My cup overfloweth

I've been having lots, and lots of positive feelings, so I need to get them down here.

Last Friday we had such a fantastic day. Dean seriously didn't ask to get on the computer or TV once until I started making dinner!  We had a fun morning at the splash pad/park, and after I put Walt down for his nap, Dean and I worked on creating him a robot costume. "Mom, thank you sooo much for making this awesome robot outfit."   That night at bedtime, he had it on again, and couldn't figure out how to fold his arms. He said, "Mom, robots don't fold their arms or bow their heads. They just kneel." =)

 When Walter woke up, he wanted in on the robot action, but not so much on the picture action unless he was the one taking the picture.

Yesterday we had such a fun fourth of July. In the morning we went to our Bishop's house for a bike parade, BBQ and pool party. Dean was so excited for the bike parade. He decorated his bike with stickers. When I asked if he wanted any ribbons, he said, "No, that would make it a girl's bike."  I'm pretty sure he was the fastest 3 year old out there!

That night we let the boys stay up late (I let Walt nap until 4:15!!!) so they could experience fireworks. We purchased a small amount and found the perfect legal place to set them off. We've set fireworks off 2 or 3 other times, but each time we've just ended up on the side of the road on what we hoped was county land. This year we scouted a couple days in advance and found a neighborhood on county land that had the roads and cul-de-sacs built out, but there were no houses for a couple of miles.  It was perfect except for the wind. It made the sparklers hard, but everything else worked just fine.  I nearly had a heart attack watching the boys with the sparklers, especially when Dean went straight for the grass multiple times. I was glad when those were done! Here's a pic. of Matt reading them a bed time story before we left since it would be so late when we got home.

Here are a few videos I took while out.

Untitled from Celia Brasfield on Vimeo.


Untitled from Celia Brasfield on Vimeo.



Walter has been speaking in sentences. Many are still fairly broken and pieced together, but he also has a lot of complete sentences. My favorite right now is, "'Ere are you going, mom?" His voice inflections make it priceless.

We started swimming lessons today with an awesome lady in our ward. Dean has this out of control fear of getting water in his face, so I think that will be our biggest hurdle. She's the perfect teacher for him, though.

Come on over baby

Happy mother's day! It started out quite rocky over here. I heard Walter start screaming at 6:08 am because Dean turned the light on when he woke up even though Walt wasn't awake yet. He came into my room to wake me up about 2 minutes later. The kids were both cranky and disobedient and I was cranky and short tempered. Apparently none of us got the memo that it was a holiday celebrating the joys of motherhood where the kids were supposed to be sweet little angels and I was supposed to be a perfect mother. So I called for a redo before we went to church.

Matt's stomach was really not agreeing with him this morning, but he didn't want to make me brave Sacrament meeting alone with the boys, so he came for the first hour. The primary did a very cute musical number and it was sooo cute to see Dean's head poking over the rail in the front of the chapel. Boy is he still a little guy compared to the older kids!  He didn't sing all the words, but I could tell he tried on the parts he kind of knew. I had a huge smile on my face nonetheless.

When the boys and I went to our classes, Matt went home until church was over so he could be close to a personal restroom. After I got home and put Walter in bed I thought, "wow. Did I actually leave their room this clean?"  And then I walked into the living room and thought, "I DEFINITELY didn't leave this room this clean." And then I walked into the kitchen and it was all picked up, the dishwasher was running, and it looked great. That was a great surprise. An added bonus? Matt used our horrible beyond horrible vacuum and said, "that thing is horrible! We need a new vacuum." I said that the first week we got it, but he was like, "meh. can't be that bad.". (It's a cheap Bissel bagless. THE WORST vacuum I've ever used.)  We may be in the market for a dyson soon...

And then what did I do? I took a nap. Ah bliss. It's been ages since I took a nap on Sunday.  While I was asleep, Matt made dinner (posole) and Dean made me a card and played on the computer.

We had a good FHE and got to talk to Matt's parents on skype. After that we played outside for a little bit even though it was time to get ready for bed. The redo was waaaaaaaay better than the original!

Despite all the frustrating moments and times I want to rip my hair out, 

I love being a mom. 

I love watching my boys watch their daddy so they know what to expect and how to act "when they grow up like a man."

I get to make cool things like this cardboard rocket ship and explore the moon (ie. the sandbox and playset)

I get to camp inside when the weather  is bad (and outside when the weather is good).

 And I get to see some of the best bedhead and smiles after good naps.

I get to be the subject of some pictures that turn out ok...and some that don't.

I get to help my kids make messy memories...

...as well as good clean (and sweet) memories.

I get to try out cool things like homemade fizzy sidewalk paint.

And collect cool custom made pieces of ABC art.

And I get to hear my kids sing and learn new songs like this latest from Walter (and Dean at the end), "Come on over baby"

Come on over baby from Celia Brasfield on Vimeo.

yes. I love being a mom.

Be Mine

The weather was beautiful today. 70's I think. Oh how nice it was to wear short sleeves and go outside. I was far too busy today to run this morning, so I sure hope this beautiful weather sticks around tomorrow so I can get out and "get some exercise in my body" (a Dean quote).

Dean and Walt made some cards for Matt with my help. We went to a preschool Valentine's day party this morning. I provided the activities and my friend Diane provided the house and goodies. It was fun, though Dean was incredibly whiny by the end. He did have a major fall yesterday (fell from our picnic table while trying to do a trick basketball shot and hit his head hard on the concrete. I was only a few feet away, but I was too slow to stop it all from happening.), so I guess I should be happy he felt good enough to go at all, poor kid.

The boys were very interested in the flowers that Matt brought home for me. This is the one time a year we have fresh flowers on our table. =) Dean kept saying things like, "Mom! Mom! Those flowers are soooo beautiful. It was so nice of dad to bring you some flowers." I pulled Walt off the table multiple times because he wanted to pick the flowers.


We had homemade falafal and pitas (one of my favs). While it felt like I was messing everything up as I was going along, the pitas were soft and chewy and the falafal were nice and tasty. I also made a cheesecake today.  I was very, very tired by the end of all of this. I should probably be heading to bed soon here.

short sleeves!

My super husband.

Enjoying the Valentine goodies from Grandma and Grandpa Waterman

Enjoying his AND Dean's treats (he stole Dean's first treat)

Cheese!

Capped the night with cheesecake with caramel and chocolate topping.

Thanksgiving 2010

We had Thanksgiving all by ourselves this year. There are pluses and minuses to that. I personally enjoy having a large gathering for such events, but it's so much lower pressure when it's just us.  We ended up buying a smoked turkey and splitting it in half with a family in our ward. It was cheaper that way. It wasn't quite as good as I had hoped, but it was still really good and made for better leftovers than regular turkey.

Prepping for the feast.

 As I had suspected, the boys basically only wanted the rolls, cranberry sauce, and pie. 

Matt was more adventurous, and had a little bit of everything. And no, he didn't finish this gargantuan plate.

At dinner we had: smoked turkey, homemade overnight rolls, artisan bread dressing, cinnamon craisen cranberry sauce, green bean casserole from scratch, mashed potatoes,  and Matt roasted some chicken thighs we didn't eat so he could make real gravy.

After dinner we played rockband as a family. I don't think we actually made it through one song since we kept failing (it's kind of hard not to when the 3 year old insists on playing the guitar), but that's not the most important thing, now is it? We had fun.


 After our food settled, we went back in for pumpkin and pecan pie and hot apple cider. Walter literally licked his plate clean!! Dean only had a couple of bites, but was sad at bedtime that he hadn't finished his pies. I think the cider is the first "warm" drink Dean's ever had. He said, "Dean LIKES cider. It warms Dean up when Dean is coooold."And boy was it cold on Thanksgiving!! Leading up to Thanksgiving our weather was in the 80's! The day before had a high of 85*. The high on Thanksgiving? Well, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty positive we didn't break 50*. It felt freakishly cold because it was all windy too. It was kind of nice, though, because it felt like it really was the right time of year for this holiday. =)

Turkey Hunt

Prepared Not Scared has some of the cutest free holiday downloads and games (not to mention TONS of other amazing posts about canning, preparedness, FHE lessons, etc). I printed off this cute Turkey Hunt game, laminated the turkeys, taped them to tongue depressors, and we've had 2 days of fun turkey hunting.Walt generally loses interest after he has 1 turkey in his hand, but that's probably for the best because Dean can then run around and pick them all up.  Dean found some halloween make up and did up his own camo.

Halloween 2010

Matt was still feeling a little poorly on Sunday so I ended up with both boys in church for 3 hours by myself again (this is like the 4th time in the two months). Being in nursery just puts me over the top on those days! It was pretty rough. I was losing it. Dean was losing it. I am just amazed at all the moms who take their children to church by themselves on an extended and regular basis (whether their husbands are in stake pres./bishopric/inactive/non-member, etc.). You women need a medal for continuing on!

Since Matt got to sleep some, he was feeling slightly better by afternoon, so that's when we did our carving. It was so hot in the direct sun! We decided not to do intricate pumpkins because we didn't want to stay out there longer than necessary!!  Dean drew his face for the pumpkin and I helped carve it. He helped me carve the top off my pumpkin and throw away the guts. Walter helped clean out the pumpkins and he drew with a marker on a small sugar pumpkin.

Walter after eating a twix bar.

That night I hadn't planned on taking Dean out. We had some candy for trick-or-treaters, and since Dean had taken a nap, I let him help me hand out for awhile. (Walt was asleep before any trick-or-treaters came.)  He LOVED it. He was so excited to help hand out candy. He didn't even want to wait for them to knock, so we sat on our little mini-bench on our porch waiting for kids. I had to laugh, though, when I saw the wheels start turning about half way through the night. He had a package of skittles and a laffy taffy in hand ready to hand out; he was going to give the skittles and I saw him hesitate a moment, change his mind, and put in the laffy taffy. After the kids left, he said, "Dean wants to eat these skittles!" And then he started going through the candy, looking for all the "bad stuff" (ie. smarties and jolly ranchers) to hand out first so he could possibly save the good candies for himself. HAHA. I did the same thing the night before! (We handed out all of our "bad" candy at the trunk or treat, so what we had left was what I considered decent candy).

Matt's

Dean's

 

Mine

Anyway, at one point he said, "It's not Halloween, not for us!" And that made me feel a little guilty. So I asked if he wanted to go to a few neighbor's houses.  So, we put on his costume (over his pjs) and headed out to about 10 houses.  He tried giving his candy to the first three houses. It was very cute. On our walk, there was one mean middle schooler who had a horribly scary mask/costume. While they were walking he had it up, and when he saw Dean, he put it down and kind of came at him making noises. Punk. I said, "Come on, he's just a little guy!" and he laughed and walked off. At least Dean wasn't really old enough to really internalize and process it.

He ate a few pieces of candy the next day, and while his candy bag is still sitting on the counter, he and Walter have not asked for any candy since! I may just recycle candy into the stockings!!! Does that make me a bad mom? =)