Little happenings at home

The time has come for Livia to move out of the crib and into a big girl bed. I have been looking for months for the perfect solution at a price I could handle.

And we finally decided to go with twin over full bunk beds. Sam and Liv will share a room until the baby is big enough to share a room with Livia.

So this:

+ 6 1/2 grueling hours

+ one 4 year old "assistant"

brings us to this:

(2 happy and excited children) Sam praised me for doing such an awesome job the whole time I was assembling the beds.


And a few random tidbits of our last couple of days:

With church at 1:00, sometimes Livi doesn't get a pre-church nap. Those days can be rough... for her and us. And possibly the nursery leaders as well....

Well, yesterday was one of those days. So after about 4 or 5 timeouts during Sacrament Meeting, I gave her the option of taking a nap in Mommy's Sunday School or going to Nursery. She perked right up and opted for Nursery.

But she truly was exhausted after church. Dinner time rolled around and after 2 timeouts she finally decided to 'be nice' and sit down and eat.... well, at least she sat down. With a nice little glazed over look in her eyes.

Hence this:

Yes, she really is sleeping. We were worried about her falling off the chair so I finished dinner and took her into the living room and she slept on me for 15-20 minutes before I tried to wake her up. She kept trying to go back to sleep so I asked her if she wanted to eat dinner or go get in bed. She wanted bed. I thought she would wake up enough as I changed her diaper and put her PJs on, but no, as soon as I got her close to her bed, she crawled right up to her pillow and blanket and went right to sleep... at 6:30. And slept til 7:30 am.

We like 13 hour naps.


Last week, Livia's little neighbor friend, Jameson, was over playing and they got a hold of the uno cards and two packs of flash cards. As you can see, they were ankle deep in their learning...



And then there's Cowboy.... this cat can sleep anywhere! This is where he took his Sunday evening nap. We even closed the lid to see what he would do... nada. Just kept dozin' away. We thought about turning on the water to see what he would do, but decided that's just plain mean.

At least he's not in the way.

And today.... guess who picked her own clothes....
Oh, well, she'll most likely get some sort of fashion sense before too long. At least she's dressed and having fun with something girlie.

Wait, never mind. She's now moved onto Chick Hicks and the King cars. She really needs a little sister....

little science guy

This morning Sam came down after watching some cartoons and the following conversation took place:

Sam: Do you know what inertia means?
Mom: What does inertia mean?
Sam: It's if you are buckled in, you don't keep moving forward!


At least he's learning something from watching PBS! I think I was about 20 before I understood the concept of inertia...

acknivities....

In my recent attempt to stop being a lame-o mommy, I've been trying to do some sort of activity every day with the kids.

Problem... I'm not that creative.

We did have a pretty good week last week, and we went to the park for 2 hours today, so I'm feeling ok about my latest success. But I am almost out of new ideas already.

So here's your assignment! Share some activities/crafts/treats you do with your kids that I can copy! (And keep in mind I am typically car-less during the day.... not much leaving-the-house-other-than-prego-walking-distance going on here.)

Here's a little summary of last week, in case you're interested:

On Sunday we baked some chocolate cupcakes for daddy.



Of course they only liked the batter and the frosting.

Then we made froot loop necklaces.

Oh wait, I mean I made them and the kids ate them. (Ok, Sam did about half of his.)

Here we did some outside playing since the sun was mostly shining.


One day we made chocolate worm cookies.



I didn't want to open the white frosting, hence the demon-eyed worms.


They can be so sweet when they get along. Here is Sam "reading" books to Liv.


And they love to color. The whole book sharing thing is quite new though...


I will say, I have seen a big improvement in their behavior and my attitude since focusing more on the quality time issue... which is why I want to continue.

So please help me with more ideas!!

looking back at 2010

Here's our summary of 2010 according to our 2010 family scrapbook pages that my family does every year.

macey's makes me happy

I love bargains, so every week I look through the grocery store sale ads hoping to find an awesome sale with very little effort on my part. (Couponing sounds awesome, but way too much work.)

For the last several weeks the Macey's ad has had a recipe for a crock pot meal for a family of 6 that costs only $14. All of the recipes look delicious, and I'm a super big fan of the whole crock pot idea, so I clip it out and pile it on the bakers rack. (Then Jason 'cleans up' and throws it away.)

This week the recipe is for Pork Barbacoa. Yeah... that sounds super yummy. So I thought I would put it on my menu and hope I remember to buy the pork before Sunday.


Today I needed to make a quick run to the store for dinner tonight and they had samples. (Also pathetically a super fan of samples!) I asked if it was the recipe from the ad... which it was, so I decided to get the pork that she pointed out to me.

It was then she told me that she had a bag prepared with almost all the stuff that I would need to make it. I then realized that the $14 wasn't just an estimate of about how much it would cost... they put the bags together with the majority of the supplies and you buy the bag for exactly $14.


So I bought all this for just $14:


Considering the pork was over $15 by itself.... I think I got myself a screaming deal! I figure it would have cost just under $30 to buy all of these items individually.

And since my family is small, this will provide 2-3 meals for us.

And yes, they do this every week with a new recipe. Next week is spare ribs. I think I found an easy way to plan our Sunday dinners for a while!

Here's the recipe if you want to make it... or better yet, go to Macey's and get it for $14!

the wonder of color wonder

May I just say that Color Wonder truly is a wonderful thing!

Santa brought a princess one for Liv and a Cars one for Sam. At first I was a little uptight about it since they are more expensive than regular markers and coloring books. But I recently decided that I have to keep in mind they are 2 and 4... so who cares!


They LOVE to color, both with crayons and their 'special' markers. It is one thing they actually do pretty well together... they realized pretty quick if they combine their markers they have twice as many colors to choose from!

And it now occupies about 25% of their free time... giving me that much more as well! Money well spent Santa!

And I don't even have to make them wear something over their clothes....

6 months... 3 to go....

Now that I'm 6 months, maybe I should start taking pictures of the little jelly bean! Sadly, this is the first side shot I've taken this whole pregnancy...
Yes, I know that I look bigger than 6 months... and no, there are not two babies in there.

(I've actually looked about this big for the last two months, which is why I feel so big. But I think I've finally grown into my belly, so maybe I don't look all that big anymore.)


And on another note, I made bread!! All by myself!! Well, with the help of an awesome new recipe that is! (I'd share the recipe, but I'm asked not to.)


I'm really excited to try out new things with the recipe, like pizza crust, french bread, Italian bread, cinnamon rolls, etc.


Anyway, sorry I have been so horrible at blogging lately, our computer has had lots of issues and now they're fixed, so I need to get back into the habit of taking pictures and documenting our life!

It's a......

I apologize for the long wait for those of you who don't know what we're having yet. We leaked it on facebook, but if you don't do facebook much, you're probably still wondering what we're having...

Well, to be totally honest, it did not go as smoothly as I had planned out in my head in the two weeks leading up to Christmas. But hey, it is what it is!! And kids will be kids.... I guess.

So, as I was opening my last present, I realized Livia started ripping into our special little gift since she had so much fun opening gifts, she just happily grabbed the last one and took it upon herself to see what was in it.



Yeah, not how I had planned it! Our most special present of the year... and the kids fight over it! Right after Sam stormed off to his room and Livia continued to cry.

So we took a five minute break, calmed down the kids and began again... this time with Jason in charge of the envelope.

Then we forgot to turn the video camera back on that was filming the whole family.

But at least we got this little clip, which will tell you what we're having:



Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to you!

boy or girl?

time to take your guess! we'll open the gift tomorrow on Christmas Day, so time is running short to make a guess....

clarification...

Sorry if I seemed to confuse anyone with my last post. Here's the story:

With our first two we did not find out the gender before they announced it upon their arrival. This seems to drive most of our family and friends crazy! (Sorry... but it is really fun to be surprised like that! You should try it some time.)

For this child, we were thinking of doing the same thing, but decided since our 20 week ultrasound was so close to Christmas, we would find out on Christmas. So we had the ultrasound technician write it on some paper and seal it in an envelope. This envelope now sits under our tree in a pretty little package and is waiting for us to open it on Christmas, where our child will announce the gender. This way it will be just our little family, all together, and not in some cold room where I am awkwardly lying on a table and some complete stranger tells us the good news...

So that's what's going on in our little world... this is our compromise to all our loved ones who so desperately want to know if we have a little boy or a little girl for them to love.

Now, don't sneak in and find the gift and open it before we do.

That would hurt my feelings.

It's a..... healthy......baby......

EITHER A BOY OR A GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're not actually sure yet.
(Our choice.... not the jelly bean's modesty.)

I know. I know. Why do we torture our dear family and friends in this way? Because we love you that's all. And it's fun to not find out until the great arrival. (Wasn't Sam's and Livia's births way more exciting since we didn't know their genders beforehand!)

But....

we decided to be different this time. And we will find out long before April if the little bean is a boy bean or a girl bean.... are you surprised? Yeah, we are too.

It will be our best Christmas present to open this year. A sweet surprise from our choice little spirit that will soon join our family and take over our house.

So, yes, we will find out the gender in a couple of weeks. Unless of course we change our minds by then. You never know with us.

spooky boos 2010

What's Halloween without carving pumpkins? The kids had a blast... probably because we ended up gutting the pumpkins for them yet again. (Maybe next year....)


This year we carved them with some of our friends, Ronnie and Brittany Richey.




Every year at Jason's work, they go all out for Halloween. Every where is decorated with different themes and the kids get to go trick-or-treating through the decorations. This year was no different! Jason was in charge of his department and put in a ton of work and was very much Halloweened out by the time Halloween actually came! (I'm so proud of him!) His group did Battleship (the game) and they all dressed up as sailors. Do you like the big fat tat on his neck?


Here is inside Jason's area. They created a submarine and had nerf guns and were attacking each other. It was hard to get a good picture since it was so dark in there and the area was big. But it looked really cool!

In another area they had Duck Hunt. And yes, that is real sod. (fake dogs and ducks though) The music to the old Nintendo Duck Hunt was playing and the kids could pretend to shoot the ducks.


I didn't take as many pictures as I should have but here are some of the other areas different teams had: Monopoly, Mouse Trap, Nintendo, Avatar, cereal, Haunted Forest, Ice Land, Shrek, and plenty more that are not coming to mind.


The kids (and I'll admit, me too) were pretty excited to try out some cotton candy. Man, that stuff is still so good!


Grandma and Grandpa Cook joined in with us and the kids loved having them there to help find the good candy and carry their buckets and to just have someone to spoil them rotten!



There were lots of people doing fun things for the kids like balloon shapes and juggling tricks.



Livia basically had her next candy in hand as she ate the current one. The whole time we were there. Talk about a serious sugar high!! She was so hyper by the time we got home. Needless to say, they both went to bed with a kids pepto tablet in their tummies.

Sam was so excited to be Superman! And Livia... well she refused to put any costumes on. I told her if she wanted candy she needed to put one on. I figured Cinderella was the least costumey. (Yes, I know, she wore it last year too.)



With all the candy Liv ate, she had lots of candy dribble on her dress. I soaked it and realized it probably wouldn't be ready for her to wear again for trick-or-treating on Saturday, so she had to pick another costume. (She had like 5 or 6 to choose from.)

She picked the kangaroo. Here are the kids ready to go out trick-or-treating again:


We promised them right after dinner we would go. We opened the garage and that was when the crazy storm started. After waiting about 10 minutes with the rain just pouring down and the hail making the roofs look like winter wonderland, we decided it was letting up enough to go and get it done with. I'm not kidding... as soon as we got home the rain stopped. Grrr. Well, at least the kids were ok with not staying out too long since they were so cold!


We had lots of fun... and got (and still have) lots of candy! Happy Halloween!!