Heaven Help Me....

She's a climber.

Owen nearly did me in with all of his climbing and close calls. Remember this?

I can never decide if I should dart across the kitchen, leaping over the scattered Tupperware she leaves strewn across the floor, to retrieve her as quickly as I possibly can before she plunges to the tile below.....or if a better approach is tip-toeing and talking sweetly as I make my move to retrieve her so as not to alarm or excite her into running across the counter and thus increasing the chances of her taking a header. I usually end up doing the latter, but inside, my heart is racing and leaping across the kitchen to her. Ugh! That girl. I was so not ready for this. She is barely thirteen months. Why is she in such a hurry to grow up?
 

I was cutting the kids' valentines last week and heard a clangy sound, I looked up to see her helping herself the the m&m's. My camera was sitting right next to her on the buffet so I snapped a few pics of her. They are blurry because I was sort of in a panic and didn't want to mess with camera settings and risk her falling and I didn't dare step back far enough to show just how high the stool is. Little stinker.

(For the record, she does own clothes and I do dress her. This just happened to be after she smeared oatmeal across her pj's and before her bath.)

Sweet Saturday

We had a sweet Saturday. There were NO games, so I had a husband for most of the day (there was a b-ball dinner in the evening) and that already made for a pretty sweet Saturday, but last Saturday was even sweeter because we had the chance to visit the temple. My sister was sealed to her husband and baby boy and we were able to be there. It had been a while since I had been to the temple and it was perfectly beautiful, just what I needed to refuel and recharge.

Onyx was so happy during the sealing. He never stopped smiling. He kept looking above the alter at the chandelier and into the big mirrors and cooing and laughing. It was so sweet, I was bawling my eyes out.

This picture is overexposed, but I love it anyway.

Heart Day Happenings

I don't go all-out for V-day. Chris used to buy me flowers on Valentine's Day, after a few years I asked him not to. I love flowers as much as the next girl, but I'd rather he suprise me with them when he is feeling especially enamored with me, rather than buying them out of obligation because it's Valentine's Day and that's what he's suppose to do. Call me a party pooper if you want, but I don't completely poop out on the holiday. We decked out the buffet in pink and red and we "heart-attacked" our kitchen a couple of weeks ago (an idea I saw here).  It was such a fun activity, we will definitely be making it a new tradition at our house. We've loved reading and re-reading our love notes to each other the last few weeks.

We made the same Valentine's as we did last year. They are fun, and easy. I copied this version, but the idea originally came from her. (I can't say I know her personally, but I stalk her blog and I think she's pretty awesome. She has five kids and she knits the most incredible creations).








This year Valentine's Day was especially fun because the kids happened to have the day off from school. The girls woke me up nice and early and suprised me with pink heart shaped pancakes. They even cleaned up their cooking mess (mostly). They were still feeling especially ambitious after breakfast and wanted to bake cookies and deliver them to a list of friends, and since I don't even need a good reason to bake, I was happy to facilitate the project. A little later in the evening, we made heart shaped homemade pretzels, and chicken fried steak for dinner (a random combination, but it was a hit).

Interruption

I am interrupting my 2010 catch-up posts to do a quick recap of our January since February is already upon us and will soon be half over. Why am I always behind?

To be completely honest, January was a hard month for me, and so far February hasn't provided a reprieve. I've been feeling a little down and have been hosting all too frequent pity-parties for myself. I'm not sure, but I think it's a combination of several factors.....if you're up for hearing me ramble, read on, if you'd rather skip the whining part then just scroll down and enjoy the pics.

I always find it a smidge depressing when the hype and excitement of the Holidays are over. I love Christmas break. I love having my kids home with me I love having Chris home with me. My parents are teachers, so they even get a long break over the Holidays and we get to see lots of them.
Have I mentioned it's basketball season?....Let me just paint a quick picture of what that means. It means practice every single weeknight, and games every weekend. It means late practice every other week, which means no husband home to help with homework, dinner and the bedtime routine (I do realize that there are like millions of other moms who do the solo thing all the time, but it gets exhausting and lonely)
In years past, we use to be number one basketball fans and rarely missed a game, but the combination of Owen and Ava make that impossible. We all know about Owen and his wandering and fire-alarm pulling tendencies. He really is getting tons better, but for every bit of improvement he has made, Ava has become harder tenfold, she is entirely too mobile. She obsesses over scaling the bleachers. She has no problem stealing popcorn and pop from nearby strangers, and if I try to restrain her from either the stealing or the bleacher scaling, she throws a tantrum I wouldn't even believe a barely one-year old could even pull off....so, we usually stay home and are thankful if we are able to watch the live feed of Chris's games on the t.v.....and most of the time I'm ok with that, You see, I'm a homebody by nature, a hermit, a recluse. I am most comfortable and happy at home. It takes a lot before I start to feel symptoms of cabin fever, but I think they've been creeping in and I've been feeling a little stir crazy. I kept it at bay for quite a while, I busied myself de-cluttering and sorting out neglected closets and baking....and then baking some more, things like cookies and cinnamon rolls and more cookies. Sadly after a while, even mass quantities of cookies weren't keeping the cabin fever at bay and I started to feel guilty that everyone else was starting eat-healthy new year's resolutions and I was doing just the opposite and I began to fear that my already snug jeans were no longer going to zip.....so I cut myself off from sugar thinking that would surely boost my spirits. But then I started baking bread because wheat bread is waaaay better for you than cookies, right?...even if you slather it with honey and butter? Honey doesn't count as sugar, does it? I mean technically it comes from flowers that grow on plants, just like fruit and even vegetables, right?....so I've been having all of this inner-turmoil and dialogue and I've been wondering why I don't seem to keep up with it all like I want to and why sometimes I am a total crab and snappy and just not really very nice. I'm trying to prioritize. I make sure I'm up in the mornings before everyone else so I have time to read my scriptures and pray before the morning madness hits of getting everyone out the door, but I'm still struggling. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's hormones, maybe I'm just ready for the change in dynamics that the end of basketball season will bring.
So anyway, thanks for listening. I know it sounds a whole lot like I'm complaining, but I'm really not. I have so much to be thankful for and I truly am grateful, but I also want to be real and document what I've been feeling so maybe someday when I forget, I can look back and remember.....you know, just in case I forget and wonder how I handled it all so well, now I'll be able to read this and remind myself that I didn't.

Ok, on to the fun side of our January.....

I'll probably regret it someday, but I let Owen play with his food at lunchtime. He really misses his sisters during the day and sometimes he gets really bored and it's freezing outside, so I figure playing with his food adds a little excitement to his day and fosters creativity......or something.....

green olives stuck onto a spaghetti noodle....

Ava thinks Owen walks on water. She looks at him with stars in her eyes.

His chainsaw does a stellar job at cutting cheese;)

He always wants to stir the macaroni.


So, one afternoon Owen bit off a piece of a foam block then proceeded to shove it up his nose. I tried several times unsuccessfully to remove it. It was wedged up there pretty high. In the end I waited for Chris to come home and he held him still while I dug it out. Once I got it out, I couldn't believe how big it was.

Everytime I wipe down Ava's tray she grabs the rag and puts it in her head. She thinks she is sooo funny.

She also thinks she is pretty funny when she turns the tv off.....

Random Lily.

One day I looked over and saw Owen smooching my computer screen. He was wearing his sister's lip gloss.....Today he wore glitter in his hair to school, he put it in when I wasn't watching. He had already had a bath and there wasn't time for me to bathe him again, so he went to school sparkling. Should I be worried? He may wear lip gloss and sparkles occasionally, but the vast majority of the time, he weilds a paint-stirring stick "sword" and insists on being reffered to as Spiderman.

Luckily he has a soft side when it comes to his baby "Aba," these pictures probably should have been first since they are from the beginning of January, but whatever....anyway, it was after church one Sunday night, he was eating yogurt and Ava really wanted some. 

He was happy to share.


Ava is looking at Chris and signing "more" in this picture.

She is completely unaware that Owen is already holding out a bite for her and patiently waiting for her to eat it.

Between these pics, Owen gets tired of waiting for Ava to turn around and take the bite he's holding out, so he eats it, but then Ava turns around ready for her bite so he quickly holds out the spoon for her, except now it's empty. oops.