Only 3 Weeks to Go...

...until graduation and our lives might start to feel a little normal. These last three weeks will be the final push of everything. We didn't too anything too super exciting. I have a few pictures though.

We have avoided bathtime poopies lately, which has been nice. I started giving them separate baths when I'm by myself, so I can keep and eye on Logan in case he tried to poop. :) Morgan was home to help me with this bathtime. Ever since we got rid of the poop-soaked baby bath, the bumbo chair has been wonderful (I know, you're really not supposed to use it for this purpose, but sometimes you just have to improvise, I promise I won't sue if he slips out and bumps his head).These are my three favorite boys in the whole world. They sure keep me on my toes and life is anything but boring with them around. :)Logan had so many cute bath time pictures, but it's harder to take bath pictures when you've got more than one, so when Morgan was home in the evening I had him take a picture of cute little Damon after bathtime. "W" seems to be his favorite letter too, that's was always Logan's. :)And of course, our little cheeser. We got out the clippers last week and did haircuts. It summer time and it's so much easier to just spray on the sunblock and not worry about goopy hair, even if it accentuates his awesome ears. (I think it's cute!) I'll let it grow out again in the fall. :)

We also got to visit with family this week and had a good time seeing some cousins that we don't get to very often. After our get together we went over to Morgan's parent's house and watched the awesome ReAl Salt Lake soccer team cream New England Revolution. It really was an awesome game. We had the fireplace going, big screen TV, and even the boys were cooperating. Thanks again for letting us borrow the house Grandma and Papa (they stayed later visiting with family at the get together).

On Saturday morning I ran a 5K. I wasn't too excited about this one, but I'd already paid the money...and I'm still replenishing my t-shirt supply, so I went. I'm really glad I did, it was an incredible race. We started up at Shriner's Hospital and then came down through Memory Grove. It was really cold and the sky was dark with gray clouds, it wasn't really raining, but the earth was still wet and green and smelled wonderful. It was really rejuvenating and made me love the scenery of Utah even more. The race was pretty much all downhill and I came in at 28:36!!!! That's only 16 seconds off of my all time record of 28:16 from a few years ago. It's going to be a tough time to beat, but I hope to crack the 27 minute mark by the end of the summer. Well, I think that's about it. Hopefully we'll have a little more excitement and more pictures this week, so until next time...

Frazzled Moms Say the Darndest Things...

This week was a lot of catching up from last week....I think I really felt like I did run a marathon. I had mountains of laundry, grocery shopping, and other things to take care of around the house. We did get a few good days of sunshine to go play outside, but this week wasn't too eventful, so I'm going to tell a funny story that happened a couple weeks ago.

It had been a long hard day and Morgan was actually getting home on time...meaning before 7:00, so it must have been a Monday. By the time we had dinner my energy was at an all time low, but it was bathtime. I told Morgan I would "let" him give the boys their bath, he "happily" complied so I was going to help and I asked him, "Do you want me to get Damon naked for you?" but....this is what actually came out of my mouth, "Do you want me to get naked?"

I'm sure you can imagine his reaction. It's a good thing he only has 4 weeks of school left.

Marathon Post

No, I didn't run a marathon, but if you decide to read this post in it's entirety, it could probably fill about 26.2 miles of paper if printed out, just wanted to give you a little heads up. :) We'll start from last Sunday.

General Conference

This past general conference was really great. Morgan and I decided to take notes in "shifts" so for one hour I would take notes and he would be in charge of keeping both the babies happy, then we would switch...of course, it always seemed like one or both of them were sleeping when it was his turn to watch them. It did work out really well though and I think we both got a lot out of conference. I think a couple of the really big focuses that hit us were temple work and that now is going to really be a time of testing our faithfulness.

One of my favorite memories of General Conference was putting a whole bunch of blankets on the floor to sit on, so we tried it with the boys and I think they liked it too. :) And it was much softer when I was sitting down there with them trying to keep them entertained.

Little Shenanigans

This week I went down to St. George for a few days to see my new niece, but this is what both of my boys were up the night before we left.

We got our carpets cleaned on Monday so we had a big box of baby clothes in the kitchen (I normally keep it at the foot of Logan's bed to put clothes in when they grow out of them). Logan thought it was great fun to climb up and into the sink. He was entertained for almost 30 minutes just turning the water on and off.
Damon has been teething and starting solid foods this past 6 weeks or so. I got him some biter biscuits, which are really fun, but really messy. You can't really tell, but everything is covered in a gooey soggy cookie-like mess. But Damon sure was happy.

Happy Early Birthday Logan

Our St. George trip had a two-fold purpose: see my new niece and have a little party for Logan. Logan's birthday is today (April 12th) and he's 2 years old!!! I can't believe it. We celebrated it for the first time last Tuesday when we got to St. George. It all sort of worked out that a lot of my brothers were in town too, so Logan got to play with all his cousins. We did a little Easter Egg Hunt for his birthday and then had some ice cream cake. It was delicious, and the little kids did really well for their first Easter egg hunt.

That's actually a picture of Logan biting the frosting off the cake. I thought he would try to grab it, or put his hand in it, but no, he thought it would be more effective if he just bit it...and I think he might have had a couple cars in his hands that didn't leave him with one to grab at the cake. :)

Playing in Sunny St. George

The weather in St. George was absolutely wonderful. It wasn't super hot yet, so we got to spend a lot of time outside with the cousins. Logan loves his cousins "Kashee" (Kashlynn) and "Linkee" (Lincoln) and had so much fun being around them. We had Kash come over and play in the mornings with us and we went for wagon rides (which I didn't get any good pictures of), played on the airplane teeter totter, played in the dirt, and even had a fun bathtime.

I think Logan's favorite was the dirt. He loved to grab handfuls of it and dump it on his head. I finally gave up trying to keep him cleaned and resigned myself to the fact that he is a little boy and probably from here on out will always be a little dirty and stinky from running around and getting into everything. I guess that's the price I pay for having boys, and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. :) Besides, it was warm enough I could just hose him off before we went inside.

Racing with Papa

My dad does a mini-indy race car thing with work every year and so from time to time he'll have go-karts in the garage. We decided it would be fun to take Logan and Lincoln for a ride...Damon is still a little bit too small. So, we went up to an empty parking lot and we had a great time.

They had a great time racing around the parking lot. To Logan the race car was "Carmine" His favorite show right now is Little Einsteins and there is an episode with a race car named Carmine, so he got to ride in "Blue Carmine" It was really cute.

Birthday Party #2

When we got back from St. George we had a little family get together planned for Logan's birthday/Easter with Morgan's family. We went over to his parents house and did another little Easter Egg hunt, opened presents, ate cupcakes, played in the bounce-house (sorry, no pictures) and had a fun time hanging out with Logan's other cousins. :)

I really can't believe that my little cheeser is 2 years old. Time has just flown by so quickly. So, suffice it to say, this has been a really busy and fun-filled week, but I think I'll end here by just telling you a little bit more about Logan. He loves cars, airplanes, trains, basically anything with wheels. He loves to talk and isn't very shy...which can sometimes be a problem when he will wander around finding people to talk to, I really have to keep an eye on him. He loves his little brother and "gives loves" and kisses all the time. He hates to share, but we're working on it. He loves Little Einsteins, Toy Story, and strawberry milk. He knows his colors, numbers 1-10, alphabet, and an occasional shape or two. He LOVES being outside and we can't wait to play outside more in the good weather.

He still takes an afternoon nap, but really doesn't want to. :) He's my picky eater but he will eat: Mac & Cheese, homemade pizza, chicken nuggets, cheese, yogurt, fruit, ice cream, and just about any cookie, we're still working on the veggies, although we do hide spinach in smoothies occasionally and he loves it. He loves to be a "helper" and will "help" me unload the dishwasher or switch out the laundry from washer to dryer. His vocabulary is really growing quickly and now we have to watch what we say, but my all time favorite is when he comes into the room and looks at me and says: "there's a mama" :) It makes my day. I love him so much and can't believe how fast he's grown. With Logan around there is never a dull moment.

Gooooooooo ReAL Salt Lake

On Thursday this past week, we had the wonderful opportunity to go to the opening game of the ReAL Salt Lake soccer team. We had a blast! It turns out that Morgan gets a little discount from his employment, and you have to pay for kids that are 2 and older, so we wanted to go before Logan's birthday which is coming up in about a week. :)

We won 4-1 against the Colombus Crew. It was a really awesome game. We had so much fun that we're actually considering saving up some money and buying season tickets next year...we'll have to see though. It was pretty cold and I think Logan was a little overwhelmed, and mostly just sat on my lap or laid his head on Morgan's lap. Damon loved it! He was happy and chipper, then he ate, and fell asleep for about half the game.

It did start raining when there was about 10 minutes left, but we decided we better go before it got too bad, it was a good decision, it started pouring as we were leaving, and we knew we were going to win, the score was already 4-1.

There's Daddy and Logan.

And Mommy and Damon.

We took a few pictures of the Stadium while they were getting ready to start the game, but we never managed to bust out the camera for some pictures during the game. DOH! It was pretty cold, but we mostly just forgot we brought the camera with us because we were busy making sure the babies were warm and happy.

We're not sure who all those kids are in the middle of the field. They were doing some kind of pre-game recognition for local kids soccer clubs
The national anthem (performed by Josh Rosenthal) was awesome! I've never heard of Josh Rosenthal, but apparently he is a local singer. The performance was just him and his acoustic guitar. It was the most amazing performance of our nation's anthem that we've ever heard. Simple, sweet, and straight to the heart. You couldn't help but get a little misty-eyed when listening to the lyrics & music while looking up at the flag, and being so thankful to live in a land of freedom where we can enjoy things like enjoying a soccer game with the family. In the photo you can see guys with black carts out on the field. The carts had fireworks in them. They had a nice fireworks display during the anthem, which really added to the moment.

It was a really nice stadium and we hope to go to more games this season. There's more from the week, but I think I'll save those pictures and posts for later, I've got to go give Logan a bath while Damon is still taking a nap. :)

Damon Update

Instead of a Food For Thought Friday, I'm doing a Damon checkup. He had his "6 month" checkup today.

Height: 27 inches (57%)

Weight: 16.67 lbs (23%)

I sure thought he was bigger than that he definitely feels like it. This is about the same time that Logan started sliding into the lower percentiles, and Damon is following that trend as well, but he's HEALTHY!!!! :)

Damon has been such a happy baby lately. I didn't' even know he was teething until his first tooth cut through this past week. The other bottom tooth next to it will be popping through any day now too.

Food Damon likes (well...eats): Bananas, Sweet Potatoes, Applesauce, Pears, Avocado, Oatmeal, & Apple Rice Cereal.

He's my rolie polie and hates to be sitting in once place. He's very curious and loves to explore things...and by explore, I mean eat and drool and chew on. He'll be crawling and scooting any day now I'm sure, but really he can get anywhere he wants with his rolling abilities. He loves to smile and gets really excited when daddy comes home from work. He sleeps 8-9 hours at night and loves sharing a room with his big brother Logan.

We love you Damon!

A New Hobby

I decided that my new hobby has become food storage and cooking/baking and all things slightly related to that. So, I'll probably post once in a while about it. In this specific case: making my own baby food. Now, if any of you knew me oh say about 5 years ago and you told me I would be doing the whole food storage, make my own bread and baby food, etc. I would have laughed at you and said what I told my mom many years ago: "me, cook, hah, I don't need to learn how to cook, I'll just marry a chef."

Well, I didn't marry a chef, I married someone much better, but that's a separate post. Anyway, this time around with Damon starting solid foods I decided to have a go at making my own baby food. Baby food is super expensive!!!!! especially when you're trying to budget your grocery bill a little better. It sounds just as intimidating as food storage, but it's just as easy. I really love it. I went down to a farmer's market the other day and bought some items that would make some good baby food and it's been really fun. And there are so many more exciting things you can do when you make your own. For example, today Damon had an applesauce, sweet potato, banana mix and he LOVED it! I just hope he's really not allergic to bananas, I guess we'll find out. :)

All I do is prepare the food, steam, boil, cook, whatever, just basically make the food soft enough that I can toss it in the blender and make a smooth puree. Blend it up and put it in ice cube trays...my secret there...a funnel. I made a mess the first couple times I tried to fill the ice trays and then I saw my funnel in the cupboard and it worked great...and it helps me to get a good consistency on the puree when I know it pours well. After the ice cubes are frozen, I just pop them in labeled freezer baggies and whoala! Damon probably has at least a month's worth of frozen baby food now. And I'm not going to have a million jars laying around like last time. I did buy a few jars that I try out first to make sure he likes it before I make a giant batch of it, and they are great for when you make just a little too much and don't have enough ice trays. :)

Quick math on this: I bought a 2lb bag of carrots for $2.00 and for fun add in the cost of the ice trays, $1.00. I was able to make 48 cubes (which translates to 48 oz) of baby food. All for $3.00. Now, convert that into jars, each jar for Damon's stage is about 2.5 oz, so that would be roughly 20 jars at .40 each (if you buy the cheapest kind), which is $8.00. So, for less than half the price I have the same amount of food, and did I mention that homemade baby food tastes SO much better than the store-bought. Especially when you end up being the taste-tester. And if you buy the produce when it's in season and either freeze it or make it first you save even more money.....wow, this is really exciting and surprisingly fun! I do keep several jars of baby food on hand for "food storage" purposes though.

**Disclaimer: This post is really more for me than for you readers. I just know that someday I'd like to have proof that I actually did this and really I'm just so shocked at myself for being so excited about this. My mom's probably laughing at me right now. :)