Cool Weather

I absolutely love it when the weather cools down and it is pleasant to be outside! Fall is such a wonderful time of year!

Speaking of this time of year. Our 4th anniversary is less than 2 weeks away. How time does fly. This year should be extremely interesting to see what we can do for with out spending any money on it. Any ideas?

Are you pregnant?

Beware, if you don't want to deal with some ranting and raving, then please, don't read this.

(and I'm not trying to offend any one or point out anyone specifically. It's just that this particular subject has bothered me for quite some time and I just need to vent a little.)

Why is it so common for people to ask other people (especially young couples) if they're pregnant?

Honestly it is the most inconsiderate thoughtless question, with so many negative ramifications. It's not fun, it's not nice, it's rude and inconsiderate! I mean whether they are or aren't expecting I don't see how it could possibly be a good thing. Let's look at a few scenarios, and lets use me as the guinea pig, I mean why not, I fit into the category!

Scenario 1. I'm not pregnant.


So if I'm not pregnant then I have just been made to feel that either I am fat and look like I'm pregnant (there's a self esteem booster!) or I'm a failure because I'm not living up to someones expectations. It makes me so mad because it's NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS!

There are so many things that might be contributing to the fact that I'm not pregnant. We might not be able to. We might be trying. We might want to desperately! And having it brought up just slams our failure back into our faces. It might even be that we aren't ready to have another baby. And believe it or not that is NOT A BAD THING. And it's still none of their business!

I know several people who have tried and tried and tried to have children and time and time again have had their feelings hurt and they're hearts broken as people open their mouths and ask a question that cuts clear to the hearts "Why aren't you pregnant?" You know what, sometimes it's not your fault, and sometimes no matter how bad you want to and how much you try you can't get pregnant. Why then would someone even risk bringing it up and crushing that poor person?

It makes me want to shout at people "Weren't you ever young? Weren't you ever trying to start a family and constantly under the judgmental pointing expectations of everyone around you? Don't you remember what it was like to have people impose their ideas of what 'you should do' on you? Did you ever find it cute or funny when people would ask, or thoughtful or kind? Or were you just discouraged?"

Scenario 2: I am pregnant


OK now lets look at another scenario. What if I am pregnant? Don't people ever pause to think.

"Hmm if this person is pregnant and they haven't told me, maybe they don't want me to know yet."

Is that such a novel thought?

It's a very fun thing to be pregnant and be trying to plan and plot a fun and exciting way to break the news to everyone. That's one of the joys of being pregnant is finally, when you're ready, finding some fun way to tell people. So if I'm asked if I'm pregnant and I am, then I have to flat out lie to keep it a secret or I have to lose all of the fun and the anticipation and the excitement that I've been building and planing and admit that I am.

No one wants to ADMIT that they're pregnant, they want to ANNOUNCE it, when and how they want to. If you just admit it and say 'yes' then at least for me that would take all of the excitement and enthusiasm out of it. I would feel like I had just lost one of the most exciting parts of the whole experience and that the reaction from the questioner would be:

"well good it's about time"

or

"I knew it"

What's the fun in that? Now I feel totally special and loved and not at all like a number or 'just another suspicion confirmed.' (note the heavy sarcasm!) Honestly when people ask me that question it makes me want to avoid them at all costs and even if and when I were to get pregnant having them be the LAST person to know because no matter what I do I can't please them anyways.

I know this has been a lot of ranting and raving, (but you can't say I didn't warn you! :) But it's not just when it happens to me that bothers me, I think that everyone has a hard time with it, and it bothers me whenever I hear it. Once you get married it seems that you are expected to immediately start 'popping 'em out!' And if you don't you're some kind of sinner. And then if you have a child when they turn about 1 it's the same thing... it seems as if fingers of scorn are pointing at you from every corner.

The decision how and when to have children is between the couple and God. Period!

Can't people just realize that it doesn't matter if someone IS or is NOT pregnant, THEY WILL TELL YOU WHEN THEY WANT YOU TO KNOW!

And you're not doing anyone any favors by asking about it.

Eeyore

Anyone that knows Craig knows that he loves Cars. But what you might not know is that he dearly loves the Winnie the Pooh characters too. He has a cute little set of Tigger, Piglet and Pooh.

Yesterday we passed an Eeyore of the same set in the store and it broke his little heart when we had to leave it there. He kept saying. "Eggo miss Eeyore! Eggo take Eeyore home! Eggo love Eeyore! Eggo buy Eeyore" All the while looking at me with tear filled eyes as if he'd just left his best friend to die! He wasn't throwing a fit he was just devastated! Sad day.

We've been helping him learn about money lately and he's taken his earned coins from his piggy bank and picked out and bought a few $1 items already with his own money. I'm amazed at how good he is with it all. I thought he would just go crazy for a bunch of stuff and then we'd have a break down when he had to put all but one back. But he's been so good. As long as I explain that he doesn't have enough money for it he's very good to pick the one he wants most and put the rest of them back. It makes me so proud of him. He really is a sweet little guy.

I suppose we'll have to be saving for a while so he can go back and get that Eeyore! I can just imagine how happy the cashier will be as they wait for Craig to count out all 32 quarters! (not that he could count that high anyways!) Maybe we'll have to introduce the dollar bill :).

A thought

I heard this yesterday and it really got me to thinking.

"We spend most of our lives putting up walls, trying to protect our hearts..."

If you were able to let those walls down and yet still have your heart be safe, what kind of a person would you be? And what kind of a life would you lead?

My little model

My little man is growing up....

and turning into my little model!

I found these awesome antiques for dirt cheap! and I love them!

Sweetest Guy!

I love K.C. so much! I don't deserve how good he is to me! Yesterday he brought me these flowers just to say I love you.

This must be happily ever after.
I love being in love and knowing that some one is in love with me!

Happy Birthday Eggo!

August 31 was Craig's Second Birthday.

He's getting so big!The Saturday before his birthday we decided to have a little party at our house. I made this cake for him. Since he absolutely LOVES the movie Cars of course it was a Cars cake.

We weren't very prepared and didn't think to invite people to a party until just a few days before. But he had so much fun delivering his invitations and saying "It's my party!"

We were so glad that so many people were able to make it!

As you can see I started out with an eager audience....

and then they got so excited that they had to help a little....

And then it was just too much to take so they had to help A LOT!

It was so funny. Craig loved every minute of it! And he absolutely loved the things that everyone brought for him. It made me happy to see him so happy.

Then he sang happy birthday to him self along with everyone else!

On Monday (his actual birthday) we went out to my parents house and had a little family party for him out there so that my parents could be part of things.

I tried to get some good pictures of him since we can't really go and have pictures taken this year. Some of them turned out but most of them were like this. I suppose that's perfect though because it certainly shows his little personality! The Funny part is that he's actually trying really hard to smile just like I asked him to! It must be kind of confusing for kids to figure out what that really means. It seems that everyone goes through this 'funny face' stage.

He got several of the cars from the movie Cars and was in seventh heaven!

He had to have a cake on his REAL birthday so I made another one!

Annie and Elle spent all day coloring and drawing. They made him a 'quite book / activity book' with all sorts of things to do from changing McQueen's tires to tipping tractors! It was so cute. and So thoughtful! You can tell by his face how cool he thinks it is.

Here he is driving Guido around on the race track :)

Proudly displaying his 'Doc' car with the best smile he can muster.
He knows that I want him to smile and he's always so sweet to oblige.

Making all the appropriate 'oo aaah oooo aaaah' grunting noises as he tries very hard to open the present from grandma and grandpa. (even when he stopped helping and daddy opened the rest he never stopped making the noises. So cute)

What kid wouldn't love a squirt bottle! Especially one that was already full of water!This is his face of innocents right before he blasted all of us. You should have seen his delight as everyone squealed and scattered!

He loves Pooh and Tigger! (he often includes them in his prayers and tonight before bed he gave Tigger a hug before putting him on his box and said with a sigh... "I love you Tigger!")
So stinking cute!

We have the best son ever. He has always been such a good little boy. Of course there have been ups and downs a learning curves but over all as long as we are paying attention to him like we should and giving him the respect that we want him to give us he is practically perfect.

And when he wraps his arms around you and gives you a hug followed by a sweet kiss it totally melts your heart. I'm so glad that I'm a mommy. And I'm so glad that I was blessed to have my first child be so wonderful. And I'm so glad that I've had 2 fun years to get to know my little boy. I can't wait to see what the rest of his life brings! I hope that I can teach him and help him grow up to be an honorable, wonderful man like his daddy!

Family Fun

Fun with pictures!

(I'm actually laying on our grass!
It's almost like a lawn these days!)

When Craig saw this picture he said "ahh tender!"

As soon as I got up from this picture Craig went and sat down saying "take a picture of Eggo too!" and then he sat down and actually smiled without contorting his face as if he was in massive amounts of pain! This was kind of a big moment.

Just like mama.

But of course the funny faces came right back!

Then he asked for the camera and took this picture of me!


Lots of fun. I love my family.

Thanks K.C. for being a good sport and taking pictures of me. I love you with all my heart. I don't know how I ended up the luckiest girl on earth but I sure glad that I did.

It's nice to know that even if times are hard and things are scary that we will always have our family. How glad I am to know that we will be together for eternity!

Just like Mommy...

Well my son, there's a limit to how much I want you to be JUST like me!

Puzzles!

I got Craig Jumpstart Kindergarten for his second birthday, thinking that it would probably not interest him for a while. But I wanted to try because he always surprises me with what he can do. I was also not too sure about it because I didn't know how much he'd have to do things like use the mouse... (which he has never before done) or the keyboard (which he loves to bang on but beyond that I don't have much hope).

I was totally surprised when he grabbed the mouse and after a few careful instructions started to insist "Mommy don't help Eggo."

At one point in the video you can see the mouse he's using and it's big even for my hand. His little hand would slip to the back and he'd be trying to click for all he was worth but no matter how hard he pushed on the BACK of the mouse it just didn't work. All things considered I think he did an AMAZING job of putting together these puzzles all on his own. (I never touched the mouse once. and i tried really hard not to remind him to click. :)

P.S. if there's a picture of my brother riding his bike before you play the video it's because that's the first video that I started to play with and well, for the life of me I can not get it to go away! So this really isn't his BMX video!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

(we finally got smart and let him use K.C.'s laptop mouse which is a lot easier for him to control.)

Milestones

I've been terrible about reporting on Craig and his milestones. So I finally decided do a little update.

Jumping:
He started jumping and actually getting some air around 20 months

Articles of Faith:
We have a family tradition of singing to gather for mealtimes. As part of this tradition we decided to sing different articles of faith so that we could all become familiar with them.

Craig picked them up really fast and by the time he was 21 months old he could recite the first three very well.

Drawing:
His drawings have been getting more and more distinct and he draws very nice circles and faces (when he wants to:)

Talking:
I'm not sure how to measure this one. I certainly can not count all the words he knows. He talks non stop and can do a pretty good job of saying just about any word you ask him to.

He says "please don't" instead of 'No!' (this makes me very happy).

When I'm sitting down and he wants me to get up he'll say one of 2 things, either "Mommy stand up please!" or he'll grab my hand or foot and start pulling while singing the song from Winnie the Pooh where Pooh is stuck in Rabbit's door. "Keep heaving and hoeing and out the mama will going!"

On of my favorite things that he would say that he's already growing out of is "Please... Okay!"
It was absolutely adorable how he would smile and say it while dragging out the okay. And it was so cute of him to answer his own question. I miss it.

Reading:
He reads when he feels like it, and when he doesn't feel like it... good luck. But he's getting more and more words under his belt. Slowly but surly we'll win this battle.

Potty Training:
We tried that about a week ago. It went really good in that he seemed to understand everything I was telling him. He would answer every question correctly and tell me that he was only supposed to potty in "Eggo's toilet" ..... (as he stood there and peed his pants, not making one little effort to even move, let alone go to the toilet.)

I decided that since he didn't seem to be struggling with the concept he just needed to wait till he was ready to care about it. So we decided to wait for a while and try again.

Here's the doll that he 'taught' to go potty
(Notice how I had to draw Lightning McQueen on his pants?)

A very proud Eggo

And here he patiently sat.

I wish he would have just decided to do it and taken off with it. And maybe I shouldn't have stopped but it just seemed so much better to have the whole situation be one that wasn't traumatic and terrible. I guess we'll see how it turns out.

A Thoughtful Prayer

So Craig has started saying his own prayers lately. It is quite fun to see what he comes up with! Usually I help him start and then regardless of what I prompt him to say he starts saying whatever comes to mind.

Criag's unaided prayer last night:

(Every line is followed by as pause as he waits for ME to say what he's just said)

Thankee for Eggo's diaper,
Thankee for balloons,
and for Mack's trailer,
and for Clark
and for Julia
and for Shannon
Thankee for Dinoco
and for Daddy!

I love to hear what's going though his mind! He always says something different and it's always a delightful surprise!

Growing Up

My little boy is growing up on me!

He's 2 years old! Wow how time does fly! We are so very happy to have such a wonderful, happy, smart, delightful boy! He makes everything so fun!

Julia