Fun Stuff

I have been feeling lately like I've had nothing to blog about. Then I was looking at pictures today and decided I had a few to share.
I love my dad's recipe for pancakes so I make them often. Probably way more often than my family would like, but at least they eat them. Lately Ethan has enjoyed helping me make everything. Especially pancakes. Here he is mixing the batter for me.



I couldn't resist taking this picture of the kids watching Daddy drive off on the scooter. Isn't it cute (if you ignore the saggy diaper)? I love that you can tell by Spencer's tense legs how excited he is.


This is what Spencer's hair looked like when he woke up the other day.


Ethan has always been the only kid at birthday parties that eats the cake, but NOT the frosting. In fact, a lot of the time (like at his own party) he won't even eat the cake. The other day we had some friends over for dinner and cake. I made some chocolate frosting and Ethan had his first experience licking the beater. He loved it. Then, when it was time to eat the cake, guess who ate his frosting first!


I saved the best for last. This is what I saw this morning when I went to get Spencer out of his bed.


Just in case you're not sure what it is, here's another view.


I asked Ethan if he pulled Spencer's shirt down, and he told me that he was trying to take it off for him because it was dirty. While I was taking these pictures he explained to me that he had to "pull hard" to get his shirt to do this. Silly boy.

Timp What?

**Disclaimer: Shaun told me to blog about this. I am not mean.**
Shaun was hired by the coach of a 6th grade football team to video all of their games. He started a few weeks ago, and things have been fine. Until last night. Shaun checked the team's schedule earlier this week and saw that they were playing at Timpview High School. He looked up the address on the internet. I think he also double-checked the schedule before he left last night to make sure he was going to the right place. When he got to the game (which started at 8:30) he called me and asked me to check the schedule to make sure he was in the right place. He said there was a team there that had the same name (T-Wolves) and color (red) as the team he was filming, but these kids were bigger and the coaches were different. I said, "Yeah, they're playing at Timpview tonight at 8:30. Are you sure it's not the right team? If you're at Timpview, you've got to be in the right place." He said he was at Timpview, but this just wasn't the right team. We continued discussing what he should do. Finally I decided to call the coach, hoping he would answer even though he was in the middle of the game. I didn't get a hold of him at first, but he answered his phone at about 9:oo, just as a defeated Shaun was about to head home. I asked the coach where he was and what color his opposing team was wearing. He said they were at Timpview High School and the other team was wearing green (the teams Shaun had seen were wearing red and blue). I called Shaun back and said "Where are you? Mike says they're at Timpview. That can't be where you are." He looked at a sign at the school which read Timpanogos High School. He was about 15 minutes from where he should be. I asked him how he found the address to the school. He said he searched for "Timp High School", and Timpanogos High School was first on the list. I guess he didn't realize that there are about 50 schools (slight exaggeration) in the area that are named after Mt. Timpanogos in one way or another. He finally arrived at the right school about half-way through the third quarter of the game. The T-Wolves won, so hopefully the coach was pleased enough with his team to forgive Shaun's tardiness.
**As a humorous side-note Timpanogos High School's mascot is the Timberwolf.

My Eyes

Ashlie asked me how my eyes are, so I guess since I haven't said anything about them in a while I will give an update on that situation. I think the vision in my left eye is where it should be, but my right eye is definitely still cloudy. Sometimes it is worse than others. For some reason it seems to be worse in the morning. The other day I actually rubbed my eyes and they were both cloudy for a few seconds, but I don't know if that had anything to do with this condition. Last time I talked about this I said that I was supposed to see the doctor again this month, but because I am used to it, I can see ok, and I lack insurance and money, I'm putting that off. I do wonder what he would say, though. I have been tempted to go back to wearing contacts. I have also thought about using the leftover steroid drops I have to see what happens, but I'm too paranoid. I still am unsure who to believe in all of this, and I wish I could get a third opinion. Oh well, I guess I will just keep doing what I'm doing as long as it doesn't get worse again.

Ouch!

On Saturday Spencer fell and hit his head on a corner of my desk. He didn't cry for very long, so Shaun and I didn't notice his big owie at first. When we saw it, we were surprised he wasn't freaking out for a long time. I think it looked worse in real life than it does in the pictures, and I think we were lucky it didn't break the skin and require stitches.


I figured he'd get a bad headache and came to the rescue with some Tylenol. You can sort of see the big goose egg in this photo.



He was in surprisingly good spirits.



It's a good thing he's still dang cute!

The Last Hurrah

A few weeks ago Shaun and Ethan made their last trip to our community pool before it closed for the season. Ethan really liked the pool this year and, although he is still no Michael Phelps, he made a lot of progress. Here are some of the things he learned this year.

Going under water voluntarily while plugging his nose.

Jumping in! He loved that (thanks to Aunt Jenn).

Blowing bubbles. He was so cute doing this. He always made noise when he did it and the longer he went, the louder he got.

Here he is holding on to Shaun's arm. He felt so big being in the water without Daddy holding him.

I am hoping that next year he will learn to swim a little bit and that he'll be on his own in the pool with water wings. I also hope that Spencer will like the pool next year!

Good job being so brave and learning to swim, Ethan! And thanks for helping him, Daddy!

Some Pictures

Since I am still behind on posting and I haven't posted many pictures recently, I have some pictures to share of my silly kids.
These first two are of Spencer playing in the kitchen cupboards. I know all kids love getting into things, but I believe he could be the worst when it comes to choosing household items over toys. He hardly ever plays with toys. If I set him in a pile of toys, it takes about 5 seconds for him to get to the kitchen and start playing in the drawers and cupboards (and now the dishwasher!!).



This was very cute. He was "sharing" my music with me. Most of the time he was listening with a very intense look on his face and other times he was dancing. And now he knows where his ears are because I think I told him about 50 times "only in your ears" when he tried to put the ear bud in his mouth.


These four are of a "game" Spencer was playing a few nights ago while Aunt Christine and Uncle Nathan were watching the boys. Silly kid!





Ethan found some ants in our house and decided to hold a couple of them. I was shocked when he walked over to show me. He has always liked to talk to and "play" with ants, but he is so terrified of most other bugs (flies mostly) that I never imagined he would actually touch an ant. He thought it was pretty cool. He tried to get me to hold one, but I wouldn't.



This was this morning. Spencer spent about 30 minutes playing in this toy bin. He was entertaining himself so nicely that I didn't bother to take him out. He has gotten used to sitting in it lately since Daddy made a "train" out of the two bins and pulled the kids around. He even took them outside! It all happened while I was sleeping in a few mornings ago. Crazy Daddy! Luckily the bins held up pretty well to the abuse.


This is what my crazy, cute boys have been up to lately. Except I don't have any pictures that show Spencer walking. He is walking really well now. It's very cute. I'll see if I can figure out how to put some video of him on here soon.

Ethan's Turn

I think I got less than one hour of sleep last night. Partly because I went to bed way too late, but mostly because Ethan was throwing up most of the night. It is now almost 8:00 and he has thrown up 8 times since about (I think) 2:30 this morning. I would not be surprised if there is much more to come. It is so weird. He acts totally fine between each throw up session. I hope he gets over it as quickly as Spencer did. Spencer only threw up 4 times though, so we'll see. I also hope that Shaun and I don't get whatever they got. It seems to come on so abruptly that I'm afraid one of us will suddenly start throwing up when we're at work. Wouldn't that be fun! I'm crossing my fingers for a long nap today.

"Look What Ethan Find!"

Last night, about 45 minutes after putting the kids to bed, Ethan came to his doorway (for about the 15th time) and said, "Mommy, look what Ethan find." I said, "What?", hoping that he would just tell me rather than make me get up and look. He repeated, "Mommy, look what Ethan find!" I decided to get up and look. I walked to his room and there he was holding up a small rock to show me. I thought to myself "That's weird, why is there a rock in his room?" I told him to go back to his bed, and reached for the rock. Just as my fingers touched it I realized this wasn't a pebble from the Earth, but, rather, a pebble of poop. My son had dug this precious stone out of his diaper and was so excited about it that he couldn't wait to show me. Then, not wanting to be greedy, he let me hold it. I asked him if he "found" this treasure in his diaper and he told me he had and that he needed a new diaper. In my three years of motherhood, this is the first time I have thought it was really funny that I was touching poop, but I do hope that digging for treasure in his diaper doesn't become a new habit of Ethan's.

My Hypochondriacal Day

Spencer threw up four times during the night last night. He seems fine so far today, and he has had no other symptoms. I, of course, checked it out on WebMD. I guess he's all right, but I still am a little bit worried about him. I've been working on getting him rehydrated today.
Also today, I have been thinking about the fact that my eyes have had moments of weirdness the past few days. They, every once in a while, come unfocused and move (jerk). I have been somewhat worried that I had something else wrong with my eyes, but I've been trying to ignore it. Since I was having particular trouble with it this morning and WebMD was fresh on my mind, I decided to check it out. There was really only one possible condition that had a symptom of jerking eye movements other than intoxication (and I'm pretty sure I'm not intoxicated). The other main symptom of this condition is...vertigo. So, I think that I've determined that the cause of my vertigo is Labyrinthitis (cool name, eh?). Although there is no cure for this condition and it will still take about a month (or longer) to go away, it's interesting to know. I just thought I'd share the happenings of my hypochondriacal (yes, it's a real word) day with you.

Payback Time!

Spencer's First Haircut

Spencer got his first (very needed) haircut on August 15. Anyone who actually knows how to cut hair will be able to tell by the pictures that I had NO idea what I was doing. This was a lot harder than the usual buzz I give to Shaun and Ethan. It turned out ok, though, and now his hair isn't way too long. I took A LOT of pictures because I wanted to make sure this was properly documented. I don't have any pictures of Ethan's first haircut, and I was determined not to make that mistake again!
Here are some before shots. He was really showing his hair off to the camera.




This is the first during picture. Shaun really captured his initial fear in this one.


He absolutely HATED the clippers. Most noisy things really make him nervous, and this noisy thing was touching him.


Even after I switched to scissors, he was not a happy camper.


But, in true Spencer fashion, he was easily calmed with a little snack.



This is the back after being cut. I think this makes him look really grown up.


And this is the only after picture that doesn't show every cut I made with the scissors. :) Doesn't he look handsome?


Ethan decided that his bear needed a haircut, too. He did the honors with his pliers.


I think he (or she; I'm not sure what it is. Ethan goes back and forth on that.) looks pretty handsome, too.