. One walks and and the other crawls. They can get into about anything but love to play together so they keep each other company. It's quite nice.

We are half way up for Christmas. The tree has been up for days but not decorated. The first night we ran out of time and Gunnar really needed to be in bed for school the next day. The next day we attempted it but Gunnar was wild and naughty so we called quits on it and sent him to bed early. The poor tree has been sitting there ever since. I don't know if it is me or what, but the older I get the more I really don't want to put up so many random decorations. Last year I really paired it down and stuck with the things that I love. Simple and easy. Right now I am on the hunt for a dog Christmas stocking holder in bronze. I am to the point that I will probably just get a random normal one to go with our others. We are done shopping. It's finished. Right down to the dog's Christmas. Now I just need to finish one more sibling gift and wrap, wrap, wrap. I'm happy about that.

We've experienced no snow yet. It has been lingering in the 40's which is rather warm here this time of year with really windy days but no snow. I am completely 100% fine with it until after all of these open houses. Then it can snow all it wants. So far next week looks clear. Yeah!

Wow! That is a lot of rambling and now I am done. :)

Christmas Giving Has Begun

2011-11-09T14:30:00.003-07:00

This season is crazy...well aren't they all. But this one seems especially busy with me starting my Paparazzi business and my advent calendars on Etsy usually start to go nutso this month and they have. Not including the random order of wedding albums, etc that come in. Anyway, I am trying so hard to stay ahead of the game, the best I can this year.

We have Jesse/Becky/Wesley and Brent/Noelle/Iris this year on both sides of our families. I already know what they are getting which is half the battle. The other half of the battle is that they require some DIY on my part but I am so excited for both. Mindy and I are working on one of them Saturday and I can not wait. Too bad I can't post what it is or the after pictures because it is fun. The other can wait for closer to Christmas when things hopefully slow down a tad.

But what I am the most excited about is what I am doing for my kids. Kids now these days get almost way too much stuff. What I have learned in the last couple of years is that I bought things that really did not have a lasting purpose and what I thought would be fun Gunnar could really care less. Money wasted. A came across and idea last year of how to make gift giving more purposeful and reigned in really.

There are 4 gifts. One gift you need, one you want, one you read and one you wear. Yep, that is what we are doing and I am pretty much mostly done. My kids won't miss piles of presents which they have never had but this will help us plan with more of a focus. My kids can't read, so I will list a rundown of what we have so far. We still do jammies Christmas Eve and will have a few things in stockings too. I also do a family gift that is from Jeff and I. The rest are from Santa.

Brecken is a toddler. I hate buying things for this age really. They don't get and really this kid needs nothing fancy. He has everything he needs toy wise.

Need: camping pillow- now this one is funny. We went camping a couple of times this summer and it was miserable for me. Brecken wanted to be close to me and shared a bag to stay warm, Gunnar stole my camping pillow so I was uncomfortable and cold most of the time. Since then we found a North Face sleeping bag at a yard sale this summer which is our spare for Brecken until he gets a kid one. Then I found these camping pillows at Costco with my mom a couple of months ago-PERFECT! Both boys get one and yes, it falls in the need category. No more taking my pillow from me.

Want: still haven't figured this one out. He doesn't really "want" anything right now.

Read: books from Gunnar's book fair at school

Wear: big huge box of diapers-he wears them right?! and they do have a purpose. And one cute little shirt I found at Target on extreme clearance

Stocking: I did find those acrylic cups with lids and fat straws on sale that I plan on putting in the stockings with candy maybe inside of those. Perfect for thick smoothies we eat often.

Bought his jammies last year after the holidays on clearance.

Gunnar is a fun little child to buy for. He is actually really easy going about gifts and we never went overboard before so he doesn't whine about not getting enough.

Need: yep, he got a camping pillow too. He'll actually be excited. We do plan on buying him is own backpacking pack for his birthday next year so he is really getting into this stuff.

Want: He loves the Blok Squad things from megablocks. I plan on getting it cheap or free from my swagbucks. That's awesome and he will love it. He talks about them all of the time.

Read: books from the school book fair, I seriously had to limit myself. I love buying books!

Wear: I found him some cute clothes at Target on clearance too but I think he may need a couple more. That kid grew and used clothes are so hard to find in good condition at this age.

Stocking:acrylic cup and darts for his nerf guns

His jammies are also already bought. I'm not picky and lucked out when I was at our local kid consignment store and found 2 pairs of jammies his size with tags still on them.

I'm still not sure on the family gift. Games or movie-Cars 2 maybe. Gunnar has been talking nonstop about it since we rented it last week.

Why am I telling you this? Not really sure but it may be that I wanted to record for myself that we can have a great Christmas without spending a lot. Jeff and I have just been talking a lot lately about buying gifts with a purpose and not just spending money or buying something to just buy or give. It makes no sense and just creates clutter in those homes you give to. We also talked about how planning with a purpose gives us direction for future birthdays. For example, we learned that getting Gunnar a backpack would be handy but then quickly realized that his birthday is in April, earlier than we typically would have been thinking about camping gear. Now that we have identified the want, we can work towards getting it before the camping season hits as a gift rather than just a last minute purchase in the summer. Does that even make sense. I tend to think of things that I would like for my birthday (November) when it is my birthday but those items are not on sale/inexpensive or in some cases are hard to find in November if it is a summer thing. Anyway, just something on my mind and decided to right it down as Christmas is fast approaching. I just feel like I have a handle on Christmas this year and feel so good about that.

Where Have All The Posts Been?

2011-11-07T09:54:00.003-07:00

Boy am I so behind. That awfully behind. I was looking at really old posts about Gunnar for something and was reading through some of the stories that I wrote about him and am so thankful that I did. There were so many things that I completely forgot about or easily would have forgotten if I hadn't written them down. It confirmed to me how important it is to document everything from the mundane to the expected. But it confirmed to me how I really, really need to print these out in a book. I'm one of those that haven't and now my blog has gotten so long that the book would be big and I just shut down from being overwhelmed. I know I am so behind. I still need to finish our trip to Hawaii and now Halloween. The birth of a new niece and nephew a couple of weeks ago and another niece in two days. I need to document more of random life because I loved reading about those the most. I don't know what it is. I have felt so off for a few months now. Where it just seems like I am wondering around doing nothing. I just feel so tired or lazy or unmotivated. I need to snap out of this and make changes in my life to become more productive and useful.

Just a few random things. Brecken is a TANK! That boy can eat and eat. He loves to eat. I'll give you an idea how this child will eat us out of our home. He can easily eat 4 oatmeal packets on his own. He can eat 3 toasts with jam and right now is eating 2 but had cereal as well. Two nights ago he ate 6 waffles and they are like the Eggo waffle size and two sippies of milk. Mindy and Rillz took our boys for the day on Saturday and went to Chinese. They were floored with the amount of food that child packed away. He is constantly signing to me that he wants to eat. All.the.time! We sure love this boy but I am going to go broke buying food before he turns two. You have to remember he is only 16 months old today.

My Paparazzi Accessories business has been keeping me very busy. Almost every single Friday and Saturday are booked this month with Open Houses or events and then I have Tuesdays and Thursdays sprinkled in there too. I have been having so much fun with it and the reaction to the product is that of excitement and astonishment that they can afford fun stylish accessories. I have a Facebook page now. You can check it out even if you are not on Facebook. I have two friends consultants under me and a potential 3rd on the way. This opportunity has been really fun thus far. Want more information about it, let me know.

Gunnar has been enjoying school more and more and he is doing so well. We were told at Parent Teacher Conferences that he is average and where he should be. That makes me happy considering the things he didn't know going into kindergarten when other kids were so far ahead like letters and numbers. He is picking up on Spanish pretty well. The other day he said, "Como estas mom?" It made me laugh. Full day kindergarten can be long but he has been handling it really well and enjoys his time there. He has made great friends with John in our ward and another little boy Henry. Unfortunately Henry moved away about a week or two ago. It stinks when that happens. He tells me about everyday they play dog catcher with 3 little girls. Basically it is chase. He is a good boy...he really is and is growing more and more. Daylight savings yesterday has been interesting. My kids don't know it happened and don't really sleep in because of it. So much for getting my extra hour of sleep. It now gets lighter earlier in the morning and darker earlier at night which is great. Gunnar had no idea it was 7pm last night and not 8pm because it was SO dark already that he happily went to bed. It was quite nice. He did wake up a little before 6:30 this morning which I was not ready for. He was awfully proud that he woke up before his alarm went off. I think I can get used to this early bed time though. We'll see how long it lasts.

So do any of you watch Parenthood? I love that show. It is clean and reminds me so much of typical family like and relations with extended family. Jeff and I are totally into it and can't wait for Tuesday nights every week.

Well, this turned into a very random post and now I need to get onto other things. :)

A to Z About Me

2011-10-16T23:37:00.004-06:00

I saw this on another blog and thought it would be fun and random to fill out.

A. age :: thirty

B. bed size :: queen

C. chore you hate :: bathrooms

D. dogs :: our Golden, Diesel

E. essential start to your day :: making our bed

F. favorite color :: blue, always have

G. gold or silver :: silver

H. height :: five feet eight inches

I. instruments you play :: none

J. job title :: wife, mom, Paparazzi consultant

K. kids :: two, Gunnar and Brecken

L. live :: Caldwell ID

M. maiden name :: Hollingsworth

N. nicknames :: never had one

O. overnight hospital stays :: to have both of my son's

P. pet peeve :: nasty boy noises if you know what I mean

Q. quote :: Not a real quote person

R. righty or lefty :: lefty

S. siblings :: 2 younger sisters, Heidi and Mindy and one younger brother Brent

T. time you wake up :: about 6:45am to get Gunnar ready for school.

U. university attended :: Boise State

V. vegetables you dislike: the list would be a little long if I wrote them all out

W. what makes you run late :: my kids, but I usually am not late

X. x-rays you’ve had :: dental

Y. yummy food :: love hamburger, love swiss cheese, anything tacos, flautas

Z. zoo animal favorite :: not sure that I really have one...zebras

Hawaii: Part 1

2011-10-14T22:24:00.007-06:00

My poor blog has been sorely ignored and there have been so many things that have happened that I want to share. Since we have been home, I have hit the ground running with my new Paparazzi Accessories business and have loved every minute of it but boy has it taken my time. Add on trouble adjusting to the time change for whatever reason and then getting these never ending colds right when we got back.

Our flight left at 5:30am! Now that is early when you have to factor in getting there early and then time to drive there. My dad was gracious enough to wake up that early. I was able to get 2 hours of sleep the night before. Jeff got about a half hour. We had so much packing that we had to finish. I should have taken a picture of all of the crap...I meant stuff that we had to take. We had two kids-one can't walk, a child's hiking backpack in lieu of the stroller, one large suitcase, one carry on suitcase, a diaper bag, laptop, Gunnar with his backpack, a booster seat, and a carseat. It was quite the scene but Jeff wore wore the backpack and baby, I carried the diaper bag, laptop bag and carried the carseat and Gunnar rolled the carry-on around. We checked the booster seat and suitcase. We got to the airport before the check-in counters opened so we got o wait around for that. My dad kept asking if we read our paperwork right because he has never seen a flight leave that early. Sure enough we read it right but it was weird because once we checked in we headed to security where they were still closed. We had to stand in line for a while waiting for the gates to open. It was a little weird too. The best part of flying with kids is that you get to board almost first (after the fancy seat people) if you have any kids under 4. We gate checked the hiking backpack but were extremely lucky enough to get an open seat next to us to install Brecken's carseat. The gate lady was so awesome and moved the person next to me so the carseat could be there. I learned that with our trip to Sacramento that Gunnar flew so much better with his carseat. I risked it with Brecken and it paid off. Brecken did not have a paid seat but if there are empty seats next to you or they are willing to change things around on a pretty empty flight, they may let you take the carseat on. Totally worth trying. Thankfully the excitement wore off and we all got a little sleep from Boise to San Francisco.

When we arrived in San Francisco it was like 6am! The pilot happily announced that our flight arrived a half hour earlier than scheduled. Not funny when you already have a 3 hour layover with two totally awake kids in a sleepy empty airport. Surprisingly, the layover went by pretty quickly. I'm not sure how or why but it did. I packed lots of snacks and food so we were good to go for breakfast. We again boarded our second flight at 8:30am and were on our way to paradise.

Our second flight was packed. Like really packed and it was a huge plane. We had 3 seats in the middle section of seats so I got stuck sitting by these 2 Chinese ladies in some sort of tour group that did not speak English at all but they LOVED Brecken. They tried all sorts of things to entertain him. He loved it after a few hours. He slept very little and Gunnar did not sleep at all. Kung Fu Panda 2 was playing but he lost interest pretty quickly because he had to crane his head into the aisle but couldn't leave it there for long before it got bumped with a cart or person. Both kids did amazingly well and didn't make much of a fuss thank goodness. We were near the bathrooms so people would be waiting nearby, usually trying to interact with Brecken. There was this one lady that asked if we were from Fresno. I told her where we were from. She then proceeded that she was so sick of the flight and a little confused because it was only supposed to be a couple hour flight from San Francisco and it was now nearing five. What!? Really!? Did she really think that! We both had a great laugh over that. Because of all of the time changes and things, it does say we leave at 8:30am and arrive at 11:30am. But did she really think that it would really be that short. Itineraries do state how many hours it takes to fly that leg of the trip. Oh boy...we finally landed and got our stuff and were greeted by Mindy and Rillz and a rainy morning. It was heavenly. The smells, the humid air, everything. I love it and always have. We got something to eat at Zippy's and headed to the house.

I love Rillz's family. They are so nice and welcoming. I think we relaxed and hung around. I really don't remember but I do know that at night we went to Mindy and Rillz's niece's 1st birthday party where about 250 other people celebrated and enjoyed 19! main meat dishes among other things. The food was plentiful and so good but the problem is we were still recovering from the flight. Dinner was technically midnight in Idaho so we were having trouble wanting to eat anything.

One funny thing was that we walked there and had Brecken in the backpack. I guess all of the cousins (and there are lots) were in complete awe of the thing. They wanted to know if Jeff made it. It is a Kelty so...ummm...no. It was funny. They also thought it was pretty funny that we were walking from the house to the park and back. It was only a couple of blocks away and the weather was so great.

We were zonked that first day and all slept pretty well that night.

I've Been Hit By The Spotlight

2011-10-04T16:45:00.004-06:00

I am a brand new independent consultant for Paparazzi Accessories. This is a super fun business selling super fun things. I am selling necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings, hair clips and headbands. And the kicker to the entire thing is that nothing is over $5!! Everything is very trendy and extremely fashionable. The company does not even put out a catalog because their styles change quite often.

The company is pretty neat. They are based out of Hurricane Utah. Just down the road from my cousins. It was started by a lady who wanted to make money for her family vacation. So she started attending fairs and events selling jewelry. Three years later it has now gone direct sales and doing great. The best part is that direct sales started January of this year! This company is still at ground zero with growth every where. The opportunity to sell and do well is wide open.

I don't generally get into this stuff. Heck, I don't attend parties. I can not stand those parties where you sit there and play some sort of game or hear some sort of speech about why you need this product. The product is so spendy to start with and you feel guilty having to tell the people you don't want anything as they give you this look of disbelief.

So why would I sign up for something like this. Let me start with how this all happened. I read many crafty type blogs online and one of them mentioned that she just signed up with this company. I have never been interested in something like this but for some reason that day I clicked on the link and became intrigued. The more I looked into it, the more interested I became. I researched and read about it for about 1.5 months before I decided to join. I wanted to go into this with a plan and an idea how I was going to execute it. Right down to how my event booths would look. I wanted to be prepared. For those that really know me, know this is so not out of the norm for me. If I was going to spend lots of money up front on this, I better be prepared. I finally signed up within the last days we were in Hawaii so I would be home to get the huge box. I had great anxiety pushing that submit button but once I did, I felt good about the decision.

So why would I sign up with these guys and not others. The first thing that I really, really liked is that it is a no sales pitch business. The product truly sells itself. I don't have to sit in front of the room and try to convince others why they need to buy it. All of the Open Houses are come and go type events. Nobody feels pressured to sit through a presentation. I love that, plus the jewelry is cute so that helps. Another perk is that you get to take the jewelry home immediately with you. No waiting for it to be shipped. Nice. Another obvious thing is the price. It is so incredibly inexpensive. For $5.50 you can pick up several pieces. I was also drawn to the fact that the company is so new. The opportunity is great.

My sponsor and I are already getting our foot in the door on many events in our areas. She is pretty close to me so we plan on teaming up for the bigger and longer events. Pooling our inventory makes for a greater selection at bigger events. Next week I am already signed up for ArtFaire, Inc. where they expect about 2500-3000 people. I am so excited for that one. And a little nervous as it will be my first booth ever. Jennifer (my sponsor) and I are planning on signing up for Alpine Ponds Haunted Trails where they have fun Halloween things to do for the entire family. We plan on doing just one week. Then the week after that I am signed up for Trunk or Treat So People Can Eat in Nampa. This one is probably my most favorite, it is free as a vendor and sounds like SO much fun for the entire family. The entire event is free with so many things to do. I also love how they are supporting the Idaho Food Bank with a food donation as admission. I love it and am so excited to be a part of it. I can't wait to get into homes and have Open Houses. Those sound like a ton of fun too.

My big 26lb box arrived Monday and honestly I am so overwhelmed with the amount of jewelry and accessories (250 pieces!), I haven't even dove in to sort it all. I have a few friends stopping by this week to get first peek so I better get my rear in gear. I've also been collecting supplies for displays so Jeff can build them. I am so excited for them and yes there will be pictures on here.

I've found some pretty cool things at thrift stores and craigslist to create my displays and event booths. I can't wait to put them into action. Anyway, enough about this. If you are interest in hosting an Open House or would love more information about becoming a consultant, feel free to leave a comment or check out my facebook page.

I Love Her Deeply

2011-09-14T13:39:00.006-06:00

I love all of my 5 nieces and nephews a lot. They can be a lot of fun to be around and fortunately 4 of those are closer in Gunnar's age so he has a blast. But was has stumped me for the last year. That would be our sweet Cami. I've loved her. Always have but I couldn't really pin down her personality until last week.

I watched her for 4 days straight while Ren's mom went to a conference with his sisters. Heidi had to be to work super early these days so Ren dropped her off around 7:00am. I had lots of time to get to know her and it was consistently for 4 days. I had a blast with the two babies. It was fun! I think what partly made it fun was that Brecken and Cami entertained themselves for quite a while. Brecken is very mobile so he would go along and open up toys or bring them to floor level and she would be right behind enjoying the play.

(Brecken is obsessed with touching her hair)

I also got to know her personality better. She is pretty funny! Usually in bigger settings she has such a focused look on her face but Brecken and I had her smiling (a feat that only Jeff used to be able to do when he came home for lunch). We had music on every day which Brecken loves. One afternoon when Heidi picked her up and took her home, she said Cami started jammin' out a little. Brecken and I have done our job. Brecken has also gotten her to crawl like a big girl! It's awesome and she had to learn if she wanted to keep up with him. Some days had me laughing because he would be making circles around her because he is way more mobile then she is right now.

Another thing that she learned to do was climb our two stairs. Ren and Heidi are in trouble with their huge staircase that they have. She can get up them...it does take her a while but she can do it. But she doesn't know how to get down. The oddest thing since watching her is that Brecken now turns around to go down the stairs. Why? I have no idea. He's always gone head first, using his head as a third arm. I like to think he is trying to be a good example to Camden now. One day Camden completely rolled off the stairs. It scared her pretty bad, I kind of laughed because it was only two stairs and she had to learn somehow. She would always get close before and never attempt it. Well now she has by falling.

This week, Cami quickly arrived for the day with vomit all over her. Poor thing. Heidi had to take her home for the day where she proceeded to be sick. Today Heidi kept her home because now she is sick herself and staying home from work. We sure miss hanging out with Cami this week. Brecken and Cami play so well together and I love it!

I sure love you Camden Kalani!!

Today We Got the Call

2011-09-08T16:33:00.004-06:00

The call that saddens my heart, makes me wish that my kids could stay 14 months where Brecken is, makes me wish that we really didn't need to go to school to progress in life.

I got the call from Gunnar's teacher today... and I had a "chat" with the school bus driver yesterday.

We'll start with the bus driver. After school the bus driver motioned me over and said, "Mrs. Miller, Gunnar..." First, boy did I feel old with her referring to me that way. How else was she supposed to refer to me if she really only knows Gunnar's last name. Anyway, he has a problem sitting down on the bus. Like constantly won't sit down and apparently doesn't listen either. She mentioned that she has repeatedly asked him to and he quickly "forgets". We had a chat with him last night and hopefully all is good. I asked him if he stands up in the car and he of course said no. He went on to say that you don't wear seat belts on the bus and didn't understand why you couldn't stand up if they weren't there. Hopefully we have that one worked out.

So a number I didn't recognized popped up on my phone (maybe I should have put Jeff's instead-just kidding) and answered it. For those that know me well know I hate answering the phone in general, especially numbers I don't know. I did know that it was local and I thought it was my friend's work number that I have never committed to memory. It was his teacher and I immediately knew it wasn't because he was the stellar student of the day. Of course she starts with the good and tells me about a story that happened the first week or so of school He misplaced his backpack or lunchbox and started to panic about finding it. He asked her about 3 different times to say a prayer with him to find it. Now, at home, he has never asked to pray about anything lost and I don't recall a time that we have openly done that with him. She then realized that he is probably LDS and that this was important to him because of his persistence. Thankfully she too is LDS and has raised 4 kids of her own and currently teaches primary in her ward, so she understands the importance of following through on something like that. She took him to a quiet corner of the room and they said a little prayer. She's taught kindergarten for the past, like, 20 years and has never had a child ask her to do that.

Now on to the bad. He spit in the little boys face across the table from him. She'd heard that he had done it one other time but never witnessed it herself (a little kid could have reported it previously and you never know what to believe) until today. He was sent to the principals office and had to miss PE and recess because of it. The counselors also told her that they have stress reliever balls or punching bags that he can go in and use if he feels the need. I wonder how long they have had his name memorized. His teacher said her approach almost made him worked up even more and wanted to know of suggestions that work at home. I am at a complete loss. We are still trying to figure out this kid too. I have noticed that yelling at him or being loud with him does get him worked up even more. I think he is always striving to get attention. For what reasons, I don't always know. He really does get a lot of time at home. Gunnar tells me he has no idea why he did it. Sometimes I really do think he does things just to do them without thinking but then other times I think he "conveniently" forgets. And this was not the time to have an "I forgot" sort of moment.

My heart really is SO sad that my own child chose to do that. This is the one time that I truly want to cry for the choice that he made. If this stuff happens, isn't it supposed to happen when they are older, or better yet, just not happen at all. Some of my biggest fears, is that Gunnar will be so mean to other kids that he will alienate himself and not have friends. I guess that would be considered a bully. But his teacher did say that he is not an angry kid, which I agree. He is not angry, just high energy and makes poor choices for whatever reason. I know he can make friends easily and he tends to be known wherever he goes regardless of other's ages. I want him to make and keep good friends that make good choices, which I know he has because one is in our ward. I'm just saddened by the phone call and can never tell if the conversation sinks into his head. His teacher and I vow to work closely on this. We all know "that" kid that is awful and crazy with a potty mouth and bad behavior. I do not want him to be "that" kid. And his teacher feels bad for always needing to get on him.

One good thing I guess, is that he no longer burps in school. She mentioned that they stopped that one. His name was on the bored for that one. Now his name is constantly on there for other things and Gunnar seems to think that is okay and normal. The joke before he headed to school was that Jeff and I might as well sit in the parking lot because we will be getting lots of calls. Now it is not even a joke and just makes me sad and determined to make him make good choices.

His teacher did suggest that we pray specifically at night or before school for him to make good choices. In all honesty, we have not been praying with him in the mornings. That is something we will start doing with specific requests on his behalf. This school thing stinks. Why can't my boy be the quiet, compliant one. Maybe Brecken...?

Your Own Money

2011-09-01T21:59:00.003-06:00

We stopped at a yard sale this summer on the way home from the store and Gunnar spotted this huge Little Tikes construction toy and wanted it. It was marked $2! I had run out of money and frankly, I was sick of buying things for him. We put it on hold, drove home and got his money. Walked back because it was so close and bought the truck. The guy also threw in the little red truck for free. Gunnar was so proud of himself for buying it on his own. He kept complaining about it being too heavy but I made him carry it on his own. He also washed the thing shiny clean.

Nutella Toast

2011-09-01T21:56:00.003-06:00

Nutella on toast is SO good!

'Nuff said.

I Have a Kindergartner

2011-08-29T21:15:00.005-06:00

I can't believe it. I have officially entered the world of the school system and have lots to learn. I can see where it can keep you very busy. I also can't believe my oldest is a kindergartner. Sometimes I have to laugh because this November Jeff and I will have been married 11 years. If we started having kids right away I could have potentially had a 10 year old! Now that seems old. I like my life where it is now thank goodness.

Gunnar was so excited and so ready to go. He was pretty sure that he would ride the bus to and from school the first day. I asked him about every 4 hours leading up to the big day to make sure. I don't blame him for being ready though. We had met his teacher 3 times before that, toured the school the week before. He was ready. They have to wear a very specific uniform at this new charter school in our area. He can wear khaki pants or shorts (but only until fall break and then not again until after spring break), red or blue polo shirt with an embroidered logo and simple white shoes with minimal color on them. In the colder months he can wear long sleeved embroidered polos in red or blue or crew neck sweatshirts in those colors. I actually really like the uniform in the ease of getting dressed in the morning it has provided. We never have to debate clothing and it totally takes the guess work out of what to wear or things being clean. We just wash his clothes at the end of the school week. I love it and he easily dresses himself because of it. Thank you grandma Robin (my mom) and grandma Miller (Jeff's mom) for providing the school clothes he needed. It was a tremendous help to us and Gunnar loves knowing that his grandma's got his clothes.

I really didn't want to spend money on a backpack. For one they are way spendy and for another they are just too darn HUGE for a smaller kindergartner. Totally not necessary. I also did not want to spend my money on one of those cheaper character ones. They totally drive me nuts and the quality is aweful. This summer I was at a yard sale (haha) and spotted this awesome little Quicksilver backpack with a great Hawaiian print in even better condition. I don't even know what I spent on it because I had a pile of baby clothes for my sister in law in the mix. I paid $3 for a huge pile of clothes and this backpack. I washed it up and it looks brand new. It looks so good and I love it. It fits Gunnar perfectly. The other mom at the bus stop even asked me where I found a smaller backpack like that.

(Ugh...when is the bus going to come!)

Gunnar had a great first day. He loves his teacher and tells me that pretty soon he will be able to completely shut off his voice and get a new voice...it is Spanish! I really wish you could hear the way he says the word Spanish because it is too funny. He is getting the numbers down in Spanish pretty quickly but learning other things obviously. He plays with his friend John from our ward as well as another little boy named Henry who I don't know. After his first day I made him a candy crayon made from Rolos and a Hershey kiss. It was so cute.

(waiting and waiting for the bus)

Gunnar had a slight meltdown about the 4th day of school. It was not good and his problem was that he didn't take sleep seriously. I don't blame him when it is still light outside. Don't you remember laying there at night with bright light coming through the windows wondering why your parent's put you to bed.Thankfully it is getting darker earlier for his sake. Anyway, we were supposed to see our friends that day to go to the church orchard so I tried to bribe him with that. I then tried to bribe him with swimming at our friends house the next day. Nothing worked. All I heard to the school bus was, "I hate school. I hate kindergarten. I hate Paige (his little friend). I hate Carol (our friend's house that we were going to swim at)." Over and over again. But he got on the bus.

This last Monday he had a MAJOR meltdown! He would NOT get on the bus. He clung to me like a monkey. I was holding up the bus and decided to drive him in instead. Now I did not do it happily. This was the first week that Jeff was going in to work at 8am so he was able to stay home with Brecken so he could continue sleeping. I had been waking up Brecken early to take Gunnar to the bus stop which resulted in a super tired baby that went back to bed at about 8:15am. His schedule was so out of whack so I was happy Jeff could be home. Anyway, we marched back to the house, Gunnar was ordered to get in the car, Jeff left for work and I had to wake up a baby. I was TICKED! On the way there, Gunnar told me he was so upset because he was tired. I sternly told him that was NOT my problem and he did not have a choice about school like preschool. He has to go and I was NOT going to be driving him to school again. Since then he has been waking up happy knowing fully that it would all result in a mad mom. Our school bus is currently around the corner about a block. Not a huge deal if all 8 kids showed up. No, instead it is Gunnar and another little girl who lives across the street from us. We've put in our request to move the stop by us so I can just walk out my door to the stop, leaving babies to sleep. See I watch Cami twice a week and the bus pickup is smack in the middle of their naps. I have to entertain two babies for about an hour and half before the bus comes. Then they completely crash when we get back. Doesn't make for a very good nap. I will be so happy when the route is changed just one street over.

Overall Gunnar is doing great in all day kindergarten. About once a week he comes home exhausted but overall happy with lots of energy left. I was not a super sad mom to see him go. Instead I was super excited for this next chapter in his life. He was so excited for school. How could I not catch some of that excitement. And yes, Brecken is a whole new baby with Gunnar not around. He cracks me up.

Caldwell Bike Park

2011-08-27T16:16:00.006-06:00

Little do I know about my own city sometimes. Jeff informed me that they had a mountain bike type track down the road. Since finding that out, we have been twice and Gunnar loves it. Brecken actually sits on the blanket with me and watches intently. Gunnar ends up getting so worn out and incredibly dirty.

I told him one time that he should stand up when he is peddling and he told me it was so scary. He is now starting to get more comfortable on his bike and it won't be long until he is doing crazy stuff. Everyone that goes out is really respectful and it is a very family friendly place. There was a little two year old on training wheels going up and down some of the smaller bumps with help from mom and dad. Gunnar is a strange child. With all of the prodding and encouraging Jeff and I do, it takes his little mind to be made up to do it. This was exactly how potting training was.

Anyway, we will end this on Gunnar's lovely crash:

Afterwards we had Heidi and Ren over for yummy leftovers we had from the night before. Brecken managed to catch himself on this chair and had us laughing. He didn't find it entertaining and he was moving around like crazy so I couldn't get a clear shot on my new camera I haven't figured out.

Deadwood

2011-08-27T15:24:00.003-06:00

Boy has it been too long. You know when you have that one post that you need to write about but it is also that one post that keeps you from writing more recent posts. I have yet to document information about Brecken's 12 month mark. It really comes down to being too lazy to get up and get the calendar to reference the milestones for the blog. I feel like I can't document anything past that until that post is done until right now. I need to just move on.

A few weeks ago the camera that I was using finally bit the dust and it was from a stupid thing too. I had just downloaded pictures onto the computer from it and the camera was saying that there was an error in the card reader. After carefully inspecting it, I noticed that one or two of the little prongs were bent. I tried with all of my might and anything small to get them bent up again. It didn't work. I was bummed. I had an album that needed pictures for Etsy, we were just getting ready to go on a camping trip and Gunnar starting kindergarten was just around the corner. I couldn't afford a new one. Heck I couldn't afford a used one. I emailed my mom late at night telling her my dilemma and that I found a used one on craigslist that I liked and if she would be willing to pay some as an early birthday present and then I would make up the difference. She called the next day and told me to see if that one was still available and that she needed to talk to dad. To my complete surprise, they showed up the next day with a brand new beautiful Nikon P500. I was SO excited. I love it. It is so light compared to the 10 year old cameras and takes awesome video.

Before I got the camera, we went on a camping trip to Deadwood Reservoir with friends. There were definitely moments where I wished I had a camera on this trip. Mindy and Rillz were supposed to come but Mindy needed to work that day since her nanny family was leaving the next week on vacation (for her that equals no pay for the week) and coworkers at Rillz's work were giving him a hard time because he would be gone to Hawaii for a long time to get married. They needed to work. We really missed them and I know they really wanted to go. We have next year and I am hoping to get a yurt that you walk a mile into. Back to Deadwood. The drive stunk. It was long and there was this incredibly steep pass we had to go through. It would go up and down and then up and down for so long. I friends little girl ended up throwing up on the way up (I think she actually did on the way back too). We also quickly learned that you really need to adhere to the speed limits on the pass if you don't want to smell your brakes burning up. The reservoir has 4 different developed campgrounds and we reserved a spot on the river that fed the reservoir. It was so lazy, lazy, lazy. Our friend fished from a float tube up and down it and then Jared and Jeff took the canoe out one night to fish. Jeff and Jared also had a blast going on trails somewhere mountain biking. They loved it. So what did April and I do...oh wait...I totally forgot about the night before. We decided to leave Thursday night late to get up there at least halfway. We ended up pitching tents basically at a reservoir we knew about just outside of Cascade. I slept so well that night and it was crazy warm. I loved it and Brecken pretty much rolled himself around the tent in sleep. Gunnar was out like a light. We found REI kid sleeping bags on craigslist a while back so Gunnar got one and our friends (that we were with) little girl got the other because they had two. They are warm mummy bags and actually get pretty small. Anyway, back to Deadwood. April and I found a little hidden access to this fun sandy beach by out site that had millions of frogs and then the tadpoles in the water. It was insane and Gunnar and Paige loved it! April was smart and brought sand pales so they had fun catching them in there. We were brave and took our crazy Golden, Diesel with us. Poor thing was so unsure of his surroundings that he had no problems sitting in his crate watching us. We had him tied to a tree but he still wanted his crate. Which I didn't mind because there were other dogs everywhere. Our friends took their lab Kenda too and both dogs love each other. We had lots of fun taking them to the water. I discovered that Diesel doesn't like to swim or he doesn't know how. He would swim. So Kenda would retrieve the sticks in the water, Diesel would wade in to his belly, snatch the stick from her when she got to him and he would bring it to me. They did that over and over again. It was pretty comical and it gave them both great exercise. We have a doggy life vest for him but never had to chance to push him in...I meant use it. He was a dream to camp with actually. He was nice and quiet. Even at night when I worried about it. At one point, April and I left the kids with Jeff and Jared and took the dogs down the road to a trail that was straight up. I had Diesel's pack on and let him loose. He did awesome staying nearby and loved it and this trail wore us all out. One of the biggest highlights and one that I wish I had on camera was Gunnar just decided he could ride his bike on his own. He could never start by himself. It was so annoying. He wanted to take his bike along and I questioned Jeff as to why we were taking one more thing that he would not touch. Sure enough touch he did and it was the saving thing to keep that kid entertained. He rode that bike constantly up and down the little lane and campsite and I was so proud of him. Why he couldn't figure it out on a nice flat bumpless road near home beats me. That night stunk so bad! I slept like crap and was so crabby. The conclusion, Brecken is going to be in his own sleeping bag next time. We were at a higher elevation so it was colder and that dang baby had to always be touch me and it usually was around my head and then I needed to keep him warmer so I stuck him sort of in my mummy style bag and had my back exposed to the outside because the zipper wouldn't zip up with both of us in it. It stunk and I was so tired. But our last day I had a fun time. We took a little hike with everyone and then packed up and started heading home. Jeff wanted to learn to fly fish and Jared only knows how to fly fish so we stopped in some random meadow for lunch and to play while they fished. This was probably my most favorite part of the entire trip and I so wished that I had pictures. It was so pretty and open and little streams were running all throughout the tall green grass. We walked in a ways and let the kids just play in the sand and stream (it was really shallow) as April and I talked and Kenda ran around like crazy. I loved it. It was away from everything and really relaxing and the weather felt so good. If I knew that it would have been like that, I would have voted to scrap the family hike and head there. the only downfall was that there were HUGE horseflies and they bit and they bit hard! Towards the end of our adventure Gunnar got bit hard on his cheek and he was screaming and freaking out then another one would come around and he would flip all over again. I have to admit that I know it hurt but it was pretty funny because he was over reacting so bad. Thankfully the guys were coming back from who knows where and Jeff took care of him. There is an area called Landmark that is very similar to this meadow with spots with shade trees and camping sites. I told Jeff that I actually wouldn't mind camping in one of those, letting the kids play in the sand and water, letting the dogs run and take the bikes. The only downside is that there are no vault toilets or anything. I wish I was able to get a picture of Brecken. He was black with the color of dirt. He was one happy boy. The food was yummy, we had yummy cobbler and great company. The weird thing though is that our friends admit that they never have campfires because they are too lazy. So weird. When you camp you have to have a campfire. That is just part of camping, especially car camping. Jeff and Jared were still out on the water, April and Paige decided to go to bed, it was so not that late and I was stuck with two boys and no fire. So we just sat and ate muddy buddies till Jeff and Jared got in. It was just a little weird. Especially when we had a big group of younger couples next to us with a roaring fire and beer flowing freely till wee hours of the morning. We did have a morning fire which Jeff got going and I think our friends actually really liked it. I know I did.

On a funny camping note, we went to REI a few weeks ago and were having Gunnar try on kids backpacking packs for reference. We hope to get one for his birthday. The salesman was talking about how when Jeff took me on my first backpacking trip or vice versa and it was so important that you make it a fun, enjoyable trip so you would want to do it again. It is the same with kids. You don't want to weigh them down so much that they don't enjoy it. Jeff and I had a good laugh after that because I have never been backpacking in my life. Heck, the last time I had been camping prior to this year was when Gunnar was about 18 months old. Jeff was just proud of me for camping twice in one year this year. I am proud of myself too and am actually enjoying it sort of. I've discovered that you have to be prepared. You need the right supplies and equipment and the trip becomes better. Next trip, Brecken will get his own sleeping bag!! Also the more you go the better you become at knowing what to expect. I've decided camping takes practice. The one thing I will never get used to is wild animals. Even if I don't see any, I know they are lurking out there and that creeps me out. I hate getting in lake water because I know fish are in there and could touch my feet. No thanks. My adventure next year is hopefully a yurt that you hike in a mile for with awesome views. Hopefully Mindy and Rillz can join us and they are cheap! Hey maybe Heidi and Ren would like to as well. My boys love the experience and too me that is great. I love that they can burn off energy and enjoy the outdoors. I also want them to love the experience as much as Jeff does and the only way for that to happen is to get them out...and I am willing to join them.

Oh...and did you know that you can sell your broken cameras on Ebay and people buy them? I didn't make a ton because the cameras are older but I made some and what would I do with them anyway.

Spoonflower

2011-08-18T14:57:00.003-06:00

Oh boy is has been awhile since I have been on here. And don't think I don't think about it. I think about it all of the time. I still haven't updated Brecken's very last 12 month pictures and stats. Plus we have done other things. It will all happen soon. The reason I am on here now is because of the website Spoonflower. Heard of it? It's so awesome if you are a lover of fabric. I love fabric but then almost freeze up or get overwhelmed when it comes to look at and matching fabrics. Weird I know when it really isn't hard to do with scrapbook paper and other things. Anyway, this site is awesome. People are incredibly talented and you can make your OWN fabric for a premium price. So cool! I was cruising through the site and the thought came to me that when I am ready to redo the boys room, I should replace 9 calendar CARS prints in frames with coordinating fabric to their bedding. I found the perfect ones on here and all that I will really need is a swatch. Okay, so I just saw the swatch size and it probably won't work like I thought but the swatch will be perfect to carry around with me. The best thing is happening today though! Today is annual free swatch day with free shipping. I am so excited! I am going to order the swatch that I know has the perfect colors for the room so that I can carry it around in my purse to match other things to it eventually. Free swatch day is only good today through tomorrow noon eastern time or somewhere around there. Anyway, fun site to check out and get inspiration too.

*If you want to check out the swatch I got search: Owls, in blue - In the Land of Boys by aimeemarie

Shoulder Cut Boston Butt

2011-07-28T08:48:00.004-06:00

Jeff is the Young Mens President in our ward so he is over the boys ages 16 and 17 years old. This Saturday they are doing an activity where they will be cooking a picnic dinner for the girls of the same age in our ward. Rillz, Mindy's boyfriend (can't stand the word fiance, sorry) will be guiding them along as they prep the food. They LOVED having Rillz show them cooking skills last time and wanted him back. Anyway, last night Jeff took the boys to the store to buy the food. Jeff said that it was a huge learning experience for all of them but the list just said pork butt. They got there and had no idea which one they should get. Jeff text Rillz for a better description. Jeff had me laughing because when he described it he said that it was something like a Boston Butt. Boston butt!? What is that. He told me Rillz said something like a Shoulder Cut Boston Butt. I was laughing so hard! Say that about 10 times. It will having you laughing too. As Jeff and I were watching TV late last night, one of the PBS channels had the America's Test Kitchen people on it. AND they were talking about pork and different cuts. Actually I don't even know what they were actually demonstrating because Jeff and I immediately gravitated towards the gigantic pig behind them with the different cuts drawn out on its sides. We were laughing so hard and then we were in awe that ham is actually the pigs bum and shoulder butt is the upper shoulder section and picnic roast is the lower shoulder portion and then so on. I found it funny that we had an entire conversation about Shoulder Cut Boston Butt and then this pig outlining it on TV. We then crashed into bed after that.

Lately I have been thinking of other stupid cooking things that I have done in my past and they make me laugh. These both happened while living in this house so about 5 years ago. I am so dumb when it comes to cooking, actually I should say I was so dumb. I have actually wised up with all of the things I have learned from blogs. Anyway, I was cleaning out the chest freezer in the garage and ran across an entire 1 or 2 bags of Rhodes rolls that had thawed a little and were a total blob when refrozen. In my dumb mind I thought they were goners. So what did I do, I just through them on the top of the garage garbage. (Now I realize I could have done so many things with the dough like remade the rolls, made pizza dough, really it could go on). The next day the lid of the trash can was totally popping off. The dough had expanded to huge proportions. It was pretty funny and Jeff was beside himself with what I did. Yes, he knew that other things could be done with it.

My other retard-o error was along the same lines. I was cleaning out the deep freezer and we had lots of cow bones or big game bones that my dad had given us for the dogs. They had been in there for a long time so I decided to throw them away. By the way, every time I did these things, it was not really that near garbage day. Anyway, I proceeded to throw out the freezer burned meat in the trash can. Little did I realize, the trash can had a hole in it and it was not the best to have raw meat sitting in a garage. About a day later, we were in the garage, noticed blooding trailing to the low spots (like under the work bench and near our inner wall) and little tiny white maggots everywhere! It was SOOOOO gross! And not very fun to clean up. Learned my lesson there. Do it the night before or morning of garbage day and maybe put it in a trash bag. Gross! I've since come to my senses a little and will never repeat those mistakes.

Shoulder cut Boston Butt. Seriously say that a few times fast and it will have you laughing...okay maybe just me.

A Little Snug

2011-07-23T22:02:00.003-06:00

Gunnar one morning walked up to me asking me to help him button these because they were a little too tight. I looked at him weird and thought to myself that I don't remember him having shorts that looked like that. It instantly occurred to me to check the tag. Sure enough he was wearing Brecken's size 12month pants.

PBS, Winner!, Gas, Bargains

2011-07-21T22:59:00.004-06:00

Anybody else's husband LOVE watching weird shows on PBS. Jeff does and some of them I just don't get into. So I blog instead. One time he stayed up until the wee hours of the morning watching some show about wild horses. The next morning he went on and on about each horse and their personalities and...it went on and on. Okay, so I totally have to laugh right now. I was writing the last few lines, Jeff flipped the channel to PBS and sure enough, a big white horse is galloping across the screen and the title comes on. "Majestic: The White Horses of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna". It is about the Lippezanner and honestly I think those horses are beautiful and talented. It reminds me of ballerina's but horse form. Anyway, Jeff also talks out loud randomly about what he is watching which cracks me up. As if I am really listening and paying attention. Something else that we both love watching late at night during the weekends is The Closer. I love that show. We will also watch an old Closed Case once in a while. I love these types of shows. Gunnar will see one coming on and get so excited that daddy's shows are on. What!? Just dad's shows? I like them too. Wonder what he thinks "my" shows are? May So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing with the Stars, Biggest Loser...

Something exciting happened today. Albertsons right now is having this big giveaway game thing. There are lots of prizes to win such as $250,000, a boat, a car, a backyard makeover, an IPAD, a camera and lots of other smaller cash prizes. You need to collect these little game pieces and have to buy things there to earn them. Attached to the little game pieces are also random coupons. But sometimes you get lucky. Instead of a coupon there is a coupon for something free like donuts, canned vegetables, extra game pieces, toilet paper, pop, etc. I've earned about 3 or 4 donuts and a few extra games pieces. That's it until today. I completed a section on the board and WON! Well I only won $2.00 but I was so excited and so was Gunnar. He loved that we won something. The $2 section was the prize that they give the most away of but I was just so excited to win anything. There are so many people playing and so many people that have yet to win a single thing. Mindy and I talked about it not too long ago about not knowing anyone that has won. Granted I would love to win something a little bigger, I was happy with my $2. I had to laugh because they asked if they could announce my win over the entire store PA system. Sure why not. And they were funny about not mentioning exactly what I won. Nobody needed to know that it was just $2.

Anyone else playing the game and won anything? I figured I do all of my coupon shopping there, why not play the game.

Last week my friend and I took our kids to a benefit steak fry that she had tickets for. I need gas before we went so I headed to Flying J. It totally brought back a memory that I forgot about. One day, years ago, I got home from work to find a note on our front door. It stated that a police officer was trying to get a hold of us about gas. We could not figure out what it was about. Jeff called the officer back and discovered that he had not paid for his gas at Flying J. They identified his truck and licence plate from security cameras. He was in such a hurry to get to work when he was in construction, he forgot to go inside and pay! I had to go back and talk to the grumpy lady that whipped out a large book of non payers. I paid the bill and we were good to go. Maybe that is why you now have to prepay for gas. People like Jeff were coming through and not paying.

During the spring/early summer, one of ours trees blooms large flowers. How neat is that. It is not a magnolia. I don't think. I don't really know what it is but it sure is pretty. Six years ago when we moved here, the tree didn't do that. The older it gets the more it blooms.

So we are still watching the show about the Lippezanner horses and it is a pretty interesting PBS show. These horses are quite fascinating. The training they go through is extensive. It just ended.

This last weekend I went yard saleing and hit it big on everything that I found. I was quite happy. I found a 3 burner propane Coleman camping stove for $20 in great condition. I asked him to consider less but I was comfortable with the asking price anyway. I know how much they are originally and this one was the 3 burner and in really great shape. He even threw in a propane bottle. We used Mindy and Rillz's when we went camping and those things are quite amazing. They can bring water to a boil in like 3 seconds flat. I knew we needed one for future camping trips. We were also in need of PFD's for our canoe. Jeff and I didn't really have any and we needed to be a good example to our boys plus they are good to have. I found a yard sale selling several. The most awesome thing is that they were selling a higher end Kelty. After our most recent camping trip and Jeff wearing the baby backpack where the buckle was in the middle of his back, I was thinking of getting something different. So I found this Kelty. The man wanted $20 for it. That is actually an awesome price for it. So I ended up getting 2 adult PFD's and a child's along with the Kelty. He wanted $45 for all. I had a $20 bill but needed more money. He was out in the country so I headed to the closest gas station for more money. The stupid thing was that they didn't offer cash back on purchases but did have an ATM. So dumb! I pulled out $20 realizing that I couldn't get $5 from the machine. I headed back, risking him wanting it all, and he accepted $40 instead of $45 for all 4. I was stoked! But I later realized he probably wondered why I didn't get out another $20 to pay for the overage. I honestly didn't think about it. I was so fixated on the $5 only. At another yard sale I ended up getting Gunnar school uniform clothes for 2 years away for cheap. I had shown up at that yard sale earlier but they weren't "open" but the guy let me browse around anyway. So I did and scouted out what I wanted. I wound up getting Cami $2 Children's Place snow pants (which are awesome!) and Gunnar a $5 Columbia snowboard coat. At other yard sales I got 4 shirts for me at $.50 a piece, a pair of really cute winter boots for $4 and a skirt for something. Can't remember what I paid...I know it was cheap. Saturday my friend and I went out and stumbled upon this yard sale so late in the afternoon where the lady just wanted to get rid of things cheap. She used to be a manager at The Children's Place so she had the best clothes from there. Her little boy was just a little younger than Gunnar so we didn't find any boy things that would work but we found the cutest things for Cami and my sister in law that will be having a girl this fall. We got it all for $3 and I had a huge armful of things. Jeff told me about another yard sale around the corner from us that he went by to work. I got a few things for my sister in law from that one too. They people were preparing to move and wanted to unload. Gunnar also got something there but it will have to have its own post.

One of the best things that I found was this Ruff Wear dog pack. I have been looking for one of these for Diesel for about a week. I narrowed it down to this particular brand for several reasons but they are spendy!! Saturday night I was getting ready to bid on one on Ebay but decided to randomly search for one again (I did this search everyday for the entire week) and sure enough one popped up at a yard sale in Boise. What do I do? I dispatch Mindy on the task. It was already late in the afternoon and thankfully it was still there! They wanted $20 and Mindy offered $15 which is an AWESOME deal for these but later we realized we should have low balled them at $10. I bet they would have taken it. Especially since they mentioned that whatever they didn't sell would be donated. She was there like an hour before their quitting time. There are two different packs from this maker. The mainstream version and then to Cadillac of packs version. This turned out to be the Cadillac of packs version called the Palisades! I was even more excited. The kicker is that these packs are $124 new! Can you believe that. Used on Ebay, there are still going for $70-80. I could not believe it. Diesel looks so responsible with it on. In the comments section about the product on their site, so many people were buying packs to give their dogs a "job" on their walks. It tires them out more and they are not so crazy hyper. Cezar Milan, the dog whisperer, does this. It totally works! The last couple of nights he has worn this and gets so serious. It makes me laugh. When other dogs are near, he totally ignores them and keeps moving on. He has a job to do people. He loves it and so do we.
The other great thing we bought from craigslist this weekend was an REI Kinder Cone sleeping back for Gunnar. My friend had mentioned that they wanted to get a nice sleeping bag for their daughter that Gunnar is buddies with. I remembered seeing someone selling two of these REI bags. We ended up dispatching Mindy on these as well for pickup. The kiddos were so excited and these bags are awesome. They are originally $60 for a kids sleeping bag that we got for $20 a piece. They were in mint condition and just awesome little mummy bags. In order to get them home, we sent them through the Heidi Express. Heidi takes the money with her to work, Mindy drops them off at her work down the road from her house and picks up money, and Heidi delivers them to my house when she picks up Gunnar for preschool/work. I never left my house start from finish! I love my sisters and any one of us would do this for each other. Overall I had a really fun shopping weekend. I can't believe I actually found some awesome things that we were looking for anyway.

Cami's Many Expressions

2011-07-21T22:49:00.006-06:00

Brecken received this ball for his birthday from his grandma Miller. Cousin Cami loved it too! Boy do I really, really wished that I had a better camera. One day...

Happy Birthday America and Brecken Boy PART 2

2011-07-21T22:15:00.004-06:00

This year we decided to celebrate Brecken's birthday on the 4th. I really didn't want to turn around days later and invite all of the same people over for yet another BBQ. Why not combine them both. I can see later on in his life where he might want them seperate but for now... I also wanted to totally live up the 4th of July theme this year since I can. Each year's theme from here on out will be Brecken driven.

We had a yummy BBQ of chicken and hot dogs and then everyone brought yummy side dishes. I love our potluck get togethers. We are never lacking good food and lots of it. Heidi and Ren never fail with the cake. I really wanted to do a firecracker type cake. I was thinking really simple rectangle with a smash type cake as the flame. They totally took it a step farther and it was huge.

We served the yellow portion of the cake and was still left with the sides. Everyone even had generous pieces with icecream.
As we began singing, Brecken realized that it was all for him and presented this huge grin across his face. He is such a sweet little boy.

He was allowed to go for the yellow cake and decided to just gingerly reach for the cake and take a little frosting. After we dished up a piece and fed it to him, he was in heaven. He loved it and wanted more and more.

Everybody was very generous and brought Brecken some pretty nice things. I can always count on my great aunt Nancy to bring clothes for my boys and I love it! Once it started to get dark we headed up the hill to an awesome undeveloped culdesac to light off fireworks and watch firework shows around the valley. It was really fun and nice until we started getting eaten alive from mosquitoes. It was really bad. We ran out of bug spray. Only a couple people were fully protected. The rest of us were bait. We had to get out of there and we learned our lesson for next year. We were able to light of sparklers and fountains before it got really bad. I never, ever buy fireworks. They scare me for the most part. I don't go run and hide but I am so nervous around them but it was Brecken's birthday so I bought a few. I asked the people what the most kid friendly fountains were and they told me and that is what I bought. I think my fear sparked from years ago in my youth. We were at my grandma Arnold's house one 4th of July and my dad decided to have a show for us. My dad loves fireworks so there were alot. At least that is what it seemed. He had spinning ones nailed to trees. He had them on the ground. He had them, what it seemed, on everything and they were all going off at once. I ran inside and watched peeking out the window underneath a blanket. Anyway, we headed back before the finale of the Caldwell Show because the bugs were so bad.
We were so exhausted and worn out by the end of the night. However it would not be a night without a pop explosion. I had extra rootbeer that I stuck in a reusable grocery bag. As I went to sit it on the bar stool in my mom's kitchen it slipped to the floor. No big deal right...wrong! The thing exploded! It was crazy. At first I had no idea what really happened. It was still in the bag but then pretty soon pop was shooting out across the floor because the bottle was on its side. It wouldn't stop. Well. finally it did but it felt like a long time. We had to clean up sticky pop everywhere. It was on the walls, doors, underneath the pantry door somehow, just plain everywhere and that stuff is sticky. My uncle used to work for Coca Cola and he said rootbeer is one of the worst as far as stickiness. Eventually we got that under control and we were able to go home and call it another holiday and birthday well celebrated.

Happy Birthday my sweet Brecken boy. Our family life would not be quite the same without you. You are definitely a bright spot in our family.

Happy Birthday America and Brecken Boy PART 1

2011-07-16T22:26:00.010-06:00

We had a great 4th of July this year. I have decided that 4th of July is one of my very favorite holidays. It was made even better when I had a child to celebrate it with. This year we took in everything that was offered and then topped it off with a birthday party in the evening for Brecken. We'll see what happens in your to come but it is sort of a challenge to have a birthday close to a holiday. I didn't really want to have a 4th BBQ and then another that weekend days later. Kind of redundant. But then I don't really want to have a party every 4th so people don't feel trapped into coming because of his party. Anyway, it was on the 4th and I took full advantage of it.

We started the day off with our ward breakfast at 8am. It was nice to be able to have a yummy breakfast made for you on such a busy day.

Afterwards we headed to the parade and secured our usual spot. This year Heidi and fam joined in. It was fun and the excitement from the kiddos is really contagious. This year the parade was so darn short. It was going along nicely and then all of a sudden, BAM!, it was over. You kind of had to look around and look for people moving further up the route to make sure it was really over. Anyway, we lathered up with sunscreen and some of us had sunscreen mohawks.

We were minus 3 kids this year as they celebrated with their other families. We sure did miss them.

I had to include the picture of Brecken and Jeff even though he is not looking because look at that dimple! It was hidden in his chubby cheeks this entire time.

This is actually a really good picture of Ren and probably kind of like a rare artifact. I just realized I don't get pictures of him that much. Poor guy had double ear infections for about a week and could not hear at all.

Brecken is a waving machine and it really didn't help that everyone waved. The floats were constantly waving and the spectators were waving. Everyone waves. He loved it! Once he got a flag, he was a more patriotic waving machine. He loved every minute of it. Another great thing is that the babies were not scared of the loud firetrucks or anything. They sat there completely oblivious to it all.

Some group every year hands out Otter Pops. Oh boy were the babies in for a treat and in total love with the pops when they were done. They loved them! They were in heaven.

Afterwards we headed to the park where they had a petting zoo of the cutest baby animals like a zebra, camel, pigs, ponies, etc. We also brought a picnic lunch and towards the end a brawl insued:

Brecken: Hey look Cami. I have a flag.

Brecken: Do you want to play with it.

Brecken: Come on take my flag!

Brecken: Come on Cami, take the darn flag!

Cami: I do not want your darn flag! Take that!

Brecken: Do not touch me. I am not going to take that from you.

Cami: You better leave me alone or I am going to poke your eyes out (as you can see Heidi is working hard at seperating their hands. They were going after each other)

Brecken became the victor after Heidi and Ren left shortly after this incident. It was really funny. They were just going to town and Heidi had to work hard at keeping them both away from each other. It had us laughing pretty hard. In real life, I hope they become best of friends.

Afterwards we headed home for a little bit of recoup and naps and then went to my mom's house for the BBQ and birthday party. That will come in part 2 as I realized this is getting forever long and I am getting tired typing and uploading photos this late at night. So stay tuned for the birthday boy...

5 Year Olds are Crazy!

2011-07-15T22:19:00.003-06:00

Gunnar is an emotional wreck. The kid is driving me bonkers. Is this what 5 year olds do? If so I am not a fan. About every other second he is having a meltdown. Full blown meltdown. Everything is just about the way he does not want it to be. And he screams and yells expecting his way. Just like right now. I left this post for about 5 or so minutes to say prayers with Gunnar. I asked him to kneel down to be respectful as he says his prayer. He proceeded to complain and whine and pretend cry his way through the entire prayer. Oh brother. He is also so mean to his brother that sadly idolizes him right now. He will intentionally walk by him and completely knock him down. He does this time and time again despite punishment. i'm going nuts!

We have a little over a month until school starts and I am SO excited!! I am ready and I am pretty sure he is ready. About 2 weeks ago, the board voted for full day kindergarten 5 days a week. I am way excited! It was made known at a meet your teacher night. The kindergarten teachers were both out of town but another teacher stepped in to share the news and more about kindergarten in general. Oh man, you should have seen the mom next to me. When she found out she went on and on about how sad she was. They moved not long ago to Caldwell from Florida where they had all day kindergarten. She was so excited that her "baby" was going to be going half days and that she would have her home more. All the while she is seriously hugging her poor daughter in a death grip. The lady kindly told her that some parents are really excited and some are like her. She was welcome to talk to the principle (as she pointed to her direction) to discuss the options. I immediately told the teacher lady that I am like the parents that are super excited about it. I wanted her and that mom to know that I was not thinking the other way. I kept thinking in my head that if she seriously had a problem with it, her option would be to pull her child out and go to another public school in the school district. Heritage is a charter school so she has the option of going somewhere else that actually does part days. There's options people and I bet there are other families on a waiting list that would love to take your spot. It was driving me nuts. Jeff eventually said, "Let's get out of here. These mom's are going crazy and starting to cry over it." One mom told me she wished Heritage did it like another school district nearby. Guess what, they would probably gladly accept your child since so many families from that school are actually enrolled in Heritage. It just amazed me. I wanted Gunnar to come away from that meeting excited and ready for school regardless what was decided. That poor girl that got the full on annoying bear hug from her mom will probably walk away with the sense that her mom is upset and not excited about her school experience already. Kids are watching and can feel it. On another really exciting note, Gunnar got the teacher that I loved. Okay, I never met the other one and I am sure that she is also awesome but I am so stoked that he has Mrs. Huttleston. She had been teaching in a nearby school district prior to this school for 20 some odd years. She got to the point where she was starting to teach her past kindergartners kids after she taught all of their siblings of course. To me that is true dedication and love for your students and job. I am so excited! We also were given a tentative schedule for the day. They are going to heavily incorporate spanish from the start of school until about 1pm or so. Crazy! I am so excited for Gunnar to learn spanish. He always walks around speaking jibberish and telling us that it is spanish. Oh boy.

The only thing that I am concerned about is that he will be missing 8 days of school a month in as we head to the islands. With half days, I really didn't care but with full days. Oh my, this could get a little crazy. I hope she sends us on our trip with things that he needs to be working on. Eight days is a lot. But the rest of the year, we are homebodies so we should be all good. I would much rather get it out of the way at the beginning then somewhere in the middle or end.

Anyway, five year olds are pills. I had a friend tell me that odd years are by far the hardest. I'm in an odd year...

Practice

2011-07-15T22:14:00.002-06:00

As he finally learned to crawl he also had to learn how to navigate the two stairs that we have going into our sucken living room. I have to say that he had the hang of going up but going down has been a blast to watch. He couldn't figure out how to turn around and go down. Instead he would use his head as a third arm. He would put his head down on the second stair and sort of fall down the rest of the way. It's pretty funny and it isn't far so I am not concerned about him at all. He is starting to get the hang of it and has decided to just stay up on top then bother with the majority of his toys and fun at the bottom most times.

11 Months

2011-07-15T21:21:00.003-06:00

Oh man, this is soooo late like so late that my baby had a birthday BUT I still wanted to get some of these things down that he did when he was 11 months old. During this month, we started calling Brecken a bunch of nicknames. Gunnar and I like to call him Breck, Brecks (Gunnar's favorite), Breckster, Breckie, Breckie Boy. We also like to call him Mr. Slurpy. That little boy can slurp town a sippy like nobodies business. Two seconds later and its gone. It makes us laugh.

During this month we took our trip to Bend Oregon. That would have to be his first big trip. It was the first time that he tried a Dorito. He was hooked from there. We had to limit his Cheetos or Doritos because he would go nuts over them. On May 24th he finally went from his tummy to sitting up by himself. This kid is so lazy and totally on his own schedule. He is one content little guy. One week later on May 31st he finally crawled for the first time. He kind of drove me bonkers because he would cry and whine when I would go too far when all he had to do was crawl to me. I love watching babies learn to crawl. It is so slow and unsteady and everything is so deliberate. We would laugh and laugh at the poor kid because he is so top heavy. He would be going along and then BAM! You would hear his head hit the floor. I finally had to tell him to go slow and before we knew it, he would lay his head down really really slowly knowing that he is about to crash.

Other than normal day to day life, Brecken was able to go to the Global Village Festival in Ontario Oregon this year and loved the music. This boy LOVES music. He gets this little head bopping thing going. He is far to wiggly. Changing diapers is an absolute nightmare. Many times I have had to hold his legs down just to get the diaper on. I just love this boy to peaces. By this month he is signing milk, more, eat and sleep (which is so helpful). He says hi and bye freely to people along with waving.

This boy is ridiculously tan! He can easily have 3 continuous layers of sunscreen on and get tan. He is my blondie with blue eyes, tan skin and super chill little guy. His personality is so sweet and he is my cuddler for sure. I am thankful everyday for this sweet little guy in our family.

How Does your Garden Grow?

2011-07-14T16:04:00.003-06:00

This year my garden is awesome. We decided to go with the raised beds and square foot gardening method. I am blown away with how simple it is and the maintenance is as close to zero as you can get. The only downside is that it can be a little steep money wise to get it going but it will easily be worth it after its first year.

So why did it all start? Last winter, we lost the use of a rototiller and would need to rent on this spring and possibly fall. It would have cost $25 each time and it irritated me to have to do that. So I rented the Square Foot Gardening book from the library and the process totally made sense to me. My parent's had old trusses that they let us cut up and use. We then slowly put the soils together. The special Mel's Mix (named after the guy that started the entire thing decades ago) called for 1/3 part peat moss, 1/3 part vermiculite and 1/3 part compost from at least 5 different sources (chicken, mushroom, cow, etc). I knew that the vermiculite would be the spendiest part. Lots of places were selling it for $50 a bag! Crazy! After my crazy research habit, I ended up finding it for $20 a bag at a farm store down the road from my house. I was so happy. After a lot of work, measuring the squares and planting, we have a super happy garden. I am amazed at how much more I can fit into our garden space. Row gardening wastes so much space. I know several people that used top soil in their mix, and I was about to go that direction because it is cheaper, but I really wanted a perfect soil from the start that didn't need to be continually amended from year to year. The only thing that I will need to do is add a little bit of my extra Mel's mix that we have in a garbage can to replace the stuff that comes up with the plants. Anyone can do this. You only need 6" of soil to plant a garden so this can be done on cement. So cool!

So far we have harvested well over 10 cups of raspberries that don't last long around here and hope to harvest other things soon. I've picked about 5 weeds in the beds total and because the aisles don't see water, the weeds don't really grow.

Probably my favorite bed. It has a lot of pepper plants (green, yellow and chocolate brown), eggplants, celery, basil, oregano and beets. I love that I have squares for pretty flowers too.

I am determined to can lots of tomatoes this year since I didn't get to it last year from having a baby. These are my larger tomato plants.

My cherry tomatoes. With 4 plants I am going to have plenty for probably the entire street. I also attempted to plant radishes in two of the squares. Not one plant grew. So weird. My mom's is doing great and she has the same soil and everything.

These are my yellow squash and zucchini plants. I was reading a blog where the gardener put upside down tomato cages on her squash plants and continued to train her plants up through the cage to save on space. I am excited to try it. I love squash but the squash bug is NASTY! I go out every day and drown at least 4 every single day in soapy water. It is nasty, they are nasty. Eeewww!

I have cucumbers and mini pumpkins growing up this trellis. Thankfully neither have been targets of the squash bug.

All of the plants are so much bigger than these pictures. I took these about 2 or so weeks ago. If you want to garden, but may not have the space or don't want a huge one, you really should consider giving this a try. you can even start with a 4'x4' box and get a lot from it.

Shocker!

2011-07-14T15:47:00.004-06:00

The biggest shocker while I was in Utah was Project Bathroom Redo. When we pulled up in the afternoon, Jeff was working on projects with one of our friends. Okay...so we started unpacking. As I went through the house I started noticing random things out of place. The biggest was that a whole lot of bathroom stuff was lining the walls of the hallway. I also thought the house smelled a little different but couldn't put my finder on it. Jeff finally ushered my mom and I to our bathroom. It was crazy. It was completely painted, the cabinet was painted, the accent wall was tiled as well as the countertops. Jeff was starting the floor. I was really too exhausted to react like I should have apparently. We had dinner at our friends that night and they were bummed that I didn't have a bigger reaction. I was tired. The drive is long. What can I say.

Some may think it is crazy that he did that but he knew exactly what I wanted. I had already bought the paint, the sink has been bought long ago (did I ever right about that crazy story?), we had the floor and wall tile for a long time now, and Jeff knew what I wanted for the cabinets. The thing is, we talk about our ideas a ton and I have a habit of researching thing until they can't be researched anymore for the best deals/ways to do it, whatever. So by the time the project comes around, it just needs to be executed. I even bought the shower curtain that I love in Bend this year.

I am so excited to see it all come together. As of this writing, it is still not done. The floor is the last big thing before all of the details come together. We bought a faucet that we liked at Home Depot a couple of weeks ago. I researched other options on Ebay and found that exact faucet for $20 cheaper and that included shipping. I returned the other and bought the one from Ebay saving us money. Jeff plans on working on that floor this weekend. I am so excited when it all comes together and of course I will post pictures. Oh ya, Jeff has before pictures on his cell phone. I had the camera so he couldn't take any that way. Once I figure out how to get them off...

How could I seriously not mention my siblings. It would be SO rude of me to forget them. Jeff sent out a text message to Heidi, Ren, Mindy and Rillz asking if they would be willing to help and they were. Man did they do TONS of work. I was blown away. Ren painted the entire bathroom by himself. Jeff has a really cute picture on his phone of Cami sitting in the tub while the work progressed. Mindy and Rillz painted my bedroom wall that desperately needed it and ended up spending the night to continue helping. Mindy said that she was the work crew cook. I know that without my siblings, this project would not be where it is right now. I also had to laugh because Jeff doesn't paint. When I told him that, he mentioned my siblings help. He did paint the cabinet so I was impressed.

St. George Utah

2011-07-14T14:57:00.009-06:00

The end of June my mom and I headed to St. George Utah with the boys. She really wanted to visit her sister, my aunt and there was no way any of us would let her drive herself. So I was the only one that could go and really glad that I did. Last time I was there was when I was 16 years old. That was 14 years ago! It takes about 9 hours to get there and I was so determined to do it in 1 day. I can't stand splitting trips up into multiple days if it is something that can reasonably be done in 1. Anyway, on the way down I received a speeding ticket. Oh brother and yes I was speeding but come on...ugh! I did have to laugh because we just changed our insurances to a company where you have to rate well to even get it. We rated exceptionally well because he didn't have any accidents or speeding tickets in the previous 5 years. The boys are super good travelers and no I don't have a DVD player that I tote along to occupy them. They find things to do themselves and I would much rather have it that way. Kids can get so addicted to TV these days simply because parent's don't want to put in a little work to make things fun and I don't want to associate the car with TV.

I had such a blast and loved spending time with my cousins. Everyday we did something and between all of them, Gunnar had plenty of playmates. His favorite little playmate cousin that he still talks to this day is Colby who is 5 months younger than him. They were made to be playmates. They hit it off right away and never stopped playing for 4 days straight. I've been told that Colby can be shy, so this immediate connection was surprising. Gunnar is the complete opposite so they must have balanced each other well. Colby was also really excited because all of the cousins his age are girls so to have another little boy around was the best.

One day we headed to the dinosaur museum. It was actually really neat and it was neat to see an actual site that they were still working on and uncovering things.

It took us a while to walk through and I was actually pretty surprised that Gunnar remained interested to the end. I am glad we went despite the taunting my cousin gave me for going and enjoying it. What can I say, we like museums. To her defense, she said that she did go when it was first build and there was not a whole lot to look at. I am assuming that since then, a lot has been added.

One morning we headed to the splash pad. It was so much fun. Well, I sat and talked which was super fun. Gunnar ran around like crazy and Brecken was played with for a portion of the time with my cousin's teenage girls. We have nothing like this where we live. The splash pad was set up like a little shallow (really shallow) river with boulders made out of sandstone. It was great and perfect for little kids. We got there about 9:30am. It makes me chuckle that we had to get there so early knowing the temperatures were going to get well over 100 degrees and we didn't want to be there when it was really hot. The strange thing is that their hot is so dry and to me, tolerable. Our hot in the Boise area is humid and muggy making it miserable at like 90 degrees.

Gunnar was ready and had packed swim trunks before we left home. I didn't even think of myself or Brecken. The first day we were in St. George we went to the biggest Deseret Industries I had ever been in. It was huge and if I could I would have packed up a chair that I liked there too. Anyway, I found the cutest Gap swim trunks for Brecken. I loved that they were red, white and blue. He had a blast in the water. It was nice and shallow for him to splash in. Once he realized that nobody was going to tell him no splashing he went to town.

While I am thinking of the DI. While I was there, I went through the As-Is yard and found the BEST outdoor post lamp. I love it and it totally fits the style of my house. I bought one really cheap in Bend last year and planned to spray paint it but once we got it home, it was too big for our house. The one that I found was cute and already a dark color with seeded glass. The best part is that it was only $9! It was also brand new in the original box. I opened the box just to make sure that it was really in there and in perfect condition. One of my favorite finds and this ugly lamp post light was on my future to do list. I walk through the light section at Home Depot all the time just looking at the lights but become too cheap to really buy one. Too many other important things to focus on.

I had to laugh at this. Before my aunt caught on and looked at me taking this picture, it looked like Gunnar was having this serious discussion with my Aunt Penny and Uncle Walt. It was really funny looking. Gunnar loved them and so do I!

One night we went to a movie called 17 Miracles. It is a church movie that was in town for just the week. It is about the miracles that happened during the Willie Handcart Companies. It was SO good. I can't wait to hopefully see it again when it comes out and show my family. Just the adults went and it was crazy. We got there 40 minutes early thinking we would get there in plenty of time. Oh no, we were near the back of the pack in line outside of the theater. Employees came around with free water because it was so hot in the shade. My aunt had a great idea to totally use my mom's disabilities to our advantage. Somehow they convinced the workers to let her, my aunt and my cousin in very first. They totally went for it and when we finally got in (we still waited in the long line), we had the seat that they so badly wanted and we all sat together. Honestly I don't think all 11 of us would have been able to sit together if we had to wait. The last day we were there (Friday) my cousins and I went yard saleing. It was the best. I loved it and they do to so it makes it really fun. I was able to find brand new with tags brown boy short swim bottoms that I have been wanting for $1. I also found a frame, a little boy blazer jacket for Brecken, kids books...hmmm, what else did I buy. I spent about $12 so $12 worth of fun things. Oh ya, a really large tray for our dog/water food in the kitchen. I was really excited about that one. My cousins came away with some awesome things and it was a blast. We had my cousins Explorer packed full of things. The funniest part was that my cousins were paying asking price for everything. I taught them the Hollingsworth way of yard sales. They started getting things well below the asking price. I even negotiated a guy down from 50 cents to 25 cents for a book. My cousins were laughing on that one. Hey, I didn't want to break a dollar bill and I knew I had 25 cents in coins in my wallet.

I miss them already. I wished that we lived closer. I vow to not let another 14 years slip by before I make it down again. Next time I would love to go with my family and visit the national parks around.

Gluten Free Website

2011-06-30T22:09:00.002-06:00

Man oh man I have so many things to blog about. I just got back from St. George Utah with my mom for a week visiting family. I also need to post about my square foot garden this year. It is SO awesome! I love going out there and just staring at it as if it is going to get up and walk away at any point. I also need to post about Brecken turning 11 months but he turns one years old next week so that is way behind. I wanted to post about why I love craigslist and all of the random fun things that I have aquired recently and how I plan to transform them. But here I am writing this post solely to post a link to a gluten free blog. Why!? I have 2 cousins that could greatly benefit from this.

I was at a family get together a couple of days ago and one of them asked if we had a gluten free Sacrament at church. I had no idea what they were talking about. One mentioned that they served rice cakes for those that needed something gluten free the other stated that they had a section of the chapel where all those that needed gluten free sat and were served a special whatever for their sacrament. They mentioned that visitors reactions are quite funny when they get a different sacrament but didn't know any different. Then one person started questioning the gluten free diet eluding to it as a fad. Okay, I do understand that some people just choose to have a gluten free diet because it does seem like the fad thing to do, however I have 3 family members that I know HAVE to have a gluten free diet for their health. Two of them (they are married) have Lyme disease and in order to battle the disease a gluten free diet is so incredibly important. The other one is a cousin that has a 3 year old daughter with celiac and in order to stay healthy she must have a gluten free diet. So much that sweet little Ivy can't even play with normal play dough. Anyway, I was on Pinterest. Heard of it? One of the greatest sites for ideas on anything. You "pin" it to your board for future reference. Anyway, one of my friends posted a gluten free site on her board. It is called Gluten Free in SLC. I was blown away with the extent of their recipes. They had anything from brownies, to panda express orange chicken, to chicken parmesan. My cousins may already be aware of this site but I figured it was worth mentioning because they had so many yummy things that were all gluten free.

It Needed An Update

2011-06-15T10:26:00.004-06:00

We had this horrid track lighting in our dining room since we moved in. It drove me nuts because it was so ugly. I saw an idea of a blog of a Pottery Barn knock off and went with it. I searched high and low for a light fixture that would work and finally found this baby for $7 at the local ReStore. I had Jeff take out the glass and then spray painted it a silver nickel finish. It was ugly brass before. We installed it and put in the bulbs. I love the pattern of light it gives off.

I still need to paint the burnt orange walls in the house and do a bazillion other projects. Such is life, right?

CHEAP Movie Tickets Again

2011-06-09T11:34:00.008-06:00

I was so excited to find out that I can get 2 Fandango tickets for $9 total again! Jeff and I actually just cashed ours in the last possible day on Monday and saw X-Men. Love those shows and it was fun to go with Jeff. It was even better knowing that the tickets were cheap. When I was redeeming and saw that the original price would have been $22.50, I just about died. That is so expensive just for a couple of hours of entertainment. This time around the tickets are good until the beginning of September. I hope to use ours to see the new Cars 2. I was bummed that the cut off for the other tickets were right before Cars was released. Now we can go! Do you want in on the action? Here is an easy link right to the site so you can buy them too. They can be used any where Fandango is used. Which I am sure is about everywhere.

I was pulling off pictures from the camera and ran across this one. I was making something with cheese. Can't remember what but I went to do something, came back and saw these nibble marks. Gunnar would not fess up. Instead he kept telling me that the dog decided to jump up there and take a few bites. The dog, if I remember, was happily chewing on a bone the entire time. He never left his spot. Plus he would have eaten more than those little bites. He would have taken the entire thing. Great...the dog did that excuses are already starting.

Tuesday I got done bagging 40lbs of chicken into more managable serving sizes. Have you heard of Zaycon foods? It is awesome. I was able to get 40lbs of chicken for 1.64/lb. If chicken prices where you live are anything like where we live, they are not that cheap. The company brings a truck load of chicken to certain sites on certain days and times. They come around here about every 6 months. You buy your chicken when they open up and announce the location. Then you show up at the designated site on the date and time specified, pull up, they load the chicken for you and you drive away. You never get out of your car and the people are so nice. This is the second time that I have done it and love it. The chicken breasts are so huge so I do 2 at a time in a ziploc bag. Some I leave plain and then others I dump a bunch of free/cheap BBQ sauce or italian dressing inside. Then I freeze it all. As the chicken thaws, the sauces marinate and the flavor is awesome! The chicken is so moist and yummy. My mouth is watering for BBQ chicken now. Anyway, I had a bunch in my freezer but went for another box because the next shipment may be coming in September/October and I didn't want to mess with it if we were in Hawaii or getting ready or coming home from it. The best thing to do is register on their site for email updates. They go to lots of place so see if your town is one of them. If not, notify them that you want them in your city so they know there is an interest. Definately worth checking out. It also looks like they have lots of places slated to open up this year.

We bought our tickets to Hawaii a couple of weeks ago. I about died! We had to buy 3 and Brecken will just be along for the ride. Even though the rest of the trip will be pretty cheap, those tickets weren't. We plan on being there for 11 days! Jeff was all for making the most of it. We are all so excited. We will arrive the morning of Mindy and Rillz's nieces 1st birthday. First birthdays for Hawaiians are a huge deal...like really big deal. Whatever you have in your mind when you think of huge, double that. Gunnar will have a blast with other kids. Jeff and I have been a couple of times before so we are really looking forward to doing low key, low cost things we haven't done with the kids. Which probably translates into lots of time on the beach and Rillz already has hikes in mind with Jeff. We all can't wait. What I am not looking forward to is hauling tons of crap through the airport and 3 hour layovers. Let me tell you about our crap. We will have a booster seat in a travel bag for Gunnar and a carseat also in a travel bag for Brecken. Hopefully we end up on pretty empty flights and Brecken can hang out in his seat on the plane. We will also have a diaper bag and Gunnar's whatever bag. Plus we are thinking of having carryons with all of our stuff instead of checking things in for $25/bag. Plus a stroller to get around the airport and Hawaii. We are still debating that one. Brecken will be 15 months old and just too darn big for a front pack. I've got to remember to order Brecken's official birth certificate too.It has almost been a year and we don't have it. I was supposed to copy my driver's license and mail in the money and paper for it. I made a copy of the front of my license, got ready to mail it all in and it said I needed the back too. Oh brother. I now have it all but need to send it. Better do that before September.

Yesterday Gunnar had his 6 month cleaning at the dentist. We discovered he has two more cavities and one on "watch". This morning he went in to get them filled. I was nervous about it because last time I almost passed out being there. I think part of it was being pregnant and the smell of the dentist always gets me anyway. Gunnar is such a trooper. One of his cavities was to the nerve so they had to put some special yucky, fighting stuff on it. Hopefully it works or the tooth will be coming out before it falls out. Ouch! Now he is complaining that his lip hurt and for some reason it is more swollen on one side than the other. Upon closer inspection, the inside looks like raw meat. It is mangled in there. My guess is that he was biting/chewing on it when it was numb and had no idea. Poor thing. Thank goodness Gunnar still loves the dentist. At this point I would have been crying and complaining about going back. That's what I did as a kid.

Our betta fish, Eyeballs, died yesterday morning. The last few days he has been acting so sluggish and slow. I figured he might die soon. We did everything we were supposed to do like feed him and change the water. Poor little guy didn't make it. Thankfully Gunnar is totally okay with death. I would not cut it as one of those parents that tries to replace their fish without their child knowing pretending it was the same one. Not happening around this house.

Bend 2011

2011-06-07T14:36:00.002-06:00

Jeff had the opportunity to go to Bend Oregon again this year. This time around we had Brecken and I wasn't pregnant. Bend is a fun place. Lots of outdoorsy things to do. Not super small but not really big either. It takes about 5 hours of driving through the ugly desert to get there. Brecken and Gunnar were so great on the drive. We hardly heard both of them. Brecken took a few great naps to pass his time. Jeff obeys rules, which include driving rules. We all should but I don't very well. We were in the middle of nowhere going sooooo slow. It was driving me bonkers. At one point we got passed by 2 semi's and then this RV pulling a trailer with a truck on it and a 4-wheeler. I was dying. For some reason I always feel bad inside for semi's because they drive slower than the rest of us most times. Not this time.

When we first got there, we headed to a thrift store. Call us weird but Jeff was determined to find those lightweight outdoorsy type pants and Bend would be a place full of outdoorsy people. He did find a pair which he was excited about. I also found a pair of Gap jeans that I LOVE! I think I am wearing them right now in fact. Gap is my brand. I know they generally fit well. I can buy from Ebay and know that my odds of them fitting are pretty high. Usually the length is my issue but if I order longs, I am good to go. We ended up eating at Diary Queen in the thrift store parking lot. We were starving and tired and in no mood to drive around for food.

I was so excited for the room and we had Gunnar excited about his window seat bed but discovered that we were upstairs from our room last year this time and the room was different. Bummer. It was fancier for us though. Not like it makes a difference. We brought Brecken's little bed. I love this thing but I was worried that he would fall out because he started to roll over in his sleep and pull up a little on things.

The first night, both boys were exhausted. I love how Brecken fell asleep where he was playing. He has never done that.

I was hoping to connect up with my friend Patty while we were there but she got a job 2 weeks prior. I was bummed but we have next time. I just love her. To fill our time as Jeff went to work everyday, we went to parks or thrift stores or explored more. This town has sooooo many FUN parks. They are every where. Thankfully the weather was awesome again and we could play.

Gunnar is becoming such a nut. I see pictures like this and realize that he is such a big boy. Definately not my little boy. He makes me laugh. Look at the freckles that come with the sun. I love it.

Brecken started his crawling attempts on this trip. He didn't really go anywhere but he sure was testing how far he could reach on his hands and knees.
Part of the resort prertty much sits on the edge of a drop off. It is so pretty and we could see people running along the trails down below near the river.

I took a picture of the three of us and as I was looking in the viewfinder I was confused as to why Brecken would not close his mouth and smile. It was so weird. I took the picture and turned him around and found a rock in his mouth. Then retook the picture with it out. Much better.

We went to the park on the last day and wondered along the river. It is really wide and slow going so lots of kayakers and canoers and general water people were out.

We saw this man going down on a surfboard thingy. Days earlier we saw a girl doing it. It looks pretty fun actually. As the guy slowly went by, we talked to him a little about the beautiful day. He was so red from being outside.

Gunnar took hold of the camera. He makes me laugh because he took a picture of my cell phone on the bench nearby. Most of his pictures have heads partially missing too.

The boys loved being outside so much. I was thinking about why we were out so much. When you're home, there are so many other responsibilities and things keeping you from being outside (or other places) with no schedule at all. I really need to try to be more like that. Do you ever tell yourself while on vacation that you would love to live there. Then you come to your senses and realize it really wouldn't be like it would be on vacation because real life would kick in. I think I do everytime.

Gotta love those nasty wet kisses. Brecken sure loves giving them though.
Where else did we eat while we were there...we went to Mondo's again. It is such a hippy pizza place downtown. I love it. Their pizza is good and the place was so busy for the middle of the week. We also ate at a Hawaiian place. We noticed two of them in town which surprised me. The place was also really busy for a Thursday. The food was good but nothing spectacular. I guess I am spoiled for having it more than once a year here. I am so used to the yummy food here. I also thought it was spendy for what we got but then again anything would be if you can have it here instead.

We have a lot of fun in Bend and it provides a great relief from real life for a while. At about 5 hours away, it is pretty close to home. I really hope Jeff gets to go back again. This is literally one of the only conferences that specifically pertains to his job. I just realized we didn't get any pictures of Jeff. Next time right...

10 Months

2011-06-02T11:54:00.004-06:00

Oh boy, we are 5 days out from Brecken turning 11 months and here I am just now documenting 10 months.

Right after his 10 month mark, he must have worn himself out somehow. Still not really sure what wore him out but two days in a row he slept from 5pm to 8am! Wow! I kept peeking in there to make sure he was still breathing. He didn't wake up once. Crazy baby. He also signed milk so clearly. It was insane. His little fingers were slowly, oh so slowly, were making the sign. It was pretty cute and he was so proud. The next day I was changing his diaper and was blowing with my lips. He put his little lips together and did the same thing. He didn't spit every where or make raspberry noises. He has since done it numerous times. What a smarty. He celebrated Gunnar's birthday with us and had his first Easter. He also experienced his first sucker at the beginning of May. He was in love!

Still not on the move, which I don't mind. I know that one day he will be so I am happy putting off mobility for a little longer. I've always wondered why parent's push this milestone so much and then when they start moving complain about it. I would much rather deal with it later than earlier. Even though Brecken can't really move, he sure can reach for things. We like to say he has go go gadget arms. He has a long reach. Like this wood in his mouth. Where did that come from? We love our roly poly guy. He is such a sweet cuddly baby.

Sick

2011-05-21T10:28:00.002-06:00

Literally.
Really what I have is a simple sore throat that is causing my ears to hurt and excess flem. Sore throats drive me nuts. They linger on and on and on. Everytime you swallow, it takes a lot of work to minimize the pain and it always feels like there is a bowling ball in there restricting the pipe. And for me there is no built up...wham! Congratulations you have a sore throat. Sadly, I think Brecken may be suffering from the same thing a little.

I went grocery shopping yesterday at Winco and Costco and just about died. My stomach was turning the entire time, wondering what the grand total would be at the checkstand. I didn't even buy that much. I coupon, and usually I do okay keeping up with what I need. However they also come in cycles so summer stuff like salad dressing, mayo, mustard...you get the idea, start going on sale with coupons about now. I have been out of mayo and salad dressing for a while now but I can't bear to pay full price for any of those. Again, I didn't get any this trip. Sales are just around the corner. I bought fruits/veggies and stuff to make gyros. I also bought stuff to make artichoke dip to only come home, look at the recipe and realize that I didn't even get all of the ingredients. Annoying.

This lady and I were getting bananas. For the longest time they were $.38/lb until recently and they shot up to $.48/lb. Yesterday they were $.52/lb. What!? When did that happen. Gunnar was telling Heidi the other day that he really wanted grapes but we couldn't get them because I told him they weren't cheap right now. haha. He knows me well and we try to eat what's in season. Don't you? I just wish asparagus would go down a little more and that is in season right now. I'm just not used to the "new" price of everything especially when Jeff's wage at work is not changing at all. I'm not a huge foodie and could really care less about food so some days I wish we didn't have to eat period.

Yesterday we registered Gunnar for kindergarten at the new charter school in the district. I am excited and we were able to meet one of two kindergarten teachers. She was awesome! She taught in the Homedale school district for 25 years. 17 of those were in kindergarten. She got to the point where she started teaching some of her old student's kids. I just loved her. I'm not sure what the other teacher was like but I wouldn't mind having this one. But what made me sick? The cost for the school uniforms. I am not opposed to uniforms at all. Acually it will make getting dressed in the morning a mute point and we will definately know what is school clothes and play clothes. Plus the entire school district at the elementary level wears them so no big deal. What is a big deal is the specifics. I personally think the founders are being a little to picky. This is what Gunnar has to wear:
red or navy polo WITH the school logo embroidered
*now red and blue are the only colors the other schools are NOT allowed to wear because they are gang colors and here our school proudly does. Oh brother and Jeff just doesn't get it given that he is a juvenile probation officer in our school district/county.
*in the handbook they say that all the shirts have to be from the same dye lot. Oh brother...so that automatically makes you feel like you have to order them directly from the embroidery place. The lady doing the shirts probably can't even get all of the shirts from the same dye lot over the years herself. I do understand that one student will come to school wearing royal blue and not navy thinking that they did the right thing if they didn't specify but dye lot...
*it costs $5 to put the logo on the shirts if we were to find our own. The cheapest shirt would most likely be about $5 and the shirts cost $12 through the embroidery place. Might as well go through them and save my time and gas driving the dang things around. Nice...totally sarcastic.
*the logo has to be there. We have no choice. They can also wear long sleeved ones and crew neck sweatshirts are allowed with the logo. The cost is obviously a little more than the shirts.
Pants and shorts
*they have to be khaki but not any khaki. They have to be middle colored khaki. No cargo pockets or painter style. Might as well buy these through the embroidery place too at $11.25 per pair. Boys pants are so spendy anyway at other stores. I might get a couple and then match them to other stores if I can find them.
*they can wear khaki shorts too.
Miscellaneous
*he has to wear khaki socks if he wears the khaki pants and white socks if he wears shorts. They recommend solid white shoes (yep don't have solid colored ones) for K-5 because of the play that they do. I am assuming they can wear them all day.
*can only wear a brown or black belt.

Can you see where this all adds up quickly. We would have had to buy uniform stuff anyway but not this particular. The school district just requires a solid colored polo in any color but red and blue and I can't rermember the pants. Should be interesting to see where we come up with the money for this one and how much it all comes too. I am just thankful he is not in 6-12 yet. They have to wear khaki pants or girls can wear khaki pleated skirts or plaid pleated skirts and all have oxford shirts with cardigans. All of these dress codes make me think of the Seventh Day Adventist School down the road or St. Marks Catholic School in Boise. The founders were really wanting a diverse group of students for good reason since it is a public school, so I kind of wonder how the cost of uniforms will work with some of these families that may not be able to afford them. Can you imagine having more than one student starting where hand me downs haven't even happened yet.

All for $0.00

2011-05-13T10:38:00.003-06:00

We are in Bend Oregon while Jeff attends a work conference. We have a lot of fun here and it makes it even better that it is a beautiful place with lots of outdoor things to do. As we had hours to explore the place while Jeff was at work, we stumbled upon the local Walmart. I remembered that I had coupons still in my purse that made Nivea body wash for free. However, every time I happened to be at Walmart in Idaho I would check the shelves to find them all sold out. I honestly think they intentionally don't stalk the shelves until the coupons expire. Anyway, I remembered that I had them AND Oregon does not have sales tax (plus they expired this week too).

I got my 5 bottles of body wash and went to the check stand. She rang them all in and then scanned my coupons to find that the total was NOTHING! She seriously didn't know what to do. She just sat there and said that she needed to talk to the supervisors because she never had this happen before. I really found it funny. She flagged one of them down and he stared at it too. He walked over to the other supervisor who said it was fine. So he comes over and explains that what I need to do is buy 5 bottles to use the coupon. No kidding...we already did that and rang them in. Anyway, after about 5-10 minutes of standing there she checked us out and we were on our way with 5 completely free bottles of body wash. This Walmart was so teeny. It was weird but I have a feeling the majority of the town does not shop there. Now that I think about it, everything is teeny. The Costco was a mini size, their Target and Michaels was pretty small.

Easter 2011

2011-04-30T01:49:00.003-06:00

Everything is hands down better with kids. Not really exciting when you are married without children. It just isn't. Kids make everything magical and fun. You and I know the Easter bunny isn't real but little kids do.

Brecken this year got a yellow chick basket. For weeks Gunnar was pretty determined that he needed to trade. The chick was bigger than his hippo therefore he would get more in it. I adamantly told him the trade would not happen. He had the hippo since his second easter and will have it right up until he has his own kids. Plus it really doesn't matter if the goodies were bigger anyway.

We had Stake Conference at 10am and Jeff was concerned that Gunnar would sleep in. Right on cue he woke up at 7:30am like he does almost every morning. He was so excited. He started into the basket when he noticed hidden eggs. He darted after those and eventually found the trail of sandbox toys leading outside to the new sandbox (new to us anyway. I love craigslist). This was the big gift for both boys. He also found his special golden egg in his room with a dollar in it. Brecken got food items that we would have bought anyway. Gunnar's basket was so cheap. He got Beauty and the Beast that cost me $4, little spendy cereals, fun twisty straws, and free candy.

We then got ready for church and headed out.

We headed to my parents afterwards. Dustin and Stephanie with kids came over. It wa perfect. Stephanie didn't have to do all of the cooking being pregnant and feeling yucky and my mom got her Easter egg hunt. She wanted one so bad but we told her it isn't fun with Gunnar being the lone hunter out there. So it worked out perfectly. Five kids to 200 eggs! The odds of getting plenty were pretty high.

(Reese, they were running fast and everywhere. She shares a birthday with Camden)

(Gunnar missed that green egg in the plant so many times. Rillz and I were laughing)

(Dylan is definately blurry because I barely got her to stop for this picture)

The adults had a great time watching. The kids were running 100 mph around the yard, darting in all directions. We would laugh when a kid would come running past, missing about 10 eggs on the way to the one lonely one that they were after. We just left the two babies sitting in the yard. I kind of forgot about my baby sitting there. Ooops. But he was enjoying Cami, the grass, and plastic eggs. Boy was the egg hunt fun.

We enjoyed lots of yummy food (like always) and great company this year.

Eyeballs

2011-04-30T01:44:00.002-06:00

We inherited a Betta fish from a party.
Who seriously names it Eyeballs.
Gunnar of course, after much serious thought on the 30 minute ride home.
He is actually still alive and swimmin'.

Side fact:

I had a red Betta fish named Buceo for about 4 years in high school. It kept going and going. I think it finally died after I slowly neglected its tank.

"Mohaw"

2011-04-30T01:35:00.002-06:00

Gunnar needed a haircut badly. He cries everytime. Wait...he SCREAMS everytime. It sounded like someone was dying on our back patio. It gets so annoying. What he doesn't like are the clippers next to his ears. He says it hurts and is too loud. He always complained about loud noises. The only way that we could get him to get a haircut is Jeff telling him he will give him an awesome mohawk (he called it a mohaw for a while and we convinced him it would be just like Rillz). He was on board.

The next day was Easter but we had Stake Conference too. I was really wishing it was normal church. I really want to see the looks from people in the ward. You see, people think Jeff as this straight laced, pretty serious person. People have straight out told him that. He tends to hold callings with great responsibility and when it comes to church stuff he is serious about it. But anyone that knows him well knows differently. I would love to see the looks on their faces when the serious YM Presidents son walks in with a little mohawk. I guess I get to see it this Sunday.

Gunnar loves it and frankly we like it too. However I think attitude came along with it. He is crazy and insane. Or maybe turning 5 days earlier could be it. Coincidence maybe. When Gunnar is crazy, I tell Jeff to cut the thing off so he stops. (Please ignore the earwax in the picture. That is so gross.)

5 Years Already?

2011-04-30T01:10:00.004-06:00

Gunnar turned 5 this month. Kind of weird. I have a kid heading off to school this coming year and boy is he excited. And we are so excited seeing him excited. As we are planning to head to Hawaii in September for Mindy and Rillz's wedding, we realized that we get to deal with the school system as we are gone for about 10 days. Oh man, forgot about that part. Not really looking forward to basing my life around the school schedule. Anyway...

Gunnar gets so excited about his birthdays. He gets more excited about his themed cake more than he does the presents. Last year, the day after his Scooby Doo party, he already had his mind made up that he was going to have an Ironman birthday this year. He never changed his mind. Not.a.single.time! He stuck to it. The funny party is the cake is the only themed item at our parties. I thought that I would suprise him with Ironman dessert plates or something but I cheaped out when they were a ton of money for 8 measly plates. Not doing it to see them thrown away. Money down the drain I tell ya. Heidi and Ren do an amazing job. Even though Heidi says that she just bakes it and Ren sculpts, her cakes taste really good. This years tasted really good for whatever reason, or maybe it was because I am not a cake person and this is where I get my yearly fill of cake. Last year it was made clear that this would be his birthday present from Ren and Heidi. Why get him something on top of this awesome creation. People pay lots for cakes like these. They are very generous in doing this. Gunnar is pretty sure he gets to pick Brecken's this year. Sorry boy but I get to until he can decide.

We had cousins and two of our friends with kids come this year.

One of our friends have twin boys that just turned two. Whit is one of them slurping down the Caprisun. Ann mentioned that they have never had one before. They were in heaven. They are also full of energy, so our goal was to get them worn out. I think we succeeded. They were everywhere.

Our other friends have a little girl. Gunnar and Paige are buddies. They are way to funny together. She is about a year younger. She had us laughing while opening presents. She had the best expressions. She would get overly animated and excited about the gift. It definately kept all of the adults fully entertained. Jack, the little boy that Mindy nanny's, also came. He came last year and we love it when he comes. The funny thing is that Gunnar and Jack see each other just a couple of times a year but they always talk about the other and wondering what each other are doing and always remember one another.

We love Gunnar so much. He is a great big brother and a great cousin to all of his cousins. He gets excited for other people. He is a huge people person. Friendly to everyone. He does not know an enemy. He says the funniest things. Sometimes I wonder what is going on in his little brain. He is all boy and does the yuckiest things. He burps like the best of them and talks about farting and ...ya it goes on and on. Everyone is trying to teach him and make him realize that his teachers are not going to tolerate his potty talk and behavior and that kids at school aren't going to want to be friends either. He doesn't get it. I hope he figures it out before school. He is very attentive. After family home evenings, he will tell Heidi everything that he learned on their drives to Boise. Sometimes I wonder if he listens but he does. He has an amazing memory. He remembers the craziest stuff. Sometimes we think he remember things because he hears us talk about it over and over again but then he will throw in a memory that we have never talked about or don't even remember. His little brain remembers. He loves to do anything with the family. He loves his family including all of his grandparents and aunts and uncles. I love that he has close relationships with them. I hope it stays that way. He loves his scooter. He is a great helper...when he wants to be. He is pretty stubborn and is always soooo tired when he doesn't want to do anything.

He is such a cutie and growing up way too fast. We are so excited for the next phase in his life. We love you Gunnar!

Stats: He is 39.8lbs (50th percentile) and 44.5in tall (75th percentile). I asked Dr. M if those were really correct. He has never been over about the 20th percentile in anything. They were correct.

9 Months

2011-04-30T01:00:00.003-06:00

Brecken is 9 months old now and boy do I love this little boy more and more. It doesn't help that he is absolutely adorable and a complete charmer either. I was thinking back when I was pregnant with him and I had an inkling of wondering I could love another child. It wasn't all consuming like some people but you wonder. At least I did for a split second. Let me tell you, it is easy and it is possible. I couldn't imagine out familywithout our Breckie Boy. Before we found out what he was, I wanted a girl. I honestly think I felt that way because it felt like the next thing to have. We had a boy, now a girl (plus I had a definate girl name picked out and unsure of a boys). I think deep down I knew he would be a boy. I am glad that he is a boy. Gunnar needed a brother...we knew boys. Anyway, he is happy and go with the flow just like Gunnar was.

He weighs in at 18.8lbs (25th percentile), 27.75in height (50th percentile) and an 18in head (who know where that falls--big).

This last month he signed milk and eat which is exciting. He also experienced his 1st bike trailer ride which he was so overly excited about. It was pretty fun. I could hear him squealing in delight as I about burst a lung trying to pull him and Gunnar in it. Jeff will have a turn next time. March 15th he got his 1st tooth. It was actually pretty painless for him. Pretty much right after that he got his second. Both were on the bottom. He signed milk so incredibly clear. I think he is catching on. Amazed me how quickly babies can learn new things. This month he also clapped his hands together. This little guy also loved to bang on the little bongo drums that we have. He loves it. Pure joy comes across his little face. Towards the end of the month, Heidi was leaving and he waved bye bye to her. It was pretty cute and he was pretty proud. The next day he said bye bye to my mom. He said it in this quiet whisper. He can now say mama and dada and whatever jibberish he comes up with. One day Gunnar, Brecken and I had errands and from the back seat I could hear big belly laughs coming from Brecken's little belly. Gunnar had him laughing so hard. Gunnar and I laughed with Brecken for quite some time. Brecken started flipping to his tummy at night now. It gets really frustrating because he wakes up crying and confused and not sure how to get himself back. So annoying. Most times his head is also in the corner of the crib. He apparently can't stand sleeping on his belly. This month it was also warm at least one day to head to the backyard and experience the swings for the first time. He loves them! Gunnar never cared for swings but Brecken loves them.

Brecken brings such a sweet little spirit to our family. He is always happy and lights up any room he is in. We just love him so much and I love seeing him grow and learn new things.

Cleavage

2011-04-26T11:07:00.005-06:00

Probably thought this was about mine but nope...it is about baby cleavage. Last week while I was watching Cami, she went poo from the middle of herself up her front. None on the back...weird. Anyway, as I was holding back vomit I stuck her in the tub and hosed her off. We have one of those handheld sprayers. Afterwards I headed to the diaper bag to get the spare clothes. I stuck the onesie over her head to discover it was a little snug. I considered putting her into Brecken's clothes but then that would require me to go downstairs, find the right bin and dig something out. Too much work. The onesie would do.

Her and Brecken were playing. Gunnar keeps telling me this picture looks like they are fighting. Nope, just Brecken probably going for the eyeballs. She now squints when she sees him coming. Don't blame her. As they were playing she was begging to be on her tummy. I flipped her over and she was happy but it resulted in...baby cleavage. I had a good laugh over that one. I even texted Heidi a picture because it was so funny.

We love you Cami dear even if you did have a little cleavage showing.

Battle

2011-04-26T10:54:00.003-06:00

This little guy has been battling teeth.
It's a full on war with the two.
His bottoms came in pretty effortlessly but the two tops are giving him war.
Thus a pretty cranky, mommy needing little guy right now.

Where Have You Been

2011-04-22T21:23:00.005-06:00

Not really sure what has taken me so long to get on here myself. Funny how I can't really tell you what I have been doing. Just normal, daily stuff. Not really sure what that is most of the time. Of course it involves the usual like running after kids, cleaning up after kids...but my house isn't super duper spotless the prove that I spend my extra hours cleaning. I also don't really have a bunch of finished projects to prove that I have been working on them too. I can tell you that I think endlessly on the projects/things that I need to and should be working on. Sometimes I feel like I think so much about them that it renders me paralyzed. I just don't know where to start or what I have motivation for at the moment. It really gets super annoying. And then I lay there at night watching tv thinking back on the things that I need to get done and ask myself why I didn't work on them during this time in the day or that time in the day. It would have been so easy then. Annoying.

I do know that I finished 3 books within the last month or so. The first is called The Alchemist. I love it. It was kind of interesting to read the reviews on Amazon when I went to get the link. Some people thought it far too simple and maybe that is what I loved about it. It was so easy to read and had a great message. It is written in more of a fable/tale type why and I whipped right through it. It talks about persuing your dreams and perseverance among other things. Love it.

The other was The Hiding Place. This book was written by a woman that was part of the underground protecting the Jews in Holland. She was arrested along with her family and sent to concentration camps. She was later released and did remarkable things after the war. This woman was amazing. I love reading books about WWII. I am always amazed at how strong so many people were during that time. What would I have done during that time? I like to think that I would have been brave and risked my life like so many did. Until one is in that situation, I don't think we could really answer. I am pretty sure I have this movie by the same name on my wishlist at the library. So I better get that one requested.

The last book that I just finished this morning was The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond. She started a blog a few years ago and started writing weekly installments of her dating years with her husband. It caught on and people started coming back to her blog weekly to get the next bit to her story. She now has it all published in a book. She also has a cookbook with her yummy recipes. Anyway, it was super easy to read and she is hilarious. It was a pretty funny story. It was one of those brand new books at the library. So I could only have it checked out for about 2 weeks. I read and read so I didn't turn it in late. I ended up reading it in the first 3 days that I had it. All 319 pages.

Well that is what I have been up to among being a mom, having a 5 year old birthday party this last weekend, projects here and there and sitting for how long. I'm pretty sure there was some of that in there. And at this very moment, the hearing in the left ear is decreased for some odd reason and I have icecream melting on my counter. Good night.

Opening and Closing like Scissors

2011-03-29T14:49:00.003-06:00

You know those stories or incidences that you think about writing in your journal/blog and then you think to yourself that you better not. But then you think about years or decades from now and how you would have wanted to remember it. This is one such story. It involves Gunnar. Of course it involves Gunnar. This kid is crazy and he is a boy. There is bound to be a crazy story or two from him. I want to remember the good and the crazy of parenting this child. I just know that he and his kids will laugh years from now reading these. Mothering is not all roses like some blogs depict.

A couple of weeks ago, Gunnar went running to the bathroom. Okay, I hope he does that. Jeff and I were sitting on the couch watching tv. It was at night. Then we hear him running to his room. I confirmed it with Jeff and sure enough he went running to his room shutting the door behind him. A few minutes later he came out and back into the bathroom he went. What was going on?! We let a few minutes go by and Jeff mentioned that I should go check on him. I tried to open the door and he was pushing it tightly shut. He didn't want me in there. Fine. I went back to the couch. A couple of minutes later he came out and went straight to his room and never came out for the night. I went in a little while later to see what that was all about and he was out cold. Fast asleep. I wasn't surprised because he was exhausted but how convenient because I have no idea what just happened. I checked the bathroom and saw nothing wrong and went on with my night.

Fast forward to the next morning. I could hear Jeff talking to Gunnar about the night before. He didn't really give up any information. Jeff wandered into our room and I started asking him questions. He is a pretty honest kid and started telling me how it all went down...

He started telling me how he had to go poop real bad but his bum kept opening and closing and opening and closing. Pause...now you have to totally envision what he was doing. Put your fingers in the scissor like position and open and close them slowly as if you were cutting. That is what I got to see at about 7:30 in the morning. He ran to the bathroom a little and missed the toilet a little. Insert start of horrified look here. He ran to his bedroom to change his underwear and then back to the bathroom to clean up his mess. He told me he wiped down the toilet but a teeny tiny poop fell on the floor. Insert, totally horrified look here. But he told me not to worry because he left it there so the ants could come and eat it all gone. So disgusted at this point and not sure that I want to go in there and see what he was talking about.

I told Jeff and we had a good laugh because really, who wouldn't. After the scissor motion and the ants you just had to. After Jeff left for work, I got on latex gloves and went in there. There was a little bit of smeared poo on the toilet seat where he obviously tried to clean it up himself. And yes there was a tiny bit of poop on the floor between the toilet and the wall and no the ants did not help themselves.

As I was cleaning in and around the toilet, I moved the trash can and discovered dried pee all over. So gross! As I was cleaning THAT up, Gunnar comes waltzing in asking me what I was doing. I told him I was cleaning up his gross pee. He proceeded to tell me that he knew he did that. Why, I ask. Because he claimed he didn't know where to go before. I told him it has always been the toilet. "Ya, I know now," he says. What was he thinking.

Another reason why I don't fully understand little boys mind's. I was feeding Brecken a jar of applesauce with cherries this morning and he didn't finish it. I put it in the fridge for later. I know with absolute certainty that I did it. I knew what shelf I put it on and everything. I went to grab it for lunch and couldn't find it. It was gone. I asked Gunnar if he knew where it was or took it. He adamantly denied knowing anything about it. I felt differently but he kept denying anything. I started to think I was crazy and lost it or misplaced it or maybe it was all gone and I didn't remember. I told Gunnar to tell the truth and tell me what happened.

He proceeded to go into this long spill about how he happened to see it earlier and got it down. He only wanted to try the applesauce and the lid to see if he liked it. But his brain sort of shut off and he couldn't help it to eat the entire thing. The whole explanation was so much longer than that and pretty funny but I had to take it as a teaching opportunity about lying. He is starting to get to the point where he doesn't tell the truth all the time. I am not sure that I like this next phase of boyhood.

I figured I better document these lovely stories. You never know, they could be ones that are told over and over with laughs in years to come...right Heidi! haha

The Walky Dog

2011-03-21T17:00:00.002-06:00

Jeff is always up for an adventure. Ummmm, not always me. I have really become a home body since kids. Anyway, Jeff got the bike trailer out of the attic and we were itching to try our new walky dog for Diesel.

You hook it to your bike seat so you can walk (more like run) your dog hands free. We headed to the Caldwell Greenbelt for their big loop there. I swear you would have thought we were packing for a weekend getaway. It seemed to take forever and the truck was full inside out of family members and bike paraphernalia.

The original plan was for Gunnar to ride his scooter. He didn't want to ride his bike. I knew this would not last long and tried to convince him to ride in the bike trailer. A few yards into the path, Gunnar didn't last and Jeff had to take the scooter back. I knew he couldn't make it. I barely made it to the end. He was thrown in the trailer with Brecken. Now this was Brecken's first ride. You would have thought this boy was being catapulted to the moon and back. He was SO excited. He squealed and talked the entire ride. We will for sure go on more bike rides just to see his excitement.

Diesel did great on his first run with the walky dog. With more practice he will be a pro. He was one tired puppy and we had two tired boys. I am not sure which one is more important. Oh ya, and I was really tired too and my bum hurt the next day.

Yo Homie

2011-03-21T16:47:00.002-06:00

Gunnar and I were having a little fun with Cami last week. Jeff had the day off and Gunnar wanted to stay home but I have Cami. The deal was, Jeff was in charge of Gunnar and I would do my normal thing. No way I will take on all 3 by myself. Anyway, looks like Cami is having a slight spit up problem there.

Today was kind of a weird nap schedule for both of them. They were both awake together for about an hour and a half. Kind of weird. Anyway, I would give Cami a toy and Brecken would reach over and take it. Eventually he offered her her very own sock all soggy from him chewing on it. What a nice gesture. They pretty much sit here and stare at each other and play. I end up dancing to music and getting Brecken to go crazy happy and Cami to sort of smile. She is one hard nut to crack right now. However Jeff can get her to smile by just walking in the room and looking at her. He can even get her to talk in her soft sweet voice to him. Not far. Not far at all.

8 Months

2011-03-21T16:09:00.002-06:00

This little boy is so happy. Just a fun little guy to be around. He is getting bigger and stronger. In this month he FINALLY sat up on his own for long periods of time. This guy is definately on his own schedule. His schedule is slower. He takes his time. He enjoys things in the moment. He is observant and more cautious. He is still a snuggle bug. He enjoys being close to people. He loves music and kicks his legs like a wild man when I start singing to the radio. We put him up to a set of bongo drums and he went crazy. He loves beating on them and anything that makes noise like a lid on a rubbermaid. He rolls from his back to his front and takes every opportunity to stay off his stomach. He's not a fan and now that he knows how to roll that way, he never stays on his stomach, as much as I try. He can roll the other way too but chooses not too. So he doesn't move around the house yet, which I am totally fine with. He tried his first taste of chocolate pudding and thought he went to heaven. He still sleeps well and wakes up all happy in the mornings, often staying in there for quite a while just talking to himself and playing. My dad was in town for a week during this time and Brecken was able to hang out with him. He loves his grandpa a lot. My uncle also moved into my parent's house for a time and him and my dad would continually tease Brecken on his big head. Okay, so he does but it is nice and round and chubby. They were also freaked out by the soft spot on the top. It is a little freaky. You can see his brain "breathing". It is creepy and I have nicknamed it his blow hole. We started experiencing a little seperation anxiety during this stage. I would leave the room and Jeff would be there and he would still freak out. It doesn't happen a ton and thankfully he has been passed around and been around so many family and friends it helps ease the anxiety. All of us can't get enough of this little guy. He has been a perfect match for our family.

Goodbye Papa!

2011-03-21T15:56:00.002-06:00

My dad moved back from Texarkana for a week to pack for his time in Kuwait. We sure miss him and that reminds me that I need to Skype him since it has been awhile. Anyway, we had to get a grandchildren picture because I know for sure Brecken and Cami are going to be much bigger by the time he sees them next. {Ignore the devil eyes-I am to lazy to fix them}

My Breckie Boy LOVES his papa. I am a little bummed that he won't get to hang out with him as much as Gunnar did in his earlier years. One day my dad will be around more to have two little boys trailing behind him.

Cami was getting ready to head home so we wanted the babies with him. Then we thought we would throw Gunnar in there but couldn't find him until later. Cami was ready for home. We were so happy to be able to see my dad for a few days. We were also able to get together, every single one of us, for an all you can eat prime rib/lobster dinner at my parents. It was so yummy. Thanks dad for forking over that bill for the ingredients.

Pregnant x3

2011-03-21T10:10:00.002-06:00

Nope not me. No way. Heck no way, however all of my sisters in law are having babies. All 3 of them. And the most craziest part of the entire thing is that all three of them are due within 2 weeks of each other. Oh my goodness. Our family has an explosion of babies on both sides. So here is the run down which gets even crazier. Noelle (married to my brother) is due October 28th. Okay, so the crazy part of this is that Heidi had Camden that day last year BUT my sister in law on the Miller side had Reece that exact same day 5 years ago. Oh boy. Can you imagine a 3rd baby born on the same day. I really hope not for our sake. Can you imagine the coordination of family functions. Okay, so Becky (married to Jeff's brother Jesse) is next up. She is due November 2nd. Not very far from Noelle and not far from Reece, so the possibility is there. They won't be finding out what they are having so it will be a surprise in the end. The last is Stephanie (married to Jeff's brother Dustin) and they are due November 10th. She knows that she goes a few days before her due date. So the baby will be born the beginning of November for sure. They will find out so we are excited to see what it is. We don't have any little girls on the Miller side. I'm excited to see how this all plays out. This does add to the crazy birthday season for both sides. I'll do a little run down.

In October we have (in order): Ren, Bridger, Reese and Camden (same day), Hollingsworth baby and potentially a Miller baby.

In November we have: potentially a Miller baby, my dad and Becky (same day), definately a Miller baby, Dustin and me. Then you throw in the holidays shortly after and that creates a super busy fall.

We are really excited for all of the new cousins. Gunnar will be over the moon thrilled to have more. He always is.

I finally did it!

2011-03-16T22:33:00.004-06:00

I finally took the babies out by myself February 28th. I was determined. I put summer shorts for Gunnar on hold at Other Mothers, a local kids consignment store. I had to get them that day and I really hate leaving my house anytime after about 3ish. The traffic and places in general starts getting a little busier. I could be making that up but that is how it feels to me. Anyway, I dropped Jeff off at work and he informed me that I needed to also stop at Lowes for some tile something or other that he needed. I can do that. I decided to stop there first. I took Brecken out of his carseat and he sat in the cart (he can do that now-such a big boy) and Cami in the main part. What?! They didn't even have what I needed. Heck, they didn't even really know what I was talking about. Off to Home Depot I go where I know they have what I needed. This time, the ladies at the front of the store saw me and came running to my aid with a cart excited to see someone with two babies. They oohed and aahed over them. It was pretty funny. I got what I needed and headed to Other Mothers. Same set up and got what I needed. By this point Cami was long gone. She had been asleep, I think, right after we left my house. Brecken fell asleep after Other Mothers. I felt on a roll and headed to Albertsons for formula because I really didn't want to go later if I was already out. This time I had Cami in the main part of the cart and Brecken in his carseat up top. It was probably quite the scene. I was just waiting for someone to ask if I had twins, but nobody really did. The closest I got were the Home Depot ladies. Ren had just gotten to my house when we pulled up. Perfect timing. Cami was way zonked out. I was told that she slept another hour in her carseat for Ren when he got home. It was actually a really enjoyable two hours with the babes.

Brotherly Love

2011-03-16T22:19:00.002-06:00

As Brecken gets older and older, the better it gets to watch Gunnar and Brecken's relationship grow. We have our moments but the good ones are so sweet. I love how Brecken just lights up when Gunnar comes around. He gets so incredibly excited. His little eyes light up. In the mornings, Breckie gets so excited when he sees me but he gets over the top excited when Gunnar walks in.

February 23rd we ventured into the combined bath. Gunnar thought it was the best thing ever. Brecken not always so much. It did not help that Gunnar continued to poor water over his head. Over all they enjoy baths together.

I went to take their picture together and told Gunnar to sit sideways or something to cover his boy parts, he grabbed a nesting cup and stuck it on top. I was laughing pretty hard. But when I took the picture, Brecken took care of everything and let a bath book float over just in time.

I love both of my boys and would not want it any other way. They are perfect for each other. I love my skinny mini and my baby boy with majorly segmented arms.

This is Hilarious!

2011-03-16T15:47:00.003-06:00

My stomach hurts from laughing so hard. Gunnar and I watched this at least 6 times in a row. It will make you bust up laughing too.

President's Day

2011-03-08T14:47:00.002-07:00

Jeff had the day off and he was so determined to go on an adventure. Somewhere for sledding (with no snow really around) or maybe a hike. According to Jeff, I don't like to walk off the pavement. As in I really don't like hiking. Pretty true. Anyway, we headed to Jump Creek passed Marsing a little to explore. Jeff has been there on scouting trips and thought it would be a fun little hike. Brent put too much gas in my parent's car so he said we should take it, it allowed us to take the dog. Our Passat is a pretty tight fit with two boys and the dog crammed in the middle. Diesel was over the moon excited to be going anywhere with us.

There was a firepit with wood by it so we made a little fire while we ate lunch. All this time Diesel was having the best time running around. The creek was just behind us and he was loving the water. Totally expected from a retriever.

Let me explain Gunnar's attire real quick. He looked ghetto. Totally ghetto. He insisted on wearing the sweatpants. The only sweatpants he owns. I am not one of those mothers that has a pair of sweatpants for their children every day of the week. He also wore his Toy Story shirt. Then Mindy and Rillz were over the day before and gave him a hawaiian outfit from their latest trip over there so he insisted on wearing that over the other shirt. Then he wore his coat and snowboots. Oh boy.

Brecken and Gunnar are just slightly off on seasons. Just enough that we will miss wearing some of the cute things that I have. One such item are these super cute mini snowboots. They are adorable and small. I stuck them on him along with his winter coat that he wore this one time. He had a lot of fun being out and about.

We hiked to the waterfall. The 'hike' was a nice walk on a trail, crossing over the creek several times. It was fun! It was good for the dog and good for all of us. Gunnar had a blast checking out the place.

Jeff was still set on sledding. Oh brother...there was literally hardly any snow. The only snow available was on the other side of the creek. They hiked way up the side of the hill to sled. My camera is at full zoom and they still appeared so small. That is because they were way up there!

It was a nice day and we had a lot of fun. When it warms up again, we will definately be out more.

2 Movie Tickets for $9!

2011-03-02T10:15:00.002-07:00

One of the daily deals on one of the sites is 2 Fandango movie tickets for $9!! That is so incredibly cheap given that tickets are so spendy. Jeff and I never go because they are spendy and I can't think of spending money on something so expensive. Anyway, you are only allowed to do it once and they expire June 6th. I was really hoping to be able to save them for when we go to see Cars 2 this summer but I think Cars comes out a couple days after the expiration date. Regardless, there has to be something we want to see in the mean time.
http://livingsocial.com/deals/28498?ref=personalized-link-box-6835973&rpi=6835973
I easily found it using Boise as the city. This deal can be used anywhere in the US since you have to redeem them through the Fandango website.
Heidi, you want to swap babysitting if you get this deal? ;)

02.04.11 First Bruiser

2011-02-28T11:00:00.003-07:00

Brecken was playing on the floor as I was doing something in the office. Gunnar was happily playing trains on the desktop when all of a sudden a train came crashing down on Brecken. Of course he started crying so I swooped him up and cuddled. All was well until Gunnar said I had blood on my face. Poor little guy had a bleeding owie by his eye and it wouldn't stop. Thus his very first bandaid. What a trooper.

Exhausted

2011-02-28T10:58:00.001-07:00

He was playing under the table.
Crawled out for a second to grab Brecken's blanket.
He retreated and never reappeared.
He was sound asleep.
Exhausted.

Knife Block

2011-02-26T09:38:00.003-07:00

What can you do in about 20 minutes. Redo your knife block of course. Jeff and I were cleaning our house getting it ready for the young men from church to come over and I've been wanting to paint this for some time. Painted it with black spray paint, lightly sanded the edges and followed it up with polyacrylic applied with a foam brush. I love it. It looks so much cleaner and updated. Cheap, quick, easy projects anyone can do.

I was at the paint store a while ago getting white paint chips to paint our kitchen cabinets one day and found this one:

Who would have ever thought that my family name would be on a paint chip. I wasn't even looking for greens and for some reason this one jumped out.

7 Months

2011-02-26T09:29:00.003-07:00

We had to go into the doctors for a follow up weight check and found out that Brecken weighs 18lbs even. We are so thrilled with his weight gain. He gained 4lbs in one month.

He makes us laugh a lot. He is so helpful when I dress him. I put his little pants up to his chunky legs and tell him to push or kick his legs and he kicks them in. He is so proud of himself. He adores Gunnar and lights up when he comes around...most of the time. He was so close to sitting up but was not quite there. He loves to be close and loves to cuddle. He is so incredibly calm still and pretty quiet for the most part. He sleeps pretty well, waking only once in the early morning hours now that he is fully fed. We started sign language. He laughs like crazy at it and probably thinks it is a total joke. Gunnar gets into it too which is pretty funny because he does it mostly wrong. We are pretty sure that he can say mama. When he is upset his mmm's come out pretty clear. He is still pretty bald but we wouldn't trade him for anything.

My Mondays

2011-02-26T09:14:00.004-07:00

I started watching Cami on Mondays when Ren went back to school. Boy is it fun but can be a challenge and the 7 or so hours go by so fast. Heidi takes Gunnar with her to work and Cami stays with Brecken and I.

These two are going to be such great buddies. I hope so anyway. Brecken just lights up when Cami comes around...most of the time. These pictures were from the first day. They were both so into each other. They laid on the playmat for quite a while. They went down for naps at exactly the same time. Cami slept in Breckens crib for 3 hours! Apparently she didn't really take naps at home in the crib for longer than 20min. It was a pretty fun day.

The second time Brecken was a little smarter at what was happening. He clung as much as he could for a baby. He knew that Cami was taking my time and did not really like it. Both babies were sick with a cold so that didn't help. They were on a lose schedule at best and just wanted to be loved a lot.

We had Cami on Valetine's Day and she was not full of love for me. I could not figure out what her issue was. It was so weird. Jeff was home for the day and kept commenting on how she was going to have tear stains on her face for crying so long. She could hardly be soothes. Even when I held her and walked around which always does the trick. It was a long day and I am sure Jeff was wondering if I was telling the truth about how great the other days were. Ren came early to pick her up thank goodness. And not thank goodness because I wanted her home but thank goodness because I think she needed her mommy or daddy. Ren did however tell Heidi that she cried at home for a while which made me feel good. And then she took a 5 hour nap!! Wow! She was worn out.

Here's hoping for better days. Since our last time together he cold left and then came back with a vengence. That could have easily led to her crankiness. I would be cranky too if I couldn't breath and coughed a lot. I am just so excited for the relationship that Brecken gets with his closest cousin. I hope they remain friends for a long time.

TAXES are DONE!!!!!!

2011-02-23T09:44:00.002-07:00

That is so worthy of its own post! This was our first year in 10 years of marriage that my dad didn't do them and boy am I actually glad. Next year taxes will hopefully run so much smoother and I am aware of more deductions than years past. I am educated, even though Jeff tells me he was trying to tell me these things all along. Crazy how when I got to the end of the return I was starting to get a little nervous about actually pushing the button to officially file. I couldn't believe I was done. It felt like I was missing something. One error came up out of the entire thing and it was that 'probation officer' (for Jeff's occupation) was too long for the state return. How dumb is that. It wouldn't let me correct it right there for some reason so I finally figured out that I had to go back to the very first page. I feel so good and so relieved to have this behind me. How do people do this for a living. An uncle on my side and an uncle on Jeff's side both do it as well as one of my cousins. How? My eyes and head were going crazy. But crazy no more they are.

Taxes and Beaches

2011-02-18T16:02:00.003-07:00

I have several things that I watned to post but I've just become a little lazy but also preoccupied with other things. My biggest focus right now has become our taxes. We use Turbo Tax which is awesome and easy but my eyes are BUGGING out of my head from staring at the screen for so long. My head hurts so BAD! But I want these stinkin' taxes done. Because Jeff does tile stuff on the side, we still have all of that stuff to do so things aren't so cut and dry. On a good note, I am actually greatful that we are doing our own this year. My dad has done our taxes for the last 10 years. He's not in town this year, so we are all on our own. Why am I greatful? I am actually understanding some of this stuff. I now understand why keeping receipts and logs are super important but also things that we can deduct (that I didn't realize before) with proper receipts etc.

On an even better note...my sister got engaged this last Sunday which we are all super excited about. I am so happy for them. So what does this mean...we will be heading to Hawaii the end of September and I can't wait. It has been 10 years since I've last been and I miss it. I am a beach girl, Jeff more a mountain boy. Thank you Mindy and Rillz for making this possible on so many levels!

You Can't Eat Humans

2011-02-08T11:10:00.002-07:00

Do you hear certain songs and memories of where you might of heard it or the time period in your life comes back. I am listening to the radio right now and the hips-don't-lie song from Shakira song is on. I immediately thought of the time that my entire family headed up to Leavenworth Washington. All of the fun memories came back. Now the song "today is gonna be the day that their gonna throw it back to you..." song just came on. Memories from high school came back because that was when it was on all the time. Does that happen to you? Funny how songs can do that. "...and after all, your my wonder waaaaallll..."

Yesterday we had FHE. Gunnar is SO good at reminding us that it is FHE. Actually he mentions it everyday in hopes that that day is FHE day. Last night we did a family tree activity from the Friend. He is at a fun age (and challenging age) where he knows how to count and can recognize things. Anyway, we were doing this family tree activity and Jeff was describing what a family tree is and how your family branches out like a tree and he would be at the bottom like a trunk. Oh man. The looks on his face were hilarious. His brow was furrowed so much trying to figure it out because Jeff then told him to imagine family members as fruit on the tree. Bad, bad comparison for a four old because he said, "How can you do that. You can't eat humans." I was about to bust up laughing. Jeff and I laugh just about every FHE because of the things he says trying to figure stuff out. It reminded me of the body parts books by Ted Arnold. They are hilarious. You really should look them up. There are 3 different ones. One page in the book says, "My stomach is growling." There is a picture of the boy with a mouth on his stomach growling. You start thinking about it and it sounds so rediculous and confusing to a kid. They make me laugh and Gunnar thinks they are great. As you can imagine he asks all sorts of questions.

I was reading in one of those as your kid grows type of emails and they mentioned that kids at Gunnar's age talk and talk and talk and never stop. They explained that at this age the part of their brain that aids in self control is not really developed yet. Now it makes sense why we can't get him to stop and why his primary teachers tell us that he (and the other kids) talk so much without thinking. We are working on it but now I have actual facts to back that up.

The weather is so cold but it is sunny. I just had to get that out there. I can handle cold but the sun is so welcoming. It makes me want to work on things so much more. I would also like to add that my house has been pretty clean for about 3 weeks. For a while there the house always had toys everywhere or clothes in the rooms all over. I just lacked motivation to do it and then would get to a point that I was just a little overwhelmed and did nothing. My house is not bad by any means but just the little bit of stuff everywhere would make me crazy. Jeff and I laugh because our house is usually picked up but he flips out and says that our house is turning into a hoarder house. Oh brother. We then go to other peoples houses and realize that our house is pretty clean and organized. I still haven't understood how huge stains on carpets or writing on the walls doesn't bug people. I've had things spill on the carpet but I clean it up immediately. Some people just leave them. I don't get it. Jeff and I have figured out that if we invite people over, it forces us to clean our house well. That is what helped jump start us at the beginning of December. We should have people over once a month to keep us on our toes. I have seriously considered it.

You Better Believe We'll Be There

2011-02-05T18:00:00.000-07:00

Candy, Egypt, Primary

2011-01-30T21:27:00.004-07:00

Gunnar just went to bed and the treats just came out. I started thinking about all of the times my parent's most likely did this. The funny things that we do when our kids aren't around.

I've been watching and reading about the absolute chaos and madness going on in Egypt right now. What a mess. Egypt has always been the one place overseas that I would love to visit. The historical sites and artifacts are so interesting to me. To see the pyramids and tombs and everything in between would be so neat. I was reading about how looters were starting to go after the Egyptian Museum and broke several known artifacts. They also tore the heads off of a couple of mummies. Who would even think to destroy something like that. Jeff and I were talking about it and I would have this aweful wrong feeling about ti. I guess that is the difference between me and them. A bunch of citizens ended up arriving in somewhat time to make a human barricade trying to prevent the looters from entering. Some did and created a mess. Soon after the military showed up and have been keeping the place protected. I am glad that the general population in Egypt thought enough of their history to do that. I would some day like to visit a place so rooted in history.

Today all of the parent's in Gunnar's class got the talk from their teachers. Oh man, Gunnar has some issues. We were asked to work on being reverent and sitting in their chairs, not talking when the teacher is talking about the lesson and learning to talk when they are asked to. There are 9 little 4 year olds so I can only imagine how wild it can get. We love his teachers. They are husband and wife and just awesome with kids. Jeff and I are finishing up the Teaching the Gospel course and one of the lessons was on this very thing. One of the suggestions on improving your class if you are having difficulties with kids is to talk to their parents. That very day they told me that Gunnar talks to much. No surprise there but we have really been getting on him about this since he starts school in the fall.

Can you believe that I will have a kindergartner in the fall. So crazy. Speaking of crazy...he is driving me nutso. The kid is out of control. He does not understand what keeping your feet off the couch means. It makes the best trampoline he thinks. He usually doesn't jump, he does flips. Lots of them. Drives me nuts. We skyped with my dad yesterday and when we were done, for the heck of it, I noticed Heidi was on so we called her. Gunnar was crazy like usual. Heidi asked me a couple of times what Gunnar was doing. I told her that he was running around somewhere. Again she asked me what he was doing because in the background she could see him on the table jumping up and down trying to reach the light overhead. By the time I turned around he jumped down. Oh brother.

I've been making a list of the things that I would love to eventually do over time to our house. Some are definately longer term like paint the house (really needs to be sooner than later), new windows, new Hardie siding would be awesome some day, granite countertops, one of our bathrooms needs to be updated/redone, and I would LOVE tile in the dining room/hallways. Who seriously puts carpet in a dining area when it is the only place to eat. We don't have a formal dining area to justify that. But there are others things that I would be able to do a little bit at a time that wouldn't break the bank. I would love to repain the purple accent walls in our house a light, fresh blue. Blue is my favorite color and would be a nice change. Does anyone have any recommendations for a nice blue. Our rusty colored walls also need painted over, a wall in our bedroom desperately needs painted over after a vastly painting idea. We would love to get new lighting in the kitchen and dining room and someday a lower pile carpet in the family room. I mentioned to Jeff that I would love to paint our kitchen cabinets white for an update. He totally jumped on board after he gave me the entire speech on how it would take a lot of work and prepping is very important. I know. I read blogs remember. This isn't something that I plan on doing super soon, but the idea is there. So...does anyone have a great white that they like using in their house. There is a whole bunch of other things on my list. I just need to get out of this funk of winter.

I was reading a blog last night about protecting just about everything in case of a fire or what should be done to make it more bearable. Anyway, they were talking about backing up information off site just in case because having it on an external hard drive doesn't really help you if you have a fire. One of the fires started from the dishwasher. Now I always turned my dishwasher on at night because I couldn't stand the noise. Not anymore. That article freaked me out. I never ran my washing machine or dryer at night or when I was gone for that very reason but I never considered the dishwasher. That habit didn't take long to break.

Heaven

2011-01-22T15:16:00.002-07:00

Totally forgot to mention that now that my baby gets enough food, he now sleeps pretty much through the night. Last night he slept from 9pm to 8:30am. What is up with that?! Awesomeness!!

Stinkin' Sippy Spouts

2011-01-22T12:06:00.002-07:00

So Brecken is still full on with the sippies thank goodness. He starts moving like crazy and panting with excitement when he sees the sippy cup. It makes me so happy. However, the stinkin' spouts can only be bought online. I can't find them locally anywhere. So I searched my many options...Amazon, retailers, and Ebay. Ebay was my best bet with a particular auction. It was for 3 packages of spouts (2 per package). I won it, paid immediately and all was good. Until they arrived today. Gunnar opened the envelope and pulled out one package. I asked him to look in the envelope for more and he said that was it. WHAT!? I am not really happy right now and wrote the lady to tell her so. What happened to the 2 other packages that were pictured and listed. I told her that I would never, ever pay $7 for 1 package! We'll see what she says and I plan on taking this to the very end. Thank goodness I had two new unopened packages when Gunnar used them. I'm still irritated.

I'm officially done nursing. No more until the next babe. Yesterday I wore my normal size negative AA for the first time. Kind of weird after 6 months of nursing attire. I also get to wear anything I want to now. No more picking through the closet to make sure I can easily feed a baby with it on. I am excited to be able to wear some of my dresses that I haven't been able to for a long time. However I do need to make sure that everything is easily washable. Man he spews more with formula. It is so nasty and formula just stinks. Before I was thinking the spitting up stage was over because he never did. Now I realize I practically starved my child so there was nothing to spit up.

He is a whole new baby. We loved him before and he has always been happy and content but man is he even more so. He is energetic and spastic and funny and silly. Amazing what energy and food does to a person. He is more animated and engaging. We just love this boy. Now if he would just roll over.

One day a week I will be watching Cami as Heidi takes Gunnar. Kind of like a swith a roo for the day while Ren heads back to school for the semester. I am trying to convince Cami to teach Brecken how to roll. We had her for the first time this last week. It should be interesting. While she was still asleep in her carseat, I fed Brecken. As he was nearing the end of the sippy, Cami was waking up. So he went down for his nap and I proceeded to feed and play and hang out with Cami. Right as Ren arrived Brecken woke up and Cami went home. That was just a short day, like 3 hours. I will be watching her for about 6 hours. I am excited to have the two babies hang out and grow up together. It will be fun to see how they interact as they grow more these next few months. Cami is in the needier stages still while Brecken is not so much so it is perfect. Can you imagine raising twins? I always wanted twins. I figured if I had two at once, I would be more than half way to the 3 kids that I wanted. I am not so sure about that anymore. Anyway, back to Camden. We are so excited to be able to watch her and get to know her better.

Does anyone else getting a little down in the winter months. I don't have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) but man I get really unmotivated and slightly depressed. I would suspect most people would just a little. I can't wait for the warmer, sunnier weather. It isn't coming fast enough though. Our dog is also going bonkers with fewer interactions outside because it is colder. He decided that he needed to rip more siding off the house in the backyard. You know those houses that you see in a picture with the dog chained to a post and the house totally ghetto and destroyed. We aren't even near that but sometimes it feels that way with the ripped off siding. Diesel has this thing with the automatic sprinkler wiring nailed onto the house. He ripped them off twice before Jeff finally put a railroad tie ontop of them. He decided to dig underneatha nd flip the railroad tie. He was determined and it is driving us nuts. I keep telling myself that we have about another year and a half before he grows up and mostly out of the puppy stage. I can't wait. These are all of the reasons why you tend to see so many dogs up for adoption at about 1.5 years. Because they are mostly crazy. We still love him so much and he too is a goofball. He is so silly.

Life is still moving along. I have several projects that I need to work on and get done. But it's back to the weather. I just don't feel like it most days. Oh ya...getting dark about 6pm is so not cool. It really unmotivates me. Who wants to work on anything when it feels like bedtime. Plus I can't really spray paint in the cold and that is one of the major projects I want to work on. Or maybe I have so many that I need/want to do that I get overwhelmed thinking about it and do nothing. Who knows.

I need lunch. See you later...

Teetering On the Edge

2011-01-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

6 Months

2011-01-18T14:26:00.003-07:00

Brecken recently turned 6 months old which ment that we would be headed to the doctor for a visit. Jeff and Heidi had both mentioned that he looked like he was thinning out. I figured he was just growing taller because he still felt heavy to carry around every day. Brecken weighed in at 14.11oz. He lost almost a 1lb. He measured 26.25in so he gained about 2 inches. The poor guy at an ear infection during that time as well as a viral skin infection recently. So those things could have contributed to the weight loss. Doctor M. thought that her girls weren't weighing him right because he had gained consistantly that we had to weigh him again. The results didn't change. So...she wanted me to start supplementing with formula.

The nightmare began. Brecken would not take anything! I resorted to just letting him scream and cry until he was hungry enough to try any one of our billion options. He eventually took a sip but nothing more. I tried to have Jeff feed him and leave the room but that didn't matter. I finally resorted to some facebook help (I rarely post things on there) and asked for some advice. Many of my friends suggested going straight to a sippy cup. So did. He ended up liking the cheap Nuby sippies that we had around from Gunnar's days. I mixed formula with a little bit of pear juice the first few times. Holy smokes, what a breakthrough. He still struggled at the beginning but we finally found what works. He now gets excited when he sees the sippy cup. The sad thing is that we were starving our child for the last month or so. He drinks about 4-6oz from the sippy after I nurse him. That doesn't say much for how much he is getting from me.

Now that he is fully fed, he is sleeping better at night (duh!) and he is hilarious. I thought he was a great, mellow baby before but man has he blossomed now that he is well fed. He is so funny and constantly happy. He is interested in independant play longer. He cracks us up. Sadly, I think nursing is going to be a thing of the past in a few days. He is not even close to being satisfied after nursing and frankly I am surprised that I was able to nurse this long.

So what else is this sweet little guy up to besides eating? He still does not roll over. He is following in the footsteps of his brother completely. He is so close to sitting up on his own. He loves to eat. He loves bananas, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, applesauce, pears, cereals. He does NOT like green beans. He tried them the first time, he tried them again for good measure, the third time was a no go. He looked away and would not open his mouth. I made up a bunch of homemade baby food and froze it. I used a site that Heidi learned about from her coworker called Wholesome Baby Food. It explains things so easily.

We just love our Breckie Boy so much. He is a great addition to our family. Where he is at is so much fun. We have to take him back in a month for another weight check. Jeff and I both feel that he is getting heavier already. We are so thankful for healthy kids.

As I was taking Brecken's puppy picture, Gunnar wanted to give photography a shot. He was making me laugh with all of his demands on what to do and what not to do. He actually did a great job.

On Two Wheels

2011-01-12T22:01:00.002-07:00

No more 4-wheels as in training wheels. Gunnar got his shiny red bike for Christmas. On December 28th, I headed to a baby shower for a friend. While I was gone apparently Jeff and Gunnar took the bike for a spin. Jeff was shocked. He held onto Gunnar a couple of steps and let go and Gunnar was riding on his own. So exciting. It was super dark so I didn't get any pictures but we headed to the church next door for practice.

We bundled Brecken up, put him in the stroller and all watched Gunnar ride around in circles for a while. Jeff and I were laughing so hard. He was riding so slow most of the time it looked like he was about ready to fall over. He also clipped the stroller and ran into Jeff when he had the entire parking lot. He was giddy with excitement. One the way back over to the house, we told him that he needed to get speed to go up the slight curb. He rounded the truck and we couldn't see him. When we got to him, he had hit the curb/juniper bush, fell off the bike with it half on top of him and was slightly under the truck. I thought that I would pee my pants I was laughing so hard. We are so proud of him. He was so ready for the big 2-wheeler.

Blessing Camden

2011-01-12T21:39:00.002-07:00

The day after Christmas, Camden had her baby blessing. My dad was in town so Heidi and Ren decided to do it. Cami looked so cute in her dress. The dress was the same one that Heidi was blessed in. My grandma made it for her. Heidi was looking for a little shirt or something like that to go under the dress. She happened to mention it one day and I happen to have the perfect material for it, so I made a simple little skirt. She really was a good girl during the blessing. She was just ready for a nap at this point. After Sacrament meeting, we all headed to my parent's house for yummy soup. It is always fun hanging out with family and that includes Ren's family. They are all so nice.

Brecken was able to get some one on one play time with papa. Boy does that little boy love his grandpa and my dad is SO good with kids. I just wish that they were able to see him more.

I also realized that I didn't have a picture with Cami since she was born. I just love that little girl. She's a cutie and she definately has cousins that love her.

39 Things Every Mom Should Know

2011-01-10T14:12:00.002-07:00

39 Things Every Mom Should Know

1 You never have to go to obnoxious kid-themed restaurants. Ever. I wish someone had told me that.

2 Don't make birthday parties a huge deal.

3 Do your chores while kids are awake. Using up naptime to wash dishes or clean the bathroom is truly soul-crushing.

4 Put Band-Aids on everything your kids want you to. Why not?

5 If the kids are awake, bite the bullet and be awake yourself. You'll waste so many hours trying futilely to extend early-morning snoozes that it's not worth it. If you are sick, pregnant, or it's the middle of the night, ignore this advice.

6 Just throw away the poopy underwear.

7 Don't beat yourself up if you have to use a bribe.

8 Teach your kids not to pee outside unless you're camping - you'll be glad you did. But if other people's kids do it, don't judge the parents too harshly - it's all about karma. (If you're in the midst of potty training, all bets are off. You've gotta do what you've gotta do.)

9 Buy cheap shoes when kids are little. Feet grow faster than you think.

10 Don't forget about board games. You'll suffer through way too much Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders, but Connect Four and Battleship aren't half bad. And Clue rocks.

11 Embrace their quirks.

12 Know this: That stain won't come out. And it's okay. (The sooner you accept this, the better.)

13 At some point it will be February. Things will seem bleak. You will think about vitamins, glasses, more exercise, more sleep, more chores, less TV, more rules, fewer rules, and organic food. Just wait. Things will get better when the snow melts. Know that it will happen again at the end of summer, right before school starts. It's the circle of life, baby.

14 Always get boys' haircuts at barber shops instead of hair salons.

15 Answer this question: What is the worst thing that can happen if your kids sleep in their clothes?

16 Never stifle a generous inclination.

17Try to like what they like. It kind of sucks when it's Bob the Builder, but the payoff will come when they discover Lemony Snicket.

18 Teach them to pump on the swings ASAP.

19 If your child falls asleep occasionally without brushing her teeth, don't wake her; baby teeth do eventually fall out.

20 I know you are supposed to use natural consequences to punish bad behavior, but sometimes it's hard to think of natural consequences. In these cases try threatening your kids with clipping their toenails or some other activity they dread. I've had great success with this one, but you must find your own.

21 Get used to the word zerrissenheit. It means a state of disjointedness, and it's the new normal for most of us. At least you can feel fancy because it's German.

22 Buy kids deodorant before they need it.

23 Teach your children to make their own breakfast - and allow enough time so they can do it without pressure.

24 I can't stress this enough: Use duvet covers on your comforters and forget about a top sheet. Not only will you thank me for this advice, but your kids will thank me as well when they are learning to make their bed.

25 Remember clogging lessons are not in the best interest of the child.

26 Don't administer a punishment that hurts you more than it does them.

27 Always pack wipes. If your kids go somewhere without you, send along wipes. It's like having a mom with them.

28 Do not allow the word wienies in your home.

29 Dress your little girls like, well, little girls.

30 Make sure your kids know how they like their eggs and burgers cooked. You don't want them to feel stress when ordering at the diner.

31 It's fine to brag about yourself to your kids.

32 Buy quaint wooden toys and hand-knit stuffed animals. But don't expect your kids to play with them.

33 Just say "No" to any toy or doll that comes with packets that have to be mixed with water.

34 Teach them to like cool music. Why suffer through The Wiggles when you could be enjoying Wilco or counting along with Feist?

35 Don't buy the most expensive school-picture package. It's a waste of money.

36 Give out awards for actual achievements.

37 You're never too old to dress up and decorate your house for Halloween. And it's more fun for everyone if you are into it. It also entitles you to more candy.

38 If the school year, new babysitter, or karate class gets off to a rocky start, don't totally stress out about it. Instead, think of the improvement that can be made by the end of the year.

39 Independence is a wonderful thing. For everyone. So is together time. Make sure you have a healthy dose of both.

*I read this on someones blog who found it in a magazine somewhere. I highlighted some of my favorites and ones that I have recently done myself. I loved them all because I can totally relate. Many of these cracked me up.

Ringing in the New Year

2011-01-10T13:27:00.003-07:00

I was planning on writing a list of things that happened last year and things to come for this year at the beginning of the month but couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't get passed the few things that I did remember from last year like our trip to Bend Oregon (super fun) and the birth of Brecken (the most important one) to the birth of my newest niece (a close second) but that is all I could remember because I seriously could not get passed the crappy things that all happened at once. Such as our car that has been broken for 2 months, the furnace that decided to break at the same time, followed by a possible job change that would have benefitted our family greatly that didn't happen, to our one computer (that has important things that I need from it) that decided to contract something bad, to our truck having issues as well (fixed thankfully). That is how we ended our year. I then thought the new year would be better but our car that we thought was fixed decided to unfix itself shortly before 2011. So I figured forget it, I am not in the mood to think too far ahead and write a blog post. Who knows what this new year will bring us. I am hoping to really sit down and hammer out a goal here or there. Something attainable and doable. Something that will benefit the entire family and self in the long term. I feel like I am in this cloud of I don't know and I have very little motivation to move forward. I attribute a ton of it to a huge lack of sleep.. I have always needed my sleep but at this time in life, I get little and that is how it goes. It also doesn't help that I have a highly energetic 4 year old that drives me bonkers most days and wears me out. Once I get my goals on paper, I really need to put them on here to hold myself accountable to them. The ones that I have in mind would change the way that I feel a lot. I think this weather also doesn't help. I have always gotten slightly down during the winter months and it drives me bonkers. I can't stand having shorter days and it rarely is sunny. I can't wait until spring comes along and my mood will hopefully lighten.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-31T18:21:00.003-07:00

Gunnar doesn't really understand that you are supposed to wake up insanely early in the morning and I am totally fine with that. I would much rather sleep well than get up really early and be cranky the entire day and Gunnar must be the same way. He woke us up at 8am almost exactly informing us that he saw a bike in there. He was pretty excited. He needed a bigger one so bad. When he starts telling you that he doesn't want to ride his bike anymore because his knees hurt, you know it is time. I found this one on craigslist. No sense in buying new. They are so spendy new for such a small bike. This one was in great condition and was red...Gunnar's favorite color. It also had flames on it.

Gunnar also got this rediculous reindeer in his stocking. Gunnar and I saw them in Winco a few weeks ago. Heidi asked him what he wanted from Santa and he informed her that he wanted a pooping animal. These are pretty gross and funny. It is such a boy thing. Gunnar kept telling people that the reindeer was pooping beans out it's butt with Jeff constantly trying to get him to say behind instead of butt.

Brecken got random little baby things. The kid has pretty much everything he needs. We got him some little baby snacks since he is starting to eat solids now. I also made him a cute robot flannel blanket and hand towel bibs. I love those things!

We didn't really get anything for ourselves. Christmas is so different when you are an adult and you can buy anything throughout the entire year. I would much rather do that and look for savings on it than buy it during the Christmas season just because it is Christmas. The one thing that I did get Jeff was a canvas print of our family for his office. He needed one and this was a great way to dress up the space cheaply.

Diesel also made out pretty well with 4 bags of Beggin Strips that I got cheap with coupons, a rope toy and a anti pull harness that we will be hooking up to a bike walking system thingy. I had to include this picture because it looked like he is about to eat Jeff but I think he is going in for a kiss or something. He can't hurt a fly. Not in his Golden blood.

In the afternoon my aunt always has us over for a big get together which is really fun. Immediately after that we headed to Jeff's brother's house for dinner. Stephanie is a great cook so I always look forward to eating there. I really wish that I had the camera because we had them for Christmas this year. They have 4 kids and mentioned this summer that they really needed outdoor seating. We decided to give them the plans from Knock Off Wood and all of the supplies/wood to build it. We wrapped everything including the cut to size wood. It was awesome. Stephanie was the only one that knew what it was because I told her months ago so they didn't build one prior to Christmas. Why the materials? We didn't have time to build it ourselves prior to Christmas and Dustin is always in the shop with his kids doing stuff like this anyway. Each person in the family opened a stack of wood and then the rest of the stuff was opened up. Stephanie finished it off with the plans. It was fun to watch them wonder what it was as each step was unveiled.

At the end of the day we headed to my parent's to play games. Jeff suggested it and I was shocked. He is not a game player so we took advantage of it and went. It was fun. We ended up playing games with Mindy and Rillz because Noelle and Brent were packing to leave for California the next day and Heidi and Ren were at Ren's parents house.

Christmas was fun but very busy and we were ready for bed by the end of it.

Finally Updated

2010-12-31T17:59:00.003-07:00

For the last few years, I have been giving personalized calendars to my parent's and Jeff's mom. This year it did not happen for many reasons. However, my parent's desperately needed an updated picture of us. The last picture that was taken was when I was 3 months pregnant with Gunnar and we just had Jeff as an extra. Since then so much has changed. So we set out to make that happen. My friend Rachel, that took our pictures before was so kind to agree to take our pictures but we wanted to make sure that Heidi had Camden so we waited and waited to do it. Then about 4 weeks ago, Mindy reminded me about it and we were able to pull it off in 3 days by the time I contacted Rachel. I am still shocked that we were able to get all 11 of us together on such short notice. And my parent's did not have a clue.

It was soooooooo cold!!!! But we were still able to get some great pictures within about 30 minutes time.

Gunnar was so ecstatic about his cousin picture. He was rediculously excited about it. Jeff and I ended up framing a copy for him as part of his Christmas presents because I knew that he would try to still mine on the bookshelf. Just the other day he was about ready to haul off with it so that he could have a second copy in his room before I stopped him.

Afterwards all of us minus Noelle, Brent, and Rillz headed to our ward party for brunch because we were hungry. After that was an incredibly fun day of baking at my mom's with all of us. Now we can say that we are updated on the picture front. We had the picture of all of us turned into a canvas for them and included all of the other pictures to frame where ever. I think they were happy about it. I know that my book shelf is.

Christmas Eve 2010

2010-12-31T16:51:00.002-07:00

Christmas Eve is a big deal on my side of the family and always has so that is where we are every year. It is also a tradition to go to a movie than enjoy a breakfast dinner at my parent's. This year we went to Tangled and we all LOVED it including the guys in the family. All of the babies were also really good. We intentionally sat at the very top just because of them. Brecken sat with my dad and had a great nap. Afterwards we headed to Red Robin for lunch where he was also pretty good. Noelle was our server which was pretty fun.

We headed back to my parent's and before we knew it, we had to get making our breakfast dinner. My mom failed to tell us when relatives were going to be over so Heidi, Mindy and I were running around crazy getting it all together. It was of course yummy and great to spend time with family.

Presents are always fun. Gunnar was so excited. He opened up these fun puppets first from my parent's and just about lost it with excitement. Oh wait, him and Brecken opened up their jammies first and put them on. We went around taking turns.

Gunnar got a drum seat from my dad. He got a professional drum set for his 2nd Christmas when he was 18 months old. That was just insanity on my dad's party. Now we finally got the stool to go with it. Gunnar is now getting more into playing drums.

This year we had Mindy and Rillz and they had us. They gave us food storage organizers and buckets that Rillz gets from work. We all had to laugh about the buckets because they are like gold. It can be hard or spendy to find good food storage buckets. These ones even have the lids with rubber seals in them. We gave them a picnic blanket that I made using bandannas and a flat sheet for the back. I made one for Ren and Heidi last year. It is always useful to have something like this around or to keep in your car.

Towards the end of the night, Gunnar was looking out the window and spotted one of those radio type towers. He said it was Rudolph and instantly started going crazy. He was moving so fast to get out of there and home. He put his shoes on but on the wrong feet. My dad grabbed him to help him fix them and he FLIPPED out! He started crying insanely and was freaking out. We hurriedly packed our million things to get home. Jeff carried him to bed and Gunnar gave me orders to put cookies and carrots on the plate with chocolate milk and went to bed. He didn't even want to do it. He was out pretty quickly. I had a couple of things to wrap and we were in bed ourselves. Gunnar had us laughing with the Rudolph nose. He made that up all on his own.

I Love Homemade

2010-12-19T00:27:00.003-07:00

Since Jeff and I were married, we had two store bought Christmas stockings. I never really liked them from the beginning but they served their purpose. When Gunnar was born, we bought him a stocking. Obviously six years later we would never found one that matched. It served its purpose until this year and we had Brecken and I never really liked any of ours to begin with. Instead I decided to make ours this year from sweaters. I traced one of the old stockings on the sweater, sewed around it following my outline, cut the stocking out and then sewed a couple of more times for reinforcement. The top of the stocking is the bottom of the sweater. Is that not the coolest thing. I found the tutorial at Remodelaholic. I really like them now. I really like that they are similar in that they are sweaters but different at the same time. I love that I can make another one as children are added to the family. The only stocking missing is Diesel's blue one that I still need to make. I had two of the sweaters and then shopped the thrift stores for the others.

Jeff's is the green/white striped. I love this one. It is sooo soft. Mine is the multistriped. I really like it. Jeff was totally opposed to it and Gunnar is obsessed with red so it became mine. Gunnar's is the plainer of the reds. He instantly became attached to this one. Brecken's is the more textured red one by default and because Gunnar insisted that theirs match. Diesel's will be just light Brecken's but in light blue and probably a little smaller. I plan on making monograms that will hang on them but that is low on my project list right now.
As they get more use, they will probably get better in shape. I hope so. What do you think? Is this a hit or miss?

Training Wheels

2010-12-19T00:05:00.003-07:00

As we were heading to the recycling dumpster things, we had the funniest conversation with Gunnar. Jeff, Gunnar and Diesel went on a walk/bike ride earlier and someone out in their front yard made some sort of comment to Gunnar about how it looked like he was getting big enough to not use training wheels anymore. So Jeff and I were talking about it to him. We got him a bigger bie for his Santa present so we started talking about bikes and Santa. He was freaking out about the idea of no training wheels. We asked him what Santa would think if he saw that he still used training wheels. He said, "Santa would FREAK out!" He makes us laugh.

First Food

2010-12-18T23:35:00.003-07:00

It was time for rice cereal. He was ready. Two days we gave it a go. I tried to get as close to 6 months as I could. I am kind of weird like that. I figured get as close to the recommended age so hopefully I will have the most success as possible. Instead of going weeks trying solids with little success because he wasn't ready. When we eat, he watches us like crazy. Jeff did the honors.

He had us laughing. He tried to eat the rice cereal from the spoon like a kitty. Much like he nurses if you know what I mean. He tried to lap it up with his tongue. He actually really liked it. He just didn't really know how to do it.

Finally he got the hang of it and he has been eating a little in the morning and at night. He was getting to the point where he would be left a little hungry and he needed something a little heavier in his belly. We tried bottles awhile ago and that was a big no go. He was so frustrated with several that we tried, so I am solely it for now and I needed something to fill him up a little more. For my sake and his. Soon enough we will be trying all of the fun stuff.

Chunky Baby Breckie Boy

2010-12-18T23:23:00.003-07:00

Out of my two boys, Brecken is by far the chunkiest. It makes me laugh. I hope you enjoy his chunkiness as much as we do...and his blue eyes. I think they are here to stay.

Then when all looks lovely, I had to take a picture of his tummy time. What a nut. He hates it so much. He doesn't even try to move around. He usually cries like crazy in this position. He could care less about rolling over. Gunnar was the same way.

Sweet & Salty

2010-12-18T22:56:00.002-07:00

This year as our gift to neighbors and friends, I made chocolate covered pretzel rods. I originally started out with plain chocolate but really wanted to make caramel ones but couldn't find one ingredient that I needed in time for our bake day at my parents. I searched high and low and could not find them. Let me tell you how to make these super easy Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Rods.

First you need these caramel apple wraps. I could not find these at 3 different stores including an Albertsons. I went to the other Albertsons for something else and finally found them there. You will find them near the apples in produce.

Five wraps come in a package. Cut one of the wraps in strips. I used my pizza cutter.

Stretch one of the strips slightly and then wrap it around the pretzel rod. I was amazed at how much I can get one to stretch. I was able to do 2 bags of rods with one package of wraps.

Melt chocolate melts in the microwave 30 seconds at a time and then roll the rods in the chocolate. I use the melts from Winco in the bulk section. I really like the dark chocolate ones. I read a tip on line that was a lifesaver for these. Put two pieces of wax paper on a plate and then melt the chocolate on it in the microwave. Then roll the rods in it. Using wax paper on the plate allows you to lift the ends to get the chocolate on better.

I used these little round sprinkles to distinguish the caramel rods from the others. Another combination that I really liked was dark chocolate with crushed peppermints.
I definately know that this form of caramel does not compare to the really yummy, totally stressful homemade version but this works for me in half the time with fun results.

Are you doing treats this year or completely forgetting about it? I was actually totally shocked that I even did any of this.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

2010-12-18T22:33:00.003-07:00

This year our ward did a brunch, which was the best idea ever. My parent's ward always does a breakfast and I thought that was genius. I was thrilled when our ward did the brunch. It totally frees up the already busy evenings. Santa arrived and Gunnar finally got to see him. It was a quick visit. Just enough time for a picture before the next child had a turn. Crying or terrified children of Santa make great entertainment. Gunnar is totally into Santa right now but his bestest friend at church Paige, not so much. It was hilarious.

Caldwell Night Light Parade

2010-12-18T22:11:00.003-07:00

Caldwell always has a night light parade to kick off the Christmas season. Two years ago we ended up starting a tradition where my family comes over for taco soup about an hour prior to the parade, we head to the parade and then head back for hot apple cobbler. I've been lucky enough to delay start my oven for the perfect time and get back to done cobbler. This year's fun was no different. This year we had snow on the ground and it was cold but definately not as cold as last year. My mom and Heidi stayed at my house this year. Cami was just too small still. They thought that I would leave Brecken but we bundled him up and he was toasty warm. Plus he is at the age where he likes looking at the lights.

Mindy became the official baby carrier. When Mindy is around, we know that either Cami or Brecken will be with her. It's nice to have that sometimes. Brecken was in heaven having someone hold him the entire time. He is a cuddly, loves.to.be.close baby.

The theme for the parade was around toys. We saw lots of misfit toy islands and lots of Toy Story. Some of them were really well done. On one of them Buzz Lightyear was swinging around all lit up. It looked like a lot of fun. It also wouldn't be a smaller town parade without a cow and lights on its back. Oh...and the big bow around its belly.

Afterwards we walked around town to look at the lights along the Indian Creek. They had over 250,000 lights this year. Hopefully next year we will make it to the Fire Station Open House to see Santa. This is the one year that we missed it because Jeff had to work and we still have one vehicle. I always look forward to Santa during the afternoon and the parade at night.

Counting the Days

2010-12-17T23:11:00.002-07:00

This year we had two different advent type things going on. The first is our yearly Hawaiian advent calendar. I've had this since we were first married and still love it. Gunnar is all over this one this year. He calls it the Ho-why calendar.

This year we started counting down 24 days with a Christmas/winter book each night. I knew that I wanted to do this for some time so I started gathering books from thrift stores throughout the year. I added them to the nicer books that I already had and wrapped them individually. Gunnar opens one each night and we read it. He loves it! The themes are so different from night to night. As I continue to collect the nicer ones, I can slowly weed out some of the others as my kids grow.

White Out

2010-12-17T22:36:00.003-07:00

December 1st we had a huge snow day. Doesn't it seem fitting that we would have a lot of snow the first day of this month. Anyway, Gunnar woke up stoked for this day. He was up and ready for his snow gear. He didn't even eat breakfast that day.

Our neighbor boy came over to see if we wanted our sidewalk shoveled for money. School was cancelled for the day. I told him that I would think about it and let him know later if we did. I shut the door and looked out the window and see him starting in on it. Uuugh! I had a couple of dollars and let him keep going. His little sister Jessica ended up coming over and her and Gunnar played and played and played. After a while her brother was done and asked me how much I was going to pay him. I told him $2. That was all that I had and he said, "That's it?" Yeah it is. What was he expecting.

After a while, Gunnar and Jessi got sick of the snow and headed in. They played for a while and then decided that they wanted apples. As they were sitting on the couch in the family room eating apples, Jessi starts spitting on my floor. I ask her what she is doing and she tells me that she does not like the peel. I proceed to tell her that we don't spit on our carpet. She continues doing it and I continue to tell her to stop. I thought that I was going to lose it. It was driving me crazy. I already struggle with other people's kids at my house. I was proud of myself for just letting her in the door.

In the afternoon another little boy comes by and asks if we wanted out driveway shoveled for money. I tell him that I didn't and he left. i told Gunnar that we have to get out there and get the driveway done. I didn't want anymore kids coming to my door. We spent a lot of time out there working on it. Our driveway is pretty long. Thankfully Brecken was taking his nap. It was a lot of work but kind of fun to be out there with Gunnar.

The next day everyone had their walks and driveways shoveled. It had stopped snowing. Gunnar decided to go play. All of a sudden I couldn't find him and he was no responding. I spot him crossing the street from Jessi's house. He was so in trouble on many levels. I asked him why he went over there. He told me that he wanted to see if they needed their sidewalk shoveled. Mind you it was completely clear. I told him that he could not do that. He then told me that he wanted to go see if other people wanted their sidewalks done for money. I told him he couldn't do that. He proceeded to tell me that I could come with him. I told him no and he started crying. Poor thing but it got his little brain thinking. He is also the child that loves to find money anywhere just to put it in his piggy bank. He scours my parent's vehicles or countertops for money. He is a saver.

We were running a bunch of errands the other day and he got 3 quarters somewhere. He was so dead set on spending them in a candy machine at Albertsons. He never wants to spend his money so this was a big deal. The minute we got out of the car and he saw the Salvation Bell Ringer, he got so excited to put money in the pot. I told him how he could put it all in or put some in and save some for the machine. He decided to put 2 quarters in the red kettle and keep just enough for the candy machine. I was so proud of him.

Little Turkey

2010-12-17T22:27:00.002-07:00

This year we had Thanksgiving at our house with Jeff's family. My brother and sister in law only had one child out of four this year. The others went to their other parent's house so it was pretty quiet. Bridger and Gunnar had a great time though.

I had this fun turkey outfit when Gunnar was little but forgot about it at some point and he never wore it. Brecken got a turn though. It was hilarious. It came with a hat, booties and bib too. I had to laugh because I couldn't even get the hat on a part of his head. It was too small or was it that Brecken's head is way too big. Everything else fit though.

We just had a relaxing no pressure day with Jeff's two brothers and wives and his mom. Thankfully we got our furnace fixed the day before. We had to order the part online. It arrived on Tuesday late afternoon and a member of our ward was over on Wednesday to help Jeff install it. We are forever greatful for his skill and no how and his willingness to help us. We were just thankful that he was not headed out of town for the holiday. We had a whole lot to be thanful for this year.

Bulgarian Feast

2010-12-17T21:34:00.002-07:00

During the summer Ren and Jeff helped Mindy and Rillz a lot in remodeling their kitchen. When Ren and Heidi's anniversary rolled around in October, they surprised them with a themed dinner. Mindy told me then that they were going to do the same for us in November for our anniversary. We were excited. Then details started to emerge that it would have a Bulgarian theme. Jeff was over the top excited. He served his 2 year LDS mission there and loved the food. He talks about it all of the time. For 10 years I've heard constantly all about it. The timing could not have been at a good/worse time. It was during the time that our heat was out. We warned them that it would not be the warmest but they did an awesome job in setting up the atmosphere and getting our mind's from our current situation. Jeff and I had a great evening celebrating our 10th anniversary. We had to be out of our house for about 2 hours. So we did random errands like taking our recycling to the recycle place and then we hung out at Ren and Heidi's for a while. It was fun to be there and see Camden for a while. They were kind enough to watch Gunnar for our dinner.

When we arrived, our front room was transformed. Mindy put up fun mood lighting and had candles in different spots. The front room is perfect because we have a swinging door from the kitchen into that room. The table was decorated with our menu printed out in the middle. Jeff immediately started reading it and recognized so many things. He was so excited. Mindy became or server and babysitter. I think Brecken enjoyed himself so much...pretty much being held the entire time.

Our appetizer was Orley Wraps (bacon wrapped cheese skewers) and Podlucheni Tikvichki (fried zucchini with dill garlic yogurt sauce). Oh man. I can not say enough about the bacon skewers. Anything with bacon is awesome but these were so good! I could eat these once a week if I could. I want some right now just thinking about it. The yogurt sauce was also so yummy. Unfortunately I was so into the food, I completely forgot to take a picture.

Our palate cleanser was Watermelon Tarator. Jeff was SOOOOO excited about this one. Tarator is a very traditional cold soup made out of cucumbers. Rillz used watermelon instead and added tons of yummy feta. It was really good. Jeff was just in love with his take on it. He could not stop talking about it. And with all of these dishes, the presentation was awesome.

Our salad was called Shopska salad which was a cucumber and tomato salad with feta cheese. This is very traditional as well and Jeff makes his simple version of it all of the time. Rillz's version was of course a little more elaborate and beautiful. This salad was in the shape of a cube. Is that not the coolest and it tasted so good. I told Jeff that this was probably the most that I have eaten of cucumbers (besides pickles) in my life.

Mindy brought out crescent rolls and informed up that in Bulgaria they cook a coin in one roll and who ever finds it gets good luck in the next year, I think. Something like that. Jeff and I ate a bunch of them and still no coin. There was one more roll and it was my turn to have it. The coin was inside. It was really fun. Just excuse my crazy look.

Just before the entree, Mindy brought out a really yummy hot drink of cranberry and spices. Almost like a wassail. It was really good and it felt good to drink something warm. The color was really pretty too.

The main dish was Roasted pork wrapped in vine leaves with a seasoned vegetable medley. The pork just literally melted in your mouth. Everything had such great flavor and there was the yogurt sauce again that I dipped my meat in.

If that wasn't enough we had dessert on the menu. It was Bulgarian baklava with a warm anglaise. It was to die for!!! It was so good. When I think of baklava I think of the pastry stuff that you buy in the store. More puffy and somewhat soft and very sweet. Rillz made the best baklava and it was nothing like the store bought stuff. According to Jeff it was more authentic than the other stuff. It was actually more of a carmelized type of texture and for the Rillz twist he added feta cheese which was really good!! The cheese was an awesome idea. His version was also really sweet but incredibly addicting. He also added the cherries on the side which Jeff and I are not big fans of. Then Rillz explained to us that they compliment each other and should be eaten together. Oh. So we tried it and they were great together.

Mindy and Rillz were really generous with their time and money to put this on for us. I was also so amazed at Rillz's skills and passion for cooking. He loves it. When I think of cooking I think of a chore so I can't even understand how someone has a passion for it but he does. He loves to be creative and experiment. Mindy said that he was constantly researching Bulgarian foods and things that were authentic. they also sought out authentic ingredients. A while ago I discovered a European foods store in Meridian and bought Jeff Bulgarian feta there. It was a little too salty for me but he gobbled it up. Mindy and Rillz also bought it among other things making the flavors of the food really yummy. It was fun to see Jeff extremely excited about this and to see Rillz really excited about doing it.

Heidi had to go to the store so she was kind enough to bring Gunnar home for us. As Jeff was watching tv and I had to do something outside, Gunnar decided to just run around. He told us that he needed to do his exercises. Alrighty then. Diesel tipped his water all over and I told Gunnar to be really careful. A little while later, Gunnar comes out with his bicycle helmet on. As he was running in place, I asked him why and he told me that his dad suggested he put on his helmet just in case he fell. Oh brother. What a funny ending to a great night. Thank you Mindy and Rillz! We love you!!

My 3 Favorite People

2010-12-16T00:38:00.001-07:00

4 Days Apart

2010-12-16T00:27:00.003-07:00

In the middle of November, Heidi and I headed over to Meridian to visit one of our friends from high school that we had not seen in a while. Kimberly and I had babies 4 days apart from each other so I was really interested in seeing how Brecken and Gage compared. From everything that we had written on our blogs, their stats were almost identical. She was actually due about 4 days after me. It was fun to read about our pregnancies. We both have c-sections and we both had ours scheduled and ended up going early.

Cami and Brecken are so cute together. Brecken is so interested in her. Funny to see a baby interested in another baby. I love how he tried to hold her little hand. Cami was about 2 weeks in these pictures.

Cuddles

2010-12-16T00:19:00.003-07:00

Jeff was home for lunch one day and Brecken cuddled right up to him. Something that does not happen all the time.