A Stone's Throw

New Camera!

2011-02-23T20:04:00.024-06:00

After months -- YEARS! -- of admiring Michelle's children through the lens of a decent camera, we have joined ranks! Decent (if not super fancy) cameras have a way of making one's kids look, well, presentable. So, Tina and I -- yes, you've guessed right, I have commandeered the blog -- will do our best, in the name of fantastic grandparents that we love, to post pictures on a more regular basis. Starting now.

big teeth

adjusting to flash settings

happy

restrained, but still happy

some beauty

more beauty

some pre-birthday, post-bath shots.

in-bath times.

guess who turns 8 tomorrow?

wanna know what I've been up to?

2010-12-19T19:14:00.002-06:00

check out pics and info here!

what was that?

2010-11-08T18:00:00.006-06:00

Jonas has started speech therapy, his first appointment was just a few days ago. (He has trouble with many consonant sounds.) He enjoyed the session and was so so so excited to have homework. "I'll do my homework when Seth does his homework, K mom?!"

His homework consisted of two pages of pictures, one with words beginning with "sp" and the other with words ending in "k". We did some homework on the way home, starting with the "sp" page. He did really well with the first few pictures, then I pointed to the bowl of noodles to which he said "ssssssss...macaroni". He knew as soon as he said it that it was really funny, so he has continued to insert it into conversation all weekend. A little funny man, that one.

We moved on to the next page, words ending in "k". His answers for this page were sssss..fork, sssss..duck, sssss..lock.

He's not quite there yet.

plays nicely with others

2010-11-07T18:18:00.007-06:00

I have recently figured out something about Jonas.

He plays really well with girls and not at all with boys.

His siblings are the exceptions- Maryn and Jonas have never gotten along that well, mostly because she doesn't let him play with her or her toys. He loves playing with Seth, but as with most older brother/younger brother relationships, Seth starts getting impatient and annoyed with Jonas after a while.

Girl example #1: Jonas thinks his best friend is Zoe (pictured above as the white queen with her little sister along with Maryn and Jonas) even though Zoe is Maryn's age and her best friend. To Zoe's credit, she balances these two kids vying for her attention with way more poise than you would expect from a five-year-old. Because Maryn is in kindergarten now and Zoe is not, she and Jonas have had a lot more opportunities to play together one-on-one and they both love it. I sometimes think that Zoe prefers to play with Jonas... I'll never tell Maryn though.

Girl example #2: C and her mom came over last week and spent two hours with us one afternoon. C is the youngest of 4 and only about two months younger than Jonas- they're in nursery together at church. Their whole family has been to our house numerous times, so this definitely wasn't the first time they had played together. So this past week, for the entire two hours, they played and played and didn't make one peep. Not one fight or complaint or tattle, nothing. I was shocked and amazed. And this is when my theory started brewing because of the following two examples.

Boy example #1: W moved in next door to us at the end of the summer. He loves to play with "Jona-th" and is always so excited to have Jonas come over to his house or play in our shared backyard together. I think the part of the relationship that Jonas likes the best is being able to play with W's toys which are cool in his basement playroom which is way cleaner than ours. He doesn't ever seem all that interested in actually playing with W.

Boy example #2: I have arranged with a mom of one of Seth's classmates to have weekly playdate swaps with our three-year-olds. L is a pretty easy-going kid. But when he comes over to our house for the playdate, Jonas is upset the whole time- crying, telling L not to touch his toys, refusing to play what L wants to play. This means that I have to spend the whole two hours hovering, trying to make sure that Jonas shares and doesn't cry or say mean things to L.

I don't know that it means anything, really. I think he likes playtime with a structure or creative "purpose" and maybe other three year old boys just don't play that way. I'm cool with that, generally playing with girls is quieter.

they don't know what's coming...

2010-11-05T08:17:00.006-05:00

Every year during parent-teacher conferences, I try really hard to keep my face blank as my childrens' teachers gush over how well-behaved my kids are in class and if they could just have a classroom full of my kids, their teaching life would be easier. I'm not kidding, this is exactly what I hear every time. Is this what other parents hear too, is this what the teachers say to everyone? I want to be proud, but my scepticism wins over. I politely say thank you each time and we move on, but I'm still left wondering. These perfect children they talk about, who are they? Why don't they live in my house?

In an attempt to get to the bottom of the situation, I asked Maryn yesterday (right after she had smacked Jonas over the head for touching her paper within 10 minutes of being home from school), "Your teacher told me that you are a very good and sweet girl who gets along with everyone in your class, why don't you act that way at home?"

"Because Mommy, at school I have someone (her teacher, I suppose) to focus on and there are rules I follow, so I'm good and I don't get in trouble."

Maybe it's just me, but I think she was asking me to create and enforce more rules in our home.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can make that happen.

Halloween 2010

2010-11-04T21:16:00.005-05:00

For the first time, this year the kids actually helped clean out the pumpkin.
Oops, I guess didn't get any pictures of the finished product. It was Jack Skellington's head. It started growing mold the next day and was really spooky-looking by Halloween (complete with ooze).

This year, the only item I made for the kids costumes was Seth's scarf, his Harry Potter look needed something more identifying than the glasses and scar. I bought the Captain Hook costume for Jonas over a year ago when he started wanting to play dress up with Maryn and wear her princess dresses, so happy it still fits and that he wanted to wear it. His favorite part of his costume was his mustache. Maryn wore a sparkly witch dress which we borrowed from a friend. And I love an excuse to doll her up with makeup, so she's wearing sparkly purple eyeshadow, mascara and blush!

Oh look! There's the pumpkin we carved.

This is the only picture I took during actual trick or treating. It got dark pretty quickly after we left home. The kids had lots of fun and we (unfortunately) got tons and tons of candy. For the first time since we moved here, we trick-or-treated in our own little neighborhood. Because it's an older neighborhood with really nice, big homes- I was surprised at how many kids and families we saw on the streets.
Phew...I'm glad that holiday is over. It is my least favorite by a mile. Now the countdown is on for our exciting Christmas vacation! More on this later....so much to do.

For the grandparents.....the rest of the (very few) pictures taken are here.

Halloween 2009

2010-11-03T13:52:00.005-05:00

Before I posted pics of Halloween last weekend, I decided to share some pics of last year when I actually made all of my kids' costumes for the first time ever. Meaning I actually sewed everything you see here (except for the fairy wings and almost everything Jonas is wearing- except for the mask and R badge- which I did make...so I guess not everything...)
Not sure why I didn't share any of these last year, you would think I would have been proud of all my hard work. Guess I felt like I didn't need any validation. (That doesn't sound quite right, does it?)

I think the actual reason was because this was my first venture into sewing costumes for my kids and they didn't turn out exactly like the vision I had in my head- meaning they weren't perfect, people!
But in reality, who knows what the heck I was thinking. It was a year ago!

the official "Jon is awesome" post

2009-11-28T16:10:00.003-06:00

Yesterday while out in the shopping madness (although not so mad in my small town) I was switching radio channels looking for holiday music- I landed on one playing a country-western type version of a Christmas carol. I listened to it and these thoughts ran through my head "This sounds nice" "I would have totally changed the station 3-4 years ago if something like this came on". You see- Jon has been exploring the western side of music over the past few years and I trust his musical taste and usually listen to whatever he's into at the moment. It wasn't until yesterday that I really realized that Jon decides what music our family listens to- and therefore, likes. And I'm totally okay with that- in fact I really appreciate it. It keeps me from being one of those people who only listens to their favorite albums from high school for the rest of their lives.

And just to show you how lame I am, just calling his new music taste "western-type" I'm sure is totally wrong, maybe it's "alt-country"? We're not talking about Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban here- think more Avett Brothers and Wilco.

He recently secured a position writing reviews of local concerts for an online blog: Muzzle of Bees (click the link for his most recent post, then scroll down to read a few more he's done). His status as music-lover/English- writing studies graduate student makes this the perfect sort of project for him to be involved in. (Plus it means he can get free tickets to most local shows and some out-of-town ones as well- a major plus.)

Leading up to my next topic- Jon asked me to post a link to his music site many weeks ago and like a very sweet and attentive wife- I completely forgot about it. I feel really badly that I didn't follow through with this at the time. He requests your assistance in listening to and voting up your favorite song(s) written by his good friend Jon Thwaits and presented in the current post.

http://www.onlyanything.com/

You can read about the details of the current archival project they are working on here. If you like what you hear, pass the word along to your friends too!

Please help me feel better by showing some love and participating in their project.

And be sure to scroll down to the video of the song Jon wrote while we were on vacation in Utah in August. It's totally beautiful and because it's about my family and my kids- makes me a little emotional. Heck, I'll just include the video here.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T22:40:00.001-06:00

This is a video of Maryn singing a few of the songs she sang in her preschool fall recital.

I'd actually forgotten that I recorded this video last week, but we noticed tonight that it has been viewed over 200 times- and that's without us sharing it with any family. How does that happen? I guess having cute kids doing cute things is how some people become YouTube famous.

what did your husband do today?

2009-11-21T22:49:00.006-06:00

naughty and nice

2009-11-15T17:03:00.002-06:00

Maryn is a budding artist, loves to draw and color. She calls this piece "a cowgirl". The medium is blue crayon on laundry room wall.

It still hasn't come off, I need to get one of those magic erasers.

In constrast, Jonas continues to be my sweet baby. Although lately, he has taken the initiative with Maryn and hit her first during their constant altercations. I'm not sure whether to be sad or proud that he's defending himself against her.

I captured one of his sweeter moments on this film.

not much explanation needed...enjoy

2009-11-01T21:41:00.001-06:00

BEST night in TV!

2009-10-22T17:51:00.002-05:00

I look forward to Thursday evenings all week! I get all my evening household chores done as quick as possible, throw the kids in bed (not literally), grab a project and settle in for three hours of my favorite shows back-to-back: Survivor, Office, 30 Rock and Project Runway.

It's pure reality show/sit-com bliss!

Is that weird?

2009-10-18T22:18:00.005-05:00

Please excuse the bad pics with bad lighting. It was late. I just wanted to show some of what I've been up to. A picked out and sent the fabric, cute huh? I hope R likes them! :)

Now I need to "put down the duckie" (as Jon would say) and start working on other, more pressing matters- like planning Seth's class Halloween party and making his Batman costume. (Yes, I'm the head room parent again. Seriously, I am not doing this again- too much work!)
Happy Fall!

Beatlemania continues

2009-10-16T08:00:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago I picked up an old VHS of Yellow Submarine from a thrift store. The kids have been watching it and love it. I've watched a few minutes here and there- it's weird. But the music is obviously awesome and the kids love that too. Here's my Dad singing one of the hits from the movie (notice he doesn't need to read along with the karaoke, he knows all the words):

We were listening to this song in the car recently, and Maryn was singing along. After the chorus "will you still need me, will you still feed me" Maryn said "I think he can feed himself, can't he?" Let's hope so.

Jonas loves to sing along to the Beatles too. His favorite song is Hello, Goodbye, but he can't sing all the words as quickly as they do in the song. So he still sings "you say goodbye and I say hello" but he's about a whole phrase behind.

In other funny-things-kids-say news lately: we were eating at a 50s diner type restaurant last weekend and ordered the usual burgers fries and shake for every one. When they brought out the shakes first before everything else, Seth looked at me wide-eyed and said "Do we get dessert first?" Some sort of alternate universe, the 50s. On that same occasion, the two couples dining next to us were very elderly. I said to Jon "they were probably our age in the actual 50s", kind of a funny realization. Where will we be sitting in 50 years?

Fat lip Jonas

2009-10-05T20:36:00.001-05:00

Last Monday, I had awesome intentions to take Jonas and go on a walk/run. I was getting the stroller out of the car, Jonas was walking down the concrete steps playing the Leapster. I heard the Leapster hit the concrete and turned around to get mad at Jonas for dropping it to find him also on the ground with blood gushing from his mouth. My attempts to exercise were foiled as I put him in the car and drove straight to urgent care. After a few comical attempts at taking x-rays, it was determined that he didn't break his nose but the doctor still wanted to stitch up his lip. The numbing stuff they put on worked really well because he sat still like a champ while she put in two stitches.

We left quickly and drove to pick up Maryn from preschool. I noticed when looking in the rear view mirror that he was picking at his lip. I told him repeatedly to stop but in usual two-year-old fashion, he kept picking. After the 10 minute drive, he had pulled out one of the stitches. With Maryn, we drove straight back to the dr only to have her tell us that she wasn't going to replace it. A good thing probably because in the 5 minutes it took to drive home, he had the other one out too.

Thankfully, 10 days later his lip is totally healed.

the sewing bug has bit

2009-09-29T21:59:00.007-05:00

I've been frequenting my fabric stores lately (there are only 2 in my town) scouring the remnant bins mostly and coming away with bits and pieces that I love. (The blue and yellow floral prints on the bottom row actually came from a thrift store.)
This picture doesn't even include the 7 yards of HB fabric I bought to make a quilt for Maryn's bed. I need to get that stuff out and photograph it, talk about pretty. Later, I promise.

So what to do with all these pieces? Well my wonderful SIL and buddy Michelle got me interested in a skirt/dress with three ruffled tiers. I bought some cute fabric when we were in Utah together and finally made a skirt for Maryn out of it a few weeks ago.
I didn't really use a pattern (just verbal instructions from M) so I didn't actually make it correctly and it's a bit too big. But she loves it and it does look really cute if you don't know what I did wrong (no, I'm not going to tell). The sweater vest was a thrift store find and just happens to match the skirt perfectly. (I'm hoping the vest makes the skirt look more "fall-y").

In trying not to just make her a whole slew of three tiered skirts- I bought some patterns yesterday (from hobby lobby- 99 cents each people!) and am going to try to follow them and make other cute things for her.

I also wanted to show another awesome thrift store find, 6 of these chairs painted light turquoise blue (my new favorite color). We've been needing a 6 chair set for a while now and I stumbled on these last week. Also pictured is a blanket I made for a friend who had a baby boy last Friday.
In other non-sewing news: Seth got a pedometer at school last week and is supposed to record his steps each day (too bad it's lost at the moment). So he decided that he was going to run laps around our house (outdoors). He ran 20 laps- 4100 steps! It was really cute. The trend didn't continue today though because he refused to run until I found his pedometer. Poor kid may never run again!

For some reason this week, Jonas has decided the enter the terrible twos, complete with screaming tantrums and refusal to eat most foods or go to bed. I really don't know where my sweet baby went. Jon keeps saying "Since when does Jonas have an opinion?" Um, since now apparently.
He has said some cute things lately though. Every afternoon and evening when I'm trying to convince him to go to bed, I tell him "you need to close your eyes just like during the prayer". And pretty much every time I go in to get him after he wakes up, the first thing he says is "Mommy, I closed my eyes!" I think he's amazed that it actually works!
And finally, on Sunday we talked webcam with my family and saw the new baby. Jonas was really excited about it. On Monday morning while I was getting him dressed for the day, I asked him what he wanted to do today and he said "go visit my baby tousin". Me too, dude.

new baby cousin!!

2009-09-21T23:09:00.007-05:00

Meet the newest member of our family- Aaron Jordan born earlier this afternoon weighing it at a whopping 8 lbs 9 ozs 19.5 inches. (Entering the world one week early.) Seriously- he looks like a linebacker.

Beatles 4 Sale

2009-09-18T20:35:00.006-05:00

I was talking to a good friend today and she said "you haven't blogged in forever, I have no idea what's going on with you!" It's true. Let me explain- yes I've been really busy, blah, blah. But that isn't the real reason. See I have this problem (which I was discussing with a different good friend today)- I suffer from perfectionism. I know exactly how I want things in my life to be in my head- but my execution is so sub par for the most part that I shy away from doing things because I know they won't turn out perfect. For example- this blog. I knew as days and weeks went by I was getting behind and so much was happening so instead of just blogging and trying to catch up- I did nothing. And now it's been almost 2 months. Sigh. So instead of trying to catch up- I'm just going to start from where I am now (and hopefully go back and share info about what we did the past two months eventually).

Right now, this moment- I am loving the Beatles. Did you know that they just re-released all their albums in stereo!! Stereo people! I'm actually joking about the stereo excitement. I totally understand the difference between mono and stereo recordings- I just don't really hear the difference as far as music quality- only that some sounds come out the right speaker and some come out the left. So the stereo thing is not what I'm actually excited about- I'm excited about the music! I've only ever owned one Beatles album (Revolver) and therefore have never listened to any of the other albums in their entirety before now. I went and bought them all last week and have been listening to one every couple of days (to prolong the enjoyment).

A side note about why I own Revolver. I asked my Dad to get me a Beatles album for Christmas one year (I was probably 16 or something like that). He asked me which one I wanted and I told him I didn't know and that he should choose. So I got Revolver, listened to it, loved it.

A side note about buying all the albums last week. You may or may not know that they came out on 9-9-09. You also may or may not know that usually new albums are released on Tuesdays. So I went to Target last week on Tuesday, didn't see the new albums on display, asked a worker dude who said "we got a whole cart full of them in the back", took the 6 he fished out for me (there are 14) up to the checkout only to be denied because last Tuesday was 9-8 not 9-9. But don't worry- I went back the next day picked them all up and walked by the same dude who probably felt pretty dumb. (FYI- for those of you who are dying to have your very own Beatles collection- Target is running a deal until 10-10 where you get a $5 giftcard for every 2 Beatles CDs you buy. So I bought two at a time and rolled the giftcards- making the entire purchase way cheaper than buying the box-set.)

So back to the music- I haven't been listening to the albums in order or anything- just picking at random. And each new album I listen to I think- this one is my favorite, including the most recent one I'm listening to right now- Help. It's hard to describe the excitement I feel listening to these albums- hearing songs I know really well and have heard a million times mixed in with songs I've heard less or not at all. It's like seeing a finished puzzle- all the pieces fit together. I don't like every song I've heard so far, but I am in love with the entire package. I feel happy when I listen to this music. Partly because it reminds me of my dad and partly because the songs are so great and partly because I feel the excitement of discovering something awesome for the first time.

And now for some pictures: We saw Dan Zanes last week. THE BEST concert I have EVER been to. And I've been to some good ones. There was something about the fun folk music, dancing with my kids, not being hot and sweaty, and not smelling pot that made it a thoroughly enjoyable experience. He is an awesome artist, seriously check him out.
Maryn's first day of preschool. She goes 5 (!) days per week for 2.5 hours per day. She LOVES it.
Seth's first day of first grade. He is really liking it, he has an awesome teacher. She is so patient and attentive to the kids and their feelings but is very stern and doesn't let them get away with anything. Kind of like how I wish I was.
Wendy came to visit last week and we had a great time. For the past few days, Jonas has asked me continually "Are we going to pick up Wendy?"

And finally- we're getting a new member of the family on Monday! Carlie's going to have a little baby boy (one week early- lucky!).

Happiness all around, seriously- re-discover the Beatles.

swim team

2009-07-25T23:16:00.003-05:00

We signed Seth up for swim team this summer- eight weeks of one hour practices five days per week. Technically, he was on the "pre-swim" team. This meant that practices were basically large group lessons and we didn't have to go to swim meets if we didn't want to.

My hope was that having Seth in the pool for 5 hours per week would turn him into this totally awesome swimmer. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that all those hours in the pool actually helped to improve his strokes. The time that Jon spent with him one-on-one was way more beneficial. But he really liked being on the swim team and he now has a sweet tan.

After hearing about swim meets from other swimmers, he asked me when he was going to get to swim in one. So we all went to the last home meet of the season a few weeks ago. He swam in two events, one relay and one race- both 25m freestyle. Below is a video of the second race, he swam against the only other 6 year old boy at the meet. You can see at the end of the video the guy who was timing him was motioning him to hurry up (I think he got tired towards the end of the race). His official time was 48.67 seconds.

The meet eventually got rained out, which we were kind of glad about (who knew swim meets were so long!).

2009-07-12T21:04:00.004-05:00

For her fourth birthday, Maryn wanted to have a princess ballerina fairy party. I pretty much followed the same plan as last year's party- invited a few little girls, played some games, made a craft, decorated cupcakes and went on a treasure hunt (this was new this year, I think- Jon put a great one together for the girls). I'll post pictures soon (when I get around to getting them off my camera) but for now- Jon has put together two video segments of the party festivities. There are two or three more segments coming soon.

"let's start the fun!"

2009-07-07T13:26:00.013-05:00

We had a fun visit in early June from Grandma B, Papa and Rach. Here is a link to the web album of pictures from the trip. (I've also included a ton of links in this post so that if any of you want to visit us too- you can see all the fun stuff we can do together!)

We did a lot of fun things around town. Starting off the first week with Grandma, we went to the farmers' market and both local public libraries. Grandma knew all the fun kids books to check out and we came home with about 30 books from each library. The kids really enjoyed listening to all of them, especially the Robert Munsch and SkippyJon Jones books.

When Papa and Rach came, we all went to the Childrens' Discovery Museum in nearby Normal (not a joke), which was totally awesome- the coolest childrens' museum I've been to. Three floors of all types of hands-on exhibits including a huge train table city (Jonas's favorite), a fake food grocery store with a check-out lane (Maryn's favorite), climbing maze (Seth's favorite) and painting on plexiglass which we all enjoyed.
We also went and saw Up- great movie, went to our awesome local pool complex (with water slides), ate custard, played Guitar Hero and Tetris, spent time playing ball outside, got Mom hooked on FNL, ate lunch at the Flattop, visited the Amish.... We're thinking next time we might make the trip to Chicago or St Louis for some more fun activities.
Ice cream in very rainy Arthur.

Lunch at the Flattop- sooo yummy!

It was a great trip and we were all sad to see them go. Seth got very emotional when they had to leave and spent the next few days tearily talking about how he wished they lived here in IL with us. Luckily, we plan to spend Christmas in AZ- so we'll see them again soon.

Thanks for the great trip!

finish Kindergarten- check!

2009-06-29T14:13:00.004-05:00

Seth finished Kindergarten on June 3 (after having to make up 3 snow days).

Last day of Kindergarten.

First Day of Kindergarten, August 2008

Seth had a great school year and truly loved everything about it! He had an awesome art teacher who came in every Friday morning and taught them actual art concepts along with how to cut and paste. He said that was his favorite part of school. He also had great PE and music teachers- those classes alternated everyday. In music, they did a whole unit on Indian music and each kid got to make an instrument- Seth made a tambura.
His best friend, Brennan was in his class all year. And since there are only two classes per grade in their school, they have a 50/50 chance of repeating the fun!
Seth did pretty well in his subjects- but really excelled in reading. His teacher told me that at the end of this school year, his reading level was a whole year ahead (end of first grade). We're determined to keep this ability going but having him read multiple books every day this summer. He's doing great so far. Seth also did well in math- he caught on to the concepts of addition and subtraction quickly. He like to sit and write out math problems for himself or have us write some for him. He can add multiple digit numbers together and carry numbers as well.
His handwriting is pretty poor though, he still writes using capital letters a lot. So we are trying to work on that at home this summer too.
Seth rode the bus to school almost every day. His was the last stop, so when the bus picked him up at the end of our street at 8am, it took him directly to school. I usually picked him up everyday though, otherwise he would have been on the bus for 45 minutes or so after school. He really liked riding the bus.

Seth has started piano lessons this summer and is doing pretty well and not tired of it yet. He has a great teacher who is very patient and jokes a lot- so his lessons are always fun. He's also on a swim team and goes to practice every weekday morning for an hour. Slowly but surely he is getting better and better at swimming. He understands the basic concepts but he is not very strong and his strokes are really wild. I'm hoping that after this summer, he'll be able to swim across the pool without stopping.

He is a good boy and we love him so much!

my two little boys

2009-06-27T22:06:00.008-05:00

could not be more different....
Tonight we were at an outdoor concert ("Blues, Brews and BBQ"). The kids all got their faces painted and a balloon tied to their wrists (both were free- you can tell by the quality of the "baseball" on Jonas's face). Jon pointed out to the kids a red balloon flying way up high in the sky. Jonas was fascinated by it, looked at the red balloon tied to his wrist and said "Mommy- I want my balloon go up too!" (He has suddenly started to speak in complete sentences!) I spent the next few minutes explaining to him that his balloon was going to go bye-bye. He seemed excited about it, so I took the balloon off his wrist and he let it go. He was totally elated and watched the balloon until he couldn't see it anymore yelling "bye-bye balloon" over and over. Seth and Maryn still had their balloons but Jonas didn't care that he didn't have one anymore.

In complete contrast to Jonas's excitement- Seth completely fell apart crying and saying "He should have just given his balloon to me! Can we go back and get him another red balloon?" He was totally distraught for the rest of the evening, crying and saying things like "I wish balloons would never pop. How does the helium get out of the balloon anyway? Is that balloon going to go all the way up to outer space? Is it going to get to heaven?"

caution and control-----curiosity and adventure

mia

2009-06-26T23:55:00.002-05:00

summer is upon us- so much going on- must update blog

- family visited

- swim team

- piano lessons

- princess birthday party

- kindergarten graduate

- toddler speaking in sentences

details and pics coming soon

who knew there was a difference?

2009-05-28T13:54:00.003-05:00

On the way out the door to Maryn's last ballet class of this semester, I grabbed my camera and some new batteries so I could take video and pictures. When I tried to use the camera, it was totally freaking out and I was convinced it was broken. So I didn't get any video and only a few pictures. I'm really upset about it. After I got home and read the camera manual and looked at the batteries, I realized that they were non-alkaline. I didn't realize that alkaline made a difference, I thought all household batteries were alkaline. Guess not.

So here are the few pictures I was able to take.

In this picture, the girls were practicing prancing around and picking up flowers with their thumb and forefingers. Maryn wasn't very dainty about it, she pretty much ran the whole time.

Those are not her ballet shoes, this was taken after class after she had put her crocs on.

This is Maryn and her teacher Mrs. Tobey. She is a very sweet person and Maryn has learned so much from her in the past 9 months. She starts every class reviewing ballet positions and practicing toe pointing. The rest of the class time she uses different games to teach turns, skipping, galloping, and probably a lot of other things about ballet that I don't recognize because I don't really know anything about dance. Her teacher told me that Maryn has gone from not being able to skip at all to being able to skip pretty well. She said she was impressed with her concentration when she was trying really hard to learn to skip. It is really an awesome class and I hope Maryn continues to enjoy it.

(As I was watching SYTYC Dance last night and hearing that a lot of the dancers started dancing at age 3, 4, 5- I couldn't help but hope that Maryn will want to stick with it so she can say that too!)

and so it begins

2009-05-16T09:02:00.005-05:00

Yes folks, that's our back door...

See the water line?

Remember this post from last summer? Our rainy summer season got started with a bang last Friday with 2+ inches of rain falling in about 60 minutes which lead to 3 inches of standing water in our basement. We were very prepared this time and had minimal damage to our stuff (except for the bottom three inches of our bookshelves and piano- we'll have to see how that one turns out).

Here's the video Jon took during the flood:

We spent all day yesterday cleaning up our basement and it is pretty much back to normal, function-wise. We're hoping that sandbags will minimize the damage next time. Not that anything about this was humorous, but when we looked outside after the flood waters had receded, all of our outside toys were gone (floated away into other people's backyards) including our sandbox turtle! We found it about twenty feet away and the sand inside was still dry as a bone. The real question is, how are we going to get it back into our yard? :)

my kids....

2009-05-12T09:00:00.002-05:00

unfortunately do a lot of this.....

The funny thing about this picture is- it shows how Maryn and Jonas pretty much copy exactly what Seth does. If Seth lays down on the floor, then Maryn does too (usually very close up next to him) followed by Jonas not long after.

what we've been up to

2009-05-11T11:06:00.004-05:00

The last few weeks have turned out to be really really busy for our family. Jon is trying to finish up his semester, the rest of us had (in random order) book club, Primary meeting, enrichment, swim lessons, open house at school, father/son campout, ballet, English Dept. party, school half day, activity day girls, mother's day crafts in Seth's class and at church yesterday...phew. Thankfully I had an awesomely-relaxing Mother's Day (except for the afore mentioned Mother's Day craft in Primary that I was in charge of- that was crazy). Jon did a great job taking care of all my usual responsibilities so I could just chill. I wish every day was Mother's Day. (Plus, I got released from my calling yesterday- it was a great day!)

I made these rolls for enrichment and the school open house (they were on the same night). They were yummy and got eaten up quickly.

This is Maryn's new dress, thanks Aunt Wendy!

We were watching funny animal videos on You Tube. Maryn loves to snuggle Seth!

sofa......so good!* or "the saga of the red couch"

2009-04-25T17:48:00.002-05:00

The other issue that has been taking up so much of my time lately is--I'm in the process of trying to redecorate our living room.

Those of you who have been in our home at any point in the past 9 years will recognize "old blue". We bought this couch brand new when we were married and have loved it nearly to death. It has been a trooper through 3 children, 4 moves, countless spills and many jumps (trampoline-style). On the comfort scale-- it's a 10, but on the attractiveness scale-- it has been sliding down quickly each to year to rest at around a 2 or 3. If it would have fit in our basement, we would have kept it. But it is too huge, so we practically gave it away to a young (craigs-listing) couple moving into their first apartment together for $30. We were all sad to see it go...but it was time.

After many many many trips to the few furniture stores in our area, we have a new couch! (The following is a picture of Seth reading The Cat in the Hat to Maryn and Jonas.)

In searching for this couch, we realized that Jon and I have a fundamental difference in taste. He cares mostly about comfort and I care mostly about style. (Which is sort of how men and women view things in general, I think.) I was not happy when we bought this couch, I felt very forced into the purchase. We were at this store (45 minutes away from our home, it was pouring rain, all the kids were with us) and they were having a huge sale, so Jon said "We are buying a couch here today, so you'd better decide which one." I halfheartedly agreed to this red couch because the only other one I was even remotely interested in, Jon hated ("not comfortable"). I worried about it all week (it took 7 days to be delivered) and almost called to cancel the order at least once per day.

After almost three weeks, we have a happy ending--I am really loving the couch!

*post title credit goes to DB. (I know I said I'm the funniest person I know, but I lied--my Dad is.)

for some laughs....

2009-04-23T09:00:00.001-05:00

check out my latest tweet (yes Brandon, I continue to be the funniest person I know)

and look at blog list on the left sidebar of Jon's blog (what is he trying to say about me?)

Happy Easter! (a week late)

2009-04-21T13:13:00.002-05:00

p.s.- (for the grandparents, mostly) here are some pics of our latest adventures: spring break visit to Chicago and Easter festivities.

where have you been?

2009-04-20T10:32:00.003-05:00

Of all the balls I've been juggling in the air lately, blogging was one of the ones that dropped. Here's some of the reasons why:

Sick kids: Thanks to kindergarten, we have had three bouts of strep throat with numerous runny noses and most recently-- yucky coughs. Jonas was hit the hardest and has spent the better part of the past 6 months sick with something. At his two year appointment, I found out he had fallen off the growth chart altogether. The doctor diagnosed him as "failure the thrive" and we had to get a ton of blood tests to check organ functions (which all came out normal). I freaked out. So I spent the better part of the next 5 weeks keeping a food diary which made me really pay attention to what he was eating/drinking. At his appointment (after the five weeks) he had gained over 2 pounds!

Organizing: The boundaries of the three wards in our area got redrawn and our ward got one half of a family student housing complex (nicknamed "Little Wymount"--you can probably guess why) causing our ward's Primary to triple in size with most of the new kids under 6 years old. Those of you who were in Gateway can imagine what this would be like. (Ex. SDV was taken out of Gateway and added to another preexisting ward.) So we have been working our you-knows off trying to get organized for our first official day as a new ward (yesterday). Luckily I had my prior experience of being secretary of Gateway ward's primary to draw from. These types of numbers may seem commonplace to some of you out west, but here--a ward/primary this size is not very common.

Selling my old stuff: I've been attempting to de-junk my house and recently put all the excess in a consignment sale that happens bi-annually in my town. The stuff I didn't sell, I put in a friend's yard sale. All-in-all, I think I made about $300. How's that for excess stuff?

Enjoying the weather: We've been having beautiful warm spring days intermingled with freezing rainy days. I look forward to and take advantage of the warm days as best I can with much hanging out outdoors. It's tulip/daffodil season here which makes driving around town so much more enjoyable. I'm really enjoying this land of perennial plants. Being from the southwest, it's an anomaly.

Carting the kids around: Ballet and playgroup once per week, swimming lessons twice per week, in addition to library visits and park trips every week....

Planning vacations: My parents are coming at the beginning of the summer and we're going to Utah at the end of the summer. Working on planning fun things to do while Grandma and Papa are here!

Phew....

Indiana-ana Jones

2009-03-13T21:58:00.014-05:00

I find myself with some time this evening to share some birthday party pics. Jon is in SF for an academic conference (and having the time of his life--he is in love with that city), the kids are sleeping (I hope) so I have time to finally document these events.

Seth wanted to have an Indiana Jones-themed birthday party. (Jon and I tried to talk him into having a "monster" party where the kids could make monster masks and eat fun/grotesque treats--but he was having none of that.) Having a February birthday when it's actually winter outside is a challenge because you can't really plan a party outside (at a park-with built-in entertainment) which leaves you with only a few options: A-- shell out $150+ to have your party indoors at a restaurant/play gym, etc. B-- have your party at your own house. or C-- have your party outside anyway (even though it had snowed that morning) and make sure everyone brings a coat. We opted for a mix of B and C. Once that was decided--in a moment of mental weakness I told Seth he could invite 9 friends. Ten 6 year-old boys in my house, at the same time, what the heck was I thinking? (Luckily, 2 didn't come.)

The party guests (counter-clockwise, L to R) Finn, Seth, Ryan, David, Srijan, Christian, Brennan, and Elijah.

Special thanks to Grandma B and Aunt Carlie for many great ideas for Indiana Jones-themed party games. We played "put the gold coin in the chest", IJ Bingo, and Jon put together an awesome treasure hunt which included some outdoors fun. (There wasn't enough hats to go around, so you can see that one party guest settled for Maryn's pink cowgirl hat!)

As part of the treasure hunt, Jon had them watch a scene from the end of "last crusade" when Indy has to walk on stones labeled with letters, spelling "Jehovah". Then, he had the boys act it out by walking on our kitchen tiles labeled with letters to spell "birthday".

Dig for a buried clue in the sand pit (aka- sandbox turtle).

Balance on the beam and do jumping jacks.

Touch a friend on the nose.
The treasure hunt ended (after finding the treasure) with Jon pulling out his old Construx set.Seth got some cool presents that he really liked- 2 Lego sets and a Webkinz (among others).Seth was a little embarrassed by the Happy Birthday singing. And we had to do it twice because of an overzealous party guest who blew out the candles before Seth did.

Overall, I think the party went well. I felt badly that I didn't make a cool cake and I didn't really work that hard at planning a bunch of activities. But truthfully, I don't think Seth noticed and the boys seemed to have a lot of fun (especially during the treasure hunt). This February birthday party thing is always going to be hard as long as we live here!

Happy Birthday, Seth!

Maryn's first haircut

2009-03-10T18:29:00.004-05:00

In between birthdays a few weeks ago, on Feb 26, Maryn got her first haircut....done by me! I was cutting all of the boys' hair (Jon, Seth and Jonas) and I thought it was time for Maryn to get her hair cut too. She was excited at first and then got upset and said she didn't want to have short hair. So I told her that I was going to "cut her hair long"-- she bought it and let me do it.

Don't you just love the little curly ponytail? After I cut off the ponytail and saw how short it was going to be, I was a little nervous. I evened the ends out as best I could and I'm really happy that the ends of her hair still naturally curl. She looks really cute, if I do say so myself, and so much more grown up!

birthday wishes

2009-03-03T13:34:00.004-06:00

The three major boys in my life all celebrate their birthdays in a 7-8 day period (depending on leap year). I've mentioned my two sons, but have yet to post some pictures of their birthday parties (coming- I promise, grandmas!).

Today is Jon's birthday. We were talking last night and he mentioned something that was bothering him about his body (I won't mention what- partly because I wouldn't want to embarrass him and mostly because I don't really remember) and I responded with "well, it must be because you're in your early thirties now". This is the 13th year we have celebrated his birthday together. It will be fun in (...let me count here...) 2015 when we have celebrated more birthdays together than apart.

He's already bought himself some birthday presents-- a turntable, some new records and a "squatty" IPod (last gen. nano). He's not one for surprises (in fact, he detests surprises)- so this is pretty much how it usually goes with him. I am planning on making him a pecan pie tonight to celebrate.

I love him. He's my best friend. He continues to be the coolest person I know and attempts to keep me up-to-speed with what's cool in music, media, movies, etc. even though I kind of lag behind a lot. He is a hard-worker, super-smart, a talented writer, an awesome daddy, and a sincere, loyal friend (those of you who are lucky enough to be one of his close friends know this for sure).

Loves.

book club at the library last night

2009-02-25T13:11:00.006-06:00

Guest moderator walks in late: "Wow, this is a big group, more than I expected."

Nervous laughter from the twelve of us group members. There were actually more people there than usual. I think it's because the book is kind of different and pretty popular.

No introduction. Who is this guy anyway? "So what do you guys usually do at these things?"

More nervous laughter from the group, followed by a really uncomfortable silence when we realized that he had asked a serious question.

Oldest woman in the room and long-time book club veteran: "Usually the moderator will give us a bio of the author, a little bit about their life and what other things they have done or books they have written."

All eyes turn back to the "moderator": "Well you guys pretty much know all about her life from reading this book anyway, right?"

Silence.

Old woman: "Then she usually has a list of questions to facilitate the discussion and get it started."

"Well I don't have any of those....so let's just turn it to you guys, what did you think of the book?"

Silence.

Finally, after we all looked around at each other for what seems like hours, someone started talking and the discussion got rolling...albeit painfully slow. It did pick up after few more minutes and ended up being a pretty good discussion--no thanks to the "moderator" who ended up admitting that the reason he volunteered to moderate this particular discussion was because when he saw the movie, he was dating a Persian woman who was explaining things to him as they watched the movie together. After he said this, there was another sequence of nervous laughter followed by uncomfortable silence when we realized he was serious. (To clarify and be fair, he had actually read the book also.)

I have really never been in a more awkward and socially painful group situation.

By the way, the book was Persepolis. It's really good (better than the movie, I've heard), you should read it.

einstein

2009-02-24T16:28:00.000-06:00

I heard on NPR last Tuesday that the widely-circulated fact that Einstein failed math is wrong. I was glad to hear that because I never really believed it anyway.

My first little son turns 6 today (my second little son will turn 2 tomorrow). Sometimes I worry about Seth because he seems totally addicted to media-based entertainment. He watched a lot of TV as a baby, from about 6 months on, because I went back to school and got a bachelor's degree (graduating while 8.5 months pregnant with Maryn) and I needed something to occupy his time so I could study. As I'm typing this, it kind of sounds like he was neglected. In my defense, he only watched good quality kids shows (with no commercials) or baby einstein videos. So I felt okay about it at the time. There was really nothing else I could do.

Anyway--so sometimes I think that because of this, he developed a sort of dependence on media for entertainment. He is constantly asking to watch a movie, play computer or play Wii...until one afternoon last week....

He's been working on adding in math in school, really only adding to 10. One night, Jon showed him how to add 2 and three digit numbers vertically in columns. Seth totally grasped on to this concept and started writing his own math problems to solve. Example: 213+215 or 1111+245. It was so cute how excited he was about it! Then, he started writing problems that required carrying numbers and got really confused. So later the same night, Jon showed him how to carry numbers. Since then, Seth has been creating and solving his own addition problems, complete with one or two carried numbers in each. The next couple of days after that, he came home from school and said,

"Mom, I want to do more math problems."

You can imagine my shock when he said this and not "Mom can I play Wii?" Last Sunday at church, he got a birthday gift in Primary--a little pen and matching notebook. He said,

"Oh good! Now I can do more math problems!"

Since his birthday party though (last Saturday), he has wanted to play with his new toys, so math has taken a back burner. Hopefully, not for long, I really wonder if he will always stay this excited about it?

birthday boys

2009-02-24T13:18:00.001-06:00

More pics and party recaps to follow...

wedding: Wendy

2009-02-12T13:50:00.005-06:00

I had an absolutely totally fun time during my trip to Tucson. There was a party literally everyday for 4 days, intermixed with all the wedding preparations. The whole event turned out beautifully, the weather was perfect, the overall look of the decorations was totally cool--totally Wendy, and of course the real Mexican food was so, so good (you really can't find that in my neck of the midwest).

True to form, I didn't take many pictures during my trip. The following are a few of the highlights. The rest can be viewed here. I'm anxiously waiting for Wendy and Chad to get home from Mexico so I can see the actual wedding pics from the real photog. Until then, here's a few--

This is one of the only pictures I got of the happy couple. Not the best because they are feeding cake to each other, but you can see Wendy's beautiful dress (knee-length) and a little glimpse of one of the cakes behind them. Wendy was very hands-on, not just in the planning of this wedding, but in its execution as well. What bride makes her own wedding cakes? She did. And they were really yummy.

Near the end of the night: Mom, me, Rach and Wendy (where were you, Car?) Wendy had 5 bridesmaids. She let us pick our own dresses (either white or cream) and she made us each a necklace (as well as her own). So awesome.

Jonas and Papa.

To continue the partying fun, the next day we had a birthday party for Ellena. Jonas got some goods out of the party too. This is the costume I bought to try and keep him from wearing Maryn's princess dresses. (It isn't working all that great so far.) Carlie got him the cool hat and swords to complete the look.

And finally, Wendy played guitar and sang a song for Chad, I Feel it All-- the song from their engagement video. It sounded really great, she is so talented. As I was listening to it, I looked around and realized that no one was filming it! Aaah! So I ran across the yard, got my puny little camera and recorded the last half of the song.

To end, I've included their engagement video (which I shot). It's really cute and she was so surprised! Chad flew in from Seattle and met us in Tucson, she saw him when she looked through that telescope thing. Watch it.

flip-flops in February (& wedding bells)

2009-02-07T12:26:00.002-06:00

This may not seem like such an awesome occurance for those of you who live in AZ (or anywhere else warm), but I have felt so spoiled these past few days NOT having to wear socks, or a sweater or a coat or gloves. This is the February I'm used to, this is the February I love.

I'm here (with Jonas) for my sister's wedding. So excited! I miss my other kids and Jon of course, but I'm really having a great time here- enjoying the beautiful weather and hanging out with my family.

It's going to be really hard to go back to the midwest's ice, snow and freezing temps. Spring cannot come fast enough out there.

this socks

2009-01-29T16:39:00.004-06:00

I caved and let Seth have a friend over after school this past week. Not that I don't allow this- I do, he has friends over frequently- friends whose parents I know well. But this was a boy from school, his mom called me up out of the blue and asked to arrange a play date. I immediately offered to have him over to our house. I'm just not sure I'm ready to let Seth go over to a friend's house where I don't know their family at all.

The afternoon went pretty well and the boys got along fine. The only problem was that this friend kept saying "this sucks". I kept telling him, "we don't say 'sucks' in our house". To which Seth said "Mom, it's okay to say 'socks' if you're talking about your feet, right?"

I wish he could stay this innocent.

okay, okay- I get it

2009-01-29T09:54:00.005-06:00

I'm planning on being purposefully cryptic in this post because I don't want someone do do an internet search about this subject and find this.

The kids are learning a new song in Primary this month. It's an original song, written only last year specifically for this year's new theme. When I heard it for the first time a few weeks ago, I was very underwhelmed. I really like last year's new song (about the Savior) but this one is not even close to as good. The melody and rhythm are weird and the tempo is hard for the children to keep up with. Because the tempo is so fast, the kids jumble the words and it's hard to understand what they're saying. But the worst part about the song for me is the lyrics, they're super-cheesy. (And dare I say- a bit sexist and kind of exclusive.) So I had pretty much decided that I didn't like the song at all. I didn't tell anyone this (besides Jon) because, well I didn't want to put any ideas into anyone's head (especially the kids) that the song was stupid.

Fast forward two weeks to this past Sunday. I was singing the song along with the kids (yes, I still learned it) when all of the sudden I got choked up and had to stop singing. I felt a very strong feeling that the words I was singing were true- eternal truths even- and as much as I thought I hated the song, there was no way I could deny that fact.

So here I sit, chastised. I can't hate the song anymore, but it's still not my favorite.

p.s. After three weeks of practice, my little Sunbeam Maryn has learned almost the whole song and sings it while she's playing around the house. I guess that's supposed to soften my heart too...it's working.

the forgotten third child

2009-01-19T14:54:00.011-06:00

(photos to accompany this post soon!)

It's sad, but you all know it's true- milestones and other cute developmental things for the poor third child frequently go unnoticed until they all start happening at once. Case in point- my sweet little Jonas. He has really had a language explosion in conjunction with a major growth spurt over the last few weeks since we've been home. It's taken me this long to actually put all of the pieces together and notice. This really makes it sound like he just gets ignored around here, but that truly isn't the case. He's just such an easy-going kid, doesn't make a fuss about anything that I'm not constantly worrying about him.

First- the growth spurt. He's been wearing size 12-18 month pants and pajamas this whole winter season so far. They are all of the sudden hilariously short now and probably way tight in the waist too. For the most part (except for this current winter season), I've been really lucky- in that I've been able to use Seth's old clothes for Jonas. The two problems are- 1. Jonas is way skinnier than Seth ever was, 2. We lived in AZ, so pretty much the only clothes I have for him are summer-wear.

Second- the language explosion. Keep in mind, all of these examples have been so sudden over the last few weeks. I'll do this section in bullet points to make for easier reading.

he can identify 3 colors: "wed", "boo", "geen"

he can identify all the little einsteins: "annie" (which is also conveniently his cousin's name) "doon", "we-o", "de-de" (Qunicy), and "wocket"

he can identify most of the princesses: "Beow" (Belle), "Reh-rah" (Cinderella), "White" (Snow White), "A-e-o" (Ariel). We have 4 princess dresses in our house and whenever Maryn puts one on, Jonas has to have one on too- complete with shoes. Jon was mortified when he saw this for himself and insisted I find Jonas some sort of alternative- a prince costume or something. I looked around for a while and finally bought a Captain Hook costume from the Disney store online. We hope it does the trick. (I chose that one over the Captain Jack Sparrow costume because the Hook costume had sparkly brocade on it- hopefully Jonas thinks it's similar enough to a princess dress!)

When we were walking through Target the other day, Jonas started yelling "paw-bwo"! At first I couldn't figure out what he was saying, then I realized he meant "Pablo" from Backyardigans. He had a seen a really cute little stuffed animal Pablo, so of course we had to get it for him.

He's been able to hum and/or grunt the tune of 'Twinkle Star" for a while now, but recently, he's added in the word "star" and its rhyming words in all the right places. He's actually really good at singing (humming, grunting) along to all songs. Maybe he'll have an awesome ear for music like Seth.

other new words: R-2 (R2D2) & "Pee-o" (C3PO), "Day-too" (thank you), "ulk" (milk), "nack" (snack), "Ni-neen" (Lightening McQueen), "icky" (Mickey Mouse), "Wah-ee" (Wall-E)

Jonas is so sweet. He is so friendly and will pretty much give anyone a hug if asked. Love him, love him.

p.s.- I am feeling much better, thank you. I was totally blessed this time around with very mild symptoms. I'm so ready to get back into a normal routine!

rockstar in training

2009-01-15T10:39:00.003-06:00

Seth has always been a big fan of Coldplay. His first favorite song was Fix You off of the X&Y album. Recently, their new album Viva La Vida has been a hit in our house as well. The kids love the title track and will sing along to the "oh oh oh" chorus. But Seth knows all the rest of the words too. Jon took this video over Thanksgiving weekend in Tucson.

A: twice

2009-01-14T12:04:00.002-06:00

Q: What is the number of times that Tina will get strep throat in a 6 week period?

What a way to start off the new year. So this, coupled with the local weather forecast for tomorrow (high=0 degrees, wind chill= 30 below) makes for a very crappy upcoming 48 hours.

Those of you who currently have sunshine and health- enjoy it!

vacation brief

2009-01-12T11:30:00.005-06:00

Here's the summary:
days away from home- 19
miles traveled (in a van with 3 kids)- 3200
states visited and/or driven through- 11

I just looked through the pictures on my camera from our vacation and as usual, I'm disappointed that we didn't take more. I always forget about it, especially towards the end.

I have posted highlights of the pictures we did manage to take here. My sister has posted a few that she took while we were visiting here (this includes some from my brother's wedding of which I took no pictures! dumb!). Jon took some pics from his cell phone while we were on the road (most of them while driving). All are really cool and show the changing landscape, they are here.

Despite the crazy amounts of car-time we put in, the trip was way fun and we were able to accomplish many important things during the course of it. We visited with a few old friends, spent many hours shopping for treasures at the DI, played lots of Wii, ate good food, spent lots of quality time with loving grandparents, saw my brother get married (on an 80 degree day in Mesa!), laughed a ton, and ate more and more good food.

The following pics are some of the highlights of the trip.

Jon and Seth shoveling on the first day it snowed. Those of you in Utah for that Christmas week know what I'm talking about! Many more inches were to come!

Our family Christmas evening. This picture was taken in an effort to show the kids' new pajamas (Jonas and Seth match). In the picture taken right before this one, Jonas is waving the sword in my face.

(in this picture, L to R: Uncle Dave, Grandpa, Katie, Jonas [in stroller], me, Grandma Jeannie holding Seth and Emily holding Maryn. Jon was taking the picture) We went to see the holiday lights at Temple Square in Salt Lake. It was beautiful! Cold and slippery, but really beautiful. The kids did really well considering they were hungry, cold and tired. (Jonas ended up falling asleep in the stroller.) Seth's favorite part was "the big Jesus statue" (in the visitor's center). Earlier that same day Jon and I were able to do a session at that temple. Interesting (because it's live- never experienced that before!). I love the history surrounding these old buildings (at Temple Square). What a feat of architecture in a place that was essentially, at that time, out in the middle of nowhere. They are beautiful.

The kids with Grandma B in more new Christmas pajamas. After my brother's wedding in Mesa, when we got to Tucson we got to have second Christmas! Hoorah!

Thank you to all our family (and friends) who made this trip so memorable. Thank you for taking care of us and showering us with gifts and love. We love you.

happy new year

2009-01-10T11:35:00.003-06:00

As I have been for the past month or so, I'm still a little behind on everything- including celebrating the new year. Here, on Jan 10, I'm starting to get excited about the prospect of a new year full of adventures, surprises and hopefully not too many challenges.

Our holiday vacation was epic in proportion. We were gone for almost three weeks, made a large circle across 11 states and drove almost 3200 miles. Jon started talking about wanting us to be be team truck drivers when we retire so we can see more of the country. Not sure how I feel about that one.

I was excited to get the mail when we got home and read all the Christmas cards from friends and family. On the other hand, it made me totally bummed because in the craziness of our holiday- I didn't get any cards mailed out to family and friends. And now on Jan 10, I think it's a bit too late to send them out (even if I had them all done and ready to go, which I don't). I think we'll send out an email with pictures and hope that makes up for my total inability to accomplish that task this year. I guess I'll use the 30+ homemade cards I actually finished for next Christmas. Now what to do with the 40+ holiday postage stamps I bought? (Because I'm sure that by next Christmas, postage will have increased.) And what to do with the 70+ copies of the holiday picture of my kids? Wallpaper?

I'm hoping that this trend of being about a week late with everything is not an indication of how my year will be.

a happier, more detailed holiday update

2008-12-24T16:46:00.001-06:00

Jon wrote a much better blog post about our recent travels. Read it.

a time of many firsts

2008-12-24T09:18:00.002-06:00

Over the past 6 days, I have experienced a few firsts:

visiting the states of Iowa and Nebraska (if only to drive through)
getting to meet new children of good friends
driving down Provo Canyon at sunset (very pretty)
watching inches and inches of fat snowflakes fall from inside a warm house instead of from inside our minivan (so glad we got here just 12 hours before it started)
over the past 24 hours- cleaned up the sick from all three of my kids (sorry to grandma and grandpa for making a mess of their house and thank you for helping clean it up- it wouldn't be a vacation without someone getting sick, I guess)

Merry Christmas Eve

mustering up some Christmas cheer

2008-12-15T21:41:00.004-06:00

I blame my sickness earlier this month for my lack of holiday spirit. I really just can't get into it at all this year.

I'm rushing around trying the get ready for our cross-country drive this weekend and it's stressing me out. That on top of Christmas cards unfinished, Seth's class party to organize and run on Friday, and literally freezing cold temps that make me never want to leave my house again until March. Humbug.

So to liven things up a bit, I'm going to include two videos of the kids. Eventhough, I'm not feeling it- I'm still trying to make this holiday season fun for them.

The first video- Jon filmed. It's way long- 6 minutes, so Iunderstand if most of you can't make it through the whole thing (I almost didn't). I'm not shown in the video thankfully because I was in the height of my horrible sickness- as you might be able to tell from my voice. The second video is way shorter- so if you only want to watch one- watch that one!

MIA, indeed

2008-12-09T09:24:00.002-06:00

Just when I thought I was getting back on my feet after returning from our AZ vacation, my legs got swept out from underneath me- I landed hard on my back and that's where I've been for the past four days.

I never, never, never get sick. Seriously, the last time I was really sick was when I had mono nine years ago. And this time seemed way worse than that (but maybe it was because nine years ago, I didn't have a houseful of husband and children who depended on me).

I think getting strep throat as an adult is like getting chicken pox as an adult- 1,000 times worse than when you get it as a kid.

And now that I've sort of reentered the land of the living today, I'm realizing that we're leaving for our (3 week) Christmas vacation in 11 days. Um...I think I'll go back to bed.

intruder update and vacation pics

2008-12-04T10:57:00.002-06:00

The good news is- we have 2 down. The bad news is- we have an infestation.

In other, better news- I have uploaded pics of our trip to AZ here. I'll post more details soon.

I miss AZ (post UPDATED)

2008-12-03T12:40:00.003-06:00

Yes, we made it back....48 hours ago. And I still haven't unpacked and cleaned up everything. I plan to post pics and stories of what we did soon- as soon as I get my house back to normal.

We left sunny AZ at 7 am, at 75 degrees and landed in IL at 11 am, at 30 degrees. We drove home in blowing snow and arrived to find ice-coated porch steps. Cruel reality.

You guys in AZ don't know how good you have it.

****I just went into my pantry to get stuff out to make cookies for Jon for mutual tonight. Guess what I found? Little holes chewed into all my bags of sugar and rice and popcorn. And crap literally all over the place. Welcome home.

a little ballet before we leave

2008-11-19T11:59:00.003-06:00

As I was clearing the memory card on my camera in preparation for our trip, I found this video that I forgot I had taken of Maryn in ballet class. So yes, instead of accomplishing more on my to-do list, I'm blogging.

The video was taken a few days before Halloween, that's why she's wearing her kitty ears and her friend Samantha is wearing a cape.

Enjoy!

too busy

2008-11-18T08:06:00.002-06:00

I'm frantically trying to prepare for our vacation. We're going from 40 degree highs with snow flurries to 80 degree highs and sunshine. I could not be more thrilled. This is the first time we've made it home in the 15 months we've lived here. And yes, I say home because it will always feel like home to me.

I had grand plans last week for getting things done early so as not to be rushing around this week. Alas, it was not to be. Last week turned into "the week where I babysit everyone else's kids". (And not to offend those of you whose kids I watched. It wasn't actually hard to do, it's just all those hours of me not being able to do anything else added up.)

So here I sit, I have three more days to accomplish all the tasks on my to-do list- and I'm blogging, which isn't supposed to be on the list. To give you an idea, here's a condensed version of my list-

Make 15 pairs of hairbows (yes, that's pairs) to put in consignment for the big holiday shopping weekend (I finished these last night, thankfully)
Make 12 snowman-out-of-lightbulb ornaments for an ornament exchange party (that I will be missing while I'm gone) this includes painting and speckling (with snow paint) the lightbulbs and crocheting little hats and scarves for each
Host and feed hot dogs to everyone at playgroup this morning
Laundry and packing for 5 (using only one under-50-pounds suitcase and 4 small carry-ons)
Gather up toys, electronic gadgets (extra wii-motes, etc), and other things to distract the kids on the flight and find some way to pack them too
Clean so that we don't have to come home to a messy house
Flu shots for 5 (Jon isn't happy about this one)
Enrichment tonight (might need to skip)
Maryn to ballet and Seth to Tae Kwon Do tomorrow

I could go on, but just reading that list makes me tired.

Despite being overwhelmed. I am so so so excited to come home and see family and friends, many with new babies I have never met. It's going to be a great trip, like the light at the end of this very cluttered tunnel.

We'll make it!

somtimes I like having a live doll to dress

2008-11-09T18:47:00.004-06:00

I am absolutely in love with this green and blue plaid dress and argyle tights outfit.

And the fall leaves look pretty too.

*******************************

P.S.- Jonas loves yogurt, eats it every day, but unfortunately insists on feeding himself. I tried to get a candid shot of him with the spoon in his mouth like this today, but he saw me coming at him with the camera and said "cheese".

And one more thing- Jon left his Ipod in his pants pocket after camping with the scouts this weekend. I washed all his camping clothes...twice (they smelled really bad). And guess what- the Ipod still works!

cue the Hallelujah chorus

2008-11-07T13:25:00.001-06:00

I didn't think I'd see this again in my lifetime!

Halloween 2008

2008-11-02T10:19:00.003-06:00

Happy Halloween to all!

For costumes this year, Seth chose to be Indiana Jones (thanks to Aunt Carlie for the hat and "man-purse") Maryn chose to be a kitty, and Jonas was a cowboy (with a too big hat and no boots- don't worry, he still looked cute). Jon was also Indiana Jones for some of the festivities (picture below).

We participated in a variety of Halloween activities this year: our ward trunk-or-treat, trick-or-treating at Daddy's office building, and trick-or-treating with our friends on Halloween night. (See those pumpkin buckets in the picture above? By the time we were done with all of these festivities, we had accumulated 6 bucket-fulls of candy. Sick. We let the kids pick out 10 pieces each and are going to give the rest to our Bishop- he keeps a stash in his office.)

Seth had been practicing the Indiana Jones half-smile, it shows up in a lot of the pictures.

Jonas's bandana functioned well as a bib to keep candy goo off of his coat.

By the time we remembered to take a picture of Indy father and son- Seth had had enough of the festivities.

The next few pics are of our kids and their BFFs. We all went trick-or-treating together in their neighborhood. (Which is a few residential streets away from a fancy country club, we even went to his house- but he wasn't handing out subs.)

Henry Jones, Jr. and Henry Jones, III.Little witch and kitty girl.

I'm sure the kids had a lot of fun over the past few days. They enjoyed trick-or-treating (for while, until they realized how much walking it took) and enjoying playing with their friends late into the evening (past their bedtimes). Jonas showed no hesitation and walked right up to people on their porches with his hands outstretched. We also had freakishly-good, AZ-type fall weather, not too cold at all.

As usual, for the grandparents, more pics of the events can be seen here.

Halloween preview

2008-10-31T17:02:00.000-05:00

yes, we're tired around here

2008-10-28T13:22:00.002-05:00

This is how I found Jonas napping a few days ago, surrounded by his favorite things.

Maryn has been having night terrors where she wakes up screaming and is inconsolable. It wears both of us out.

But she sure is a pretty girl.

if you have the time...

2008-10-27T10:20:00.002-05:00

When did the week of Halloween become as busy as the week of Christmas? Maybe I feel this way because I have three costumes to get together and a kindergarten class party to pull off.

But if you have a minute during this busy week, please take this survey. (It was put together by a friend of mine.)

Happy Halloween week!

Halloween cookies (on the good ship lollipop)

2008-10-20T12:39:00.004-05:00

Last week, the kids had a great time decorating cookies. After the sticky mess of frosting and sprinkles was cleaned up, I realized that I probably shouldn't have had them do this right before dinner.

Jonas (with pink eye) licked all the frosting up with the little knife and left the cookie.

This is pretty much what Maryn does when I ask her to smile, she screams.

For more pictures of the event, click here.

I'll end with a little Shirley lovin'.

remember my favorite tree?

2008-10-11T18:50:00.005-05:00

This tree is right outside my front door. I see it everytime I pull into my parking spot. Love it, love it, love it. The leaves turn the most beautiful buttery shade of red. (Yes, butter red is a color- I just made it up.) I should really find out what type of tree it is. They are all over my little town and they have the most gorgeous leaves by far.

I never knew how much I loved autumn until I moved here.

PS- I found my new autumn background here.

Jonas feels the jazz

2008-10-10T15:45:00.003-05:00

I included both of these videos because the first one is the cutest, but I filmed it sideways. By the time I came to my senses and started filming the right way, the music was pretty much over.
But seriously, the boy can groove, right?

crafting and ballerinas

2008-10-06T13:12:00.007-05:00

Thanks to conference weekend, I was able to finish this hat and booties set for a friend. You can't tell in the picture (I have no idea about camera lighting) but they are a really pale pink with white ribbons.

These are some large swaddling blankets I made for the same friend. (I actually feel badly for saying that I "made" them because all I did was do a roll hem and a straight stitch on the sewing machine. Seriously easy.) She came with me to pick out the fabric. Isn't the owl one on top just the cutest?!

The following pictures are of Maryn in her ballet class. She is enjoying every second of the 30 minutes each Wednesday. (The teacher only allows parents to visit class on the last Wednesday of the month.) While observing the class, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the teacher is actually teaching the girls ballet positions, using the correct piano music for each.
The ballerinas in the pictures are (left to right) Zoe, Samantha and Maryn.

As an amazing coincidence, two of my best friends (one mentioned previously) are being induced with their third babies tomorrow. (In different states, one having a boy and one having a girl.) Best wishes to both of you for minimal pain, healthy crying babies, and speedy recoveries!

Does Maryn get YouTube broadcasted directly to her brain?

2008-09-28T00:11:00.001-05:00

So weird. (Thanks for the tip Jon T.)

some recent funnies

2008-09-18T13:05:00.004-05:00

Here are a few things that have happened lately that I want to remember:

While in the car with Jon (I think G-pa Stone was there too), Seth said "You know what Dad, grass is like the Earth's hair."

Further proof that Maryn is almost exactly like my sister Wendy- While clipping Maryn's nails last night, I noticed that a few were very short already while the rest were all the same length. When I asked her about it, she said "I pulled them off with my teeth." Yes, folks- at age three, she bites her nails.

We have been listening to a CD of Disney songs (Jon made a random mix). One of the songs is "Davy Crocket" to which Maryn sings "Baby, Baby Crockett, king of outer space."

milestone reached by brute force

2008-09-15T09:43:00.002-05:00

I went to pick up Seth and Maryn from a birthday party on Saturday afternoon to find Seth sitting on his friend's dad's lap crying and bleeding. Apparently, Seth and two of his buddies were wrestling in the jumping castle when Seth took a knee to the chin. The impact knocked one tooth completely out and loosened the other one significantly.
It took him a good hour to calm down and stop whining about his tooth. Finally he said to me "Mom, I can feel the space that my tooth left in my mouth and I'm getting kind of excited." (Excited about the tooth fairy, which he had never heard of, which I had just finished telling him about, which now I regret doing.) He had trouble eating for the rest of the day because he kept forgetting about the remaining wobbly tooth and biting into hard things like bread.
"Mom, how is my tooth ever going to feel better?"
"When you decide to be brave and let me pull it out."
"Will it hurt?"
"No more than having your other one knocked out."

He woke up the next morning with four shiny quarters under his pillow. (Tooth fairy payments have increased significantly since I was 5 and losing teeth.) He spent the whole morning wiggling and fretting over the remaining tooth until finally he came up to me and said "Mom, I'm ready to be brave." (I admit, I was still a little nervous to pull it out, my biggest fear was that I wouldn't get it out on the first try.) After one swift yank later, the deed was done. He didn't even cry and patiently bit down on a wad of tissue paper until the bleeding stopped. That tooth still had a considerable amount of root on it (about 3-4 mm for you dentally-inclined types). It probably wouldn't have fallen out on its own for 2-3 more months.

I think he's going to have those two huge holes in his mouth for a while, so I'm really glad it wasn't his top teeth.

Seth's just excited to have earned two dollars in two days.

Ike flooded my basement and fixed my cable

2008-09-14T23:00:00.008-05:00

We received the remnants of Hurricane Ike this morning in the form of a torrential downpour that lasted four hours and flooded our basement (for the third time this summer). 4.3 inches according to our local newscast.

(Some quick words of explanation- our city's "run-off" drainage system is inadequate because it was built long before our city got huge. So whenever there is a lot of rain in a short period of time, the drainage system works for a while, then gets too full and stops draining- thus the water running down the hill onto our porch runs right under our french doors and into our basement, instead of down the drain located on our porch. So there's really not much we can do about it...I know, Mom- sandbags.)

Here's a video that Jon shot as the water was seeping in. (In the video, he mentions that it was the fourth time we've had flooding- but it's really only the third.)

The floor is red painted concrete which I actually thought looked pretty cool until all this flooding has made the paint peeley and gross.

Here's more pics of the flooding: In the first one, you can see our sandbox turtle with two cinder blocks in front of it that are almost completely submerged.

In this second photo, you can see how high the water was in reference to the chair leg. We think there was about a foot of water up against our back door.
The goods news of the day is- for some reason our cable connection is now crystal clear after months of the picture on almost all channels getting worse and worse. This was after multiple visits from the cable guys who said there was nothing they could do to restore the picture. We couldn't even get two network channels (one of which is the station Oprah is on). But for some reason, this huge storm fixed the problem! Cool, right?

Seth's teacher update

2008-09-11T13:03:00.003-05:00

Apparently we're BFFs now because she asked me to be her Head Room Parent (aka- party planner). First order of business- class Halloween party.

In all seriousness, after that day of fretting- I'm over it. I've corresponded with her via email several times now and she's very pleasant in that realm. Because of this, I've realized that we're actually very similar- not that friendly or outgoing in person (unless it's with someone with whom you're well-aquainted) and way more comfortable corresponding via email.

You'd think that two people who are so similar could get along.

We'll see. :)

overheard at breakfast this morning

2008-09-07T10:04:00.002-05:00

(Jon and I were in the living room, the kids were eating breakfast in the kitchen.)

Seth- "Mom's really the boss. I know Dad's bigger than her, but she really is still the boss."

Maryn- "No, Dad's the boss!"

Seth- "No, Mom!"

Maryn- "No, both of them!"

Jon- "Maryn's right, now quit arguing!"

Seth and I know the truth.

what do you do when...

2008-09-05T15:33:00.004-05:00

you don't like your kid's teacher at school?

I went in to Seth's class today to help with art. I was really excited to see how he interacted with his classmates and whether he was good at following directions (because he doesn't do well in this area at home). What I wasn't prepared for was the cold shoulder the class and I got from his teacher.

I'm not sure what I expected, but something along the lines of...
to kids- "Good Morning, class. We have a helper today, Seth's mom."
to me- "Thank you so much for coming in to help us out today."

What I got was...
to kids- "Sit down and get our your books." "Close your books and listen to the annoucements." to me- "What's your name again?"

Maybe she was having a bad day? (She is pregnant.) I really hope that's it and that she isn't always like this. I guess I was expecting someone more outgoing and energetic, someone who seems like they actually like kids. Do I have a starry-eyed expectation because my only examples are my mom and sister (who are both fabulous kindergarten teachers)?

My biggest consolation is that I have very few foggy memories about my Kindergarten experience. I don't remember anything about my teacher other than that she was really old. So I don't think that one sub-par teacher is going to make or break his elementary experience.

Right?!

twinkle toes

2008-09-04T12:22:00.001-05:00

I took this pic a while ago and never got around to posting it (surprise!). Maryn and I did this fun, girly activity while Daddy and Seth went to see a movie (Journey to the Center of the Earth- 3D).
If you look closely, you can see her itty-bitty pinky toenail- courtesy of Daddy (look familiar, Michelle?).

ballerina girl

2008-09-03T12:49:00.005-05:00

I'm blogging way out of order, I have so much else to catch up on. But I wanted to post pics of the first day of Maryn's ballet class. (Thanks for the leotard, Grandma Jeannie!)

She let me do her hair in these little buns, so cute!
I wasn't able to stay in the room because Jonas was so jealous and wanted to go and sit with the girls, so I had to take him out to the hall. This is a pic of me peeking through the door. Maryn is sitting to the right of the girl in the white tutu.
The class is 30 minutes a week for 3-4 year olds. It's not a real ballet class, it's more about movement and music. But the instructor does teach them the ballet positions and they practice them while playing games and using props. The girls aren't required to wear dance gear, they can wear whatever they want, really. But it's a fun opportunity to dress up like ballerinas (and some of the girls went all out, believe me!)

The following pic is of Maryn and her absolute best friend, Zoe. Whenever we are on our way anywhere, Maryn asks "Is Zoe going to be there?" Luckily the answer is usually yes!
(I think we'll skip the tights next time!)

first day of Kindergarten.....the afternoon after

2008-08-25T20:55:00.003-05:00

To begin, I have four words for you....THE BUS WAS LATE!

It was the longest 8 minutes of my life.

The little kids and I sat at the bus stop for about 10 minutes, and when his arrival time came and went (3:27), my head was immediately filled with all the scenarios of what could possibly go wrong and why the heck he wasn't here yet. I had to call Jon to talk me down, I was giving myself an anxiety attack. I don't think the convenience of the bus is worth all this. (Plus he was on the bus for almost an hour and his school is only 1.5 miles away. I think I'm going to rethink this bus thing.)

But when we were finally home safe and sound, I was able to ask Seth about his day. Here are the responses I got to my many questions:

"Mom, I need to wear tennis shoes because we do this thing called PE. It's inside- in the same place we eat lunch. There's a bunch of different things you can do, it's kind of like the Olympics." (Like I said, we watched a lot a lot of Olympics these past two weeks.)

"I didn't really like lunch. It was kind of like a taco with red sauce." (It was a pizza quesadilla.) "So, I just ate the applesauce." (NOT the salad.) "And you know what? Dad was right- they did have chocolate milk!" (Jon had told him last night during dinner that he could drink chocolate milk at school every day if he wanted to. I did not agree.) So his first school lunch was applesauce and chocolate milk.

"When my teacher said that everyone needed to go sit on the carpet, I was the first one there!" (He also got 4 "super stars", some sort of recognition for being good.)

"Mom, I didn't think about you at all until I was on the bus."

I guess that's good. (sniff)

first day of Kindergarten

2008-08-25T09:33:00.014-05:00

The important business of today is.....Seth started Kindergarten!

Lucky for us, his school doesn't start until 8:30- we aren't very early risers in our family. This morning, Seth came in my room at 6:45 and said "Do I need to get up and get ready for school?" We told him he couldn't get up until 7:00 and exactly 15 minutes later he walked back into our room. He had picked out the clothes for his first day weeks ago- he was so excited to wear his "army" shirt (thanks, Aunt Wendy!)

The morning went pretty smoothly, except for breakfast. I'm sure he was excited and nervous, but Seth hardly ate a thing. We all piled in the car and drove the 5 minutes it takes to get Seth to his new school. Jon waited in the car with the younger kids while I took Seth up to the front doors of his school and showed him where to stand in line. He got a little nervous and teary standing there with me, but he got it together in time for his teacher to appear and take them all inside.

Seth's school is a very old red brick split-level schoolhouse (I think the sign on the outside says 1927). The enrollment is very small, with only 2 classes per grade K-5. And to make things even better, his best friend, Brennan, is in the same class!

It's been about two hours since I dropped him off. The anxiety has worn off a bit, but I still miss him. What I really miss is his helpfulness in taking care of Maryn and Jonas. He is really good at keeping an eye on Jonas- making sure he stays out of trouble and making sure Maryn doesn't bully him. I've already had to break up squabbles this morning between the two kids.

I expect the anxiety to creep up again around the time school gets out. I'm letting him ride the bus home and I'm very, very nervous about that. But in this case, my logical brain won over my emotional brain because if he rides the bus home, it means that I don't have to wake up Jonas from his nap to go and pick him up. So I'm praying that the bus experience is good and safe. Only 5 more hours until he's supposed to be home.

My baby started school! I hope this gets easier with subsequent children.

August, oh August, I hardly knew thee

2008-08-22T20:37:00.003-05:00

Where has this month gone? I have been so busy and August has just flown by. I have so many posts in my head waiting to be written. (I think I need to be a daily blogger because when I realize that I haven't written in a while and so much has happened, I get overwhelmed and continue to procrastinate.) Here's the list to help me remember everything that happened this month, more details coming soon-

1. I officially entered the last year of my twenties.

2. A BFF (who also just happens to be my awesome sister-in-law) came to visit with her two cute kiddos. She's now embarking on a new adventure, currently in the eye of Hurricane Fay. Yikes!

3. Seth is starting full-day kindergarten on Monday (25th) (and riding the bus, to top it all off).

4. Jon received a new calling at church.....he won't let me say what it is yet, so there's some suspense for you.

5. I have been watching hours and hours (and hours and hours) of the Olympics these past two weeks- haven't really been able to get much else done.

6. Adding to my inability to get anything done- this month, I read The Host and just finished Breaking Dawn this afternoon.

7. I finally finished a craft project that I started almost one year ago. (Pictures coming soon.) At this rate I may have trouble with my next endeavor...

8. I'm gearing up to open an Etsy store.

Phew.

my husband is famous and my kids are cute

2008-08-05T13:34:00.003-05:00

Check out Jon in the pop culture blog-o-sphere.

And thanks to Mat for taking awesome pics of my kids.

We had a fun time with all our visitors this past week, thanks for coming to see us in the Midwest!

a boy of few words

2008-07-21T09:53:00.004-05:00

The following are two short clips of Jonas talking. As you can see, his vocabulary is quite small and consists of about 5 words: Mom, Dad, ball, hi and eat.

what we've been up to

2008-07-16T19:27:00.003-05:00

We are enjoying our beautiful summer here in the midwest. Humid- yes, but not too bad...yet. Because the sun doesn't go down until 8:30 pm, we have been spending many evenings after dinner at the pool or the park.

For the grandparents- more pics of our 4th of July fun and other July adventures here.

Jonas doesn't realize that he will have to endure many years of teasing later on for this picture (eh, Scotty? I think I feel a song coming on). But I'm simply trying to document his life. Because of the closeness in age (I think) Jonas loves to play with or do whatever Maryn is doing. This includes donning princess shoes. (The only reason Maryn allows this is because a little plastic heart broke off of one of the shoes and now she won't wear them.)

In other news, we got one of these. Still not sure how I feel about it. Sure it's fun, but is it really worth it?

Happy Summer!

Happy 4th!

2008-07-04T21:47:00.001-05:00

true love's kiss

2008-07-03T06:48:00.003-05:00

Maryn has really entered the "princess" universe. I'm not really sure how it started--several months ago, I think she got a gift from someone that had the Disney Princesses on it--and since then she's been hooked. (I'm pretty sure a vast majority of little girls like her are really into it to judging by the sheer amount of Princess paraphernalia available.) Her princess birthday party was a big hit, some of the moms I have talked to since say their little girls are still talking about how fun the party was. (Surprising since it was only 90 minutes.)

She is constantly singing. She picks up on songs we listen to in the car and then sings them to herself while she's playing, sitting on the potty, laying in bed at night, etc. Some are Primary songs that I know she didn't learn in Nursery (because I'm in there with her) so she must have learned from the church CDs we listen to in the car. But she also sings snippets from other CDs we listen to (like Coldplay--Seth's afore mentioned favorite) and most recently--James Morrison's "You Give Me Something". But her current favorite songs are from Disney's Enchanted movie. The video clip above is Maryn singing along to "True Love's Kiss", which actually sounds more like "Twoo Wub's Kiss".

Maryn is also still really into Care Bears and has collected quite a few (like, 15) as gifts from her two Grandmas. She still wants to sleep with them all in her bed, but after we passed the dozen mark--there was more Care Bear than Maryn in her bed. So now she gets to pick three each night to put in bed with her.

Maryn also loves puzzles and is really very good at them. We have several boxes of 25 piece ones as well as some large floor puzzles with 50 or so pieces that she can do unassisted.

Another great thing about Maryn is that I think she is growing out of her milk allergy. I have been starting to let her eat small amounts of cheese and ice cream and she seems to be doing fine, with no noticeable GI problems.

(A side note, has there ever been a 3-year-old that, when asked how old they are, responds by saying something other than "free"? That "th" sound is so hard for kids this age to make, I'd like to meet a 3-year-old who can do it.)

Maryn has a bit of a Jekyll/Hyde streak. One minute she's a sweet girl--giving "true love's kiss" and hugs, and the next she's screaming, throwing a huge tantrum, and hitting Jonas. (We're working a lot on this hitting problem, luckily Jonas is a resilient little boy.) She is so cute though, so we enjoy all the happy moments.

It's nice to have a little princess around.

when I grow up

2008-07-01T16:18:00.006-05:00

Seth has been constantly talking about what he might want to be when he grows up. His growing mind is so moldable- I love it! After seeing Indiana Jones, he talked for weeks about wanting to be an archeologist- asking tons of questions about the job that I couldn't answer.

Then, a few weeks ago we were at an outdoor community event/concert, listening to a local rock band. They were actually pretty entertaining and we would have stayed longer if not for all the smokers (I miss you Arizona and your Clean Air Act). Seth said "I've decided that instead of being an archeologist, I want to be a singer in a band." You and your forefathers before you, Seth.

This morning on the way to the pool, we were listening to Coldplay's (Seth's current favorite band) "Talk". He asked if you could really climb a ladder up to the sun. I explained to him that the sun was a big ball of fire and you would get burned up, so then he asked if you could climb a ladder to the moon. I told him that the only people who get to go to the moon are astronauts. So he decided that that's what he wanted to be when he grew up- an astronaut.

Walking back to the car after swimming, Seth said "Mom, I don't want to be any of those other things when I grow up- archeologist, singer, astronaut- I want to be a lifeguard." In regards to this most recent aspiration, I'm not sure what he's more interested in- saving lives or getting to tell all the other little kids what to do.

Because this is my little girl's third birthday, I guess I should have written something about her....

a visit from Grandma B & Maryn turns 3!

2008-06-26T15:07:00.003-05:00

We had a super fun time during Grandma B's visit. Many crafts created, many treats consumed, many Wii hours logged, and many memories made. Thanks for coming Grandma! For more photos of the fun, click here.

During the visit, we threw a birthday party for Maryn (a few days early). She invited 5 other little girls and we had a great time! They made necklaces, magic wands and crowns. They watched a clip from Enchanted (Maryn's favorite movie), went on a treasure hunt, ate decadent pink cake with ice cream, and attacked the mound of presents with the voracity of baby tigresses- all in the course of 90 minutes. For complete pics of the event, click here. The photo below is of Maryn in her favorite gift- a Cinderella dress (from Grandma B).

I saw them tonight

2008-06-24T21:48:00.003-05:00

In other news, I apologize for the hiatus, just getting my bearings back after an awesome week with Mom. Pictures of the fun, including Maryn's princess birthday party, coming soon. Here's a few preliminary ones.

Yes we Can(on)!

2008-06-14T22:36:00.008-05:00

We just got a new Canon A580 Power Shot. It's nothing too fancy, but soooo much better than our 5-year-old Fugi crappy point-n-shoot. Here's some pics of our day. (The first pic's a little grainy, apparantly we need to figure out how to shoot indoors better.)

Plus Grandma B made it! Let the fun begin!

Charade

2008-06-13T07:32:00.003-05:00

The following video is a 5 minute animated short titled "Charade". Apparently, it won the Oscar in 1985, although I just barely found this fact out today.
This film is very important to the comedic history of our family. (Along with this movie, in all its un-PC-ness.) At some point (probably around 1985), my parents had recorded this film off of HBO or some other sort of pay channel while they were doing a free weekend promotion or something like that. As I recall, my dad saw that it was coming on and threw a VHS tape into the VCR to record it, therefore it was recorded in the middle of some other show at some random spot on the tape. Whenever one of my parents' friends came over, the tape (which of course was not labeled) would have to be dug out and the intricate work of rewinding/fast forwarding would ensue to locate the perfect spot on the tape. We watched this so much, that I had many parts memorized. At the time, I didn't understand about 75% of what I was watching, but I knew what parts my parents thought were the funniest- so I laughed at those parts too. Watching it now, almost 20 years later, I now get most of the jokes. The best line is the last one which gets cut off in this video, it's "Gone With the Wind" (which I knew was funny, even back then).

via videosift.com

anticipation

2008-06-12T10:51:00.002-05:00

I've been busy: swimming, playing at the park, reading, watching movies, enjoying our awesome summer weather. Seriously, I think 85 degrees is my favorite, most comfortable temperature- that is- with 0% humidity, which is not what we're experiencing here, but I'm still trying to enjoy it.

And Mom is coming on Saturday!!

hippo birdie, two ewes

2008-06-05T17:02:00.005-05:00

Today is my dad's birthday, born in '54, turning 54 this year- I think that's kind of cool. A few more cool things about my dad:

Is a gifted musician with an awesome singing voice who can play pretty much anything on the guitar by ear. He has written a number of great songs and can sit down and write a poem (that rhymes) in minutes.
Has an incredible ability to remember hundreds of song lyrics and random facts about a variety of topics (he calls it "useless information").
Is a trailblazer as the only member of our church in his family. For this I'm so grateful, my life would have been very different if he had not chosen to take that step.
Continues to be an example of dedicated service and hard work. (He has worked two jobs for at least the past 10-12 years.) He taught me that we never turn down an opportunity to serve. I'm also grateful (now) for the lessons on manners and respect that he and my mom drilled into me during my childhood, a lot of those behaviors have become habits.

Happy Birthday Papa! We love you and miss you so much!

the sirens went off last night

2008-06-04T10:57:00.003-05:00

The atomic bomb ones, left over from the cold war times.

We had to wake up the kids, our neighbors (who don't have a basement) came over and stayed for a few hours. We all slept in the basement. Muddy water seeped in through the drain in the floor of our bathroom, but not too much.

We have a least two more nights of tornado weather to look forward to.

Toto, I think we're not in Arizona anymore.

should we build an ark?

2008-06-03T15:23:00.002-05:00

Our basement flooded last night.

This is how we figured it out (short version)- I had been up with the kids since 6:30 (thank you Jonas), lounged in front of the TV, ate breakfast, took them all upstairs to get dressed, got in the shower, Seth said they were going down to the basement to play Mario Kart, got out of the shower, Jon woke up (he's been sick), he went downstairs, he called up to me "Why is Jonas all wet?", I came down, called to Seth "Why is Jonas all wet?", Seth replied "Because the carpet is all wet down here", Jon and I run downstairs to find standing water throughout the entire basement, soaking wet carpet, our computer cables in water, and two amps belonging to a friend soaked as well.

Apparently the rain outside flooded our entire porch and seeped into our house through our french doors. (I guess I kind of need to explain that our home is three levels- the middle level opens up into the front yard and the lower level opens up into the back yard- the place is sort of built into a hill.) The water line left on the outside of our back door is about one foot above the ground. Maybe I'll take a picture and post it later.

Thankfully, there is not much damage (except for those amps that aren't ours) even our computer sailed through the waters and is still working. The worst thing is the wet carpet (it's in two pieces though, so we have it propped up off the floor).

But it's not over yet, we have heavy rain in the forecast for the next several days.

little boys- following their example & preschool's over

2008-06-02T23:07:00.015-05:00

Yesterday at church, the kids were sitting side by side in the pew with Jon and I on either end. During the opening prayer, I looked over to see all three kids sitting quietly with their arms folded- even Jonas. I was amazed! He usually will fold his little hands if we annouce that it's prayer time, but he won't hold still more than a couple of seconds, until yesterday. He sat through the whole prayer, just like the other kids, and even bowed his head a little bit.

Hopefully he will continue to follow their good examples (and not the bad ones).

In other news, Seth has completed preschool. There was no "graduation" ceremony or anything like that, which I think Seth was disappointed about. His teacher handed me his completion certificate through the car window when I picked him up on his last day. Kind of uneventful.

I've included the pictures I took on his first and last day (in front of the sign on the building). Jon mentioned the other day how Seth is starting the thin out and loose a little of the baby face chub. And he's also grown taller, you can a little bit in the pictures, he's made it up to the "R" in Springer.

Seth is so excited for kindergarten! He can hardly wait until August (and frankly- neither can I!)

what the...?

2008-05-23T13:25:00.003-05:00

When I went grocery shopping on Wednesday night, the gas station in the parking lot listed the price for unleaded at $3.86.

When I drove by the same gas station on Thursday afternoon, the price was $4.08.

22 cent increase in less than 24 hours?! Did this happen everywhere?

For some reason, now that gas is over $4 a gallon, I feel kind of panicky. Like I don't want to drive anywhere unless I absolutely have to.

the finished product

2008-05-19T14:21:00.007-05:00

My goal over the next few weeks is to finish a bunch of projects that have been sitting around my house unfinished (some for over eight months). I have this problem where I get all excited to start a new project and then get burnt out when I realize I can't do it perfectly the first time. I need to get over that. Thus the push to finish everything, perfect or not. I can do it...right? (I'm going to chronicle my progress here so as to add some accountability, if only to myself.)
Project #1 finished: A crochet bag for Jon's new Macbook. (I'm obviously not doing these in chronological order because I started this one most recently and finished it first- mostly because Jon needed it quickly.) I started with the idea that I would use up some cool brown and black wool yarn leftover from making hats and few months ago, instead of buying anything new. I'm really bad at trying to gauge how much yarn will make how much product. So after I did that one big brown section and saw that I was almost out, I panicked and decided to add the green wool (of which I had recently bought a bunch on clearance) in small increments with the remaining brown and black. As you can see, the green sections started to get bigger and bigger until I finally ran out of both brown and black and had to finish everything up in green. I think it turned out kind of ugly, but Jon thinks it looks cool (and has even gotten some compliments on it since) so that's all that really matters. The inside lining is just three of those craft foam sheets hot glued together to form-fit the computer. Stitched together the yarn and lining in a few place, sewed on a button and presto- a laptop bag!

rear view (this probably should have been the front, more interesting stripes)

interior view

cheese curls

2008-05-15T10:05:00.006-05:00

Much to my astonishment, Maryn agreed to sleep in sponge curlers so she could have curly hair like Princess Giselle. I didn't think she'd go through with it and actually sleep on them. (I remember sleeping on them as a child and it was not very comfortable.)

But she did it with no complaint! When I took them out the next morning, the curls were so tight, they stayed right next to her head. She looked so adorable.

By the end of the day, the curls had relaxed a bit. I thought they might last for a whole other day, but they didn't. She has since slept on curlers 3 more nights. So cute. Having a girl is so fun!

For more pics of the cute curls and other recent pics of the boys click here.

she won!

2008-05-10T08:13:00.001-05:00

Thanks to all of you who helped my friend Lara out and voted for her picture. She won!

help a sister out

2008-05-06T14:17:00.004-05:00

If there are any of you who read my blog who don't read my friend, Lara's- please take a moment and vote for a photo she has entered in a contest. Her photo is under the label "Overstuffed with Polka Dots" and is of a little girl in a yellow dress with her mommy's black and white shoes on. You can read more about the photo here.

Please please! She could win a thousand dollars! Her photo is currently neck-and-neck with one other, so she needs your vote.

Thanks.

busted and "how many sick kids does it take...?"

2008-05-04T12:30:00.008-05:00

At the beginning of April, over conference weekend, Maryn tumbled down our basement stairs and landed on her face. A trip to urgent care and a few facial x-rays later, we were relieved to find out that she had no permanent injuries. Her face healed very quickly and was almost totally back to normal within a week.

How did she fall down the stairs? She was sitting in time-out on the top step (which was our time-out spot of choice until that day). She was obviously mad about having to sit there and in the middle of throwing a tantrum, she must have lost her balance, tumbled down our very steep stairs, and hit the cement floor below.

A few hours later, Jonas was trying to run down our concrete front walk and fell on his face too. Not a good day for baby Stone faces.

In more recent news, a trip to the doctor's office this morning revealed that all three kids have ear infections and Seth also has strep throat (not to mention the pukes over the weekend). One dose each of amoxicillin and motrin for each child has resulted in a sleeping Maryn and much less grumpy boys. Thank you, Alexander Fleming.

legacy

2008-05-03T21:14:00.006-05:00

the stats

years of marriage: 30

daughters: 4

sons: 1

sons-in-law: 2

granddaughters: 2

grandsons: 2

people who love you: I can't count that high

Thank you Dad for having the faith and courage to (be the only one in your family to) join the church, go on a mission, move to BYU and find Mom. Thank you Mom for having the faith and smarts to go to BYU, find Dad, and (be the first in your family to) graduate from college.

Most importantly, thank you both for creating a home of faith, happiness, and love for our family to grow in.

and one more stat...

daughter who lives in another state and misses you terribly and wishes she could hug you both on your special day: 1

(actually, that answer is probably two)