Father's Day 2011

Father's Day was a good one this year. My parents were actually up here because we also had a family gathering for my Grandma's 80th birthday, so it was nice to celebrate with the father of my children and my own father. I sure love my husband. He is the best dad and husband in the whole world and his boys adore him, even if he doesn't think so sometimes. For Father's Day my parents watched our boys while we went to a matinee on Saturday and saw the X-men movie. We really liked it. After that Morgan went up to the RSL store to pick something out. He took Logan with him and was somehow able to weasel in a free soccer ball. :)
I was also able to find the The Sandlot movie. We've been keeping our eye out for it for a while now, so when I saw it I couldn't resist. We watched it together on Sunday....and realized there was some mild language that I hope the boys didn't pick up on, but if you hear them cursing, I promise he didn't hear it from me. :) Morgan is my everything and I love him so much!

My own dad is also quite amazing. He's always been an example of calmness and faith to me. He has a quiet comfort about him. He got an ipad for Father's Day/Birthday and had it with him and of course he got my boys (all of them including Morgan) sucked in Angry Birds. It was actually a great distraction for them Sunday morning while I was trying to get everything ready. They sure love their papa and I do too!

T.Z.H.

Oh, my little Tra, what would we do without you. We are basically done nursing and have been for about a week. 11 months is about all I've been able to make it with my other boys too (their decision, not mine, I would have hung on there one more month). He's doing great with whole milk though (won't touch formula). He LOVES bath time and climbs all over the place. My favorite thing to watch is when he sticks his face in the water and blows bubbles and comes up laughing. He might be my little fish if I ever got him to the swimming pool.

He's a great eater and great sleeper and for the most part is very happy and mild-mannered, but boy howdy can he throw a mean tantrum...it would be annoying if it wasn't so cute. He's very dramatic, especially when it's Damon that is taking something back that Tragon initially stole. :)

He loves his big brothers and always wants to be with them. He is a super fast crawler and will stand on his own if he feels like it and he'll now cruise around the furniture a little. He loves stairs and can go up them like a bullet, but hasn't quite figured out the best way to get down from things. He loves to climb up on the boys' toddler beds and bounce and slide off and do it all over again. I have mixed feelings about him walking, I really want to be able to go outside and not worry about his hands getting all gross and scuffing all his shoes and being in a position where he puts everything from the ground in his mouth, but I know that once he starts walking he might go straight to running and then I'll be spending our days outside chasing him around. :)

Tragon is also a big talker. He always has something to say and we've had some great conversations in the morning when he first wakes up. I love it. I love him, we all do!

L.E.H

Logan is my little boy now. He loves to go to the library and read. He can get dressed all by himself and usually picks out his clothes for the day. (If only we could get the wiping thing down, we'd be set) He's a really good big brother. I'm excited for him to start preschool in the Fall and for all the things he's going to learn and the friends he's going to make.

He loves to be outside and draw chalk roads and parking lots on the driveway (well, he likes me to draw them because if he touches the chalk he gets too dirty). He loves being outside and while he loves the concept of water and watching it go down the drain and throwing water balloons, he's really not a huge fan of actually getting wet. It's something we're working on and I've gotten him to to run through the sprinkler once. :)

Lately he has really turned a corner with his eating habits (knock on wood) and the other day he actually came to the table without already protesting that he hated whatever we were having and ate the taco salad...it was more like nachos since I left off the lettuce, but he ate the chips with meat and beans and cheese...really I was flabbergasted, it was a huge step forward. Then, last night, he actually ate the tuna casserole that Morgan requested for Father's Day. All the boys ate it, I guess I'll be fixing that meal more now. He's been better about actually trying something first before absolutely putting his foot down.

He loves to go down and help me water the garden and gets just as excited as me when something is growing. I hope that when harvesting time comes he'll be just as excited to try and eat the food that we have grown.

Logan is just as much of a tease as Damon and lately has been into the whole peer pressure thing, as in I'll tell him not to do something, like don't turn on the hose and then I'll hear him saying, "Damon, go turn on the hose" oiy! We've had a few talks about that. And, he'll laugh when I'm disciplining Damon, but he came up with his own way to calm down after he got sent to time out too for that. He takes a deep breath and says "whew, mom, I just need to take a deep breath and calm down so I don't laugh" I could probably take a few lessons from him in that department. :)

I loves my Logan and it has been so fun to see him growing up...sad, but fun. :)

D.J.H.

I love my little Damonater, but he and I butt heads the most. I don't know what it is, but my temper seems much shorter with him. I do keep reminding myself that he's only 2, but he really does know better. He has a fascination with any sort of liquid and I usually can't leave him at the table with an open cup of anything or it ends up all over the floor and the table.

He's still Logan's little shadow, but I see him wanting to break out of that and be his own little person, I think he's still just trying to figure out what he really likes. He melts my heart when he wraps his pudgy little hands around my neck and says, "I love you mom, you're my best friend" it makes me forget all his misbehavior for a few moments at least until he's off testing his boundaries again.

When my parents were up this weekend, my dad and I took him with us for a little shopping trip while Morgan had Logan and my mom stayed with sleeping Tragon. I asked him a few of his favorite things; Color: red Word: Damon Number: 2 Friend: Buddy (or Scott, I asked him a couple times to see if the answer would be the same) Letter: X

I hope I get to spend some more one on one time with my boys more often as they are growing up so fast. Once Logan starts pre-school in the Fall, Damon will be the "oldest" and I'm sure we'll be able to bond a little more. He still loves trains and cars and digging in the dirt. He doesn't care about being dirty or messy (unless Logan points it out) and he loves to tease! He is very sweet with Tragon most of the time, but has his moments...let's just say they are not allowed in the same vicinity without adult supervision. :)

I love my Damon and his big blue eyes always make me smile!

Reading

There is something about summer that always inspires me and gets me back on the bandwagon of reading. I have not been able to get enough reading in lately. It helps me fall asleep to read at night and Morgan doesn't mind when it usually involves me scratching his head until he falls asleep too while I'm reading. :)

A few of the books that I have read recently are:

The Healing Spell

Cross My Heart

Stonefox

A Taste of Blackberries

Pieces of Paris

A Girl of the Limberlost

Dragon Slippers (all 3 in the series)

The Thirteenth Tale

Trespass

She Walks in Beauty

Dragon Prince

The Hourglass Door

Most of them are YA books, which are easy to read and put down when I need to and they are relaxing, but I do have on my list...which is about to 100...a few more thought provoking books. We have been going to the library almost once a week and Logan and Damon have loved picking out books and have had a lot of fun reading too.

Occasionally we'll even get a movie or two for the boys. Sometimes we'll go outside and read our books on a blanket on the grass, or get some snacks and have a little read-a-thon. I know my pace has been pretty fast reading lately, so I hope that I can curb it down a little at a time so I don't just completely quit reading again, it's just so much better than watching all the garbage on TV. So, here's to a happy summer of reading. If you know any good books, let me know. And I also have an account on goodreads if you really care to see what else is on my to-read list. :)

Running

Now that the warm weather has finally hit, I've been running a lot more with my friend and I forgot how much I really do like running....maybe not the actual running, but how I feel after. :)

Our first 5k race was in April and we've done one every month since then and plan to keep doing one a month for the rest of the year. Although in July we're going to do a 10k and in August a 10 miler, then I'm back to 5k's.

We've been running about 3 miles three times a week and this past weekend we ran our first "long" run to build up and train for the 10 mile...ok, it was only 4 miles, but that is the farthest I have ever run at one time and we didn't stop to walk at all and we finished in about 38:00, so we had about a 9:30 mile the whole time, which is pretty fast for us considering we feel pretty good when we average a 10:00 mile.

I'm hoping that even if I get pregnant (no, I'm not right now) by the end of the year I'll still be able to keep up with the running and exercise. Tragon's pregnancy just about did me in, I gained the most weight and it was a struggle to lose it all and I really don't ever want to go back to that again. (although if a crappy and heavy pregnancy guarantees me a great/fast recovery and a really really good baby, it might be worth it, I have done it once now)

Exercise definitely gives me more patience and energy throughout the day and Morgan and I trade off days running, so it's something we can work on together and motivate each other. I love the warm weather. :)

Gardening

One of my latest hobbies has become gardening. Up until now I thought I was cursed with a black thumb, seriously, every plant I ever touched seemed to die no matter what I did. I was a little hesitant to start a garden, but I really wanted to try after seeing how fun it was when Morgan's parents had their garden growing. It turns out I have a little bit of a green thumb after all.
I planted a bunch of different things this year to see how they would grow: Carrots, Cucumbers, Purple cabbage, Green Beans, Peas, Onions (yellow and white), Radish, Lettuce, Swiss Chard, Cauliflower, Spinach, Marigolds, Spaghetti Squash, Butternut Squash, Zucchini, Yellow Squash, an assortment of Bell Peppers, and assortment of Heirloom Tomatoes, Okra, Watermelon, Pumpkin, a few spices, I think a spicy basil, rosemary, cilantro, and parsley.
It's been really exciting and faith building to watch my plants grow. Since this year was experimental, I used up 3 boxes that are 4X16. In one I did a great mix of peat moss, vermiculite, and compost...not quite Square Foot Gardening caliber, but pretty close, the next box I did less peat moss and just compost, and the last box I did nothing. Mostly I took on more boxes because the neighbors were deciding they didn't want to do as much this year, and since we didn't want to see empty boxes in our community garden we all sort of pitched in on the extra boxes.
The soil we started out with was pretty awful and very rocky, but surprisingly things have still been growing, I think in the soil with nothing added we have a couple zucchini plants and yellow squash sprouting as well as a few cucumber plants.
We love going for walks each morning and watering the garden and taking a look at what is growing and sprouting. Logan joins in my enthusiasm when I'm overjoyed when something finally sprouts. I think now everything has, so now it's just going to be a test of my patience while I wait for everything to grow and produce. I can't wait to eat from my own garden. I think I do have some spinach that I could probably go cut in the next few days. Good thing my boys like spinach smoothies. :)

The biggest struggle of the garden has been the wind. It really dries out the plants and it's pretty much always windy, so I have to water pretty much everyday, but I don't mind, it's been fun to get to know the garden. I did lose a whole bunch of tomato and pepper plants though when I big windstorm hit, I was devastated, so I went to the store to buy replacements and the next day after I planted them another big windstorm was threatening to kill them again, so I hurried to the store and picked up the green water towers that you see. They block the wind, protect the plants, keep them warmer at night and I think they look pretty cool too. :) And you can leave them on the entire season and they are supposed to grow even better, so we'll see. So until harvest....

Please let us go Oklahoma

I.

Hate.

Long-Distance.

Renting.

If you know of anyone who wants to buy/rent a quaint little home in Oklahoma, please send them my way. :)