It's starting to feel like spring, but I'm being careful not to get too excited, because it's very likely to snow again. Just like everybody else, I'm ready for warmer weather, but before I know it it will be summer and I'll be complaining that it's too hot. So, before that happens I wanted to make a list of reasons why I love winter.

1. When it's cold I can always put more clothes on, but when it's hot I can only take so many off. Even if I was a nudist, once I was naked and it was still too hot, what could I do? (I knew a nudist when I was on my mission, acutally three of them.)

2. After going to the grocery store, I don't have to worry about hurrying home to get things in the fridge and freezer.

3. I love downhill skiing. I don't get to go much, but I still love it. Hopefully I'll be going in the next couple of weeks.

4. Soup. Yeah you can eat soup in the summer, but we eat a lot more of it in the winter.

5. We use significantly less sunscreen in the winter, I don't have to have it with me all the time, and I don't have to chase a toddler around every couple of hours to reapply it.

6. I love sleeping under a sheet and a comforter. I hate it when it's hot and I can't have those things.

7. I love snuggling with my boys and when it's hot I just don't want to snuggle with them as much.

8. I'd much rather get into a cold car than a boiling hot car. The heater warms the car up a lot quicker than the air conditioning cools it down.

9. I don't have to remind Beepers not to eat dirt because all the dirt is covered by the snow. (Beepers doesn't eat much dirt anymore, but sometimes he does.)

Binkers was playing with his alphabet puzzle tonight. After he went to bed I noticed that three letters were missing from the puzzle. I found them on the living room table exactly like this-
I guess we should file our taxes soon.

Now what is this face all about?Binkers is six months old today, so this weekend we gave him some baby cereal. The faces babies pull when you first feed them food make me giggle.

I can't believe my baby is already six months old. Here's a picture of him moments after he joined the world. His delivery was shockingly fast, so fast there was no time for an epidural. I was not planning on having a baby without an epidural, so it was definately crazy, but it was over quickly. (I screamed like you see women scream in movies, it kind of shocked me.) I felt awesome right after I had him. I felt like I could run, which is amazing consider that after Binkers it took nine months before standing for more than five minutes didn't cause me pain.
Here is a little timeline of Binkers one month thru six months old.

Here's me and my sweet little guy. Days go by sooooo slow sometimes, but weeks and months go by quickly. Before you know I'll be posting pictures of his first birthday.

My husband can solve a rubik's cube in 1 minute and 21 seconds. Pretty impressive, huh? I know you're jealous. Chad recently bought a special rubik's cube that he put together himself and it makes it so that he can change the tension which changes how easily it turns. The amount of time it takes him to solve the rubik's cube has drastically reduced since acquiring this new cube. 1 minute and 21 seconds is a lot faster than I could solve it, if I could solve it. I'm sure I could learn how, but I don't know if I want to take the time and effort to learn. Chad and I are very different. He is really good at sticking with things and figuring them out. Although I am kind of impressed with his rubik's cube abilities, I've still been giving him looks like he is such a dork. He has, after all, gone a little bit crazy with it.

Chad is a self-proclaimed geek and he's is a geek by profession. Being a geek is not a bad thing though and I'm lucky to be with him as there are many advantages to being married to a geek. Here are just a few-

1. He has something we call the 'knack'. He is fascinated by how things work and he is good at figuring out how to fix things.

2. He loves gaming. I do not care for it, but I think it's pretty cool that we can use his X-Box 360 to access pictures stored on our computer to watch slide shows on our television.

3. When anybody asks him a question about a myriad of computer programs if he doesn't know the answer he figures it out.

4. He is the network administrator in our home, as much as time allows, he makes sure that the computers and wireless network are in proper working order.

5. Since he is really good at sticking with things until he figures them out, he is going to be with me forever, because that's how long it will take for him to figure me out.

My kids are going to have more than enough pictures of themselves, at least at this point in their lives. I'm loving taking pictures of them. Since Beepers is always running away from me, I don't have nearly as many pictures of him as I do of Binkers. That's why this post is just pictures of Binkers.


I love this picture. It's a bit out of focus because I'm still learning about and practicing with photography, but it's still super cute. It makes me smile. It reminds me of the Mad Hatter or Willy Wonka.

For Valentine's Day we started out the day with heart shaped pancakes topped with sprinkles. Here's how I make shaped pancakes, in case you want to do it too. Buy one of these bottles. I have a couple of them and use them for all sorts of things. Make sure the hole in the tip is big enough for the pancake batter to come out, but not too big that it comes out too fast. (You might have to cut the tip, but don't cut it too big.) Then just draw a shape on a hot griddle and fill it in. It's easy.
In the afternoon we went over to my sister's house and had a Valentine party. (What would I do without my sister?!) We read Valentine's books, played Valentine's bingo, and decorated cookies. I made and decorated these cookies and we delivered them to some of the people we love. (If you are reading my blog, I love you too and I'm sorry I didn't bring you cookies.)
Valentine's Day has always been kind of big in my family involving presents and lots of treats. When I was younger my grandparents often gave me underwear. I loved that. My boys got shirts from their grandparents and great grandparents. Here's Beepers and his cousin modeling their shirts from great Grandma and Grandpa Bo.
For Chaddy I made him this gift basket filled with all kinds of hot snacks- habenero jerky, jalapeno pringles, spicy sunflower seeds, red hots, cinnamon gum, etc. My mom shared the idea with me, she saw it on tv.Chaddy gave me these beautiful roses and some new baking dishes. He also spoiled me by making me lasagna for dinner. It was sooooooo delicious.

First-To my sixteen year old cousin, Austin, who reads my blog. This entry is about bra fittings. You can read it if you want, but I just thought I’d warn you.

For a couple years my mom has been telling me I should go for a bra fitting. My mom and my sister had one done and were very pleased with the results. Despite their good experiences I still didn't want to go. First, because I rank bra shopping right next to going to having dental work done on the list of things I don't particularly care to do. Second, I was self conscious about being measured by somebody else. And third, I have a tape measure, so I'm capable of taking the measurements myself. Or so I thought.

A couple of months after having Binkers I was a bit frustrated with my bra. I knew I needed a new one, but I didn't want to go shopping for one. My mom suggested again that I go for a bra fitting, so I did. Seriously I should have done it years ago. I've probably been wearing the wrong size bra as long as I've worn a bra. Apparently I've always measured wrong. Being measured by somebody else wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as I thought it was be, as the lady was very nice. I was so pleased with my new bra I asked the lady if I could wear it out of the store. She was fine with that and said that lots and lots of women have that same request.

I will probably never buy a bra again without having a bra fitting. If you haven't had a bra fitting, get one done. You will be glad you did.

This phone # is awesome and I use it a lot-
1-800-GOOG-411
(1-800-466-4411)
I would explain how it works, but this video does a fine job. Check it out-

Put in your cell phone. I used it tonight to call Papa Murphy's to order pizza for dinner. I used it a lot during Christmas. When I was out Christmas shopping and I thought of a store I wanted to go to I would use Goog411 to find out the closest one to where I was at.

**It's free, but it still uses your cell phone minutes. :)

Beepers slept through the night last night. He slept from 9:30pm until 9:00am. It is a miracle! The last time he slept through the night was over a year ago. In a little over a month he will be three years old, and he has slept through the night less than a dozen times. I could probably tell you about every night that he has slept through the night, because it rarely ever happened. Hopefully it won't be that way anymore.

Until recently a normal night with Beepers went something like this-

1. Beepers put on his pajamas, brushed his teeth, and we read three books.

2. I laid with Beepers until he fell asleep playing with my hair. This was usually between 8:45 and 9:15. Sometimes it would take him an hour to fall asleep.

3. 60-90 minutes after going to sleep Beepers woke up with a night terror and would cry for 15-45 minutes. Beepers had night terrors 5 times a week.

4. Chad and I would go to bed and just before we drifted off to sleep Beepers would wake up screaming again.

5. I would go in his room and sleep in his toddler bed with him.

6. I would wake up around 2:00am and crawl into bed with Chad.

7. At 2:05 Beepers would get into bed with us.

8. I would walk Beepers back into his room and repeat the process three or four times in the night. Sometimes I was just too tired, and he would stay in our bed. Either way, I wasn't getting much sleep.

About a month ago, things changed. When I complained about Beepers sleeping to the pediatrician he gave me an article on sleeping. Basically it involved letting Beepers fall to sleep on his own. It was a bit more involved than that and included some things I didn't want to do, like locking him in his room.

It's not like we've never tried to get Beepers to fall asleep on his own. I guess it just wasn't the right time until now. It's frustrating that it took so long for him to sleep through the night, but at least he's not eighteen years old. Wahoo!

Yesterday was a very, very long day. I'd had enough by the time Chad got home. Normally I don't act on his offers to get away for a while, but last night I did. I ran some errands and then went and got a concrete at the local custard stand. (It was Chad's suggestion. If I ate ice cream everytime I had a bad day I would be a very large person, but yesterday was a particularly bad day.)

Why did I have a bad day? I think it was because I was bored to tears. Not bored because I had nothing to do, but bored because there wasn't anything that I wanted to do. I wanted to leave the house, but then again I didn't want to because I didn't know what to do where to go and I didn't want to go to the trouble of actually getting out of the house. It's a lot of work keeping an almost three year old happy all day long. It didn't help that Beepers was having a particularly bad day and wasn't being very nice to me. Binkers never takes more than two ten minute naps a day and yesterday he was screaming a lot. Since I was going to home all day I figured I would work on the potty-training thing with Beepers, but that was met with extreme resistance first thing in the morning, so I bagged that.

We read books, played with playdough, colored pictures, played with his toys. Those things don't really end up taking that much time and I had a lot of time on my hands yesterday. Beepers wouldn't mind watching hours of television, but I usually try to limit it to one hour a day. Sometimes that's tough.

When I get really, really bored I clean, but I can only do so much of that. Yesterday I cleaned out and reorganized my walk in pantry, I cleaned some baseboards, and washed some walls. After not too long I'd had enough of cleaning and playing and I just sat on the floor and almost started crying. It's tougher than I ever thought being a stay at home mom. Don't get me wrong, I love love love my boys and I don't want to miss out on a moment of their lives, but wow it's difficult sometimes. Being a stay at home mom takes a very self motivated person. Some days I lack significantly on the motivation.

Sorry for the complaining. I just know that sometimes when I've had a bad day it's been refreshing to sit down at the computer and read somebody's blog and find that they feel exactly the same way I do. It's nice to know I'm not alone.

Because of the blog world I've recently discovered a new love of portraiture photography. So, I want to get some practice taking pictures. I'm wanting to take pictures of couples and families. Just about all of my family members have recently had family pictures taken, so they don't need me to take pictures of them. I was wondering if there is anybody that reads my blog that wants pictures taken. Here's the deal- I like natural light, so the pictures will be outside and that means you'll need to be okay with the cold. You need to live close to me, because I'm not flying out of state or anything. I'll take your pictures and give you a CD with the images. All this for the low price of $ Free.99. Anybody interested? I would love to do it for the first person who leaves a comment on my blog.