I'm back!

I'm here, but still unpacking and cleaning the old place, and doing homework, and being Mommy, and...

I'll get back to you all later.

Till We Meet Again

I am officially signing of/unplugging until we get to the new place. See you on the other side.

Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

Some new stuff

Things going on with us:
*We're moving! This has been planned for a month now and we'd been thinking about for a while before that, but I just realized that I never talked about on the blog. We're packing up the truck Monday night and unpacking at the new place on Tuesday. We're moving to a town called Fountain Hills, just about 20 minutes away from here. We'll be A LOT closer to Robert's work and we found an awesome three-bedroom place with tons of square feet and storage. Some interesting things about this move so far:
- I've already packed everything but the kitchen!
- I went dumpster diving for boxes yesterday
- I found a dead cat in a box while dumpster diving
- I've done my "spring cleaning"...and that feels good
- I can't believe we've been here a year already

*Speaking of things I can't believe: Ethan's mobile! He'll be nine months old at the end of May. Wow. Just this week he started the "army crawl" and gets around pretty well that way. Pretty soon he'll be off his belly for good. He does get up on his knees sometimes. He's starting to try and find me if he knows I'm just in the next room. I'll hear him fuss and find him halfway down the hall. Here are some pictures of "Scooter" (as I've been calling him this week) since I don't feel like I post enough pictures of him.


*We're also all recovering from something similar to what being hit by a train feels like (from what I hear). Craig started with a 104 degree fever two Sundays ago. He had an ear infection. A cough developed by Tuesday and he spread that to Ethan and I. Robert never had recovered properly from a sinus infection and with Craig's virus, he was hit pretty hard and had to take a day off of work. I took Craig and Ethan in for a check up a week ago and Ethan had an ear infection, too. Craig was diagnosed with bronchiolitis and put on breathing treatments. Here he is, poor little guy.

He was really good about it. What a trooper. I still have a lingering cough and Ethan is still on his antibiotic until Sunday, but all-in-all we're much better.

*So, I've been thinking about doing something for a while now. It's a pretty big expense, but I've really wanted them for months and Robert finally gave me the go-ahead. Now that they're installed, he's pretty happy about them, too. He calls them "The Twins." They're the nice, big kind. Anyway, here they are!

Ta da! Do you like them? I can fit our king-size comforter in them! I am SO excited!

(What? What did you think I was talking about?)

Happy Mother's Day...to all you "momsters" out there

If you'd like to join the "I Look Like a Scary Monster From a Child's Perspective" club, then buy your two-year-old a disposable camera and let him take all the pictures.

"Fe-fi-fo-fum!"

The following was passed to all the mothers today at church. I thought it was so cute.

Why God Made Moms
Answers given by 2nd graders:

Why did God make mothers?
1. She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.
What ingredients are mothers made of?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world...and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.
Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?
1. We're related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's mom like me.
What kind of a little girl was your mom?
1. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
2. They say she used to be nice.
What did mom need to know about dad before marrying him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?
What does your mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don't do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.
What would it take to make your mother perfect?
1. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.
If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
2. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

This last picture I thought was funny, so I threw it in. Another picture from Craig's portfolio. He calls it "The Grandson-Eating Grandmother."

"Mmmmm"

Our birthday weekend and some Nunsense

Last week my parents came to visit for Craig's and my birthday. They showed up on Wednesday and left on Sunday. We had a lot of fun and had been anticipating their arrival for months! On Thursday we took them out to Fountain Hills to show them our new place (we're moving out there the week after next, but that's another post) and then went to visit Robert at work. We had a very nice dinner at the golf course to round out the day.

Friday was our birthday! We went to Bass Pro Shop in the morning where they sell one of my favorite brands of clothes, Columbia. The guys got to walk around and look at guy stuff, while my mom and I shopped for my birthday present from her: a pair of capris and a matching shirt. :) Then we had lunch, cake, and presents. Robert got me a new candle/wall hanging thing for our new place. I can't wait to hang it up!

We got Craig a bike/tricycle (which he loves but I forgot to get a picture of) and a little disposable camera. Once he figured out how to take pictures, he loved. I am going to pick up the pictures today, so I will post my favorite of the Craig pictures later.

Here's Craig with the bowling set my parents gave him. They also got him a cute new outfit. He also got a little beanie baby penguin from his great-aunt Nancie (Happy Feet is one of his favorite movies--he calls it "Pendin").

Our neighbor, Kristian, has 7-year-old son named Cody who Craig loves playing with. He'll see him across the chapel at church and yell, "Cody!" before I can stop him. Cody has a Tonka truck he sits on and rides down the hill in front of our houses, so they got one for Craig, too! Here they are riding down the hill together in their trucks.

Way back in September, my mom and Robert went in together to buy me tickets to a dinner theater just down the road to celebrate Ethan being born. When I looked at their plays this season, the one that Robert and I both wanted to see what called:

It happened to be playing through April, so I scheduled it on my birthday! So on Friday night my parents babysat and we went to have dinner and see the play. It was hilarious! We had a lot of fun and I want to make going to a play a tradition for my birthday every year. This was one of my favorite birthdays so far!

Saturday was our last day together so we decided to go to an airplane museum not far from our house. Robert and I have been wanting to go and my dad loves airplanes, so we went. It's called Falcon Field. They had an old WWII airplane we got to walk/crouch/shimmy through.
Here I am coming out with Craig. He was kind of scared of it, but he managed.

They also had this cute little airplane for kids to sit in. I had a hard time getting Craig out of it.

He was actually pretty cranky all that day and we kept thinking he turned 2 and decided he was going to be as "terrible" as possible. However, when he woke up with a fever of 104 on Sunday and I took him to Urgent Care, we discovered the poor kid was suffering from an ear infection. :( Probably felt crummy for a couple of days and we had no idea.

Craig passed his cold on to the rest of us, including my parents, and we're still recuperating, but all in all we had a great time and a great birthday! I'm looking forward to see what the year of my 20's has in store for me.

Oh, and here's the obligatory picture of our sweet, calm, quiet little Ethan:

I forgot to mention that Robert also brought me flowers (roses and mini cala lilies which are my favorite) and on Friday my brother had some delivered to me! It was my first time getting flowers delivered, and they are beautiful--thanks Scott!

Shhhhh!

The other day I was playing with Craig and Ethan and mentioned to Craig that he had 5 minutes before I was going to put the two of them down for naps. I thought he was ignoring me until I looked over at him as he was crouched over what looked like just a balled up shirt on the floor. He looked up at me, put his finger to his lips and went, "Shhhhh." This is what I found:


He's such cute boy! I was also surprised that he was listening to me!