Catch Up: July

Of course, we kicked off the month with the usual 4th tradtions, like a hike, some water sliding fun, fireworks and ice cream sundaes! And as always, Van LOVED the fireworks, especially since he got to hold them this year! And it's always so much fun to have his cousins, Avery(4) and Dawson(3) in town for some crazy play at Grandma Julie's house. This particular day, they were a rock band in the front yard and I'm quite sure you could hear the "music" from at least 5 miles away! We drove down to Utah for a family reunion... get this: it's the very first ever reunion that Tyler & I have been to since we've been married... in over 5 years! While we were there, we went on a very cool hike up a canyon (it would be cool if I could remember the name of it.) At the top was an amazing waterfall that you would never even know was there if you turned back at an earlier part of the trail; like the ugly desert-looking part for example. We kept picking the most gigantic dandilion flowers you've ever seen for Van to blow as we walked. When he got bored and my mom got sore, she took him back down the trail, but Ty kept the pack on and people kept making silly comments like "Hey, you're missing a baby!"

Van bagged all month long for me to get his inflatable pool out so he could play in it. He begged and begged until I ran out of excuses & patience, so we called up his girly-friend and had a pool party. It wasn't the warmest day of the summer, but the kids had fun until thier

Of course, we kicked off the month with the usual 4th

Catch Up: June

The warmer weather of summer time always brings about wild afternoons in the pool with cousins at grandma's house and boating with the Stuckis. Van has always been a water baby & he is turning into a water boy so these are the moments when he is the most happy!


One of Tyler's co-workers in Burley invited us over to see her farm before Ty's job was finished there. Van loved seeing all her animals and tractors. She let us pick our own eggs out of her hen-house to take home and we got to pet all their bunnies. It was really interesting to see a glimpse of a life-style so different from our own and very kind of them to let us explore their farm.
Van often wakes up in the mornings and brings me this picture of Jesus. He likes to ask questions about Him & sometimes he'll make up cute little stories from things he remembers in the Scriptures. His innocent love for our Savior is such a special thing to witness. I am one lucky mom!
My biggest achievement of the year was running a 5K Fun Run with my local Weight Watchers group. I am not runner, I don't like running & I have never had any desire to run anywhere, for anything... EVER! But since Tyler had just finished training & competing in a 50 mile trail run relay with a few friends from his program (more on that in a minute), I was feeling a little sedentary. I figured I would put Van in his trailer & walk the course. I ended up running the entire thing in 35 minutes, without having trained a single bit for it! I was blown away and Tyler was shocked. Neither of us could believe that I was capable of what I had just done & it made me realize that my body can do so much more than I give it credit for. Since that day I have told myself many times, "If I can run a 5K, untrained, then surely I can do this!" And I can!
Tyler's race: (I can't find the 1 or 2 pictures I managed to take of him at his starting line!)
As I said before, it was a 50 mile race in the hills/mountains here in Poky. These are trails that Tyler has grown up riding his mountain bike & dirt bikes on, not nice little paved jogging paths! The race started at 7 am and he had the second leg of the race, so he started at about 9-ish... I think. It was cold and rainy and the runners comming down from the 1st leg did not have good things to report about the conditions of the trail, visibility & other runners still behind them. By the time Tyler's partner came down things were getting worse, but the storm was supposed to clear off so he hit the trail running anyways. The weather quickly took an aweful turn and I started to worry as more runners came down the hill with hypothermia and extremely disoriented. Others were getting lost or injured & all I could do was sit in my freezing car praying that he would make it down. About 1/2 way through his run they canceled the race but he was too far to turn around, so he finished his entire 16 mile stretch and wouldn't you know it, he actually made an impressive time despite the weather and in his opinion, lack of training! I was so relieved and very proud of him!

Catch Up: May

May was a fun & busy month. We went camping with the Stuckis up Scout Mountain here in Poky. The weather was wonderful, the food was delicious and we all had a great time. We went on our first geocatch hunt after dark and it was so exciting. I am looking forward to finding more!



Ty was working in Burly for 6 weeks after school got out as part of his training for Physical Therapy, so I spent Monday nights at Ross Park climbing with my dad. Van got on the ropes a few times to climb, but he preferred to just swing around!
My little bro became a daddy in the beginning of the month & I was able to go up to Boise and help them out for a few days. That meant having to leave Van which was (*gasp*) the first time I had ever left him anyone for more than a few hours. I freaked out a over it, but I don't think he cared one bit.

He plays so good on his own now, which I really love- but sometimes it makes me feel a little bit left out since he doesn't need me as much anymore and he can have so much fun without me. So I often stand at his bedroom door and quietly watch him. He loves working on his firetruck with his tools- he has been watching his daddy work on our cars & wants to be just like him! It makes my heart just melt!
Van loves to play on the Wii with me. I bought him a Diego game & I am quite impressed with how good he is at it already. His favorite is to do yoga with me- he tries so hard it is so cute to watch him do all the poses!

Catch-Up: April

Easter was lots of fun this year, because Van kind-of "got it". He figured out that his job was to pick-up the eggs & put them in his basket. He loved discovering all the wonderful surprises inside and dying eggs with Holly & Joey at Grandma Julie's house.

Tyler got some time off for Spring Break which was a huge relief for all of us and Van always loves having his awesome Daddy at home to play with!Van's new love is popsicles so we thought it would be fun to make a batch together. They weren't very pretty, but they were quite yummy!

Catch-Up: March

It has been so very, very long since I have updated- so I am going to fly through the highlights of this year & get as caught up as I can... as fast as I can. Please forgive me.

Van turned 2, so Grandama Julie gave him a hair-cut so he could be "handsome" for his party. We had a very small family get-together with a fishy cake that I made. (I am starting to like this cake-making thing!) And better late than never, I switched over to cloth diapers. My only regret was not doing it sooner, but I was too judgmental & it took me a while to come around to the fabulousness of the world of cloth! Oh, and then we threw away that binky!

Bath time

We love bath time and I couldn't resist taking some cute bath pictures the other day. Van gets to choose an Elmo dye tab to put in the water and change it colors- today was red. We always have lots of bubble bath and I blow some bubbles for him while he plays. We splash and sings songs while playing with the tub toys. It's pure fun!

Me do it!

The latest in the "Me do it!" stage is that he now has to peel his own oranges. He is actually quite good at it! Then he loves to sit down and seperate each section before he can eat them... it seems as if he is picking up on some of his mom's compulsive behaviors, but it's much cuter when he does it.

He also has to help change his diaper, feed himself, check his e-mail, turn the pages, get in his car seat, carry his lunch bag, get dressed and a thousand other things every day that would go much faster with a lot less mess if he would just let me do it instead!

Sucess!

So my friend says to me: "Jess! I need an awesome Star Wars cake by tonight at 6 for my son's Blue & Gold Scout auction! Can you make it for me?"

Now before I answer here is what I was thinking: Well, I've never made a cake any fancier than canned icing on a square just-add-water cake. I've also never really got into Star Wars, so I've never paid any attention to the movies, thus, I have no idea what a Star Wars cake should actually look like in order to be cool. I am sick, my 2 son is sick and we have a very messy house and kitchen. I am the last person you would want to make your cake & I have too many other things to do. Oh, and it's already 2 o'clock!

So I tell her: "Sure!"

Off I go to the store. My next stop is the internet for some research. I found some pictures of some truly amazing cakes online and if I wasn't feeling in over my head before, I defiantly am now! I find a few cakes that kind of give me some ideas and some sort of direction, but still without a real plan, I have to get the cake in the oven. While the cake to cooking & cooling, I begin this wild experiment with Starburst candies: I make them gooey in the microwave then roll them out (with a Nalgene bottle, since I don't own a rolling pin!) and stick them all together in this big sugary pancake. I taped the Star Wars logo onto the sugar onto the candy and use my scissors to cut out each letter. Ha! It turned out really cool! So now I have the logo, but I still need a cool cake to go with it.

But I'm getting a crazy idea here: I still have lots of red Starburst left, so I melt them too, and start forming them into facial features for my cake. Here, I had to go find Tyler's movie box & try to emulate Yoda's features from the little picture on the cover. Thankfully, Tyler came home at this point and helped me get all the Starbursts just right to make it look like Yoda and not some lame alien thing. (which to me, is exactly what Yoda looks like, but what do I know?)
I cut the ears out of a second cake that I made, stuck it all together & got my frosting out... but it was white. So I find this really cool neon food coloring and turn my vanilla frosting into Yoda green. Three cans of frosting later, Yoda is nearly finished. I saved a bit of white for his eyes, and then stuck 2 brown M&Ms in for his pupils. I added my logo to the bottom of the tray & sent him off to the Blue & Gold auction.I have to say I am quite pleased with the way it turned out. Not once did I ever imagine the cake would turn out nearly as cool as it did and most of the time I completely lacked direction and inspiration, so I really wasn't very optimistic about the final result. Given more time, I could have done a bit more with it, but I am proud of the product I was able to offer them, even if it meant being a few minutes late to the auction. And I really proved something to myself in the process: that I am capable of stepping up and doing some pretty cool things that I didn't think I was capable of. And I had a blast making it. I enjoy working under pressure and the challenge of creating something new.

So here is the grand total:

• 1 box of cherry-chip cake mix
• 3 cans of vanilla frosting
• 19 yellow Starburst candies
• 9 red Starburst candies
• 2 brown M&Ms
• 3 phone calls to my mother in law
  
• 4 hours of frantic baking
• 4 minutes late to the Blue & Gold auction
• 1 amazing Star Wars cake, as requested!
  

The Funniest Time-Out EVER!

Haha! When I saw these pictures, it took me a minute to realize why I would have taken pictures of Van in a time-out, seeing as how these are fairly regular occurrence around here, and defiantly not worthy of any pictures. And that's when it hit me: this wasn't just any regular time-out, it happens to be the funniest time-out ever!
It had been a long day for all three of us and Tyler was trying to get some pretty big assignments done while I scrambled to throw some dinner together. Van wanted some attention, so he was acting up and none of our delay tactics were working. He was becoming increasingly fragile. He pestered Ty for his chapstick until he gave it to him. After a few minutes of semi-eating the chapstick, Tyler took it back and told Van he didn't need anymore. Van kept asking for it, and begging for it and whining for it... Our nerves were wearing thinner and thinner with each request. Finally Tyler was forced to give the ultimate threat: "Ask again and you'll go to time-out!"
I should say that, as a good parent, I know that the best thing to do here would have been to stop what I was doing & give him my love and attention. I don't have any really great excuse as for why I didn't do this. I do have a few good reasons, such as teaching him patience & obedience, but in the eternal perspective, things like that don't really matter. The point is, we just let it escalate to the point where Tyler couldn't take it anymore.
So daddy jumps up from the computer and picks Van up while informing him that he is going to time-out for saying chapstick too many times. Ha! I was laughing so hard I had to turn my back so that Van didn't see me and loose focus of the seriousness of the situation. Every time Tyler reemphasized why Van was in time-out, I lost compsure all over again. Who has to go to time-out for saying chapstick too much?!? Um, yeah, that would be my kid! Totally hilarious and ridiculous and I am so glad I have these silly pictures to remind me of that night. Majorie Pay Hinkley once said something like: "The only way to get through life it to laugh. You either have to laugh or cry and crying gives me a headache, so I choose to laugh." And that's exactly what we did tonight- laughed. Sure, Van had to cry a bit, but you have to admit, it is kind of funny!

"Cap-stick"

Ahh, yes. Van is OBSESSED with chapstick. He would happily apply it to his lips and chapped nose for hours on end. He loves to have his own stick that he can put in his pocket to carry around and use whenever he needs it. He knows that mommy & daddy always have some with them, so he is always trying to get ours when we are out. He also knows that mommy has a special chapstick (that is actually lip-gloss) that he isn't supposed to have. His mommy, who gets nervous every time she takes a shower because she never knows what kind of mischief he will find while she is busy, thought she had a pretty good hiding place for her lip-gloss. But today, Van found that hiding place and this is what I found when I got out of the shower:


Can you see it all on his nose? Oh, and that little bit that actaully got onto his lips and not in his mouth?So I ask him to show me where it is, so I can clean it up and put it away. He tells me he already put it away. (Was he really trying to be helpful, or was he hoping I wouldn't notice?) I make him show me, just to make sure it was where it should be... and it was, but it was a mess! So while I cleaned up the goop, I let him hold the lip-gloss & then I took a few pics of him in action. I never realized how much attention he must pay to me: he knows where I keep things and how I use them. He is such a smart boy!