Early Morning Watering and Garden Puttering

This isn't garden or puttering, but you can never have too many cute baby pictures... Baby E playing on his "computer".  We train them young around here.

I *think* this is a cucumber.  There are so many weeds that look similar that it's hard to know for sure- so I'm not pulling anything until they get a little bigger and I can better distinguish weed from plant.

The transplanted raspberries seem to be doing pretty well- we only lost a couple.

Beans are up, and I'm happy to report that the saved seeds appear to be coming up at the same rate as the purchased seed.

Finally, potatoes!  There are only three plants up, so hopefully the others pop up soon, so I can bury them all again...

Some of these are weeds, but most of them are sunflowers.  It's going to be fun to have the long row of them edging the garden.

Blackcaps.  Even without the bees, they seem to be thriving and there are lots of buds where fruit will form.

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I didn't take a picture, but the tomatoes and peppers are being hardened off, so we'll get them planted on saturday.  Also, there are three cracked eggs on the garage floor that I've been putting off cleaning up... I put them in the pocket of the stroller canopy to bring to the house, and when we got to the garage, baby E pulled the canopy down, dumping the eggs.  I about cried because we have two or three broody hens and eggs aren't as abundant as they have been.

Baby E learns to slide!

Update

I haven't posted in nearly a month.  We've been busy with soccer and stuff around the yard, and, whenever something interesting happens, I post about it on facebook, so my mom is right, facebook reduces blog posting.

To finish off my last post, we got the honey strained, and here's what we ended up with:

We've already eaten most of one pint.  The boys LOVE J's recipe for biscuits (that he got out of the Magic Thief book) with "fresh, homemade" honey.  

It's a bit of a sad fruit year, the trees don't have much on them (with a couple of exceptions), the apples all fell before they were ripe.  There weren't very many nectarines, so we ate a couple and dried the rest.

The peach tree finally has ripe peaches on it.  Just a few, but the bonus of not-very-many peaches is that you get ones like this:

And here's a picture for my mom.  Baby E has discovered the washing machine. He likes to watch the water and clothes swirl around.  It's pretty funny to watch him bounce up and down in excitement.

Merry Christmas 2010 in review... sort of...

Merry Christmas to our friends and family!  I thought I'd make things easier on myself by putting a link to my blog in our christmas card, and not sending a million copies of our christmas letter around.  Also, I didn't write a christmas letter.  I sat down to start one, but was interrupted in the first attempt by J throwing up.  The next week when I sat down to do it again, my Mister and A had come down with the flu.  The funny thing is that I've put off writing anything on my blog because after nursing sick people for two weeks, I am sick, along with CP and baby E.

Due to my lack of sleep/general achyness, I can't really remember everything that happened this year.  My most recent memories involve trying to get the binky to stay put in baby E's ear, until it dawned on me that that was not where binky's go, and taking a handful of wet burp rags to the garbage can instead of the laundry.  (I caught myself in time).  Remind me not to hold the baby when trying to do anything else, or he's likely to end up in the bread box or something.

The second-biggest thing we did this year was, after unsuccessfully trying to sell our home for a year, we decided to try the rental market, and had renters within a week or two.  We then moved in with my parents, and are now living in their home while they are on an LDS mission in the Lima Peru Temple.  We miss them, but are glad they're doing something they love and serving in a wonderful area.  (My Mister also served his mission in Peru, which has J (age 9) very excited about serving a mission in Peru someday also.)

We're currently crossing our fingers and jumping through hoops in hopes of building our dream home on some family owned property adjacent to my parents' house.  Send good building thoughts our way, and also to the city council and planning commission.

J (age 9) is in 4th grade this year, and has a wonderful teacher.  We love her!  He's growing up so much- the other day I looked at him, and couldn't take my eyes off of him.  I can see signs of maturity.  Luckily he still wants to snuggle with mom on occasion.  His favorite things are his wii games, (preferably anything lego), his bike, and books in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians set.  For christmas his brother bought him The Heroes of Olympus, Book One: The Lost Hero, by the same author, and he's loving it.  J also likes basketball and soccer, and can't pick one over the other, which makes for a couple of crazy weeks when the two overlap.

A (age 6 11/12ths) is loving first grade, although he has decided that kindergarten was "more fun".  He's learning to be independent and is testing limits, which has been an adventure, but he's also the first to give me a hug and a grin.  A also played soccer and basketball for the first time this year.  We're hoping he can pick a favorite, but we're not holding our breath.  My Mister has been giving him piano lessons here and there, and he thinks that's pretty neat too.  His absolute favorite thing to do is build things, whether it's "paper wallets" (mom has had to be really careful about throwing random papers away in case A has stuck his life savings inside), or working on his miniature tool bench that he got for christmas last year, or building forts around the yard.  If you come to our house, you'll see off the front porch an elaborate system of rope, wood and cardboard boxes.  A also enjoys playing with legos and does that pretty much anytime he can't go outside to build something.

CP is 3, and continues to be a fun and happy kid.  We've enjoyed nearly everything about him for his entire life.  He likes to help A build things, and play on mom's ipod.  He's gotten pretty good at some of the puzzle games, which has convinced mom that he's going to grow up to be a genius.  He likes to "play toys", and will do pretty much whatever his older brothers will let him tag along for.

Baby E (about 5 months) is an adorable baby (he's the biggest thing we did this year!), but we wish he'd sleep more.  He likes to be held and played with constantly (I can't blame him, we're a fun family- who'd want to be stuck of in a baby chair at the side of the room!).  He can roll over from front to back, and gives the best baby smiles.  He was doing pretty well sleeping until we messed up his schedule by taking him to Oregon for Thanksgiving, he still hasn't forgiven us for that car ride, and wakes us up several times a night to remind us not to do that again anytime soon.

We hope you all had a peaceful Christmas.

All Our Love!

Picture Round Up (Thanksgiving and beyond)

We spent Thanksgiving with my Mister's brothers in Oregon again this year.  We went to the Portland Japanese gardens.  The gardens were beautiful, and made me wish we could have a yard like them.

 J wanted to have a picture of just him in front of this zen garden, but cousins kept popping into the picture.  When he finally got some space, he posed triumphantly.  

We also went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium.  Here are how my boys measure up to seabirds.

We were able to watch some of the animals being fed, and doing tricks.  The trainers said that learning tricks keeps the animals from getting bored.  The tricks sure kept us entertained!

Me, my boys (baby E is in the bottom of the double stroller), and A's new best friend, cousin C.

We're in the shark tunnel.  Sharks above, and the sides, and underneath.  The underneath sharks were hard to see unless you got down for a close-up.

Shark above.

Some boys got eaten.

Baby E, and his cousin Baby C who were born 11 hours apart on the same day.

We had quite an adventure coming home from oregon.  There was a big storm, and the road we needed was closed, so we spent the night at the Best Western in Jerome Idaho.  It was really nice, if you ever need a place to stay in Jerome, I highly recommend it.  The kids had a blast.  There's nothing like staying up late, eating microwave popcorn in bed and watching TV in a hotel.

Once we were home and had a week or so to settle down, we got out the Christmas decorations.  We bought the tree (in oregon) 9 years ago, for $10.  Every year I think it looks pretty bad, and think about replacing it with something a little nicer, and something pre-lit.  But, every year we get it decorated with all the things the kids have made over the years, and it doesn't look too bad.  So I decide to save my money.  My Mister and I wrapped the presents.  CP's present is as big as he is, and when he saw it, he pumped his arms up and down in the air.  His comment after the decorations were all up was, "Is Santa here YET?!"  He's also very concerned about the snow melting, for some reason he thinks that it can only be Christmas time if there is snow on the ground. 

We set up my nativity, and pinecone garland on the bookshelf in front of the greenhouse.  

 It's been a few years since the outside of this house had any decorations.  When I was a kid, I remember my dad climbing the huge pine trees in the yard and putting lights everywhere.  My Mister declined to do such a thing.  (I don't know why, as if he has anything else to do...)

We took down the Peruvian hat that the buffalo was wearing in honor of my parents, and put the santa hat.  Hopefully it doesn't scare off the reindeer.

Baby E at 2 months

A full belly and a good stretch feels soooo nice!

Happy Birth Day Baby E!

Baby E was born at 4:08pm on August 3rd.  

My sister helped through the delivery again, like she did with CP.  Thanks Mary!

Grandma and Grandpa took the boys while we were at the hospital.

Proud Big Brothers:

J

A

CP

Proud Dad

I'm so glad baby E is here and part of our family.  He's so sweet, and we are all in love with him.  CP even licked him a couple of times (I think he was pretending to be a dog).  I'm also glad that I can sleep on my stomach again. :)

Basic Chicken and Cloth Diaper Primers

I've written a guest post on Utah Deal Diva about getting started raising chickens.

Go here if you'd like to read it!

I also have some basic getting started in cloth diapering articles here and here.

I've heard of people using diapers on their chickens to make them housepets, but I don't recommend it.

Music

We've been watching the classifieds for several months for a piano. We've been saving up, and planned to use our amex rebate check (got to love cash back bonuses!) next month, but we saw one yesterday and my mom and my Mister went to check it out. The exterior is kind of beat up, and will need to be sanded and refinished, but the insides look pretty good, and it was a price we couldn't pass up. My Mister is also going to scrap the bench. The top is made of plywood, and the bottom fell out of it before we got it, so we'll keep the legs, and my Mister will just replace all the other parts of the bench, and add hinges back in to make a nice piece where we can store music books.

We'll need to get it tuned, and a couple of keys fixed, but that hasn't stopped us from playing around:

A trio.
Doesn't it look like I know what I'm doing?

Thanks so much to our friend S who dropped everything to help us move the thing. We really appreciate it. If we can ever return the favor, just ask.

CP is an unusual baby

A friend of mine says that it's only a disorder if it causes problems in everyday life, so while I might jokingly call him my OCD baby, that isn't really accurate. OC maybe, or better yet, "unusually tidy". Evidenced by:

As soon as he could walk, he started picking up bits of dog food off the floor and putting them back in the dog food dish. He's adopted that as his "job" (maybe he knew that he'd be taking over as official doorknob cleaner as soon as he was tall enough so he thought he'd try to get a different gig).

If his fingernails get too long, he comes to me holding his finger out, "finger, finger!" and then he holds still while I trim his nails (and if I miss one or don't cut one enough, he lets me know).

If his long-sleeve shirt gets pushed up, he pulls on them and says, "on" until I pull them back down into place.

If he has any lint, boogers, or hairs stuck to him, he says "uh oh mama" until I get rid of the offending object.

He picks crumbs up off the floor (at our house and other people's houses) and either gives them to me, or puts them in the trash.

If he spills while eating he says, "uh oh mamma, ness" (mess), or "nessy" (messy) until I wipe it up.

He has no problem with non-food etc... messes though, as he is currently emptying the bookcase of all books within his reach (since we took all the toys upstairs, it's his favorite activity- thanks daddy, we might want to rethink that one).

Now I need to teach him to put the books back, maybe if I tell him that it's a mess and show him how to clean it up, I won't have to anymore...

Vrroom Vrroom!

CP says "Vroom Vroom" from Alice Roberts on Vimeo.

I haven't figured out how to edit the video clip, so you get the whole thing (including some light saber wars!)

Funny things and Naughty babies

Me: What should we have for lunch?
A: Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches!
J: I'm retired from peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

(I'm not terribly fond of peanut butter myself, so he must take after me.)

This is what happens to babies who are naughty at our house. (Just kidding- this kid just likes to crawl into small areas!)

Rule of the Day...

If it looks nasty, put cheese on it.

I warmed up some spinach that I had frozen awhile back, and ran it through the food processor. I mixed it with baby rice cereal because CP seems to eat anything if it's mixed with rice cereal.

It looked disgusting. I didn't even want to test it to make sure it wasn't too hot. So I melted some cheese into it. It actually tasted okay. Not something I'd seek out for lunch or anything, but better than mashed up green beans for sure. He ate several bites and enthusiastically signed for more. Then all of a sudden he must have realized I was trying to pull one over on him because he signed "all done" and wouldn't take another bite, not even when I flew the spoon at his mouth with appropriate motorcycle and/or airplane noises.

We'll try again at lunch tomorrow.

Baby Vampire

Baby Fauxhawk

CP is the puppy. He loves everyone and gives smiles to anyone who passes within his range of vision. LG is the kitty, who makes you work for his attention.

We had so much fun seeing LG (and his parents) during their break from school!

Story Time

We were late getting to bed tonight, so instead of reading a book to A, I told him a short story, and then he told one to me...

"Once there was a dinosaur, and his name was Bip-G and he was digging for treasure. He digged and he digged, and he found....nuffing! Then he digged another hole, and more and more and more and more holes, and then he found a mom dinosaur, and her name was Bip-D, and they looked for treasure and they found some...little teeth (said as he saw me smiling at him, because he was so adorable) and some little eyes, and HUGE dinosaur bones, and a house.

The End"

As I said goodnight, I told him to have some good dreams about his dinosaurs, and he said he'd dream about a huge dinosaur named Bip-A.

I have no idea where those names came from, but at least he has a theme going.

BPA and Fear Mongering

I somehow missed the original hubub over BPA or Bisphenol A, and have continued as with my previous two children, to feed my baby with bottles that could cause cancer.

Part of me figures, my other kids drank from those bottles and they're fine, this is just fear mongering, trying to get consumers to toss all their plastic stuff and go shopping for "safer" products. The other part of me wonders if I should join in and go buy some glass baby bottles.

From the things I have read, it seems that putting boiling water in the bottles, microwaving them, and washing them in the dishwasher are what we should be most concerned about, although I can't find anything that says whether the plastic continues to leach the chemical after one washing/microwaving, or if it just leaches at a higher level while it is hot. If that is the case, it seems like it would be fine to just stop microwaving the formula in the bottle (which I know I'm not supposed to do anyway).

I found an interesting article called Truth and Rumors Muddy Plastics Debate and it says that in the rat research, the rats are injected with BPA, which our bodies would deal with very differently than the way we would absorb the chemical, which makes me think it's not a big deal for adults. The article also says that in infants and fetuses, because their bodies don't metabolize things the same was as an adult, it didn't make a difference if baby rats or rat fetuses were injected with BPA or if they swallowed it, it was equally harmful.

I guess the good news is that my baby just turned one, and really shouldn't be drinking from bottles anymore anyway, so I just have to make sure his cups are safe and we're good to go

Until the next scare.

A. A Wash Cloth, A Bandaid, A partially emptied Kit Kat Wrapper and the Camcorder charger cord

Q. Things CP tried to eat this morning, so far.

I saw him with the bandaid and wondered where he got it, until I saw the wash cloths all over the floor and the box of bandaids dumped out into the drawer. Just prior to that, I heard rustling sounds and peeked over at him and saw him trying to devour a mini kit kat wrapper, which for some strange reason had just a bit of kit kat left in it (Someone else must have eaten that kit kat, because I would never leave a partially eaten kit kat sitting around).

In other news, A told me recently that we needed to purchase two more humans.

Originally he wanted to buy a blue car, but I told him that we wouldn't all fit in a car, he then pointed out that we have two empty seats in the van. He's been trained well (maybe) that we shouldn't waste resources, so naturally he wanted to fill those empty spots right up. "We need to buy two humans mom".

Hmmm, good luck with that.

Finally, on Sunday I saw the most adorable little girl I think I have ever seen. Maybe not the most adorable, but there was something about her that caught my attention. Maybe she reminded me of me. Whatever it was, she made me really want a little girl. Almost bad enough to forget that I already have a baby, and that I've got my hands full at the moment (CP just tried to eat his daddy's glasses, and everything else left out on the night stand- I think our house needs to be more clutter-free).

The Rest

I was having a hard time uploading pictures of C's birthday party, so I stopped, meaning to go back and add the ones of the cake eating, but forgot.

So here are some, since I'm still having a hard time uploading pictures