SNOW!

The other day while I was out shoveling the driveway Joshua got to play in the snow for the first time. I wasn't sure he would like it; I figured he'd get cold and want to go inside, but of course he loved it. I should have guessed. Before I brought him outside I cleared off a spot on the porch so he could just stand and watch, and maybe touch the snow a little, but he only stayed there for about 10 seconds before he was running as fast as he could in about 5 inches of snow! It was really funny to watch.

I took this picture when he had apparently gotten stuck because he didn't more from there for like 2 minutes! Long enough for me to realize he was stuck, start laughing, then run in the house and find the camera to take the picture before I got him out.


When he wouldn't stop trying to run into the road, I gave him our gardening shovel and he help me out a little.


I am loving the snow so far this year. I know about February I will be super sick of it and we'll still have like 3 more months of it after that, but for now, I'm enjoying it. I can't wait for school to be over so Beau will have time to play with us. I want to go sledding!

Lucky Girl

I Love being the Mom to this little guy!

Even when he wakes me up 3 times a night for no reason for the last 2 weeks. And even when he starts screaming at the top of his lungs in Deseret Book because I wont let him put a little plastic ring in his mouth.
And even when he learns how to turn his Dad's razor on and takes a big chunk out of the side of his hair. (Nice step!)

I love it because we have SO much fun together.

And because he is SO cute!

And because he makes me laugh ALL the time.

But mostly because I LOVE him more than I ever imagined I could love anyone!

Just some random thoughts

• Today I was making bread and I remembered once again just how much I LOVE my Bosch! I know I wouldn't bake half as much as I do if I didn't have it. I certainly can't imagine making bread without it. By far the best gadget I own!

• Last weekend I got to spend 2 whole days with my husband just relaxing around the house, and for that I'm and SO grateful!

• I just got in the mood for Christmas, today, although I've been trying super hard since Thanksgiving to get excited. Now I just want it to come!
  

• Even though just about everything that could possibly go wrong today has (seriously, my hands are covered in superglue and I have half and eyebrow over my left eye), I'm in such a good mood. I think it's because the sky is bright blue and it is BEAUTIFUL outside! I love the first couple snowfalls of the season. Everything is so sparkly and clean. I love the quietness that the snow brings. And I love that the snow seems to make sunny days even brighter. The sun is going down now, but it's still so pretty.
  

Happy Birthday Baby Josh!

Joshua turned 1 on the third of December! I can't believe it! It really is a different feeling to have a one-year-old. We celebrated his birthday a couple days early while we were down in Utah over Thanksgiving so the whole family could be there. It was an awesome little (well huge) party, and Joshua had no idea it was all for him, but he did enjoy the cake and the fun new toys.


He got incredibly spoiled!

And had lots of help opening presents.
Although Joshua is one, he's still my little baby. He is such a happy little guy, always smiling and loves to laugh.
Some of his favorite things right now:

• Loves to play tag around the kitchen table and usually falls down laughing 100 times but gets right back up and starts running.
• He's always looking for something that's just the right height for him to sit on.
• He loves to wrestle with his dad.
• He's the best eater EVER! and it's about time. That's been the biggest challenge since he was born because he never liked to nurse or take a bottle, but now that he can eat solids, he'll keep shoveling until we take him out of the highchair.
• Playing with balls
• Makes the funniest noises with his mouth
• He knows the things around that house that he's not supposed to touch, so he'll always get them and bring them right to me.
• He shakes everything
• Unfolds clothes faster than I can fold them and thinks it's hilarious...SO helpful.
  
• Likes watching the dryer
• He fake coughs until I look at him and then he laughs.
  
• He actually likes to get tickled. If I'm sitting on the floor he'll come up to me and stick his tummy out for me to tickle.
  
• He'll ride anything!
• He loves his naps.
• And LOVES Toy Story!

All in all he's just a sweet boy and we love him to death.

Oh Where Oh Where Did November Go...

Wow! I don't even know where to start! I have so much to post about, and I haven't posted about anything worth while for over a month. During the month of November we were home for a total of 10 days and some of those weren't whole days. We started out the month with a fun visit from my parents. They came for a weekend and we had a good time just relaxing and my mom and I did some Christmas shopping. Then the day they left Beau and I started our week long babysitting adventure. It was an adventure for sure! Going from one to seven kids is quite an adjustment. I learned A LOT however, and it turned out to be a pretty fun week. We had a couple rough days though. Joshua was pretty fussy from the time we got there and I couldn't figure out why, so I passed it off as he was just having a hard time being away from home and not getting 100% attention from me. Then Wednesday night he went to bed for a couple hours but woke up at 10 just screaming, and didn't stop until 4 am when we took him into the ER....Well we didn't actually make it into the ER because on the way there he FINALLY fell asleep, so Beau decided to just drive around for a while until our pediatricians office opened. When we took him in we found out he had a really bad ear infection and it was causing a lot of pain. So all three of us got zero hours of sleep that night and had to get going at 6:30 in the morning taking care of 6 other kids. It was just a good thing that their kids were awesome! They were great kids.
A few things I learned during that week:

• You can really get a lot done before 8 am if you get up and showered by 6:30.
  
• Reading family scriptures in the morning is the way to go.
• Having six kids is so much fun (too bad I could never handle being pregnant 6 times).
• Spacing your kids out is totally ok. Even if they are over 3 years apart, they still play really well together.
  
• I love being busy all day!
• I want a Yukon bad!
• We will never have cable/satellite in our home while our kids are growing up. I was scared to death to even flip through the channels when the kids were in the room because every other one had something awful on it, like a woman in her underwear! When did they start showing stuff like that? No one needs those images in their head, especially not little boys. And the language on TV these days! What can't they say!? The world is getting more and more corrupt everyday, the most we can do is make our home a safe escape from its temptations. I know not everyone feels that way, and maybe as my kids grow up my opinion will change, but that really hit me hard while we were at the Hansen's. Alright, I'm finished.
  
• It takes a lot of money to feed 8 people 3 times a day.
• And A LOT of milk! I think we went through 2 gals. a day, at least.

A couple weekends ago we also went to a Jazz game. SO FUN! I think I already wrote about it, but I wanted to post a picture. We were so close, it was amazing. We're going again next weekend and this time we have box seats! I love Beau's job (sometimes).


THEN...there was Thanksgiving. We went home this year and spent Thanksgiving day with the Davis'. While we were down there we did some hardcore Black Friday shopping, went four wheeling and celebrated Joshua's birthday. It was a fun trip and we can't wait to go back again for Christmas!

Life is crazy these days

We are still alive, but SO crazy busy that I haven't had 2 seconds to get on the computer in over 3 weeks! I'm missing it honestly; however, life will calm down soon enough and then I'll be wishing I had something to do again. But right now I miss looking and blogs and watching shows on hulu in my down time.
Last week we babysat/house sat for a family of SIX kids! So for the week I was playing mom to 7 kids! It was a huge change to say the least, but a lot of fun and a great learning experience for me. I'll post about that later...
Josh is getting so big. I cannot believe he will be one next week. It seriously blows my mind how fast it went. It was probably a month or so ago that I look at him and realized that he wasn't a baby anymore. He looks SO grown up! Maybe it's the teeth (still only 2!) and the fact that he's running around that makes him look and feel like such a big kid? I don't know, but it's fun! He's the cutest little guy :) He makes me laugh 24/7 and I feel like I'm hanging out with a friend all day at home with him. We're pals.
Last Saturday Beau and I went to a Jazz game. It was soooo much fun! I want to go again already. I think it's a good thing we don't live in Salt Lake because I could get addicted. It was the first time that Beau and I have been out on a date alone since Josh was born. Michon, Beau's cousin watched him for us and we are so grateful for her for doing that. It's hard living up here and not having family to watch Josh so we can do things like go to the temple or to dinner alone. We do have good friends though, I just have to get up the guts to ask and then to actually leave him. It's harder than I ever thought it would be, but I know it's something that he (and us) needs. We'll work on that...
I have a few pictures to post and stories to tell, but it'll have to wait yet again, gotta hit the road. We've been home long enough to attend church in our ward, wash our clothes, and repack....now it's time to leave again for another week. We're going home for Thanksgiving. I'm really excited to see family, it's been a while.
I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Does anyone else do this?

Right now I'm in the middle of 3 different books. For some reason I have always done this, and I have no idea why I can't just finish one before I start the next. Last Saturday I was only reading two. Then I went to church on Sunday and our lesson in RS was on honoring the priesthood in our homes, and that reminded me of a book a bought a while ago called Behind Every Good Man by John Bytheway, so of course I had to come right home and start reading it. Now I'm reading 3 books at once! This didn't use to be such a bad thing because I basically read all day when I wasn't at work or school so I would fly right through all of them, but now I don't have very much time to read. I usually put Josh down for bed, pick up the house, then get in bed and read until I'm ready to sleep, and sometimes I only make it 10 minutes before I'm out. So you'd think that since I read at such a slow rate these days I'd stick to just one at a time, but nope, I can't. Why? Does anyone else do this?

GIANT CHEETOS

There is a lady who works with Beau and her husband works for Frito Lay and whenever they have extra chips, or almost expired chips, they can't put them in the stores so she brings them to work and hands them out. Beau is always bringing home boxes of chips, I'm not really sure why because we don't eat chips around here, but the other day he brought home some GIANT Cheetos for Josh. He LOVED them! I couldn't get over these things, they were seriously huge!


Alright, now I'm almost caught up on my blogging. Just a couple more posts, but right now I'm going to take a nap! Little man thinks he needs to wake up at 5 a.m. these days and it's KILLING me! Whoever came up with daylight savings anyway?! They obviously didn't have a baby.

Ouch!

A couple weeks ago Josh fell and hit his head on the side-table. It split it open pretty good so he had to wear a band-aid over his brow for couple weeks. I just wanted to document his first big ouch!
*I love this little straight smile he gives me all the time. It's like his, Mom you're really not that funny, smile.

Halloween

For Halloween we went to Boo at the Zoo (trick-or-treating at the zoo). It was pretty cute. They had stations all around the zoo that the kids could trick-or-treat to and some characters dressed up as Big zoo animals. They also have quite a few animals still there to look at. It was pretty fun and I thought it was perfect for an 11 month old who doesn't understand what Halloween is yet and wasn't going to last very long in a costume.
Joshua was a purple dragon. He didn't know if he liked it at first because he couldn't move in it, but as soon as he got a sucker he couldn't have cared less what was going on. I wasn't going to do anything for Halloween this year because it's just us and I didn't want to buy a costume basically just for pictures, but I'm glad we got out and did something. It was a fun first Halloween with our little man.
It was dark and I didn't even think to change the settings on the camera, so the pics are not very good, but here are a few.

*I can't move!
*What costume?
*Cutest Little Dragon...

What are you going to be for Halloween?

Update

Just a quick little update. I don't have much time but I know if I don't do this right now it'll be another week before I post.
In the last 3 weeks Joshua has gotten his two bottom teeth. He is a super good teether! I wouldn't even know he was breaking teeth if I couldn't see them coming in. The only negative thing I noticed he did while breaking teeth is that his naps weren't as long as usual... I know, I'm totally spoiled in that area! Thank you! He looks so cute with his new teeth.
Also, about 3 days ago he decided to walk everywhere all by himself. And he thinks he is awesome stuff, let me tell ya! The look in his face is seriously funny. I love watching him walk, it's my favorite thing so far. I'll try to get a video posted on here so you all can see it.
We just spent the last 3 days in Salt Lake with Beau's cousin Danielle and sister Jana and their girls. We didn't really do anything because of the snow, but we still had a really good time. I loved it anyway. I think all 3 of us girls were all just happy to have adult conversation for a couple days. Danielle's husband Wayne is working full time and finishing his masters right now so her and I are in the same boat. And then Jana and Luke are building a house so Luke's always over there after work and she doesn't see him much either. I think we need to plan another trip soon.
Here are some pics from the last couple weeks
*Josh loves to watch Beau get ready in the morning, especially when he's shaving. He thinks the razor is amazing.
*This is how I get dinner made.
*This is what my bathroom looks like 24/7
*LOVES his new sippy and watching Toy Story.
*This is how he plays in his saucer now.
*Josh's pumpkin.
*For some reason he always sleeps with his legs over the bumper pad and out of the crib. I always put him in bed to fall asleep and then after about 15 minutes have to go tuck him in.

That's all for now. I have tons of things I want to post about, hopefully I'll get some time soon.

Baked Apples!

Growing up one of my favorite treats my mom would make was Baked Apples, she is amazing at them, and I LOVE THEM! So the other day I saw someone making them on TV and I decided I needed to try it.
Oh My! They looked, smelled, and tasted DELICIOUS! Beau had never even heard of baked apples before, but they are now one of his favorite treats as well.
I wanted to share the recipe for everyone to try. I thought it was way easy!

INGREDIENTS

Stuffed apples

• 1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

• 2 cups Macaroon cookies roughly chopped

• 3 tablespoons roughly chopped sliced toasted almonds

• 3 tablespoons roughly chopped toasted walnuts

• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

• 4 tablespoons 7up

• 1 whole egg

• 1/2 cup melted sweet unsalted butter

• 1/2 cup milk

• 6 large, firm baking apples, such as Cortland apples, cored but not peeled

• 3 tablespoons salted butter, cut into 6 pieces

• 1 1/2 cups apple cider

• 1/2 cup maple syrup

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, Macaroon cookies, almonds, walnuts, cinnamon, nutmeg, Amaretto liqueur, egg, melted butter and milk. Soak all ingredients in the milk and mix well until all ingredients are soft to the touch.

2. Stuff apples with Macaroon cookie and nut mixture.

3. Place apples in a 13 x 9-inch glass baking pan. Pour in apple cider and maple syrup over apples. Top each apple with a pat of butter and bake.

4. Baste apples every 5 to 7 minutes until apples are tender, about 30 to 45 minutes. When apples are done, set aside and cover with foil to keep warm.

5. Pour the pan juice into a small saucepan, bring to boil, lower heat and simmer mixture until it becomes a thick syrup. Pour syrup over each apple, top with ice cream and serve.

(can't get this pic to rotate, grrr) Oh well.
I hope you enjoy!

More with Taleesa and Garrett

Last Saturday while Taleesa and Garrett were here we went shooting early in the morning, then to the Rexburg Temple, to a corn maze, and then came home to carve pumpkins and play games all night. It was a prefect day! It was nice to be able to spend the day outside and be with family. I'm sure we wont get many more days of good weather like that until next April (if we're lucky). I didn't have my camera all day until we got home, I'll have to get some pictures from Taleesa and post them later, but here are a few of our sweet Pumpkins!

Pumpkin Patch

This last weekend Taleesa and Garrett came to visit. We had SO much fun! We relaxed a lot but we also got out and did some cool things, and we ate Tons! We went to a pumpkin patch Friday night to pick our pumpkins and it was way fun! I've always wanted to go to one. Last year we drove around for hours trying to find one and never did so we gave up. This year we planned ahead and talked to some locals. We went to The Big Red Barn. It's such a cute little place. I think we were there for a couple hours! Joshua got to sit in a wagon the whole time and loved it, and we went for a ride on the little train around the fields, and of course we found the perfect pumpkins.

L.A.C.

Hey all you Idaho Falls gals! My sweet friend Ashlynn has started a club called Ladies Activity Club (LAC) here in I.F., so I wanted to spread the word and invite EVERYONE to come to this months activity on Oct. 21 at 7:00 pm. Check out the LAC blog @ http://lacidaho.blogspot.com for more information about what being a member of the club entails. Basically LAC meets once a month and it gives women a chance to meet new friends, share their talents, make fun/cheap crafts, or even learn new skills; having fun while their at it! Really though, read the blog for details.
If you're interested at all, even if you can't make it this month, leave me a comment (even if I don't know you), or let me know in any way you want, and I'll make sure you get an invite!

Nose Picker

Joshua has been doing this all day today. He thinks it's SO fun! How do kids know things like this are funny? I swear I don't laugh at him when he does it (anymore).

Busy Lately

I've wanted to update the blog everyday for a week, but I haven't been able to find the time. I've been so busy lately and it seems like whenever I do have a second to get on the computer, it's not here because Beau has it with him to work or school. I think I get online probably twice a week. Can you believe that! I used to get on a couple times a day... It's fine with me though. I like being busy.
Just a little update (more for my journal than for reading pleasure).
Beau is surviving his nuts-o schedule (I don't know how). I don't think he's relaxed in a month. I practically beg him to sit and relax everyday when he gets home from work, but he refuses. Works been pretty hectic for him the last couple weeks. He says he goes a million miles an hour the whole time and the to-do list keeps growing. He eats lunch at his desk and everything. I hope all his hard work pays off soon. I feel bad that he's so stressed all the time :( I'm doing everything I can to make life easier for him, or at least enjoyable while he's home. If I'm having a rough day, I make sure that by the time he gets home I've either taken a breather and gotten over it, or I fake it. He's actually handling it well however. Probably better than I am. Every once in a while he gets overwhelmed and calls to vent, but a little while later he's redetermined and happy. I sure love him! He's amazing...
Joshua: Where to start? He's as funny as ever. Every day he learns something new, sometimes it's a good thing sometimes it's not. For example this week...he's learned how to clap-so cute. He's learned how to climb the stairs-NOT good. He's learned how to hold his bottle-good. He's learned how to pick his noes-think it's funny, but NOT good. He's started to dance to just about every beat or music that most of the time I don't even notice is playing until I see him start dancing- SO cute! Anyway...you get the point. The more mobile he becomes, the more tired I am. Now I know why everyone says you don't want your kids to crawl or walk. In a lot of ways it's been nice because on the whole, he's more content; however, he NEVER stops! So far he hasn't gotten into too much trouble. I can't take my eye off him for a second because he some how knows and heads right for the stairs (the gates are on the way-thank heavens). Last night Beau and I were eating dinner and Josh was playing in the dishwasher. He likes to stand and walk around it and push the drawers in and out. It was empty so we just let him play while we ate. Then I looked over and he was eating something, so I ran over to see what it was, and it was a piece of dishwasher detergent that hadn't been dissolved in the previous wash! Here we were just enjoying the first quiet dinner in 10 months and he was eating soap! He hadn't eaten very much and when Beau picked him up he threw up so I didn't worry. But he was ticked as all get out when we took it away! Beau says it's probably tastes better than half his baby food. Haha!
He says Mom, Dad, Bottle, and SICK. He's trying to transition into one nap a day. It's kind of off and on. Sometimes his morning nap is 3 hours and he doesn't need a nap the rest of the day, just goes to bed a little early, and sometimes his nap is only 1 1/2-2 hours and he takes another one a couple hours later. I'm not going to push him one way or the other. We'll just go with the flow for a while. It's still a pretty good schedule, in an unscheduled kinda way... I'm going to post again tomorrow with new pictures and updates on him.
Me: Well nothing really. I'm just trying to be the best mom and wife I can. I had one of those times where I was laying in bed (I haven't been able to fall asleep lately, it's REALLY irritating) and I did kind of a reevaluate my life type thing. Through that I made a deal with myself, and a promise with Him, that I was going to try harder everyday to be a better person for everyone in my life, and think more of them than myself. I'm trying hard to be a good wife and mom especially. I want to look for ways to serve others outside my family as well; a concept So much easier said than done for me. Also, lately I've been reading a lot about parenting and different ways to show love, educate, entertain, and discipline children. It's very interesting, but overwhelming. There is SO much knowledge out there. Every child and parent are so different, but I am learning some great concepts. I love being a mom. It brings more joy than anything in the world.
Well... It's midnight and I have a long day tomorrow, I better hit the sack. I don't want to take the time to read back over this, so I hope it made sense...I'm tired, and don't write well when I'm wide awake. I'm going to try to post again tomorrow with pictures of our happenings and of course just some of my cute little man being CUTE!

Just Stuff...

So I ran across a couple REALLY cool sites a while back and they have become my favs-for-sure. Just thought I'd share them with ya'll in case you love home decor as much as I do!

Little Green Notebook~ littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com
I would do the little click here for the link thingy, but I totally don't know how. So... anyway.
Jenny, the author, is SERIOUSLY amazing! I want to be her friend!
You have to go check out her little girls room (which I'm going to copy some day) and her office makeover she just posted today. I LOVE this girl's style! I love the soft and light wall colors with bright accessories and bold but classic printed fabric. (sigh.....)
This is in her office. You should see the before of this dresser!



Also

Serena and Lily~
My new favorite catalog to drool over. It puts pottery barn to shame! Like so many of my favorite home decor stores the prices are WAY up there, but it's just so fun to look, dream, and get ideas. I especially love their nurseries and toddler rooms.
Like this one.

Hope you enjoy!

Fame!

I saw Fame over the weekend and LOVED it! I can't wait to get the movie and the sound track! I would totally recommend it, especially if you love music and dance....and it's totally clean/appropriate (what! That doesn't happen these days).

Oh So Funny

LOL!
Seriously, where did this guy get my OshKosh B'gosh overalls from when I was 4!?