Nanan and Grandad

Martin's Grandparents are from Arizona and are generally on the move all summer visiting people all over the place. This year, they came to spend the entire summer here and are managing the RV park in North Logan. They have been here since April and will be here until October! It's been so nice having them around this much. We love having them here.

Ethan LOVES Grandad! It helps that Grandad is so good to him and will just tease him and play with him every time he sees him.

They come over for dinner every Sunday, and Ethan looks forward to having dinner with them and then playing and watching a movie.


Ethan made a "tent" on the floor and they were playing for a little while in Ethan's "tent". Ethan would tell Grandad to wake up, and then a a minute later he'd have to go back to sleep.

Another Sunday  Ethan was dying for a pillow fight, so Nanan chased him around the room.
He thought it was great fun!
 

So did she. :)

After a certain amount of time, Ethan will get riled up and crazy and he'll start to get his limit pushed and get a little mean. She stopped before they could reach that point and just hugged and loved him instead.

We are so glad they are here and we love getting to see them on Sunday's and Monday's for Family Home Evening!

7 years!

(This post is long overdue, but I guess it's better late than never! I just found and loaded the photos from my camera onto my computer.)

**Flashback to May 21st**


Over the weekend Mart and I were able to head to Salt Lake for a night away from kids! It was very needed and it was so fun to just hang out with the two of us. I always take a camera, but never remember to take photos if it's just the two of us...

I did remember to take one of us right before we left to check out the new City Creek mall.

Before we headed to the new mall, we went over to the Gateway to walk around and get movie tickets for that night. After we were finished, we headed over to see the new City Creek mall. Honestly, I thought it was a little expensive for our taste ... okay, maybe just our wallet. :)

While they were building the mall, around the corner they were also building a new downtown Harmons location, and Mart's work had been doing the stone for them so we had to go check it out.
They had picked out bright crayon red and black, and I was curious to see how it turned out. The red is generally too bright to look great in a lot of places ...

It really did fit in and looked really nice inside! Harmons is huge! They have the bottom level which is the grocery store, a huge bakery, deli and who knows what else. :) On the second level they have a small gift shop (selling kitchen stuff), a sit down deli area, a coffee shop and a big room where they do cooking classes!

Mart remembered making a bunch of tables that we couldn't find anywhere, so we headed outside and he found them outside. Of course, we had to take a picture of him with the finished product.

When we left the mall, the only things we had purchased where odds and ends groceries from Harmons...nothing from the mall. ha ha.

I love to cook, so I honestly really like grocery stores. I like to go and look around and see what they have that we don't have in Logan. I like to walk around and get ideas for dinner.

We ended up with some big chocolate and peanut butter pretzels for the movie, some small packets of almond butter, peanut butter, and chocolate peanut butter for snacking, some flavored salt, a dragon fruit (which I've wanted to try for a while) and some pretty fingerling potatoes for dinner on Sunday.

When we were done at City Creek, we headed back over to the Gateway to go to the movie. We saw What to expect when you're expecting. It was pretty funny. We think it was even funnier because we are parents and have been there and know what's it's like. :)


The next morning we woke up and got ready and went to do a session in the Salt Lake Temple. I have been wanting to see what people meant by Salt Lake doing a "live" session for quite a while. I have to say, the live session keeps me awake much better than a movie and a dark room...

When we got out of the temple we had some lunch and headed home to pickup our boys! Kace had watched them for us and we were so grateful.

Sunday I made an herb roasted chicken, and the drippings from the chicken seasoned my pretty Harmons fingerling potatoes!

May 21, 2005:

July 3, 2012: (7 years later!)

Pretty crazy to think we've been married for 7 years! At times it's seemed like it's been way longer than that, and other times it feels like we just barely got married. A lot has happened, and a lot more will continue to happen! We still have a long journey ahead of us!

Happy Anniversary Mart! 7 years, holy cow! I love you!

Sorry in advance!

I just want to say sorry in advance to everyone who reads my blog! I have been trying to print out some blog books and I found a site that I think I might use, but it needs me to change it to public while I'm doing it. When I'm finished I set it back to private and I think that it resends invitations to all of you ... I will try to get it done quickly so you don't get 72 invitations. :)

Camping

A few weekends ago we finally got to go camping. Ethan had been itching to go camping for a while, so by the time we made it up the canyon, he was bursting with excited energy! He wasn't the only one ...
As soon as we pulled into our spot, turned off the car and opened the door, this little miss jumped out, ran a couple of yards and plopped onto the ground and started rolling ... all over. When she stood up, she was green. Literally. She had rolled in quite a large pile of horse poop! Seriously. Gross. She didn't smell very nice. Silly dog.

Once we got everything set up (we had a minor set back and had to run home and grab one more tent for Kace and Ryan), Mart took a photo to show where we started (this tent is a pretty good size! We fit a queen mattress, a playpen and the dog blankets and still had the space by the door open.)

And where we are now! This tent is HUGE! It has one giant room and then a separated sun room, which is Ethan's room. It's been extremely nice to have that much space! We fit Ethan in his space with tons of left over room, and Lincoln's playpen went in our space along with our bed and the dog bed and we still had a good amount of room left over.

 

Once we were settled, we gathered around the fire to cook our tin foil dinners. Little Tyler was so excited to just be running around and loved playing in the dirt! 

Tyler totally adores his dad and spends as much time with him as he can!

What is camping without a little boy tripping over a rock and landing face first in the dirt ...

He wasn't the only one covered in dirt within a few minutes of being there ... Thing 1 was also dirty from hair to toe nails.

 

Me and my dirty baby boy. He's still a major Mama's boy. I'm okay with that most of the time. :)

Our favorite camping breakfast consists of scrambled eggs, and scones with honey butter. Yum!

Ethan is all boy. Like all boys, he is 100% attracted and mesmerized by fire. There is just something embedded in his head that says "There is wood sitting by the fire. I need to throw it in. Okay, now it's time to do it again."

When there is enough wood in the fire and Mom and Dad won't let him add anymore, he still can't leave the side of the fire. He will get super excited and do silly things, like ...  (Okay, so I honestly have no idea what's going on here ...)

And then after his best Hulk impersonation, he will move on to dancing.

 

This is Aunt Ber. She is amazing. Seriously. A.m.a.z.i.n.g. She saves my life some days. Ethan ADORES her! The minute she shows up, off she goes. She will play with him, running around, blowing bubbles, throwing rocks in the river, going on walks, etc. until the minute she goes home. She runs around my house playing games with Ethan, and honestly, she doesn't even seem to be annoyed about it. She loves to play with him too (and if she doesn't, she puts on the best act I've ever seen!) She gives me a much needed break when she's around, and for that, I owe her one big huge Thank you! I'm really glad you are my sister in law and that you are such a big part of our lives. Ethan totally adores you and misses you like crazy when you are not around. Thanks for always helping and playing with my boys! 

Blessings

Monday we all met at my mom's house for family home evening as usual. Mart's siblings Kace and her family, Ber and then their Grandparents who are here for the summer, and my family and Debi all gather at my mom's house on Monday's for family home evening. It's so much easier than trying to do something with just my small family. Anyway, when we were finished Ber took Ethan, Lincoln and Tyler outside to blow bubbles while Grandad gave my mom a blessing. She's been having issues with her eyes. During the blessing, Ethan saw what was going on through the glass door (and surprisingly didn't come bursting in!) and when it was over he came running in. He loves blessings. I was set apart on Sunday for my new calling and he ran and sat in the chair when I was finished and was expecting the Bishop to give him a blessing too. Once he was inside he grabbed a stool, climbed up and put his hands on Grandad's head and then prayed and gave him a "blessing". It was quite long. After he finished, he proceeded to go around the room and gave every person there a "blessing".

(I'm glad my mom got a picture with her phone, I didn't have my camera on me!)

I can't remember what he said in all of them, but here are bits and pieces from each one that I did remember.

In Grandad's he mentioned bubbles, and taking a shower, and a whole lot more that I can't remember. His was the first one and the longest!

In Nanan's prayer, he prayed that she will come to Disneyland with him on his birthday.

He prayed a short and to the point one for Kace blessing her to be good. :)

When he prayed for Ryan he blessed the food. I guess he was running out of things to say ...

For Tyler, he just told him to have a good day.

On Lincoln's, he mentioned something about being his brother.

When it was Mart's turn, he prayed and told him to shave off his beard because it scratches Ethan's face.

My blessing was also short. It was that I'm Mama and that I'm cute. "Mama cute". :)

When he blessed Debi, he talked so quiet that nobody really heard it. I thought I caught something about coming to our house. Hers was another really long one.

I can't remember very much about the rest, but he definitely blessed all of us.

We are so blessed to have him in our lives. He's such a special little boy.  I'm glad that the good things in life are rubbing off on him as much as the not so good things. Maybe the good will outweigh the others one day.

Pity Party

I swear there is something in the air.

I have been feeling so drained, and need to vent. 

 My kids have been going totally bonkers the last week ... maybe two, oh alright, it's been like a month. I feel like all I do is yell at them, get frustrated, talk on the never ending cycle of repeating myself, get frustrated a little more, and finally get some peace when they finally go to bed at night. This isn't how life should be! I feel so inadequate as a mother sometimes, and this month has definitely been a low month for me. Like my friend Trisha said in her blog the other night, there are days when parenthood feels like one big torture chamber! I know that I don't have 5 year old twins like she does, but man alive, my one 4 year old feels like triplets some days! Some days I just feel like I can't take another minute of that torture chamber and don't know how I will make it through the day without throwing in the towel. I don't feel like I'm the mother that they need or deserve, and I feel so guilty about it. I love them both more than they will ever know, but sometimes it's just so frustrating! Last weekend, my friend had a girls night birthday and girls from the neighborhood just hung out and talked. It was only a couple of hours, but it was SO nice. I also found out that my kids are not the only ones going completely insane right now! It was such a relief to know that I wasn't alone, and I was so glad to have been able to be included. I really needed a break.

That same weekend, I was just an emotional wreck, my kids were draining me, my emotions were out of wack, and I just felt like I was having a huge "Poor me", "I'm so picked on" kind of day.

Everybody feels judged in one way or another. Some people feel totally judged if their house isn't spotless when people come over (I am one of those people), other people feel judged when they are not perfectly up kept and dressed cute with perfect hair (I am semi-one of those people, but only if I leave my house). I feel totally judged by my kids. Ethan is totally a wild animal, and he's hard to handle. I feel so judged when people watch him or when he misbehaves. I know I shouldn't, but I take it so personally. I'm not even sure how to adequately describe it. I felt like my kids were being judged pretty harshly over the weekend, (I'm sure it was just my overly sensitive emotions) and that paired with some things people had said to me, that I know they didn't mean to be hurtful, but they were, brought on an even bigger pity party in my head.  By the time I got home Saturday night, I couldn't handle anything else .. and Martin could tell. We generally have people over every Saturday, but he cancelled because he knew I couldn't take anything else that night. He's just been so busy with work and the farmer's market, and I rarely get to see him. It was nice to have a couple hours with him and nobody else.

My kids have also been sick for the last week, and they have just gone in huge waves. First came a basic runny nose cold. Then came some major coughing followed by a super fever. After the fever was over, Lincoln started throwing up after each meal he ate. I feel like I just can't catch a break. Thankfully, they are both acting like they are starting to feel better. They both have been less cranky (thank heavens!) and we haven't been fighting as much. Hopefully this illness will make its way out of our house soon and we can move on with life.

We are going camping tomorrow night, just overnight, but it will be so nice to get out of the house and just be up in the mountains where my boys and my dogs can just run around and be free. Hopefully, we will all come home with better attitudes and more love in our hearts. :)


I guess that's the end of my rant, without going into a lot of details. I do feel slightly better getting some of it off my chest so that I'm not constantly dwelling on it.

Here's to a great, fun and loving weekend and a MUCH better week next week! :)

On a side note. My computer crashed. For some reason the boot manager is suddenly missing. In the meantime, I've been on my laptop. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing. I will hopefully be able to load new pictures from my camera and update again before I fall too far behind again.

Cheeser

Sometimes I wish Ethan would go back to this faze. His super "cheese!" face!







Lately, I can barely get him to even look at the camera without covering his head with his arms, legs, pillows, dirt, etc. I guess it's just a faze, but I hope he grows out of it soon! Between him pulling faces, looking grumpy, or not looking at all ... and Lincoln not even acknowledging that I'm trying to take a photo of him ... I haven't been getting a lot of photos lately, and I definitely feel like I need more. :)

Ethan's Room

I love watching these two boys play together. Ethan is so sweet with Lincoln most of the time. He's such a good big brother!

 

I love catching unexpected brotherly love moments!

Lincoln loves that Ethan's old bed didn't have one side and he can climb in and out by himself!

Because he can climb in and out of the bed so easy, it's one of his favorite places to play and read books!

I can't believe how fast they are growing up. Ethan loves having a friend around all the time, and I hope they are good friends forever!

Ouch!

Last Friday, I was deep cleaning my house in hopes of getting rid of the minor ant problem in my kitchen. If there is no food ... they'll leave and find a new home...right? (So far, so good). I had been working for a few hours and was finally on the last thing. I had steam mopped my entire house and I just had to mop the mats in front of my stove and sink and I was finished. Mr. Lincoln woke up and instead of just letting him sit in his bed for 5 more minutes while I finished mopping, I went to get him and just let him run around while I finished. 

A couple minutes later I was sitting on the floor putting the mats together so I could mop them (Lincoln likes to take them apart) and Lincoln just started screaming his head off! I turn and look at him and he's standing a few inches away from the steam mop, which was very hot and steam was pouring out of the side. I knew at that moment he had stood there long enough that he had burned his foot. I just didn't know how bad ... I picked him up and took him to the bathroom. I sat him on the toilet and put layer upon layer of burn free on his foot. He screamed at me each time I touched it. After probably 5 layers of burn free and a cold rag, a small blister the size of pencil eraser popped up. Within the next 30 minutes it would get to the size of a quarter. By the next day, it was the size of the entire burn! Poor little man. 

In the middle of building up burn free layers on his foot, Ethan woke up from his nap. I'm sure that Lincoln screaming at the top of his lungs had something to do with it ...

Anyway, he came down the stairs and looked at Lincoln and asked "What's wrong Lincoln?" "Are you okay buddy?" and put his little arms around Lincoln's neck and gave him a sweet hug and a kiss on the forehead. "Lincoln hurt?" "Are you okay buddy?" (**I LOVE moments like that! They melt my heart!**)

On the way to instacare we stopped at my mom's house to drop off Ethan. He didn't want to go to the doctor. My mom called her friend who is a Physicians Assistant and asked if we should take him in or just lance it ourselves. He said we would be fine to lance it ourselves as long as we cleaned it really good and just kept an eye out for infection over the next few days. He didn't like it one little bit, but after it was drained and wrapped up really good he seemed much happier. He walked on his heal with his toes straight up for a couple of hours, but then he got used to it and acted totally normal. 

His foot is way too little to have a bandage on it!

Much happier with it all bandaged up!

This was taken today, just about a week later. He doesn't like the bandage removed. He likes the pressure of the wrap on his foot and gets upset every time I remove it.

This looks totally gross, but I'm glad it's starting to heal so he can get back to normal!