Me and My Boys: June 2012

Friday, June 29, 2012

Other Summer Activities

I've been teaching Caleb piano lessons this summer. He's doing well, but gets frustrated with himself frequently. I explain constantly that piano is just like everything else...it takes lots of practice.

Caleb's also been going to a Science camp all week long. I needed him to have an experience away from me (since I've been his Pre-K teacher for the last two years) before Kindergarten starts in August. He was thrown in an environment where he didn't know any of the kids or teachers (actually he ended up knowing one of the girls) and was gone for three hours a day every day this week. He did great!

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Potty-trained

This little boy is potty-trained!

I definitely wanted him completely out of diapers before baby #3 comes in November. He has been in underwear for the last week and has been doing great! Just like Caleb, going #1 came very easily and he's been doing that for months with few accidents. Again like Caleb, going #2 in the potty created anxiety attacks! It took a lot of coaxing and bribing, but now he's comfortable with it and successfully wearing underwear full time. Way to go Carter!

Swimming Lessons

Part of our summer fun has been some swimming lessons for Caleb. He made some great progress in his two weeks of lessons. He learned how to swim freestyle, and they started to teach him backstroke. We still have to work on breathing for freestyle. He loved going each day for those two weeks!

Friday, June 15, 2012

Baby Boy

We're thrilled to be pregnant and welcoming a baby boy to our family. Admittedly, I was bummed it isn't a girl because my hopes were high. This pregnancy is very different from the first two pregnancies: I had relatively no nausea for the first two and definitely had it this time around for the first trimester every day; I have acne like I had in high school, which wasn't the case for the first two; I cannot seem to function through the day without a nap, again not the case for the first two pregnancies; and running has been more difficult this time around. I guess my body is just getting older! We'll have to keep trying for our girl.

Pregnancy stats:

20 weeks along
Due date: November 5th
Weight gain: 9 lbs. (I hate this part)
Running: 3-4 times per week, 3 miles during the week and 5 miles on Saturday
Everything else is going smoothly so far!

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Let's Go to the Movies

We try to do a fun family outing every Saturday. Usually they're something free like fishing or going to a park, but this week we splurged for Madagascar 3. Since we were already splurging on a movie, why not see it in 3D?

The boys loved their "cool" glasses.

Carter doesn't look incredibly happy in this picture, but I think he had a great time.

Carter got a little wiggly towards the end, but overall he did great. He enjoys watching movies at home, but his attention span is usually about 20-30 minutes before he wants to switch it out for a new movie. So we knew we might run into trouble with the movie keeping his attention. Caleb loved it, and even though we explained over and over that watching the movie in 3D was an extra-special treat, I think he's still going to bring these glasses with him to every movie in our future!

Sunday, June 10, 2012

An Abundance of Tomatoes

We have had issues with gardening in the past, but this year we finally did something right. (I use the term "we" loosely as Matt and Caleb did all the work.)

First they spent about 2 hours getting everything ready before planting. This included clearing out all the grubs in our box garden that were enjoying living there. Caleb thought this was great fun, counting the grubs and then decapitating them or stepping on them. Matt got a really good top soil and tilled the dirt well. I think the preparation before planting made the difference this year.

Caleb has really gotten into gardening this year. He called up my parents (who are great gardeners) pretty much on a daily basis to ask them how many green tomatoes they had. He is very competitive (as are his parents...but I don't know that we meant to rub that off on him!), so he called Grandma and Grandpa simply to rub it in their faces that we had more tomatoes growing. They were great sports, and when they admitted that they had fewer than we had, Caleb would give them expert advice like, "Well, it's probably because you didn't kill all the grubs in the garden before you planted." Then the phone calls turned into how many red tomatoes they had.

As much as Caleb has enjoyed the harvest and picking red tomatoes each morning, I'm the only one in the family who really enjoys eating the tomatoes. We've given several away to help keep up with the harvest, but I am in heaven, enjoying one of my most favorite foods on a daily basis. I love BLTs. Love them. But only with fresh, homegrown tomatoes. It has been my daily lunch (probably 5 times a week) for the last 3 weeks. Usually a person gets sick of eating the same thing every day, but I'm not at that point yet and it doesn't seem to be in the foreseeable future. Since bacon is a main ingredient, it is obvious that I am tearing through the bacon. Although my sandwiches are heavy on the tomato and light on the bacon, it's still a lot of bacon. I've never made a secret of the fact that I run to eat. Plain and simple. I run most mornings knowing that I have bacon to eat later in the day :o).

I've also made some salsa, and I'm looking into canning some salsa (anyone have any tips or great recipes?). But hands down, my favorite way to eat fresh tomatoes is with bacon, on a sandwich. I also enjoy them plain. I am in tomato heaven right now!

We also planted carrots and herbs. The carrots were to humor Caleb, and we didn't do our research. (Again, I use the term "we" loosely.) We are getting some carrots, but the carrots are less than the size of my pinky finger. So we keep them in the ground, hoping that they just need more time in the dirt to grow bigger. The cilantro did well at first, but not anymore. The basil has done well, and the parsley is non-existent. It was our first year trying herbs, so it's a learning experience. I'm enjoying cooking with fresh basil though!

Thanks Caleb and Matt for all your hard work!

Sunday, June 3, 2012

He Still Gets to Me

6 years together and "he still gets to me" to quote George Strait. Nobody is perfect (I still can't get him to stop leaving his socks out around the house--he claims it's a "fun" little treasure hunt for me each day), but Matt is definitely an ideal husband and father. Some things I love about Matt:

*I love playing sports with Matt--especially Ultimate Frisbee. It's how we met and fell in love and one of our favorite activities to do together. I love playing on his team because every time he gets the Frisbee, I can see that he naturally always looks for me before he throws it off--to me or someone else. It's just a really cute, natural gesture that warms my heart.

*I don't know how he does it, but he almost always comes home in a good mood each day from work ready to pitch in and help--even if I'm not always in the best mood when I greet him.

*He is so unselfish; he considers my needs before his own. Even if I begrudge him his "guy time" when he goes off to play sports etc., he is always supportive of my "need" to get away to go to a book club or play tennis with a friend or even to escape the boys and "mommy duty" for an hour to go read a book.

*I love playing games with Matt--especially playing on the same team as him for Spades or Rook. He's a smart player. Since we haven't had anyone of late who shares our obsession with Dominion, he and I will play alone often after the kids go to bed. I love that we're both so competitive and hate to lose!

*He is the one of the greatest examples of service I know. I'll be completely honest and say that my serving is sometimes with reluctance or irritation. Matt genuinely loves to serve and wants to help people all the time! It makes his day! Now, however, he's married to a wife that reminds him that when he's off serving everyone, I'm doing extra "mommy duty" by myself when he could be home helping me. One of these days I'll stop dragging him down and learn to be more charitable!

*Matt loves to talk to people and get to know people. He is genuinely interested in everyone and wants to make everyone feel welcome or loved. He has had several people come up to him personally at church and tell him how much they look forward to his handshakes/hugs and warm greetings each Sunday and what a difference it makes to them. I love that he is so friendly with people and knows so many people, but I have also learned over the years that anytime there is a big gathering, specifically Stake Conference, I drive a separate car! Otherwise, I'm left alone waiting for a good 45 minutes.

*I very much appreciate that Matt is a handy-man. He loves to fix things and do things himself, especially when it comes to cars, and it saves us lots of money (something he knows makes me very happy!)

*He takes great interest in our children and is definitely the "fun parent," wrestling with the boys, building robots out of cardboard boxes with the boys, or any other crazy thing they come up with to do.

I love him and am grateful for the years we've shared together thus far. I'm looking forward to years to come...I still have much to learn from him.

We spent our Anniversary going out to eat Friday night at a yummy steakhouse. Saturday morning we got to sneak away and play Ultimate Frisbee together. We didn't have a good turn-out of people, so it was only 3 on 4, which made for lots of running/sprinting up and down the field. I am feeling very sore today as I played on the team of 3 (with Matt) and did lots of running, plus the 4 miles I ran prior to the game.

Later that day, we went to the temple with the boys for a Primary temple trip. We love going to the temple on our anniversary, and going with the boys this time was a fun way to celebrate our marriage 6 years earlier in the exact same place!

Caleb, Carter and I squinting in the sun.

My big boys

I wanted a picture of Caleb touching the temple because of this quote:

"Remember this day you touched the temple. One day you will enter this door." President Monson has said, ‘As we touch the temple, the temple will touch us.’

I'm going to frame this picture with that quote to put in Caleb's room.

Carter--who refused to let me take a picture of him touching the temple--holding his paper of things we were looking for as we walked around the temple (fountain, Angel Moroni, etc.)

Anytime we have an outing where we're taking lots of pictures, Caleb really enjoys capturing a few pictures on camera. I suggested he take some pictures of Mommy and Daddy that were similar to the ones we had taken on our wedding day. He did a pretty good job (obviously I only posted the ones that turned out good). I forgot to center this one, but here's Matt and I walking the temple grounds holding hands like we did on our wedding day.

We have a shot from our wedding day of Matt and I kissing in front of this same fountain.

Caleb took this picture of Angel Moroni--pretty good if I say so myself.

I suggested he take a picture of some of the pretty flowers along the temple grounds.

Posing on Caleb's command.

And here's the photographer himself, camera still around his neck. He and I will have to take photography lessons from my sister-in-law!

Here's a picture of the kids who attended the temple outing. A member of the temple presidency and his wife came down to talk with the kids and answer any questions they might have. They said this was the largest group of Primary children they've had come to the temple. If only they knew that this was only a small portion of our Primary! This is about 35 kids of our Primary of 115 (not including our 30 nursery kids).

Being at the temple was a wonderful way to reminisce about our "warm" and wonderful temple day 6 years ago where Matt and I were sealed together for time and all eternity!