Halloween Party

We went to our community Halloween Party tonight. It was fun. There was a pretty good turn out. Here's the pictures. Doug and I were 50's people or "Grease" people.

Tigger, 50's girl, 50's boy, Pooh Bear (with his hat on... we talked him into wearing it for the picture. as soon as we were done he wanted it off)

Jack and Jordan ready to Party! (look at Jordan's cute face... He's so cute!)

Jack in the hay. There was candy in it. The little girl in the picture and another little girl not pictured gave Jack a piece of candy they found.

Jack doing the pinata. He wouldn't stand by himself so I held him.

Us after the party with our prizes. We won the best costumes award! The lady who gave it to us said we we get it because we all dressed up and our kids wer so cute. We won a best costume ribbon, a cool ball with mesh around it, and two McDonald's coupons that have three coupons each on them.

Applesauce

A week and a half ago my friend from church gave me a bag of apple she picked from her mom's apple tree. She said she had a ton and I offered to take some off her hands if she had too many :) She did have some to spare so she gave them to me. She told me she made homemade applesauce with some of hers. Since I had a lot of apples I decided to do it too. I've made it before (for a class) but I remember it being harder than she said it was. So today I spent some of my morning making a small batch. It was so easy and I think it turned out ok. At least Jack said he liked it. I don't really like applesauce so I didn't try it. But Jack ate some and claimed he liked it, although he didn't really eat very much of it. I think I might start making my own applesauce instead of buying now. It must be so much cheaper and probably healthier because it's just apples and cinnemon. I think Jackson likes cinnemon applesauce better so I added some, although maybe too much... It was pretty brown. Now that I've mastered applesauce I'm considering making my own baby food... At least some of it. If it's as easy as applesauce then it would be worth it. But I'll have to research how to make it though... Have any of you made your own baby food? Is it easy?

Guess what we're going to do when daddy gets home?

Eat Waffles!

That's what Jack said this morning. He was excited at the prospect of eating waffles too. He must be my son. I love waffles too.

My husband is Amazing!

Doug is amazing... Really he is. I'm a lucky girl to be married to him. It's true. How many of you can say "I wish I had a computer program that could do this...." and your husband says "I can do that for you" ? Mine does. and he did. He made me a cool recipe program to store all my recipes online and he's not done with it yet. He's going to add a pricing thing so we can see how much recipes cost. It's going to be so nice to have when he's done... Although I keep finding new things to add onto it to make it even cooler so maybe he'll never be done :) But he loves doing it.

Doug just tried to open this up in internet explorer and it didn't work.... So if you want to see it you'll have to open Firefox and try it there. He says "I don't support internet explorer!"

I had a link on here, but Doug wanted me to remove it for now because he's trying to get it work on internet explorer and he's change the location of it too. So you'll just have to wait until later to check it out. And I've realized that you have to a google account to see it because Doug made it that way. I've thought of more of the cool features he's planning to add onto it. He's going to make it so that I can create a menu and then generate a shopping list for that menu. That's the reason I wanted this in the first place. It will make grocery shopping and dinner planning much easier. He's also going to add labels. and lots of other cool stuff! I'm so excited to start using it. He just made it so I can add recipes last night. It's fun being married to computer scientist!

My Day

Today was a pretty relaxing day compared to the last week. Jackson was in his pajamas all day. He loves wearing them. Every morning he asks to wear them. If we're not going anywhere I don't make him change. I prefer my pajamas too :) Our big news of the day is that Jackson went poo poo in the potty for the first time! I was pretty excited. You're probably all thinking I thought he's been potty trained for about a month now... And he has. Except for when he's in bed wearing his pull up. He hasn't had an accident in his underwear for more than a week or so and since he's been potty trained he's only had a couple accidents. But he goes poo poo when he's in bed. Until today that is! I was beginning to wonder if he would ever go in the potty or just always hold it in until bedtime. So it's been an exciting day in our house... Hopefully he'll keep it up. Here's some cute pictures of our day.

Muscle Jackson with tons of balls in his jammies.

The side view

In the basket of balls. Jack played with these balls all day. They've been put away for awhile because they cause a big mess when Jackson does play with them and he usually doesn't like to clean them up. But today he asked to play with them. So he did all day.

Cute Jordan in the balls looking at Jackson. He really loves his brother. They're so cute together!

Carving Pumpkins

We carved pumpkins last night for family night. Doug picked up two pumpkins on his way home from work and some carving stuff. The knife carving tool broke when I was using it so we ended up having to just use our own knives. They were a little harder to use and more dangerous with Jackson trying to help. But we didn't give up and were able to carve our pumpkins. I went the simple route and Doug did a trickier carving. His took a long time. I folded some laundry and gave the boys a bath while he was carving. I think it turned out well though. For some reason the blogger loading image thing is uploading my pictures in the opposite order I want it to and the opposite order that it usually uses so you get to see us carving pumpkins backwards. The final projects. Can you tell who did each pumpkin? Remember mine was the easy one...

Doug hard at work.

Jackson finally working up courage to touch the gooey pumpkin insides. He wouldn't put his hand inside the pumpkin. He only touched the gooey stuff when it was in Doug's hand. But he would only touch it for a second. Doug kept asking if he wanted to pull some of it out the pumpkin and Jack would say "no way!" He hates being dirty.

Jack and Doug getting ready to carve the pumkins.

Teeth

This is the first picture I've been able to capture of Jordan's teeth. He has two now. They're still kind of hard to see, but they are there. He flashes them a lot, but when ever I pull out the camera he puts his tongue over them. But I finally got one.

My Crazy Week

I had 5 kids for almost a week, was a soccer mom, and I was a working mom. I was so busy all week. I loved teaching preschool. I would have taken pictures to show how cute the kids are and the fun things we did, but I don't know that their parents would have liked that... It was fun watching Ashlee's kids. It was especially fun having the kids have a 7:30 bedtime instead of 8:00. The nights seemed much longer. I was so tired though by the end of every day. I wasn't getting as much sleep as I'm used to. I had to be up and ready earlier than normal and Jordan was sleeping in our room, which contributed to the loss of sleep greatly. He woke up so much in the night. Much more than normal. At least much more than we normally hear him. Having him in his own room last night was my favorite part of being done babysitting. Here's the pictures from this week.

Jackson, Alli, and I played restaurant. Alli loved dressing up for it. She really loved playing it too. In fact, in the middle of the night she started crying because she missed her mom and dad, and Doug went in and he told her we could play restaurant in the morning and she went back to sleep happily and quickly. Jackson wore a fireman's hat for about 2 minutes then wouldn't put it back on. Not even for a picture.

Chef Jordan

Jack slept in Alli's bed on the last night and Alli slept in his playpen. It was his first time in a big kid bed.

Sammy. I thought this picture was pretty funny.

We made welcome home cookies for Ashlee and Konrad.

We went to their ward Halloween Party. Jack loved saying trick or treat. Alli said she didn't want to say it. The other girls were with friends so I don't know if they said it :)

Allis wouldn't come sit down by the other kids because when I told them I wanted to take their picture I put Jordan down and told them to sit around him. Since Kimber and Aleigha sat by him she couldn't and so she wouldn't sit down until Kimber moved so she could sit there. Jack wouldn't wear his hat and tried to get out of wearing his costume. But he finally gave in and was happy in it as long as he didn't have to wear the hat. As soon as we got back the to the house he asked to take it off.

Super Saturday

Yesterday was super Saturday for my ward. It was the first Super Saturday that I have been to and I quite enjoyed it. I painted two palm trees on a huge stepping stone. It was a lot bigger than I had anticipated it being. There was only one other person signed up to do it and she knows how to paint well. So I tried to copy her because I can't really paint. I didn't think it turned out too bad. I also made a cookie gift jar. I think you're supposed to give them to someone, but I'm thinking that I will just keep them for myself. I wanted to try a new cookie recipe which is why I signed up for this project. Maybe I'll make them this week with my neices while I babysit them while my sister and her husband are in Hawaii. If only I were the one going to Hawaii... I also learned how to do online scrapbooking. But I think I'll just stick to normal non-online scrapbooking for now... Here's my creations:

Basket of Laundry

7 months old!

Jordan is 7 months old today! He's getting so big. Sometimes I think he's has heavy as Jackson... or heavier. He's not crawling yet, but he's scooting around everywhere he wants to go. He figured out how to get up one step at my parents house this weekend. He sits up really well, and is getting better at going to his tummy from sitting, altough he still falls half the time. But he is improving. His first tooth has been coming in. I've tried to get a picture of it, but it's still pretty small and he usually has his tongue on it. He loves playing with balls and bats and cars and anything else that Jackson plays with that I'll let him play with. I don't why we have many baby toys. It's good have a few to entertain him when we're out, but he doesn't really play with them at home. He loves Jackson and is always so happy to see him. He also loves food. Whenever I'm eating something he tried to grab it and watched me intently. He's also a smiler. He smiles so much, especially to people he knows. It's fun having him in our family.

Here's Kenna the skunk:

I thought the picture was so cute I had to post it. Jordan kept touching her in the costume and she would tell me "Jordan touched me" everytime. I asked Jackson if he wanted to wear it and he ran to my leg and held on to it and said "no, don't want to." I don't why this kids doesn't like costumes, but I'm determined to get him to happily wear one for Halloween and all the Halloween festivities we attend.

I really do have the best husband!

Ok, this post isn't really about him. It's just more pictures but I thought having the title be 'more pictures' or something similar would be more boring. Plus he really is the best husband. He's upstairs giving the boys a bath, even though he really doesn't like giving them one, to let me be alone for a few minutes. My boys are for some reason on completely opposite nap schedules. Jordan wakes up before or right after Jack goes down, then Jack wakes up when Jordan has his second nap. Today I thought I'd have an hour to myself but Jack decided that shouldn't happen and woke up an hour earlier then normal. Oh well... Luckily they're usually good boys and easy to entertain.... But now to the pictures.

Doug, Jack, Jordan.

Jack and I made a cheerio necklace today. He didn't like making it as much as I thought he would. But he seemed to like the finished product...

He loved eating it! Can you see the excitement in his eyes?

I helped Jordan stand holding onto the laundry basket and he was happy and proud of himself.

Jack as Winney the Pooh. We got this costume from my sister, but it's a little too small for Jack, which is suprising because I think it's a size 2T. His head didn't fit in it very well. and it was kind of short. Jack didn't like it either. I had to bribe him to try it on. He wanted to watch Dora and I told him he could after he tried the costume on. He didn't want to at first. But his desire to watch Dora won and he tried it on. Doug asked him what he wants to be for Halloween and he said "I be watch Dora" So I guess he wants to watch Dora for Halloween. Maybe we'll have him carry around the dvd player and watch it :)

Baking Time!

My sister Ashlee her girls and my cousin Kallie came over on Saturday to continue our tradition of making treats while the boys were at priesthood session. This time we decided to not make donuts and each found a recipe that looked good to us. I think we all enjoyed the results this time better than before... at least I did.

Ashlee and Kallie

Me, Ashlee, Kallie and our food. I choose to do a chocolate pizza. Ashlee did a cookie dough cheese cake. Kallie did a giant oreo cookie/cake. We didn't have any unflavored gelatin which is why the cream filling is pink not white. We used rasberry... Kallie also had a recipe for a bean dip that we made. Everyone agreed that mine tasted the best :) It was really good...
Here's a close-up with the kids and men anxiously waiting to try the yummy food.

Jordan playing ball

Jordan loves balls. Whenever I get one out for him he gets a huge smile on his face and is so excited. If I'm holding him he starts hitting the ball happily. He just loves them. He loves to play roll the ball. He used to only be able to play while laying down, but now he can sit up and now loves the game even more. He's getting pretty good it. Here's a video of him playing.

100th post = 100 things about me

It's my hundredth post... so to celebrate here is 100 facts about me... Enjoy :)

1. I've been married for 3 years and almost 5 months.
2. I have been a mom for 2 yeard and 4 and half months.
3. I have two sisters and no brothers, those sisters have between them 5 daughters and no sons, I have 2 sons and no daughters. I find this very interesting.
4. I enjoy blogging.
5. I like to scrapbook.
6. I like to preserve memories through blogging and scrapbooking so I can remember stories that go along with pictures.
7. I often wonder if when this generation of kids grow up they'll take as many pictures as we do, or if they'll say my parents took too many pictures of me so I'm not going to take as many pictures of my kids.
8. I'm bad at spelling.
9. I married someone who is great at spelling and he comes in very handy when blogging and writing emails.
10. I like emailing much more than talking on the phone.
11. I like to have a home phone even though it isn't a necessity since we have cellphones.
12. I watch the food network a lot during the day when I'm playing Jordan.
13. I don't really ever see anything on the food network that I would actually make at home.
14. I enjoy reading but don't do it that often because when I start reading I often don't want to put the book down until I finish and end up neglecting my mom and wife duties.
15. I love watching the biggest loser. It's my favorite show.
16. I like when my house is clean.
17. I hate dirty dishes. There are usually never dirty dishes in my house... We clean the up right after we use them.
18. Doug usually does the dishes after dinner. I used to hate doing them, but I don't mind them as much now... They're a nice break sometimes. As long as they're not too gross.
19. I also hate cleaning out old food from the fridge. Doug usually takes over when he sees me do it.
20. I have a great husband... The best there is.
21. Baseball is my favorite sport. But I also like basketball since I married Doug and that's all he wants to watch during basketball season.
22. I don't know how to get my son to stop going to the bathroom while he's sleeping.
23. I'm excited to start a garden next spring.
24. I hate waking up early.
25. I'm usually really grumpy when I wake up early. Especially when it's really early.
26. I enjoy relief society.
27. I like to cook.
28. I'm reading the old testament right now.
29. We eat enchiladas almost every Sunday. We only don't if we have people over for dinner or if we're not here for dinner.
30. I hate lunch time.
31. I want to start freezer cooking. Especially make lunches that I will actually enjoy eating but will be easy and quick to make.
32. I want another freezer someday.
33. I also want a double oven someday.
34. I love getting cooking stuff for my birthdays and Christmas.
35. I love chocolate.
36. I have a cool edge brownie pan that makes every piece of brownie have at least two edges. It's shaped like an m or w depending on how you look at it.
37. I waste too much time on the computer.
38. I don't like to be cold and so I don't like cold weather.
39. The good thing about fall and winter is that it's not light so early in the morning.
40. I love Christmas and the whole Christmas season. I listen to Christmas music from Thanksgiving until Christmas. I love decorating for it. I love Christmas shopping. I love everything about Christmas.
41. I really like shopping.
42. I don't like to buy expensive things when I shop.
43. I like shopping at garage sales and thrift stores, especially on 50% off days.
44. I like to take pictures and put them up around my house.
45. I like to find free things to do with my kids and I think there should be more free tings to do around her. Or at least more really cheap things.
46. I'm trying to build up our food storage.
47. I want to go to the cannery and can for our food storage.
48. I don't like Halloween all that much. But it's more fun now that I have a kid who can enjoy it and two kids to dress up. And it's nice that my son that can eat candy doesn't really like it that much... Althought he is starting to like it more. I guess I really just don't like to dress up myself.
49. I hate public speaking. I even get nervous when there are just a few people listening like when I teach a class at church. Primary isn't so bad though...
50. I don't ever want any pets. I had fish once and learned that even they were too much work. Mostly just because you have to find someone to watch them while you're gone.
51. I like to go to the zoo. I wish it was cheaper to go there. and closer. Maybe if it was closer I could just get a family pass and it wouldn't be so expensive since you can usually get a pretty good deal on passes to things.
52. I don't like a lot of amusement park rides. I don't like ones that go upside down or have big drops. I just like the ones that spin around really fast.
53. I like spending time with family.
54. My sons are exactly 22 months apart.
55. My sons seem very different. There's the obvious that Jordan is huge and Jack is tiny. But Jordan seems to be more active then Jack ever was. He also seems less independent. He doesn't like to be alone ever (except when he sleeps). I don't remember Jack being like that. But maybe he was. I find that I've forgotten a lot about when Jackson was a baby.
56. I like to save money and try to find ways to get things as cheap as I can by using coupons and trying to find the cheapest store and buying things used.
57. I don't like to buy used shoes. I think it's gross to put my feet in shoes other people have put their stinky feet in.
58. I have a ton of pants... Girls stereotypically like shoes and have a lot of shoes. But I like pants. I haven't got new shoes in a about couple years I think. But I have bought several pairs of pants since then.... mostly from thrift stores. If not from there then on sale.
59. I love to eat goldfish crackers.
60. I eat waffles every day for breakfast.
61. I don't like to give my kids food that's not good for them as long as I can put it off for.
62. I really like romance movies, but hate how a lot of them have bad parts in them.
63. I tried spinich for the first time a few months ago and found that if you have a good dressing on it it's not so bad. I'm finding that's the same for most green leafy salads.
64. I'm trying to have more healthy food for my family to eat for lunches and dinners.
65. I like the rain, especially when it's warm when it rains. I also love listening to the rain when I'm inside.
66. I don't really like snow, but I think it makes everything look really pretty when the snow is fresh and it's night time. I like how it makes it look lighter outside when it's night time.
67. I like looking at Christmas lights.
68. I like when the lights are off in my house and I have the Christmas tree lights on.
69. I like to help my mom decorate for Christmas.
70. I like wrapping presents.
71. I like baking with my family for Christmas.
72. I like family reunions... Even though they generally mean getting up early.
73. I don't mind watching other people's kids.
74. I'm watching my sister's kids for 6 days when she and her husand go to Hawaii. I'm also teaching her preschool class for her for two of the days and my mom is going to watch my boys while I teach.
75. I can't wait until I can go on a fun vacation with just Doug. My kids just need to be a little older.
76. I'm not a person that thinks it's bad to throw away food if I don't like it or am full.
77. I'm don't get offended it people don't like food I make...I don't think at least. I don't that anyone has ever said they don't like something...
78. I'm a really picky eater, but since marrying Doug I have increased the different foods I like by quite a lot.
79. I like to have my house picked up and dinner on the table or really close to being there when Doug gets home because I likes it like that when he gets home.
80. I love the age of two. I think kids say such funny things at that age and I like to see how they look at things.
81. Once a lady told me that she always loved every stage her children were in and never wished for them to be older (or be younger probably) and so I try to always enjoy every stage my kids are in and not wish them to get older.
82. That lady's husband fixed our old tempo after their daughter followed us off to the side of the road when our car wasn't working very good and she said her dad was a mechanic and we could follow her home and have him look at it. We did it and he looked at the car and did a little work. But our car still broke down for good pretty soon after that.
83. That old tempo wasn't a great car by the end of it's life. Besides that fact that it stopped working completely, that air conditioning didn't work, only one of the electric locks worked, and that was on the driver's side door, one of the doors didn't open, the clock didn't work very well, and that's all I can think of right now. There was probably something else wrong too.
84. That car worked really well until I got married. I don't think I had any problems with it before. But once I got married it kept breaking down and needing repairs. There was a few weeks where it had to be jumped anytime we wanted to go anywhere... Luckily we lived close to family and they helped us out.
85. I love having a minivan.
86. I think I'll keep my kids out of organized sports as long as I can. I don't mind going to games and watching them, but when you keep having kids and have more than one in sports and have to do it every week and have practices plus having littler kids it just seems like more it will take a lot of time and energy but the kids won't enjoy it as much until they really want to play. It also costs a lot.
87. I think I'll put my kids in swimming lessons as soon as they'll go though. I think they're important.
88. I worry a lot. About everything there is to worry about pretty much.
89. I like my calling because I'm in the young women's program (as personal progress coordinator) but I also get to go to relief society so I've been able to get to know lots of different people, including the young women.
90. I love when my kids are happy.
91. I was a cheerleader in high school.
92. I love to dance.
93. I like to play volleyball and I wish my ward had volleyball team. Or would have at least asked if people wanted to play because I think that a lot of people would have signed up.
94. I love watching my husband play with my kids.
95. I love going on dates with my husband.
96. I love that we live close to my sister and that she watches our kids for us so we don't have to leave them with a babysitter, which would get expensive and I'm afraid to do it because I don't know how Jackson would do with someone he doesn't know very well. Plus we probably wouldn't go out as often since we'd have to pay for a babysitter... I'm cheap.
97. I like to give kitchen stuff as wedding and bridal shower gifts.
98. I think it's weird that' I'm older than most boy and girl missionaries. For some reason I still think of them as being older.
99. I wish I liked peanut butter sandwiches because then lunch would be easy and yummy.
100. I love being a stay at home wife but I don't like to spend all my time staying home. I get bored when I'm home all day everyday.

There it is. Now you all know me a little bit better...

New backyard

We had our backyard cemented this week. We're excited to use our backyard more now... just in time for the cold weather. We really should have done this in the spring so we could have enjoyed it all summer long. Oh well. By the fence we had to have a step put in so that the gate can still open an close since are yard is uneven. Here's the results:

Success!

I started potty training Jackson on Monday for the second time. Last time I wasn't too successful and gave up after a couple weeks. But this time we have been very successful. He only had two accidents today and one was during his nap and the other was the first time he went potty today, but since then (other than nap time) he hasn't had any accidents! I hope he starts getting the hang of not going while he sleeps. It doesn't bother him when he goes when he's sleeping... He's been in underwear and most the time when I go check on him he's wet and sleeping. Hopefully that will change soon. Before today we hadn't had much success so I was surprised he did so well. Everytime he goes he gets a penny for his gumball machine that has sixlets in it. Actually he gets two pennies. After he gets his first candy he always asks for "2 pennies?" And I let him get another. He usually say "one more penny?" after the second one but I draw the line at two. My question for all you successful potty trainers out there is how do you stop the potty reward? I have no idea how to really stop it, especially at home. Maybe he'll be eating sixlets after going to the bathroom all his life... Here's Jack with his gumball machine.

More Pictures and Stories

Jordan can sit up pretty good now. He only falls when he wants to start scooting around. He's getting closer to crawling, I think... He starting to get up on his knees more. People are often telling me he's really strong and will be a very fast walker... The most recent lady said 9 months. I don't know that I really believe all the fast walker talk. When I was pregnant with Jordan people always told me he was going to come early judging by my belly. But he didn't. He came right on time. Maybe walking will be the same...

Jackson with his little cousin Natalie. Michelle and her family came up for the weekend and we saw her and the kids on Friday. Little Natalie is still so tiny. She seems so breakable. I don't remember Jordan feeling so delicate when I held him.

This is actually Jackson at about 11 months old. Notice the clothes he's wearing...

This is Jordan at 6 and a half months old. Notice the shirt he's wearing. The pants Jack was wearing are already put away in the too small bin of clothes. Jordan has already grown out of the shoes Jack is wearing too. I have two very opposite boys. But both are still very cute.