Two? Already?

Didn't you just turn one a few months ago?I love watching you grow. I love seeing all the things you know how to do by yourself. I love hearing new words come out of your mouth. You make me laugh every single day.

Here are some of your favorites at two:

• Foods: 'Eggs' (yogurt covered raisins), olives, strawberries, alfredo, chips, popcorn and bread.
• Movie: Cars, of course. Also, movies of yourself and friends (you'll ask specifically for "Lina", "Bekah", or "Toria").
  
• Book: My Book About Me, anything with cars, trucks, tractors, etc.
  
• Toy: Cars, your lawnmower, and sidewalk chalk. Occasionally, balls.
  

Some thing you're doing now that I want to remember:

*You still sing when you're falling asleep. You've done it since you were tiny.

*You also sing when you're eating something you like. The whole time you're eating we'll hear, "Yummaanummanummanumm..." It makes your nursery leaders laugh.

*You spend most of your playtime driving your cars back and forth across our card table. You love watching the wheels spin. We especially love it when we hear the cars telling each other, "no, no!" or when we watch you tipping the tractor backwards and saying "boooo" ("mooo"). We didn't think you paid that much attention to the tractor scene in Cars.

*You're obsessed with "man mans" (fans). When we go outside you'll drag me from AC unit to AC unit so you can see whether the fans are "on" or "off."

*Our favorite phrase is "Ooo, big __________" (insert car, truck, bubble, etc.) Sometimes when Daddy comes home and picks you up, you'll say, "Ooo, big Daddy!" My favorite was at my piano recital: my students were all up on the balcony waiting to perform. You looked up at them and said, "Oooo, big friends!"

*You (and every other boy your age) are so into Cars. We don't watch the movie often, but you love all your cars, clothes, books, and stickers with "Ka-chow" "Dad-gum" and "Sah-yee."

*We are kind of sort of maybe starting to think about potty training. You've managed to use your potty twice, but you don't seem terribly interested. And I am NOT pushing it.

*You recognize a few letters and numbers. 8 was the first one you spontaneously recognized. You're obsessed with finding 'S' wherever you can. You also know 'M' ("Mommy") 'D' ("Daddy") 'A' ("Angelina") and 'O'. 2 and 5 are usually just more 's' es. Oh, and exclamation marks. I love how you try to say it: 'ehamaton mahk.'

*You would spend all day playing in your water table if we'd let you. You're especially adept at tipping the whole thing over so you can watch the water gush out (and so Mommy will have to fill it up again).

*You love waiting for Daddy to come home. When you wake up in the morning, the first thing you'll say is, "Daddy work." "Yes, Daddy is at work." "Daddy car." "Yep, in Daddy's car." "Noom, noom, noom!" (vroom, vroom, vroom!). "Daddy home." "Yep, Daddy will come home and give you kisses." "No." (He always says 'no' when we mention kisses). When Daddy finally makes it through the door, you ALWAYS have to have something to show him. A car, your lawn mower, whatever. If you don't have anything, you'll run to grab something before you'll let him pick you up.

*You're still sleeping in a pack and play. Debbie let us borrow her bigger one (it's square, so you have more room). We have the mattress on your bunk bed, and we tell you "This is Seth's big bed." You love to jump around on it. But we have no plans for moving you yet.

*You still LOVE your pacifiers. You're only allowed to have them when you're going to sleep, but you find ways around that. You'll sneak them out of your backpack whenever possible and then come show us (you have a huge grin on your face). When you decide you need a quick pacifier fix, you'll go upstairs, climb into your pack and play and suck on a pacifier for 10 minutes or so. Only problem: you can get in, but not out. Once you've gotten your fix, you'll call for us to come get you out.

*Your favorite songs are "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Ring Around the Rosies." You don't sing 'spider', as you call it, but you'll do the actions. You do, however, sing 'ashes, ashes'. Occasionally I've heard you sing "Cows eat the cups, ashes ashes, stand up." It's really cute. And of course, 'clean up, clean up."

*You have quite an impressive vocabulary, especially for a little boy. You can make your demands understood probably 90-95% of the time, which makes life SO much easier for Mom & Dad. Of course, you've managed to pick up 'no' and 'mine', but we've already made it through the 'my answer to everything is "NO"' stage, and you just aren't possessive enough to really care about 'mine.'

*You spend 80% of your day with a car in each hand. This includes sleeping.

Monkey man, we love you so much. Thank you for all the joy you bring to our home.

Happy 5th of July

Because you can't have this kind of fun on Sundays:

Our very first tomato from our garden! Absolutely delicious.
Seth has some big shoes to fill...

Official 5th of July Celebrations include:

Dinner with the Atkinsons
(grilled chicken, pasta salad, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, chips and fruit pizza)

Actually getting our kids to hold their sparklersThey were having a blast until Victoria grabbed the still-hot end of the sparkler.
After some tears we decided stomping on poppers was much more fun.


This girl is a professional popper-stomper.


Seth saw how much fun Victoria was having and finally decided to stop being a wimp and join in.
They were both sad when the poppers ran out...

Happy 5th of July!
(Thanks, Atkinsons, for celebrating with us!)

This Week Alone...

The lip

We have accomplished the following:

*fell and skinned our knee
*did something mysterious that ended in a profusely bleeding elbow
*fell off Dad's bedside table and landed flat on our face (resulting in a red, scraped nose)
*fell in the bathroom and put one of our teeth straight through our lip

The joys of being a toddler (and a boy).

Want to hear how we celebrated the 4th? First there were three hours of church (meaning organ, Primary piano and Young Women for me). Then there was this awesomeness:

Jon has to stay after church every week to do tithing (he's ward financial clerk). He helped me load up Seth and then headed back inside. Seth and I drive home, excited about getting to eat food. We pull up, I unload everything, and go to open the bolt on our front door.

My key is totally stuck. Won't turn. Won't come out. Which means I can't unlock the handle. Which means we're sitting on our front porch and are totally locked out. I need to go to the bathroom. Seth is starving. And it's 90 degrees outside.

Of course, Seth chooses this moment to do something (I never saw him fall or anything) that results in a bloody elbow. I grab the diaper bag to pull out a wipe for all the blood running down the elbow, only to find that the wipes aren't in there.

So now we're locked out, hot, starving, and BLEEDING.

Thank heaven for cell phones. Jon came to rescue us (meaning that he used his key to unlock the handle). I felt much better about myself after he tried to get my key out without success. In fact, it's still sitting in the lock. That's right: our front door has no functioning bolt. Come rob us.

What a fantastic 4th, right? Okay, so we did light some sparklers later that evening (Seth wouldn't touch them. Wimp.) and throw some poppers around. We'll do some more tonight. But we didn't want to drag an exhausted Seth to some fireworks show an hour after his bedtime. Next year, maybe.

New York, New York! (part 2)

Have you ever had a really good friend? The kind that you can hang out with several times a week and still have things to talk about? The kind that you call on their birthdays even though you haven't seen them in years? The kind that, when you do finally see each other again, it's like that gap is completely forgotten and things are just like they used to be?

Because we have friends like that. Several, actually. But the ones I'm thinking about are special in that they were our first 'married couple' friends (meaning we were both married couples).

Here's how it happened. It's the beginning of 2009, and Jon and I have been married all of two weeks. I've just left behind everything and everyone I know to be with him in Texarkana, Arkansas. And it's lonely while he's at work.

Enter Kellie. I'm home all alone, cleaning the (filthy) apartment when she and her toddler, Audrey, knock on the door. She had come to meet me--just to chat and tell me about life in Texarkana (oh, the joys). Audrey played happily with a container of kitchen utensils on the furniture-less floor while Kellie and I talked. I felt like I had a friend.

And Kellie is an amazing friend. She threw me a welcome party/bridal shower so I could meet the girls in the ward/apartment complex and bought me a mixing bowl so I could actually feed my husband (our furniture and things wouldn't be there for a month). I still have that bowl, and it makes me smile every time I see it.

Here's the best part: she taught me how to cook. I know lots of good cooks, but Kellie is amazing. Every week we would get together and make one of her recipes. She introduced me to the garlic press, good Parmesan cheese, and homemade cheesecake. Jon will be eternally grateful for her tutelage.

In exchange for cooking lessons, Jon & I would watch their daughter Audrey so they could go out. We adored Audrey. She was our practice child, and she was hilarious. Our apartment was always a total disaster after she left, but we had a great time. I was secretly proud that I was one of the few people Audrey would go to besides her parents. Of course, she really liked Jon better. If I ever came over to visit without him, the first thing out of her mouth would be, "Jon?"

Jon & Scott were carpool buddies, Calvin and Hobbes connoisseurs, and collaborators on projects ranging from Sudoku solvers to laser building. Between the two of them, dinner conversations were always entertaining. They especially enjoyed playing Mario Kart (N64, of course) on our 13 inch television.
We have a lot of great memories with Scott, Kellie, and Audrey. They introduced us to Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes (the most faithful representation I've ever seen), homemade Oreo cookies, and Ticket to Ride (the European version, of course). We loved playing games and eating delicious food with them. It was great to have such awesome friends to mooch off of.In August the boys graduated with their MBA/MSBAs and we went our separate ways. Scott and Kellie headed down South to Huntsville and we headed to Iowa. Four years and two moves later and we're now only two and half hours from each other. Since we were headed up north to see Daniel and Wendy, we were so excited to have an excuse to stop and see Scott and Kellie. (Disclaimer: I took no pictures, and I forgot to ask Kellie. Sorry!)Last time we saw Audrey, she had just turned two years old and we had presented her with a giant orange kickball that she could barely hold over her head. Now she's almost six. I was expecting the same shy little girl we left. Instead, it took me a full hour to get used to a tall, talkative, intelligent girl who has clearly inherited her mom's hostess skills. Not only that, but she now has a little brother, Ian, who is just a few months younger than Seth.

Kellie fed us an incredible dinner (seriously better than what you'd get in a restaurant) followed by an incredible dessert. I told her she needs to start a recipe blog--I'm still surviving off her recipes from four years ago, but she's clearly moved on to bigger and better things!

We spent the afternoon catching up. Kellie and I refereed the kids in the basement while Scott showed Jon how his laser is coming along. Later we went for a walk along a creek to a park where the kids could play. We laughed at how Seth and Ian manifest their boyness in two different ways: Seth walked the entire way with a car in each hand, while Ian was constantly stopping to grab dirt and rocks.

As it got close to bedtime, we said our goodbyes and headed back home. It's awesome to think that we have our friends so close. We can meet up at the beach or in New York City (should we ever decide to brave the city with Seth). We love it.

Thank again, Scott, Kellie, Audrey and Ian! Hopefully we'll get to see you again soon!

And Kellie, I'm still thinking about that dinner. Amazing.

New York, New York! (part 1)

Last weekend we braved the five and a half hour drive with Seth and headed up to see Daniel (Jon's brother). Seth was amazingly good--not a single minute of whining. Thank heaven for portable DVD players and library books!

Seth had a blast playing with his cousins, Megan and Jocelyn. They played really well together. The only fights were over the toy stroller: Seth thought it was his personal possession (it was the only toy with wheels) and insisted on pushing it around all the time. Whenever Megan or Jocelyn would try to put a baby doll inside, Seth would immediately pitch it out. The difference between boys and girls (which Daniel and Wendy will soon learn: they're expecting a little boy the end of August).

Daniel and Wendy were great hosts. Friday they took us to a 'nearby' lake (45 minute drive) with a beach and playground for the kids. We had a great time. I had to snap this picture of Seth while we were eating lunch. I guess the leaf-phobia is abating...(please, please, please!)

After we ate, Jocelyn headed straight for the water while Megan and Seth were content to play in the sand.Eventually we got all three cousins in the water, splashing and having a great time.
Wendy and her girls

Saturday we divided up into Boy's Time and Girl's Time. Jon and Daniel went golfing in the morning (WAY too early for a Saturday), then Wendy and I went to her baby shower in the afternoon. We got back just in time to watch the US lose to Ghana in the World Cup. Boo!

Sunday we were apostate and skipped church because we had a long drive ahead of us. We headed back to Maryland, with a much-anticipated stop on the way...

Thanks again, Daniel and Wendy! We'd love to return the favor!

The Race...sigh...

God has a sense of humor.

I spent 6 weeks training for this 5K. I was determined to do awesomely. My goal was to place, but if that was out of the question, I at least wanted to say I ran the entire 3.1 miles.

I didn't do either. But I'm okay with it.

It was 89 degrees and humid the day of the race. I might have grown up in Arizona, but heat and I have been enemies since I was a newborn (ask my mom about the BYU football game she took me to as a baby). In 70 degree weather I can run a 5K without even getting winded. At 89 degrees, I can't run without getting dizzy.

I also failed to anticipate one major factor in my competition: who in their right mind wants to run a 5K with a jogging stroller? That's right. Only moms who probably run a 7 or 8 minute mile without their strollers. When I saw the other three women with strollers, I knew there was no way I was going to place. But that's okay. It was for a good cause, and I had fun chatting with my friends (after the race--during the race I only had enough breath to pant out 'Hey' as I passed by).

I don't have any pictures because Debbie hasn't passed them off to me yet. But I'm determined to do better next year. And Seth and I will continue to run 2-3 miles a couple days a week.

Stupid 89 degree weather...

Picture Album

I'd like to share my Walmart Digital Photo Center photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.

This is for our family: If you want to look and tell me what pictures you want (size, number) I'll get them ordered for you.

They're HERE...

I LOVE Jon's face in this one...

Krystal, we love you.

25 Years of Wisdom, or How We Spent our Birthdays

I think I was 10 years old when I started thinking about my birthdays in longer intervals than 'next year I'll be 11'. I remember laying on my bed and figuring it out:

"In the year 2000, I'll be 15 years old
In 2005, I'll be 20.
And in 2010, I'll be 25!

Dang. 25 is really old."

And that's where it would end. I never kept going past 25.

So it's kind of an uncanny experience to reach the end of my childhood birthday calculations. Next year I'll be...26? That wasn't on my list!

It's not that I think 26 (or 25, for that matter) is old. Not at all. It's just that somehow it's become the boundary when a person goes from 'growing up' to 'grown up.' I'm not sure why this is a little scary for me. For Pete's sake: I'm already married with a kid and a house! How much more grown up can I get? I guess it's just the ending of an era, which is sad and exciting all at once.

Or maybe it's just that my Beehives laughed at me when I didn't know who Ne-Yo or Justin Biber were (or how to pronounce their names). Twenty-five and I'm already out of touch!

We were pretty mellow as far as birthdays go this year. Dinner at P.F. Chang's (tradition) followed by some homemade (by me) cheesecake at Debbie's (she and Nikki were babysitting Seth while we went to dinner). Jon's birthday was when the real fun started: Scott, Mary & Rebekah came to visit for the weekend!

The adorable Miss Rebekah

Not long after they got here, Scott confessed: "We didn't come just to see you guys. We really came so Rebekah could play with Seth."

Still figuring each other out--this was right after they got here

Rebekah observing Seth's tutorial on How to Throw Wood Chips

This girl loves balls. And getting both of them to look at the camera is a joke.

I was a little worried how the Seth-Rebekah dynamic would go, since Seth was rotten the first night (he was tired and Rebekah was in his chair at dinner. Bad combination). But the next day they were playing like best friends. Rebekah loved following Seth around, and Seth loved having someone to squeal with (and someone who didn't steal his toys or try to mother him like his other girlfriends). They really did play amazingly well together.

A cousin duet

It was a nice weekend--just hanging out and relaxing. Of course, we did rope them into coming to our ward Memorial Day Breakfast (I had to be there to help out with the games). But they survived. It was sad to see them go. Seth woke up from his nap and wandered around the house looking for 'Bekah.' Wish you guys lived closer!

How they spent Sunday afternoon--jumping on the bed and squealing like banshees
(which, coincidentally, is Mary's newest vocabulary word, thanks to our game of Cranium)

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes and gifts! We were really spoiled this year. Jon got me (for my birthday/Mother's Day) a bike trailer so I can take Seth on rides. Woo hoo!! I got Jon a bunch of shirts. That's what he wanted: nice shirts and to not have to go with me to shop for them.

My bike trailer (which also doubles as a stroller). I love it!

And our BIG not-actually-birthday-but-happened-to-be-around-the-same-time gift? A king-sized bed! We are SO spoiled! The good news is that if you come visit us now, you can sleep in a queen sized bed on a frame instead of a full-sized mattress (no box spring) on the floor. We're moving up in the world! (Pictures to come once Lenae helps me finish picking out curtains that match the new bedspread).

Finally, thank you to everyone who offered advice on Seth's eating and leaf-phobia. We'll let you know how it works out!

And, for the grandparents (I don't expect anyone who isn't family to sit through this one): Seth and Rebekah having a blast together.

Help, please?

We need help. Our son is almost two, and it shows.

The fear of leaves that was so cute a month or two ago? It's gotten worse. Pieces of parsley in alfredo sauce? 'Yeeves.' Dead worms on the sidewalk. 'Yeeves.' Basically anything Seth doesn't want to eat (beans, potatoes, pasta, you name it)? 'Yeeves.' Today he stood on the sidewalk outside for 20 minutes because there was a single leaf on our steps. I refused to go get him. Eventually he braved the terrifying leaf and made it to the house, but not without many tears.

So here's the question: do I force him to deal with the leaf issue, or does that just traumatize him? Is this something I should just let slide because he'll grow out of it? Anyone else out there with a child who has totally irrational fears? For Pete's sake--at least I was afraid of wolves!

Issue #2: food. Our good little eater has begun a downhill spiral. At dinner tonight he wouldn't eat a single thing. So what do we do? Force him to eat? Keep offering him the food he rejected at every meal? Let him live on olives, Parmesan cheese and bread?

I know it's a phase, but it's a phase that my sisters and I didn't grow out of until college. Jon and family, on the other hand, ate all the good stuff growing up and (generally) liked it. So what do you do with your picky eater?

Any advice would be great. I'm already grilling my mom and trying to get Jon to grill his (it's not working too well). I love that little man, but sometimes he's a stinker!