My Baby is 3!

3 years ago today it was a Sunday and I gave birth to my first child. It was love at first sight. Weston has been an ideal first child. He was a perfect, sweet, mellow baby who slept tons. Not much has changed. He is such a fun kid. He loves to help and is a sensitive little man. He is also a goof. He loves treats, doing puzzles, talking, and watching Sesame Street. I love being Weston's mom. I am lucky.

Today I let him pick a birthday outing. He wanted to go back to Kangaroo Zoo. We had been once and he was so excited to go back. We had such a fun time. Our friends, Dawnie and her son Mason, met us there for some serious play time. Weston ran and climbed and jumped to his hearts content for almost 3 hours.

Here is Weston on one of his first slides. The look on his face is priceless.
This is a fun little spot for smaller kids full of blow up animals. Weston likes to jump on the crocodile and fall down a lot.
Weston and Mason spent a lot of their time on this ginormous slide. I was surprised that my non-daring son loved this big slide so much. They also liked to just bounce at the bottom. Cute boys.
Davin was a good boy too. I spent most of the time holding him, but my arms were about to fall off, so he also got some playtime in the 2 and under enclosed area.
He made some new friends. I'm pretty sure he is the oldest baby of the 3, but he's definitely the smallest.
In other Davin news we have had a fun filled week with Davin being sick last weekend. Like running a fever, coughing, vomiting and fussy screaming sick. Finally on Tuesday I took him to the doctor. He has an ear infection in one ear and then his chronic cough is due to reactive airways, so now we are doing twice daily doses of amoxicillan and Flovent inhaler. It is no fun having to do the inhaler, but hopefully it will make his cough disappear.

We have lots of other fun birthday activities coming up during Weston's birthday extravaganza weekend, so look forward to hearing more about the man of the hour!

Living the High Life

Every year on our birthdays Ian's grandparents send us a card with some birthday money. It is something we look forward to. Ian and I never have any trouble knowing just what to spend our money on. Weston, however, is new to the idea of having money to use however he wants. When he opened his birthday card this week he took out the money and I explained that it was his and he could use it to buy something fun.

Yesterday we went out to blow his cash. We had a great time and Weston really enjoyed picking out whatever he wanted at the store. After much indecisiveness and a few picks out of his price range, he ended up splurging, in true male fashion, on a spiffy set of wheels and a new set of golf clubs. They have kept him much more occupied than normal for the last 24 hours. I hope that lasts.

I actually love the golf clubs. They are so cute and even though they come with several pieces and parts, everything fits nicely into the caddy. Weston has yet to actually putt a golf ball into the little hole, but he has had a blast with it nonetheless.

After our spending spree (where Weston also purchased a king size bag of Skittles), the birthday king decided to treat us to a swanky lunch.

It was quite an adventure and I think he now understands the meaning of the money in the card and will look forward to it next year, so THANKS Gram and Papa Squire!

I Want . . .

I am struggling this week with being patient while waiting for the things I want. Ian and I have been toying with the idea of putting our house on the market to see if it sells. If it does there are TONS of amazing houses that we would love to buy. With interest rates so low right now we could do this all for only a couple hundred dollars more per month. Sigh. Unfortunately we don't have enough money saved up to cover moving expenses and earnest money, etc. I am hoping that post-tax return we can make this a reality because I really want this house.
(3127 sq. ft. in Saratoga Springs, Harvest Hills)
or this house . . . (2664 sq. ft. in Herriman)
or this house. (2968 sq. ft. in north Lehi)
In other news I got rear ended on Friday. That was lovely. Before this even happened Ian and I had decided we were going to start the research/hunt for a minivan to replace my little Altima. On Saturday while we waited for a table at Olive Garden on our date, we went and test drove minivans. It was fun. I want this car:
So, with the rear ending, I thought, hmmm . . . maybe the Altima will be totalled and we can just get this new car! Not so. I think we will end up repairing the Altima and then try to sell it or trade it in. In the mean time, I am driving around in a horribly ghetto looking car.

While we're at the wants . . . I want to lose 20 pounds without sacrificing yummy food. Any ideas? :)

First Haircut and More!

This week has been a little more tame than last week. Not quite as much going on. We didn't even leave the house on Tuesday! So, Davin has really dry skin, ectopic dermatitis (in med speak). It is especially bad on his scalp. Poor kid is constantly scratching his head until it bleeds. I haven't known what to do. Lately I have been rubbing baby oil on his head to help keep it moisturized, but it's hard to work through all his hair. Also it makes him look disgusting, like he hasn't had a bath all week. I decided we needed to cut some of that hair off so we could get to his scalp a little more easily. My neighbor cuts hair and said she would do it for me, so yesterday morning my little baby got his first haircut!

Here he is looking a little nervous before she even started cutting!
He was really good about getting his hairs trimmed, but about halfway through his cut he got a little fussy. He was distracted by the water bottle and made it to the end happily enough.
Isn't he handsome? I think his hair looks so great! I'm glad we did a cut, even if it was for medical purposes.
I also had a first: I decorated a cake that actually turned out cute! For our Young Women (our church youth group that I work with) activity on Tuesday night we learned some basic cake decorating techniques and then decorated little cakes. I found a really adorable caterpillar cake that was made with fondant in a book, but I decided to see if I could do it with just decorator's frosting. I thought it turned out really adorable. Unfortunately it didn't make it home looking quite so cute. It took a spill.
Yesterday after Davin's haircut we headed to the Planetarium with Dawnie and Mason. Weston liked it a lot this time. He sat through the entire "Secret of the Cardboard Rocket" movie and enjoyed it. Then he had a blast being a "Mars guy" and jumping off the rocks on the display of what the Martian landscape is like. Here is his cheesy Mars Guy grin.
Today I am home with 3 kids. Sigh. It is always a looong day. It's especially difficult now because Davin will attack the baby if I don't keep a really close eye on everyone. I am looking forward to a fairly quiet weekend home to get some things cleaned up and accomplished.

Jam Packed

That pretty much sums up our Saturday. It was a long, but fun day. We headed out of the house bright at early at 9:30am and headed over to our friends' house to drop off the kids. Thanks Tara for watching the boys! Ian and I went to a "vacation ownership" presentation. It was about what I expected with some very persuasive salesmen. Luckily we don't have any disposable income or I might have been talked into buying. Anyway, we managed to leave without spending $20,000 and yet, not empty handed. We traded our 2 hours of Saturday morning for 2 round trip airline tickets to CA, 2 nights stay in a hotel by Disneyland and a $40 gift card to Olive Garden. Totally worth it.

After picking up the boys we headed down to Thanksgiving Point (with a quick stop off for lunch). We got our official membership to Thanksgiving Point at the office (THANKS Mom and Dad!) then went and met up with some friends at the Dinosaur Museum. Weston and I had been to the dino museum once before, so Weston knew just where he wanted to go. This did mean that he wanted to race by everything else though. Oh well. It only took us an hour to make our way through the entire place. Still definitely a fun destination that I don't think Weston is going to get sick of any time soon.

Here's Weston with the pajama clad dino in the lobby. They were advertising their museum sleepover. Weston thought it was funny that the dinosaur was wearing a hat.
Me and Weston with the huge shark.
Weston playing at the erosion table. Definitely his favorite spot in the museum.
Ian and Wynn giving you an idea of how ginormous that dinosaur behind them really was!
After the museum we headed back to Wynn and Dawnie's house for some quality hang out time. We made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (see the end of this post for the recipe) that were amazing. Seriously, so good. We had fun using Dawnie's new kitchen aid. Then we made our own little pizzas. They turned out good and we had a good time talking and watching TV together.

Dawnie was proud of her dough. I was impressed too. Probably the best homemade pizza I have ever had.
Ian keeping Davin entertained through his extreme tiredness while I helped Dawnie in the kitchen.
After we got the kids all bathed and in bed we watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the Burton's new blue ray player. It was fun to see that movie again and with such a great picture! Anyway, by the time we finished the movie, watched some Batman bonus features, piled sleeping kids in the car and made it home, it was a very late night. I'm glad that we had such a fun day though. Perhaps by next weekend I will be recovered. ;) I am actually headed off to take my Sunday afternoon nap right now!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. shortening (the Crisco butter flavored shortening sticks are the best)
3/4 c. peanut butter
3 T. milk
1 egg
1 T. vanilla
3/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1 3/4 c. flour
2 c. chocolate chips

Mix everything together in order and then add chocolate chips. Pour 1/2 c. white sugar in a small bowl. Scoop dough out and roll into balls. Roll the balls in the sugar to coat and then place on cookie sheet. Criss cross with a fork (this really does make them taste better). Bake at 375 for 8 minutes. They may not look completely done, but they probably are, so take them out. Let cool and eat in one sitting. ;)

Discovery Gateway

We spent our Friday playing at the Discovery Gateway children's museum. It was tons of fun. There were lots of different areas to play in. Weston saw almost all of it in the 3+ hours we were there. This is Weston playing in the water area with ping pong balls and you could move the water "wheel" to make the different vessels move. They also had an old fashioned water pump, a sprinkler and a baby bath (with a plastic doll, of course).
Davin was SUCH a trooper on our outing. He played and crawled around and hung out in his stroller and ate lunch without fussing. All without a nap. He was actually pretty happy to be outside even though it was cold.
On the terrace they have a real life flight helicopter that you can pretend to drive and a "traffic control" booth and information about careers in the medical rescue fields. Weston thought this helicopter was awesome. It even had a button you could push that sounded like the rotors were starting up and then flying away. This may have been his favorite part of the museum.
This is in the construction zone. It had 2 mini cranes and foam blocks you could haul around and build stuff with. Another big Weston hit.
Davin being adorable, as usual. He enjoyed crawling around and finding any scrap of trash that may have been left on the ground. He also thought the big foam blocks at the construction zone were pretty fun.
There were lots of other fun areas to play in too including a play house with a kitchen and baby room, a farm area with vegetables you could "grow" and a chicken coop to collect pretend eggs,a supermarket with registers, a bird house with kid size furniture that was up in a tree. Also there were magnet building blocks, an earthquake simulator, a network of air hoses that sucked plastic balls up and around the ceiling, etc. Very fun place if you live in the Salt Lake area. It is pricey though. We had a 2 for 1 coupon, so it wasn't too bad, but if you think you are going to go more than once, just get a membership. 6 months for $60. We also took a break for lunch and walked to Jason's Deli. Can I just say that they have the yummiest ranch dressing I've ever tasted? It was interesting hauling 3 moms and 5 kids through the deli, but it ended up being just fine and with free ice cream at the end of the meal, you can't go wrong. All in all a wonderful start to our jam packed weekend.

New Year, New You?

I know there are plenty of people out there who are not fans of making New Year's Resolutions, but I enjoy the idea of a universal fresh start. I made a list that took almost a whole page in my journal of "things I will do in 2009." Whether or not they come to pass is not the main issue for me though. I love the feeling of being capable of doing anything. I may realize halfway through October of this year that I still haven't done much on my list, but I won't regret writing it down.

My friend, Delia, wrote a post earlier this week that really inspired me. She talked about how she was feeling down on herself because she had forgotten so much from college and wasn't really learning anything new. I totally identified with that. Being home with kids I almost feel like I'm backsliding, watching Sesame Street and Disney movies all the time, teaching on such a child-like level, etc. However, at the same time, I am learning profound lessons from my children about life and about myself. I am grateful for this new start. I am hoping more things on my list get done than not, but even if they don't, I don't mind because I'm sure this year will still bring me knowledge and growth I couldn't get from anywhere else except my own home and my own family.
On a completely different note, one of my "things to do in 2009" is to make a budget and be able to buy a new house this year. This means I will have to stop spending money on things I don't "need". I have a problem with the word "need" though. I think I am fundamentally incapable of really deciphering what I need and what I don't, especially if it's a good deal. For example. . . oh man, I really don't want to share this because it is so embarrassing, but here is my problem, I was at McDonald's with the kids on Monday and I ordered a McRib value meal. They had a promotion where you can get another McRib for $1. I ordered 2 McRib sandwiches simply because the second one was only a dollar. Later while I was eating, I looked at the tray and thought "Why on earth would I order 2 of these? I am such a mess. What was I thinking? I'm definitely not telling Ian I did this." Well now he knows. Anyway, I love to bargain hunt, so when I find something on clearance or a super awesome deal I just can't seem to pass it up, even if I don't remotely need it. So, if I am ever shopping with you, please stop me from buying something simply because it is cheap. Thank you.
I truly hope that everyone is having a good year so far. Not much time to screw things up yet, so enjoy the euphoria of a fresh start, I know I am!