Life's Lessons

Mike is being a responsible father and teaching Sam the basics.

Big Boy!

I just love this kid's smile. Will had his first big boy bath in the big boy tub. He LOVED it! There was so much water to splash. Sam, on the other hand, wasn't a huge fan of being splashed. That's usually his job.
I couldn't let go of Will because he got so excited splashing that he'd lose control and tip over.

Baby Brandt is here!

My dear friend Tassie (I've known her since 9th grade) had a beautiful baby boy a couple of days ago. She looks absolutely amazing, which isn't fair to the rest of us (well, at least me) that look haggard and battle-worn after giving birth. He's healthy and chunky, and so cute! Screaming before he even left the womb. I think I need another newborn. Will has been the best baby, so it really makes me want another one. Probably shouldn't mention it to Mike yet.



Sam had lots of fun pushing him around in the bassinet and talking to him. Maybe he'll like his next sibling a little more than he liked Will at first.

Jane!

Jane went to the MTC two weeks ago, but we got to see her for a minute yesterday after her dentist appointment. It was so fun to see her one more time before she's gone for a year and a half. Sam will be 5 when she comes home. Crazy! Wish we could have had a little more time, but we'll take a couple of minutes if that's all we can get. We love our Janie, we miss her already!

Tag

I was tagged again, so I'm going to try for five things that most people don't know.

1. In 6th grade I had a crush on Luke Perry. I've never told anyone before.
2. I always wanted to be an astronaut.
3. I'm not an astronaut, but I wouldn't trade it for my current job (the mommy one). Plus, being the webmaster and embroidery expert (?) for Mike keep me busy when I would normally have a few minutes of down time. I feel so blessed that I can have a part-time job without ever having to leave the house.
4. The first time ever I made brownies (when I was 16) I overbaked them and they turned rock hard. My family still teases me about it.
5. I hiked the Grand Canyon when I was 15. Mike has hiked it 20-something times. He's done rim to rim to rim all in one day. That's 50 miles people! If you've never hiked it, there's some serious elevation changes...murder on the legs (even for a normal rim to rim hike). Mike is pretty amazing.

Working Hard

We let Sam earn a little money for his piggy bank by doing jobs on his chore chart. Today he said to me, "Mom, I want to do my jobs. I'll be nice to Will, then play with my trains, and then ride my train." Unfortunately, none of those are on the chart.

Hilarious

This is great, but probably even more funny if you've actually taken one semester of Spanish.

One Semester of Spanish Love Song

Spring Fever

This is how Sam winks. Probably more charming than unaided winking.

We've got some serious spring fever at our house. Mike absolutely insisted on grilling last night. I wish I had taken the picture 10 minutes earlier, he was out there in a full-on snow storm. We can't wait for warmer weather!

Diet Coke, Shopping, and Hair

My mom emailed me this, and even though I'm more like the homeless woman than Amanda, I still thought it was hilarious.

Amanda was walking down the street when she was accosted by a particularly bedraggled and shabby-looking homeless woman who asked Amanda for a couple of dollars for dinner. Amanda took out her billfold, extracted ten dollars...and then asked, "If I give you this money, are you going to spend it on Diet Coke instead of dinner?" "No, I had to stop drinking that years ago." the homeless woman replied. "Will you use it to go shopping instead of buying food?" Amanda asked. "No, I don't waste time shopping," the homeless woman said. "I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive." "Will you spend this on a hair stylist instead of food?" Amanda asked." Are you NUTS!?" replied the homeless woman. "I haven't had my hair done in 20 years!" "That's just fine," said Amanda, "I'm not only going to give you the money, I'm going to take you out for dinner with my hubby and myself tonight. "The homeless woman was astounded. "Won't your husband be furious with you for doing that? I know I'm ragged, dirty, and I probably smell pretty disgusting." Amanda replied, "That's all right. It's important for Andy to see what a woman looks like after she's given up Diet Coke, shopping, and hair appointments."

Burmese Refugees

Our ward has been given the opportunity to collect donations and deliver them to a sweet Burmese family. They came here with basically nothing, so basic necesseties (toiletries, linens, etc.) have been collected for them. They've been here for about eight months, and it seems like they're figuring things out (I think it would take me a lot longer than that!). The kids are in school, and they're all working really hard to learn English. Verbal communication was very minimal while we were there, but we didn't really need words. It was a really neat night. Our Mia Maid class (14 & 15 year old girls) came in a little apprehensive, but after an hour they were best buds with the sweet little kids.


We thought it would be fun to decorate sugar cookies with them, but I don't think they were too excited about it. One of them escaped to the other room before we were done.

At one of our YW activities we made these activity folders for them to help them with their English (color, numbers, shapes, etc). They loved them!

Even Mom and Dad thought they were fun.

They shared their soda with us. It was very humbling that even though they had so little, they were willing to give us what they had. They were baptized (LDS) last October, and before we left they asked if we would pray with them. This was an amazing family.

They waved from their apartment until we drove away. It was sad to leave, they were so sweet.

Learning to count in Burmese

Mike is the greatest!

Yay, ceiling fan is installed! Had to get a special tool to grind down the part that wasn't machined properly, but it's done now! Mike is so handy.

How it happened

I was thinking about this little video this morning while I was feeding Will. It always makes me smile. I think Mike likes it too, even though he won't admit it yet.

Background: Two weeks before Will was born, Mike was helping move a large mirror to a dumpster. As they were lifting it up to put it in, the mirror broke under its own weight and sliced Mike's arm open. They whipped Mike's belt off and put it around his arm. He was lying on the ground yelling for help (while the other person ran off to find a phone to call 911), and the only person who could hear him just happened to be an EMT (off duty). She helped get his arm squared away, and saved him a lot of blood during the 5 minute wait for the ambulance. I got the call at 9:00 pm that he was in the emergency room. I had a family member come stay with Sam, who was already in bed, and I sped up to the U hospital. 3 hours and one plastic surgeon later, we were on our way home.

This was Mike's arm last week. The scar is looking a lot better.

More fun with boys

Will is following in his brother's footsteps (ha ha). He's been rolling for a couple of months, and finally on Wednesday he started to officially army crawl. Sam did the same thing, so I guess I should expect to wash a lot of very dirty shirts, but I suppose the floor will be cleaner.

For "special time" we went outside to ride the bike. Sam had an absolute blast. He loved riding down the hill (if you can call it that), and it was almost as fun to have me push him back up.
"Mom, I'm stuck!" He picked up his bike and shoved it as far into the snow as he could.

Mom, watch!

Sam did this over and over, and it was so fun every time!

Fun with boys

Contemplating the oreo truffle.

He'll be bilingual soon! I've always loved Spanish. We went to Joe Morley's for some BBQ with Tami & Tassie and their husbands. Baby Bentley and soon-to-be-born Baby Brandt were also there. It was so fun! I should have taken more pictures, but Will was being cute, and then the food came. Poor Sam. He wasn't even invited. We don't take him to dinner with us. Any parent of a picky toddler will understand (when kids don't like to eat, you certainly don't take them to a place where the main objective is eating). He got to go to Jungle Jim's with Osie and Uncle Nelson earlier though, so he wasn't being deprived.

Brotherly Love

As I was taking pictures, Sam said, "He's getting really heavy!" Not that he was actually holding Will. I guess he was trying harder than necessary since they were both sitting on the floor.

Celebrating Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day I gave Sam these fun gel writers for the tub. It quickly turned into gel squeezers for the tub. Notice the shoulder. I made Mike some oreo truffles, and Will just got a bath, poor kid. That was all I could muster since my Valentine gift from Sam was a cold. And my gift from Will was a rare night of abdominal distress (his), which resulted in a lot of crying right before bed. He finally passed out on my lap (which he NEVER does) after we gave him some baby Zantac. I guess it's time to go back on my strict diet. :( Mike made me dinner...at least someone gave me a break.





Will has my little Foutz chin. I know every mother thinks her baby is the cutest, but look at that face. I just want to kiss it when I see it. So cute!

New Blog

I finally started a food blog. It's still unfinished, but it's after midnight now...
Check it out for all of my domestic adventures in the kitchen.

Busy!

Labyrinthitis (inflammation of the inner ear, sometimes called vestibulitis) made an appearance at our house this week. Mike woke up Saturday morning and got out of bed only to discover a severe case of vertigo. After a visit to the doctor and three different medications, he is starting to feel a little better.

Today was Janie's farewell! She'll be off to the MTC on Wednesday, and then to Canada a few weeks after that. She gave an awesome talk in Church, and Sam even lasted through it. Considering that was our fourth hour of church today, I'm impressed that he made it 3/4 of the way through before I had to take him out. The cousins were out in force, and Sam had an absolute blast playing with all the kids at the house after the meeting. After seeing how many people were there, there is no doubt that Jane is LOVED! (The parking lot was completely full, we had to make our own space). I think there are also a couple of guys that will be very sad to see her go, but don't tell her I said that. :) Actually, she knows. Hopefully she took Mike's advice and got as many free dinners as she could.

A post-nap Baby Will.

Jane with Steven, the man of her dreams. Osie built herself a husband named Steven (that's what she told me). She was dancing with him too.

Jane with the other man of her dreams.

Uncle Charles built an impressive track for the kiddies. Sam was very sad to leave it. Based on his track building skills, I'd say his future as a civil engineer is looking bright.

I love this kid. His morning nap was between 3 and 3 1/2 hours long (Mike stayed home from church, and Will didn't make a peep the entire time). He took a two hour nap late this afternoon, and then went to bed like a charm. And look at that face.

Food Tag

I was tagged by Heidi at Tasty Sensations. I'm not sure why I haven't started a food blog yet, but I've thought about it for months. I think I will. Just not today. Or tomorrow. Monday I might have time. I shouldn't even be doing this right now, since my lesson manual is sitting next to me begging me to prepare my lesson for tomorrow.

Rules: 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules. 2. Share 5 facts about yourself 3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them). 4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

My Facts:
1) When I got married I didn't really know how to bake a potato. I started to love baking and cooking after my first baby was born.
2) I've seen a bunch of blogs of members of the Daring Bakers, which I think is very intriguing. I want to join, but the projects look so time consuming that I don't know if I could do it. With 2 swamp rats to chase after, some days there's barely time to make dinner.
3) I absolutely love dough. I never knead it by hand, but I love working with it...there's something so satisfying about its squishy, supple texture. And I have bread rising right now.
4) When I eat out I almost always order the cheapest thing on the menu, no matter where we're eating. I just can't help myself, my brain is programmed to save money wherever possible.
5) The only time I have ever been able to eat (and actually enjoy) shrimp was during my semester in China. I just can't eat it here.

Safety First!

I was on the phone, so Mike decided to put Will's new helmet on and poke me. So distracting. I finally accomplished my mission though. The Fishers came over for a gourmet dinner of Papa Murphy's pizza. Thank goodness for convection baking (two at once!). We didn't even bother sitting down. The six of us (Eric & Renee too), stood around the counter devouring pizza. We even had the yummy dessert pizza. So good. And the best news of all: Will seems to be getting over his protein allergy!!! I haven't incoroporated all dairy back in, but I haven't been very careful this week, and he's done great. Yay!! I'm one happy mama.
This is what the Fishers gave me for my birthday. I'm so excited, I've wanted one for so long! I have a ten inch skillet without a lid, so this is going to be great. Plus, now I can use the 12" burner.

This morning Sam wanted "honey bunchies of oaps" for breakfast. Last week he kept asking me for a flupe. He settled for drumsticks and a tambourine. That darn t does tend to sound like a p sometimes.

With the almost-balmy high near 40 degrees yesterday, I am now impatient for spring to come. I'm eager for it not to be below freezing all the time. I'd like to take Sam outside more, but I don't like playing in the snow when it's 25 degrees. I think we're going to go on lots of walks when it warms up!

The boys spent a few hours at Grandma & Papa's house yesterday while I got some software training. They got to play with Jane, Grandma Grace, and Grandma Tigger. Obviously there's no way I can compete with that, but it's hard not to take it personally when Sam tells me things like, "Go away, and never come back!"

Laughter is the best medicine

Nothing better than hearing a baby laugh. Will thinks Sam is hilarious.

Fatman

Sam totally passed out while I was making dinner. He hasn't napped (regularly) since two weeks before Will was born, but occasionally this happens. It's nice while it lasts, but then I kick myself when he's awake until 10:30 (or was it 11:00?) yelling from his bed that he's not tired.

Love this stuff. Don't worry, I took the seeds out before I roasted it.

Will was hanging out on the floor when Renee came home from work. He turned to look at her and he was on his side pulling a Missy Marlow move. (Did anyone else go to the Ute gymnastics meets in elementary school?) He did it for long enough that I had time to grab the camera and turn it on, but by the time I took the picture he was done. So sad. It was really funny.

He also works himself up into the corner of the crib when he sleeps. He's usually lost under his bumper when I go in to get him up. He's not much of a binky kid (he used to hate it, but now he likes it). We don't give it to him much, but there's usually one kicking around his crib. This is the first time he's ever been sucking it when I've gone in to get him.
Kind of a long story behind these Batman shoes. Regardless, Sam was very excited to wear the "Fatman" shoes. He also has a Fatman car. Still have no idea where that comes from, but we like it. Some things you can get away with only when you're 3.

Vidoes

We found some fun videos on YouTube. Cool Wedding Dance and Charlie Bit My Finger - Again were our favorites. I also love the Paul Potts one.