I'm tired of seeing that icky scorpion at the top of my home page

A self portrait ala Craig

I love the toothless smiles. :)

I really don't have anything new to post, but I can't stand seeing that picture of our "intruder" anymore. So, here are some pictures, just so you don't get bored. And a story, to hopefully make this post seem worthwhile.

This morning at about 3:40, Ethan woke up to be fed. I don't like going in much before 4:00 (otherwise he wakes up for the day too early and it throws off his nap times) so I laid in bed and let him fuss a little before I went in. The power went off around 3:50, so I got up and fed him anyway, checking the neighbors' lights out the window on my way. Their power was still on . Hmmm, maybe we had a blown fuse. I woke Robert up and he went out and checked the fuse, but those seemed fine. I called the power company and apparently we are on a different grid than our neighbors and they were working on something down the road. It would be back on by 6:00, they said. My air conditioning concerns were alleviated (it's about 85-90 degrees at night) but then I realized a much greater problem: the humidifiers. Both Craig and Ethan have humidifiers in their rooms for several reasons: humidfying (it's just healthy, they say), a little bit of a night light if I have to go in and check on them, and white noise. Their rooms are really close but with the humidifier on, you really can't hear a thing in the other room. It's a life saver during Ethan's naps when Craig is playing with all his most obnoxious toys in his room, but their dependence on them was the bane of my existence last night (or this morning, rather). Craig woke up around 4:30 and when he realized there was no faint orange glow and no constant humming, he freaked. Craig was determined to not go back to sleep. Did I mention that last night was the once-a-year-time I went to bed at midnight? I soon realized I would have to get up with Craig. He was waking Ethan up since Ethan had no white noise to drown him out. At this point, I had a total of three and a half hours of sleep. I let Robert sleep until 9:00, and then we switched. I slept and he babysat. I'm exhausted now and don't know why I'm writing this at 11:00pm! I'm going to bed.

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.

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!

Continued from the end of my last post...

Here's the very last line of my last post:

"I really hope I'm done with messes until at least tomorrow. Let's just hope no one gets sick. (Did I just jinx myself?)"

That answer would be: yes. Craig got some virus that caused a lot of really (I mean REALLY) icky diapers and one throwing up incident. I have been spot cleaning my carpet and couches every couple of hours for the last few days. Once this is over...and I think it might be...we are steam cleaning everything.

I am NOT going to say, "I hope Ethan doesn't get it." (Wait, did I just say that?)

A Day of Messes

I realized this morning that it has been a week since my last post and I usually try to put something up once a week at least (for now). I began racking my brain, but nothing came to me. And then Craig provided the answer. He created the most recent of three icky messes I've had to clean up in the last 24 hours, each one coming from one of the three males in my life, although Craig's was the least icky. To spare you from too much graphic detail, I've used pictures from Google to represent each event, rather than the actual thing (not that I took pictures of these things).

Mess #1
Date: April 21, 2010
Time: Lunchtime
Culprit: Ethan

Just as I put Craig in his highchair to eat lunch and then carried mine into the living room where Ethan was happily wiggling and bouncing in his "exersaucer"-thing, I smelled a suspicious smell. I noticed that Ethan wasn't just bouncing in his seat, but his feet were slipping on the bottom of his toy in a fun-for-him yet odd way. As I got closer, I realized the smell and the slippery stuff were related. He had blown out his diaper and it had dripped down his leg, providing hours of fun for him, but hours (okay, one hour) of clean up for me. I set my lunch aside, got the shower started, took Craig out of his highchair, sent him upstairs with his lunch (to keep him from discovering Ethan's handiwork), and carefully carried The Culprit to the shower. Of course, Craig wanted in on the fun and he can always use a cleaning, so after washing Ethan, I had to let Craig in the shower. Once everyone was lotioned, diapered, dressed, fed, and down for naps, I commenced the clean-up of the clean-up. After that was done, I finally got to eat my lunch. And the boys rewarded me with them taking some nice long naps. Thanks guys.

Mess #2
Date: April 22, 2010
Time: 3:03am
Culprit: Robert

Robert's been dealing with a sinus infection lately and the doctor prescribed him some nasal spray. He's never taken nasal spray before, so we didn't know how it would affect him. We found out at 3:00 this morning. I was awakened by a voice from the bathroom weakly saying, "Sherry?" I'm not usually the kind to wake up suddenly--it takes me a minute--but this time I sat straight up, knowing something was wrong. Robert was standing there with blood covering the lower part of his face and his shoulder. His nose had started bleeding about 10 minutes earlier and he had just woken up. I helped him get his shirt off and got him an ice pack while he tried to stop the bleeding. Then I had to take on the job of remaking the bed. He had been using two pillows and they both had to be thrown away. I felt so bad for him, but I must admit that this was ickier to me than Ethan's mess. I gagged a couple of times. By 3:45, we were ready to get back in bed. And no more nasal spray for him.

Mess #3
Date: April 22, 2010
Time: 9:00am
Culprit: Craig

I put Ethan down for his morning nap, got myself ready for the day, and then came downstairs. Craig had been quietly playing and watching The Backyardigans the whole time. And then I saw why he had been so quiet. He had gotten a hold of an unopened pump bottle of Dial hand soap. He's never been able to get one open before, but he managed this time. When he saw me, he excitedly said, "Yay! Did it!" There were two large yellowish spots on the carpet, one on either side of him, a couple squirts of soap on the couch, and he himself was covered in the thick slime. This was the least of the messes, and a relatively "clean" one, if you know what I mean. But it was still a pain. How do you clean up soap? Water only adds to the problem. I guess lots of water. I'm still working on it. I scrubbed the carpet with a damp towel until the yellow turned white, wiped up what I could, and then set a dry towel on top. I may have to repeat the process later.

I really hope I'm done with messed until at least tomorrow. Let's just hope no one gets sick. (Did I just jinx myself?)

Desert Botanical Gardens

Yesterday I went with Craig and Ethan to meet Josephine and her two youngest boys at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. You wouldn't think there would be much for four little boys ages three and under to do in a place like this, but they loved it. I think there's just something about the great outdoors, blooming flowers, and sunshine that we can't help but love. Heavenly Father's creations surrounding us and filling our souls seem to breed joy and peace. There are truly many beauties around us, even in the desert. :) Ethan, who didn't get out of his car seat much, was so pleasant and quiet and seemed to be enjoying himself, too. Here are some of my favorite pictures.

The saguaro (sa-wah-ro) cactus is only found here in Arizona and the Sonoran Desert of Mexico. A few stray plants can be sound in Southern California, near the border. As you can see, they can grow very tall, between 40-60 feet high. They also live between 150 to 200 years. These are the kind that can grow the arms that you see in Wiley Coyote and Yosemite Sam cartoons. These are not endangered, but thy are protected plants here in Arizona. The saguaro blossom is the state flower. These are the tallest I've ever seen. That's Craig and Josephine's son Benjamin running down the path between them--you can use them as a height reference.

These are called Chocolate Flowers, so I had to include them. They have a very nice, chocolatey smell to them. I wouldn't mind having a bunch of them sitting on my kitchen table.

We saw several lizards. This one is pretty well camouflaged, so I hope you can make him out. He's missing part of his tail and looks like it's just starting to grow back with a stubby little spike on the tip.

Me and my cute boys.

In the spring they have a butterfly exhibit. You go into this greenhouse/covered type thing full of plants and hundreds of butterflies. They land on people and you can go right up to them. You aren't allowed to touch them, of course, but they wouldn't fly away if you tried. They say it's because they're still getting warmed up. There were about 10 different varieties. Craig and Ethan both loved this place.

I had to include this picture that Josephine took. What a cutie.

This is a sundial. A good photo opp.

Enjoying the sun.

The boys found a fountain to play in. Craig was practically crawling in it and got soaked all down his front. I had to carry him away from it, literally kicking and screaming. (We've officially arrived at that development conundrum: The Terrible/Terrific Twos. :))

Next, I think we're going house hunting in Fountain Hills tomorrow! Then hopefully we can make it the Phoenix Zoo again before the weather warms up too much. We are loving Mesa! Anyone considering moving here? Come on down!

Eeyore and Piglet

I made this Eeyore for Craig before he was born, when I had all kinds of time to "nest" and wait for the baby. If I had known what his little personality was going to turn out to be, I would have made Tigger instead. :) Like most mothers of boys, I've learned that there's a reason they call them "bouncing baby boys." For Ethan, though, my pregnancy flew by with Craig being so young still, moving, and all the job drama. I never even thought about making a Pooh character for him until Robert said something a several months ago. We decided that if/when I did make one, Piglet would be the best one for Ethan--so sweet, mellow, and is perfectly content to let Tigger/Craig do all the entertaining. I finally got around to starting Piglet a little over a month ago, got frustrated for a while and put him away, got him back out to work on during conference this weekend, and finally finished him last night. Now Eeyore has a buddy and isn't lonely.

"Thanks for noticing," says Eeyore.
"Sh-sh-sh-sure," says Piglet.

Our Easter

This picture is from yesterday morning, not Sunday. Robert had to leave for work before the boys woke up Sunday morning since Easter is a big holiday at the golf course. The old people...I mean members are still here until they migrate north next month, so this is sort of their last hurrah here until Fall. We saved the Easter baskets until Monday morning because he was off. The best thing about it? I got pretty much everything except the football and the blocks (on the far left) from the dollar store. I love the dollar store. Ethan was just there for the ride, but Craig had a blast taking everything out of the baskets. He ate almost his entire chocolate bunny, too, before 8:00am. The blocks and the football were wrapped and I think my favorite part of the morning was when he unwrapped the football. He was there when I bought it last week so that day he played with it (I think it was Monday), but that night I hid it when he went to bed. He had forgotten all about until yesterday. I thought he'd know what it was right away just by the shape of the wrapping paper, but he ignored it until Robert told him to unwrap it. Once he got the first piece off and saw what was inside, he started ripping the paper off and yelling, "Ball! Ball!" It was so cute--I wish I had the video camera on. That and the recorder, I think, are his two favorite things. Ethan is just happy to watch Craig enjoy everything, grabbing a nearby toy now and then and chewing on it.

We didn't do an egg hunt this year--I think I'll wait until next year to get into all that. We did go to the ward Easter Egg Hunt Friday night and Craig had a lot of fun. He found quite a few eggs. There's a family in the ward with a couple of young kids who we spent Thanksgiving with. They don't have any family that's local, either. We talked about getting together for Easter so they came over anyway, even though Robert was working. It was fun--Craig had some friends to play with and we weren't alone on Easter. Plus I had a turkey I've been wanting to cook up and get it out of the freezer, so it worked out perfectly. Now we have leftovers!