Gardner Village

There's this cool place near Sandy called Gardner Village. Every October, the usual shops and things are swarmed with witches. Witches of every shape and type. Most are live, though there are some fun sculpted ones too. I don't really know if these ladies are hired, official vollunteers, or simply show up in costume. Probably a little of each. Anyway, it's a blast to visit, if you don't mind crowds, and a fun free way to get in the Halloweeny mood. :) They also have a hay bale maze for young kids, a petting zoo, and pony rides. Those all cost, but only between 1 and 3 dollars.

Heidi, Rudy and I went to check it out on one of those days that Jason was still feeling miserable with his (our) cold. Good thing, too, since Jason is very much so NOT a crowds person. The candy shop was literally body to body full of people. (But of course, we had to go in...that sweet aroma was tantalizing before it got so strong that it was a bit sickening. :) )

Any way, I reccommend it if you're up for an adventure-just be sure to plan ways to keep track of your kids. (like bringing an extra adult, or a kid harness thing, or both) :)

Pumpkin Cookies

These are Rudy's favorite cookies right now. They're so simple to make, and relatively healthful (for a cookie). All that goes into them is one 15 ounce can of pumpkin, one box (just the mix-don't add anything) spice cake mix, and about 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips. Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes. Ta Da! Even a toddler can do it. :)

I'm no good at holding on to good news.

This time around, I told myself, would be different. This time around, I'd actually keep my mouth shut and bask in the private joy of just Jason and I knowing that we're expecting.

HA!

That lasted 2 days, then I told my mom. (She asked me what I was doing, and I just happened to be pulling up to my Dr.'s to get a confirmation of the pregnancy...what was I supposed to do...lie?) :)

Next I told my in-laws, then a sibling here and there.

Then my neighbor, then a friend or two.

So, why not blog about it?

I'M PREGNANT!!!!

It's way more fun being pregnant when you can talk about it, don't you think?

We're looking at early June for a due date. We're calling our baby 'her' for now, until we find out otherwise. (We called Rudy 'he', and that worked out OK, so we thought, why not-it's better than calling the next member of our family 'it' for the next 5 months).

So, September turned out to be a really great month for me. I had my birthday, bought a house, planted my first tree in my very own land, and got pregnant. Wow. I'll have to remember that month whenever I'm feeling ignored or forgotten by God.

Sweet Rudy

So, a couple days ago, I lost my zen for a bit. I was glad to have something destructive on my to do list. As I was zealously ripping out carpet in our dining room, Rudy came toddling over. Despite my hardened face and flailing arms, he inched his way in for a hug. It was so disarmingly sweet, I cried. So he gave me another hug. And then he brought me his tractor to hold (just for a minute). What a sweetie.

p.s. This picture is Rudy posing after asking me to take his picture directly after a spaghetti lunch (he's not always so crusty). Crustiness aside, it's a sweet look into his little heart, which is why I put it here, with this post. :)

No Mirrors in My Nana's House

My current favorite children's book? No Mirrors in My Nana's House by Ysaye M. Barnwell. Besides writing this book, she is a member of an a capella group called Sweet Honey in the Rock.

I love a capella, so I was excited to notice that there was a cd included in the cover with her group performing a song based on the book. Unfortunately, I couldn't find Sweet Honey in the Rock performing this particular song on YouTube, but I found a different group covering it. Hopefully that'll give you a feeling for the song.

It's about a little girl's introduction to the world through her Nana's eyes. I love it for two reasons:

1) It reminds me of my early childhood. Yes, we had mirrors, but we had a simple lifestyle and my world revolved around my family. It was beautiful.

2) It reminds me of one of the most important gifts I can give Rudy. Far more important than providing everything I can imagine he would ever desire, is showing him how to be happy with what he has. To take joy in what life gives you. My mom has told me a story of one day when she was nursing her mother as a teenage girl. (Her mother died of heart problems when my mom was around 19.) Her mom was very ill in bed, and it was pouring outside. Instead of complaining and being bitter that God wouldn't even so much as send a cheery sun ray to brighten her day, her mother turned to my mom and said something to the effect of, "Isn't it lovely how the rain is playing a whole symphony on my window just for us?"

That's what this book is all about. Cherishing what we have.

Being reminded of this has helped me be happy even when most of my windows are missing window treatments, when my downstairs (and only) shower reveals itself to be a painted over mess of mildew. When my kitchen light goes out. When my fridge stops cooling and all my food goes bad. It helps me be thankful that I have windows to treat, and insanely intense chemicals (accompanied by an ambitious mother) to throw at even more intense mildew infestations, and a handy man husband to fix the kitchen light, and decent store of non perishable food items to feed to my family while we address the fridge issue. (It's up and running again- just needed some TLC and the expertise of an appliance repair dude.)

Anyway, the insight I have gained from this little children's book has helped me to be happy, cool and calm. It has helped me to be thankful. To be a better wife and mommy.

When's the last time a children's book did that for YOU?

Progress...

...is such messy business.

Rudy had abandoned his interest in using the potty when we moved. I expected as much. Today, he decided he was ready to experiment further. Right after dinner, he asked to use the potty. Of course, I obliged. I stripped him down to a t-shirt and sat him on our potty. Rudy promptly farted and announced he was done and ready to flush. Sigh. I put his diaper back on, neglecting to replace his pants since I thought he may be ready for second try at it in a few minutes.

I got busy with my after dinner dish washing, and was just wondering to myself what we should do with our post dinner, pre-bed time, when I heard a little voice behind our closed hallway door saying, "Boo boos, boo boos?" Hmm. He usually calls boo boos 'owies'. Still, I imagined him holding something dangerous and contemplating the chances of injury with this boo boos inquiry. I hurried to open the door, only to find an (ever so slightly) less alarming scene: Poo poos. On the carpet. Right in front of the closed bathroom door. And all through the hallway where my sweet little man had tracked them from a misstep into the mess at some point between doing the deed and announcing it to me.

I squelched a scold in my throat and replaced it with a question: "Where's your diaper?" Rudy proudly took me to the place he'd stripped his diaper off- right behind me in the kitchen. Maybe I should have been keeping a slightly more vigilant eye on him. I asked the next question while lowering him into the tub for a hose down, "Where are poo poos really supposed to go?" "In the POTTY!" Rudy replied with glee. "So, why did you poo on the floor instead?" To this, Rudy replied very seriously, "Owies, Mommy, owies."

Jason has drilled it into Rudy's head that the bathroom is a place full of potential owies. It's the drowning paranoia in him. Plus, right now we do have a laundry shoot in easy access to Rudy. A trip down that, or getting stuck in it, could cause some serious owies, so I guess it's good to give Rudy a healthy respect for the possibilities, but he's also got to see the everyday practicality of the place.

So. Rudy and I have agreed that next time he wants to try putting his poo poos somewhere other than his diaper, he should come get me, and we'll go to the potty together. That way, he won't get any owies, and I won't have to scrub the carpet.

That, and I've learned that I need to keep pants on him, or a onesie at least, so that he can't just rip his diaper off in a matter of seconds.

With Basements come...

SPIDERS.

I found this lady camped out near Rudy's toys downstairs in the basement. Pretty creepy, eh?

Here's a couple videos of Rudy's reaction to the venomous beast. You'll get a good feeling for the fog I've been operating under these last few days too. (I'm kinda loopy in these videos. ) :)

SICK

Bleh. Our whole family has been sick for what seems like FOREVER. As I type, I'm breathing through my mouth, trying not to sneeze so my poor sore throat can be spared that traumatic experience for a few more minutes.

Rudy started it. 2 weeks ago, he came down with his usual croup. A week later, just after a day and a half of 'recovery' he launched into what we all have now. Sore throat, coughing, runny/stuffy nose misery. Sleep is hard to come by. Luckily, Mutti has been on vacation, so she's come down and helped or let me come up and crash a couple times.

I hope we'll start feeling better soon. This is just such bad timing, you know? I can't reach out to new or old friends. We're stuck in this isolation of sick quarantine. To go to the dr, we even have to wear those mask things. bleh.

Friends make all the difference

I babysat one of Rudy's friends, Amy, for a few hours last week. As a result, her parents, my friends, came in to chat for a bit, while we jointly finished off the kids' baths. (It was bedtime). What a relief. Fun to see familiar faces, and not have to talk about obligatory introduction stuff like what I do for a living, if my husbands still in school, where I'm from, how long we've been married, etc. etc. It gets old talking about yourself after a while, but everyone wants to know (and I want to know the same things from them, so I guess it's a fair trade.)

Anyway, what would have before been a mundane part of my day, turned into a picture worthy event. Out the camera came. Here's a few shots from Rudy and Amy's play date:

Plenty of boxes around to play in.

Riding bikes in the yard.

Enjoying pudding after dinner, just before rounding out the evening with

a bath. I made it a bubble bath to preserve some semblance of privacy. (Not that either cared)

Amy's parents and Jason and I have joked about these two getting married since we found Bonnie and I were pregnant with babes of opposite gender together. Wouldn't this be a funny wedding slide show pic? :)

Cold

Poor Rudy. He's been finding his peace, his grounding serenity in all the chaos of the move, in our many many trips outside to play. Wednesday morning it was miserable weather outside. Thunder, lightning, wind, wind, WIND, even the occasional bought of hail. Needless to say, we were inside.

I planned on wisking us off to the library for storytime if the weather gave so much as a hiccup of improvement, so at least Rudy could have some him time, playing with other little people.

Our moment came, and I bundled Rudy up and set out for the library. He was still so miserable that even the suggestion of the library was met with a howling “NOOOooooo!” I told him he'd be glad to be there once we were there, and strollered on. About the only thing that was keeping him together was his precious Tupperware of snacks on his stroller tray. That is, until a particularly heartless gust of wind picked it up, threw down onto the wet, busy street, dumping it's contents onto the pavement. Rudy stretched his pitiful little arms out to the now rolling tupperware and screamed 'Snacks! Snacks!'. It was just about as dramatic as the scene in Castaway when the dude loses Wilson, the volleyball.

Since our window of calm had passed, I got out the weather cover for the stroller, (which ripped as I was trying to stretch it's cold, brittle plastic over the stroller) and wished I had worn something a little more protective than a fleece sweater and a baseball hat, which threatened to blow off my head at any moment. Since we were half way between the library and home, I decided to just push on, all the while contemplating a stop at the thrift store across the street from the library to purchase a coat and a winter hat. (Both of which I had at home, somewhere in some box or another.)

By the time we arrived at the library, we were both windblown and rosy cheeked. Rudy slowly warmed up to being at the library as he watched the story time leader sing all sorts of fun and silly songs. It was like watching a lizard slowly come to life as the warm sun jump starts it's metabolism. By the end of story time, Rudy was fully charged and ready to play, which was great because 3 of our friends from the condo were there with their kids. These are the kids Rudy was used to seeing most every day on the playground, so it did him a world of good to romp about with them.

Luckily, by the time we left the library, the weather had gained a bit of composure, so we rounded out our outing with stop at Little Cesar's (since we had no snacks remaining) and a visit to the pet store. Rudy feel asleep on the way home, his belly full of pizza, his heart warmed by play time with friends.

All's well that ends well, right?

MOVED!

We did it. (With the help of several family and ward members.) We successfully packed all our things and moved them from South Orem to North Orem. Whew. It wasn't my most diplomatic day, I must confess, but we did it, and its done.

Unpacking is going way slower than Jason or I expected, but it's so rewarding. The day I didn't have to search through 3 different boxes to find a flipper for my pancakes that were burning on the griddle I had just unearthed was a glorious one. :)

Our neighbors and neighborhood is GREAT. They are open, chatty but not gossipy, kind, and generous. Since we've lived here, one has offered to teach me all the mysteries of tiling when we're ready to remedy our very pink, very dated upstairs bathroom,

another has taught me all the little tricks of working with clotheslines (including how to hide underwear behind a curtain of towels), and another has offered his grapes, pears, and apples to our table. We're gonna like it here. :)

One of my neighbors even lent Rudy and me her little mini Schnauzer, Princess (complete with pink collar and glittery leash-but no matter) to bring to the park which is JUST AROUND THE CORNER. It was wonderful, 'cause having that cute, friendly dog at my side made me a kid magnet, which resulted in being a mom magnet. Instant opportunity to get to know the park frequenters.

Sigh, as Jason would say, "Everything's coming up Milhouse!"

There have been plenty of late nights, sore muscles, and aching heads to accompany all our joys, but that's OK. We'll just chalk it up to growing pains, and be thankful we can have them.