Too funny

Blaise is really into going in rooms (especially his) and closing the door and having some alone time. Just now I noticed he hadn't been around for a while but didn't think much of it. I went to put some clothes in their room and found out why he was being so quiet! He had found a sucker somewhere, opened it and was sitting on the rocking chair. He didn't really seem like he was eating it though. I think he just enjoys the fact that he can actually open dum dums without any help. I walked in and said "Blaaaiiisse, what are you doing" and he just looked at me with puppy dog eyes and looked as if he was going to cry! He knew he had done something bad! I wanted to get a picture but I didn't want him to think it was cute. I took the sucker away, told him to go eat his fish sticks and then popped the sucker into my mouth! That'll teach him!

Anyway, I just thought it was pretty funny. He's getting too smart!

Let's go back a week or so....

Before I post stuff about Halloween I'm going to play a little catch-up. Last Saturday we were invited by the school to the University Farm for a "Fall Festival". They had hay rides, a few animals to pet, pumpkin carving, a corn maze, hot dogs to roast and smores! It was a blast. I haven't had a fire cooked hot dog in a long time and man were they tasty! The kids loved cooking over a fire and Rae was so excited about the smores. It was a little windy, but not too cold. Right before we were about to leave we decided to do the corn maze and it took forever! I had to pee so bad and I was starting to feel very claustrophobic. The ground was really muddy from the rain the previous day, so Blaise kept falling and we had to take turns carrying him. Rae thought it was a lot of fun though! We didn't take many pictures, but here are a few:


Eating lots of yummy food. Blaise being a goob.


What is he looking at?

Lots and lots of birds.


The view from the hayride. This is what you could see for miles and miles. It was so beautiful.

A few poorly taken pictures

Here is Rae's bug box. Yes, full of lady beetles. I stopped counting when I got to 35! She found most of those in the past 30 minutes.




Here is another box. My cupcake box! Anyone who has been to a party of mine or a party where I've brought a dessert knows that I love to make cupcakes. I don't do fancy ones or anything, I just love cupcakes. I used to have a nice big pan with a lid that fit a lot of cupcakes. That got lost somewhere - left at a party or something. Right before we moved my mom gave me this cupcake carrier. This is the first time I've used it and it's so great! It has 3 layers and fits 27 cupcakes. Totally cool. We just finished making some cupcakes for the cake walk at the truck or treat tonight (does that frosting look orange or pink? Couldn't get it quite the right color). Glad I finally got a chance to use my box! Thanks mom!

Invasion

Our home is being invaded by asian lady beetles! They are EVERYWHERE outside, and just yesterday they started coming into our house! There is a crack by our door that they get in through. I wanted to take a picture to show you, but I'm charging our camera battery right now. Just from where I'm sitting I can count about 15! And that's not including the 10 in Rae's bug box! I guess they aren't really harmful though, and they are staying close to the front door, so I just let them be and let Rae catch the ones she can reach. Anyway, pretty crazy.

I don't have much time to write about anything else. Tonight is our ward's truck or treat so I need to go finish carving a pumpkin. I'll post some pictures tonight.

A little number survey

One- Number of times I've thrown up (so far)
Two- Number of kids I have
Three- Number of kids I'm going to have (ay caramba!)
Four- Times I have to get up to pee a night
Five- Hours I wish I could watch tv and eat chocolate
Six- Times a day I have to eat
Seven- Days after finals is when baby is due
Eight- Hours of sleep I try to get
Nine- Number of comments I expect to get (at least!)
Ten- Hours of sleep I wish I could get!
Eleven- Weeks down, 29 to go!

Brrr?

I put a little weather thingy over there to the right. ---->
As of right now (12:45 AM, 10/28), it's 28 degrees here. I know it's not Idaho, but it's still pretty cool.

My new best friend

The pouch costs about a buck and makes 6 muffins, which is perfect for me and the kids. And they are really tasty muffins. I've tried several mixes like this and you often get fruit pieces in the middle that are kind of crunchy. These are perfect. I mean, I'm not saying they taste like fresh blueberries or anything, but they do the job for a quick, tasty muffin. The kids love them and they are so fast to whip up. Sometimes I serve them as breakfast with some fruit or yogurt and sometimes they are our mid-morning snack.

I definitely prefer muffins baked from scratch - especially banana muffins - but when I bake muffins I always end up with 2 dozen or so and then I have to freeze them or eat them :) And sometimes I try a new recipe and end up with a ton of muffins that we didn't like. So, for those days when I don't feel like baking from scratch, these are perfect! I guess once we have a few more kids it won't really be economical though. :) Anyway, give them a try!

Gas again

Not that kind of gas - I know what my family is thinking! Yes yes, I'm a gassy person. :)

But gas prices have gone down even more! It's 2.43 now! I am waiting till my tank is on empty before I fill it up again - maybe it will be down to the 2.30s!

Flippin' cold here today. So windy and the wind was so cold! Ugh. Why oh why do I live here?! I guess it will be fun to go sledding in a couple of months. I'll keep telling myself that!

Gas prices

Our gas is down to $2.55 here - woo hoo! What is it in your neck of the woods? Yes, I'm talking to you.

Pictures

There's a bunch of new ones here.



*Edited to add: did the captions work for you? Stupid Shutterfly. Time to find a new way to share pictures.

French toast

A few people suggested french toast. Rae hasn't liked mine in the past, but I'm not very good at making it. How do you make your french toast? Any particular bread you've found that works the best? Is the trick getting the pan nice and hot so that it doesn't turn out soggy? Mine is always soggy. Your comments have been great - keep the help coming! :)

Breakfast

What do you serve your kids for breakfast? We tend to rotate through eggs, pancakes/waffles, cold cereal, cold oatmeal and occasionally muffins. I'm planning to make some tasty pull apart cake in the next few days, but that is more like dessert! Any ideas of some creative things for breakfast? My kids used to be big yogurt fans, but not so much anymore. Should I just let them have eggs as often as they want? They'd eat them 5 times a week if I let them! Occasionally I'll change it up a bit and do egg burritos or egg sandwiches. I'm always worried about giving them too much sugar in the morning. I'm just kind of in a breakfast rut - so I'm asking for your thoughts - what do you serve?

Cold

I went to go to the gym this morning. There is ice on my windshield. I can't drive with ice on my windshield. Back inside I go.

I was not prepared for ice already. I guess I need to get some sort of ice scraper or something? Ugh. Not ready for winter yet! I'm sure by the time we need to go to preschool at 10:30 it will be nice and sunny and warming up, but if I want to go to the gym at 6:30 every morning I'm going to have to get used to ice. Roy is applying to jobs for next year and I'm going to make him take anywhere cold off his list.

Productive morning

I got Rae's speech class moved to 9am instead of 8:30 in hopes that I can squeeze in the gym in the morning. I went yesterday (no speech) and it was so great. I hadn't been in about 2 weeks. I didn't make it today (speech day) because Roy needed some extra sleep more than I needed exercise. (Poor guy is so busy and stressed!)

Speech at 9am is way nicer! It still makes me get up and out the door early, but gives me enough time to make the kids a nice breakfast, clean up after breakfast and leave on time feeling calm. We dropped Roy off at work since it's on the way and it's raining (he hasn't been able to ride his bike much - it's always too wet!) After speech we went to the library and hung out for about 40 minutes. Our library is great - tons of puzzles, toys and a puppet show - the kids love to just hang out there. When we got home the kids were happy to just play and watch tv and I decided to go through boxes of "misc clothes" and see what sort of things we have for winter. I was happy to discover that the kids' winter coats still fit them! And Blaise had a couple of pants and pjs that I didn't know about. And I even had a pair of footsie pajamas for Rae that I forgot I had. (She's wearing them around the house - she LOVES footsie pjs) I love collecting things throughout the year, either on clearance or from friends, and then when the time comes to use them you forgot you even had them! Luckily I went through these boxes early because I had no idea we had so much stuff and I probably would have gone out and bought new jackets! We have a pretty good supply for winter and we might have to start using it soon...yuck. I feel prepared and happy to have that out of the way. I also put away a bunch of shorts and t-shirts to make room for pants and long-sleeves. And the kids played nicely this whole time and enjoyed trying on jackets and gloves. A very nice use of a rainy day! Now they are watching Bambi and eating popcorn (I really should make them lunch)

Last week I was in a rut and super grumpy and depressed. The house was a mess, Roy was super busy (still is) and everything was just making me depressed. But yesterday I got to workout, I ate well all day, and just felt great. When Roy got home from work we got the house cleaned from top to bottom and now life is really looking up. I'm still adjusting to life here and still don't feel like I've made many friends. Rae enjoys preschool twice a week, but other than that we haven't had anyone over to play or gone over to anyone's house. I know that I need to step out of my comfort zone and actually call someone and invite them over, but it's hard for me to do. That's the main thing that gets me down. Every few days I just really miss the friends we had in Davis and I miss being comfortable and knowing everyone. Most of the young moms in our ward have husbands in medical school, and they have their own little network. Totally great for them - just wish we were part of it! I look back to Solano Park Apartments and all of us moms with husbands in graduate school and I hope we didn't seclude anyone who wasn't part of that "situation."

(I'm not sure if anyone from my current ward is reading this...if you are, just know that I don't think anyone is doing anything wrong, I just need to find a way to "belong" in this ward and it's going to take some effort on my part!)

Anyway, things are good now. I'm enjoying life and I know what I need to do to enjoy it even more and what to do to keep myself from getting into ruts all the time!

St.Louis

Roy didn't have work on Thurs/Fri for midterm break, so we decided to go make a little trip to St.Louis. I got a good deal on priceline for a hotel. We headed out right after preschool on thursday (around 12:30) and had a really good drive without any stops. We went straight to a mall that was near our hotel and let the kids run around and burn off some energy and got some Panda Express for dinner (yum! we don't have one here in kirksville, so it's been months!)

The plan was to check into the hotel and then I would go to the temple. Well, we got lost on the way to the hotel and ended up driving around for about 40 minutes (the mall was only 4 miles from the hotel) We finally found it and got checked in and I had to hurry and eat some dinner, get dressed and get going. But I still had plenty of time and really enjoyed going to the temple. Roy got the kids to bed and I got back to the hotel around 9 and went to bed too. Pretty uneventful. :)

The next morning we all got up and ate the breakfast I had packed, but realized it just wasn't enough food. So Roy got dressed to go to the temple and we headed out in search of some food. The traffic was horrible and there weren't many options for food in the area. We finally found a mcdonalds. We ate real quick then I dropped Roy off at the temple and headed back to the hotel (it was great because the hotel was only a 5 minute drive from the temple) The kids and I went swimming in the indoor pool, which was the highlight of the entire trip! We had the pool to ourselves and the kids had a blast!! It was really, really great.

We went back to the hotel room and got ready for the day and got everything ready to go and went to the temple to pick Roy up. Then back to the hotel to check out. By then we were all hungry for lunch, so we decided to start driving to the zoo and find something to eat on the way. Well, again, not many food options. We drove around for a really long time and finally found an IHOP. We didn't realize how huge St.Louis is and how busy and crowded it is. Yuck. Not a fun place to try to find your way around.

Anyway, we finally made it to the zoo around 1:30. It was super super crowded but the weather was perfect and the kids enjoyed it. We didn't see most of it because it was so huge, but we can always go back another day. It's free to get into the zoo and then they have some attractions that you can pay for. (Like a train that cost 5 bucks a person!! Rae was upset the whole time that we wouldn't let her go for a ride. But we had already spent a lot on this trip and just couldn't afford 20 bucks for us all to ride the train! I told her she can start saving her money and we can ride it next time.)

We left the zoo around 4 and headed to Costco. We got stuck in traffic AGAIN and what was supposed to be a 20 minute drive was a 45 minute drive. Ugh. By then we were all tired and grumpy and hungry. By the time we finished at costco, got dinner, got gas and got on the road it was about 6:30. We put the kids in their pajamas, put a movie on and told them to go to sleep! They went to sleep as soon as the movie was over, so we made another trip without any stops.

All in all it was a good trip, just not as relaxing as I had hoped it would be. And since Roy took Thurs and Fri off, it meant he had to work all day Saturday and all night too. I still haven't unpacked from the trip. But at least we both got to go to the temple, so that was worth it. Here are some pics: (we didn't get very many)


Roy and the kids at the temple


St.Louis temple


Blaise watching the hippos. The stuff floating in there is hay that comes out in their poop. Gross. And Blaise's hair looks ridiculous!



Hippos are some crazy animals. They are so weird.

Because I don't feel like blogging about anything else

1. Where is your cell? Desk
2. Significant other? Unique
3. Your hair? Ugh
4. Your mother? Energetic
5. Your father? Kind
6. Your favorite thing? Sleep
7. Your dream last night? Shepardson
8. Your favorite drink? chocolate
9. Your dream/goal? Joy
10. The room you're in? Living
11. Your fear? failing
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? hmmmm
13. Where were you last night? couch
14. What you're not? patient
15. Muffins? Dozen
16. One of your wish list items? electronics
17. Where you grew up? heat
18. The last thing you did? dishwasher
19. What are you wearing? summery
20. Your TV? small
21. Your pet? stinky
22. Your computer? broken
23. Your life? meh
24. Your mood? lazy
25. Missing someone? yup
26. Your car? dirty!
27. Something you're not wearing? ring
28. Favorite Store? walmart
29. Your summer? Expensive
30. Your favorite color? purple
31. When is the last time you laughed? today
32. Last time you cried? yesterday
33. Who will/would re-post this? dunno
34. The place I go over and over? truman
35. The person who visits me? no one :(
36. A favorite fruit? cantaloupe
37. A place I would rather be right now? anywhere

More help

So preschool was pretty good today. I made little signs for each letter and each kid got to hold two signs and I had them stand up when I made the sound of the letter they had. Then we did some dancing and singing and all was good. I didn't have a cool craft for them to do, but I just couldn't come up with anything.

Thursday's preschool topic is "dinosaurs/fossils". Any ideas? I have a little sandbox outside that I could do some sort of fossil thing with, but it might be full of water/mud because it's been rainy, and it might even rain on Thurs, so I can't depend entirely on that. Whatta ya'll think?

Need some help

I'm hosting Rae's preschool group this week and on Tuesday I need to teach the sounds for letters Q-Z. Any ideas? I cannot come up with much! Let me know if you have any ideas! Thanks!

Advice needed

How did you get your kids to stop wetting the bed at night?

When we moved here Rae was wearing pullups to bed, but hardly ever peeing in them. (this was without us waking her up to pee or doing anything different than the usual nighttime routine) When she ran out of pullups we started having her wear underwear to bed. The first week or so she did great and then she started peeing in the middle of the night. So we started waking her up every night before Roy went to bed (around 10 or 11) and that worked out just fine for long time. But lately she has either already peed before we wake her up (especially if Roy ends up staying up late and doesn't wake her up till 12 or so) and just this week even if we wake her up at 11 or so to pee she ends up wetting the bed before waking up in the morning! We thought that maybe she was drinking too much water, but her sippy cup is always pretty full.

So, where do we go from here? I am tired of washing her sheets every morning and really want to get this taken care of before it gets cold and we have to put a big quilt on her bed and end up washing THAT every morning!

When we wake her up in the middle of the night we try to wake her up completely so that she is aware of what is going on and will maybe start doing it all on her own. Any suggestions for this problem? What else can we be doing? Do we really have to wake her up at 11 and then again at like 4? She used to go the entire night without waking up to pee and would be dry more often than she is now! Please help! :)

On being a "grown-up"

When we started our life in Davis I was miserable. Roy was busy busy with school, I had a newborn and was far away from family. I made friends pretty quickly, Rae grew up into a fun toddler and we got a little more used to graduate school. Roy was always busy with school, but always had a very flexible schedule and we did a lot of outings together as a family. By the end of graduate school I felt like we finally had a routine down (it only took us 4 years to get one figured out!) and then life got all messed up again. :)

Also, we lived in a small, dinky apartment. BUT, we had free cable, water, trash and internet! We had incredible neighbors and free service from a fairly competent maintenance crew that took care of anything we needed. Of course, all I could think about was being DONE WITH SCHOOL and on to real life.

The grass is always greener on the other side! Don't get me wrong, I am grateful to be done with school and making a little more money. I just think it's going to take some time to get used to, just like it took us time with graduate school. Roy's schedule isn't really flexible at all right now because he's just getting the hang of being a full-time professor and can't give up any valuable work hours. Also, he's applying to jobs for next fall, so that's a big load on top of everything else.

We live in a great duplex type place with a few mormon neighbors, but there aren't the abundance of kids around like in Davis. And there are quite a few parks around, but none as nice as the ones in Davis. And now we really are FAR from family.

What got me thinking about all this was first the smaller than expected paycheck we got yesterday, and then we got our water bill today.(they come every 2 months, so this was our first one) We haven't had to pay a water bill in about 5 years, so it's something we are getting used to again. Is life really better in the real world?? :) I'm sure we'll get used to it all and adjust just fine, but these first few months have been a little shock to our system!

Now I just have to try to enjoy what we having going on here and try not to think about how "great" life will be when we are really settled somewhere (because then we will have a mortgage, home maintenance, really being stuck somewhere and what if we don't like it!)

Hmm, not sure if this post makes any sense. The kids needed my help a few times and I lost my train of thoughts a few times. Oh well.