Mommyhood

At what age do you no longer let your child see you in your birthday suit?
This was my conversation with Beepers this morning over breakfast-
Beepers-pointing at my sleeve “why did you color on your clothes?”
Me-“I didn’t color on my shirt, it’s Binkers' poop.”
Beepers-talking to Binkers “You shouldn’t poop on mommy’s shirt”
talking to me “You need a different shirt.”
Me-“I’ll change my shirt.”
Beepers-“Okay, change your shirt, but don’t let me see your naked. I don’t want to see your naked.”

Now why, you ask, did I have Binkers' poop on my sleeve? I don't know exactly how it got on my sleeve but I was changing his bum and he pooped while I was doing it. Beepers' was sick with a stomach bug last weekend, and despite the fact that I have been washing and sanitizing my hands like crazy, Binkers got sick too. Last night Binkers' threw up on me. I was amazed how much he threw up. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it was about 16-20 ounces. He was soaked and I was soaked. Poor little guy.

When Beepers was sick last weekend we made him carry around a bucket everywhere he went. Most of his vomit ended up everywhere else but the bucket, but Beepers sure enjoyed his bucket.

I've been peed on, pooped on, vomited on, and this week Beepers used my hair as a kleenex. Ahhh, the life of a mother.

The magic of Christmas

Having kids has made Christmas magical again, especially this year. Beepers is so excited about everything Christmas. The morning after we first put up the Christmas tree Beepers came running into my room and said, very concerned, “Mommy, something is wrong, the lights aren’t on.” I showed him how to turn on the lights. Now almost every morning he wakes up and turns on the Christmas tree.

Last week we were driving around at night and when Beepers saw a house decorated with Christmas lights he said to me, “look at the Christmas lights, I like the way they glow.”

We got a bunch of Christmas books from the library and have enjoyed reading them the past couple of weeks. Beepers favorite Christmas books this year are Peek-a-Boo Christmas and Laura’s Christmas Star.

We watch Christmas movies. Right now he is especially enamored by a movie called, Santa vs the Snowman.” There is a nutcracker in the movie and for some reason Beepers calls it a “crackernut.” I don’t know why he switches the word around because sometimes he says it correctly, but I think it’s so cute that he messes the word up a little bit and calls it a “crackernut.” At Halloween he referred to scarecrows as “crowscares.”

We sing Christmas songs. Beepers knows almost all the words to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Yesterday we sat at the piano and I played the song while we sang together. His little voice is so cute.

I think this year and the next couple of years will be the most magical for Beepers. He is old enough to be excited about Christmas, but young enough not to get wrapped up in wanting a lot of presents. The present he really wants this year costs about $3 and I know he will be so excited when he gets it. It would be awesome if a $3 gift could make me as excited as Beepers will be. Then again, my favorite gifts are my sweet Chad, Beepers, and Binkers and they are free, but priceless!

Treasures

When it comes to friends, I feel very fortunate. My life has been blessed with very wonderful people. I'll use "Favorite things Friday" to write about some of them. One of my favorite people in the world is my friend Amanda. I'm going to write about her first because I have been thinking about her a lot lately. I stole this picture of her and her family from her blog. Aren't they cute? And isn't she exceptionally beautiful?I met Amanda about four years ago. She started working in the same department as me at my previous employer. She worked under a different supervisor than me, so at first I never really talked to her. My first impression of Amanda was that she was way too pretty to be friends with me. I had heard she had been a cheerleader and she worked part time as a cheerleading coach. (Not that there is anything wrong with cheerleaders, I’ve just incorrectly judged them in my life because I never really got to know anybody who was a cheerleader.) I never imagined that I would be friends with Amanda because she just seemed so different than me. I need to learn to stop making assumptions about people, because almost every time I do, I'm wrong.

Anyway, Amanda's supervisor quit and they dissolved Amanda's team. Amanda not only ended up on my team, but she ended up sitting right next to me. We quickly became friends. I learned that Amanda really wanted to be a mother, but unfortunately she and her husband were struggling with infertility. I was sad for her. Not too long after we became friends I found out I was pregnant. I felt really bad telling Amanda that I was pregnant and I was worried how she would feel. I was worried that we might not continue our friendship, not because she was mad, but because it's hard to be around somebody who is pregnant when you can't get pregnant.

Amanda was nothing but happy for me and she was so sweet to me. Everyday she would ask me how I was feeling. She was excited for me; even though she was sad she couldn't get pregnant. She was always telling me how cute I was, which helped a lot when I was pregnant.

Amanda and her husband eventually decided to try adoption and a little over a year ago they had a sweet baby boy join their family. The process was everything but easy, but Amanda was determined. Although it was hard, she never gave up. I am so grateful for the birth mother of her little boy. I am among the many people who would love to shower her with gifts for making such a huge sacrifice.

Not too long ago, Amanda found out that, amazingly, she was pregnant. I was sooooooo excited for her. Unfortunately she had a miscarriage. Life is really unfair sometimes!

She and her husband are again looking to adopt. They will soon be ‘putting in their papers’ to get the process going. When they do, I’ll put a link to their adoption page on my blog. Sometimes it just takes one person who knows somebody, who knows somebody, etc…

Last time I visited Amanda,the house across the street from her house was for sale; I really wish I could afford it. When I move away from living across the street from my sister, it would be fun to be able to live across the street from Amanda. Although I won’t be able to live by her, I hope that our friendship will continue. Amanda is an amazing person. One of the biggest things I've learned from her is to be grateful for the opportunities I've had to be pregnant. Amanda is also just a lot of fun to be around. When I was working, she made it easier to be at work. There are so many things I love about her and just knowing her has made my life better. She is an awesome person and I love her.

Beautiful Boys

A couple of months ago Chad and I bought a new camera. I love it! I'm having so much fun practicing taking pictures. Yesterday I got some good pictures of the boys-

Binkers has been kind of unhappy the past week. We're pretty certain he's teething. Right now he's crashed out on the floor in Beepers' room. I was getting Beepers ready for the day and Binkers' decided he was tired, so he just fell asleep. I love it when he does that.

You gotta do this too

Thanks to Carrie for putting this on her blog, of course I had to do it and you should too. Click here-MERRY CHRISTMAS

Two lists of Ten

Ten things I love about Beepers-
1. He really loves Binkers and is really, really sweet to him. He calls him his "buddy" all the time and kisses him a lot.
2. He wraps his arms around my neck, kisses my face, calls me "sweetheart", and tells me he loves me.
3. Sometimes when he wakes me up in the middle of the night he asks me to read to him. I love that he loves books so much. (When he asks me to read to him in the middle of the night most of the time I do.)
4. He has an amazing vocabulary. He uses words like "actually" and "destination."
5. He loves fruits and veggies.
6. He speaks very clearly and says most words correctly, but he says a few words wrong. I don't correct him on those words, because it's cute how he says them. For example-he says 'blueblerries' and 'smarshmallows.'
7. When he really likes something I've cooked he tells me it's 'delicious.'
8. He loves to snuggle with me. He has a better morning if I find the time to sit and hold him.
9. He's part Chad and I really love Chad, so I really love Beepers.
10. His eyelashes, man! They are amazing! Almost everytime I look at him I think to myself, "wow, look at those eyelashes."

Ten things I love about Binkers-
1-10. He is a really good sleeper. Especially at night.
Okay, there are more reasons I love Binkers, but this one means a lot to me right now.

Tagged

My friend Amanda tagged me, so here it goes-

What was I doing 10 years ago? I was in my second year of college, I was working at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, and I had just started dating Chad.

What was I doing 5 years ago? Chad and I were newlyweds. We were both working full time and Chad was going to school full time. We were living in a nice little duplex in Bountiful.

What was I doing 1 year ago? Exactly one year ago today, ‘Black Friday’, I was standing in Times Square. Holy cow, that place was a madhouse! Not that it isn’t always a busy place, but it was uber busy because it was ‘Black Friday’. Why was I in NYC? We had just returned from a cruise to the Bahamas out of NYC, but had only made it to Virginia because the cruise boat had some mechanical problems.

What was I doing yesterday? It was Thanksgiving, so we were visiting Chad’s family and my family. Last year we were on a cruise with my family, so this year we went to Chad’s parents for Thanksgiving dinner. Afterwards, we stopped by my Grandma’s and visited for a while. I was really looking forward to Thanksgiving Dinner this year because last year I was miserably seasick. I was throwing up all day and I didn’t get to have a Thanksgiving Dinner.

5 Snacks I enjoy – Cheese curd, Fruit Smoothies, Amanda’s Grandma's Cheese ball, Smores, and Cotton Candy.

5 things I would do if I had a million dollars – Invest a big chunk of it, buy a house, a swing set, an SUV, and a cotton candy machine.

5 Places I would run away to – Germany, Hawaii, Southern Utah (especially Lake Powell), my bed (to take a nap), and my Grandpa’s cabin.

5 T.V. Shows I Like - Friends, The Biggest Loser, Everyday Food, Smallville and Curious George.

5 Things I Hate Doing – Shopping with kids, shopping for a bra, driving in heavy traffic, waking up in the morning, and folding underwear.

5 biggest joys of the moment – my sweet husband taking care of me when I’m sick, Beepers giving me kisses, Binkers' cute smiles, finding good deals, and living so close to my sister.

5 people I'm tagging- Michelle, Jennifer, Shannon, Carrie, Melanie

Anybody for pizza?

I love to cook, but I am terrified of baking bread. I haven't tried too many times, but every attempt I've made has been a miserable failure. My mom makes delicious bread, so does my sister Jennifer. My mom has a bread maker, but she only uses it to make the dough then she forms the dough into loaves and bakes it. Chad bought me a bread maker and I tried to do what my mom does, but somehow I messed it up. I really need to have my mom and/or sister give me a lesson on baking bread, but I'm afraid I still won't be able to do it.
My sister makes delicious pizza dough. She assured me that I couldn't mess it up. I asked her to post the recipe on her blog, and she finally has. (Click here for the recipe. )I made it last Friday and much to my surprise I didn't have horrible results. The only thing was that I made it with half white flour half wheat flour and although I like to be healthy whenever possible, the pizza dough really tastes better if it's made with all white flour. The pizza tastes like it's from a restaurant. One of my favorite pizzas is Papa Murphy's gourmet vegetarian. It has a white sauce with mozzarella cheese, zucchini, mushrooms, red onions, and artichoke hearts. (To make the white sauce-add minced garlic to homemade ranch dressing.)

P.S. We bake the pizza on a Pampered Chef pizza stone which I really think makes the pizza crust turn out so restaurant-like. I'm not trying to sell anybody on Pampered Chef, I'm not a consultant or anything, but I have a few Pampered Chef things and I love them. Thanks to my Grandma for giving me the pizza stone.

Favorite things Friday

One of my favorite physical features about Chad are his beautiful eyes and his amazing eyelashes. He likes his eyelashes now, but he hated them when he was younger. He got tired of hearing people (especially old ladies) say, "look at those beautiful eyelashes, why do boys always get the long eyelashes." I'm sure that my boys will get tired of people making comments about their eyelashes, but I love them and I'm glad that they got this physical trait from their dad.

It's too early to think of a title

It's 4:30 in the morning and I'm a bit more awoke than I would like to be. I was just up with Binkers for the first time and Beepers for the fourth time. As I've mentioned, more than once, Beepers is a horrible sleeper. Just when we thought it couldn't get worse, it did. Beepers is now suffering from night terrors. He wakes up screaming 60 to 90 minutes after he falls asleep. He screams, thrashes about, and sometimes wanders around the house. His eyes are open, but he is not awake and in between the screaming he mumbles incoherently. Trying to console him just makes things worse, so I just have to wait it out. It's crazy. It's frustrating, but I feel bad for Beepers. And of course, I can't help but thinking that I'm the one causing Beepers emotional stress which may contribute to the night terrors.
I love Beepers, but he is definately going through the 'terrible twos'. He is very intense at times. The past couple of months has been overwhelming. I can't believe how often dealing with a two year old can bring me to tears. (Keep in mind that I am a bit emotional, but seriously two year olds are amazingly determined and it's very tricky getting them to do what you need them to do.)
Although I feel like I'm doing a lot of things wrong with Beepers there is one thing I think I've done right- I read to him almost every day. It helps that he loves being read to. Beepers has an amazing vocabulary and a very vivid imagination. He loves to tell me stories and he makes up interesting songs. Some days Beepers wakes up in the morning talking and it doesn't seem like he stops until he goes to bed. Sometimes it's a bit too much talking, but sometimes I love to hear the things he says.
I have a lot to learn and Beepers has a lot to teach me.

Halloween Fun

Right before Chad and I got married we were given advice by an ecclesiastical leader. He told us two things-
1. Sarcasm has no place in a marriage.
2. Make traditions with your family.
We appreciated the advice and have implemented it in our marriage. Not that I don't need to work on the first piece of advice, but lately I have been thinking about the second piece of advice. For the most part most of our traditions have involved our extended family. Now that Beepers is getting bigger it's been easier to think of traditions for our own little family. This Halloween we tried out a few different things.

Last Weekend we went to a pumpkin patch. On Monday, for family night, we carved our pumpkins.

For breakfast on Halloween I made Beepers some pumpkin pancakes. I used food coloring to make the pancake batter orange and green and I made the face with miniature chocolate chips. The face didn't work out so well, but the pancakes were still cute. I think I'll do this again next year and start a tradition.I made these cookies and we took them to Chad at his work. Like I've mentioned before Beepers is really into construction equipment and on the way into Chad's work, Beepers asked me if daddy drives a backhoe. I've already tried to explain to Beepers what Chad does for a job, but it's hard to explain to a two and a half year old what a software engineer does. After having lunch we Chad we went over to my sister's house and had a little Halloween party. We colored pictures, decorated cookies, and made these cutes pumpkins. Next year we'll do the Halloween party on a different day than Halloween. My sister kindly let us join them for dinner, because I had forgotten to call my mom back and tell her we would have dinner with them. My sister made blood (tomato) soup and witches fingers.For Halloween, Binkers was a Jack-o-lantern. Thanks to my mom for making this cute outfit.Beepers was Bob the Builder. Another thanks to my mom for this outfit. About a month ago I told my mom that I was thinking that Beepers should be Bob the Builder for Halloween and asked her to keep her eye out for orange and yellow checkered fabric. Neither of us could find any, even after looking on the internet. I thought about just buying a Bob the Builder costume, but then my sweet mom decided to make the fabric herself. She bought yellow fabric and, with a little help from my dad, used orange fabric paint to make the orange checks. I cut out the overalls and started sewing them, but got confused, so my mom kindly finished them for me. I was so pleased with his costume. It was awesome!Here's a picture of Beepers and his cousin at the Trunk-or-Treat.

Here's a picture of Beepers with his grandma and great grandma.Here's a picture of Binker's with his great grandpa.

Favorite things Friday

I don't write near enough about my sweet little boys. They are some of my favorite things in the whole world.

Have you ever wondered why I refer to my children as Beepers and Binkers? When our oldest was a newborn he had a onsie that had a truck on it and the words 'beep beep'. I started calling him beep beep which eventually turned into Beepers. We still call him Beepers. When I was pregnant we asked Beepers what we should name the new baby. He said we should name him 'bink'. I only use the name Binkers on my blog as our new little guy's nicknames involve his real name. Sometimes I wonder why I don't use their real names on my blog, maybe I will someday. Or maybe won't.

Beepers had his first haircut since he was a little baby that didn't involve screaming and thrashing about. He didn't even cry at all, it was so nice. Beepers sat on my sister's lap while my brother-in-law and four year old nephew cut Beepers' hair. We did it outside on a windy day. The wind blew the hair away, keeping it off of Beepers' face. I think the reason he usually gets upset while he is getting his haircut is that the hair gets in his face so he starts screaming and crying. The tears make more hair stick to his face and he just gets more and more upset. I'm glad we figured out how to cut his hair without tears, but the since the weather won't always be ideal tear free haircuts will still be difficult to accomplish. Beepers is so handsome with his new haircut.

Binkers is now two months old. He is a sweet, sweet baby. Beepers was a sweet baby too, Binkers just sleeps better so far. Actually I can't remember when Beepers horrible sleeping problems started. All I know is that right now Beepers wakes up more times in the night that Binkers does.

Binkers is fat and happy. He is a little chunk. Almost everybody who sees Binkers says that he is soooo big. I have big babies and they get big fast. He is in the 90th percentile on his height and 95th on his weight. Beepers was the same way when he was a baby. Now Beepers is just average.

I feel so lucky that I've had such mellow babies. My mom said that I cried a lot when I was a baby and she jokes around that that is why she named me Crystal, because the word 'cry' is in my name. I thought that I would have extremely demanding babies that cried a lot, so I feel soooooo lucky that my boys are so mellow. I think they got that trait from their sweet dad.

Favorite things Friday

My sister, Jennifer, and I decided we wanted to start a lunch group in our neighborhood. We decided we wanted to do a lunch group where we choose a different ingredient each month. (Thanks for the idea Shannon!) It's like Food Network's Iron Chef, but it's not a competition. This month's ingredient of the month was pumpkin. We invited about ten people and six people came. It was a lot better turn out than we expected. Especially considering we were worried that nobody would come.

All the food was delicious. We had a sweet pumpkin soup, a spicy black bean pumpkin soup, pumpkin sunflower rolls, pumpkin tex mex patties, pumpkin waffles, and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I made the vegetarian pumpkin tex mex patties and served them on rolls with some guacamole. I got the recipe out of the October Family Fun magazine.

So what does this post have to do with favorite things Friday? I just wanted to share with all my blog readers my favorite website for recipes. It's allrecipes.com. Some of my favorite things about the website are that you can search for recipes ideas by ingredient, you can set up your own recipe box, and you can read reviews on the recipes. If you haven't already used allrecipes.com, check it out.

Aren't my guys handsome?

Favorite things Friday

It's not really Friday, it's early Saturday morning. I didn't find the time to post a blog yesterday, so I might as well do it this morning.

I have an insatiable sweet tooth. I love candy. I especially love cotton candy. It's one of my favorite things about going to the fair or an amusement park. Chad's previous employer use to rent a cotton candy machine for their summer work party. They let people use the machine themselves, it was awesome. One year I was making a huge cone of cotton candy when a whole bunch of kids came over and tried to stick their paper cones in too. It made me mad. Yes, I like cotton candy that much.

When Chad and I were dating we had a conversation about wishes. He was telling me that his sister finally got a horse. It was something she had wanted her entire life, it was her 'dream wish.' It made me think about what my 'dream wish' was. I thought about it for a while and I ended up deciding that my 'dream wish' was a cotton candy machine. Chad was on his mission when I finally decided what my 'dream wish' was, so I told him once in a letter. Years later, the first Christmas we were married, Chad gave me a cotton candy machine. It was an awesome gift. It's a small machine and someday Chad wants to buy me a cotton candy machine just like they have at the fairs. Someday when we're rich, because those things are pretty pricey. I don't use the cotton candy machine much now because of Beepers. It's a little bit dangerous to use it with him around because hot pieces of flying sugar escape the machine when it's spinning cotton candy. Also, it doesn't make enough cotton candy for Chad, Beepers, and I.

I love things that are cotton candy flavored. Somethings don't really taste like cotton candy, but some things are amazingly close. One of my favorites is cotton candy ice cream. It's hard to find and I only come across it every once it a while, but it's delicious! I've been trying to get my brother to make it at the ice cream store he manages.

This year I discovered cotton candy taffy from Sweet Candy Factory. It is so good. It's one of my favorite candies now. Mmmm, I'm eating one right now. Candy before breakfast? Beepers would be upset if he knew. Oh well, it's one of the fun things about being an adult. Eating what you want, when you want (within reason).

Coincidence? I don't think so.

A couple of weeks ago my mother gave me a book to read called Small Miracles. It’s a collection of stories about “extraordinary coincidences from everyday life.” After reading the first few stories I started to wonder if they were true. The coincidences in the stories are amazing and almost unbelievable. For some reason I didn’t want to read the book if the stories weren’t true. I was able to find somewhere in the book where it said the stories are true, so I’ve kept reading it.

In the past couple of days this book has made me more mindful of small miracles in my life. Here’s a few things that have happened to me this week-

On Sunday my friend Amy called. I haven’t heard from her for a few months and I haven’t seen her for almost a year. Of course I’ve been thinking about her but I never made the effort to call her. It was awesome that she called me. She was a little surprised to find out that I’d had a baby. Then on Monday my friend Becca called. I haven’t seen her for almost a year as well. Amy and Becca know each other, so I thought maybe Amy had told Becca that she needed to call me. Becca hadn’t talked to Amy and she was just calling me because she was thinking about me. One of the first things she said was that it had been so long since she had talked to or seen me, so long she said, “that I could have been pregnant and had a baby by now.” I told her she was right and at the moment I was holding a six-week old in my arms.

Tuesday I went grocery shopping. The Albertson’s closest to my house was out of some of the items I wanted to buy, so I decided to drive five or so extra miles to the Albertson’s in the next city. My mom was watching Beepers for me and I felt a little bit guilty about leaving him with her longer than I planned, but I decided that she wouldn’t mind. When I arrived at the Albertson’s in the next city I started to pull into a parking spot, but then I noticed a parking spot closer to a cart return (which is very convenient when you’re a mom), so I headed over there. As I pulled into the parking spot I noticed the lady in the spot next to me had a shopping cart full of cases of microwave popcorn. I just thought it was funny that the lady was buying so much popcorn that out of curiosity when I got out of my car I looked over to see what the lady looked like. It wasn’t a lady (because I think ‘lady’ sounds old), it was my friend Megan from high school. She was one of my best friends in high school and I’ve only seen her a handful of times since we graduated. It was fun to talk with Megan and be reminded of how blessed I am to have and have had such awesome friends.

Megan lives nowhere near that Albertsons (she lives over an hour away from it), so I questioned what she was doing there. She was in the area because her family was having a party that evening. She had come out earlier in the afternoon and was just going to hang out with her mom. When Megan got to her mom’s house her mom wasn’t home so she decided to run some errands. She was looking for particular store, which she had passed, when she saw Albertson’s and stopped because she remembered that popcorn was on sale and she had recently discovered that her family loves it.

Phone calls from friends and chance meetings may not seem like that big of a deal. My stories may not be as amazing as the stories in Small Miracles, but something doesn’t have to be outrageously amazing to make a difference, to make my day and make me more mindful that people care about me.

You should do this too

What do you do with those annoying credit card offers you get in the mail? I use the return envelope to mail everything back to the credit card company, including the envelope they mailed it in. The credit card company has to pay for the postage. I can't take credit for this idea, I got the idea from an article that I read on the internet. I don't know why, but it just makes me laugh when I do it. If you do it too, don't forget to cut out anything that identifies that it's from you. Then again, who cares if you leave that info.

Weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth

A couple of months ago, Chad and I had a horrible weekend because we were overwhelmed by Beepers. Normally he is pretty well behaved, but that weekend he had both of us in tears by Sunday night. I can't remember what he did in particular, I just remember that Chad and I were both so frustrated. I remember making a comment that maybe Beepers was just giving us a preview of how he was going to act once a new baby joined our family.

Well, it was a preview of things to come. The first couple weeks after we brought Binkers home from the hospital Beepers was pretty well behaved. Then that changed and for the past month Beepers has been driving me pretty crazy. He whines and cries a lot. Most of the time he refuses to listen to me. He still doesn't sleep through the night and every night he wakes up at least two times, most nights it's three or four times. Last night he woke up, came into my room and asked for a drink of water. I was feeding Binkers at the time, so I asked Chad to get the water. Binkers flipped out because he wanted me to get the water and ended up screaming for the next fifteen minutes. I think if Beepers wasn't such a horrible sleeper, I might have an easier time dealing with hime during the day. It's one thing waking up to feed a baby every couple of hours, but it's another thing also having to wake up every couple of hours with a two and a half year old.

A couple of weeks ago Beepers said to me, "Mom, you need to go to work." He said that to me, because he was use to going to my Mom's house two days a week and it was an adjustment being home with me all day, every day. It's been an adjustment for all of us. I have a lot to learn about being a parent. I wish there was a store that sold patience because I definately need some.

I've complained about Beepers, so I want to finish this post by writing some nice things about him. He is really good at saying 'please' and 'thank you.' In the past week he has said to me, "Mommy, thank you for cutting the crusts off my bread," and "thank you for brushing my teeth," and "thank you for changing by stinky bum." When he plays with my hair he will say to me, "Mommy, your hair smells really good," and he tells me that I am beautiful. He's a sweet boy, he's just trouble sometimes.

Favorite things Friday

I always look forward to August/September because it is peach season and I love peaches! They are my absolute favorite fruit. Not just any peach will do though. It has to be a Utah peach. This spring I took a trip to Georgia and ate a Georgia peach. It was good, but there is just something about Utah peaches. (I think that the peach I ate in Georgia was acutally from Chile, someday I'll have to have a real Georgia peach. Our Georgia friends bought us some peach Fanta though and man, it was good!) Specifically my favorite variety of peach is called Angelus, but other peaches are good too.

So, what do I do with peaches? For some reason, I don't really like cooked peaches, so I don't really care for things like peach cobbler. I love to eat peaches by themselves, but I really like to slice them up (leaving the skin on), freeze them, and then use them to make smoothies. The smoothie is simple-frozen peaches, milk, a little sugar, and a little vanilla - but it is absolutely delicious. I also like to mix frozen peaches with vanilla yogurt and eat if for breakfast. We eat it while the peaches are still frozen and it seems kind of like we are eating peach ice cream. Mmmmm! My mouth is watering, I think I will go eat a peach.

I don't think I've ever written two blogs in one day, but there is a first for everything. I want to be better about documenting what I'm doing in my life.

Today I got together with my friend Heather. Once a month her mom, sisters, and cousin gather at one of their houses and do service for each other and/or teach a lesson such as how to bake bread. I think it's such a fun idea and I need to start doing it with my mom and my sister Jennifer. Anyway, Heather invited me because she wanted me to teach them how to do pedicures. I am not really a beauty person, but I do know how to paint a pretty flower on your toenail. They look like this-

I have had a pedicure done one or twice at a nail salon and they charge $5 to paint a flower on your two big toenails. It looked pretty simple, so I figured out how to do it myself.

Beepers the Builder

Beepers loves construction equipment. When he is riding in the car he will point out every dump truck, cement truck, track hoe, etc... He loves to play in the sandbox and sometimes he will spend hours there. Earlier this year Beepers started to cry every time I left for work, but in the spring he discovered that my mom has a sandbox and he was sooooo excited to go to her house. Someday when we have a house we will need to put in a sandbox. Hopefully we will be able to buy a house before Beepers grows out of wanting to play in the sandbox.

Beepers loves everything that has to do with construction. He loves tools and he loves Bob the Builder. We have a construction video and for a while he was asking to watch it two or three times a day. One day when I was backing out of a spot at the grocery store Beepers said, "beep, beep, beep," as I was backing up. He learned from the construction video that construction equipment beeps when it is backing up.

Since Beepers loves construction equipment, we went on a field trip out to the Kennecott Copper Mine yesterday. At the visitor center we watched a video about mining at the Kennecott Copper Mine and Beepers sat still the entire video. When it was over Beepers stood up and said, "that was awesome!" I'm glad he had fun.

Trip to the Cabin

This weekend we took a trip up to my Grandpa’s cabin. Chad, Beepers, Binkers, and I had originally planned to go by ourselves, but the night before we left we decided it would be fun to invite somebody to go with us. We discussed who we should invite, but ended up talking ourselves out of inviting most of the people we had thought of. We were worried that if we invited somebody to come and they turned us down, that they were turning us down because they think we are weird. (Not for some more legitimate excuse like the fact that we had given them very short notice.:)) I am a little self-conscious that way, but isn’t everybody that way a little bit? It’s hard sometimes to “put ourselves out there.”
Anyway, we ended up inviting Chad’s brother and sister-in-law. For some reason, when it comes to family, it generally doesn’t hurt as bad when they turn you down. But they didn’t turn us down, and we ended up having a fun weekend. We drank hot chocolate by the fire in the morning when it was cold, we played some games, we watched some television, we roasted marshmallows, we played some ping-pong, we played in the sandbox (well Beepers did and Chad and I did because he made us), we sat around and talked, and we took care of the little babies (Binkers and Chad’s brother’s cute little boy.)

Binker's and his cousin (Binker's is on the right)

Beeper's and Binker's cousin- Isn't he cute?

Favorite things Friday

Here's some pictures of our new little guy-

Favorite things Friday

Two weeks ago on Friday I had a baby. This would be a great topic for favorite things Friday, but I'm still very overwhelmed by this life change and I'm not quite ready to write it about it yet, but I will soon. :)

Give me smore

*******Warning- Try this at home***********

This week my favorite thing is smores. I didn't like smores when I was younger because I didn't like chocolate. Now that I like chocolate one of my favorite things about camping is making and eating smores. Last year we went camping and for some reason we didn't get to make smores. I was a little bummed out until Chad and I realized that we could make the smores at home. They taste just as good as when we go camping and an added bonus is that we don't end up smelling like smoke. Usually we make them after Beepers goes to bed, but tonight we let him join us.So, maybe this isn't the most kid-friendly activity. Although we watched him carefully he still ended up catching his marshmallow on fire. (Oh well, it's no different that when kids cook them over the fire.)

As you can see from the picture, we have an electric stove. I haven't tried roasting marshmallows over a gas stove, but I don't think it would work that well. After all, when roasting marshmallows, you should do it over coals rather than flames. The electric heating element is like a perfect coal that keeps an consistent temperature.

Mmmmmmmm! These are so nummy! I've gotten my sister addicted to making these too.

This is what I feel like right now-

Because I look like this-

(I covered up my face because I think it looks horrible. When I'm pregnant I put on some weight on my face and, to me, I look weird.) I'm now thirty-eight weeks pregnant. Beepers was born three days after his due date, so although I would like to have this baby early, it's not likely to happen.

Today I went shopping and bought an outfit for a little boy and a little girl. Sometimes it's strange that we still don't know if it's a boy or a girl, but I'm very excited to be surprised. I'm thinking it's a boy, but I may just think that because I can't imagine having a girl. Today when I was shopping I found it so much easier to pick out an outfit for a little boy than for a little girl. Maybe I was just overwhelmed by all the pink. Don't get me wrong, I like pink, there was just sooo much of it.

I'm excited to have another baby, and I sick of being pregnant, but I'm scared. I'm scared to go into labor again and I'm scared that it could be another horrible experience. But I'm hopeful that things will go a lot better this time. My nurse midwife thinks I can do it without an epidural, I'm really thinking that I want one. (Just to clarify things- Some people think that because I have a nurse midwife I am going to deliver my baby at home. No way! I will be delivering at the hospital here in town. I chose a nurse midwife for a couple of reasons. 1. I do not have high risk pregnancies 2. Statistically with a nurse midwife you are less likely to have to have a c-section or an episiotome. 3. Nurse midwifes spend a lot more time in the delivery room than a doctor does.)

I am also a little scared of the first couple of weeks with a new baby. Even though I've only slept through the night about three or so times in the past three years, I'm not quite ready for the middle of the night feedings and diaper changings. Oh well, the baby is coming soon whether I'm ready or not.