What's up with us?

I love my kids. Some days I forget, but it's still true.

This little guy helps me remember that I love my kids.

Especially when he's like this. 

Over the past few weeks, he has acquired the best monster-style laugh. It comes from deep in his throat and it rasps up into the cutest growling "ha ha ha ha!" I can usually get him to do it if I'm tickling him or doing something he thinks is funny. It's a contagious laugh too. You can't help but laugh when he's laughing.

He's also learning to speak at a startling rate. At first it was just a couple of words: Dada, shoe, ball... I think he learns a new word just about every day now. He uses several variations of Mama, G-G (great-grandma), Papa (grandpa), hello, cool, book, more and milk sound about the same "moe", baby, diaper, down, the requisite "peepee" and "poopoo" and of course "No"... 

He loves to sit on my lap while I read stories to him and Audrey. He helps when we clean up their room at the end of the day, though is brand of help typically means that he puts away the same toy multiple times in between playing with it. He also climbed out of his crib for the first time yesterday which I only found out when he knocked on the door after he felt his nap was over. Good thing we're getting those kids a bunk bed. I don't need any more broken arms!

Audrey is such an inquisitive little "why?" girl, which, according to my mother, is hereditary. 

This is her snarly, "I'm not going to be cute for this picture" face.

One of her recent developments is the "I don't have anything, Mom." statement while holding something behind her back. Usually it's something she thinks, or knows, that I wouldn't like her to play with.

About a month ago, I started a Co-op preschool with five other mothers. We meet once a week and rotate teaching and assisting. We are focusing on the alphabet this year, teaching one letter each week. Audrey is the only girl in the group, which doesn't seem to disturb her at all. In fact, she seems to like getting all the girl attention and getting to use all the "girl" colors when they draw or write.

Just about every Friday, we head up to the Salt Lake area because Ben only has one class at the U and it seemed silly for him to drive an hour there and another hour back just for a class that is fifty minutes long. We usually spend the day with my sister-in-law and her two younger kids. Audrey and Henry like spending time with their cousins. When Ben comes back, if the kids (or the grown-ups) aren't too tired, we try to go and do something fun! We went to Harriman Beach, which is a man-made pond with sand around it, and let the kids splash around a bit.

The kids don't get to see Ben much during the week, so we're looking forward to Ben's fall break. We don't have anything specific planned, which suits me just fine!

I'm working on the outline for a new book which I will try to slam out during Nanowrimo in November. November will be a busy month for me for sure!

I have loads of pictures and stories to share, but we'll just take it one step at a time. Stay tuned for more soon!

Hurricane in Lavender

Yesterday morning I got the kids up, changed Hank's diaper and locked them in their room. They usually get up a wee bit early and I'm not ready to go up and do breakfast yet. So, I get them comfortable and let them play in their room for a while until I'm ready to get up myself. Usually they're pretty good except me for the occasional death scream from Henry that means he thinks Audrey is trying to kill him.

I should have known that something was wrong when they got completely quiet. Anyone that has kids knows that's typically not a good thing. A happy playing child sings, hums, yells, screeches and makes all kinds of racket (Audrey even pretend cries now). A naughty, mischievous child is quiet as the grave their parents want to put them in once they find what they've been up to.

Well, I opened up the door and found my dear, sweet daughter on her chair looking at a book. And my dear, sweet son is on the bean bag looking at a book. Huh?! I looked again and saw this:

At first glance, I didn't really see what looked wrong. I had to step into the room and have a closer look. In the following pictures, please note that you aren't seeing glare of any kind whatsoever. The white spots on these surfaces is something else entirely.

The second thing that hit me was that I was smelling quite a potent helping of lavender. I recall thinking to myself that the only thing that smelled like lavender was... oh... NO.... lavender baby powder.

What she did to get it on top of the recliner, I can only guess.

When we asked Audrey if she had got the baby powder off the dresser, she claimed complete innocence and that Henry had gotten it down. Nevermind that his head doesn't even reach the top of the changing table part of the dresser and the baby powder was on the upper section.

She finally admitted to pulling down the baby powder but insisted that Henry helped her to make the mess. I suppose I can't argue with that, though I know that Henry mostly just goes along with what Audrey does.

At least they were bonding, right? Right?

This is the spot Henry's head left on the floor when Ben changed his diaper.

No, you're not seeing things, it's all over his clothes and all over his head.

When we told my mother about the disaster in their room, she said sweetly, "At least they didn't do it with Vaseline." True.... but there is time enough in the world for that.

The good news: their room is going to smell great for a long, long, long time.

Conversation with a Teenager

We went to a family barbecue on Saturday for July 24th (Pioneer Day for those of you not in the know, and most likely not in Utah). While I was lazing around waiting for the steak to be cooked, I struck up a conversation with my 15 year old niece. Before judging, please note that I wasn't fishing but mostly trying to tease her and the conversation ended up being too interesting to just quit on.

Me: So, who's your favorite aunt?

E: Uh... I don't know. (with an are-you-crazy? look)

Me: Oh, comeon, you know you have one. Who is it?

E: Er.... that's not a very nice thing to say.

Me: It's okay. I won't tell anyone. Who?

E: Uh........................................... I guess I'd have to say...... Ben.

*blink blink*


Me: Yeah.... Ben's an Uncle....

E: Oh... yeah.

Me: So.. who's your favorite AUNT??

E: Um.... my Mom?

*sigh...*

Onesies into T-shirts

We stopped using onesies on Henry some time ago. He's just too wiggly to try to button up a onesie along with putting on pants. I had a few onesies that would still fit him though and it always irks me to have stuff (especially clothes) that I can't use. So I decided to make t-shirts out of them.

They were all about the same size in the body, but the snap areas were a bit different for some reason. (Incidentally, I ended up not doing the camo onesie. Don't ask me what my logic was, I don't remember.)

I cut the bottoms off at the waist and used an overlock stitch to secure the edge of the fabric. I didn't fold a hem because they would have all ended up being belly shirts. The fabric got jammed several times before I realized (ahem! my mother suggested!) that the fabric was so thin that I needed a stabilizer under it. Some folded tissue paper worked nicely and the last three shirts were done a whole lot faster! I had all five done in less than two hours (rethreading, unjamming and tissue-hunting included).

Here are four of the finished shirts.

And here is the fifth!

This face makes it all completely worth it. (Plus I have five, count 'em five, more shirts in his dresser now and that's not too shabby!) Hooray for onesies recycled into t-shirts!

The Fabric O!

I hate Walmart on principle; but, oh! how it is like crack....

A few days ago, I was passing by my new favorite section in Walmart - Fabrics. Since I got my sewing machine this past Mother's Day, Ben has intermittently been guilting me with reminders about using it.
I have a few projects in mind and I AM going to be using it on a regular basis, but the idea of looking through fabric and trying to figure out how much I need is overwhelming.
Anyway! I was passing by the fabric section and I saw a huge sign. $5 Bolts! "Whoa." was quickly followed by "Wow!" I glanced through them and was immediately freaked out by the concept of "what do I make with it if I buy any?"
So, I had to walk away and ponder about it.
I went back today and made up my mind to pick up a few bolts. Each one has 5 yards of fabric so it comes out to a dollar a yard, which isn't bad. (I've been trying not to think about the quality of the fabric, so don't even go there.)
Here is my booty and I am thrilled:

Visions of flirty skirts are dancing in my head!

I broke out my sewing machine and now I'm just trying to make sure I find some patterns that don't exactly LOOK homemade... you know what I'm talking about. Oh, and the grey and black striped fabric was Ben's request. He wants me to make a hot pencil skirt out of it... Heehee!

Happy crafting! I'm in heaven!

Found You!!

I just came in from a rousing game of Hide-and-go-seek with the hubs and three of my nieces.

Before I go on, picture this: it got to 90-something outside today and I was extremely happy to just stay in the air conditioned heaven of my dungeon room. However, I was coaxed out of my cave by an email. "Your photobook is ready for you to pick up." YAY! So, after the kids went to bed and we were sure they wouldn't be whining and crying for the next hour and a half, we ran off to Costco to pick it up. It's beautiful! (There are only two typos, bad me!)

Anyhoot, when we got home, we called the nieces up and accepted their proposal for a romp in the yard. I didn't exactly go kicking and screaming... more like whining and threatening heat exhaustion.

The first thing we established before we started were boundaries and game style. I'm sorry, I'm not about to go running for base with "It" chasing after me. So, once found, found. Round one was pretty fast, I found everyone without too much trouble. Round two is where things got interesting. I was the first one found, so I went back to the porch swing where I witnessed two of my fellow hiders running from one spot in the yard to a new hiding spot. I really felt that was down-right fishy. PLUS they chose a hiding spot in what some considered to be out of bounds. SHAME, SHAME!!

So, we went over some re-worked rules at the end of that round. Yes, you are allowed to change your hiding spot, but now that the Seeker knows that you are doing this, it'll be much harder to sneak around without getting caught. The out of bounds spot was deemed okay in the end, but it ended up being the worst spot to hide after that round.

We had a few more rounds where I discovered that moving my spot caused just as many problems as it solved and I was found in ridiculous spots (In the middle of the lawn in full sprint, sneaking through the side yard, kneeling behind some potted tomatoes). After that we paused briefly for a beverage break.

After that, the biggest problem for some of the hiders was to keep quiet after having their carbonated drinks. Do some people seriously not know how to stifle their burps??

I witnessed in one of the final rounds Ben climbing a tree, Cammy hiding in a hollow spot in a bush (in plain view from a certain angle), and poor Baylie wandering round thinking they must be moving because she couldn't find them. The resulting hullabaloo from that area of the yard came when an indignant Uncle accused his bush-hiding niece of giving away his spot.

Heard from the front yard: "I saw you pointing!"

"No, I just did this..."

"You gave me away. I saw you!"

"Hoot, holler, complain, complain!!"

When the three finally came back to the front yard, it was explained to all parties that "it's just a game" and "you don't give away other hiders". All was (mostly) forgiven... but I was nearly positive that someone *cough! cough! BEN! cough!* was going to say "Screw you guys, I'm going home!"

Final round!!!

I was found in 10 seconds... lame....

Ben had compassion and said to go hide again... everyone got a second chance... I don't know where everyone else was found since I WAS THE LAST ONE! YAY! Of course, he found me sneaking down the side yard, in full view. Lame....

Well, I guess the point I was trying to make is that I haven't played a good game of hide-and-go-seek since I was a kid! Aside from coming in hot, sweaty and smelling like I-Don't-Know-What, I had a good time! It's been ages and I felt just a little bit young again.

Next time you're in Utah in the summer, swing by and we'll hit you up for a game!

The Culprit: Baby Bear

Not two seconds ago, I came skipping down the stairs after chatting with my mother and my niece, who is staying in Utah for a couple of weeks. Upon entering my room, Audrey's head whipped around and she had that guilty smile. You know the one.
I asked her what was going on, at which she giggled nervously and smiled even bigger.

"What happened, Audrey."

Audrey lifts up her white bear, "Baby Bear touched your buttons," and pointed at my computer.

Uh-oh... "Did you touch my buttons?"

Audrey lifts her white bear to cover her face, "No, Baby Bear touched your buttons."

Aha.... "What buttons did Baby Bear touch?"

Audrey points at several on my keyboard.

"Okay, well, tell Baby Bear not to touch my buttons anymore, okay?"

"Okay," she cuddles her white bear close and whispers, "Baby Bear, don't touch Mama's buttons, okay?"

At which Baby Bear, in a soft, squeaky voice, says, "Okay."