Something New

Today we did something that we haven't done yet as a family of four. We went to a restaurant! John has gone with the kids, I have gone with the kids, John and I have gone, but we've never gone as a group of four. I guess we just haven't because usually if we have money to go to dinner, John and I just go, and John and I almost never go. Another contributing factor to our lack of family dining out might also be that eating out with 2 little kids just doesn't sound all that appealing. Who wants a dinner out with kids when you can have a dinner out with out kids?

But today I was downtown with the kids at the discovery center (which was a ton of fun but I didn't get any pictures because I was with people that I didn't know very well and would have felt a little stupid) and we decided that we would take the opportunity to go to lunch with dad and visit his office. It was fun to get to do family stuff during the day, and the kids were even good at the restaurant (well, they were really good once the food came).

Wip Wop Bipin Before

Ains came into my room singing this song this morning. Do you recognize it?



Or do you need a little hint?? Pay attention to the chorus!
(click on launch stand alone player and it should work)

What's funny is that we haven't listened to this song in a long time. There was a time when I would listen to it over and over because I'm lame and that's what I do when I like a song. But that was months ago, and I guess this morning it just struck a chord with her!

Too much TV

I don't usually watch that much TV. It seems like the TV watching in this house goes in cycles. Lately we go most days without turning on the TV at all (days, not nights, that would be crazy!). But yesterday I had a moment of boredom and got sucked into TV mode for the rest of the night. First I got sucked into the Oprah show. What was particularly sad about this is that it was just a recap of her favorite things show but I still somehow got addicted.
After a bit of meaningless TV we watched Charlie Brown Christmas. I really like that show (especially the dancing scene, I've never seen any crazier dancing in all my life) but we couldn't just stop at the actual Christmas show. We also had to watch the next 30 minutes of newly made Charlie Brown snippets that just don't compare to the original.
I then got sucked into the biggest loser. To be honest, this happens a little too often. I just really like seeing the before and after pictures of the person that gets voted off.
After Biggest Loser I felt I "needed" to watch the finale of Dancing with the stars. Even though I don't really follow the show, and I don't really care who wins.

So I watched TV last night from about 4:00 to 10:00. I wish I would have done something a little more productive. Watching that much TV made me pass the point of enjoying just being able to sit and be entertained and got me to the point where I just wanted to turn it off because I had a headache from watching so much.

Good Job John!

The days events were as follows...

Wake up to a crying Owen an hour before he is due to wake up.
John is nice and checks on him for me in an attempt to give me a chance to shower.
Owen does sleep, I have time to get dressed and I actually got a little bit of scripture reading in before I hear crying again.
Ainsley wakes up and seems to be in a super good mood.
Super good mood doesn't last so long and there is soon a fight over the specially requested "stove oatmeal" that she is refusing to eat.
Drop girls off at preschool.
Do grocery shopping.
Owen goes down for a nap.
Sweep the floor.
Owen gets woken up from a nap in order to pick up girls from preschool.
Arrive at home and chaos begins.
More crying over lunch about oranges.
Sweep the floor.
Try to finish advent calendar.
Ains gets trapped under a cushion and more crying.
Owen gets in trouble for climbing on the table...more crying.
Snack time....for some reason more crying.
Sweep AND mop the floor.
Do the laundry.
Iron shirts.
Tell Ains to get off the computer...more crying.
Owen decides he's hungry...more crying.
Feed Owen dinner early.
Family eats dinner while Owen cries and throws bits of his roll at us (he got one in my glass).
Owen gets sick of throwing bread...more crying.
John volunteers to stick kids in bath which will guarantee what will seem like and eternity of "cry free" time!
Do dishes and sweep the floor. (Am I the only one that has to sweep after every meal or snack???)

Seriously, John is great about taking the kids at the end of a "cry" day. What a great dad!

And on to Christmas!

Not to totally put down Thanksgiving...I know I have a lot to be grateful for...but this year I just wasn't into it. I didn't really even feel like a big turkey dinner. Yet, I still ate my fair share of the big turkey dinner. But I have been on the Christmas bandwagon for a few weeks now. Christmas music has been playing in the car, and now that Thanksgiving is over John can't complain about it! On Saturday we got our house completely decorated for Christmas! The tree is up (our tree is a beast to get up because it has several broken branches and is not pre-lit, so this took the majority of our time), the lights are on the house (with our minuscule amount of lights this takes all of 10 minutes), stockings are hung, and Ainsley is now confused as to why we have to wait so long for Santa. I love the whole Christmas season and this year I will really enjoy it because I'm almost done with my shopping too. I just have a few odds and ends to pick up! Yes, Thanksgiving is over, and thus, Christmas has begun!

The only pictures we took were of the decorating of the tree, so enjoy!
(Ainsley is very good at grouping ornaments, it's fun to see how the tree changes slightly every day as ornaments on the bottom few feet of the tree are constantly rearranged.)
I just threw this last picture in because I know lots of you are dying to see my hair, which has lightened a considerable amount now and so I feel comfortable posting a picture of me even though I'm not doing anything in particular in this picture.

Check Up

Owen had his 15 month check up yesterday ( I couldn't find a recent picture that I hadn't put on already so I just put this one on from a few months ago). He is a healthy average boy! Mostly. As far as size goes he is in the 50th percentile on all of his measurements except for his head. His head measurement is still off the charts. His poor little body just can't catch up to that noggin of his! He threw a tantrum in the doctors office so he is right on track as far as behavior is concerned. There were just 2 slight areas of concern (that I'm not really worried about for some reason).

First of all they did a blood test and it showed that he was anemic. They were surprised by this because he looked so healthy and didn't show any of the typical signs for a child with anemia. So they tested again and got the same result. We just have to put him on a multi-vitamin with iron and retest in a month. I just hope the multi-vitamin takes care of it. The other area of concern is his speech. I shouldn't say concern because I'm not at all worried, nor is the doctor (weird that I just used the word "nor"), but Owen still has yet to say a word. He babbles a lot but he has no consistent sound that he uses for any object. I think if he were closer to 2 I would be worried, but for some reason I'm just not. The doctor told us about a free infant/toddler program we can try to jump start his speech. Apparently they will just test him and do some activities with him and show us some things that we can do with him at home. The only reason the Dr. even suggested this was because she felt that Owen was at the age where he would become frustrated because he is old enough to realize that there are words, and he has none. She said this might end up causing John and I more frustration than him, just in dealing with a frustrated toddler, and that if this program could give him a little boost it might be worth our time. So I guess we'll give them a call and see what happens. So in conclusion, fun visit to the Dr., we just came away with homework!

Snow Day!

This morning we woke up to snow! Contrary to popular belief, we don't get that much snow here, and what snow we do get usually melts by lunch time (in fact the snow is melting rapidly as I type). So we headed out first thing this morning while the snow lasted. Actually, Ains insisted we go out right after breakfast and I tried to get out of it because I had wet hair, but she won. So after 15 minutes of getting ready to play in the snow, we went and played in the snow for all of 15 minutes. Owen didn't last that long. I think he was a little frustrated because the snow was so wet that he was lugging around tons of snow packed on his shoes, and he couldn't get around very well. Ains had a great time though. She spent her time throwing snow balls, and she got pretty good. Despite the fact that she was only able to make snow balls that were about the size of a bouncy ball, she actually hit me a few times (I was sure to get her a few times too)!

It's here...

...partially. And I love it. There will be six chairs but we were missing some pieces for one of the chairs, and John didn't have time to assemble the other two last night. But we finally have a table that will fit our plates and our food! This picture is with the leaf in, John is currently wanting leaf in all the time, and I'd rather have it out since the table is big enough for us without the leaf. Ah, if only we had an enormous dining room, then there would be no battle! So there you have it, our first piece of new (not Walmart quality) furniture in our home!

Going, Going, Gone!

I listed my table on craigslist last night and now, less that 24 hours later, it is out of my kitchen for no less than the asking price! Our new table to be here Monday or Tuesday. Yes, we bought a table on Saturday! I'm super excited. It was reasonably priced, (I've exhausted my efforts of trying to find a used one that would work) I really like it, it is the first piece of new furniture we have bought that isn't scratch and dent, and it will be here shortly. More pictures to follow!

My Bad

Today I caused Owen great pain. As if he wasn't already miserable enough due to the cold he has had all week I had to go and make it worse. I was getting ready for church and Owen decided to join me in the bathroom where he pulled my flat iron cord and then tried to pick up the flat iron and burned 2 of his fingers. He has big blisters (you can't really see them in the picture) and I could tell he was in pain for quite a while. Needless to say, I'm not at church. This all happened about 45 minutes before we needed to leave and Owen didn't stop crying until about 2 hours later.

It's funny the things you come up with to get a one year old happy. First we took him outside which made him forget about his fingers but then any time he touched anything he would start crying again. Then, for a short time carrying around a baggie filled with popcorn seemed to soothe the pain sporadically. After 2 hours of almost constant crying I put him in his high chair and gave him a sucker. Though the sucker wasn't enough to stop the crying, the whole bag of leftover Halloween candy was....so he got it. He sat and played/ate the candy for a long time and was finally calmed down enough to remain happy for more than 30 seconds. In fact he hasn't cried because of his fingers since the candy. Maybe sugar is the solution to all problems.

A day home

Lately we have been doing a lot of shopping due to the approaching holidays. The kids have been a little under the weather and so I decided that we would spend a day at home (except for dance). I guess the kids had to work a little harder to find things to do that weren't boring since we were here for so long, because they explored new depths of the house today. I was a little startled when Owen came out of Ainsley's room with a binky! We haven't used binkies in a while now so I was surprised, then I was completely baffled when I realized that it was one of Owen's newborn binkies. How long has that thing been hiding in some random corner I wonder? The nice thing was that he didn't suck on it. He just thought it was something to chew and got bored with it after a minute or two.
Ainsley resorted to playing in her closet under all her clothes after I made her clean up her project. I wish I would have gotten a picture of that. When Ains does a project it involves pencils, glue stick, and scissors. Nothing is really made. Paper is just cut and re-cut, occasionally glued, and every so often there is some sort of writing. The result is a MASSIVE quantity of teeny tiny papers COVERING the floor. The cleanup after a project is always fun!
Owen also decided to do a project of his own today. It involved a crayon and my couch. Due to the fact that my couch is canvas, and canvas is the least kid friendly fabric out there, I didn't dare scrub the crayon out because it would have left a huge bleach stain. So I removed the covers and attempted washing them in the washer. They are already reaching the point where they will need replaced so I hope I didn't ruin them. Actually, I guess ruining them would mean I might get new couches, so that might not be a bad thing. I guess we'll see!

Owen the Comedian

This is just a funny video we took of Owen a little while ago that I just discovered. As a little preface, Owen thought it was hilarious when, over the summer, I picked up a magazine to swat a fly that had gotten in the house. We always know that he will bust up laughing whenever we hit a magazine against the wall, and occasionally he'll join in the hitting and think he is super funny. I especially love the look he gives the camera at the end!

In Need

John claims that I use the term "need" lightly, but in this case I feel that our family has reached the point where we NEED a new kitchen table. I am a firm believer in having dinner on a set table where the food is brought to the family, not the other way around. I grew up having to set the table properly for every meal (even if we were just setting paper plates, cups, and napkins for take out pizza). I guess it grew on me because I hate having to stand up if someone needs something during dinner. Maybe I'm weird, but I remember a woman making a comment once in RS about the dinner table being a place where the family should gather for quality time. It was important for her to take time to set the table and have things prepared as she gathered her family in the evening. I guess I just feel like it's hard to have an enjoyable dinner if everyone is hopping up every minute or two because something is needed. So even though I don't make us set the table for take out...I try to make dinner time as nice and organized as possible when it comes time to actually sit down and eat (even if my family isn't interested in being cooperative).

Lately our dinners have been crazy just because we don't have room for plates AND food. Our table comfortably sits 2 if you want to have your food on the table, we can squeeze 3 on there, but now that Owen requires a plate we are all out of room. Don't let the 4 chairs sitting around the table fool you, this table is not meant for 4 people!

I have been looking for a table for quite a while and have had no luck whatsoever. A lot of the problem is our dining room. It is very small, and to find a table that fits there nicely and will also hold a growing family has proven tricky. I have decided that the table has to be either 48" round with a pedestal leg and leaves, or it has to be one of the tables that is a 54" long rectangle and extends out to a square. I have been searching second hand shops, craigslist, and consignment shops hoping to find one I could refinish. Although I have had a couple of good leads nothing has panned out. Also, it's amazing what people think their second had tables are worth. When I started looking second hand I thought I was looking at good deals when a table was nice and $350-$400, then I happened into RC Willey one day and found a square table (that I wouldn't have to put time and money into to refinish) for less than $600. I'd rather spend the extra $150 and get a table that is new and doesn't require hours of sanding. So the hunt continues. Hopefully I'll find something before too long because I'm tired of my squishy table and I can't wait for something bigger!

Pay It Forward

Okay...I agreed to do this pay it forward thing so here it goes.

"......Here's the Pay It Forward Idea:I will send a handmade gift to the first three (3) people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. You may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog. (so, you must have a blog to participate.) I can't wait to see who I will be giving to. To join, just cut and paste this on your blog and comment away. So get posting......."

I guess I was being a little greedy and decided I really wanted something handmade from someone else, and not thinking things through thoroughly, now I have to come up with 3 things to make for someone else. But I think it's a really cute idea, and even though I can't guarantee that the thing I will make for you will be grand or amazing, I will send you something! So, who wants it?!?

Our Turn

Me: Ains we need to get ready to go. It's our family's turn to clean the church today.

Ains:With Heavenly Father?

(Still not sure how she got the idea in her head that we would be meeting up with Heavenly Father at our building to get some cleaning done.)

Advent Calendar

I have wanted to make an advent calendar for several years, I just lacked the motivation. I had planned to make one with John's mom when we lived in Salt Lake, but I guess since I didn't have kids that were old enough to use it at the time I put it off. Well, last year my sister decided that she wanted to make one, and so she dragged me along with her, and now a year later I finally have it done. We didn't have a pattern so we just traced and measured my mom's old nativity that we used when we were little. I must admit I always like this one because of the tree and the manger scene. I was disappointed to find out that My mom hadn't made our calendar though. All these years I had envisioned my mom at some homemaking night putting together our calendar, come to find out, my Aunt Peggy had made it for my mom and her sisters one year for Christmas. My mom was such a slacker!

Anyways, Kort was determined to get us going and bought most of the stuff, all I had to do was the work of getting it all together. Last night I finally finished. I must admit it's a little ghetto, but it fits my skill level perfectly. I did do the sewing, notice the fine detail work (by fine detail work I mean semi-straight lines). I was too lazy to sew the numbers on so they are just glued on (they'll probably have to be sewn on eventually if I want this thing to last forever). And the manger scene people are stuck on with self adhesive Velcro (again, something that will have to be sewn later if I want it to last). But for now my calendar is done and in working mode for the holidays. My, I'm such a crafty person!

(By the way, just moments after the first picture was taken Owen managed to grab off one of the numbers, but I'm blaming that on not completely dried glue. Also, due to my severe lack of any sort of counting abilities I noticed last night as I was filling the pockets that I had an empty one, after all my counting and figuring I'm still one short...good thing I have left over ornaments!)

Lesson not learned

On Wednesday I was informed that Ains had been fighting a lot with her friend, B,at school. According to Ainsley B told her she was mean and then Ainsley told B that she wasn't being nice and that she didn't want to play with mean people, and then Danene (her teacher) told them that they couldn't sit by each other any more.

According to Danene Ainsley follows around B a lot, and B likes to play with Sadie. But when Danene suggested that Ainsley played with Hallie, and Ains and Hallie were having fun together, B got very upset. So apparently B wants Ains to tag behind her and not have any other friends. This is so foreign to me because Ains has never seemed to be such a follower before. I talked with B's mom in nice terms and I told her that I told Ains to let B play with who she wanted to play with and that she should be friends other girls too (B was also in trouble at her house for fighting and was having a lecture on being nice to friends). I also told her teacher that I was okay with there being a rule that Ains and B can't sit by each other, in fact I'd prefer it.

So in my opinion I think that Ains is following B a little too closely and annoying B (Ains is very sweet but can be a bit much at times). I think that B isn't a particularly nice little girl and ends up saying hurtful things to Ains when she gets annoyed. I'm baffled as to why Ains is convinced that B is her best friend when I have tried so hard to encourage other friendships. I'm now telling Ains to give B some space and play with Hallie (particularly since Danene told me that these two play really well together) and to not worry about what B is doing.

And now according to Ains she is to play with Hallie and tell B that she doesn't want to play with her...I'm just waiting for that to backfire. How do you explain to t 3 year old that there are some people that just aren't worth being friends with, but that you don't have to be rude along the way?

Look What I Did!

Last night for an enrichment activity we made these handy little boards with vinyl lettering and clips to display Ainsley's school work. I'm excited that I get to have my fridge back...and now I'm totally in to vinyl lettering!

Decisions

I finally decided what to do with the Halloween candy.....I ate it. Well, okay, I ate a majority of it but I still have this much left
And I might have to start using some severe will power to refrain from eating the rest of it. I've eaten most of the good stuff so it shouldn't be that hard, right? I've already gained some poundage from eating so much candy. Maybe I should try to remember that it's the kids candy, not mine!

I think I'm ready to talk about it.....

Although I'm not ready to post pictures. Color has plagued my last few days. I've ruined my hair and I've painted my living room twice. All because I am completely incapable of making good color decisions. Let's start with the hair.

Last week Kort and I went with my mom to the beauty supply store to choose out a new color for our hair. I was wanting to get closer to my natural color. I've been dying my hair forever so I'm not exactly sure what that color is, I just knew that I was sick of having dark roots. There was no color that was pretty so we combined 2 colors. Something I've done before, but this time it backfired. I was going for a nice golden brown and I got a nice witchy black....I'm not exaggerating. It was AWFUL! We immediately tried to pull through some highlights to lighten it up. In our haste however, we didn't think through peroxide levels, and tried to put a light color on a dark color instead of trying to lift a dark color to a lighter color. So, basically, when we were done my hair looked exactly the same...exactly!

The next day my mom went back to the supply store to consult with the specialists. They were baffled as to why my hair went that dark. Their suggestion was a color lifter and then to reapply color. We put on the color lifter and my hair went ORANGE. ORANGE. Seriously....ORANGE. This was expected but still traumatic to see. Then we applied the new color that they picked out for me (still trying to get me to that nice golden brown). So we put dye on my hair once again and when we washed it out my hair was..................black. I couldn't believe it. It was black again. Not quite as dark this time, there is a subtle brown/red undertone, but I have very dark hair. At this point I'm worried that my hair will fall out if I try to dye it again (even though I spent a full 24 hours with a deep conditioner in my hair so my hair is actually feeling nice and soft). So I braved church with my new hair and endured the fake, "You're hair looks great!" comments and I'm waiting until I can pull some highlights through. I'm not ready to post a picture on the Internet, just know that it's not pretty...and I'm stuck with it for a while. I'm wondering how long it will be until I pass by a mirror without being shocked.

All the while my hair was changing colors so was my living room. I was sick of having multi-colored walls and chose out a nice new light brown (I thought it looked like a light colored chocolate milk). John and I stayed up late one night to paint and when we awoke the next morning we saw that we had purple walls. AGAIN! I think I sat on the couch that morning (with my severely black hair) and just stared at the walls for at least an hour wondering how another brown color looked purple on my walls! I went to the paint store (even though I looked like a freak) and was told that to get to that color of a brown there had to be a good deal of red in the paint. The red in the sunlight gives the wall that purple look. Apparently there is no way to get the color I wanted with out it looking purple.

So I chose another taupe color that looks fine, but wasn't what I wanted, and painted my living room again the next day (thanks to Syd and Merrill who came and helped me). So now I have wasted time and money trying to match the color of my kitchen that I LOVE and I have to repaint hallways and eventually my kitchen. I've thrown in the towel...completely given up...I'm done. I'll just count my losses at this point, live without being completely satisfied, and I'll be done with the whole painting mess. (As soon as I repaint my bathrooms!)

Halloween

I have to admit that Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. I never really liked dressing up, I never ate all of my candy, I dreaded it as a teacher, and although we had a lot of fun last night, I'm kind of glad it's over and we can move on to other holidays. So here are the main events from our night. John took Ains and Owen out trick-or-treating while I stayed home to pass out candy...oh wait...you have to actually have kids come to your door to pass out candy and that didn't happen. I ended up leaving candy on our porch for the night with a note that said please take some! So I sat at home until John brought Owen back and then took Ains out for another round. She got a ton of candy for only going to a few houses. I thin we are tucked too far into our neighbor hood to get many trick-or-treaters because as soon as I pulled out of the garage to go and pick up John and Ains I saw a few kids on our street but then when I got to a more main street, just two streets away, there were masses of kids lining the streets (okay, maybe not masses but a lot!)

Then we headed out to go to some of Ainsley's friends houses that are a bit farther away and we discovered that she and her friend Ellie (Galloway) were both Snow White! Don't they look cute. We then ventured over to my parents house to take some pictures and to go to the ever famous "spider house" that Ains has been begging to go trick-or-treating to for months. She talks about this house year round because they have the HUGE spiders that they put crawling up their house, a grave yard in the front yard, smoke machine, lightning, and a witch that sits out on the drive way with a cauldron (and an outdoor heater...smart) giving the kids candy. Ains then got to go to some more houses with her aunt Syd and Merrel, Owen went to a few more houses at his own pace and wowed the crowds. And then we headed home, with and INCREDIBLE amount of candy!
We got home just in time. On the drive home we had a huge melt down and this is how our night ended...
So Halloween is officially over and now I just have to figure out what to do with all the candy that in no way involves me eating all of it in a week! Even the bowl of candy I left on our porch was barely touched. Darn those honest people who only took a few pieces of candy each!