Fun with Kids

This week has mostly been about having fun with my kids and I've really enjoyed it.  It's been so nice to focus on them and not feel so bogged down with housework or projects.  I am still occupied by both, though more on the back burner.  We've gone on lots of walks, played at the park, had our usual fun at the library, and goofy games and wrestling at home.  Tommy likes to wear his hat when we go outside, so he asked to put it on when we went out one day.  Then, being the nut he is, I had trouble getting his shoes and jacket on because he was too busy running around.  Pulling his hat down over his eyes helped slow him down for me to get the rest of him assembled.

It's nice having kids who are friends.  Tommy loves to help take care of his sister with diapers, clothes, pacifiers, blankets, etc.  His newest thing has been to offer to share his cup and snacks with her.  He tried giving her a goldfish in church today, and a piece of popcorn tonight.  He's also looking forward to the day I let him tackle and wrestle with her.  Thursday, he was content to sit in her bed while I got her changed and dressed.  He still loves the bear mobil.

Saturday we consigned several items left by Shad's parents and ran errands.  I made a peach crisp to take to a potluck dinner at church for the young women before the General Young Women's Broadcast.  While I was gone, Shad and Dale, one of the young men, went out frisbee golfing.  It was Tommy's first time and I was told that he had a lot of fun chasing down his frisbee (that Shad threw) and waving it around in the air.

On Our Own

We've had a couple hectic, frazzled weeks and are now happy to just enjoy a laidback, calm week this week.  Two weeks ago was moving week.  Dan and Ryan arrived Wednesday night just as I was getting back from church.  Dan came in his truck and had borrowed somebody's trailer to help Vern and Pris move.  Turns out that it was a really good thing he did, because Uhaul didn't have the size van that Vern and Pris ordered.  Dan, Jimmy and Shad took a load of stuff up to Geneva on Friday, and they filled up again on Saturday along with the moving van and were able to just make it.  I watched the kids Thursday and Friday while Dan and Shad helped with everything.  Ryan went to the library with us on Thursday and we had a lot of fun.  He was a good caretaker and protecter for Katie.  He told me that he really likes Tommy now that he can do stuff.  It was fun having him around to play with.  We all went out to the Mexican restaurant for a last meal Friday night.  The Chinese place was still closed because the couple had gone to China for the new year and then gotten into a car accident when they got back.  They're back open now, but the chef broke a couple fingers and the poor guy is struggling to keep up in the kitchen.  Luckily people are understanding and patient.  Anyhow, I'm a complete failure and didn't get any pictures when everyone was here.  Bummer.

Last Monday, I began an attempt at potty training.  It went well for a couple days.  The second day had a 50% success rate, including a poop.  Wednesday, however, was extremely frustrating with a 15% success rate, so I decided to just stop and try again later.  Thursday was an emotionally difficult day for some reason, so Shad sent me out of the house to go biking when he got home.  I haven't biked in two and a half years, so I was very pleased at being able to push myself to do 10 miles.  It was a challenge, as expected, but still very doable.  The only body part sore afterwards was my butt, so that'll have to be conditioned to the seat a bit better, and I might look into a softer seat.  I'm feeling very optimistic about my 100 mile ride though.  Planning on doing that in the fall for cooler weather.

I've been having fun with some culinary experiments lately, namely, finding things to do with a couple pumpkins I still have left from my garden last year.  We've had Harvest Chicken Chowder, a thick and chunky chicken vegetable soup with pumpkin mixed into the broth.  I made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies, which Shad and I can't get enough of, and whole wheat pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (with applesauce instead of oil), which Tommy can't get enough of.  I really like that, because it's sneaking in fruit and vegetables for him!  He just discovered this morning that he can stack a mini muffin on top of a regular muffin, and that it's really funny!  He calls the muffins "mumah," which was a little confusing for me at first because it's so close to Momma.

Miss Katie has perfected rolling over from front to back.  We're still working on back to front.  She also likes to practice sitting up.  She's so strong and determined to be a big girl.  The thought crossed my mind that she'll be 5 months in 4 days and in another month I'll be starting her on oatmeal.  She's just growing up:)  She's also developing her conversationalist skills.  She's a good little talker and will carry on a 5-10 minute conversation with a willing adult.  She's a good socializer at church and gets passed around the ward.  Oh, and she's found a foot.  I haven't seen her holding both feet yet, just her right foot.

Tom's been becoming a handful to keep quiet at church, so I've decided to take up the project of sewing a quiet book.  Hopefully it won't take me months as reported by other quiet book makers I've come across in my internet research for ideas.

Picture time!

Why is it so cute when they just pass out asleep in someone's arms?

Tommy has learned about bras (he likes playing in our closet) and so when we went to Pamida and he saw bras in the womens department, he said, "Mom! Bra!!"  We put it on him and let him push Katie around the store.

I've made Katie a total of 4 pairs of Baby Legs and love dressing her in them because pants don't fit her well.  A lady at church couldn't resist buying Katie this pretty dress at a thrift store.  She was a doll on Sunday.

Last night Tommy found this gift bow on the floor and put it on Katie's head.  It was pretty precious.  The picture is blurry because the boy often finds my camera and practices his photography skills.  Unfortunately, he hasn't yet figured out that he needs to remove his finger from the lense, so there's often fingerprints left behind.

Sweet little Katie fell asleep slouched down in her swing right after I gave her her blanket to cuddle with.

Yesterday we ventured out for a walk around town.  Katie fell asleep, but then didn't move a muscle when she woke up.  She just lay there blinking til I picked her up.  Then we sat on the porch swing waiting for Shad to get home.  Tommy read the paper while I looked over sale ads.

A touch of Kansas.  We may not have awesome mountains, but we do have big, unobscured skies.

Two Weeks

So! After my parents left two weeks ago on Tuesday, Tommy and I played outside in the warm weather waiting for Shad to get home.  We had some nice puddles in the alley from snow melting, so Tommy learned how to splash in puddles and throw rocks in them.  One tutorial from me and he went at it with gusto!  He stomped, threw in rocks, even sat down to splash with his hands and kick with his legs.  He got the full strip down when we came in the house and I had some good laundry to do, but what good are kids and puddles if not to increase a mother's laundry skills?

I forgot to mention before that one of the items we received from the folks' visit was a beta fish, per my request.  I felt like Tommy was getting to a point where he'd really like a pet.  And he does.  He named his fish Bm Bm.  That's not a typo.  There are no vowels in that name.  It's not bum or boom, but simply Bm Bm.  More of a sound than anything, really.  We often sit at the bar to talk to Bm Bm, or share meals with him--Tommy eating his "peypies" (Rice Krispies), and shaking the fish food container (closed) over Bm Bm's bowl.


Part of our ward mission plan is to collect conversion stories from everyone in the ward.  Our ward mission leader (Shad) felt impressed to assign the youth to help with this project.  We've spent the past two Wednesdays working on it.  The youth conduct interviews with whatever adults are in the building, and have even collected each other's testimonies.  They go home each week with homework assignments of who to interview for the next week.  It's been really successful and the youth have been really enthusiastic about it. 

Shad was able to pick up an overtime shift for Friday a week ago.  This is only the second time he's gotten an overtime shift, but our weekends just feel so hectic with that day missing.  Especially that weekend when Shad's Saturday then consisted of his meeting with the missionaries and then helping his parents move stuff.  He didn't feel well on Sunday and Tommy was teething, so they stayed home from church and Katie and I went alone.  Shad and I both agreed that it was nice to have that one on one time with our kids.  There was a stake priesthood meeting that night that would have required Shad to leave about an hour after I got home, but I needed to see my husband more than that to recharge for the week, so he stayed home.

That Friday with Shad working overtime, I decided to move some of the inherited food storage from my dining room down to the basement.  I thought I did a good job of using my legs and not my back for the lifting, but my back let me know ALL WEEK that I was wrong.  There were days where I was couch bound because the pain was so bad.  So it was a bit of a rough week for me. Tommy was extra clingy and needy due to teething and wanted to be carried and held all the time, but I couldn't because of my back.  I also couldn't play much with him, or exercise much, or do much housework.  I had a couple emotional breakdowns.


Tuesday I decided to be crazy and try making falafels and pita bread.  I even ground my own wheat with a hand grinder I inherited from Pris.  I'm pretty sure my back didn't like all that work, but I pressed through anyway because I'd been wanting to do it for weeks.  Dinner turned out really good and I'd do it again, just on a weekend day when Shad is home to help with the kids.  My kitchen is still a bit hurt from all the damage.  Pris came over to play with Tommy because he needed her.  She took him out for a walk to get an errand she needed done.  Tommy is getting all grown up when he can go for a walk and do the walking himself.  He can go about half a mile.  To help entertain the kids after Pris left, we opened Tommy's bucket of colored rice...and buried Katie in it.

She sat there for a while, happily fingering the rice and watching her brother play with magnets and pictures on the fridge.

Yep, those are my kids:)

Usually we don't have a lot of energy at the end of the day when Shad comes home from work.  But on Thursday after our Subway dinner, we walked to the park to play before it cooled off too much.  Tommy gets more and more playful with it every time we go.  I love it!  Shad and I played a game of frisbee to see what parts of the playground we could throw the frisbee through...poles, tunnels, etc.  Tommy laughed hysterically every time the frisbee "pinged" against a pole.  He's so funny.  Katie started crying for a nap, so we went home and Levi was there playing Civilization.  We left Katie sleeping with Levi and we took Tom out to Pamida to have more fun out of the house.  Shad and I really enjoyed our Tom date.  We got some clearance Valentine candy and opened it there at the store when Tommy's patience wore out.  With a sucker in his mouth, he ran around happily giggling at everything, sitting down on shelves and kicking his feet, and offered to share his treat with his parents.  Notice the blurred feet because he's kicking so excitedly.

Saturday we had to go clean the church because we didn't remember earlier in the week when I could have done our share Wednesday night while I was already there.  Katie hung out in the baby carrier with Shad while he vacuumed all the classrooms and halls.  She really likes the vacuum.  Tom, however, does not.  He watched Mulan and snacked for a bit in a room, but then wanted to join me as I was starting to vacuum the chapel.  He was fine playing on the stage with the microphone for a while, but then lost his wits and cried at me for 10 minutes while I finished.  But we got done anyway.  Ruth came over in the afternoon to help me decorate Katie's room.  That's what I told her anyway.  We didn't really do anything because I didn't have the motivation to and that's okay.  It was just my assignment to keep Ruth out of her house long enough for her friends to set up a surprise going away party for her.  I did my job even if we didn't do the decorating we had planned to.  Instead, she helped me set up the sewing machine I inherited from her mom (who inherited it from her mom), and organize all the fabric, too. 

Pris came over later to help make sure I had everything put together right on it, and I tested it out with a pair of Baby Legs that I've been wanting to sew for about a month. Katie was a little rock star on Sunday because Ruth wanted her to wear the Beatles onesie. I allowed it because the Baby Legs just went so well with it.

Here's my kids--all three of them:)

We got a new bishopric on Sunday because our bishop (Shad's dad) is moving on Saturday.  I tried a new soup recipe for Saffron Carrot Soup, which tasted different than we expected, but is REALLY good!

One last picture, just because it was really cute.  My little boy who loves to go to bed, tucked himself under his blankie like this one day--

He's precious.