Six Flags!

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I love roller coasters. I just never get sick of them. I tell Jon all of the time (or maybe I just tell myself) that we should have gone to Six Flags for our honeymoon. At least 2 days of it. Even better would be Six Flags AND Busch Gardens!!! I was lucky enough in my teenage years to have my family take me on such a vacation where we got to go to BOTH roller coaster super parks. I think I may actually consider that trip one of the highlights of my life so far.

That's how much I love roller coasters.

Imagine how THRILLED I was when Jon's company, National Instruments announced that they were holding the company picnic at Six Flags (down in San Antonio) this year! And, if that weren't sweet enough, they reserved the whole freaking park just for NI!!! This meant no fighting with the crowds of the general public and season pass holders and SHORT SHORT lines!!! AH! I'm excited just thinking about how awesome it was!

It was not a blazing hot day, we got free drinks all day in free souvenir cups, a free lunch, and a FREE TICKET to come back again before the 12th of October!!! SWEET! And it cost $15 + gas. Also, I didn't have tons of kids to take on rides and Alex didn't demand to be on a ride every second, so with the short lines I was able to go on all of the roller coasters and still ride some rides with Alex.

So with all of the greatness of the day going on, it's no surprise why I'm still feeling a high from it. It was an AWESOME day. Thanks NI!

Jon still had (and has) his vertigo going on, so he didn't go on any rides with me. He did go on the carousel with Alex and I and he said that was a bit much for him. I was surprised when he wanted to go on the teacups with Alex. After he got off of that, he was pretty dizzy.

My favorite rides were

The Poltergeist



The Twister




I'm embedding both of those for their uniqueness. I was cracking up on The Twister the whole time. I was one of 5 total people riding and it was so funny being spun that way.

Poltergeist was awesome because instead of going up a hill, it blasts you off. Totally took me off guard (even after 3 times). I also loved how strong the g-forces got. It hugged me right to my seat!
There was no line on this one, so I just stayed in my seat and went on it 3 times since Jon was waiting in a long line to ride on the little cars with Alex.

I also really liked Goliath and Superman. Both were bigger roller coasters and were SUPER smooth.

And speaking of smooth, I found a ride to AVOID like the plague! It's called The Rattler and it's a HUGE wood roller coaster. Problem is that it is NOT SMOOTH. It was so rough that I was being slammed (seriously. There is no better word to describe it) around in my seat. I have a huge bruise on my arm because of it and about 1/2 way through I started experiencing pain in my back. I thought it was really cool that it was such a big roller coaster, but after it got going I was really wishing it was a short ride.

Here's a video of it to illustrate how horrible it was. People can't even scream because it is so bumpy and they are just trying to deal with all of the bumps (and pain!). HORRIBLE RIDE!!!




Alex had such a fun time going on all of the rides. He loved everything, but it didn't surprise us that his favorite was the little trucks. That boy was so happy on the trucks! He also rode his first roller coaster, which made him a little nervous and he wanted to get off early. It was a similar story for the little swings we went on.
I was thinking how great it would be to go childless with our free ticket, but I loved how much fun he had on the rides and would love to see him that happy again.

Here's a little slideshow of our fun day!

Mustard and Mayonnaise

These are some of Alex's favorite "foods".
Alex happens to be addicted to hot dogs (no worries, we get the light turkey/pork no byproducts kind) and he doesn't really care for ketchup to dip them in. He's all about the mustard and mayonnaise. What a weirdo.

Vertigo

I totally forgot to blog about this! Sorry Jon... you really are important!

Jon came home from work early on Tuesday feeling really dizzy. He said he all of the sudden felt like the world was spinning and he was thinking it was just something going on with his head. So he shook his head and he said that made it a LOT worse. Driving home was an adventure for him.

The next day he still wasn't feeling great and he noticed something going on in his leg. He was thinking maybe a blood clot and that was causing him to feel lightheaded. We're a little paranoid of blood clots, so after talking to the dr., Jon went in to the ER. He figured he'd better get things figured out since he was going to be driving down to San Antonio to pick me up from the airport that night.

They did a blood test and no clot. They figured it was just a muscle strain and the dizziness was coming from Vertigo.

So Jon got some prescription strength motion sickness pills and some xanax for anxiety caused by feeling dizzy (I think... not exactly sure why the xanax...). We have no idea if this will last for days or weeks or more. Hopefully no longer than a week or so!

Until then we'll be taking it easy around here (moving his head a lot can bring on or worsen an attack of dizziness) and I'll be doing a bit more driving.

Here are some pictures from the day

Alex has a new love of pockets. I'll randomly catch him sticking his hand in his pocket and walking around like that. It makes him look oh so cool...





This is the adorable apron I made for my friend Janel! I should get this out to you tomorrow Janel!



reversible!




And we went to see our friends Kenn and Amy's new baby, Beckett. All 10 lbs. 14 oz. of him! Look at those rolls and chub! He's 1 day old people! They are in a hospital that opened just a few months ago, but he holds the record for weight so far. Go Beckett! He's absolutely adorable and I think I may have to spend even more time over at Kenn and Amy's holding him. It's quite unfortunate that Alex gets upset anytime I hold any child other than him.





Caleb and Alex hanging out in the hospital room. Can you tell what roll Alex plays in the friendship? He's the watcher/follower.




Caleb hadn't seen his mom in 2 days and was in a little hospital room at 8 at night, so he was a little hopped up...

Random Alex Stories

Jon was amazed yesterday with how much more Alex is talking just in the 2 weeks that we were gone. He says random things all of the time and surprises me. I'm also impressed with his memory!

He just barely picked up a little cup off of the floor and said, water. Then he remembered that he had a cup of water at the table, so he dropped the cup and ran over to the table to get his water. I love the independence!

And after that he was sitting on the floor and started saying, "PaDa, a-toens?" (grandpa. acorns?... he would go out on walks and find them with grandpa carlson).

For lunch I made him fish sticks (he ate 9 of them!!!) and while they were cooking I said they were almost done. He associates the word almost with driving to grandpa's house (we would constantly hear a little "ah-moes" from the backseat whenever we were driving), so when I said almost he piped right in with "ah-moes a PaDa how-s!?"

On Tuesday we were driving to the zoo with my mom and dad and and my dad sneezed. From the backseat, Alex says, "bess ooo" (bless you). Tawna, did you teach him that while we were down there?

When we were at the airport we saw a big airplane pulling up to the gate, so I told Alex that the airplanes come to park at the gate. so the whole rest of the trip at the mention of airplanes, Alex would say, "air-pane. park a gate" Very cute.

Could it be that easy?

First of all, I have to share my excitement of having 2 dry days! The first was on Tuesday when we went to the zoo. At about 2 I took Alex in to change his diaper figuring that he would be wet. I was surprised to find that he was dry, so I took him in to the potty and he went! Yay!
Then I went to change him when we got home at 5, he was still dry and went potty again.
To top the night off, before he went to bed he told me "poop" and I took him in to the potty and he went poop! Yay!!!

Today he was naked for the morning and he actually told me when he needed to go pee pee. Awesome! I just got him up from his nap and he was dry (!), so I took him potty and we had another pee pee!

So he's currently wearing his new gerber padded/absorbent underwear and having a great time!

This has been a gradual process that I've noticed Alex showing signs of readiness for about since June that I've just kind of gone with as he's wanted to do things. He's gotten better at recognizing when he needs to potty. I'm going to venture to say that the Kushies diapers that we were using with the cotton inner (as opposed to wicking fleece or microsuede) helped him recognize things earlier. Hooray for cloth diapers! So not only did they save us money, they also saved up the cost of pull ups and the length of time actually in diapers (which if we had been using disposables, we may have ended up buying diapers for a longer amount of time). I don't know if my theory of cloth is entirely factual, but I do think it had something to do with it.


*UPDATED* I knew I was probably speaking too soon and jinxing myself with the underwear. Alex peed in his nice new underwear just before Daddy got home at 6. I asked the kid if he needed to go pee pee numerous times... it's just not that easy. Oh well, the undies needed to be washed a few times so that they can actually absorb something (ya... they didn't absorb a whole lot...)

We're Home!

We made it back to Texas! Alex was really good on both airplane rides. There was no extra seats on either flight, so I got to sit with a little boy on my lap for 3 hours. He did well with it, but my legs ended up pretty tired by the end.
Alex was really sad to leave Grandpa Carlson behind at security. He wanted PaDa to come with us. He loved the airplane ride though and was very happy to see Daddy!
I have quite a few pictures from our trip -going to the state fair and the zoo and such- which I will have to post later. Hmm... I don't think I ever posted about our trip to San Antonio with my parents in July... SLACKER!

Alex riding the 4-wheeler outside

Alex riding the 4-wheeler outside from Jon M on Vimeo.

As always, go to the actual video link for the HD version.

Broken and Squishy

On Friday night, Aubrey was watching as I was changing Alex's diaper. Aubrey is the only child in her family, so she only knows what she sees. She stared at Alex's boy parts with concern for a minute or so and then told me, "uh, Alex is broken ....(pause).... I just think he's kind of umm broken".

My sister-in-law is going to kill me for writing this, but it was just too funny of a story not to share.

On the way home from the fair, Aubrey rode with my mom and I and Alex. We were riding along and Aubrey decided to share some of her newest findings, as any chatty 2 year old would. From the backseat we hear her say, "and my mommy is just kind of chubby.... ya, she's chubby.......(pause during which my mom and I were cracking up!)...... and she's squishy (more laughter). Ya she's kind of squishy. And chubby."

As we found out at lunch the next day, my brother had gained a few pounds when he stepped on the scale the other night and told Aubrey that he was getting chubby. Melanie said that she told him not to tell her that because she knew what it would lead to. Well, she was right!

Aubrey was on a roll that day (the broken comment came after the ride home from the fair). What a funny little girl!

Sleeping Stories

The night that we got here, Alex woke up screaming early early in the morning, so I went in the extra room and got him out of his pack n play and took him into my bed. He was still screaming and freaking out for who knows why. He finally got himself calmed down and through the last sobs he took his binky out and told me, "tem -poe?" (temple) He wanted me to sing I Love to See the Temple to him. It was so cute!

Later that morning he actually was talking in his sleep. I giggled a little when I heard him say, "froggie... slide down". We had been playing froggie slide down in the airplane and it's one of his favorite games to play. It was funny that he was dreaming about it!

We Made It!

Well we made it to Utah all right despite flying during Alex's usual bed time. I was thrilled that Alex did so well. Luckily, there were extra seats, so Alex got to sit on his own seat. He loved wearing a seat belt like mommy and didn't scream or cry at all on either flight. He thought it was great fun to bump bump bump as we were taking off and landing and loved going up in the sky.

He actually fell asleep for about 40 minutes on the second flight from Denver to Salt Lake. One minute he was sitting there and the next minute I looked over and he was out. He was pretty tired since he hadn't had a nap that day.

We're having a great time in Utah! Alex has loved playing outside and racing with PaDa and Brent and jumping on the trampoline with MaNa and Aubrey. We're off to the State Fair this afternoon and we may go swimming with Cindy tomorrow (after which, Cindy and I will be going to the U game!!! YAY!).

We're a little cold and I am all about the long sleeves and jackets where as most people are probably thinking it's perfect weather for short sleeves. Going from 95 to 75 is a bit of a shock.

We are having a great time, but it seems like the days are going by way too fast. We love being here!

What little boys like to do with watermelons

Besides eat them, that is.

Alex often has naked times as we try to do the potty thing (plus, he just loves being naked). He saw our watermelon sitting up on the counter and was pointing to it saying "ride". "Uhh... you want to ride the watermelon?" "uh huh!"
So I got it down for him and he jumped on it and rode it like it was a horse (complete with bouncing up and down from one end to the other and then falling off of it) for a good five minutes. It was pretty random and very silly so I HAD to take pictures!

Labor Day

I'm not so sure if it was Jon's ideal way to spend his Labor Day, but I had a great Labor Day.

Today I dragged Jon to several furniture stores trying to see if we could find a queen sized bed (headboard etc.) at a decent price. He was such a good sport and we had a great time walking around with Alex. He wanted to sit on every chair/couch/ottoman we walked by. He thought it was very cool that there was a store full of couches and beds. They had a little kid sized table and chair set at one of the stores that he thought was awesome! I guess the Ikea table and chair set we're planning on getting him for Christmas will be a winner.

I also dragged Jon to Joann's. He has been scarred in the area of fabric stores from many long trips with his mom when he was a kid and really hates going. I like to have him come to entertain Alex though. For this trip he had to come so that he could assist in picking some fabric for curtains for our room. He's usually pretty opinionated and I actually really like having his input. We found a great fabric and now I just have to sew a rod pocket and hem the sides and bottom. Good thing I recently discovered my rolled hem foot! And thank goodness that I only have to make 2! Oh and then a valance for my bathroom. And of course the 2 valances I have left for my kitchen. Good thing I got my crafty room done and am on a crafty high. I have a lot of projects!

We also scored some clearance decorative rods at Joann's ($10!).

When we got home, I made the wall hangings for my crafty room. I got the idea for these from my friend Erin. They were really easy to make and I love how they look. I have to say that I am now addicted to mod podge. I have a bunch of scrapbook paper (it was on sale 6 for $.96 at Joann's!) that I am planning on mod podging to the back of my cheapy bookcases just so that they look cute.


We finished off our evening with a barbeque at the house of some ward friends. We had good food, a good time with the many balls, played Wii and Alex got tackled/knocked over by their dog. The night definitely ended with a bang!

Alex was already a little nervous about the dog. He wanted to be held when the dog was around and would pull his legs up and get all tense if the dog got close.

Jon and Alex were racing outside and the dog came out to play. He's still a puppy and doesn't understand the he can't jump on little people and when he saw Alex running with Jon he got excited and ran right into Alex and knocked him flat on his face. This of course, terrified Alex and he had a good long scream/cry.

We wanted to show him that the dog was okay and that he was just playing so we hung out and looked at and petted the dog for a little while. We probably won't be talking about the dog jumping on him for a good long time since when Jon mentioned it in the car on the way home, Alex started crying again. We'll just try to reinforce that the dog is a nice and funny dog and he wanted to run and play with Alex. It will be a good story to tell down the road.


And since I've slacked on posting pictures for a good while, here are some pictures of my crafty room w/wall hangings -I'll have to take some in the daylight later.

Motorcycles and Tractors

This is what we look for whenever we are out driving. Alex loves seeing both of them. He has seen tractors without me even seeing them. And he routinely sees motorcycles that aren't even there, just because he wants to see a motorcycle so badly.

Today on the way to church we saw two motorcycles (lucky day!), but by Alex's count, we saw at least 5 or 6.

I'm really excited that he gets to go on a ride on PaDa's (grandpa's) tractor when we're in Utah. I'm sure he'll thing it is the greatest thing ever.

Oh, and on the PaDa note, I also have to mention that as of Saturday, Grandma is no longer Ma. She is MaNa. I have a feeling these nicknames will be around in our family for a while. Thanks to Alex, all of our kids with know Grandpa and Grandma by PaDa and MaNa.
What can I say, we have a funny and original little boy.

AH! My fabric turned pink!

When I washed all of my fabric yesterday, the red I washed bled onto the frog fabric I got. It was mostly dark and it was just the tummies of the frogs and some patterns in the background that were white. Funny thing was that there were other fabrics being washed in the same batch that had white on them, but they didn't absorb any of the red.

Luckily, I have experienced pink fabric before when Jon washed his red/white quilt that I made for him for Christmas before we got married.
So in case you ever have things that have turned pink, this is what you do.

Put hot water in the sink. Add any number of combination of laundry detergent, color safe bleach, oxy clean, and powdered dishwasher soap. I usually risk my hands and put them in the super hot water and wring and dip repeatedly. I've also used a spoon to stir it around while I wait for the water to cool a bit.
It takes a LOT of wringing and dipping, but it draws out a LOT of the red. You may have to change water several times. Put hot water and all of the detergents in each time you change the water and repeat the wringing and dipping.
You can also let it sit for a while. I let my fabric sit in hot water and detergents overnight and it did pretty well.

My fabric is now back to it's mostly white state. It may always have a slight tint of pink, but at least it's better than REALLY pink. And it may come out even more if I worked it more.

So there you have it. Hopefully you never have to worry about bleeding red fabric turning things pink, but if you do- try my method. I'm 2 for 2.

Me + big sale at Joann's = TROUBLE

I probably spent way too much $$$ today. BUT I got so much great stuff! Flannel prints were 40% off, so I got some flannel to make Alex an adorable soft rag quilt (and an extra to sale).
And then of course college prints for slings. I made my first one tonight and hope to get the other ones done this weekend.
Despite the large amount of money, I did get some good deals, a lot of cute stuff, and I did get an extra 10% off my total purchase, so yay for that!

I also got some stuff to make some wall hangings in my craft room, which I am excited for. When I get them up, I will probably take a picture so y'all can see the cuteness of my craft room. I'm still anxiously awaiting my floor mat though.

I think I'm going to go back to Joann's this weekend to get some fabric to make curtains for my bedroom. Home decor fabric is 50% off, plus another 10% off of that total. I really need to get the drapes done so that it looks better come sell time.


So if you weren't planning on doing so anyway, you should totally hit up the Joann's Labor day sale. I had a good time!

Thank you crafty room...

you have brought out my craftiness.
This is a good thing. Jon is especially happy.

After dinner tonight I told Jon I was going up to make something and actually made very good progress on one of my projects that's been waiting for quite some time.

I still have to figure out some stuff on it (It was a girl's size 14 dress that I am refashioning into a skirt), but I hope to have it done by Sunday. I just have to figure out the banded top and how to make the elastic work right. Oh ya and how to deal with the situation of needing about 3 inches of additional fabric in the back. It should all work out though!

WTF!? Ants?

that's what the freak.

Tonight I was sitting on the carpet minding my own business and I look down to see an ant (fire ant!) crawling on my pants! WTF!

Anyone who knows ants know that it's very rare to find just one ant casually wandering around in your house, so I was very nervous. I looked around, but couldn't see any other ants. Weird.

Fast forward to a couple of hours later. I go in to the bathroom and find an ant INSIDE my PANTS on my leg!!! WTF!

So now I'm really worried about having ants crawling around my living room floor where I and my child spend a good portion of our day. I'm also really worried about finding more ants inside my pants crawling on my bare skin, free to bite whenever and wherever they please. So since I'm worried about that, every little slight tickle or itch I subconsciencly think is an ant or some other bug. Which freaks me out. I'm really hoping I don't have a red ant invasion in my living room carpet again.

But I guess good timing since Jon can put out poison in the house without worry while Alex and I are on our vacation (we leave in a week!) Funny thing was the same thing happened last year- red ant invasion right before Alex and I left for a trip to Utah. Seriously, I don't know how the things get in my house. Ants drive me crazy.

BYE PEE PEE!!!!

How's that for a blog title?

We've been doing some casual potty training with Alex (remember this post?) since he was interested and willing. We've had some rough days, but we've had some good days too. I think ONCE after he pooped in the potty or when I put his poop in the potty (remember, cloth diapers) to show him where poop goes we said bye to the poop when we flushed.
Well, this is now one of Alex's favorite things to do when we go potty. Saying bye to the pee pee always consists of looking into the potty, waving bye, and yelling bye pee pee (or poopy) into the toilet. I should take a video of the whole thing to post (does that make me a blogging nerd?)

I guess it could be embarrassing, but I find it really funny. And I think that if I were in a public restroom and heard a 2 year old yelling bye to the pee pee as the toilet flushed I would be cracking up.

Today it reached a new level. Jon was flushing and Alex and I were on the other side of the house in the kitchen. As soon as Alex heard the toilet flushing, he was yelling out bye pee pee and running toward the bathroom to watch it go down.

So Utah family, prepare to have your pee pee said goodbye to!

Crafty Day

Oh how I love Amy. She called me up today to come over and sew. She's working on a quilt and felt much more motivated to work on it if I were there having a crafty day with her. The same story is usually true for me as well, so I am always glad to get together.
Amy made fabulous progress on her quilt that she is trying to get done before her baby arrives (due on the 20th of September, so time is limited!) and I made a sling and started on a second one. The one that I made is a University of Utah print on one side and black with white polka dots on the other. I ended up cutting it a little too short for me, so I'm hoping to find and XS sized person who is a Utah fan that I can sell it to.
I will probably make some more U of U slings like it when I go to Utah in a WEEK (!!!) so that I can have one in every size to put up for sale in my etsy shop. I would probably do some BYU and some UT ones too and also take custom orders for any college fabric. It's football season and mamas need to take their babes to the games- they may as well use it as a way to show their team spirit! And with having your hands free you can clap and cheer all you want. Awesome. I love collegiate print fabric.

Make a Treat!

Alex's favorite song is Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree. Are you surprised? The boy is only a popcorn fanatic. He does all of the actions really well. The only part he sings, and highly anticipates, is "treat". He yells it out with glee right when we get to that part. Like any sound minded child, he likes treats probably more than he likes popcorn. No worries, we're not loading our kid up with sugar. Treats over here are usually berries/fruits, fruit popsicles, and fruit snacks.
So popcorn and treats... hmm... sounds like someone else I know very well (ahem. myself). Jon can attest to my constant need for treats in the house. I just love having something sweet to snack on. Berries/fruits, popsicles, and fruit snacks have become as much of a treat for me as they are for Alex.

The latest fav treat around here is homemade ice cream. We bought a bag of Reeses Pieces and some hot fudge tonight to mix in to the batch we're going to mix up in about 15 minutes. I can't wait.
The Red Vines were right there by the Reeces Pieces, so I had to get those too. I'm looking forward to sitting down and watching the movie we rented with a big bowl of popcorn, then moving on to the red vines (guaranteed not to be snitched by my husband since he doesn't like them. I know, crazy!) and finishing off with some homemade ice cream. Sounds like a pretty good night to me!

I'm going to see if I have a video of Alex singing Popcorn Popping...

A BUG

While I was sewing, I woke Alex up since my craft room is right next to his bedroom. As seasoned parents of Alex, most of the time we can tell if he just needs a chance to go back to sleep or if going in and giving him in his binky and having him lay down is better. When we do go in, we try to go in before he has cried for too long so that he's still in sleep mode. When he cries for a long time it takes a lot more effort for him to go back to sleep as I know all too well from trying to get him to go back to sleep after a short nap.

Sleeping routines aside, Jon went in and found Alex sitting up in his bed, totally out of it and crying. Jon found his binky and Alex looked over at his pillow and saw a spot of dried blood on there (does anyone ever really know how dried blood gets on their pillow? I admit that it came from me when I was using it to elevate when I had a sinus infection, but I have no idea how the blood got there), pointed at it and said "bug, bug". He was very concerned that a bug was on his pillow. Quite the scary thing for a half asleep toddler!
Daddy saved the day and turned the pillow over and said there isn't a bug. It must have been the right thing, because Alex laid down and was out.

Not the funniest tale, but it certainly made us smile.

I should be more careful when I sew

Otherwise I end up with crooked lines.
I was working on THIS crayon roll today, which I started at Super Saturday but didn't finish. Well I was a bit wreckless on sewing my seams and my first pockets for the crayons ended up being taller than my end pockets. I do have to defend myself by saying that my machine was having a hard time sewing on the thick plastic-y interfacing I was using and I was really frustrated with the wacky and random tension that was going on (I had to sew over parts 3 and 4 times!), so I was just glad to be done with it.
I would use it for Alex, but it is pink. And I can't give it away. So I'm sure it will just sit in my closet for a few years until I have a little girl that needs it. I guess I could always donate it as well.

I'll think about starting on a new one when I stop thinking about how frustrated I was with this one. Maybe I'll pull out my quilt that I stalled on. Or I do have my whole list of of stuff to do over there ---> However, if I struggled with a crayon roll, how would anything else I try turn out? Hmm...

My happy note of the day- I ordered a floor protector mat for my craft room. I'm very excited to be able to roll around It will also make cleaning up all of the threads that come with sewing quite nice.

Must add beets!

This week I tried out Jessica Seinfield's chocolate beet cake from her Deceptively Delicious cookbook (thanks again Mom!). It wasn't bad, but it wasn't that great. Granted, I didn't make the cream cheese frosting for it, but my chocolate frosting was REALLY good. So good that I was eating spoonfuls of it.

Since I wasn't fully satisfied with my first cake, I bought a Duncan Hines Triple Chocolate cake mix and added about 3/4 cup of beets to it (I probably could have done a full cup) and it was so delicious and moist. And you couldn't taste the beets at all! It made me feel a little bit better about eating large slices of cake.

And now the details of the rest of the cake, because the other things I did made it even better. As Jon just told me, "it was almost an emotional experience it was that good."

I added some semi sweet chocolate chips to the leftover chocolate frosting I had (which made the REALLY good frosting even better!) and put that between my two 9" rounds. I frosted the whole thing with cream cheese frosting (from a can) and sprinkled more chocolate chips on top.

It was really good. I don't usually like chocolate cake, but this cake won me over. The cream cheese frosting really balanced out the chocolate. It was splendid with a nice big glass of milk. Nothing inspires me to drink a full glass or 2 of milk more than a rich yummy treat.

So there you have it, add beets to your cake mixes and enjoy extra moistness and a little extra healthiness that you wouldn't have otherwise had.

Should have sanded...

My newly painted desk and pegboard are up in my crafty room, so today I organized my fabric and hung my tools on my pegboard. While doing so, I scraped a nice chunk of paint off of an inside part of the desk and the pegboard received various little scratches as well. Lesson learned. Sand before painting. Period.
At this point I don't care enough to undo/redo what I have done, but I will definitely remember it for next time. Sand anything that has a remotely smooth surface.

This week I am going to work on getting thing decorated and cute. I'm accenting the aqua with black and white and galvanized metal. I may throw some pink in there as well. We'll see what I can find.

And since I was taking pictures...

Alex wanted his picture taken too. Isn't he just the cutest?

What I've been working on

Yesterday was a good day for me. I got my pantry containers labeled and they are adorable. Can pantry containers be adorable? YES.

I love them all lined up together!

I also got my desk painted last night! This is my sewing desk. I got it off of craig's list for $10. I absolutely love it in it's new color. I also painted my peg board the same color. I'm excited to get these back up in the room and up!

Tons of new craft links to the side --->

I found a new blog. www.blog.craftzine.com. I love it so much. I guess I should start being more crafty with all the links that are collecting over there.

Currently my desk and peg board are waiting to be painted. Oh ya and my cheappy bookshelf (which needs to be moved first) needs to be painted/revamped as well. Then my fabric needs to be organized by color. THEN I can set to work on the crafting! I feel like a loser for having all of the stuff listed, but not ever doing it.

I think I just need a cute studio to work in, like this one that I found today. I would LOVE to have a combo office/laundry room. I think my favorite thing in Paula's space is that the closest next to the door was turned into a computer work station. What a great use of space.

I think that getting my bright punches of color into my little craft space will help me want to be there and work on stuff, so hopefully I'll actually do that this week! Once I have the base done, crafting for that room can begin! (scrapbook paper on canvas prints, window treatment, cute pillows, magnets, peg board attachments...) This all seems like a lot to put into a room that we won't have forever, but I think it will help with selling the house if the space looks as good as it can.

On another organizing note, I now have 7 plastic containers housing my foods that come in bags (rice, beans, powdered sugar, brown sugar, macaroni/pasta, wheat flour) in my pantry. They are fabulous! They take up so much less space than the bags and make things MUCH easier to see. I also love how the look all lined up. Now to label them... good thing I am going to Hobby Lobby tomorrow! I'm thinking letter stickers or rub on letters. FUN!

Holy Crap!

Now if that doesn't make you want to visit this beach in St. Marteen I don't know what would.

Here's a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oB4rcr7gT0&feature=related


thanks Jon for finding me such great links!

Loaves and Fishes

I have successfully turned 1 gallon of milk into 3 quite tasty gallons of milk. And I have to say that I am quite impressed with myself.

Last week I mixed a little less than a third of a gallon of 1% milk with about a 1/2 gallon of dry powdered milk from my food storage. It was okay, but not wonderful. So I started thinking about how to possibly make it better.
My sister in law, Melanie suggested mixing 1/2 and half, but when I thought about it that would only save me about 50 cents per gallon in the long run. So I thought about it and was going to do 2% mixed in half or thirds since 50 cents per gallon is at least some savings.

When I got to the store, I discovered that whole milk is the same price as 1 and 2% milk, so I made the decision to get a gallon of that and divide it into thirds. I just had a glass with my granola bar and it tastes fabulous despite it being two-thirds powdered milk. And since I already had powdered milk, I essentially got 3 gallons of milk for $3.88. Not too bad.

I may have to freeze one of those gallons so that it doesn't go bad, but that's okay. Eventually I'd like to make 4 gallons out of 1 gallon of whole milk so that my cost is reduced even more. I would do just straight powder, but I like a little bit of fat in my milk, so doing the whole milk mix is an excellent alternative.


So I'm popping back in to say that Jon does NOT like this milk. He said it tastes like watered down milk. I'm sure he'll be fine with it in his cereal though. That's really where most of our milk goes. However, I drank a huge glass of it and didn't think it tasted that bad. Maybe not quite 1%, but defintely not as watered down as Jon was stating it was. Bottom line, we'll probably stick with it and Jon can either get used to it or not drink glasses of milk. :)

The noodles are talking to me

They're on Alex's fingers and saying, "Hi Mama" over and over again. And I have to talk back to them and say "Hi Baby".
Alex loves to have things "tahk" (talk). Today it's the noodles and sauce he's having for lunch.
I'm sure later today he will bring me his froggie, monkey, and sheep-baa and demand "tahk".
And when I change his diaper, he will insist that I put my hand in it like a puppet and make it "tahk".

On another funny note today, I woke up to quite the funny sight this morning. Now, I am not a morning person. It takes me some time to wake up and be ready to get out of bed. When I take my time to wake up, I am a happier person and feel more able to handle my day. Anyway, while I am slowly waking Alex wanders our room. Most of his time is spent digging through our top nightstand drawer taking the lids off of cologne and such.
We brush his teeth laying down on our bed at night, so his toothbrush and toothpaste are on top of our nightstand.

Usually I catch him before he gets the toothpaste (he can open it) to tell him no and take it away, but this morning I opened my eyes and saw Alex with the toothpaste open and in his mouth, tilting his head back and squeezing the tube for a nice "drink". I don't think he got much actually in his mouth and he was very distraught (as usual) when I took it away. It was just a funny thing to see a little boy so eager to gulp down toothpaste.

*note* it's baby toothpaste, so no flouride. Alex thinks the stuff is just a fun treat. It's also quite expensive, so there can't be any gulping down of Alex's toothpaste!

A day outside

Alex and I are sitting outside. And it's only 80ish degrees out here. In fact, I think it's cooler outside than it is inside (we've had our windows open and AC off all day today). What makes me even happier is that we're supposed to have cooler weather like this until Wednesday. After being in a heat wave and no rain, cool weather is one of the greatest things ever.
I think we may have to eat our dinner out here.
So I sit out on my laptop and Alex plays on his slide, in the dirt from my dead potted plant, with his car, and pretends to water the trees. He's currently sitting in a patio chair saying "Daddy's home" over and over (Jon just walked in the door). I'm sure we'll be hearing the same phrase until the little guy goes to bed as he's always so happy when Daddy's home.

Sea World- firsts for Alex

Our wonderful friends decided to invite us to come to IBM's co. day at Sea World with them (so nice!), so yesterday we made a trip down there for a day of fun.

I know that I've already blogged about how great Sea World is, but we learned some new things and Alex tried some fun new things. And it was the most exciting thing that happened all weekend, so what else am I supposed to write about?

We learned that getting there at 1:30 is kind of a pain. Cars were backed up and we waited to get in the parking lot for about 10-15 minutes. Now, this could happen constantly on Saturdays or it could just be that we went at the wrong time. Who knows.

We also learned to hit the water park first. We went in and only had to wait about 5-10 minutes in line (the whole capacity thing... there can only be so many people in the water park. I had to explain this wait to the nice woman with gold teeth behind me who kept saying, "come on! What's the hold up?")
When we left the water park at about 4, the line was SUPER long, so we were really glad we weren't trying to get in at that point.

THE WAVE POOL

The first place we went in the water park was the wave pool. Last time we went, we were there at about 3:30 and after about 2 times around the Lazy River, Alex was so tired that we went home. So this was our fist time in the wave pool. It was awesome! Alex loved having Jon hold him and have the waves "crash" into them and splash in his face. He'd watch the wave coming at him, hit the people in front of him and would yell out "ear ih comes!" (here it comes) as loud as he could. He laughed a lot and thought it was great fun!

SPLASH ATTACK

Then we headed over to Slash Attack, which had 3 flights of stairs creating 2 different levels of platforms where people would fill up TONS of buckets and dump them. I think there were also large squirt guns. There was a lot of water flying everywhere!
Alex loved the the teeter totters they had. When you go up it sprays a stream of water into the face of the person on the opposite side and then you get sprayed when you go down.

This next picture obviously isn't us (but I DO wish I looked that good in a bikini!), but it shows the area and how much water is going on. Oh and the teeter totters (directly to the left of the guy). I just realized there are a lot of black swimming suits going on in this picture.




Alex had a hard time getting off the teeter totter and giving someone else a turn. So there's a question... if there is a constant flow of kids who are waiting for a turn on the teeter totter and your kid could play on it all day, how long should you let your kids stay on it?

After swimming, we went over to get some food from the "special place" (thanks IBM!). It was nice to be able to eat something without either 1- having to pay a lot, wait a long time, and sit in one of their crowded resturants or 2-go out to our car for a good meal or drive out to McDonald's and then drive back in.

After eating we experienced more of Happy Harbor, which Alex was a big fan of. He LOVED the soft house! I'll have to post a picture of it later, but it's kind of like a bounce house and it had large foam shapes in it that we would build into towers and Alex would "tah toe!" (tackle) them. He also loved climbing up on the step and jumping down into the soft house. I think we're going to have to go to one of those blow up places...

Alex also went on his first ever ride!!! We went on the spinning paint cans and Alex loved it. Spinning should have been his favorite part right? Nope. He was thrilled with the wheel in the middle (to spin our car). We could have been sitting still and he still would have loved that ride.

We ended the day with dolphins and sharks. After not having a nap all day (and actually doing better than I thought he would without a nap), he fell asleep on the way home.

And since we have a lovely minivan, I climbed into the very back seat and turned on the overhead light and got to read my book for about an hour or so uninterupted. I wouldn't have been able to do that in the car because the lights would have been too distracting for Jon to drive. Bless the mini van!

My entertainment of the evening

www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com

Thanks to Jon for finding this and sharing. Very entertaining!!!

Teach 'em young

Today I poured the last of Alex's soy milk into his cup from the carton. Without me telling him it was gone he knew and immediately started saying, "ee cy king ee cy king!" (recycling). The boy knows that his milk containers go in the recycling and is very excited to put stuff in the recycling box.

The funny thing is that I didn't even know that he could say that word and he just spat it out with no problem! And it's one of those harder 3 syllable words.
He's also starting to string words together more often. This morning he was telling me " juice peez mo peez juice mo juice peez". That's some excessive word stringing.
He continues to spout out more and more new words and is talking better and better every day. We can't wait to go to Utah to show off his skillz to everyone!

Jon's new favorite snack

Cinnamon H-E-Buddies (HEB brand version of cinnamon teddy grahams). They are in the shape of the guy that you see above instead of in bear shapes. Kinda takes the fun out of biting the head off since there isn't really a head, but they taste just as good, so compromises are made.

Between the two of us, we've eaten half of the box and Alex has had about 3. I told Jon that I was going to have to buy him his own box to take to work with him and another box for him at home.
I have always been a fan of cinnamon teddy grahams, so I was really happy that HEB makes their own version of them and that they are only 99 cents per box! At that price we could each have our own box every week.

On a side note, men's gymnastics are awesome and I'm very amazed with any swimming event.

Been a few days...

And a few crazy days they have been!

We had our friends, Liz and Dan come and visit us for a day on Thursday. Liz and I had a good time hitting up fabric stores. I got some adorable pink fabrics at Hancock for $2/yd! SCORE! We had a good time eating at Hula Hut. It was great to be able to take the restless toddlers (they have a 2 year old little girl) out on the pier to look at the boats and the lake. Delicious food too of course!
And we finished the evening off by watching Wipeout. If you have not watched this yet, you should!

Sadly, I had to spend an hour or so dealing with Alex that night. He woke up crying and when I went up, I discovered blood on his blanket and pillow. I initially thought it was just a tooth breaking through that had been irritated when his teeth were brushed. Upon further inspection, I discovered a good sized open sore on his cheek. I don't know if he bit it or what, but since it was hurting, he kept sticking his fingers in there and biting on it. Definitely not helping buddy. We drugged him up and I laid down with him in our bed until he finally went to sleep at 10. Luckily it seems much better now.

On Friday I was busy getting stuff put together for the digital scrapbooking class I was helping with for Super Saturday the next day.
I was also looking up Honda Odessey's on CL just to see what kinds of prices I could find out of curiosity. I found an '04 with leather and a DVD player with 104k miles on it (it's a honda... jon's at 144k on his '96 accord with no major problems) for 8500. We figured our car would be about that much for a trade in with the body damage it has from our move, so Jon told me to meet him at CarMax to get an appraisal on it to see what they would take it for.
We went down there and they would take it for 8k, but they didn't have really any cars for less than 10k.
We went to get some dinner and ice cream (hooray for 2 for 1 coupons! We ate and had ice cream for $10!) and then went to see if the dealership that had the $8500 Honda was open. We got there and it wasn't, so we came home and decided to go look at it first thing in the morning.
We called the guy to see when they open and that we wanted to come look at the Odessey and he said that he had sold it that day!!! BOO!

So we looked around on CL a little more and found an '03 with 70k miles for 9700.

So while I went and did my thing at Super Saturday, Jon went and looked at the van and we decided to go for it since we could still get a good price out of our Malibu and we would end up with a van that we could drive for at least 5 years and not have a car payment (thank you NATI stock for a good quarter).

Here's a couple of pictures!




Alex loves that the doors open automatically. He says "opit ... dough!" (open it, door) every time and gets really excited about it. Once I figure out the buttons, I'm sure he'll love opening the door himself. How handy.
He also likes being able to climb in on his own, checking out the seat next to him (random), watching big trucks drive by on his level, and the DVD player of course . He also thinks it's great fun to climb in back and sit, but even more fun that it's really easy to run up in the front and "drive" once he climbs in. (He finally learned that he can't do that and has to sit in his seat after MANY tantrums that day. The kid loves driving.)

Jon and I like the tint on the windows (the car wasn't deathly hot after church!), the cargo space (stow and go seats are great! And there are tons of compartments everywhere. I even have one for my sunglasses.), the color, and the cushier seats (although I'm not crazy about the pattern of the upholstery. eh.). Oh and getting Alex in and buckled is really easy. We're also big fans of the automatic doors and I also really like the DVD player for Alex. Jon mentioned getting rid of the binky today and I told him I don't know if I can handle car rides and trips to the store without it. Maybe I can with the DVD player working for me now.

We're really excited to make the long drive to Utah for Christmas now. That was actually a big deciding factor in getting the van. It should make the trip a happier one. Especially if Kenn and Amy come along and Caleb and Alex entertain each other. Those boys love riding around together.

So there you have it folks. I am officially one of those people who drive a van and have only 1 kid. I don't even have the exuse of "but I'm pregnant" since we aren't and will thus have only 1 kid for quite some time. We're just hoping we didn't curse ourselves for twins the next time around.

Booger Monster

On Sunday when we stayed home from church because of Alex's cold and he was leaking boogers left and right I said to him, "you're my little booger monster". To which he replied, "yum yum yum".

Apparently all monsters have evolved into cookie monsters.

And a picture of the fabric I mentioned

I mentioned the cute fabric I made a sling for my friend Amy out of and just thought I would post a picture of it to show off it's cuteness!





The dark fabric is a chocolate color even though it looks like it could be black.

I thought birds only flew into clean windows

Yesterday I was enjoying a quiet and peaceful naptime when I heard the strangest noise right outside my back patio door. It sounded like a small thud and a little bit of scratching/scraping.

So I wandered over to the door in curiosity and found one of my least favorite birds (a gracken) sitting on my door mat right outside the door. Imagine this bird inches away from you with his neck craned toward the window and giving you "the eye". Except he's much more brown, ruffly feathered, and scary looking than the bird in the picture.

Really, I think this bird is one of the creepier birds out there. I think it's the eyes.

He looked at me for a second and then flew away. It was really random and I don't quite understand why he thought he could fly through my very dirty window, but apparently he wasn't the brightest of birds.

I'm just glad he didn't die there. Dead birds are disgusting. Did I ever tell you about the time I had a dead bird actually stuck, wings spread, to the grill of my car? Good thing I had Jon and Darin around to remove it! SICK!

Just another random thing I'm considering

I know... I said no more big projects. BUT we have this slight problem of an uninsulated garage door. So tonight I set out on a quest to find something effective and cheap-ish.
The problem with the garage is that Alex's room is right above it. The garage gets HOT, so Alex's room is usually pretty warm. I run a small fan in there in addition to his ceiling fan during his nap.
I feel like our air conditioner has to work a little harder to keep the upstairs cool.
Likewise, it is much colder in the winter as well. We use a space heater in there during the winter and dress him in warm jammies because he doesn't keep blankets on.

Of course, all solutions can be found on the internet. The end result is that I want to line our attic with solar reflector and stick some duct insulation on my garage door panels. I was thinking that the solar reflector stuff would even work on the garage, but the duct insulation actually has a small R value to it (3), so it may work better. I could double layer it for it to do more good.

The question is, would doing the above 1-save me enough money to make it worth it for the next 8ish months that we live here and 2-make the house more marketable? Is that something that most people would see as a perk above other houses?

Switch to powdered milk?

While at Kenn and Amy's Jon and I got to experience powdered milk. It wasn't bad and was actually quite delicious after eating gooey chocolate chip filled cupcakes. I made Jon drink some without telling him it was different and he said it was fine.
So now I am on the hunt for powdered milk. Any tips from you food storage experts on where to get the best price, preferably in bulk since we'd be using quite a bit of it. Also, if you're an expert on Walton Feed I noticed that they have TONS of different kinds listed, but I don't know the difference between them. Any help you can give would be GREAT!

Staying home from church

Alex has a cold- complete with coughing, so we are staying home from church today. Poor Jon woke up feeling yucky and had to go because his class has sharing time. He did only go for the 2 hours of primary though and missed sacrament meeting.
I hope that my class did okay and didn't stress Tamma out too much!

longest post of all time about our weekend!

We had quite the fun weekend. I got a pleasant start into it by visiting a fabric store (yup, another one) with my friend Amy to pick out some fabric for a pouch sling for her baby boy who will be here in 7 weeks. The boys (Alex and his friend Caleb) did suprisingly well. Caleb did end up in the stroller, but only because Amy couldn't really chase him and concentrate on fabric.
One thing I love about kids in fabric stores that as long as they have clean hands and you keep them away from the thread (which is not an easy task!), they really can't do much damage. I will definitely be visiting this store again as they had a basket of toys for kids AND one of the employees was SO NICE to the boys and was interacting with them. She was asking Alex to show her colors of fabrics and kept him nicely occupied. I appreciated her friendliness so much.

Amy ended up with a delicious looking sling. The thing I love most about her fabric choices was that they were neutral, but still had a girly look to them. One side is chocolate with a small repeated paisley. The other side is cream with a slightly darker cream larger scale more free form paisley. Very subtle, but very yummy.

Of course, Amy had to take advantage of my non pregnant state to help her out at Costco. Costco is just not a place a pregnant woman should venture into alone. The boys loved riding along together in the double-wide cart and shared a package of poptarts. Amazingly enough, we didn't stop to try any of the samples. When you're racing against naptime and you know the lines to checkout will be long (as always), there is no time for such things.

After getting the boys down for their naps, I started on Amy's sling. I was able to get it sewn up in just over 3 hours. And it took me longer because my little monkey decided that an hour and a half was all of the nap he was going to have. Since he had such a short nap, he was pretty clingy and got upset if I wasn't over playing with him or watching him play. As soon as Caleb woke up and they were chasing eachother around the house giggling in true little boy fashion, I was able to get the sling done. I have enough fabric to make another one, so I'll post some pictures of the fabric and if you want it, I can make it for you. Otherwise, it will go up in my etsy store as my first item to ever sell!

Dinner went well except the chicken was a little too lemony. Still yummy, but strong. Amy's butternut squash was delicious and Alex loved the carrots.

After letting dinner settle Amy and I whipped up some cupcakes. The best part was that we made them allergy friendly for Caleb by using egg replacer and making sure not to get frosting with milk, and then ended up pouring chocolate chips in which do NOT make them Caleb friendly. So poor Caleb now has cupcakes sitting on his countertop that he can't eat. Sad days.

Amy and I had time to frost and eat a cupcake each before we headed off to Barnes and Noble to pick up Amy's copy of Breaking Dawn. Luckily she had a wristband in the first group (the line to get a wristband in Texas was a LOT easier than getting one in Utah) and we were out of there by 12:05. Total wait time of thirty minutes, which is a good thing when you are pregnant.

It was such a fun night. We haven't had a late night with Kenn and Amy for a while, so it was so nice to sit around and talk and laugh like we used to all of the time. Man, I wish we lived next door to those guys. My life would be complete. Thanks for having us over!


Today Jon got to hang out at the convention center all day for Sales Conference for work. He got there at 8 and didn't get home until after 8. I know it's one Saturday out of the whole year, but it still sucks when you husband has to work on Saturday and leave you with the baby by yourself for an extra day that you'd usually have them around.
And to make it a complete mama/baby FILLED weekend, Alex has a cold so I am staying home with him from church tomorrow.

Alex and I did have fun today though. We got some free nuggets at chick-fil-et, hit a few garage sales in our neighborhood (nothing good. All crap. I couldn't believe it), went to the Salvation Army Store grand opening (got some books), and returned some stuff at Michaels. When we got home Alex wanted "o-meal" and "appasaus" for dinner, so that's what he had. He didn't eat a lot of it, but he hasn't been eating a lot for the past 2 days.

Exciting news of the evening is that Alex went poop on the potty, which is a first! He was very proud of himself.
I'm not sure where to go on the potty training because he is still in a crib (that doesn't convert to a toddler bed) and I didn't plan on moving him to a full bed until we moved- probably within 6 months of him turning 2. He still hasn't grasped to tell me before he goes, but gets really upset when he is wet. He's been waking up from naps early because he's wet and wants to be changed. Same thing with during the night- he'll wake up and realize he's wet and won't calm down until he gets his diaper changed. He tells me "pee pee" all the time, but when we sit on the toilet nothing happens. I know that he's still really young, but he seems to be ready for potty training. He's very interested in it and excited about it, doesn't like being wet, wants to go potty in the potty, and tells me right as he's going pee. I worry about putting him in underwear and him not getting the concept of not peeing/pooping in them. I guess I need to do some reading!

Thanks for sticking with me through that. It was REALLY LONG! There was just so much that happened this weekend that was fun for me.

Trouble

My purse is no longer safe from Alex infiltration.
Alex just surprised me by unzipping my purse, which he has never done. He was after my keys and is now "beeping" the car repeatedly, one of his favorite things to do. Hopefully it doesn't drive any of my neighbors crazy.
And I guess now I now that my purse will ALWAYS have to be up on the counter and away from the edge.

red light, green light

I put Alex down for bed about 15 minutes ago. I just went up to grab something and heard him talking in his room. When I stopped to listen, I heard him saying, "green... go! red... stop!".
Nice to know that he's practicing the things we teach him when he's supposed to be going to sleep.

How does it just keep accumulating?

You know... STUFF. I've been working on getting the stuff collecting rooms in our house cleaned out and better organized/laid out and I'm just amazed at how much stuff we've been collecting. And I think a lot of it is because it's not better organized.
So we went through a bunch of stuff and decided what stuff we could part with and what stuff could be put to better use. We have quite a few things listed on craig's list right now and I'm hoping it will all be gone by the end of the week.

So if you happen to need a nice new outdoor light fixture, a cute floral-y light fixture, an entertainment center (27" tv), an HD tuner, or a projector screen you just let us know. ;) Oh ya, and a mantle clock too. Can't forget that!


In other news, I booked my "summer" trip out to Utah for the SWEET SWEET price of $180 after all taxes/fees. Granted, I am flying out of San Antonio... and the only flight they had was at 7pm and won't get in to Utah until 11pm, it was ONLY $180!!! We decided we'd better use our last opportunity to be able to only have to pay for 1 person while we still could. We've been very lucky while we've lived here to find good prices on flights and been able to visit family in Utah OFTEN. However, I long for the days when Alex would sleep through the whole flight.
I'm thinking this potato head pack. And then I'll box it up again and let him open it for his birthday. ;)
These spud buds would be fun too.
Alex is totally fascinated by putting the little parts in the holes. We have a potato head that I got as a Christmas gift from a friend in college, but we have lost most of the parts. I'll randomly find the eyes or an ear or some other part in various places in the house and car.

Any other great suggestions on what I should get him to keep him busy on the plane this time?

Crab in the water

Swimming in the summer heat! from Jon M on Vimeo.

cutie skirty

I wish this was in my size so that I could win it. And even though I don't have a girl, I still want it. And if I don't win, I may just have to replicate it because it is that cute!
(thanks Amanda for leading me to this through your blog!)

Yes, it was wonderful.

And I'm probably going back next week- or at the very least in the next month. And I may take advantage of the Mommy's Night Out classes they have. How fun to get a night out to work on and finish a project. Awesome.
My favorite thing was all the cute fabric they had for 40% off. This is excellent news when the fabric is $8-10 to begin with. I wanted to buy so much stuff, but like the good wife I am, held out.

So here is what is perplexing to me- why can't I find any quilting stores that carry all the great fabrics in Round Rock of all places?! And why do I have to go all the way downtown for Joel Dewberry? Or all the way to Cedar Park for Amy Butler? And why the heck doesn't anyone carry Heather Bailey?! Two stores in Utah do, but absolutely nothing in Texas?! I'm appalled.
I've only seen one store - a sewing machine store in Round Rock that has Moda fabric. I think the same store carried Michael Miller, but I can't be sure because there is something funky with the search function at Michael Miller. Is it really too much to ask to have all of my favorite fabrics all in one store that's not 30 minutes away?
I keep telling Jon that I want to open a fabric store that has all of the great fabrics and designers all in one place. (Wanna move to AZ Lyns?!)

If you have a favorite fabric desinger/collection, please let me know in the comments so that I can see if any stores in ROUND ROCK actually carry it. I just can't believe there would only be one store in all of Round Rock that carries cool fabric.
Come on... Lyns, Nicole, Mush... I know you're dying to comment here!

Fabric Addiction

I finally decided to look up places where I could get some designer fabric that I am constantly drooling over and discovered that the 2 places I want to go are both in Cedar Park. Luckily, I am going there tomorrow. Even luckier Amy actually gets to live close to them. Or maybe it's a good thing I don't live closer...
I will let you all know of the inspiration that will certainly befall me upon entering a quilting store. I'm hoping it will spur the projects that I have onward so that I can get them done in order to buy more fabric (Jon says I can't get stuff for more projects until I finish the ones already on my plate). Unfortunately, I have a creative brain that just wants to do all sorts of things.
Now, if only I had the motivation to sit down and actually sew instead of just sitting after dealing with house keeping and the little boy all day. I am rearranging and cleaning my crafting room in order to better do so. Don't you just love how you need a neat and clean place to work on craft stuff, but when you craft it keeps all messy? Ya... it's a vicious cycle.

Anyway, I am very much looking forward to my morning out tomorrow and hopefully Alex will tolerate it for long enough to appease me. *note to self- pack LOTS of fruit snacks.*

Colors and numbers

Alex has them down!
Well the numbers are hit and miss, but he does awesome on his colors thanks to Daddy reading him his color book every night. Thanks Jon!
He just turned 21 months on the 19th and he's starting to string at least 2 words together on occasion. On a bad side, the past couple of days he's been crying about everything. I'm hoping it's just teeth or something and not a precursor of what's to come.

Brandname vs. Generic

Ahh... the age old question as we pick up each item in the grocery store and decide if we should get the cheaper generic version or splurge for the brand name.
I am largely a generic person and will try out any generic thing and weigh the benefits before deciding to switch to the brand name.

And now for the examples.
I bought 2 packages of generic Oreos so that we could make some cookies and cream ice cream. I figured that I like eating Oreos, so that second package was for me to dunk in my milk and see how they compared with Oreos. Conclusion: not as good as Oreos, especially for dunking, although they were probably fine in the ice cream. Seeing as we don't buy Oreos on a regular basis, this is something that I would be willing to spend the extra dollar on when we do buy Oreos.

Peanut butter. I always thought they were all equal. Until I married Jon. When I bought generic peanut butter, Jon was appalled. So I buy him the Jif he likes and I stick with the generic for myself and Alex. To me, the dollar more isn't worth it, but to Jon there is no other way.

Macaroni and cheese. I grew up on Western Family. I still remember the white boxes with plain black print. I didn't know of any different until I was babysitting and they had some Kraft. And I really wasn't that much of a fan of it. But then I had more of it (I think my mom picked up some REALLY cheap boxes in mass amounts at NPS) and grew a taste for it's superiorness. Now we are a Kraft mac n cheese household, which I'm sure is quite the shocker for my mom. I think they still do the Western Family stuff at my parent's house. And really, maybe Western Family is nearly as tasty as Kraft and the stuff that I can get here in Texas is just different. Who knows?

Wheat Thins. Okay, really most crackers. Wheat Thins beat the generic hands down. Same thing with Ritz. Those are really the only crackers I buy. I do get generic graham crackers and "Teddy Grahams" (aka H-E-Buddies!) along with soda crackers, but anything else just never seems to quite step up to the name brand cracker quality and taste.

What other brand names do you have to have? What are you willing to splurge on?

Noodles and Sauce

Ever since eating at The Spaghetti Warehouse where Grandma shared her noodles in marinara sauce with Alex, Alex has been absolutely crazy about noodles and sauce. I've taken to cooking a big pan of penne noodles that Alex can tear through during the following week or 2 because he eats a LOT of them several times a week. He will seriously eat about as much as I can when it comes to noodles and sauce.
It hit a new level when last week he put his noodles on his fingers and was saying "hi" for them (this is what we do when we play with puppets or stuffed animals... they just say hi to each other).

Another benefit of the red sauce is that I can puree more veggies besides tomatoes to put in them- I'm thinking red peppers and carrots.
And on that note, my wonderful mom just sent me the Deceptively Delicious cookbook by Jessica Seinfield which is all about pureeing veggies to put in stuff. I'm really excited to try out the recipes and get some extra doses of vegetables in.

Black beadboard island? CHECK!

Jon is wonderful and painted under the island for me last night. I love it and think it looks fabulous! I'm excited that there isn't flat paint under there anymore to collect the colors of my jeans and anything else that happened to rub against it.

Here's Jon painting:




and the finished product! Not the best light as it was dusk, but you get the main idea. (please excuse the horrible state of my kitchen as well. I wasn't home all day to get it picked up.)






It feels great to not want to do anything else to my house- well besides taming the bushes out front, but that's not for a few more months.

Not the vacuum!

I really needed to vacuum, so I went to get it out of our extra bedroom's closet. Alex, of course, followed me in and walked in the doorway just as I was getting the vacuum out. The second he saw it, he got the most terrified look on his face that I have ever seen, screamed, and then ran out the door running as fast as he could down the hall.
I don't think it should be funny, but it was hilarious to me.

Are all nearly 2 year olds terrified of the vacuum? Hopefully he'll grow out of it one day!

Do you have our Office Season 3?

We have discovered that our Office Season 3 DVD has gone missing. Jon can't remember if he lent it to someone.
I'm having a vague recollection of Sally taking it to San Antonio with us to watch on her dvd player... any chance Sally put it in a weird place or it ended up in your suitcase and home with you?

So if you read our blog and happen to know where our Office Season 3 DVD could be, please let me know. We miss it.

"I ate glue when I was a kid"

... will be something that Alex can tell his friends later on in life.
Yesterday after church, Alex thought the gluestick I had out in my classroom would make a fine treat and decided to give it a little taste. Jon and I had no clue until he started doing the "get this out of my mouth" spitting etc. We looked over to see the glue stick in hand and it was pretty obvious what had happened.
There are two very shallow teeth marks in the glue. When I find the camera, I'll take a picture.
Oh and Alex is fine. It was only a small amount and it's non-toxic.

I just keep thinking about the feeling of sticky glue stick in your mouth... eww!

Weekend of fun and some silly Alex things

This weekend was jam packed for us. More specifically, Saturday was. Jon played in the final softball tournament at our stake's Pioneers and Patriots festival. As the winners of the losers bracket, they played 2 games against the winners of the winner's bracket and won both, so we won the CHAMPIONSHIP! (Jon wants me to add in that he himself scored the winning run in the top of the inning). My personal input is that he played great and got some really good hits and runs. Go Jon!

Alex had a great time running around outside for 2.5 hours, sharing his fruit-snacks with Walker, drinking from a little water bottle, and playing with a softball (until he threw it and it rolled down onto the field...)

I also have to add in the humor that Jon finds in the Pioneers and Patriots festival. Basically, Mormon history in Texas is that the Mormons that settled here are the ones that didn't want to follow Brigham Young and continue heading West. So they came to Texas. And let's not forget Our Confederate Dead. Texas patriotism is great!

Sadly we did not get to stay for the catered bbq, massive amounts of watermelon, and sno-cones at the festival because Jon's team for work was having a team bbq. It was a lot of fun and Alex tried some "Earl Campbell's Hot Links".

We recently got some sausage for Alex the last time we were at Rudy's and he loved it, so we figured he would love these (plus, all the burgers had cheese cooked on them and we're trying out a non-dairy diet for Alex since he has less than solid BMs). Well he downed at least a quarter of one, if not closer to a half and then he started spitting and doing the usual "get this out of my mouth" routine when he doesn't like something... accompanied with crying. He quickly sipped up a good portion of my water. Guess the hot links were a little too hot for our Texas baby. Maybe next year Alex.

Alex loved the landscaping rocks they had in their yard. They kept him busy almost the whole time we were there. I think he will be very happy in Arizona.

To top off a great weekend, Alex pretty much ran to nursery today. He was so excited to go and play! He ran down the hall and tried going in each door, thinking it was nursery. The sight was so funny to me because he has NEVER done that. I'm glad I didn't have to walk down the hall to primary listening to the screams of my child coming from the nursery!

Jon also gave a talk in sacrament meeting. He did a great job and Alex did a good job of sitting in the bench with me and staying entertained. We usually sit in the back and he wanders the back when he needs to. We'll probably have to sit in a bench every week... guess that means we'll have to leave at 12:30 instead of 12:50.

Funny Alex story from this week: I found a red/black small spider crawling on the floor by where I change Alex's diapers and thought it was a red ant. I get freaked out if I see any red ants in the house because that means there is more of them and I have to figure out where they are coming from. So I said, "oh crap!" and Alex quickly followed with a "oh tap". I thought it was funny (still undecided on if I'm okay with Alex saying oh crap or not) and was telling Jon about it when we were all in the car that evening. I looked back at Alex and said, "say oh crap" and he said, "pooh". We about died laughing!
(the pooh comes from a recent discovery of Winnie the Pooh. Apparently Alex was thinking about him in that moment).

AND FINALLY- we have another HD video for you!
This is Alex saying "I breaked it", which we think is cute. Of course, this is the only thing he proceeds with an I and I have no clue how he figured out to say I and knew that it referred to himself. Apparently he just knows that he should use it with "breaked it".

Please excuse my weird looking hair. I hate blowdrying it if I'm not going anywhere.


I breaked it from Jon M on Vimeo.

Raving about Bum Genius cloth diapers- you know you want some

And even if you don't some, you want to try to win some for me! Just post a comment to enter to win and 18 pack bum genius cloth diaper package.
Win a Bum Genius 3.0 Starter Kit from Nature's Child - Wholesome Goods for Mothers and Babies

These are the diapers I'm hoping to switch over to once the next baby moves out of the large amount of small fuzzi bunz we have. We got Alex 3 of them last month and I have been so impressed with them and they look absolutely adorable on him! And I love that they fit all the way from 8lbs. up to 30.
It would be really nice to save over $200 and not have to buy these one day. I need to win!

Who let the dogs out?

Alex: "woof woof woof. "



There was a commercial that just came on with this song on it and Alex thought it was the greatest thing ever and started barking along with it.
Just one of those little things that make me laugh!

And many "fond" memories of Zak singing this song. Ahh... the days of Who Let the Dogs Out...

Update on the turtle (aka Snappy)

This morning, the turtle was still out in our yard! Hooray! He didn't escape! He wasn't as shy around me when I went out there and still had his head out, so I could see the red marks on his head. So that made it really easy to figure out that he is a Red Eared Slider. He looks like this:



This morning I found him enjoying the left over water sitting in Alex's wading pool. It wasn't a surprise that he is an aquatic turtle. From "The Animal Planet": "It spends most of its time in or around water. Although it can be found in lakes and rivers, the Red-eared Slider prefers marshes, ponds, and slow-moving water that supply food and basking areas. In northern areas it will hibernate."

I guess we were destined!

When Alex goes down for his nap I'm going to set up a little pool for the turtle. As much as I like him in Alex's pool, I don't especially want his lovely claws to poke a hole in it. I'm sure Alex's world would come to an end if he no longer had a pool. Especially since he has taken to crying and screaming/throwing tantrums when we have to go inside. Or even try to take off his swimming suit/shirt/shoes. It's lovely.

Snappy the Turtle

So after a trip to Taco Bell and Wally World we arrived at our house with groceries and the like. As I stepped out of the car I happen to spot something moving in our garage out of the corner of my eye. Looking behind the red bucket in the corner I spy a lovely turtle who probably crawled in today since I left the garage door open after bringing the garbage in this morning.

This called for a HD experience using our new HD camcorder! (Yes, I did get a killer deal on it otherwise Carrie would have killed me by now.)

Witness Snappy the Turtle in his Hi-Def debut:


Snappy the Turtle from Jon M on Vimeo.

(You actually have to go to the site to see it in HD, but once there you can click on the little white X to make it full screen and then click on Scaling is On to get it in the native resolution. It looks AWESOME!)

We can't wait to tell the Bronsons that we have a pet turtle now too!

Coming soon in HD!

Jon got us an HD camcorder. It's charging as we speak and we're really excited to check it out and see what difference it makes! I think Jon is more so than I am, but he's a guy. He gets excited about stuff like that.
Unfortunately for you who read the blog, you still get the lovely low quality blog movies.
But if you know us, I'm sure Jon will make you watch some video we've taken in HD at some point when you're over, so beware!

I've been working on the beadboard

I'm proud to say that, with the help of my awesome dad, the nearly LAST (landscaping is ongoing and will be finished after the summer) big project for this house is almost done!
Jon and my dad got the beadboard up in the bathroom and under the island. All that is left to do is fill the nail holes and paint the beadboard under the island!

looking into the bathroom:


behind the door:


the wall to the right of the door:



yes, it is very bright green. But, oddly enough, I like it. I feel a little bad that whoever buys this house next may have to paint over it. BUT it's just a bathroom and it didn't take me too long to paint it. The beadboard lightens it up a LOT and it DOES coordinate with Alex's room... see? Yes... I totally reused (although lightened it a bit from it's original color) the paint we had left over from Alex's room. I just couldn't pass up free.

The color also matches the green gems I have on my awesome light fixture in there. It's this one:

I'll probably get some light colored pictures with white frames to hang above the towel rack/toilet to help lighten it up some more and maybe accent with some white hand towels. Maybe a big white vinyl saying above the tub surround where it's darkest, which makes the paint look brighter. It really isn't as bad as I'm making it out to be and it makes a great kid's bathroom!


And here is the beadboard that is under the island and unpainted.







I was thinking about painting my laundry room a light blue color (I got a great shade of oops paint for $1 that I was going to use), but I think that I'll save it for my next house just because I like it so much and don't want to "waste" it here.

So off I go to fill some nail holes and hopefully we can get this thing painted this week!

Back for a minute

Since we have had family in town, we've been in and out doing all sorts of fun stuff. Sadly, they have to leave on Saturday morning. I'm a little worried about how Alex will take "Pa-da" being gone. Everywhere we go, he constantly asks for pa-da and every white car he sees he thinks is pa-da.
Come on Dad... you know you want to move!
We've been having a great time and I'll share some pictures of the things we've done later. I just didn't want to leave you hanging for more than a week (heaven forbid!)!