Project: Church Books

When we brought Caleb home he was 3 1/2 months old and he liked to sleep. A lot. Sundays were easy because he slept for most of our church meetings. Sacrament meeting = Nap time. It was great. When he got a little older he started staying awake more during meetings. But he'd just chill in my or Zack's lap. We'd give him a toy to look at and everything was dandy.

Then he learned to walk.

All of a sudden sitting for an hour and ten minutes straight wasn't fun anymore. (Whaaat? You don't want to sit on daddy's lap and stare at the back of people's heads for an hour? What's wrong with you!?) Caleb needed to be entertained. We brought toys for him to play with but, as a lot of you well know, those didn't keep him quiet. It's hard to keep a one year-old quietly entertained. He's ONE. You can't reason with him. You can't talk to him about how he needs to be reverent and keep his hands to himself and not yell sporadically throughout the meeting. You just can't.

One thing Caleb does like A LOT is reading books. So we brought books to quietly read with him during the meeting. While the congregation was learning about Christ and charity, repentance and forgiveness, Caleb was learning about trucks and fruit and animals. And he was quiet.

Wait a minute. Our goal in bringing him to church isn't to teach him to be quiet. and it isn't to teach him about trucks. It's to teach him to recognize the Spirit and learn about Jesus and families being forever and all that good stuff. So why not have him read books about it?

So, a few weeks ago, we all took a trip to the distribution center and bought a lot of pictures of Christ and a ton of temple pictures. Then we went over to Alpha Graphics and had them laminated and turned into some church books.

We have a Jesus Book.

Caleb doesn't really like to "read" this one. When we try to turn the pages and talk about the pictures he makes us go back to the front page and then just points to Jesus and says "Dezs". That's good enough for me.

We also have a Temple Book.

He's not as entertained with this one, but I'm hoping as he gets older and starts to recognize the various temples, he'll like it more. (This book only has 23 temples. I guess we could do a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition to get the rest of them in!)

We also got him a small copy of The Book of Mormon. No, he can't read it, sillies. But he does like to fan through the pages. He used to fan through the pages of the hymn book, but I'm nervous that he'll accidentally rip a page. I feel much better now that he has his own book. For Easter we think we'll get him a small copy of the Children's Songbook. That one is colorful and has pictures!

My future church book projects include making a Family Book of pictures of extended family members, a Prophet Book of all the prophets, and a book that tells the story of adopting Caleb and having him sealed to us. If anyone has any other ideas for church books, let me know.

Projects Projects Projects

I need motivation.

I need motivation to blog and I need motivation to do all the projects that are building up around me daily. So, I thought I'd combine the two. I will blog about my lack of motivation to do projects! Ha. Just kidding. Oh my goodness, I'm so funny.

What I mean is, I will blog about my projects. I'm hoping that, by doing this, it will, in some strange, twisted way, motivate me to do ...all the stuff I'm supposed to do. There is something about being accountable or having to report to other people about the things you do, right? Also, there's something to be said of an audience- however small or large it may be. For example, when I write in my journal about an event I am not nearly as detailed nor do I write as in-depth as I do when I write about it in a blog. NObody is going to read my journal. (At least not while I'm alive) ANYbody could read my blog.

I'm warning you now, that some of these "projects" might not fit under the traditional umbrella of things we like to call projects. For instance, I might write about the project of cleaning my floor. Or making dinner. Or cleaning up throw up. Or entertaining an 18 month old. (Okay, maybe that last one could be considered a legitimate project.)

Hopefully this will make me write more blogs, do more to make my home better, and maybe I'll enjoy doing my projects more.

Family Night Dance Party

Tonight, after a fine family night (where we learned about obeying your parents), Caleb treated us to a dance party. He danced. We partied.

My Favorite Things

It's almost midnight. Zack is on a campout. Yes, that's right. A campout. It's February. It's freezing AND windy outside. And he's on a campout. But it's the Klondike Derby, so it's worth it, right? ...right?

When Zack's gone I usually end up sitting on my bed with the TV on while I surf the internets watching shows or reading about things that make me cry late at night. Tonight it was the Scrubs episode where Dr. Cox's brother-in-law dies of Leukemia. I hate cancer. In the episode they play this song, which I think is kind of cool. Go ahead, listen to it, think of someone you love who has died, and then cry with me. Go on.

Okay, now that we have that over with....

My main reason for posting tonight is because, well, I'm awake and I don't feel like sleeping right now, and because I wanted to show you pictures of some of my most favorite people in the whole world. In no particular theme or order...

Here's Noah looking pensive.

Now here he is looking how he usually looks: worried and/or frightened.

And here is looking absolutely adorable. How can you not kiss that face? How?!

Lest you think Noah is the only cute one at our house, here's Caleb helping Dad with a project. Yes, it was early morning. And yes, his hair is awesome.

This is a face Caleb has been doing a lot lately.

Now back to Noah! This is a face that he does most of the time. Doesn't he look so cuddly?

Here are my boys sporting the two teams we like to cheer for in this house.

Does this one really need any caption besides "Ahhh! He's killing me with his cuteness!"

Caleb likes sledding!

A totem pole of fun! Yes, Caleb is just wearing socks, Yes, Noah is asleep and No, they didn't go down the hill as a totem pole.

Caleb and Dad making Stromboli.

Life is good.

Thanksgiving Eve: What I'm Thankful For

First Smiles!

Noah's first smile was on Saturday, November 20th. He just keeps getting cuter and cuter.

The Boys

I thought I'd write a quick blog update just to prove to people that I'm alive and to show you how cute my boys are.

I tend to gloss over people's blog posts when they brag about their kids stats. You know what I'm talking about: "Junior is getting to be SUCH a BIG BOY! Even though he's only 2 months old he is already sleeping through the night, rolling over, crawling, eating with a spoon and using sign language to tell us when he needs to go potty!"

I try not to do that with my posts. But, unfortunately, my kids are so cute and smart and great, that anytime I write about them it always sounds like bragging. What's a girl to do?

Actually, I kind of understand why people would want to post stuff like that. First of all, some relatives (namely grandparents and such) actually want to read about it. And secondly, your blog is kind of a family journal and it's important to write this stuff down so it'll be there for your kids to read when they're older.

So, that being said, I'm still not going to give you a list of stats. But if, at times, it sounds like I'm bragging, just gloss over it and recognize that it's for the children. The children!!

Caleb is 15 months old now. He started walking as soon as we got Noah. He literally took his first steps in our hotel rooms. He also started signing more then, too. His first real sign was "book". He was already signing "please", but not consistently enough for me to believe he actually knew what he was doing. He also signs "more", "all done", "milk" (though now he just says "Muk" when he wants milk), "eat", "thank you" and "nap". He just recently made up his own sign for "Hey, Mom, let's sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider"". I cannot resist that sign. I just can't. As far as speaking goes, he can say "mama" and "dada", but he doesn't really use them on us. His first real word, in my opinion, is "book".

Since he learned to walk he has explored pretty much everything in the house. He's pretty good about leaving stuff alone when we ask him to, but he's also pretty good about making us ask him to leave stuff alone. His current loves are Grandma, Dad, books, music and dancing, and pretty much anything made out of cloth: blankets, stuffed animals, shirts, socks, etc. He is old enough now for Zack to throw him around and it is awesome to watch them play together. He seriously gets more fun every single day.

15 months old!

Noah is almost 7 weeks old. He still loves to sleep and eat. When he's awake he pretty much just stares at us. I think I caught a smile yesterday, but I'm not sure. We bought a swing that swings from side to side which he really doesn't like. I pulled out our old swing that basically just swings (you know, the old-school kind) and he likes that. Go figure. I think I'll sell the new one on ksl or something. It just takes up space. Noah's real claim to fame right now is the fact that, starting this week, he's been sleeping for 6 to 7 hours a night before he wakes up and needs to be fed. This, combined with the fact that Caleb is now over his cold and is now sleeping through the night again, has caused my sanity to come back.

6 1/2 weeks old!

This week I started baby-sitting a friends baby 3 days a week. He's 3 months old. That's right. 3 kids under 1. I call my house "Baby City". It's been a challenge figuring out everyone's eating and napping schedules and trying to keep everyone happy all day. But, on the plus side, I don't have any problem getting to sleep at night and I'm never bored. It's hard to go anywhere with three babies, but I did manage to get a walk in. I carried Noah in the SleepyWrap and pushed the other two in the stroller. I might have looked like a crazy person, but at least I was a crazy person who wasn't cooped up in her house all day. The only down side is that I couldn't take the dogs. One woman, 3 kids and 2 dogs? Even III start to question my sanity at that point.

So, that's what I've been up to. These kids may be a lot of work, but I love it. Waiting 7 years for something really changes your perspective when things get challenging. When I start to get frustrated because there's a crying baby, or a toddler is trying to pull the blinds down, or there's clutter everywhere, I step back and think how lucky we are to have these kids. And when the clutter consists of baby books on the floor, tiny shoes, a couple boxes of diapers, burp cloths, and a bunch of bottles in the sink, I remember when the house was super clean and there were no baby items anywhere. And then I don't mind the clutter so much.

And I'm so grateful for these two boys.

Even when one is grumpy.... and the other won't look at the camera.

Random Thoughts Thursday

Caleb has decided that his new morning wake-up time is 4:30 AM. This cannot continue. If he wasn't so happy about it, it'd be easier to be mad at him.

Zack gets to play basketball today. He broke or bruised his rib 7 weeks ago and hasn't been able to play until now. He is very excited. I'm excited for him.

I really like September and October. I like it infinitely more now that I don't have the worries of school to keep me from noticing the cool air and the fall colors.

This week I started using the playpen as part of the daily routine. I put Caleb in there with a few select toys for about 45 minutes. I. Love. It. He seems to love it, too. He focuses more on those toys and doesn't seem as distracted by other things. (BabyWise, why did I ever doubt your second book?)

On our morning walk I noticed someone had a broken sprinkler. I felt like knocking on their door to tell them, but didn't. What's protocol for something like that? Assume they already know and ignore it? Leave a note? (And say something about how having a broken sprinkler and wasting gallons of water is going against the church... I kid! I kid!)

I took Maxwell to get his rabies vaccination today. When I got to the vet's, I realized I forgot to put his collar on. (We take it off because the tags on it make so much noise when Maxwell moves around at night.) So, like a redneck, I tied a rope around his neck and took him in. No one said anything, but I'm pretty sure they were thinking something.