Weekend Guests

Last week went by really fast for me because I got confused with days.  With Tuesday's productivity, it somehow ended up feeling like a Monday, and that set the course for the week.  I had to keep reminding myself on Wednesday that it wasn't Tuesday and that I had to go to church that night.  I started The Jungle Book and expect that it'll be a fast read due to the low reading level, but Tommy got ahold of it one day and so I have to find it first if I want to make it past the first chapter.  Thursday we missed going to the library because I forgot it was Thursday.  Shad and I got our taxes done and are looking forward to our return in the next couple weeks.  My parents and Lori arrived on Friday just before dinner for the weekend.  So that meant lots of jabbering and bouncing off the walls with Grandma and dancing with Grandpa for Tom, and cuddles and dress up with Lori for Katie.  Ruth and Levi came over most of those days to hang out with Lori.  They had a "fat party" with Savannah, another girl from church, and chips, candy, juice cocktails and Titanic.  Tommy liked this, because it meant yummy food for him to get into.  He spilled the Nerds box a couple times and had fun cleaning up his mess.

We made colored rice on Saturday, a fond childhood memory of mine.  Tommy LOVES playing with it.  Lori and I went all out with my cake decorating dye and made Tommy almost everything in the spectrum.  Monday we had more fun with color when Lori and Ruth made fingerpaint.  Tommy enjoyed it, but he punctuated the fun with periods of fussing caused by a combination of a) liking clean hands, b) an oncoming teething session, and c) a pending bedtime.

He liked using paintbrushes.

Didn't like using hands so much.

Tommy's artwork.



Ruth and Lori's artwork.  They each put a handprint on each paper to complete each other.

We had a blast with our weekend, but are happy to have a bit of relief and quiet from the chaos of having so many people coming through our house.  Shad's parents brought stuff over from their house a couple times and we had the missionaries join us twice for dinner.  Oh, and Lori agrees with me that Elder Fairbanks looks like a grown up Beans from Even Stevens.  Just for kicks, she looked Beans up and we found out that he looks like this now:

Hahahahaha!  Okay, Elder Fairbanks looks like a different version of grown up Beans, but this picture is hilarious.



Disgruntled

Okay, to start off with, I have pictures from Monday 2 weeks ago that I forgot about last week.  Tommy climbs himself into the baby bouncer, which luckily is built to support his weight (he's a lightweight).

After I persuaded him to get out of the bouncer, we went out for a walk in the 60 degree weather.  Who could resist the park on a day like that?  Tommy had fun on the merry-go-round for a good 10 minutes.  He even got adventurous enough to crawl around and stand up. Oh, he loves to spin!  It's even become part of our weekly library experience to spend some time spinning on the computer chairs. 

Katie hung out with me in her baby carrier and took a nap:)

For our Family Home Evening that night, we played Connect Four with Tommy.  He loved it!  He's always interested in playing the games that we play, but usually not allowed to.  This was a fun experience for him to be allowed to play this game.

For dessert we had jello made with Coca Cola and it was, "yummmmmm!"

Our foot of snow made lots of progress in melting this week.  If you can see it, this picture is of the icicle hanging off the roof.  It's at least a 6 inch diameter.

A frequent event at our house, Tommy told me goodbye, blew kisses and put on some shoes.  I was impressed at his skills with the flip flop, even if it's on the wrong foot.

I pulled out the Johnny Jump-Up a few days ago and Katie LOVES it!  The first time I put her in it, she happily played and bounced around for half an hour without making a peep.  Say hello to productive Momma!

I honestly don't remember much of last week (big surprise).  I can't decide if this faulty memory is a good thing or a bad thing.  Shad scored 8 hours of overtime on Friday, which is nice for our bank, but we missed our second Saturday.  Especially when the real Saturday didn't go as desired for us.  Shad went to get the oil changed in our car (I won't say how long overdue that was, but it was LOOONG overdue), but being repulsed by the $45 price tag, he spent the time doing it himself for $15 instead.  I got the house cleaned up and then we had Levi come over to watch our napping kids while we ran to the store to buy seeds for our garden.  After trips to 3 stores, I have mostly what I want, but I'll go back to one store and then order some seeds online.  Shad and I both had to attend the church leadership training at 4, and since I couldn't find a sitter, the kids came too.  We got picked up at 2:45 and got home at 7.  Tommy has  a new church hobby: competing for the longest handshake award.  This one endured several minutes before Brother Krouse had to pry Tommy's hand off and get back to work.

I'm working on adjusting my sleeping schedule.  I feel like I've been sleeping too much and then having trouble falling asleep at night.  I woke up at 6:45 with Tom this morning and had such a good, productive day!  I swept and mopped my floors while German pancakes cooked in the oven.  Tommy and I had fun playing with each other and watching Mulan while we at breakfast.  I washed the dishes and got the basement and dining room vacuumed before Katie woke up at 9:45 and Tom went to bed at 10:15.  Then I got the living room vacuumed, washed the towels and sheets, read scriptures and ate lunch before waking the kids up to walk to Nana's house to show the house to a prospective buyer.

Okay, so I'm going to vent for a little bit here and then go cuddle with my husband.  We went to Town & Country for dinner tonight and won't be going back any time soon.  We waited an hour and 15 minutes for our food, while watching people who arrived half an hour after us get their food before us.  Not only that, but our waitress never said anything to us like, "Hey, we're really behind in the kitchen tonight.  It'll be about an hour for your food."  Nope, she just did a really good job ignoring us.  We finally flagged her down to ask where our food was, so she went to check.  She said it just showed up in the window.  We thought that meant we'd be getting our food...yeah, 10 minutes later.  So we got our food and put it directly into boxes and left because we were out of time and had a friend we needed to see before he deploys.  I know we've had to lower a bit of our city expectations for Norton, but this service was a new alltime low.  So yeah, I'm disgruntled.

The Discoveries of a One-Year-Old

This past week has been one of relatively low excitement.  That's not a bad thing.  Mostly, we've just enjoyed being a family.  Elder Nelson left us a week ago.  He got transferred back to Omaha.  We've got Elder Fairbanks now, who reminds me of Beans from Even Stevens.

We've done some furniture rearranging with the end of holidays and Shad's parents downsizing their possessions.  We've got a love seat in front of a window and Tommy has discovered that he can climb up on the bench next to it, and then get on the back to look out the window.  He thinks it's great:)

Tommy likes to let me know he's going places.  He'll say goodbye to me, blow kisses, and then run over to the door to put on shoes.  He's discovered that it's easier for him to put on someone elses shoes rather than his own.

Tommy has discovered that his high chair can be pretty darn fun.  He likes to climb out of it during meals.  Sometimes it's to pick up pieces of dropped food.

Other times it's to pry open the backing to inspect the padding inside.

He's learning body parts.  See his belly?  Oh yeah, and he's standing on the tray of his high chair.

Tommy can climb up on chairs all by himself, but sometimes he seems to get stuck.

Katie likes to practice her planking skills, as learned from an episode of The Office.  We've also learned that she likes to dance.  We had a dance party for FHE on Monday (after some haircuts for the males in our house), and she laughed!  That's my new hobby--finding ways to make her laugh.

I love hearing a good, hearty baby burp, but a juicy burp has an entirely different sound...

Our little Katie, at 3.5 months old, has FINALLY entered the world of 0-3 month clothes...though pants are still inches too big at the waste for her.  And that's another new hobby of mine: dressing her up in pretty little outfits instead of the jumpsuits and pajamas she's been wearing for 3 months.

  



A while ago we knew that we had a mouse in the basement.  It made its presence known by running across the room in broad daylight.  We set a couple traps down there but had been disappointed by not catching it, despite seeing droppings on the carpet.  Last week I vacuumed under the couch cushions in the basement while searching (successfully) for the baby monitor receiver that had been missing for weeks.  I saw this object that I thought was just a big chunky piece of lint.  When it wouldn't fit in the vacuum tube, I picked it up to throw it away myself.  Boy was I disgusted to find that it was a mouse!  I've seen pressed flowers before, sure.  But I've never seen a pressed MOUSE before.  With this find combined with the lack of mouse droppings in the kitchen, I think (fingers crossed) our mouse problem has been vanquished!

Winter finally arrived on Friday evening when snow started to fall.  We haven't had winter since early December.  We got about a foot as the snow continued til Saturday afternoon.  Luckily the roads were really well plowed and cleared up well, which was not the case with our last snow that left the roads snow packed for a week.  Ugh.  It snowed again Monday night.  Tuesday I decided I'd go out and shovel while Katie napped and Tommy watched Mulan, but Tom knew better and got jealous.  So we dug out some winter gear from his cousin Bode.  Hahahahaha!  Love this boy:)

Smiles and shocks

Why is it that every time I sit down to write, I don't know what to say?  I have no recollection of the past week and I usually sit here for about 10 minutes trying to come up with something.  Anything.  And then when I'm done writing, a day later I'll remember things I forgot to say and tell myself to be sure to include that the next time I write.  Like the fact that we spontaneously had Katie's baby blessing the weekend that my parents and Lori were here.  Our apologies to our Bailey friends, Alice, and Jake and Amber.  It really was a spontaneous thing and we'd still love to have you guys come visit us just for the heck of it.

Aside from that, I'm really struggling to come up with something to say!

Katie had a cute flirt session with her bumpa this week.  They kept it up for about 10 minutes, so I was able to snap pictures and get our first picture of Katie smiling.  Her face is a little beat up because her nails needed clipped.

We had fun running some errands last week.  We went to Pamida, our local retail store.  Tommy likes to play in the furniture area.  He got to test out his very own Tommy-sized recliner.

He also had a shocking experience playing on a microsuede, big-sized recliner.  Right after this picture he climbed down, touched a nail on a pallet and his hair fell flat.  It was a pretty loud shock!

Shad's parents are moving and have enlisted us to help them sell their house so they don't have to hire a real estate agent.  We do all the advertizing and foot work for them, and they'll compensate us so that we can buy a car. 

We got to work at the theater again on Friday.  We saw War Horse, though I think we should have gone to We Bought a Zoo.  I'm not going to say War Horse wasn't a good movie...it just wasn't my kind of movie.  Long, slow war drama with little action.  It was interesting to see the war clips because you just don't see many WWI movies.  But really, I watched the clock the whole time.

We had a fun dinner on the porch yesterday with Elder Nelson and Elder Jarrell.  Nice warm weather that we just had to take advantage of.  Speaking of which, we've got 60s today and I better go get things done so we can enjoy an afternoon out of the house.

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Happy Year of the Dragon! Chinese New Year was on Monday, so we had a New Year's Eve get together on Sunday with our Jacquier friends and Levi.  We played games, ate egg drop soup and fried rice (no dumplings because my wrappers were moldy), and jello shots for dessert.  We set off two fire crackers in our garage because it was too cold and windy outside.  We only set off two because our eardrums didn't appreciate the echoing accoustics, but it is a necessary part of the holiday.  I love having two New Year holidays so close together.  It's like a happy stutter:)

It's been quite a long time since I've written, so I'll just give highlights.

Resolutions update: I've now finished reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and A Midsummer Nights' Dream.  Check 3 classic books off my list of 10 to read this year.  Starting into The Three Musketeers.  I've read through the J section in the Bible Dictionary, and will finish up in a couple weeks.  Given that I can't go biking very often to get myself back into shape for my centurion, I started doing lunges this week.  It's been a while since I've FELT my body like this, and it feels great!  I honestly love feeling that muscle ache after a good workout.  One of the librarians has asked if I'd be interested in helping out with some music for preschoolers sometime...I might just use that as a direction for my guitar learning resolution.  I can learn to play all the songs we sang in China and refresh my memory on the hand signs we used.  Nat, that may require some help from you.

\We took Katie's floppy newborn supports out of her carseat.  A) She looks so grown up sitting by herself in her seat and holding her head up.  B) She looks so little in it!

My parents and sister Lori came to visit us for MLK weekend.

Tommy had lots of youtube music time with Grandpa, and even got some dancing lessons.

He also had peek-a-boo playtime with Grandma.

Lots of shrieking and laughter:)



Ruth came over for a sleepover with Lori and Tommy wore Ruth's glasses for her.

It's always HILARIOUS when you wake up looking like this and your mom takes pictures of you so that everyone can laugh and remember this FOR-EV-ER.

He'll laugh with me some day.

Lori bogarted Katie the whole weekend, giving her up only for me to feed her.  Grandma and Grandpa's only time to hold Katie was when Lori slept in late in the mornings.

They even had sleepovers.  Lori would bring Katie to me when she woke up to eat and I was supposed to bring her back when she finished.

We enjoyed our weekend with them.  I forget when this was, but Tommy was on the piano bench playing the piano with me one day.  I went to tend to Katie for a moment and when I turned around I was horrified to see that he had climbed up on the keyboard.

My boys playing with their girl.

Katie getting tickles from Dada.

A few weeks ago a friend shared this story with me.  IF YOU GIVE A MOM A MUFFIN- "If you give a mom a muffin, she'll want a cup of cocoa to go with it. She'll pour herself some. Her three-year-old will spill the cocoa. She'll wipe it up. Wiping the floor, she will find dirty socks. She'll remember she has to do laundry. When she puts the laundry in the washer, she'll trip over boots and bump into the freezer.... Bumping into the freezer will remind her... she has to plan supper. She will get out a pound of hamburger. She'll look for her cookbook. (101 Things To Make With A Pound Of Hamburger.) The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail. She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow. She will look for her checkbook. The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two-year-old. She'll smell something funny. She'll change the two-year-old. While she is changing the two-year-old the phone will ring. Her five-year-old will answer and hang up. She'll remember that she wants to phone a friend to come for cocoa. Thinking of cocoa will remind her that she was going to have a cup. She will pour herself some. And chances are, if she has a cup of cocoa, her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it." by Kathy Fictorie

I laughed, because that's exactly how I feel sometimes.  Yesterday I baked banana muffins.  Tommy was thrilled to wake up from a nap and see "yummy," "hot," edibles.  He had a blast stuffing his mouth with Tommy-sized mini muffins, but also enjoyed sharing bites of my normal sized muffins.  This is the face of a boy who has just stolen the last two bites of his mother's muffin directly from her hand and crammed it into this mouth, even though he's holding his very own muffin in his own dimpled hand.  He made up for it by letting me drink out of sippy cup.



And in the afternoon after our walk, he threw rocks on the driveway of the vacant house next door while we waited for Dada to come home.

Oh, what a funny, expressive child I have!

I love this one.

And if that wasn't adventurous enough, then he had to climb on top of the toilet tank to play with the towel bar while Dada showered and Momma got ready to go to her Wednesday night youth activity.

I love this creature.

New Year's Resolutions

I forgot to include these in yesterday's post, so here they are.

Megan's 2012 Resolutions:

--Exercise 3-4 days a week.
--Keep kitchen counters clean.
--Obtain 5 piano students. (tune the piano for them!)
--Pay attention to birthdays on my calendar and recognize them.
--Find freedom from financial stress.
--Read 10 classic books.
--Read the Bible Dictionary and learn more about Jewish history/culture. (Read Apocrypha?)
--Decorate 1 room.
--Learn guitar.
--Learn more Mandarin.
--Finish Personal Progress (before Alexis Henson).
--Bike a centurion (try not to be pregnant while doing so).
--Be 100% on visiting teaching.

Shad's 2012 Resolutions:

--Write to Grandma Howes once a month.
--100% home teaching.
--Exercise 3 times a week.
--Give away 1 Book of Mormon.
--Contact Jason, Matthew, Dan, Jim, Cherean, and Chris at least once a month.
--Read 1 book a day with Tom.

By the way, on December 30 at approximately 9:30 pm, Shad and I sat down to read scriptures together.  We were at Doctrine and Covenants section 124.  Shad thought it'd be really cool if we finished the book by the end of the year.  So that's how we spent a large part of our time on New Year's Eve--reading 50+ pages of the Doctrine and Covenants.  It was actually really delightful.

Never trust a cow in winter.

I really can't remember much of this week right now, but I'll try.  We missed church last Sunday because Tommy woke up with a horrendous cough.  We didn't know whether it was a sick cough or a teething cough, but we didn't have time to find out.  I'm pretty sure it was just a teething cough--he was teething the first half of this week.  We gave Tommy bubble bath soap for Christmas and he enjoyed taking bubble baths this week to ease his fevers.

As usual, we went on our Thursday outting to the library.  After lunch, both kids went to bed.  I finished reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (seriously weird book), and then succumbed to the need to take a nap myself.  I thought for sure that the kids would wake me up within an hour (they went down at 1 and I went down at 2), but they didn't.  Tommy woke me up at 4:30, just minutes before Shad walked in the door.  He and I played Cleopatra that evening, a game he got with birthday money but didn't order until last week.  It's fun and addicting.Tommy ended up staying up late with us (10:30!) to have popcorn and watch an episode of  Shaun the Sheep, which he asks for by saying "baaa."  My kid is cute.  He spent half the time eating popcorn and the other half the time rolling around on the couch laughing.  My kid is nuts.

I got a haircut on Friday, finally! I've been talking about it for almost 3 months.  Shad and I put the Christmas decorations away, played more Cleopatra and ended up having a date night at the movies.  Our movie theater runs on a pretty cool system: the only employee is the manager.  Anyone else that works there is a volunteer and the compensation is a free movie, popcorn and drink of any size.  We found this out shortly before Katie was born and worked there for the first time just 2 days before Katie came out.  We have fun doing it and the manager has called us in twice now when he's needed help.  We saw Jack and Jill, which is not one of Adam Sandler's better movies, but probably one of his cleanest.  I didn't see Bedtime Stories, though.

Saturday Tommy and I both woke up sick.  It was a pretty miserable, achy day for both of us and he's still not 100% today.  I'm glad that we had to be sick on a weekend when Shad was here to take care of everyone.  We both got really good cuddles from our pathetic, tender Tom. And it was really nice to have a store of pumped breastmilk in the freezer from Katie's time in the hospital so that I didn't have to worry about getting her sick by feeding her, or about not having enough for her since I had a hard time drinking much.  And so we stayed home from church today to have a day to recoup.  I still don't have much appetite, but feel fine and energetic otherwise.  Tommy is gaining energy, but is still not feeling completely well.  It's so sad to have him lie in my lap and moan, but not know what he needs.

Anyway, here's pictures I found on our phones:

Tommy helping put up Christmas decorations.

Katie being...Katie.

Tom holding his Katie.  What a goofy look on her face!



Tommy has discovered the joy of heating vents on the floor, namely, the one in the bathroom.

She fell asleep sitting up on my lap, then slouched over.  Cute kid.