pool time

Memorial Day has come and gone which means...the pools are open! We hit the pool Monday evening and had a pretty great time.

I was worried that Lauren wouldn't like it, but after some initial yelps, she settled right in. She likes the pool as long as she is safely nestled in mom or dad's arms. She doesn't seem to like her swim suit. She was pulling at it the whole time. Probably because it is less soft than anything else she wears.

Will was a bit nervous at first, but by the end of the night he was feeling much more adventurous. He was very pleased that Aunt Laura was there. Will loves his Aunt Laura a lot.

And, like all fun things, the night ended in tears and desperate pleas to stay and slide (even though he refused to go near the slide entire time we were there). I wonder what the world would be like if we all felt things as passionately as toddlers.

Today just the kids and I went to the pool. It was slightly more stressful than when Tony and Laura were there, but I was pleased with how things went. The most frustrating thing that happened was a fellow pool patron decided to lay out and let the life guards and other parents watch her kids. They seemed to be drawn to me and kept trying to touch Lauren and would climb in my lap. I felt bad for them, but I have my own two kids to watch/entertain. Their mom was nice when I finally walked over to her and informed her that her daughter had asked me to take her to the bathroom, so maybe she was just having a bad day.

I love having a pool so close to our house! Thanks to Doug and Tina for the family pool pass (my birthday present)!

week in pictures

Will is learning to spell his name, and he loves to play with the letter blocks at Memaw's house. "W" is his favorite letter, naturally. The thing about having a name with two of the same letter in a row is, why stop at just two? Will seems to think the more than merrier when it comes to the letter "L." His Aunt Jill thought the same thing too, when she was first learning how to spell her name.

Will is holding a "birthday cake" in this picture. He made it after watching an episode of Word World (his aforementioned current favorite show) when Pig made a cake for Dog's birthday. The long top part is the candle and the base is the cake. He made approximately 75 cakes this past week.

Ugh. The city is doing major construction work on the road to the west of our neighborhood. It will be great when it's completed. In the meantime, it stinks. There are several construction projects underway in this area, so a few of our alternate routes are closed. Getting to church is one of our biggest headaches. It actually only takes us about an extra 5 minutes. I know, I shouldn't complain about that, but it is an extra five minutes of stop-and-go traffic and my life is relatively easy so I will. On the other hand, Will loves it. There are tractors, diggers, back-hoes, huge cranes, dump trucks, etc. all over the place, and he loves to point each one out as we drive by.

Don't be fooled by the rock that she's got, she's still the same Lojo she's always been. Lauren loves to play with this ring rattle. Will likes to put it on her wrist like a bracelet, and it confuses her. She has gotten so good with her hands recently. It's fun to see her twist and stretch to grab what she wants. She hasn't started crawling yet, but is starting to realize that by exerting a little effort, she can get things.

This is a pretty terrible picture because Will's blond head takes up 1/3 of the frame. However, he asked me to take a picture because he was holding Lauren's hand and "she won't let go!" If you look closely, he appears to have the superior grip on her hand, so I'm not exactly sure what he was complaining about, but it made me happy that they were interacting in a fun way.

I love ice cream, so we had a few friends over for dessert Sunday night in honor of my birthday and to celebrate the beginning of summer. We lucked out and it wasn't too humid, so we were able to hang out in our backyard.

We spent a few hours at the pool Monday evening. It was Lauren's first time, and she liked it. Yay! I am very pleased. I look forward to spending a lot of time at the pool this summer. I was very excited about Lauren's swim suit, I seriously have been talking to Tony about it for days. There is just something so cute about babies in swim suits. Love those chunky legs and Popeye arms. We call them Popeye arms because her forearms are the same size as her biceps.

you're only 29 once

Yesterday was my birthday. I've always rather liked birthdays. I have distinct memories of lying in bed on the night of May 26th, too excited to sleep, and then the next night feeling depressed, not wanting to fall asleep because then it would all be over and I would have to wait 365 more days for another birthday. To be fair, I think I only felt depressed about my birthday being over in my tween years.

1 year old Carrie (with a favorite doll)

Besides the obvious attention and presents, part of why I look forward to my birthday each year is because it is a natural marker to look back at what you've accomplished and forward to what you want to become. As I enter the last year of my twenties I've been thinking about the past decade of my life and not just the past year.


I recently finished reading a book that really made me think. The book is called What Alice Forgot and it is total chick-lit. It probably made me think deep thoughts because I read it while Tony was traveling and I had more time left to my own thoughts than usual. It centers around a 39-year old woman with 3 kids in the middle of a bitter divorce. One morning while at the gym she hits her head and when she wakes up she is 29, expecting her first baby and happily married, at least, as far as she can remember. When she views her 39-year old self with her 29-year old eyes she is both impressed and disappointed with how things have played out. Eventually her memory returns, and she realizes young Alice was a bit naive and idealistic, but older Alice had a fuller perspective on things because of her life experience. As she worked to reconcile her two "selves," she was able to find a happy balance. Pretty cheesy with a  bit of a 13 Going on 30 vibe.


I've been thinking a lot about how I have changed over the past 10 years. I was a lot better about exercising at 19, but I am more comfortable about what I look like now. This is pretty amazing in and of itself considering how I looked then and now. I fancied myself to be an awesome roommate when I was 19, but I remember some of the things I did and it makes me cringe. (To those I lived with 10 years ago--thank you for putting up with me. :)) Pretty sure I am a much better friend these days, though I still have much room for improvement. I thought I was a regular scriptorian after completing a year of Book of Mormon classes and because I memorized all the scripture mastery verses in seminary. Ten years later I recognize most of them and can still recite a few, but I understand so much more about the words I could once recite from memory and why it was worth my time to learn them.


For the most part, I think I'm happy with the progress and changes I've made in the past year(s). I have things I want to work on, like getting to bed on time, for example. Why oh why is it so hard for me to go to bed at night? I feel tired from the moment I wake up until approximately the time time the kids are in bed. But night after night I have trouble getting in bed at a time that will help me feel less tired the next day. I know getting more sleep will help me, and I continue to choose to stay up (and do stupid things that aren't worth my time, like watch reruns of The Office I've already seen).


Like everyone else, I really enjoyed Pres. Uchtdorf's talk at the September 2011 General Relief Society Meeting. In his talk he said:

"God wants to help us to eventually turn all of our weaknesses into strengths, but He knows that this is a long-term goal. He wants us to become perfect, and if we stay on the path of discipleship, one day we will. It’s OK that you’re not quite there yet. Keep working on it, but stop punishing yourself....

In the meantime, be thankful for all the small successes in your home, your family relationships, your education and livelihood, your Church participation and personal improvement. Like the forget-me-nots, these successes may seem tiny to you and they may go unnoticed by others, but God notices them and they are not small to Him."

Thank goodness I've got time. We are all works in progress, and I hope that next year and ten years and fifty years from now I can look back and feel satisfied with the improvements I've made. And hopefully by then I'll get myself to bed on time. From what I've seen, senior citizens get up quite early.

Nineteen year old Carrie (with a few roommates)

29 year old Carrie (with a few roommates)

photo a day

Another week, another batch of pictures.

We've moved Will back into his crib. Things didn't really work out that well with the twin bed after the first week, so the crib it is for now. Will likes to take books to bed with him. Lately he is on a "scritchers" kick. The books in this photo are his Book of Mormon board books. Sometimes Will wakes up at night, crying and when we go check on him he just sits there. We think it might be because he has his legs under him and they potentially fall asleep, disorienting him when he wakes up. Who knows? Sometimes I wonder what he does when he's in there, but not enough to invest in a camera moniter.

Tony went to DC for 48 hours,and during that small amount of time I managed to get the worst headache I've had in months. We were very excited for him to return. I often think I do everything, but I am frequently reminded that I don't do it all when he's not around. I wanted to get a picture of the excitement on Will's face when he first saw his dad, but Will decided to not be very emotive. Thanks for ruining my money shot, Will!

On Thursday we visited our friends the Diggins. They are expecting baby #3 any day now, so we wanted to say hello before the fun and craziness begins. We didn't get to stay long because Will wasn't in the mood to be social. We did get to enjoy a few whine-free minutes while to boys played with bubbles.

Will likes to make "nests." I think he learned about that from Duck on World World. It is kind of annoying because he is frequently cluttering our living room by pulling the cushions off the couch. But he seems to really enjoy it, and it doesn't really make anything dirty, so we'll let him keep it up.

Just living the dream, eating some hotdogs for lunch Saturday afternoon at Costco. Lauren really wanted to try the hot dog. Will insisted on tasting TJ's sprite, and deemed it YUCKY.

 

Lauren likes to be where the people are. Here she is rolling around by Anthony's feet while he works on the computer. She loves to be held, but she is perfectly content to hang out on the ground for a bit as long as you are close.

Anthony was out for a bit and when he got back our mailbox was flat on the ground. It had been uprooted, cemet and all. This photo was taken after Anthony put it back up. It's still crooked. He asked me if I had heard anything while he was gone, and I had heard a noise that I thought was him getting home, but it obviously wasn't and I didn't think about it again. So now we are wondering, was it a random act of vandelism? A hate crime? Honestly, I think one of our neighbors probably backed into it. The family across the street from us has 2 teenaged boys, so it easily could have been one of their friends. But it is more fun to come up with conspiracy theories, so we are going to go with hate crime.

all the great one's leave their mark

I have mentioned before my love for the classic Christmas sequal, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. In the movie Marv wraps tape around his hand and dubs himself and Harry the "Sticky bandits," as he sticks his hand in collection jars as they walk around NYC.

A petty thef he is not, but Will DOES have his own calling card. Sticks. Everywhere we go he looks for sticks. We have piles stashed in various places in our yard, on our driveway, on the floor of our car in front of his carseat, at grandma's house, in our house when he sneaks them in. I found one in the upstairs bathroom tonight. Usually they are marching band sticks (trumpets or conductor sticks genearlly), but sometimes they are bats or swords.

A few weeks ago it stormed and their were little sticks all over our front yard. I spent one morning picking them up (I filled a trash can) and Will was very distraught the next time he went out front and there was not a stick to be found.

I know that this phase won't last forever, and soon enough he will be into something far more obnoxious than sticks. But for now we are going to enjoy our stick-y bandit.

more may pictures

We went to Red Robin for dinner and Will was thrilled to get a balloon. This was my view in the rear view mirror the whole way home. Obviously I need to work on my photography skills, because this isn't a very good picture.

I had to get a few last-minute things done for school, so I turned on a movie for Will. It felt so good to click send for the final time. So good, in fact, that when I walked back into the living room and saw the havoc that Will wreaked on the room in my absence, I didn't even care. This picture doesn't do the damage justice. He ripped up two kleenexes and a slice of cheese into incredibly small pieces that took a long time to clean up. He's got a talent.

Nothing like a clean boy, fresh out of the bath and brushing his teeth. Will has been enjoying my freedom (now that school is over) because we are able to spend more time outside. The weather has been absolutely beautiful. I wish everyone could visit Kansas City in the spring. I know it won't last too long, so we are trying to soak up as much as we can while we can. Will seems to have an innate honing device to wherever there is dirt (or ants), which means he is pretty dirty by the end of the day.

With the addition to solid foods to her diet Lauren is thriving! Will likes to cheer for Lauren when she eats a bite and then he waits for me to cheer for him when he takes a bite. Our mealtimes have always seemed slow-paced, but they've gotten even slower. But Lauren is sleeping through the night (7:30pm to 6am), so it is worth it!

We went to the Overland Park Arboretum and saw snakes swimming in the water. Twice. Will was facinated. It was a gorgeous day, and I kept thinking about the beauty of the earth. The night before I attended our stake relief society meeting and the artist that painted the mural in the first instruction room of the Kansas City Temple spoke. He said something to the effect that "the visual helps reach the soul." I really like that, and I have found it to be true in my own life. When I am surrounded by beauty I feel closer to God.

The student and the teacher. Lauren still enjoys watching Will and Will likes showing off. He will often yell, "Mommy, Lauren, Daddy, Will. That's our family!" I hope he always is that excited about us. Lauren has been trying to put everything in her mouth lately, so I am thinking she might be teething again. She is also getting good at picking stuff up.

Will is a character. When I went to pick Will up from nursery, his teacher told me he took his shoes off and insisted they stay off. He also told her he is 6 years old. While we were walking towards our car, a kind ward friend gave him one of the chocolates they gave to all the women in honor of Mother's Day. He was just strutting around in the parking lot like this while Tony and I were talking to friends. I guess we should pay closer attention to our child. You should click on the picture so you can see the chocolate drool hanging from his lower lip. Or you shouldn't if that would gross you out.

Back porch picnic. We met some friends at the park and Will got soaked in a man-made, kid-friendly stream. So I had to take his clothes off so he wouldn't soak his car seat on the way home. I made the executive decision that we would get chick-fil-a for lunch (I got the sense that Lauren wanted to get that for me for Mother's Day) so we drove through, got our lunch, and then ate on our back porch. Again, I am LOVING the beautiful weather.

sadie & will running

The last day we were in Utah, Daniel and Sadie stopped by to say hi. When it was time to go, Will and Sadie could sense that leaving meant bedtime, so they started this impromptu running game. Will was a taskmaster and kept urging Sadie on. They seriously ran around like this for about 15 minutes. Besides the fact that they were making us laugh, we only let them keep running because we knew they would sleep like rocks as soon as they got in bed.

week in photos

Here is the second installment of taking a picture each day. My photography skills aren't that great, but don't let that stop you from enjoying the pictures.

Tuesday morning we headed to the store to make some important purchases: a potty seat for Will and a sippy cup for Lauren. My babies are growing up. We also had to get new cups for Will because he has seemed to take the "no spill" claims advertised on toddler cups as a personal challenge by gnawing holes in the top. Sometimes we catch him dumping his milk on the couch and he grins as if to say "betcha didn't plan on that, Playtex! Will: 1, No-Spill Cup: 0."

Anthony was out of town Monday through Thursday, so we tried to spend a few minutes chatting each night via webcam. Anthony was living the high life with ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN News. This is not the only time I called him out for channel surfing while we were talking. Clearly Will was frustrated too. :)

Thursday my family hosted an open house in honor of Melanie and Andrew. Laura and I helped with the refreshments. Between the reception in Utah and open house here I estimate that we baked over 700 cookies and 7 batches of lemon bars. I don't think I will bake again until June. But you should check out the lemon bar recipe. They are pretty delicious. Thank you to all who watched my kids so I could get the baking done.

When I woke up Friday morning I felt SO tired. I think the previous 2 weeks (house guests, traveling, wedding, husband out of town, and copious amounts of late night baking) finally caught up with me. That night my parents treated us to a Royals game. Even though the Royal's gave the game away (insert rude comment about the Royals from Tony here), it was a fun night. And since it was Friday, we got to see some fireworks.

Saturday was the long-awaited day of the Youth Cultural Celebration. As we walked back to our car I saw this van, which made me laugh because it typified Mormon culture. Please don't hate me if this is your family's Club Wagon. But I tried to remember if I know of anyone that has seven kids, 2 dogs, rocks the Mary Kay and still has time to help (force?) their sons become Eagle Scouts, and I couldn't think of anyone so I think I'm safe.

Sunday was all about the temple. In the morning Tony sang in one of the dedication choirs and that evening we headed back to the temple to take some pictures before my sisters and brothers-in-law returned to Utah. We lucked out and just missed the storm. I love how enthusiastic Will is about the temple.

lauren :: six months

Six month stats:

Weight: 15 lbs. 3 ounces, 25th percentile

Length: 25 inches, 25th percentile

Hard to believe it's been half a year since Lauren joined our family. I guess it's time to stop using "getting used to a new baby" as an excuse for why I can't seem to get much done anymore and am always behind schedule.

Month number six was kind of hard. Lauren didn't sleep well. I wish I could say I handled things better, but I was pretty grumpy about the lack of sleep. Anthony called us frienemies because we were friendly and cordial during the day, but after midnight it was a different story. Lots of crying on her part and a fair amount of complaining and self-pity from me.

In her defense, she did cut another tooth during this time, and she probably wasn't getting enough to eat. She only gained 11 ounces since her 4 month appointment, dropping from the 75th to 25th percentile for weight.

Probably not the last time she looks to her dad for comfort after butting heads with mom.

She really likes her baths, and kicks the water like crazy. I am excited for pool season (only one month away!). I was nervous that the doctors wouldn't want her in the pool because of her sensitive skin, but they said it was fine and there was a chance it could even help. 

Lauren loves rolling around and grabbing her feet. She likes to talk, especially with dad. She smiles for the camera. She loves to watch Will cry. She is starting to display some signs of stranger anxiety and will probably burst into tears if you get too close and she can't see mom or dad. She seems to only scratch herself now when she is mad or bored, so she doesn't have to keep her hands covered quite as much.

 

She is so sweet and content most of the time. Sometimes I forget that she is there because Will keeps me busy much of the time, but then I turn and see her and she gives me a big grin. I'm grateful for that because I feel a bit guilty about how much more attention I gave Will at her age. We love our Loey girl.