And More Halloween Fun

Wow--to be a kid on Halloween! Andrew and Natalie were in heaven. And the fun didn't even start when we started going from house to house. The fun started when people came to our door. Andrew would run to open the door, then run to get the candy bowl, then as he got back to the open door with the candy it would go something like this, "Hi guys! We have canny for you. We have red ones, and orange ones, and green ones." All this narration as he was placing the Mike & Ikes into everybody's bags. He would tell everyone "You're welcome. Bye." And sometimes would throw in a "Happy Halloween" in there also. We would close the door and he would be carrying the candy bowl and saying, "Lots of kids are coming to my house, mom." He was just so excited.

But it was fun to trick or treat also. The first house we think he just rang the door bell, said trick or treat and left before he got any candy. The lady came after him with the candy. He didn't make that mistake again. Andrew was much faster than Natalie so at most homes he would ring the doorbell and get his candy before Natalie meandered up. She was just too cute in that little costume and we even had someone come up to us during the night saying that somebody had told her she had to get a look at that cute Tinker Bell. She finally got into the wagon, but only after Andrew was tired and wanted to ride. As long as he was walking, so was she.

The kids already were digging into their candy on the ride home in the wagon and couldn't open everything fast enough. After we had two suckers and some pixie sticks open I told them they needed to finish what they were eating before we would open something else!


I was struck by how little my kids are, and at the same time, how big they are getting. (make any sense at all?) Especially Andrew. He is really starting to look so grown up. And he had some of the older boys in the neighborhood saying, "Hi, Andrew" as they went by and Andrew replying, "Hi." It just seemed so grown up! And he was running from house to house to get the candy, saying trick or treat, saying thank you. At the same time, I just saw this little 3-year-old Peter Pan. Everything still so new and exciting and fun. I have to remind myself of how little he still is so i don't expect too much of him!

Happy Halloween

We had a ward Halloween party/carnival on Saturday night, so the kids got all dressed up. It doesn't get much better than being a kid on Halloween--getting dressed up, all the candy you can eat... But, being a mom of a 3 year old and a 1 year old is a close second. I think I'm having as much fun as they are! And the ward party is so great. The highlight of the evening for the kids was the horseback riding. Andrew was so excited and just grinned the whole time. But Natalie...she was ecstatic. She had the biggest grin I've ever seen and wouldn't let anybody help her as she rode around. I have to admit, I was a little nervous with her on the back of that big horse and nothing holding her on. But she was just great. And I might as well have been riding that horse too for as much as I was enjoying it. I felt like I was riding it right along with them.

Close second to the horse was the cupcake walk. They just walked right along to the music. Andrew won a cupcake, but luckily Natalie didn't win one and didn't mind because we would have had a chocolate covered tinker bell. I'm not sure if it was intentional that she never won, but no complaints here.

Just so you know how not with it I am, the party started at 6pm and we didn't get there until after 7. We did have a hard time getting us all out the door and of course I was feeding the baby and so we had to wait to leave, but I thought the party started at 6:30. Instead of being about 40 minutes late we almost missed the whole thing! But luckily we didn't and got there for just the right amount.
James managed to have a poop blowout in the 45 minutes we were there and completely filled his pants. I didn't bring a change of costume, so we wrapped him in his blanket and he got to wait until we got home for some clean pants. Poor guy.

"Hawoween" Cookies

We have been having so much fun this Halloween. It's really the first year the kids have been old enough to get it--both of them. They have been so excited about their costumes and Andrew has been looking forward to his preschool Halloween party and to going trick or treating. The kids and I made pumpkin cookies last Thursday and ate a bunch and delivered some to some friends. It was fun. I ended up cutting out and then frosting most of them, but we did have a few 100% made by the kids. Those were very pretty ;-) We didn't make enough orange frosting and made too much green frosting so some friends got green pumpkins, but Andrew only wanted to eat the green ones and our friends with a 3 year old said he insisted on eating a green one too ;-)

Here are a few pictures of the kids having a good ol' time with the frosting.

And here is the cookies recipe. It is one of my old roommate's recipes and is one of my all time favorite sugar cookies recipes. Yummy!

6 C. Sifted flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 C. soft butter
2 C. Sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 C Sour Cream
1/2 tsp Almond Extract

First cream butter and sugar. Mix eggs, vanilla, sour cream and almond together. Then blend butter and egg mixtures together. Sift flour, baking soda and salt together and then add to the butter and egg mixtures. Beat well. Add more flour if needed. Refrigerate dough. Roll out--thicker than 1/4". Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Makes 4-5 dozen cookies.

Icing: Mix 1/2 stick of soft butter, milk and powdered sugar to consistency and 1/2 tsp almond extract.

Friends in Need

What would I do without all you amazing friends out there?! Last week especially--so many people have just quietly helped out with little things. It is always hard for me to take help, but I definitely needed some last week. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

"I'd like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me. I'd like to be the help that you've been always glad to be; I'd like to mean as much to you each minute of the day, as you have meant, old friend of mine, to me along the way."

- Edgar A. Guest

Overheard...

Andrew (3): "Get your shoes on Natowee. So you don't get hot wike me."
Natalie (21 months): "Oh, ok."

Translation: "Get your shoes on so your feet don't burn on the hot Arizona ground. " "Oh, ok."

James 3 weeks

He really is 3 weeks old today. I thought I would feel a little bit more on top of things by now! Oh well. I've had a few requests of some more pictures of the New One. He really does a lot of sleeping during the day (not so much at night the last few days) and when you see how "great" my camera takes pictures you'll see why I haven't taken too many.James really is a sweet baby. He is pretty calm and not too fussy. He is growing so fast. The kids are so cute with him. They both want to help with everything. This morning on the way to the car it was me carrying the car seat with Andrew hanging on to the handle and Natalie hanging on to the handle on the other side. I was just kind of shuffling down the hall because there was no room to take steps. I was surrounded on front, on back and seemingly on all sides. But it's so cute that they want to be involved.Every time James even squeaks there is Natalie saying, "Baby James, kying" (crying) and she says it in such a sad voice. And Andrew asks me about 15 times a day, "Mom, is baby James ok?" in a little baby voice. He built a blanket fort the other day and wouldn't rest until "Baby James" got to check it out. He wants to show baby James his tracks. And he is always telling us that Baby James likes this or that. It's very cute how they have just accepted him totally and completely as the newest member of the family.And here is Natalie--she pulled the chair up to the island and is helping herself to some cake someone brought by. Yum!

Overheard...

Natalie: "Baby James, canny?"
James: No response
Me: Run around the corner to find Natalie holding her half eaten and completely sucked on tootsie roll out to baby James.

Just overheard...

James: "Achoo"
Natalie (age 20 months): "Bess you James."

The First Hour On My Own

We dropped my mom off at the airport on Monday at 4:45pm. I got home at 5:55pm because traffic was so bad--a few accidents. Luckily the kids were troopers and so it wasn't too bad. We finally got home and the kids ran upstairs to play in the game room. My visiting teachers dropped dinner off at 6 and I put Natalie in the high chair to get her started eating because James was starting to fuss and I needed to feed him. Andrew came down from the game room and it suddenly smelled like poop. So I asked him if he had pooped his pants. He got that smile on his face that tries to look a little bit sorry--head tilted slightly down, eyes looking up at me, eyebrows slightly raised, a little grin. Then I noticed that there was poop down his leg. Not a good sign.

By this time Natalie was settled in the high chair with dinner and James was crying. I picked up James and went in search of the wipes. I told Andrew to head straight to the bathroom. He headed down the hall and I went to grab the wipes. He came back around the corner and said, "Mom, there's poop on the floor." Hmmm... So I rounded the corner and down the hall was a clump of poop on the floor. Luckily not the carpet and easy to clean up. It must have fallen out of his pants. Did I mention the poop had somehow made it down his leg?!

James was still crying. I told Andrew to stay in the bathroom while I ran in search of a pacifier. I was not going to be able to clean this up one-handed. Of course the paci that is always on hand was nowhere to be found. I finally located it upstairs and as I came back into the kitchen Andrew rounded the corner again and said, "Mom, that toiwet's not working." I put James down in the bouncy seat with the pacifier and headed to the bathroom with Andrew. Sure enough, he had tried to wipe his leg off himself with the wipes and flushed them all down the toilet--the toilet was clogged.

The good news--the water got as high as the lid and then stopped--no overflow to clean up! So I plunged the toilet, then had to get the poopy shorts off and cleaned off and the poopy underwear off and cleaned off (I just hate that!! I was definitely not raised washing cloth diapers. It grosses me out!). I put Andrew in the tub and went back to get crying James who had been so patient, but was crying again by this time.

Phew. I sat down and fed him for a little bit while Andrew played in the tub and Natalie ate her dinner. It was a late night at work for John so he missed out on all the fun ;-) I did manage to laugh incredulously as each event unfolded. And thinking what a good blog post the experience would make put everything in a different perspective. Yea blog!

So that was the first hour home on my own. It could only get better I thought...

It's a good thing these kids are so cute.

Waking up with Buzz Lightyear

While my mom was here and I could sleep a little later if I had been up a lot the night before, I wouldn't always be getting up before the kids--my mom would get up with them and let me get a little more sleep (those were the days ;-)) I was sleeping with the monitor on next to me and awoke to the sound of the Buzz Lightyear gun we bought Andrew at Disneyland last year coming from the monitor. In the fogginess of waking up from a deep sleep I was slowly putting together that I should not be hearing that sound from the baby monitor. I jumped out of bed and ran into the baby's room and saw Natalie bending over the car seat (James is sleeping in the car seat) and she was shooting the gun. If any of you have heard it--it is a very loud, high pitched, "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba" The gun was not aimed at the baby--she was just making it sound while she was looking at him. It was very funny.

My Mom

My mom left yesterday. She got here Thursday the 4th and immediately went to work cooking, cleaning, organizing, playing with and watching Andrew and Natalie, grocery shopping, and anything else you can think of. It really was the easiest 10 days I've had for as long as I can remember. I was able to just dote on and enjoy little James and Natalie and Andrew were happy and entertained. It didn't matter if I was up during the night because not only could I take a nap or sleep in if I needed to, but I also could run on less sleep when someone else was seeing to dinner and helping with the other kids. She helped get the game room organized, she cleaned out the pantry, she put up my fall decorations. Really, you name it, she probably did it. And all that with a limp and a big boot on one foot. She has a pulled tendon, maybe a bone spur and I could tell it hurt. But she wouldn't think about taking it easy. She wanted to make sure everything was easier for me. (Andrew was very concerned about the boot. She couldn't kneel for family prayer with it on so he was relieved when she didn't have it on the next night and could kneel down. He also told her, "We don't wear boots to church" and so he was glad she didn't wear the boot to church.)

So this post is a tribute to my mom. What a beautiful, lovely, selfless person. I know she would do anything for me--for any of her kids--or for anyone. I'm so lucky to belong to her. She is a great example of motherhood, service and friendship. Thank you, thank you, thank you mom for everything. And thanks to dad for being on his own for 10 days and for being so supportive of her coming to help!

The kids keep asking me where grandma is. On the way home from the airport Natalie must have asked me 15 times, "where gma go?" Andrew fell asleep on the way to the airport and when he woke up--after we had dropped her off--the first thing he asked in his sleepy voice was, "Where's granma?" He was pointing to the seats around the table last night and said, "that's my chair, that's daddy's chair, that's mommy's chair, and that's granma's chair." Tonight Natalie said, "I wanna sit in gma's chair." While she was here, only grandma could read stories to Andrew at night and tuck him in. He loved her to tickle his back as he fell asleep. And they would negotiate how many books she would read. She would start at 2 or 3, he would start at 10 and they would always agree on 5. We all miss her.

IKEA in the Camry

My mom and I headed out Saturday night to run a few errands. Our last stop was IKEA. My mom has been helping me get my game room organized (finally!) and we needed to get a bookshelf from IKEA to finish the project up. First of all, getting out of the store with all the stuff was quite the feat. We had 12 baskets on a big trolley, the stroller with the baby, and another big trolley with 3 very large and very heavy boxes containing the pieces of the bookshelf. The trolleys refused to go in a straight line and so we were weaving all over the place. We originally thought we could buy it and then come pick it up later, given that we were driving John's Camry. But by the time we were buying the stuff it seemed like such a hassle to come back and get it another day and they have pictures all over showing how easy it is to put the stuff on the top of your car...

So we got the stuff outside, I pulled the car up to the pick-up spot and a guy that works there who looked like he was about 12 came over and offered to help us get the stuff into our car. I'm sure he was looking at our 2 full trolleys and the small 4-door sedan and wondering what we were thinking. We managed to get the two thinner boxes in the trunk by pushing them through to the back seat and a few boxes fit into the trunk and a few more into the back seat (poor James was surrounded). Then the IKEA helper suggests that we put the big box on the roof. Doesn't sound too bad, but he puts these cardboard things up there and then says my mom and I have to tie it securely to the car. He can't help because of liability.

We just looked at each other--we don't know how to tie knots! I'm sure the guys working there were taking bets as to whether we would make it home with our purchase intact. So we did our best and tied the cardboard pieces to the car and then put the big box on top of those and tied the box to the car. Once that was done we had to load my mom and the rest of the baskets into the front passenger seat. I couldn't even see her and she was laughing--I could only see one of the baskets shaking every time she laughed.

By this time it was almost 10pm, James was hungry, I was tired and we had to take the back roads home. But that box never moved ;-) The bookshelf is now set up in the game room--it was worth it.

My only regret is not getting a picture of my mom.

The Cheescake Factory is open

For all of you East Valley residents, the Cheesecake Factory at Superstition Springs is now open! And the great news is that they have curb side service. Just call 641-7300 to order and 641-8646 to have them bring it to your car. My mom and I were out running errands last night and got a drive-by order of avocado egg rolls (yum!!). I will definitely be saving those numbers to my cell phone ;-)

Toilet Trauma

We have lived in our house for 4 1/2 years and besides the fact that you have to flush the toilet twice to get it all down, we have maybe had one or two occasions where we have had to get the plunger out (yuck!). Last week all three of our toilets required assistance. For a few hours there we only had one working toilet. Just bad luck for the two toilets upstairs and nothing a plunger wouldn't fix. But the downstairs toilet...

Andrew is potty trained. Except when he doesn't want to use the toilet. And almost every time he is playing in the backyard these days he does not want to put aside the trucks and shovels to come inside and use the toilet. Unfortunately that almost always means that we're cleaning up poopy underwear after he has been outside. (Any suggestions on how to change this behavior are welcome!) Well, John happened to be the one cleaning him up last week and he had rinsed the underwear out in the toilet and then left them in there while he was cleaning Andrew off. He threw the dirty wipes in the toilet and flushed before he remembered that the underwear was still in there. Pretty funny. We had to avoid the downstairs toilet until we located a snake. Luckily our good neighbor had a snake and the plumber expertise--he came over and did it for us. Turns out the underwear somehow made it through to the sewer where they are now floating free I guess. We had a Christmas gift sticker on the toilet reminding us not to use it and of course Andrew took over the job of toilet police--he made sure nobody went in there! It was good to have all toilets working again.

My big boy

Everybody says that your other little kids seem so much older when the new baby gets here. I am really feeling that with Andrew. He seems older every day. Part of me loves watching all the new phrases he uses, the comments he makes that show me he is trying to figure the world out, the way he mothers Natalie ("Don't touch that Natalie. We don't want to get hurt."). The other part of me feels like he is still too little to seem so big, that it's going by too quickly. I want to push the pause button and take him all in. But no pause button around here. So I'm trying to do better and taking pictures and writing things down about him. This post captures a few of the things he has said and done lately.

When John gets home from work he usually asks Andrew about his day. Lately Andrew makes sure to ask John, "Daddy, did you have fun at work today?" When John says yes, Andrew just says, "Oh." and sometimes adds a "good" in there. It is so cute.

My mom has been staying with us and helping (what will I do when she leaves?!). Andrew has just loved having grandma around. Yesterday somebody stopped by to visit and when they were leaving he was checking with me and John and then grandma that none of us were leaving and that we were all staying here. This is what I overheard:

"Granma, you not going anywhere? You staying here?"
"I'm staying here."
"That makes me happy."

Andrew loves having visitors and we laugh because the first thing he says when somebody comes in the door is "you wanna go up da game room" or "you wanna see my trains?"
Yesterday our visitors brought their 4-year-old daughter. As soon as she set foot inside the house, Andrew ran up in his underwear-on-backwards and said, "You wanna see my trains?" They were upstairs for a little bit and then came downstairs. John overheard him saying, "You wanna see my trains again?"

My mom put Andrew down for a nap the other day. Andrew doesn't like taking naps and is an expert delayer. He wants us to read him another book, he needs another drink of water, sing me another song. So my mom had read him some books, he had some water, but his favorite stuffed zebra Zzzzs was downstairs. So my mom got Zzzzs and brought him up to Andrew. Andrew took him and as she went to leave the room he said, "Gma, read Zzzzs a story." My mom and I laughed and laughed about that.

We have been reading in the children's Book of Mormon--the one with the pictures--and have reached 3rd Nephi and Jesus visiting the Americas. Andrew has really liked the pictures and stories in this part. Yesterday he said a blessing on the food. Most of his prayers are a mumbled/fast "bless the food, spirit, gospel, amen" But sometimes he really puts some thought into his prayers. Yesterday he blessed mom, the baby, dad, granma, Natalie, and then he said, "and Jesus loves me, and Jesus loves us." We have tried to teach our kids who Jesus is and that he loves us, but I have never felt like he got it. The night before we had read about Jesus blessing the children in the Book of Mormon. What a testimony to me of reading the scriptures with our kids--even if most of the time they are trying to get each other to laugh, we're trying to get them to sit still for just 2 minutes! But he got something out of it--and that Jesus loves him is one of the things I would most like Andrew to know.

Every time Andrew goes to school I try to find out how it was and what they did. He is always thrilled to show me the cute craft they did that day. Some days he will tell me a few things but more often, he says "we played." But he'll let drop a few words or ideas that let me know that they have circle time at school, that they sing songs, that the kids were talking and he said, "shhh", that they talked about "17" and that it's a "2" and a "7" (when I explained that 17 was a 1 and a 7 he adamantly insisted that no, it was a 2 and a 7. I decided that at age 3, 17 can be whatever you want it to be ;-)).

Last night I got a special treat. We were eating dinner and talking about school and he went ahead and sang all the words to the witch's hat song they had learned that day. I loved it! He was so cute and knew every word. Then he improvised on the 5 little pumkins song. That was fun too. Of course we had to have Natalie sing some songs also. She sang ABCs that went like this, "lmnop, qrs,lmnop,qrs,lmnop" and she sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and she sang Once there was a snowman, "noman, noman, tall, tall, tall, melting, melting, small, small, small." And the smalls she sings more slowly. So funny. It was such a fun dinner time.

We went on a walk on Sunday between conference sessions. It felt so good to be outside and it wasn't too hot. Yea! We took the path that goes from the street down through the park in our neighborhood. It's a downhill route and Andrew had insisted on pushing James in the stroller. He was so excited to take James down that hill fast and set off running, with me running along next to him to catch the stroller if necessary. After we got the stroller off the grass and back on the path, Andrew was off and running again and telling me, "Mom, James loves going fast." and "James is having fun!" James was fast asleep and didn't even realize how much fun he was having!
Andrew loves to help with everything right now. John took the kids swimming on Saturday--they mainly stayed in the heated hot tub because the pool was a little chilly--and Andrew was there helping with everything--the gate, the umbrella. He loves the pool. He even jumped off the diving board a few times, but got out every time and immediately ran for the hot tub. He was cold.

Introducing our sweet baby James

Our new little boy is finally here. He was born October 2, 2007 at 10:10 am. He weighed 7 lbs 11 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. He is just the cutest thing. Small little head, alert eyes, long fingernails that I have already cut because he scratched up his face ( poor guy), skinny little legs. So far he has just wanted to sleep and eat and fortunately some of that sleeping has even been at night. I already just love him. It's amazing how fast that happens. And you forget how small these new babies are and how good it feels to rub your face against their soft head and kiss them over and over again.



Andrew and Natalie have been so excited about their new baby brother. Andrew talks to him in a little baby voice that is higher than his normal voice and wants to look at him all the time. When they came to visit at the hospital Andrew said in his little high voice, "He's weally cute." And Natalie echoed, "Cute." They have been so sweet with him. Both held him in the hospital and gave him kisses. When he cries, Natalie lets me know that the baby is crying and Andrew runs over to try to help. Last night James started crying while we were eating dinner. Andrew ran over and leaned over the car seat where James was and said in his sweet voice, "It's ok James. It's ok." And James stopped crying. Andrew ran back to the table so pleased that he helped James stopped crying.



One of the cutest things is Natalie saying "James." It is just so cute. John took her to her Rolly Pollies class today and said when someone would ask her the name of her new baby she would say, "James." And Andrew brought some pictures of his new baby brother to his preschool today for show and tell. I'm not sure if they ever made it out of the bag, but he was very excited to bring them.

And for the record, my water broke around 7:30pm Monday night, October 1st. I leaned over to pick something up off the floor and pop, and suddenly I felt wet. I still wasn't sure what had happened, but since it continued to gush in spurts I figured it out pretty quickly. I didn't want to get to the hospital too soon, but because I had never had this happen and because Natalie came so fast I thought we should head over in a little bit. We finished putting the kids down, John's parents came over and John wanted to finish watching Heroes ;-) , so we left for the hospital around 9pm.

I walked in with a towel between my legs and carrying an extra towel in case I needed to sit down. They didn't even do the check to see if my water broke when the saw the wet towel ;-) We got into a delivery room at about 10:00pm and by then the contractions were about 5-6 minutes apart. We walked around, got "comfortable" and then the contractions slowed way down. At about midnight they decided to start me on pitocin. At about 5 am I was still only at a 5 and then they didn't check me until 8:30am when they discovered I was complete. But for some reason they told me they would wait to push and waited until about 10am. I pushed a few times and James was born at 10:10am with a major cone head. It didn't last too long, though.


It was a long night and definitely not what I expected after Natalie's 2 hour labor, but I am so glad James is here and that he was polite enough to get here on his due date! We stayed in the hospital overnight and got home Wednesday, Oct 3rd at about 2pm.