Sleeping Beauty...and one more thing.

We were all so excited to see Jaynann (Bri's sister) go to prom that the whole family gathered to see her off. I guess we didn't realize how that could be embarrassing. She let us stay anyway and her date was a trooper to meet the whole fam.

Pretty sisters. Please let Ellery look like them...




Um, Jaynie...is this okay? McKay told her she looked like Sleeping Beauty. And how cute is he?



Our fam on Easter Sunday at my parent's house.

My little love. How sad for little boys who don't get Easter dresses.

Hope you all had a great Easter!

Weekend in Paris

We had a great Easter weekend and holiday. On Friday we had a fun egg hunt in Grandma and Grandad's backyard. McKay was able to understand what he was doing this year, which was fun, but as soon as he discovered that there was candy in the eggs he had to be reminded to keep going. Then we had a nice ham dinner with most of the family (we missed you Lindy and Jaynie).
On Saturday we made a quick trip up to Paris, Idaho for a family reunion. The kids were so good on the three hour drive there, mostly thanks to the dvd player for McKay, and they slept almost the whole way back which was great. While in Idaho we had a yummy lunch, played basketball, had a raffle drawing and did the Virginia Reel (I really hope that's the name of it because I kind of can't remember). I had never done it before, but I understand it's a family favorite of Grandma and Grandpa. McKay thought he was in heaven all the adults and kids in the room dancing. McKay and I didn't know what we were doing but we had fun anyway. We only stayed about four hours because we had to get back to see Jaynann off to prom but before we headed out, Grandad took McKay to see his brother's sheep. I heard that McKay was pretty nervous and clung to Grandad the whole time, but he loved it. We were sad we didn't have more time to spend in Paris but were glad for the few hours we did have.

On Sunday we had a nice dinner at my parent's house with Jana and Mark and my mom and dad. I made the potatoes and rolls and deviled eggs. Now, I think I've mentioned that I am not really good at following recipes and I seem to mess them up somehow. Well, luckily the potatoes turned out fine, but tell me why I cannot seem to bake those Rhodes rolls and have them turn out. They were heavy and small and hard on the outside and I really think I followed the directions perfectly. So what happened? I think I should be able to make frozen rolls...but no, I can't. I might try one more time and if they don't turn out I might give up on Rhodes rolls forever. Also, I asked Brian to cut the deviled eggs in half while I was changing a diaper and he cut them top and bottom in half instead of lengthwise. Hmmmm...they looked pretty funny, especially with blue dye seeped into them. Needless to say I think we had plenty of eggs and rolls leftover. Sad. As I type this I'm asking myself, "Am I maybe a bad cook?" I don't think so but I seem to have a lot of trouble in the kitchen. Maybe I'm in denial...

Easter Egg Hunt & Idaho Trip

Holy moly, this is the end! How many posts can I do in one day?

Too Sweet

I love my little Ellery. I am always going on and on about how perfect she is. She truly is an incredibly good baby...but leave it to me to complain about something so great. Ellery is so good that when she is behaving like a normal baby- meaning crying for no apparent reason- I just plain don't know what to do with her. I always say that it's still weird for me to hear her cry because I'm not used to it. Her cry is not familiar to me because she doesn't cry a lot.

Well, tonight she had one of those normal baby nights and woke up crying a couple hours after I put her to bed and I felt so awkward and helpless with her. I don't know any tricks to comfort her because she usually doesn't need it. With McKay I knew the right position to get him to sleep, and that he liked me to cradle him and sway back and forth while singing to him- no sitting. That was his trick. I didn't know how to help her get to sleep and I guess she's not a snuggler because she was not at all interested in snuggling with me. But she didn't want to be put in her crib like I normally do either. And I'm pretty sure she does not like when I sing to her. What did she want? I still don't know. I ended up nursing her to sleep- something I never would have done with McKay for fear of creating a monster- and when she woke up after a few minutes she watched the Jazz game sitting on my lap until she fell asleep. So although I have this beautiful, perfect baby girl, I feel like a twelve year old when she cries. What's a twelve year old to do?

Happy Anniversary to Us!

the best five...

These are a few of my favorite things...

Gray. Love it. Between me and Jana I think we have about 52 gray shirts...I don't know. We have a lot. I kind of feel like I'm wearing gray everyday but I don't even care. I don't know when this obsession started- probably within the last year- but it's still going strong. Gray!

Anything quilted. Bags, shoes...well I guess that's it besides an actual quilt. I've been keeping my eye out for a cute quilted bag. Two requirements: has to be quilted and has to be cheap. I don't like spending money on bags because I get sick of them way before I'd get my money's worth. Katie has a great mustard quilted bag. Love it.

Ingrid Michaelson. I discovered her a couple months ago (am I behind?) and got completely hooked. Brian even likes her, which is a plus. You know how certain music can take you back to a period of time in your life? Whenever I listen to Colbie Calliat I go right back to being pregnant with Ellery- it's so weird. Actually the Care Bears movie music takes me to that time too. (yes my son watches Care Bears. I'm proud of it; Brian's disgusted). Anyway, I am sure that Ingrid Michaelson will someday take me back to this time in my life. I can already tell. You may have heard "The Way I Am" but if you haven't heard anything else- come on already!

(my faves: breakable, overboard, far away, a bird's song...)



And last but not least; birds. I'm loving those little chickadee birds. I have to brag- I was ahead of this one. Four years ago I picked out a blue ceramic bird that has been sitting on my family room shelf ever since. Brian wondered why I liked it so much and has always thought it was an odd purchase. But I love my bird. And now I can love birds on everything. Has anyone else noticed that birds are everywhere?

Future favorite that's catching up with the rest- leaves. Stay tuned.

Two Important Life Lessons

Brian and I learned- or maybe finally recognized what we've known for some time now- a few life lessons. The first one has to do with wedding receptions. If Brian does not know the person getting married he doesn't go to the reception. He'll stay home with the kids while I attend alone. Last night we all went to a wedding reception of a close family friend (of my family that is) and although we argued before about the whole thing- "do you want to go?" "do you want me to go...."- he went and was actually pretty good...for Brian. There was no hand squeezing or eye rolling or obvious hinting about leaving. The thing is, Brian cannot hide his feelings. The whole time he looked like he wanted to die. It was written all over his face. He doesn't know this though, so it's hard for him to control it. What can I say, the guy just doesn't like wedding receptions. He is not Mr. Social, as we all know, so really a reception is just not his most comfortable environment. He thought he did pretty good. I think he actually kissed McKay in complete gratitude when McKay started crying because his hands were cold and we had to go to avoid a two year old tantrum in very close quarters. We realized today that it's best to just separate for wedding receptions. He won't be coming with me unless it's an absolute must, or a family member of course. I'm preparing him now for Jana's reception because that's going to be a long one. Luckily Jana is family and he likes her so I think we'll make it through.

The second life lesson is that when not necessary Brian and I shouldn't shop together. Or at least shop for clothes for me and the kids together. We can handle the grocery store, or even toy shopping. And of course I'm a fabulous shopping partner when it comes to picking something out for him. But together surrounded by racks of clothes is not a good combination. He hates shopping with me because he says that I get in a zone as if I'm on another planet and I walk around touching various articles of clothing barely looking at them with my head in the clouds. Now since I'm writing this I can say that I don't know how accurate that is, but I will say that we don't mesh very well in a retail store. We just end up bickering and it ends up not being very fun. Do I wish we were a super shopping team? Of course! That would be ideal. But it's not our reality, and that's okay.

We just came to this friendly conclusion today. We look at these things differently and that's okay. We now know we should just stop trying to make them work. It's been five years already...lessons learned!

Goodbye Souci...and my baby

We've finally done it. McKay no longer uses a pacifier! Hooray! I feel so relieved and proud...yet at the same time I feel sad. He is now potty trained and we took away the binky. Now all he has to do is learn to read and he's practically a man. He's not my baby anymore, and that makes me a little sad. I guess I have another actual baby, so I shouldn't be too worked up about it, but oh my goodness!..how time flies. Babyhood is so fast. Okay, back to the good news. McKay loves, loves, loves his pacifier, or souci as we call it. Brian has been wanting to get rid of it for some time now, but I was very reluctant. He just loved it so much. It brought him comfort and soothed him like nothing else could...it put him right to sleep...it was the best emergency bribe...it just made him happy. He loved it and I loved it for him. It seems like for the last year or so he's only had it for napping and bedtime. Then when Ellery was born, somehow it kept creeping out of the bedroom and into McKay's mouth more and more. And it didn't matter what kind of souci it was- he was not at all against borrowing Ellery's. These photos are proof. This one was one of my niece Ashlyn's that she didn't use. He took the pink thing home one day and sported the very manly "I Love my Mommy" no questions asked.

Well one night at bedtime last week we couldn't find any of them. There are about three of them floating around the house and I was pretty sure one was made up in our bed, but before I could go search for it Brian looked at me and said, "There's no time like the present." I agreed and we told McKay that his souci was lost. He was kind of confused but miraculously got into bed anyway, and was easily distracted by a song when he asked for it while Brian was snuggling with him. He didn't even cry that first night! I was amazed. I had been dreading doing this for so long because I thought not only would it be annoying and hard, but it would just break my heart. Turns out it was neither. Since then he's asked for it maybe twice a day. He also suggested that we go to the store and buy a new one when we kept telling him it was lost. Smart kid. So we changed our story and started telling him that he was a big boy and that only babies had a souci. What can I say, McKay really enjoys being a big boy. He goes to bed just fine without it and can easily be sidetracked if he remembers it. What a relief!

The Shopping Basket

I have recently started checking out children's books from the library. McKay loves all the new books we bring home and I don't go crazy reading the same ones over and over again...well, I guess I just go crazy for a week or two, and then I get a new batch to get sick of. I just go through the shelves at the library and my only requirement is that the book can't be too long. I like the two/three lines per page ones. If it's pretty short, I toss it in my pile and by the time I check out I have a two foot stack of books. Anyway, it's been really fun for us and it has really helped me read more to him, which is always good, right? Well, not exactly...

The Shopping Basket. Looks innocent enough, right? This is a book that I chucked into my latest pile from the library. As I was reading it to McKay for the first time I honestly couldn't believe that someone published this story.

Here is actual text from a page in the book:

(boy walking home from the market with groceries for his mother meets several threatening, thieving animals on his way)

'"Give me those apples you have in your basket," said the kangaroo, "or I'll punch you."

"If I threw an apple over that tent, you're so clumsy I bet you couldn't even jump over and get it." [said the boy]

"Me clumsy!" said the kangaroo...'

The pig threatens to squash him against the fence and so the boy calls him fat.

The elephant threatens to whack him with his trunk.

The goat threatens to butt him over the fence, so the boy calls him stupid!

Hello! By the time I was done reading this book, editing certain words here and there that I didn't want my young son to hear, McKay was absolutely fascinated by it. I put it down and told him that I didn't like that book and wouldn't read it ever again because the animals were so mean. Since then, he has asked me to read it to him everyday...with a funny look in his eye like he's testing me to see if I will break down and read it again. Tell me, what parent would want their small child, or any child, to read a book like this? I was just floored. This has happened to me before with books from the library. Mostly with books about scary monsters or nightmares and just things that I don't want McKay to develop a fear from. But I wasn't expecting anything like this...

What I've been up to...

I love having a girl! I love dressing a girl. I was not prepared, however, for all the accessories that come along with a baby girl. With a boy it's just t-shirts and pants, most of which all can interchange with each other. Very simple. With girls though, oh my goodness! It can be downright stressful. You have to have the shirt, match the pants, match the socks, match the headband, match the shoes...you get the point. Ellery has like six different shades of pink socks. And when I get her dressed in the morning I peer into her sock drawer and try to choose the right one for her outfit that day. Then I mix and match until I find the right headband and flower that coordinate just so. It's exhausting I tell ya...but I totally love it. In fact, I think I've gone a little headband-crazy. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like when she's a girl instead of a baby, and when she actually has to wear shoes- oh brother!

My sister-in-law Missy and I spent the good part of an afternoon last week slaving over these nylon headbands and flower clips. We even suffered a few injuries from the glue gun. Really they are very simple to make and no sewing required. I can handle a glue gun much better than a sewing machine!

The finished products. I don't know if she'll get a chance to wear all of these, I now have soo many.

My neighbor-friend Adrianne just gave me this darling idea. Ribbon belts! So easy and inexpensive, I'm hooked! I just cut ribbon to size and put Fray-check on the ends. Before this I hadn't even thought about belts, but now that I've seen them, I'm afraid this is yet another accessory I'm going to have to think about. (Love her bulging belly.)

If any of you moms-with-girls out there are interested, let me know and I'll tell you how to make them. Super easy and way cheaper to do yourself than buying.

All Grown Up

I think I’m finally an adult. When I was little my dad used to tell me that when I was a grown-up I would like all the vegetables that I then hated. He would say, “You’ll love onions, tomatoes, peppers and mushrooms, I promise.” I knew he was wrong. For a vegetarian I haven’t been a very good one. I do like vegetables; I’m just extremely picky about which ones.

Well, a few days ago I had a very important first; my first ever “adult pizza”. We were ordering pizza and Brian asked what I wanted on it. I replied, “green peppers and onions.” And then I kind of gasped at what came out of my mouth. I had never ordered a pizza with any veggies on it. And I’ve picked off plenty of veggies on vegetarian pizzas before, making a disgusting little pile on my plate and mutilating the slice. Plain cheese was always the only way to go.

This new vegetable transformation has come in the last two years. It all started with a yummy chicken alfredo pizza that Ken and Missy made for us. They had the tiniest slices of onions on it and it gave it such a good flavor. (Side note- their recipe has since become one of my absolute favorite meals. Soooo yummy) Since then, I have been more liberal in what I will try (veg-wise), and come to find out I like a lot more than I thought I did. Peppers I think are my new favorite ingredient to cook with. Mmmm….bring on the veggies…oh, except mushrooms. I haven’t quite got there yet, but my dad swears I will someday.

Are you in love yet?...

I am! I think he would totally be my American Idol boyfriend,

but he's 17, so it feels a little creepy. So I'll just be a fan. Go David!