Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty

Joseph and I just had a great time looking at this blog. It is written by an illustrator father and shows the artwork of his kids. For the blog's third anniversary professional illustrators chose pictures to recreate in their own style.

Via Shannon Hale's squeetus blog

Flowers, Peekaboo, and Strollers

Flowers
Emily, Joseph, and Caleb went for a walk while I was at a church thing and picked me these flowers. Flowers are scarce around here. Aren't they pretty? Isn't Emily pretty?

Peekaboo
We put Emily and Caleb to bed a little early on Saturday night, so they weren't as sleepy as normal. We heard Emily giggling and then laughing outright and wondered what was up. Then we heard Caleb laughing along and couldn't resist taking a peak. Emily had climbed onto the railings on the side of Caleb's crib and was playing peek-a-boo with him. He loved it! Those two laughing together is one of my favorite sounds in the world.

Strollers
Emily has a doll stroller that she loves... a little too much. She likes to sit in it, ignoring the tags telling the consumer that the stroller is not for real babies.

Today my naptime project was fixing the stroller. I changed the two stitches per inch to 12 stitches per inch and the 25 thread-count cotton for some sturdy upholstery fabric. It's true that my sewing professor would probably have a heart-attack if she saw this, but I'm not being graded on my sewing any more so I can construct things as poorly as I wish. (It is an improvement from what it was though. I think it'll be able to support Emily's weight a little better.)
PS - sewing fabric that is attached to a stroller frame is now among the ten things that I least like doing.

Bonus announcement: Caleb's getting his two top teeth! He can also sit up from lying down now and he is getting close to crawling.

Learning to Crawl

Pictures!

Last time I took Emily and Caleb in for pictures Caleb was way too young to do anything. This time he was the star of the show and Emily was a grumpy old lady. Here are a few of the better ones.
What a cutie!

Emily's seductive model pose. It kinda looks like a high school senior year portrait too.
Probably one of the only real smiles by Emily we captured on film.

Hunger Strike

I've mentioned in a couple of posts that Caleb has been sick. Because of this, he stopped eating for about a week and would only nurse. This was kind of unpleasant for me because that meant he started waking up at night to eat again. :(
Good news though! The hunger strike is over!
He started eating a little bit yesterday and had a pretty good-sized lunch today. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end!

This is us at lunchtime. I take turns helping Emily scoop food onto her fork and feeding Caleb.This is Emily, so proud that she put the bib on her doll and managed to get her into Caleb's seat. I'd say she's about ready for a baby of her own!

Emily's fingers are always in her mouth lately. I think it's because her two-year molars are coming through.

First Day of School

I have missed school these last two years. I love being a mother and I love spending time with my little family, but every fall I feel like the semester is starting without me. After a lot of thought and planning, I decided to take an anatomy class this semester at the local community college. My mom kindly offered to fund this experiment, for which I am very grateful. The first day was Tuesday and I am headed off to my second day this evening. I am excited to learn some new things and start exercising my brain again!

A Water Truck

Sometimes the firefighters do drills in the little parking lot by our apartment. Today as Emily and I were taking out the recycling they were testing the hydrant and practicing connecting the hose. Emily was really scared at first, but the firefighters were so nice and she really likes to play with water so she warmed up to it pretty quickly. She kept calling the fire truck a water truck which made the firefighters laugh because it does make sense. I didn't have my camera (phone) with me while we were outside, but as soon as we got inside she ran to the window and watched until they were done with their drills.
I was going through the pictures on my phone today and found this one of Emily.
Yeah, it's a weird angle and all blurry, but isn't she just gorgeous? I love this kid. I also found this old picture which made me laugh. It was the first time she'd been able to climb up onto a big bike and she was pretty surprised and pleased with herself.
Here's our other kid who looks like Golem in this picture.
That one didn't make it into my evolution of cuteness post. Too creepy.
He's been sick lately so has been rejecting solids and only nursing. He used to eat so much too. Look at this.
Maybe he won't be in the 97th percentile at his next well child check.

A Glimpse

A glimpse into our home on Sunday evening...


Messy but so awesome. I love it.

My excuse

Wow. It's been a while since I've posted. Why did I ever let it go so long?
Well, let's get down to business.
We had an eventful weekend. We went to the park and played in the pool.











Caleb and Emily played in the bathtub together. So cute!











Oh yeah. That might be why we haven't posted. Our poor camera has slowly been dying and it finally quit working altogether. You may have noticed that I rely rather heavily on pictures to tell my stories and they are no longer available to me. We'll have to use cell phone pictures for a while, I'm afraid.
Okay, so let's see. Caleb has been sick today and yesterday, but we still had to go to church because of callings and some other things that were going on. Needless to say, he was exhausted when we got home (we left this morning at 8:15 and got back around 1:15). I took off his pants to change him into a onesie and had to laugh at his knee-high socks. That button-down onesie is my favorite church thing ever. Regular baby shirts come untucked so easily. This onesie has been wonderful.
One of the events requiring us to be at church today was the Relief Society choir number in sacrament meeting. I was the Relief Society chorister for a while (I'm now the pianist) and they asked me to put this together a couple of months ago. It wasn't a big deal, but I was surprisingly stressed about it. We didn't have a lot of time to practice - it was just during the practice hymn time in Relief Society, about 5 minutes a week - and it felt really disorganized. I had a dream on Saturday night that I arrived too late to meet with the girls singing the duet and I forgot to hand out the papers with the instructions and when the time came only about five sisters went up to the stand to sing. It ended up working out really well though. We had the sisters from Primary and Young Women join us and I was very surprised by how nice it sounded. I'm pretty glad that it worked out well and that it's over now.

Emily and Caleb went to play at a friend's house the other day. This in and of itself is not a particularly blog-worthy story, but I loved this little baby conference they convened there! Aren't they so cute in all their seriousness?
It's fun having so many other kids live nearby, even if Emily is always outnumbered by the boys.

And my glasses have taken major beatings on a pretty regular basis since Emily was born. I am constantly having to bend them back into a shape that will stay on my face. I'm sure I will have to replace them soon. Time to add vision to our insurance!

Having two little kids is definitely a challenge. These guys keep me on my toes. But they also bring so much joy to our lives. I love seeing them play together. I love that they chatter back and forth in the car. And I love those golden moments (that unfortunately we can no longer capture on camera) when they figure out how to play happily alone or together without my intervention.

Evolution

I think he's getting cuter. Either that or we're getting better at taking pictures. But I'm pretty sure we're not.

Here he is as a (huge) newborn. March 1st.










And here he is one month later, already looking much improved. I think that's pretty normal for babies though.












Two months (end of May). Maybe not as cute as before, but I had him posed and had natural lighting for the last shot. At least he's smiling here.











Three months. What a cutie! Holding his head up.










Four months, looking a little bewildered/overwhelmed. Newest accomplishment: sitting up when propped.












Five months. Showing off his brand new teeth! Not matching, but happy nonetheless.













And this one was taken five minutes ago. He's now about five and a half months old and such a great baby! Way more relaxed than Emily was, but just as happy.

So, there you have it. Our baby is definitely getting cuter as time passes. He started out a little higher maintenance than Emily, but he has gotten much easier and has been a joy to have in our family. Emily loves having a little baby boy to play with and take care of (by shoving pacifiers in his mouth and trying to take off his clothes when she decides he needs a diaper change).

I would be an alcoholic

I don't think it's smart. I don't envy those who drink. I just know I would do it if it weren't for the Church. Do you know how I know?
These little morsels. When things get a little stressful, or I am having trouble coping, I sneak into the kitchen, pull a few chips out, savor the flavor, and I am sane again. This happens several times a day, probably with increasing frequency as the day progresses. And do you know why I need this crutch?
You guessed it. She makes everything more fun, but also adds to the work and definitely tries my patience. The hardest meals to prepare are the ones that she lends a hand in. ("More more mushies*, mama?")
*mushies = mushrooms

Just an update

I've been trying to come up with an interesting new post for a while now, and... I got nothin'. But I decided to post anyway in part to keep my mother from worrying that something has happened to us.
We will start with what Little Miss Emily has been up to. Really, she is growing up too fast. She loves to be in charge of someone smaller than she is (sorry Caleb) and she loves to "help" us with whatever task she thinks we need done. Dressing up is a favorite activity. Doesn't she just look ready to walk out the door to preschool - or college - in this shot?
And here we have her in her favorite church outfit. Really, every time she dons this magnificent getup she walks to the door and says, "church?"
And maybe it would be churchworthy if it didn't make her look so, um, expectant.
Today we constructed a masterpiece using some butcher paper donated by a neighbor. Isn't the likeness uncanny? (You may have to enlarge this picture to appreciate the details.) And no, I did not threaten Emily with corporal punishment to get her to pose there, that's just how she looks when she has her picture taken. It's worse when I tell her to smile, trust me.
Emily has been working on taking pictures. Isn't she a natural?














And finally, she has chosen three new favorite toys.
One was sorta fragile.
Thank goodness for Krazy Glue and my mad gluing skills.

The rest of the family has been fine. Caleb is growing like crazy. He is eating more baby food than Emily ever did and has recently figured out how to sit up. He is getting better at entertaining himself and napping. The UT semester is about to start up again and Joseph is taking a couple of classes but mainly focusing on his research and dissertation.

For my birthday

This probably isn't the neatest thing I've ever seen on YouTube, but it ranks pretty high. I really want to try it.

C is for Cooper

Today was the final day of Emily's birthday celebration. We were planning to have neighbors over for cake and ice cream but then we realized we forgot to buy ice cream so we just decorated and delivered cupcakes. Emily did the deliveries and was so cute!

There was some cupcake frosting left so Joseph decided to frost the cake. Unfortunately there was not enough of a single color to do it uniformly and I had already eaten a chunk of the cake. I think the result was almost cakewrecks worthy.

And finally, here is a great shot for Emily's posterity of her enjoying some birthday ice cream.
Or maybe this is really an angry old man yelling at the neighbor kids...

So, we really did buy some ice cream but it was the Snickers cone kind and there were only six so it wouldn't work for a party.

Jogging and Couponing

Being a parent of two young children can be a stressful thing, so Joseph and I have come up with ways to help us stay sane. My major stress-reliever is jogging most mornings. Even though it makes me tired, it makes me happy and I am able to deal better with Emily's increasing grumpiness. She's at a difficult age right now.
I realized today that Joseph's spirit-lifting activity is grocery shopping with coupons. That's right folks! We have a couponer in the family and it's not me! As much as I have tried to get into it I can't but Joseph can and he's good at it and he loves it! He comes back just beaming and bursting to tell me about the good deals he managed to get. I've seriously thought about saving his receipts and making a scrapbook for him. I think looking through that scrapbook might give him a similar high when he's not able to do the shopping.