boys, boys, boys...continued

Soooo...I got my ultrasound today. Felicity was disappointed. She got bored pretty quick after the announcement and tried to walk out. She seems to be coming around, and has already decided we should name the baby "Mark" after one of her friends here (Yup, Julie, that's your Mark). Caleb and Joseph don't seem to care now, but maybe they will when they realize the balance of power is still in their favor. I'm glad, he's a healthy little guy and is a little bigger than average, the due date is October 21st, his size is on schedule for October 12th, but it probably won't change the due date. It is really neat that they can check how many chambers the heart has, if the spinal cord is growing as it needs to, if some of the major arteries have fused together and all of these other things to rule out health problems. He's looking good, and we're excited to have another little guy running, jumping and playing. Even if I do have to sanitize everything, all the time.

boys, boys, boys...

I know I just wrote yesterday, but I want to complain and see if any one else with little boys has the same problems. I'm talking bathroom, so if you're squimish, stop reading now. When I first got married (yes, this was at Deseret Book), I worked with this great lady who told me that with her sons she put a sign above the toilet that said "It's not as long as you think. Stand closer." Caleb has decided he wants to pee like daddy. I thought he was doing so well, and he does most of the time, but saturday I realized that I need to sanitize the floor around the toilet and the toilet seat about every other day. And to make it worse, Joseph who is still getting potty trained, wants to stand up too. The problem is he's short and no amount of toe standing and streching is going to make it. But he is demanding that he stand up. After I tell him about how special his seat is and all that I can usually get him on it, but he has problems with that, too. He's not real good at aiming inside the toilet (I might have to try that bullseye trick with the cheerios), the other day he put his finger in the wrong spot and it was like a hose when you put your finger in front to spray the garden, except it was the rug and walls. Now, don't be scared of going in our bathroom, I use a lot of Lysol (we're working on a year supply) and I steam the tile in the bathroom, and I'm learning to move the rug so I don't have to wash it every other day. But do I have any sympathy out there? Any great ideas? Any other good stories so I know that I'm not alone? This week I'll find out if we're having boy #3 or girl #2. Either would be wonderful, but sometimes I think I can handle the girly-dramatics more than the boy- sanitize-the-world. We'll see.

Needed: A real day of rest

What a week! we finished planting our garden, dropped my mom off at the airport a couple hours before the President of the United States flew in (luckily, we missed all the security and media), went camping, had a birthday party, had visitors from where we lived before and I lost Joseph for 45 minutes. For those of you who know Joseph and how fast he is and how much of a terrible two year old he is (he's not even two yet, but he is the busiest little creature. We do love him alot) will not be suprised at how quickly I became terrified when I found the backyard gate open and not a Joseph in sight. The kids and I searched the house three times, drove the neighborhood, alerted friends and neighbors, and looked all over the place. Finally, I checked the house one more time, and he was fast asleep on our bed, curled up between four or five pillows. It took about two hours for my heart beat to slow down. I'm a little embarassed now, but I did get to meet some neighbors that I hadn't met before. It's wonderful how quick everyone set down whatever they were working on and immediately helped me, what a great neighborhood I live in! Thank you to everyone that helped. And happier topics, Caleb turned four on thursday. For his birthday we got together with Farris' sister and her family. Her little boy, Tennessee (yes, my Virginian friends, they couldn't name a little boy Virginia, so Tennessee was chosen instead. Sorry) was born 8 days after Caleb, so we celebrated together. We went camping on Friday night, then had a birthday party Saturday morning. I made a tractor cake, the pattern says that it's an excavator, but apparently (Farris wants to write to the editors of Familyfun.com) it is a backhoe. Caleb enjoyed it anyway, it was diamantled in about three seconds. After the party, we slept. And cleaned. Then some of our friends from Many Farms, AZ came by, they were dropping their daughter off for school, so we had a nice catching up session with them and they took off this morning for the long drive home. Whew, this weekend has been busy, I'm glad it's sunday. If you can call working in the primary a day of rest, anyway.

Felicity is done with kindergarten

We went yard saleing this morning, I'm so tired I'm just going to sit down at the computer for awhile instead of doing all that stuff I should be doing while Farris is home. There has been alot going on this week, Felicity is all through with Kindergarten, Farris is never going to leave me at home with the kids for two and a half days again (ok, that may not be true) and we set up an appointment for our ultrasound, so more on that in a couple weeks. On Monday we had my monthly doctors appointment, the kids got to listen to the baby's heartbeat; they loved that. And, no they did not hear two heartbeats, despite the persistent rumors floating around (and Felicity's prayers). Tuesday Farris left for a conference until Thursday in Park City Utah and got snowed on. When he came home house and children were all in one piece, mom was very, very tired. It's nice to have another adult around to take over when I need to crash. Thursday morning was also Felicity's graduation, she did a great job on her part and won the sweetest smile award. Friday we went in for her assessment test, she passed with flying colors, so first grade here we come. Last night Farris was having fun with the boys, they were playing basketball on our little hoop downstairs and after several tries and misses, Caleb said "it must be broken." So that's what was wrong all those years in p.e. when I couldn't make a shot to save my life. Then Farris was playing a game on the computer with Joseph and accidentally taught him to say "shoot." Unfortunately, I laughed so now Joseph thinks it's funny. Could be worse, I guess. It's been raining quite a bit these last few days, so no work in the garden, but everything is looking great, even tiny cherry tomatoes starting out. Joseph did some extra weeding and we are now one squash plant short, but Felicity doesn't mind at all.

Busy Week

We have had a busy week this last week, lots of good stuff going on. Our garden is growing, thanks, Judy, for more raspberries and all the strawberry starts! We did get them planted and the kids seemed to better understand that they water the plants, not the parents. We had a nice mother's day weekend in Idaho with our families. On thursday, Farris went to work for a couple hours then picked up Caleb and went to Arizona for the high school graduation where he worked before. We were a little worried that Caleb would be bored in the six hour drive (one-way), but he really liked the time with his dad. It was nice for Farris to catch up with many of our friends down there, everyone seems to be doing well, and we do miss all of them. Felicity went on her first big field trip to the zoo. Her favorite part, she told us, was when they ate lunch. She did like the animals (a tiger, the monkeys, skunks, big kittys, and snakes were her favorite), she didn't like the stinky buiding that some of the animals were in, but she did like the bus ride. While all this was going on, Joseph was helping me plant some flowers and other plants. he went through three pairs of pants that day and by the time Farris and Caleb got home, he wasn't wearing pants at all. Joseph likes mud. On Saturday (after more mud and plants) we met some of our friends from Utah State, we had fun seeing everyone again. I still don't remember some of the pranks they claim I did. That's part of being a mother, we forget everything. Our garden is going good, we just have to fix the sprinkler that is more like a fountain, and the sprinklers that are more like part of a drip system. That's for next week.

grocery store helps

A friend of mine has asked around for help at one of the grocery stores here. She saw a display called "Soccer Moms" at a store when she was visiting her sister. The display had a recipe and all of the ingredients right there (conveniently, many of the ingredients were on sale) for a complete meal--main dish, side dish, veggies and sometimes a dessert. All were quick fixes, healthy, and not too expensive. The store changed the display once or twice a week. I told her I could help out with that, but now I'd like some feedback on the idea. When you guys are making dinner, what are some things you wish were easier? Do you want to try things with new ingredients, or are the old basics good enough? Are you more worried about price or quickness or healthiness or as much or as little from scratch as possible? Any other ideas that would make this whole idea better? Any feedback would be appreciated! Thanks!

Raspberries and terrible twos don't mix

This has been a busy week and a half, not any more big things since Lissy's fall, just busy. Speaking of that, she got her stiches out five days after her fall but was disappointed that they didn't give her another stuffed animal or anything. She's been fine, no headaches, no complaining except when I put a small band-aid on (she liked the big attention getting bandaids). She's enjoying the last days of school, the kindergarten only have a couple more weeks, so now they're doing all the fun end of the year things. Exciting, she gets to eat her first school lunch tomorrow. They introduce the kindergarteners to it at the end of the year so it will be an easier transition to first grade. That's almost as good as the zoo trip her class has planned. She's also had two birthday parties for friends the last two saturdays. The first one she came home and said "I had too much fun. I had more fun than a seal catching it's first ball." I think she's going to be the writer in our family. Caleb is really enjoying the warmer weather. He'll play outside constantly if I let him. And he loves dirt, he's spent his whole life with a backyard of dirt, so our tiny patch of grass is an exception. Joseph loves it outside, too, but I still have to keep a close eye on him, he likes to pick our new plants, eat dirt and whatever else he finds and he'll follow any dog or cat he sees. His little vocabulary is growing, we've started helping him say his prayers. The other day I was helping him say dinner prayer. I said "thank thee.." and before I could say for the food, he said "Gicki" which interpreted is Nicki, my sister. He loves "Gicki and her beep (jeep)". On sunday we went to Farris' brother Rocky's ward to see his baby blessed. The whole famly was there, including a lot of Farris' cousins and grandma. The kids had loads of fun and wore themselves out quite a bit. Farris' mom brought us some raspberry starts and we planted those last night. Have you ever planted raspberries with a five-,three-year old,and 22 month old? Not great. Jospeh liked to pull the starts straight out of the box, goodbye roots. Caleb and Felicity took turns spraying us with the hose and running into the house with muddy shoes. We also had close calls with their little shovels (we armed Joseph with a little snow shovel, plastic blade, for that very reason). We're going to get more and some strawberry starts, too, when we visit Judy next, we'll see how that goes when we plant them. It's library time now, hopefully I'll do better and write sooner next time, without any more High Drama from Felicity.