the joys of motherhood

Today has been a really fun day! When I say that I am being more than a little sarcastic. It starts off with Lily deciding that she wants to play with my makeup while I am getting ready. She loves to watch me do my makeup and pretend to put on her own. I let her play with the stuff that I think that she couldn't possibly get open. Not only does she get it open but she rubs it all over her face. Then I guess she was wondering if it tasted as good as it looks because she puts a bunch in her mouth. She is still alive so I am guessing it wasn't toxic. I think it is a miracle kids make it past two with all of the things that they decide are a good idea to put in their mouths. We get her mouth cleaned out and I decide to throw her in the tub to get her cleaned up. I was a little distracted and accidentally made the bath water a little warmer than usual so she jumps up out of the water and yells that its too hot, which of course wakes Landon up from his nap. I then spent the next two hours trying to get him to go back to sleep. By the time he finally went back to sleep Lily tells me that she needs to use the potty. I was so proud of her so I take her into the bathroom, she sits on the potty for a while, then nothing happens. She says she is done and runs in the living room and hides behind the rocking chair. I go over to get her to put a diaper back on and she shows me that she has just gone pee on the carpet, so we get that cleaned up and go on with our day. Someone please remind me why potty training is a good idea, I am convinced diapers aren't so bad. Then later the filling falls out of my tooth. GREAT! Just in time for Thanksgiving. I call the dentist who tells me that the office will be closed until Monday. At least Dave loves me and wants me to enjoy thanksgiving. He called around to find a dentist that would fix it tomorrow. Hopefully that goes well. The dentist is always so much fun. I really love being a mom, I am grateful that I don't have to re-live some days, and I am also grateful that God gave us a sense of humor so that at some point down the road even the most stressful days usually seem funny. I think that today might be one of those days.


Lily is trying to help Landon get ready for bed by giving him hugs and helping to give him his medicine.

This is a nice little area!

This is Lily's favorite spot. We put all of her books down at the bottom of this bookshelve. She loves to crawl in there and read them or hide in there when we play hide and seek. Today she decided that it would also be a good place to take a nap. She grabed her favorite blanket and got Landon's pacifier and said "nigh night" and crawled in to take a nap.

So Big!

Landon is getting so big. He is growing up so fast I can't believe it. He had his 4 month check up on Monday and he now weighs 16 pounds 13 oz. and is 25 1/2 inches tall. He is such a big boy, he is going to weigh as much as Lily does pretty soon. It seems like he has reached so many big milestones all at once. He can now roll over both ways. He just started solids, and is loving that. So far he has had rice cereal and sweet potatoes... YUM! He even got his first haircut last week. We had to leave it a little long because we just couldn't part with all of his curls on top, but at least we got the sides trimmed up. He has so much curly hair that people always call him Elvis. I know I am biased but I think he is the cutes boy ever. He is such a good baby. He loves to laugh and he loves looking at books. Today it was time for a nap and I just tried laying him in bed awake and he fell asleep all by himself, well I guess he had a little help from the musical frog, but I was so excited. It just feels like it is going by way too fast, he is such a sweet baby and I just want him to stay my little baby.

Halloween

I love this time of year! The fall is by far my favorite season, it is beautiful, and I love the weather. I love all of the holidays coming up, and I especially love Halloween. It is so much fun! The Saturday before Halloween we all went to go watch Alex play football and then we all went to the cider mill to go get pumpkins afterwards.

We had such a fun time eating hot dogs, looking at all the animals, bobbing for apples, and looking for the perfect pumpkin. Turns out that the Saturday before Halloween is not the best time to find pumpkins, they were all rotten and picked over. We ended up just getting some pumpkins from Costco instead. That night we had a trick-or-trunk at the church so we took the kids. Lily was blue from blue's clues and Landon was a skunk, they both looked so cute. Lily thought it was so awesome that she got to carry her purse, which is what she called her Halloween bucket, and people put candy in it. I think she was a little bit freaked out by some of the costumes, but she didn't mind too much since she was getting all kinds of treats. On Monday night we colored our pumpkins instead of carving them because we figure that would be a little more appropriate for Lily, the less knives around the better. It was a lot of fun, we even got little googly eyes to put on them and that was Lily's favorite part and Dave's I think. Lily just kept pulling the eyes off of Dave's pumpkin and putting them on hers. On Halloween we decided to take Lily to a couple of houses to go trick-or-treating. She thought it was so much fun, again mostly because of the candy, until a guy would answer the door and then she would run and hide. It was so much fun, and I am just excited to have a child so that I have an excuse to go tick-or-treating again.

I Love Dave!

I have the sweetest husband ever. The whole month of my birthday he gives me a present every week. This year he gave me all of the books from the Twilight series, and if you haven't read those books yet you need to! They were so much fun to read. The other night when I got home late he had the table all decorated in Halloween things, which is my favorite holiday, he even made me a couple of grab bags and made his own Halloween floral arrangement, it was awesome! Who doesn't love grab bags...it is so much fun to open them and see what's inside. Then for my birthday he took me to eat at Johny Rockets, nothing too fancy, but hey we are poor. That wasn't the biggest success but it was so much fun just to spend time together. When I got my clam chowder it was totally cold, so I asked the waiter if he would warm it up a little. I don't think I have ever sent food back in my life, but that is how cold it was. The guy says someone had turned off the crock pot and so it would be a few minutes. He comes back just as Dave was finishing his burger and tells me that it is broken and asks if I want anything else. Since Dave was already done eating I declined. So we went home and watched Harry Potter, since we actually had the house to ourselves we decided why go out. And I ate frozen pretzels for my birthday dinner, which was fine by me because I love them. It was so much fun just to be able to spend the evening together. He gave me an electric blanket for my birthday. Those are the best inventions ever!! I love mine! We had a great time and I am so grateful to have such a good husband that tries so hard to make me feel special.

Blessing

We finally blessed Landon on Oct. 21st but it was totally worth the wait. Dave's Dad came home and my dad flew in and he also flew in Nichole and Timmy. We had such a fun time that weekend. Lily was so excited for Nichole and Timmy to get here that was all she could talk about. The night before they flew in we were driving somewhere and Lily thought we were going to pick them up and she was so excited. Dave had to explain to her that it wasn't until tomorrow and she had to go to sleep for the night first and then when she woke up it would be time to go pick them up. So she pretended to be asleep and threw in a few fake snores and said lets go get Cole and Timmy. It was so cute how excited she was to see them. We had so much fun while they were here. Nichole and I took the kids to the farmers market on Friday and got our favorite thing ever... crab cake benedict. YUM! Then Timmy and Lily shared a cow cookie which they thought was the best. We tried to take the kids out shopping and that was an adventure. We both left our wallets out in the car and so I went out to the car to go get them. It was pouring rain and I was carrying Timmy and when I lifted up the back gate on the car everything fell out, our diaper bag landed in a puddle and poor Timmy got soaking wet. Lily found a doll that she loved at the store and the lady that owned the store gave it to her, it was so sweet of her, Lily takes it everywhere with her. On Saturday we all went to the zoo together. It was so much fun for the kids to see all the animals and I loved being able to spend the day with my family. Then we went to our favorite Chinese place, which has the BEST hot and sour soup. Then my dad took Nichole and I shopping for some new clothes and totally spoiled us. It was such a fun day! Sunday we blessed Landon. It was such a great blessing and I feel so grateful to have such a sweet baby. A few things that stood out to me in his blessing were that he would have a love for the Lord, be a great example to those around him, and have a great love for learning throughout his life. He wore his cute little tuxedo that Dave bought him and he looked awesome. We went to my moms house after and had a huge lunch with all of the family. Monday we went to breakfast with my mom and we braved the mall with the kids once again. My mom bought Nichole and I a bunch of cute clothes and shoes and we got spoiled rotten again. It was so sad to have everyone leave but I was so glad they could all be here for such a special day. It meant so much to us to have them here.

Our little Star!!

Lily decided that she wanted to put on a performance for everyone!! We hope that you enjoy this little performance!! I have no idea where she learned this, but she was so amazed at what Grandpa was doing that she kept covering her mouth and saying "gosh." It was cracking us up so we decided we had to get it on video.

Lily has such a fun personality. It is so much fun to watch her develop into her own little person. She is such a little performer. She is hilarious and she loves to make us laugh. If she does something that we think is funny she just keeps doing it over and over again to keep us laughing. She loves music, and she has started to love to sing along with me and the radio. She loves to dance, she always comes up to me and asks me for a song and says "dance." She also loves to play the piano. She has her own piano book and sits at the piano and flips through the pages and tries to play each song. I remember when she was blessed as a baby Dave blessed her to have a love of music and that is so true, music makes her happy and puts her to sleep at night. She loves to use her imagination, especially to pretend to be different animals. She will chase the dog around the house pretending to be a cat and meow at her. She loves to color and she is starting to learn the different colors. she loves pink of course and she also likes "geen" and "poo poo" (purple). It is so much fun watching her learn everyday. She is such a girly girl and loves to play with her dolls and pretend to feed them or sing them rock a bye baby. She loves to watch me put on makeup and pretend to put on her own. She is very independent and likes to do everything by herself, and she definatly always knows what she wants. She knows what she likes and doesn't like and I love that about her. She is already such a good example to me. If we sit down to eat she will fold her arms and say "prayer" so that we remember. Dave has been teaching her about the sacrament and this Sunday she took the bread and said "bread, Jesus" because Dave had taught her that we take the bread and water so that we can remember Jesus. It is so special to watch her learn develop her own testimony about the gospel and I hope that as she grows she will have a close relationship with her Heavenly Father.

Teething

Who would have ever thought I would have two kids teething at the same time! Boy has that been fun! Landon is getting the funniest teeth in first. Instead of getting his front teeth he is getting a bottom one all the way over to the left and then a tooth all the way over to the right on the top. He is going to be our little jack-o-lanter just in time for halloween. Poor Lily has been so uncomfortable, and all of this equals no sleep for me. At least they are worth every second of it.

Conference Weekend

On Friday night we went to Arts Walk downtown. It was so much fun. I love looking at all the art and going in all the antique shops. The crazy guy selling combs was there again and this year he added an item... a twig. The rumor is next year he will be selling an empty soda can. This guy probably makes so much money selling nothing. He is so hilarious and you could listen to him talk about nothing for hours, I think you can only understand how funny it is if you go listen to him. Lily made best friends with the sweetest dog named Mia, she was so upset when the dog had to leave. Landon had so much fun just watching all the people and being out and about. Then on Saturday night my mom and I took the kids and went to Lady's Night at Deseret Book in Seattle during priesthood session. They give away prizes every ten minutes and have treats it is a lot of fun. Last year we went on accident not knowing anything was going on and I won the grand prize which was a huge framed painting of the Seattle temple, so my mom and I decided to go every year. This year we had a blast but we worked up a sweat chasing Lily around, and I even won a really good CD. While we were up there an industrial plant right off the freeway in Tacoma had a huge explosion. We were able to get home fine by the time we headed back there was just some traffic. It smelled so bad though, and once Lily smelled it she goes "EWWW" really loud and I looked back and she was sniffing her feet trying to decide if it was her feet that smelled so bad. It was hilarious! Conference was really great, I always look forward to it. It is so uplifting and it gives me so much to think about and work on. I am so grateful to have the gospel in my life and to know that the Lord speaks through the prophet to tell us what we need to know.

Applefest

The last Saturday in September we all went to Applefest at Lattin's cider mill. We had so much fun. There was a live band and we got to eat hot dogs and drink cider. Lily had so much fun dancing to the music while she ate her corn dog. Lily loved feeding the animals especially the goats and baby ducks. It was such a fun day!


That Sunday our stake had a fake 7.2 earthquake. You will be happy to know that none of us were injured. All the men had to go check on the families that they home teach and report back to stations that each had ham radios that reported to the bishop and stake president. It was really good practice and it really got us thinking about if we are ready for something like that to happen. We have a goal to work on our 72 hour kits and make sure that we have everything we need for an emergency.

Our Trip to Mt. Rainier

As you can see we went for a little trip! Saturday we loaded the car up at 1:40 pm and headed east! The destination... big beautiful Mt. Rainier. The trip started out a little rocky because upon entering the park it began to rain and the temperature gauge read 42 degrees. Really the weather turned out to not be so bad. We loaded the kids in their backpacks and began our hike at Paradise. Lily, it turns out, was terrified of her backpack and was screaming so Lindsay got to carry both the kids, which is okay because she says because she burned a few extra calories!
Lily's favorite part was picking up rocks along the road and chirping with the birds. She was so excited when she found a rock that was even bigger than she was and she cried when we had to leave it. The views were amazing and we really enjoyed what Dave calls "a short hike," but boy did we work up an appetite.

We went to the campsite and started a fire to cook up our dinner. Dinner consisted of hot dogs, potato salad, fruit, and some punch. Of course, like any good campground, the birds were our best friend and even came over and stole food right off of Lily's plate! That quickly ended Lily's friendship with the birds, she doesn't share food very well. Then after dinner came the best part... S'mores!!!! No campfire is complete without roasting marshmallows!!

As we sat eating our food Lindsay noticed something moving out of the corner of her eye and thought "huh, a cat doesn't belong here." Turned out she was looking at a fox that had come over to investigate what we were doing. Well right as we finished eating the rain started again. We hurriedly packed up the car and left for home! On the way home Lindsay swears Dave wasn't paying any attention as he had to swerve to miss deer on more than one occasion! Dave swears that he didn't have a choice!! "It isn't up to me if they are going to jump out into the road!" he said. Its just a good thing Grandma was paying attention. On the way home Dave and Lindsay had to stop to use the bathroom and so poor Grandma stayed with the kids in the car. When we got back out to the car Lily was screaming and Landon wasn't far behind! The rest of the way home Lindsay and Lily had a very serious conversation about everything from pie to shoes and anything else in between! We got home and as Dave says "it is always a good trip when you get home after dark and you smell like a campfire!" Overall it was a great trip. We hope to do it again soon.

Our Little Mama

Lily is such a good big sister she thinks she is Landon's second mom. If Landon is every without his blanket she goes and gets it and makes sure he is all covered up, which sometimes includes covering his face. She gets really concerned when he cries and comes up and asks me, "Why he crying?" and she usually tries to shove her pacifier in his mouth, it is so sweet. She loves to show Landon her toys and when he is in his bouncy seat or car seat we find toys piled up on his lap of things she wanted to show him. She loves to lay down by him when he is on the ground but she can't quite get close enough and usually ends up laying on top of him. The feeling is mutual though, Landon thinks Lily is so funny and he is always smiling at her whenever she walks by. I am so grateful that things have gone so well with the two of them. I was so nervous that Lily would be jealous or feel left out with a new baby around, but she loves to help and feel like she is taking care of him. I still worry all the time that I don't give each of them enough attention, but then I try and remember that they are so lucky to have each other, and I just try and do the best I can. I really hope that they are close as they grow up. I love being so close in age with my sister and she is the best friend I could ask for.

Landon and Lily

Book Baby

Today Lily and I went to Book Babies at the library. We had so much fun. We sang songs and read stories. Lily LOVES books and her favorite song is the wheels on the bus. It was fun to spend time together and Lily made some new friends. Lily also got her first books from the library. Hopefully they make it back to the library in one piece.

Our Future Cougar!

Every time the BYU football game is on TV Dave and Landon get dressed up in their matching cougar shirts and root for the Cougs!

Our Little Family

It is a little hard to get all four of us in a good enough mood to take a picture so this is the best we could do.

our first post

Dave and I decided to start a blog so that friends and family can keep up with what we are up to. Dave just started a job with the state so we are really excited about that. I am staying home with the kids, which is so much fun. I am also doing wedding flowers on the side which I really enjoy. Lily is getting so big we can hardly believe it, she is 19 months now. Yesterday was her first day of swimming lessons with her grandma and she had a blast. She already knows how to manipulate her dad, he told her she couldn't do something yesterday and so she came crying to me saying "my dad, me sad, " so of course she got what she wanted. Today was a big day for her, she came and told us she needed to go to the bathroom and went in the big girl potty...YES!!! Landon is two months now and is such a sweet boy. He is HUGE, I can't believe how big he is now, he weighs about 14 pounds. He is such a happy baby and he is always smiling and he has even started to laugh a little bit. He is even a good sleeper and usually sleeps through the night which is a miracle after all the trouble we had getting Lily to sleep through the night. He is so mellow, it is amazing to me how different two kids can be. We feel so lucky to have both of them.

Our two little ones!! Obviously they enjoy eachothers company!!