Sigh.

First of all, Grandma, this one's for you. I ordered the kids a few things on sale from Children's Place. I got these adorable shoes for Weston. They look SO cute on him. I can't get over it. I paid $4.25 for them. Totally worth it. He posed this picture all by himself too. What a ham.
This weekend Weston went to a big kid birthday party. I ended up staying instead of just dropping him off because it was about half an hour from home, but he did pretty well. It was a fun water party, so all the little boys ran around squirting each other with water guns, throwing water balloons, and jumping in and out of the pool.

I have to be honest, going to that party made me really sad about where we live. I really love my house, but there are seriously no kids in our neighborhood. I hope hope that when Weston starts preschool in the fall he will make a few good friends that live a lot closer to us. In the meantime I am willing to keep driving far away to play with the friends we do have.

I really felt the need to blog tonight even though we haven't been doing too much exciting stuff lately simply because I need to vent. I have been SO short on patience lately. My sweet Davin is such a busy baby. He is making me want to rip my hair out. One of his new favorite things is to sneak into the bathroom (on the random times that I happen to leave one of the bathroom doors open) and unroll all the toilet paper and play in the toilet. He inevitably manages to do this within hours of me putting a brand new, full roll of TP in the bathroom. I totally lost it when he did it again today. I had JUST finished using all the unrolled TP off the floor of my bathroom this morning and he got to the new roll. I reacted in a decidedly un-Sabbath day like manner. Oops. I feel bad that I lost my temper. It's just this age where they do all this naughty stuff, but don't really understand punishments. The other thing that drives me nuts is that he spits his drinks out all over himself/the floor. I give him a sippy and a few minutes later I come back and he's soaked.

I know this is just normal one year old stuff, but it is seriously getting to me. Arg. On the good news side, Weston has been doing better the last few days with not having accidents. It got to the point where he was having accidents every single day. I didn't end up taking him to Jumpin Jacks on Friday because he pooped in his pants. We had a big talk about him acting like a baby, so I would treat him like a baby. He freaked out when I tried to put him in one of Davin's diapers and was disgusted that I was going to make him eat baby food. The kicker was that he couldn't go to his friend's birthday party if he had any accidents. He had a couple close calls, but he made it and we have been accident free since. Hopefully the threat of being a baby was enough. We'll see how this week goes.

I'm sure part of my frustrations are my own fault, so my goals this week are:
1. Get to bed by 10:30pm every night this week
2. Get up and exercise every day this week
3. Make plans for playing with friends
4. Spend more time outside with the kids when we get bored and annoyed with each other
5. React calmly and adult-like to the kids' bad behavior.
6. Pray more.

Randomness

I have felt very off this week because of the Monday holiday. Today being Friday really snuck up on me. We have kept pretty busy. We had some friends come play with us on Tuesday all afternoon. Dawnie was a dear and stayed with my kids while I went to pick up other friends from the airport. Ian worked super late that night, so I had some down time.

Wednesday we just cleaned and baked and went to the library. I juiced and zested lemons for the first time and then made this delicious recipe for Lemon Poppyseed bread. I added mixed berry yogurt instead of plain and cut down to about 1 T of lemon zest and it was delish. Davin seriously devoured it. Weston was so funny and told me he didn't want any while it was baking because he doesn't like lemons. When it was done and I was eating a slice and feeding it to Davin, Weston said, "I was just kidding Mom. I do want some of that bread." What a silly kid.
Yesterday we drove down to the dinosaur museum with Tara and her kids. We had a great time. It was nice that we all piled into Tara's van for the drive too because we moms got some chat time. Weston and Makenzie really do play so well together.
Today I am going to take the kids to Jumpin Jacks since I have a coupon for it to be free. In the meantime we have been watering the grass, practicing baseball, watching movies, reading books, and blowing bubbles. I am trying to take full advantage of the gorgeous 80 degree weather we have been having.

Davin is still not walking and I am SO ready for him to be, so I need to start practicing more with him. He says mama, dada, wow, and rawr (when he's playing with dinosaurs). This video is from a couple weeks ago, but it's so cute and you can hear Davin saying his "wow."

Jam Packed

For a weekend with no big plans we sure were busy. We had planned to spend most of the weekend working on the yard. And by we, I mostly mean Ian. Saturday morning Ian went and rented an aerator. He had it for 2 hours and got all our front and back lawns aerated. Then he took it back and went and bought grass seed and a bale of hay. He seeded the lawns (I helped a little bit) and we spread hay over the backyard grass (to keep it moist) while the boys were napping. After that we were mostly done. It just needed watering, but since my handy hubby had fixed the sprinkler system it was not a problem.

Saturday afternoon we all went to the park to play. It was actually a little chilly, so we didn't stay too long, but the boys sure enjoyed getting out. Sunday I had a YW presidency meeting after church that ran pretty long because we were working on planning camp. We ended up last minute inviting friends over to play games that night. It was really fun. We taught them Mormon Bridge. It's a great game.

Monday Ian wanted to weed whack some of the forest of weeds in the driveway, but it was maybe supposed to rain. The day ended up being sunny and mostly clear. We decided to all go to Farm Country at TP. Daddy had never been with us, so that was really fun. We let Davin go on his first pony ride. He looked mildly happy the whole time, but didn't cry when it was over or anything like that. Weston was a pony riding champ, as usual. My picture is a little blurry, but if you make it big you can see the expression Davin had the entire ride.
Weston wasn't as into feeding the animals this time, but the boys did have fun playing in the jail.
There were two brand new day old foals at the farm yesterday too. They were so cute and gangly. It was fun to see them. We all went on a wagon ride too. It was much less bumpy and windy than last time, so I had a good time.
After the farm we went out to lunch. I really do love hanging out with my family. It's extra fun now that Davin is getting so big and can play too. It was great having Ian with us for our outing. That afternoon Ian worked on the yard some more while I obsessively read Angels and Demons. It is so hard to put down. The boys took naps. When they woke up Ian suggested we go to the pool, so we got all our stuff together and went. It was the opening weekend of the outdoor pools at the fitness center, so I expected it to be insanely packed, but it wasn't too terrible. Davin was happy in his new floatie and Weston just wore arm floaties and showed off his swimming skills to Daddy. I got to wear my new bathing suit, which I LOVE.

We ate dinner a little late, so as soon as I finished dishes I had to dash off to help the YW take down flags (we do flags in peoples' yards as a fundraiser for camp). Davin was exhausted, so I asked Ian to help Weston get toys cleaned up and put Davin to bed. Well, when I got back about half an hour later, the house was spotless, there was a fresh cut rose in a bud vase on the table, Davin was asleep, Weston was in jammies, and there was a babysitter here. Ian and I went and saw Angels and Demons. It was so incredibly great. Earlier in the day I had said that I wanted to go see a movie or something, you know, go on a date. Ian totally made it happen. What a wonderful end to the weekend!

Deals-Part III

I have been scanning the ksl.com classifieds for the past few days looking for a swing set. While on there I have also been checking for dining room tables since we have only 2 real chairs that don't match our table. I really wanted a set that matched and had 4 chairs. Weston can't sit in folding chairs and I don't want to put the booster seat for Davin on a folding chair either. It wasn't the highest thing on the priority list though, so I was just looking for a sweet deal. Well, yesterday I found it. We got this used (but in really good shape) set for $25. That's right.
The table is a few inches narrower than our old table, but it works for our little family right now. We relocated the set more into the middle of the room. So far I LOVE it. In a few months we will start putting Davin at the table with us too. I listed our old table and chairs on ksl this morning for $20, so we may even end up almost breaking even.

Getting Out

This week has been pretty rough. Especially the last few days. Davin has been throwing up and not feeling good, therefore not being content and happy. Weston has been having accidents all over the place. I have felt very isolated and been in pain too. I was at the end of my rope by Wednesday night after Weston had pooped in his pants during quiet time, then dumped it in his trash, changed his underwear, took a nap, and didn't tell me until we were playing in his room at dinner time. That was a fun clean up. I was so mad, but I felt like I had nothing in my arsenal. I didn't know how to punish him. About an hour after that I fed Davin dinner. Before I even finished he just yakked ALL of it. It was disgusting. Another nasty clean up.

I know that this is all just a part of my job, but seriously, it gets old real fast. I was feeling very alone in it all too. Ian does a great job providing for our family and taking care of things around our house, but he will just never understand this part of my life. It's not his fault. He can choose to help out when he is home, or stay with the kids to give me a break, but I don't get to choose. Even if I am surrounded by other people, I am the one responsible. Sigh. Moms get that. Dads don't.

Luckily we had plans to hang out with friends on Thursday morning. Despite Davin not feeling great we ventured to Gardner Village. It was a gorgeous morning. The kids played and enjoyed the sunshine and feeding the ducks while Tara and I got to talk. I really needed that.
My friend, Wendi's, store Posh Frippery is closing at the end of the month. I found a fun gift for my mom at her shop and it was fun to see her. We also went for a nice walk yesterday. I am loving the warm, but not sweltering hot, weather. I managed to make it to the gym this morning for the first time in over a week. It felt good.

I decided to make Davin a doctor's appointment even though he didn't throw up at all yesterday. Sure enough, nothing wrong. Well, probably a stomach bug or something, but nothing specifically diagnosable or treatable, so just keep doing what I was doing. I'm hoping he will sleep it off today and be back to his normal self tomorrow.

We are working on our yard this weekend. Ian is going to aerate the lawn, then lay grass seed. He has been working so hard all week getting the sprinkler system all repaired and working with a timer! I hope the seed grows and the lawn looks better by the end of the summer than it does now.

Next on the agenda is to clean up the house, eat lunch, and plan a girls night! I for sure could use one. Anyone else up for it?

Things I Need to be Doing:
-eating lunch
-vacuuming
-paying bills
-reading my scriptures
-taking the kids to the park
-taking a nap
-researching horrendous punishments for the 3 year old. ;)
-reading Angels & Demons so I can go see the movie
-folding laundry

Things I Am Doing:
-blogging
-waiting for my egg salad to chill in the fridge
-giving Weston kisses
-taking advantage of Davin napping
-listening to the dishwasher doing its work
-trying to find last night's episode of SYTYCD somewhere on hulu or pirate bay
-worrying
-stretching out my tense muscles

Ideas

I am feeling almost back to normal. We didn't really leave the house yesterday though, so today will be the test of my energy levels. We are going to attempt the library and Walmart. Not major grocery shopping Walmart, just a few random things. I am bored still, so if anyone wants to hang out this week let me know.

We passed 90 degrees yesterday and I couldn't sleep last night because I was so hot. I am going to have to dig out the fans from the garage today and pump in the cooler night air tonight. I am so excited for the outdoor pool to open this weekend! We will for sure have to check it out. I couldn't resist posting this adorable picture I took of Davin yesterday. He just all of a sudden looks like such a big boy! Still not walking, but he's getting closer every day. It probably won't be long now.
As for the ideas that I am looking for. I got my produce box this morning. It was a good mix of things that we like and will use: lemons, apples, pears, lettuce, baby carrots, broccoli, and then this. I have no idea what to do with this bunch of raw beets. I have been scouring allrecipes.com, but so far haven't seen anything that looks remotely appetizing. Does anyone have any ideas of what to do with beets? I can only remember ever eating canned beets on salad as a kid.
In other food news I actually ate solid food yesterday! I ate scrambled eggs, hash browns and toast. It tasted so good. I still have to eat softer food since it hurts to chew hard, but it is encouraging to be able to eat something other than yogurt and slim fast. I am slowly trying to get my house in order and start feeding my family again. Also, I forgot to mention it earlier, but Weston passed his Tot 1 swim class! That means when we do our end of summer sessions he will be in the next class up. I am so proud of him for sticking it out and doing so well, even if he was a little nervous about some of the skills. I am also letting go of any and all guilt that I had from making him get in the pool when he was crying.

Do Not Operate Heavy Machinery

Light machinery, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable. Feel free to do all the laundry, dishes, and baking you feel like while on narcotics. I am actually only on ibuprofen at the moment, but wish I was on something stronger. I am feeling pretty good post-wisdom teeth extraction, but certainly not 100% yet. It is my first day on my own with the kids. I hope we all survive. It's 10:15am and Weston is already bored. Not sure what to do with him all day.
I am slightly swollen, but not too bad. No major chipmunk cheeks.
I still can't really eat anything solid that requires chewing. I am considering this a good thing for my weight loss strategy, but I am getting rather hungry. I didn't do much this weekend, obviously. I did go to Sacrament meeting yesterday. It wore me out. I am laying low today, but I'm bored, so if you find yourself with some extra time, call me. :) I planned to be more witty and cohesive in this post, but it's just not coming. I must still be a little out of it. Just wanted y'all to know I'm alive and kicking.

Impending Pain

In less than 24 hours I will be getting my wisdom teeth out. Probably most of you have already had yours out and are thinking I'm such a big baby, but I am nervous. I have never been under general anesthesia before. I am mostly nervous about a non-hospital, non-nurse giving me an IV. I tend to not do so well with needles.

I am lucky that so many of my friends are helping me out since Ian can't take tomorrow off work. I have Cindy driving me to and from my appointment. She is the lucky one since she will more than likely be privy to all my deepest darkest secrets as I babble post-anesthesia. Becca is my lifesaver and is going to spend the entire day at my house watching my kids. Finally, my friend, Danielle, will be taking Weston to his last swimming lesson. Hopefully she won't have to deal with any fits.

Things I am looking forward to:
-not having to change diapers this weekend
-drug-induced sleep
-potential weight loss from not being able to eat anything solid
-ice cream (probably preventing any weight loss)
-catching up on all my shows
-snuggle time with my kids
-reading time
-naps, naps, naps

In other Shannon news, I have come down with a cold. Blah. I figure I am going to be down for the weekend anyway, why not add one more ailment to the mix. Also, we signed up for a fresh grocery home delivery service about a month ago. We get an organic produce box every other week. Last week I received this:
Last night I finally got around to turning it into this: Baked Fennel with Parmesan.
It was delicious. Ian loved it. Now I have a go-to recipe if we get fennel in our box again. If you are interested in getting an organic produce box too, check it out HERE. If you do sign up, mention my name and phone number as a referral!

Happy Mother's Day!

Last night as I was tucking Weston in . . .
Me: Do you know what tomorrow is?
Weston: Mother's Day!
Me: That's right!
Weston: Are you going to just sleep and sleep and sleep?
Me: (laughing) Nope, I'm going to get up and get ready for church church church.
Weston: Oh well I guess I'll get up and get ready for church church too.

Apparently my Saturday sleep-in made an impression. I did end up sleeping in a bit more than normal for a Sunday morning. It was a fabulous Mother's Day. Ian got me some books about motherhood that I wanted and the movie Princess Bride. My Young Women's lesson went really well, and Davin behaved well enough that we made it all the way through Sunday school without ending up in the hall. Unfortunately I forgot Davin's binki and burp cloth on our way out the door, so Ian ended up taking him home halfway through Sacrament since he was inconsolable. I got my first kid-made Mother's Day present. It was a cute beaded necklace with a picture of Weston as the pendant. I also got a gorgeous red flowering plant at the end of church.

Our friends blessed their baby today, so after church Weston and I went to the park for a little luncheon. Weston loved getting to run around at the park and I enjoyed the chat time. Ian was so wonderful and stayed home while Davin slept and slept and slept. We video chatted with the Bowles clan. I locked myself in the bedroom and talked to my mommy for a while. Ian made me a delicious dinner of spaghetti with browned butter and mizithra and asparagus. Yummo. We all played Zingo. Now I am having some quiet time. It really was a perfect Mother's Day.

As difficult as it is to be a mom sometimes I wouldn't trade it for the world. I love my boys. They are so cute and sweet. I have a wonderful, supportive husband. I am blessed. Happy Mother's Day to all!

Murphy's Law

Thanks for all your advice about the swimming lessons. We are powering through. Friday Weston started crying and telling me he wanted to go home and take a nap as I was trying to take his shirt and sandals off at swimming lessons. I held him and tried to explain to him that he didn't have to do anything in the water he didn't want to, and he should tell his teacher if he didn't want to do something. Turns out his teacher wasn't there on Friday and he had two girls as subs. I pulled my clinging, crying 3 year off me and put him in the pool. Within 2 minutes he was smiling and totally fine. To me, this is further proof that this current teacher is affecting his attitude towards swimming lessons. He was great the whole rest of the 40 minute lesson and was beaming when he got out.

Success. So we go get dried off, get Weston dressed, and head out to go home to put Davin down for a much needed nap. I get to the car and can't find my keys. Crap. I must have locked them in the car. I looked in all the windows and didn't see them. I must have locked them in the trunk when I was getting out the stroller. I hate having to call Ian and tell him that, once again, I have been lame and locked my keys in the car, but my options were limited, so I made the call. He came over from work and opened the trunk. No keys. Search the car. No keys. Re-trace all my steps. No keys.

I still have no idea what happened to them. Since a criminal would have found the keys and promptly stolen the car, or at least the stereo, I am assuming that some punk teenager found them and chucked them over a fence somewhere just to be annoying. Needless to say, I am very saddened to have lost my keys. Sigh.

That evening we went down to BYU to watch my cousin, Blake, pitch. This was the last home series, so we won't see him play again until next year. It was really quite fun. There was a balloon guy there, so Weston ended up with 3 balloon swords by the end of the evening. He also hounded Cosmo again and got a hug, a high five, a pound it, and a picture. After that we made him leave Cosmo alone.
I had already decided that since we have early church on Sunday, I would sleep in on Saturday for Mother's Day. It was great until Ian woke me up at 8:30 with "Happy Mother's Day the fridge is dead." Since Ian gets paid every 2 weeks we end up with an "extra" paycheck a couple times a year. This month is one of those times. We already had this money all spent in our heads, so, of course the fridge would die. I guess we will have to wait a little longer to get a swing set.

One of my young women came over around noon to watch the boys while Ian and I went refrigerator shopping. We ended up decided to buy an older, used fridge because it fit better in our budget, rather than the new energy star rated fridge at Lowe's. This new fridge looks almost exactly the same as our old one from the outside, but has nicer shelving inside and a deli drawer. So far I like it. The new configuration will take a little getting used to though.

Ian and I were supposed to go on a date tonight to the temple, but we didn't get the new fridge in and food transferred over until about 4:30 and the house (specifically the kitchen) was a wreck, so we decided to stay home and put things back together. We are both bushed. It was a busy day.

I wanted to also share what I loved about Thanksgiving Point Farm Country this week:

Our totally rockin, cool carriage ride. Apparently when it's not crowded they give rides in this. Even though Weston's not smiling he loved riding in this comfy carriage.
Eating a Creamy before heading home. You can buy them there for 50 cents apiece. Not a bad deal.
Watching a worker feeding a tiny baby goat from a bottle. So adorable. (No pic of it though)

I hope everyone has a very Happy Mother's Day tomorrow and gets to relax and get pampered by the hubbies and kidlets. I know I am looking forward to a nice day tomorrow and I sure hope my mommy and MIL know how much I love and appreciate them and all, ALL they do.

Boy Stuff

A quick update as to what we have been doing with our days this week/last weekend. This past Saturday we spent the evening having dinner and playing with our friends, the Miller's. They are just so much fun and it had been months since we had gotten together. They taught us how to play Ticket to Ride. We really enjoyed it. If you are looking for something to get us for whatever reason . . . that would be fun. I hardly saw Weston the whole time we were there because he was busy playing with all the new toys in the basement and watching movies. Weston was especially enthralled with this. I thought he looked so funny in it. It made his head look like it was half his body. If you are looking for something to get Weston . . . he would love it.
Monday brought the start of round two of swimming lessons. It was less successful. Weston had a new teacher and a new group of somewhat older kids. He got his head dunked a couple times and was just not having as much fun. About 10 minutes before the end of his class he started crying and said he needed to go potty. He didn't. When I asked what was wrong he just said he wanted to go home and take a nap. I put him back in the pool after trying to get him to calm down, but he pretty much cried the rest of class and tried to get out a few times. I was pretty frustrated. He had zero reactions like this in his first session of swimming lessons. I don't know if the teacher is less kid fun or if he is having to do more actual swimming skills or what. Needless he came home, ate lunch, and went straight down for a 2 hour nap.

Anyway, that afternoon I had told Weston that we could go and buy some paint for his wooden truck that he made back in October with Grandpa Bob. He has been asking to paint it for months. So we hit up Michael's and left with red, green, and blue paint. For our FHE activity Daddy helped Weston paint and I kept Davin out of it. Weston had a great time working on his truck. That tongue was out the entire time.
I will post finished product pictures when he is done painting the bottom and gets the wheels back on it. I also took this picture of Davin on Monday afternoon. He was just looking so cute and grown up. He is getting really close to walking. I give him a few more weeks. (Notice the tongue on Weston while he was playing a computer game).
Yesterday we went back to the aquarium and it was practically empty. We had a better time exploring everything and Weston said his favorite thing was watching "that big, red octopus." I was happy he thought the sea creature was cool. Afterward we went to Chick Fil A for a shake and some play time in the empty playplace. It was a nice afternoon.

Flash forward to this morning. I told Weston that if he didn't cry and stayed in the pool during his swimming lesson then I would take him to the Thanksgiving Point Farm Country this afternoon. He did much better. He still cried a little bit after the first head dunking, but he calmed himself down and didn't cry the rest of the lesson and stayed in the pool. I think he earned his outing. However, he is still sleeping. I put him down for a nap again right after lunch and he's out. I might have to go wake him up if we want to have time for an outing.

So there you have it. That is what we have been up to. Any advice for the swimming lesson issues?

Musical Thoughts

This weekend our ward held a talent show. I felt completely guilty a month ago that I hadn't signed our family up to do anything, so the last week the sign-up went around I put us down without any specifics as to what we would be doing. I mentioned to Ian that I had put our family on the sign-up. I was thinking we could sing something with Ian playing the guitar. We ended up choosing to do a duet of "Falling Slowly." This song won an Oscar a few years ago and is from the movie "Once."

For the last couple weeks we have been practicing. It has been so much fun to sing together with Weston running circles around us and attempting to sing along. I learned all the harmonies to sing back up. Ian was the star of the show. He was so excited to be getting his "guitar fingers" back. I love that my husband is so musically talented. He played his guitar and sang with me all the time when we were dating. It was one of the things that attracted me to him. Getting ready for this tiny ward talent show brought back some of that dating spark . . . if you know what I mean. ;)

So Friday night rolled around and we were ready to perform. When we were practicing right before we left Weston wanted to know what he could sing. I asked him what he wanted to sing and he replied "I am a Child of God." Well no arguing with that.

We were the last act of the evening. Weston got up on the stage and sang like a pro while I accompanied and Ian sang along with him. It was so adorable. I was so proud of him. When he was done Ian and I did our song and it went really well. I hit all my notes and we didn't mess up any words. We got lots of compliments on it. Most people were surprised that Ian sang.

I have always loved music. It has always been a part of my life. I have been singing for as long as I can remember. I took piano lessons for years. Several of those years I hated having to get up and practice at 6am before school, and I begged my mom to let me quit, but THANK YOU mom for saying no. I am so grateful that I nurtured my musical talents. I love having a piano in my house where I sit down several times a week and play and sing Primary songs with, or to, my kids. It brings the spirit to my home and to my heart.

I am so grateful that I can be of service with my talents. My ward doesn't have lots of piano players, so I get my share of opportunities to play. I also help out by singing in the ward choir. My next step is to volunteer for a special musical number.

I guess my point is that I am just so grateful for the gift of music in my life. I hope that I will always make it a constant in my home and in my life.