Yum! and Ewww

I made apple pie yesterday because I had a bunch of apples and I felt like it. It turned out really well. It's a dutch apple pie. Here's a picture:


In unrelated news, I found this on the wall in our bathroom this morning:

We've lived in Arizona for just over a year and this is the first one we've encountered. It was a pretty big one, too. Now, for the next several months, my psyche it going to make me check every wall, corner, cupboard, closet, shelf, and stairway for these science fiction-ish buggers every second of every day.

P.S. Robert was in the shower, so I waited for him to get out so he could take care of it. He hates the things just as much as I do, but I played the "You're the big, strong man" card and it worked. What a guy!

Father's Day

Today I'm getting caught up on my blogging so there are a few posts here. Be sure to scroll down. I don't have any pictures for this first one...Father's Day. Other than going to church, we spent most of the day in pajamas (or for some of us they're "g's") so I didn't take any pictures. We played it pretty low key since the first half of the year we have lots of things to celebrate (Valentine's Day, birthdays, Mother's Day, anniversary, etc.) and it gets hard thinking of presents and having the money for them. So I just got him a tie and made him a little picture collage of the boys and myself for him to keep in his wallet since he doesn't have any pictures of us. For dinner, we had one of his favorites: Stouffer's Lasagna. It's easy for me, which I love on a Sunday. On Saturday I had made him his cake that he requested, a red velvet with raspberry filling and cream cheese icing. We had that on Sunday, too. Robert took a three hour nap, which I had promised I would do everything in my power to let him sleep. It was a good, relaxing day. He's been working a lot of really long hours lately (e.g. 8am to 10pm) so he needed it.

Sunday mornings

Last Sunday, I was racing around trying to get myself and the boys showered, dressed, and ready for church by 8:30. It's usually a bit challenging, but Craig didn't help matters. I got him out of the shower and asked him to go to his room and get his lotion and a diaper, which we keep in the bottom drawer of his dresser. It was taking him quite a while, so I went to check on him and found this:


The little stinker was very busy taking out his drawers, dumping their contents into one big pile, and making a "train" on the floor with the drawers. Notice that everything is out of the drawers, except the two things I asked for...a diaper and his lotion container. I laughed to keep from crying and took a picture to commemorate my victory (remember, he had just gotten out of the shower so he was totally naked still).

Oh, and his church clothes were in the first drawer to be dumped and therefore at the bottom of the pile.

Saguaro Lake

Last week I was telling Robert that we hadn't done much all together as a family in a while. Something fun...an activity. So for Family Home Evening, we went to a lake that's only about 10 miles up the highway called Saguaro Lake. We only went to see it and drive around a little, but it was fun to go for a drive and see some of the scenery around here.

Craig is saying, "C'mon Mom! Mom, c'mon. C'mon. S'go (let's go)."

My boys. :)

We were trying to get a good picture of the rainbow-colored wind-surfer's sail, but we did get a good picture of the lake and hills. For being over 100 degrees, there were quite a few people out boating/fishing/hiking/swimming.

Back when it was my birthday...

...Robert and I went to that dinner theater I told you all about back then. A picture I took that night just arrived in my email this morning. I had tried to send it from his phone that night but I guess it didn't work for some reason. I had forgotten all about it and I have no idea why it took 6 weeks to get here, but here it is, none the less. It's pretty cool so I decided to blog about it anyway. Let me explain the picture first. They (the dinner theater people) told us to arrive at 5:30, so we did. However, the play didn't start until 7:00. It took us about 15 minutes to eat and then we had A LOT of time to kill. So we did what any of you would do after the conversation topics ran out (10 minutes later), we built things using the coffee creamers. This one was my favorite. Even our waiter took a picture with his phone.

It stood for a good half hour, too.

Well, good night all. It's late and I'm tired. I hope I didn't waste your time with this. Next time you go out to eat, see what you can do with coffee creamers and blog about it. I dare you. Actually, it would make me feel validated if someone actually did. :)

Shake, shake

This morning as I got out of the shower, Craig stood in the doorway and said, "Shake, shake." I wasn't sure what he was talking about until he interrupted my drying off routine by patting my behind and repeating, "shake shake." Thanks Craig. Your honesty leaves me speechless.

Here are a few more of the pictures I've been taking over the last month. I LOVE this one of Ethan. I was trying to take a picture of him but he kept crawling all over trying to get the camera. I love the pure interest in his eyes.

Craig has really taken to water of all kinds. Some days I can put him in our bath tub, give him some toys and the shower head, and he'll be occupied for close to an hour. The water will get cold, but he doesn't seem to mind. It doesn't always work, but when it does I get a lot of homework done. This picture is of him playing in the bath and it also showcases another of Ethan's new skills: pulling up to standing. He's started to try to stand without support and he's "cruised" a little, too. I just can't believe it. His babyhood is flying by. Craig seemed to go a lot slower, and that was fine by me.

Here are two of Craig's self portraits that I found on the camera when I went to download these pictures. I also found several lens-cap-still-on pictures and about a hundred of the wall and ceiling.

This one actually has some really good contrast to it. If only it were a more interesting subject.

I guess if this is what my "shake shake" has produced, then I'm not complaining. I think I've got two of the best boys out there and I would never trade my former body for them. Most days, that is. :)

Just a quick one

I am still resetting my routine and doing the finishing touches on our new place, but I felt obligated to do a quick post since it's been so long. I feel like it takes me longer than normal to get back into the swing of things after moving. There have been a lot of things going on with us, so I have a lot I want to share with you all. For now, though, I've chosen just a couple. First of all, the week we were moving, Ethan started the army crawl thing and then within the next week and a half, he officially started crawling. So here he is:

I find him all over the place now. He loves it and so does Craig. Craig and I play this chase game called "Har har" (wink wink Laura) where I crawl after him and he runs away and screams. It's not complicated...it just has a funny name. Now Craig pretends like Ethan is chasing him. Craig runs back and forth screaming. Ethan follows him everywhere anyway, so he's playing along and doesn't even know it. When Ethan's asleep, Craig with pester me saying, "Where's Ethan? Har har?" I did find Ethan this morning on the bottom landing of the stairway--he had climbed four steps! I didn't even know he could do that. Here we go again. Didn't we just pass this phase? Ethan is just as smiley and sweet as ever.

Craig has made the transition to a big boy bed. He's done great and doesn't even realize he can get out of bed without me telling him it's time to get up. Here he is:

His crib was getting really wobbly--one too many moves I guess. Plus he's over 35 lbs. and he's about 36 inches tall. He's a big boy. And a cute boy. :)

On our downstairs patio we have this arbor:

One day I found this in it:

It's a nest with three baby birds in it. You can kind of see them here, but I didn't want to get any closer--they were kind freaking out already. I just thought it was really cool. They still use it a lot, even though we moved in. We don't use the front door very often so I guess they've decided to stay.