The big 3-0

Yesterday I turned 30. It was a great day.  The boys woke up in a good mood. We had puffy oven pancakes and strawberries for breakfast. Yum.


While Dean was at Preschool, I took Walter to the park. I think it's the first time we had been to the park without Dean. Walt definitely was a little lost without him. He stuck by me way more than normal.  At lunch I let Dean have a picnic (Walt was already in bed for nap) on our half tiled kitchen floor. As he ate, he laid down on the blanket, sandwich in hand, and said, "Dean is going to rest now so Dean won't need a quiet time after lunch." =)

I took the kids to Target after their naps. I let Dean pick out flowers since he's been begging to buy them since Matt bought me some for Valentine's day. I looked through necklaces since I know Walter loves when I wear them. He really wanted to get me one, but I couldn't find one I really liked. My main goal for the day was to avoid whining kids. I basically gave them everything they asked for because I wanted a whine free day. Those bunny shaped marshmallows that I'd never have bought? Yep. I bought them. And I let them have the marshmallows in the car on the way home before we even had dinner!  Dean wanted to buy me a big foam hammer he found, and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't be the perfect present for my birthday. =) Walter was begging to go ride on the tractors at Lowe's next door, so I let them be the "driver guy" on all 20 riding lawnmowers before heading home.

When Matt got home from work, he quickly made my traditional "better-than-sex" cake. Though that is a misnomer. It should really be called, "better-than-regular-cake" instead. I don't care for cake much, but this cake is always good for a piece or two. He let the caramel and sweetened condensed milk soak in while we set off for dinner. We went to a Mexican place (Petra's) we'd never tried but had heard good things about. I got a sampler triple taco plate to share with the boys and get a good overall feel for their food. Matt got a burrito. His was $3 less than mine, but way more food! Less meat, but more filling in the end. I actually ate my entire entree, something I NEVER do. I was full, but not so full I couldn't have a piece of cake when I got home. The food was ok, but we'll probably never eat there again.

When we got home, Matt lit up the cake (our A/C came on and kept blowing out the candles, so this took awhile. Most of the candles were nearly stubs by the time he brought them out). Dean helped me blow them out.

Matt got me the King Aurthur's cook book and an Arts and Crafts with Kids book that I'd had on my Christmas list. I bought myself a Sansa clip mp3 player and headphones, and I will buy myself a grain mill when I can settle on which one to buy: the KoMo Fidibus 21 or the Nutrimill.  The Nutrimill is about twice the size of the Fidibus and has a lot more components you have to clean. The Fidibus is self cleaning and is much nicer looking in my opinion. It could easily stay on my counter and I could mill even a 1/4 cup of grain if I wanted to for cereal (muesli or cracked wheat) in the morning.  It is also $100 more, thus the difficult decision.

I have a feeling it's going to be a great year. I don't have any qualms with 30. It is just a number. I'm slimmer and healthier now than I was before I had kids.  I'm training for a half marathon. I'm feeling pretty good actually. My stage of life is pretty challenging for me, and I often feel like I have a big NEEDS IMPROVEMENT in the parenting department, but these two cutie pies are worth it.

I got to chat with my sister Julie (who is totally amazing and is watching my sister Amanda's kids while she's in DC for her BIL's wedding!) which is always fun. My parents also called and visited for a few, and my grandparents sang me a beautiful happy birthday duet, harmony and all!

Oh, and as I was changing Walter before bed, he said, "potty!", got up, and ran to the bathroom, sat on his little bjorn potty chair and peed in the pot or the first time. He's sat on it before, but that was the first time it was actually used properly! I thought the possibility of two potty trained boys was a nice gift.

Dean turns 3 years

(I wrote this on Saturday, but am just posting it now for some reason...)

Today was Dean's 3rd birthday.  We had our good moments and our bad today. He's been feeling a little sick the past few days I think. He acts totally normal, but hasn't eaten hardly anything at all. Yesterday when I tried the "no milk if you don't eat your food" (our normal rule), he started to eat and then threw up.

Today started out ok. He slept in until 7:40 (unheard of!!!) and then played computer games while I went jogging. When I got back, I made him some puffy oven pancakes by request. I frosted his cake, and then we went outside to play.

That was when things went down hill.  He started throwing fits because I was alternating pushing him and swinging with Walt. He then tried to "mow the lawn" with his little mower, and Walt started chasing him so he could mow too.  Dean pushed him down a couple of times so he couldn't get the mower, so I put him in a time out. He went ballistic. He's usually pretty reasonable about going to time outs, but he was screaming at the top of his lungs and started hitting me repeatedly.  I put him in time out for 10 minutes.

After that we had lunch and naps. After naps, he and Walter wanted to play in the car, so I was out there with them for awhile. I needed to go to the bathroom, and I decided to get Dean some gatorade since he hasn't had much of anything the last few.  When I got back 2 min. later, Walt was SCREAMING.  I asked what happened and Dean said nonchalantly, "Dean poked Walt in the eyes."  He was holding a pencil. That warranted another 5 min. time out and a big talk about how it's REALLY dangerous to do anything to the eyes.  He didn't actually get the eyeball, but he poked him really close to his eye and dragged down. He had 2 nice welts across his face and one on his arm from Dean's pencil. Poor kid.

It was raining here most of the day and we even had a tornado warning go off (though it was just for our county and I don't think we were ever in "danger"). I was feeling pretty caged and the boys were just being difficult, so I let them run around in the rain for a good 1/2 hour or more. It really started to pour at the end and got a little colder, so we gave them a bath to warm up. I have a video that blogger won't load, unfortunately. In the video Dean declares that he is never going to wear underwear. Great. I hope I'm not in for another full year of diapering 2 kids. I don't want to potty train them together, but watch, that's what will end up happening. =P

I felt pretty worn out most of the day from my run. (I swear, anything over 6 miles and I'm TOAST the rest of the day. I didn't recover until about 5:30 or 6 pm!) I asked Dean what he wanted for dinner, and the only thing I could get out of him was "french fries". He doesn't like my homemade oven fries, so I decided we'd eat out. We haven't eaten out at all on our dime (even at Taco Bell) in the last 3 months, so we went a little $$ than I'd normally do for a kid birthday. We'd never eaten at Fuddruckers, so Matt dropped us off at Lowes to play on the tractors while he went next door to pick up "hangaburs and french fries". In my personal opinion it was way too expensive and not good enough to buy again. But it was better than having to cook tonight, so I guess I still won out on that. Their fries were potato wedges, and I don't think Dean even ate one (though he didn't complain about them not being regular fries). He did eat a good portion of his 1/2 a hamburger and said it was yummy. So at least he enjoyed something.

We cut the cake and had a little ice cream (left over from the homemade stuff I made a few weeks ago for the letter I!). He had a tiny bite of his cake, one spoon of his ice cream, and ate the monkey's mouth (a starburst rolled into a rope). So, I guess he was still feeling kind of poorly.

His presents were pretty minimal. In June or July he saw this "tote-n-go laptop" at Target and wanted it so badly. To keep a scene from erupting from my not buying it, I told him we'd put it on his birthday wish list. It worked. We came home, wrote it on a paper, and posted it on our bulletin board. I honestly thought he'd forget about it, but every time we went into the store after that, he asked to see the laptop. It was only $20, so I couldn't not get it for him! I was a little worried that he'd play it 3 times and be done with it since he knows how to use my real computer, but we'll see. I also got him an Eric Carle puzzle set, but Matt felt like that was too excessive since I already got the computer (the 4 puzzles were a whole $10 total), so I'm saving it for Christmas and Matt gave him a $1 big bubble wand instead.  Whatever. He's 3. He was happy. Grr. another video foiled. Our camera's too good I think. It's videos are too large for blogger to compress if they're over a min.!

Walt's birthday party at home

Chocolate zucchini cake with a chocolate butter cream frosting. It was really quite delicious and made a fabulous mess.

For these first two videos, I suggest you watch without sound! Too much going on. Dean's toe gets smashed at one point. I don't know, I wish I could edit these. The audio drives me nuts. I almost didn't post them, but there are really cute moments in the videos I figured I'd put them on for the grandparents if no one else.

Walt's shirt from Grandma and Grandpa Bras(s)

Opening Walt's present.
Dean was so excited about the present he kept shouting "Go Walter! Go!!"

Here are the boys playing with Walt's water table. Dean got some potting soil from the garden before I was out. They were having a ball, but I decided potting soil was NOT the best type of dirt to be used in this application, so right after I took the video I cleaned it all out. Don't want Walt to be eating fertilizer...

Walter's first birthday

Happy Birthday to my little Walter!

We had a fun double birthday party for Walter and Charlie (his cousin who is 2 days older) while we were in Snowflake. We had originally planned on making cakes, but by Saturday we were pretty burned out, so we picked some up from Bashas' bakery. When we mentioned it was for 2 babies turning 1, the woman from the bakery got all excited and gave us 2 free cupcakes with cute dogs piped on top. It was perfect so they could dig into their cupcakes without ruining the cakes we bought for everyone else. They also had a cousin turning 9 tomorrow so we were celebrating 3 birthdays.






Here's another video where you can see the other birthday boy, Charlie. His sister Molly is holding him.



Tonight we had a "party" for Walter here. He got to open his one present from us (a water table/sink thing), a card from his great grandma Bras(s), and a card and shirt from his Bras(s) grandparents. I also made a chocolate zucchini cake for him. Dean was SO excited for both the present and the cake. Dean spontaneously started singing happy birthday and cheered Walter on as he was opening his present. He wanted to feed Walt the cake. It was all very cute and fantastically messy. Our camera battery died during the party, so we didn't document everything, but I"ll post the pics and videos we did get once the battery is charged again.

The big 2

Dean is 2 years old today.

Grandma Bras(s) has been here since Wednesday, and we've loved having her here to help us celebrate. We didn't do anything with friends this year since he still doesn't quite get the concept of friends (he mainly just wants to go play with people's toys at their houses), so it was just us. We were glad to have her here.



We had our ups and downs today, but overall it was a fun day. This morning I was swinging him around and somehow hurt his wrist. He was crying and whining about it for a little while before I really believed it was really hurt. Daddy rigged him up a sling and iced it for a couple hours (He stayed in one place on the couch for about 2 hours which is a SURE sign he was hurting. He never stays still.) When I gave him lunch on the couch he said, "arm better!" and took off the sling.



After his nap we opened up presents. He got a good load! The big present from us was his balance bike. I've been going back and forth about what kind of wheeled item to get him. He loves, loves, loves anything with wheels and has been begging for a bike for a couple of months. I first considered a trike, push car, plasma car and scooter. I ran across a balance bike as I was searching out trikes. It's a little light weight 2 wheeled bike that has no pedals. It's for kids appox. 2-5 yrs. He was a little short for it, but we took off the seat and he was able to walk around with it. You start out walking it, then push, then glide, etc. as your balance gets better. It's a European concept and it seems like a much better system than tricycles and training wheels. He loved it. He got other cool presents like an awesome train set from G&G Bras(s), daddy's old tool set (that was in pristine condition), play dough, a cool shirt from the "Thteed" cousins, some new construction trucks, etc.



After presents came the cake. I am by no means a cake decorator, but I've had this construction cake in my mind a couple of weeks. I made a chocolate cake and some peanut butter frosting from scratch. I used peanut butter cups and oreos for rocks and dirt mounds and bought some new construction trucks. He really liked it and I loved that he drove the trucks all over the cake. He even used the digger truck to dig him up and feed him some cake. That was super cute.




After cake we went to Celebration Park. It's a bit of a drive since it's in the next town over, but I think it was well worth it. I want to go back tomorrow. Dean loved it.




We had hamburgers and fries at Scotty P's for dinner. As we were leaving, he tried to escape from holding my hand in the parking lot and hurt his wrist again. I felt so terrible and sad for him. It didn't stop him from trying to play with "Old daddy's tools" when we got home! He also wanted to play with his balance bike and even said, "arm better!" to try and con us into letting him.



All in all it was a good day. Happy Birthday my little Dean!!

This year I really am 28

For some reason this past year I thought I was 28. If I really thought about it, I knew I was 27, but my automatic answer when people asked was always 28. Well, as it turns out, I just turned 28 today! When Matt brought out my cake he had the numbers 68 on there and said, "Happy birthday Grandma!" He always calls me grandma at my birthday since I'm 3 months older than him.

I had a doctor's appointment, a nice birthday song (in harmony) from my grandparents, and a nice and unusual 2 hour nap by Dean (so I got to lay down for a little while after I finished a couple things). I taught 3 piano lessons (Dean started melting down half way through so he ended up in with Matt for about 45 min.), and Matt picked up some cheesesteaks and fries for us for dinner. See, I've come a long way. I actually enjoy a good cheesesteak. A thick slab of steak, not so much. But a nicely shaved and cooked lean steak with some good chewy bread, melty cheese and onions is kind of nice once every other year...(I'd probably have picked Taco bell, for my "cheap" birthday meal but like I mentioned before, they tore it down.) My friend Erin is going to hang out here on Friday night so Matt and I can go to the Temple. Next Friday or Saturday I think we'll get a babysitter and actually go to a sit down restaurant and maybe a movie. Not that much of anything is out right now...





So at 23 1/2 weeks, I've gained 11 lbs. total (since my first visit at 10 wks. It's a little more if you go back to my still nursing and pre-pregnant weight.) which brings me to 142. My blood pressure was 104/60. Once again she said the baby is a super wiggly guy and it took her awhile to get a good heart reading since he wouldn't stay still. Dean was captivated by the doppler thing and I told him we were listening to the baby boy in my tummy. Later today he pointed to my belly and said, "boy" (his new word the last few days). It's getting harder and harder to take him with me to my appointments. He's just so busy and curious I have a hard time keeping him out of everything!

The year in review: Happy Birthday Dean!!

It's a tradition in my family for my mom to tell the birth story at our birthday dinners. Since Dean ate his dinner of sweet potatoes before we ate our dinner, I didn't get to tell him his. So I'll settle by telling you. (And maybe, just maybe, he'll read it later.) I'll tell the condensed version. For the long version, you can click here.

I wasn't sure if I'd peed my pants or if it was my water breaking, but it really was just my water breaking. It broke at midnight on the 23rd.

I held out on getting an epidural until 9 am when Matt went for breakfast. Yeah, that meant I'd been in labor for 9 hours already.

By about 4 pm my epidural started wearing off and I could feel a lot of pressure. I was dilated to a 10.

TWO HOURS LATER!! The doctor (not mine) and nurses walked in and said, "Let have this baby!"

About 15 minutes later I was pushing, crying and hyperventilating (pretty much just totally freaking out because everything felt very wrong) and I heard the dr. yell "I see molding! The heart rate is dropping! Get [Dr.]Allen or [Dr.] Halderman here RIGHT NOW!" About 15 min. later my Dr. came. They let me try and push once more, but his heart rate fell again.

They rushed me to the Operating Room and gave me drugs. I could still feel them cutting on me. They gave me more drugs and I started to get real loopy. Next thing I knew I could barely open my eyes, my body was totally convulsing and shaking, and they were holding up this little guy: (6:45 PM, after 18 hours of labor and an emergency C-section)



Poor thing. His head got stuck and I just wasn't big enough for him to get through naturally. Luckily babies' heads are quite resilient and he looked like this the next time I saw him:

Phew! No cone head baby for me...

October 2007

November 2007

December 2007

January 2008

February 2008

March 2008

April 2008

May 2008

June 2008

July 2008

August 2008

September 2008

October 2008

October 23, 2008



Happy first birthday Dean!

I'm pretty sure you liked your pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting.

(Even though Daddy made me write out ugly words on my cute orange cake.)

We were glad Grandma and Grandpa were here to celebrate!
(Even though you were TOTALLY freaked out by grandpa the first half of the day. I mean, that was pure terror I saw in your eyes and heard in your cries. Luckily you got over it...mostly.)

Here's a video of him eating sugar for the first time.
(Well, kind of...he's had very small tastes here and there.)