Why we should listen to mommy...

Yesterday as I was reading a library book I hear Easton in a panic calling my name. I rush out my bedroom towards the playroom where he had been watching a movie. I meet him in the hallway where he was now crying and obviously scared. At first I thought the movie sacred him because he tends to get really involved with the movies he watches, but at the same time I found it odd since he has seen How to Train your Dragon several times and knows exactly what's going to happen. I finally got him to calm down enough for him to tell me what was wrong.

Easton: "You know that white little ball thing?"

Me: "the marble?"

Easton: "Ya, it went down my throat. It's stuck right here" As he is pointing to the bottom part of his neck.

After telling me this and me reassuring him he'll be fine, he walks back to the playroom and sits down to watch his movie. I knew he was breathing fine since he was talking to me but I was still a little concerned about it being stuck in his throat so I called Nathan to see what I should do. He told me to have Easton drink something to get it to go down.

As I'm bringing Easton down to the kitchen he starts sobbing. I put him on the counter and ask him what's the matter. He then asks all worried, "I'm I going to choke to death?"

I'm always telling the kids not to put things in their mouths because they might choke to death. Apparently Easton remembered this and was really worried that he was going to die because he swallowed the marble. Poor guy.

Later that night when Nathan got home he asked Easton about the marble. Easton told him, "It's okay. The marble will go in my tummy and then I'll poop it out!"

Hopefully Easton finally understands now why I'm always telling him and Blair (mostly Blair) not to put things in their mouth (that don't belong in there) and why he can't leave coins/marbles/balls (hungry hippos game) around because I don't want Blair putting them in her mouth. Apparently I should have been a little more concerned about him. Oops!

Dyer

Dyer will be 2 months old on Saturday! Can you believe it? Why do they have to grow up so fast? He is such a good little baby. My favorite thing is that he likes to snuggle. I just wish that I could snuggle with him all day. He lays his sweet little (big if you ask my sister) head on my chest and is so content. In the mornings if I want a little extra sleep I will pick him up and lay him on me, pat his back, and he will fall right back asleep. It's wonderful!

Talking about sleep... Dyer finally slept through the night last night! I went to bed at the same time last night 9:30 and we didn't get up until a little after 5:30. 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep is wonderful! I honestly can't remember the last time that happened since I was always waking up when I was pregnant. Let's just hope this wasn't a fluke. Even if it was he has been sleeping pretty good this last week (about 5-6 hours his first chunk and then 2-3 hours the second chunk.

Another first for Dyer this week was on Monday he laughed in his sleep. It was really cute and gave me a nice chuckle but I'm sure it will be a while before he gives someone a real laugh.

Dyer is smiling a lot more now and seems to like it when someone joins him on the floor and talks to him. Just the last couple of days he has started to "talk" back. He'll coo just a little bit every once in a while but I almost think it kind of scares him when the noises come from him.

Dyer had his 2 month Dr. Appointment on Monday. He was 11 lbs 5 oz and 23.5 in. He's above average but he must have a long torso and short legs because he is already growing out of his 0-3/3 month clothes. Easton and Blair were able to wear these clothes until they were about 4 months old. Dyer's church shirts seem like they are getting small/short but his pants still seem pretty long.

At his Dr. Appointment we found out that his right leg wasn't clicking anymore so we won't have to get an ultrasound. As much as it would have been fun to see Daddy at work I'm glad that it was able to heal itself and we don't have to worry about that anymore.

Dyer still spits up but it seems like it is getting a little better.

Dyer's opening his hands a lot more now. When you hold him he tends to open and close his hands so its almost like he is scratching/massaging you.

Nathan and I still can't agree on Dyer's eye color. Nathan says they are brown. I agree with him that I think they will turn brown eventually since they are a lot darker than Easton and Blair's eyes were but I don't think they are brown yet. I say they are dark grey. I even asked my doctor what color he thought (I didn't tell him what either Nathan or I thought) and he said, "dark grey but I bet they will turn brown." And yes I am only posting that because my doctor agreed with me.

I finally pumped so that Nathan will have milk for Dyer at church when I'm teaching. I decided to do a test run and see if Dyer would even take a bottle since Blair refused. Easton was able to be the first one to feed him. I think he was pretty excited!

Note: There are three other posts that I updated early today. Check them out!

Oh Blair!

Yes, she is cute and yes she is funny but she is also trouble! She is becoming more and more of a challenge. I guess that comes with being two and not being the baby anymore.

Nothing is safe with Blair. You know the saying, "If there is a will there is a way"? Yeah, that basically sums Blair up these days.

-She has figured out how to open doors so there are child knobs on a lot of doors in our house now! I'm sure it won't take long for her to figure those out too!

- She has figured out all the child gate locks so now we have other child locks on the gate locks. It looks and seems a little silly. On her room gate she figured out the first lock we stuck on there so we had to put another one on. She also figured out the second one but we figured out that if we put it on the other way then she can't quite reach it to unlock it. Give it time though.

-Blair now knows how to open the refrigerator. After a couple of days of her helping herself to whatever she could find and open herself (lots of messes) I finally bought more child locks to put on the fridge.

-After cleaning up a lake of water on the kitchen floor I'm doing a lot better at remembering to lock the water on the fridge. Apparently she likes to fill up cups of water and dump them out on my kitchen floor.

- Treats have to be put up high and out of sight because if it is on the counter and she wants it she will get it.

-She now likes to wash herself up so she will get up in the sink and wash herself but in the process make a mess with the water.

-She likes soap (especially the kind that you have to pump). I can't tell you how much soap/shampoo/conditioner she wastes because when she gets her hands on it she apparently thinks it has to go on every inch of her body. And we aren't talking a thin layer either. She slathers it on. Yesterday after she got out of the shower with me I told her to grab a diaper while I got dressed. She never came back. I started calling for her and eventually found her in the down stairs shower going to town with the conditioner.

-Speaking of showers/baths...I had to give Blair a bath today after Easton told me she had poop in her hands. I ran up the stairs as she was trying to get rid of the evidence. She conveniently told me that poop goes in the toilet as she was dropping it in. It wasn't until I put her in the bathtub that I realized there was pee in the tub. I guess it is time for me to potty train full force now! She obviously doesn't like to be wet now as she will either say she's stinky so we will change her or she will take her diaper off after she has gone (not a good thing when she poops!) Also she obviously knows that poop goes in the toilet and that she should go pee in the bathroom (I just wish that she would have done all this on the actual toilet). Wish me luck because she is definitely stubborn when it comes to sitting on the potty. Any pointers would be helpful.

-Like I said Blair tells us she is stinky when she wants us to change her so the other day Nathan was changing his clothes. Blair walks in our room and asks, "You stinky Daddy, you stinky?"

On Saturday I was at a bridal shower and I get a text from Nathan that says, "Buy some nail polish remover on your way home." Yep, Blair got into my nail polish. Not only did she manage to paint her toe nails but she also painted her legs, the carpet and wall in the computer room. Nathan got most of it off her body but the wall now has orange spots where the nail polish used to be and the carpet is a lot better but still noticeable. As I was exercising in the playroom the other night I noticed two spot of nail polish on the carpet up there and my kitchen sink somehow has nail polish on it too!?!

-After Easton told Blair to get back in the kitchen with her food (see last post) and before her poop incident I found her in my bed with a chocolate granola bar. I'm currently washing my white sheets in hopes that several chocolate stains will come out. She is such a sneaky little girl.

Easton

Easton loves peanut butter sandwiches. If he had it his way he would eat these all day everyday. Whenever I ask Easton what he wants to eat this is exactly what he will say, "peanut butter sandwich with no jelly!" I really don't know why I ask him anymore because I already know the answer. I'm not sure when the no jelly started but the last couple times that I put jelly on his sandwich (which was a couple weeks ago) he had a huge melt down because he didn't want jelly. I guess that is why he is very specific these days with the no jelly part.

For the last month or so Easton has started to say "me" instead of "I" for everything. "Me hungry", "Me want a peanut butter sandwich with no jelly", "Me thirsty", etc. It drives me absolutely nuts! In fact he knows that it drives me crazy and that is probably why he does it.

Easton is very competitive and has to be first for everything. This has become a love/hate relationship for me. I love it in that it is easy to get him to do something if I make it a competition but if he doesn't win then it is the end of the world. At church on Sunday I was setting up my classroom to teach the third hour and down the hall I hear Easton crying and screaming. I go down the hall to find out what is going on and it turns out that he was really upset (seriously almost hyperventilating) because a girl in his class beat him at opening their classroom door. Really!?! We try really hard to teach him that he doesn't need/won't win every time. He has done better in that he doesn't stay upset as long as he used to but he still gets pretty upset.

Easton has definitely inherited another trait from Nathan and that is telling me how to parent. Apparently Nathan did this as a child too! Blair slammed the door the other day and as I was walking past Easton to go get Blair Easton says, "Mom, Blair really needs to be put in a time out for slamming the door." Thanks for the parenting tip dude!

Easton also must think that he is Blair's dad because he is now constantly telling her what to do and what consequence she will get if she doesn't listen. Today for instance Blair left the kitchen with some food in her hand. Easton says, "Blair you better get back in the kitchen with your food or else I'm going to take it from you and you're going to get a time out!"

Easton is also becoming more and more of a tattle tell. It's nice in that if he is around Blair and she is doing something she shouldn't be doing then I hear about it and can stop her. On the other hand though who really wants a tattle tell...poor Blair!

Easton generally helps me set the table every night for dinner. I don't know how long he will be willing so I'll take it as long as I can. Blair has also taken an interest in setting the table so some nights we have fights because they both want to help.

Easton's also a gentleman in training. The other day I opened a door and he got mad at me. He said, "Mommy, I wanted to open the door because I'm a gentleman."

Nathan told me the other day that Easton was upset about something and he kept saying, "This is passing me off!" Apparently we need to watch our language a little better around here.

The other day when we were driving someone cut in front of me and I said, "What a jerk!" Easton of course was asking about what I said and was repeating it so I told him it wasn't a nice thing to say. He then started basically lecturing me, "Yeah...Heavenly Father and Jesus...they don't like it when you say mean words like that." Thank you Easton for setting me straight and making me feel horrible about myself!

In primary the kids are learning the hymn "Praise to the Man" so for FHE I decided to teach about Joseph Smith and the first vision. Easton didn't know the song was about Joseph Smith and he didn't recognize the picture that I used but he did surprise me that he knew some things about the first vision. He knew the angel's name was Moroni and he also knew that the golden plates are The Book of Mormon.

This kind of makes me think about our family scripture study. We have been reading The Book of Mormon (the full Book of Mormon not the shortened kids version) because they want all the primary kids to read The Book of Mormon this year. For quite a while now I've been thinking what's the point of reading when my kids don't listen and won't hold still? I mean Easton just turned four. Maybe he is just too young for all this. The other day however Easton randomly started talking about a scripture story that we had just read about. I wish I remembered which one-maybe Nathan can help me out but I do know it wasn't one of the common stories. Nathan and I looked at each other dumbfounded. It was really neat to see that even though it appears your kids aren't listening (and maybe most of the time they aren't listening) there are still times when they really are listening.

Movies and Garden

Last weekend we took the kids to the drive in theater up in Sacramento. It was a late night (didn't get to bed until about 2am) but we all enjoyed the double feature (smurfs and zookeeper). The best part was we all got in for less than $14. I wish it was closer because I'm sure we would do it more often.

This was after the first movie. The kids look a little tired but they actually stayed up for the whole first movie and started dozing in and out the last 20 minutes of the last movie. I was actually surprised they stayed up that long. The second we put them in their car seats to come home they were out! Dyer got up once to eat but quickly fell back asleep!



Update on garden:

First pumpkin! We have two more just starting to grow.

Peppers! There are about four peppers on this plant and one on another. Hopefully our third pepper plant will start growing some.

Lemon tree. Finally after a year we are starting to get some lemons. While Nathan's family was in town for Dyer's blessing we decided to open a lemon up to make sure it was in fact a lemon. I wasn't totally convinced it was a lemon because the biggest lemon has been growing for almost a year and it is still pretty green in color. I thought it had to be a lime tree.

Tomato plant.

Pomegranate tree. It doesn't look like we will be getting as many pomegranates as last year but I'm excited to get more jam!

Air Show

Last weekend we went to the air show on base. It was open to the public so it was really crowded. Luckily we are military so we were able to go through the main gate and skip all the traffic getting on base. When we were waiting in line to go on one of the air crafts the guys in front of us said it took two hours waiting in line to just get on base. We got there late since Nathan was flying earlier in the morning but we had to wait in line about an hour just to get on the air craft. I think if we go next year we will skip the air crafts because it took too much time. We really only got to see the thunder birds but I'm guessing that was probably the best part of the air show. The kids seemed to like it at first but eventually it got too loud for them and Easton wanted to go. It probably didn't help that at one point one of the jets basically snuck up on us and scared Easton really bad. I forgot my camera so these are all taken with Nathan's phone.

Blair posing with one of the robots. Blair liked the robot until it started to chase her. It freaked her out a little and she started to run away.

Blair and I

Blair and Daddy

Easton and I

Someone kindly asked if we wanted a family picture. Unfortunately Dyer was stuck in his carseat and wasn't in the picture but I actually remembered to take a picture of him this time.

If you notice Dyer isn't wearing any clothes and it wasn't because he was hot. I went to feed him and when I picked him up I realized he was wet. At first I thought he was just sweating but it turned out that he had a blowout! I had to call Nathan to come back so he could help me because it was that bad. I didn't have a change of clothes so he was stuck in only a diaper. I don't think he cared though.

Just a few pictures of the Thunder birds.

What a night!

I get up to feed Dyer around 1am. He eats on one side and then falls asleep. I decide to change his diaper so that hopefully he will wake up and eat on the other side. I bring him out into the hall to change him so that Nathan doesn't get woken up. I realized that I forgot to grab wipes and a burp cloth (Dyer tends to spit up a lot!). I grabbed the wipes but forgot the burp cloth so I return to grab one. Just as I'm approaching Dyer he spits up everywhere. Seriously it was like a volcanic eruptions. Milk oozing out the mouth and nose which caused choking which then resulted in milk spitting out his poor nose and mouth. He soaked his pjs and the carpet. Great... I clean up the mess and go to Dyer's room to grab some new pjs. As I'm getting up he pukes again. Luckily the burp cloth was under his head this time. The burp cloth is now pretty much soaked. Seriously Dyer you still had more milk in you!?! I get him out of his pjs and put him in my lap to clean him up. I figure I'm safe since he up-chucked everything I feed him and then some. Nope! Wrong again. Puke all over the right side of my shorts and the carpet. Awesome... Again I clean up the mess and put him in his nice clean pjs. Seriously not more than a second after I finished zipping up his pjs he pukes again. The positive: Dyer's pjs were pretty much dry (just a little bit of spit up) so I didn't feel the need to change him again. Plus he was more than ready to eat on the other side! The negative: He got the carpet pretty good so I had to clean that up.

Fast forward almost 5 hours and I hear Blair crying. I try to ignore her in hopes that she will fall back asleep. No such luck. I decide to get up and just peek in to see if she really does in fact need me. As I glance in her room I realize she's not wearing her diaper. Really!?! I walk in her room and almost instantly she stands up on her bed and I can tell her pjs and sheets are soaking wet. Of course she wants to be held but let's be honest, that's just not going to happen right now. I get her pjs off, strip her sheets and notice that she also managed to get her comforter wet as well. I collect everything and bring it downstairs to the laundry room to get washed. Come back up stairs give Blair a quick wet wipe bath, get a diaper on, put new sheets on and put her back to sleep. The positive: Blair's diaper was definitely dry so I got to reuse that! The negative: Well, we already know that one! Oh, and as I was walking back to my room, Dyer was up and ready for round 2!