Two Things That Have Made My Life Better

1. Planning out all the dinners for the week in advance.

Ty and I started doing Weight Watchers at the beginning of the month. Since it had been a while I decided to plan out our meals for the week before we went shopping so that we wouldn't have to be tempted by things we weren't supposed to eat. (It's always easier to have a plan, right?) Well, I loved it so much that I've been doing it ever since! It makes everything so much easier. Shopping is a breeze because you know exactly what you need to get and you don't wind up with a kitchen full of ingredients but nothing that will make a meal. Plus it eliminates the, "What should we have for dinner tonight?" dilemma that I hate so much. If you haven't tried it I would highly recommend it. Just do it once and you'll be hooked too.

2. This Book: The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands by Dr. Laura Schlessinger (Yes, It's the Dr. Laura.)

It's our book club book for February and I love it. It just points out that if you want to be happy in your marriage and happy with your husband all you have to do is have the right attitude. And it's nothing ground breaking or phenomenal, just little reminders of things that most of us already know. I just started reading it last night and I already feel more satisfied with my marriage and with the role that I play in it. (And we weren't having problems so things were already pretty good.) So, if you're married and you're not happy, or you are happy you should read this book. Just do it. It won't even take you that long. :)

Ty and I had this conversation yesterday:

Me - The Super Bowl is next Sunday, right?

Ty - Yeah, are you going to watch it with me?

Me - (A little haughtily) No babe, I'm going to church.

Ty - It's not during church.

Me - Oh.

Ty - So, are you going to watch it with me?

Me - Nope.

Stuck

Apparently our house is the opposite of baby proof. Leo just keeps getting stuck under everything. I don't even know how he can wedge himself this far under the couch. I'm waiting for the day when I come back into the room and he's completely underneath it.

HELP!!!

This adorable boy

is a MONSTER!!!

He has completely stopped sleeping through the night and has reverted back to some horrible pre-birth stage. He is literally worse than when we brought him home from the hospital. Last night he woke up every three hours. And the two nights before that he was up and screaming from 12 to 4 a.m. I'm becoming insane with exhaustion and don't know what to do. If you have any good tip on how to get a monster child to sleep through the night please, please, please let me know.

(We've already tried the whatever method where you let him cry for ten minutes, go in and comfort him without picking him up, let him cry for 15 minutes etc. Yeah right. If we go in and don't pick him up he goes ballistic. And we've let him cry for an hour and a half at a time and he still didn't give up. HELP!!!)

Confession

I might have stayed up extra late last night to watch the entire Miss America Pageant on TLC. I was only going to watch a few minutes, really I was, but then I got hooked. I felt like the new method of eliminating people was a little bit cruel. I mean, "Okay everyone, run like crazy and get ready for the talent portion. Then sit here in the middle of the stage and if we don't call you to perform you got cut." I thought it was unnecessary. Can you imagine what people would have thought of Miss Hawaii in that outfit if she didn't get to show off what all those feathers were for? Any how, I was more than a little disappointed by the outcome. They started to announce the winner and it went like this . . . 

Mario Lopez - The fourth runner up is . . .

Me - I want Florida to win.

Mario - Miss Florida.

Me - You have got to be kidding me! Okay then, New York.

Mario - Third runner up is Miss New York!

Me - Well, there go my picks.

Mario - Second runner up . . .

Ty - I'm rooting for Iowa.

Mario - Miss Iowa! First runner up, Miss Georgia! And your new Miss America is . . .

Me - Well, out of the ones left I'd say California. Definitely not Indiana.

Mario - Miss Indiana! Congratulations!

Although I must admit, I teared up a little when she freaked out and started bawling. I mean, she put a lot of work into this, right?

Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away

It has been raining here for the last several days and I have been loving it! "What's to love," one might ask, "about ice cold rain?" My answer? It's not snow. Yes, that's right folks, it's been in the high 30's to mid 40's here and we've been in heaven. I felt like pulling out my swimming suit but I didn't want to frighten small children. Unfortunately it's getting cold again and due to snow for the next several days. :(

Six Months

Leo had his six month appointment on Friday. He weighs 14 pounds 14 ounces (7.43 percentile), he's 26 1/2 inches long (59.11 percentile) and his head is 44 centimeters around (52.8 percentile). He's really starting to talk up a storm. So far he can say "dadadadada," "bababababa," "mamamamama," "wawawawawa," and "papapapapa." His favorite thing to play with is a big plastic spoon. Yeah, we take it to church with us.

He's also (finally) getting really good at rolling over. Yesterday we had put him down while we were getting dinner ready. When he started screaming we turned around to find that he'd rolled under the couch and gotten stuck. It was pretty funny.

Yummy

I made this for dinner the other night.

It was delicious. I mean, really yummy. And I got it here, so it was really healthy too. Just beware. It serves 10. We ended up sharing with a lady in our ward because, even though we like leftovers, we didn't want them five times.

Snow Day

We took Leo out to play in the snow for the first time. (It was also his first time wearing shoes, by the way.) He didn't mind it as much as he should have and actually seemed to think it was pretty cool.

Notice that it's higher than he is tall.


The first feel


Snow chair

A little taste

Stubborn

Leo has decided that he doesn't want me to do anything while he's eating other than feed him. If he notices anything going on behind him he throws his arm back there and tries to get it. It's especially bad when I'm reading. If he even suspects that there might be a book back there he does everything possible to rip it out of my hands. He's quite sneaky about it too. He'll put his arm on his hip for a little bit and then throw it back and sweep around. If he hasn't felt a book after several rounds of this, he'll whip his head around really quick and try to see it. It's insane. The really funny part is that he doesn't want me to look at him either. He doesn't like making eye contact while he's eating. So I guess he just wants me to sit there and stare into space until he's done. Fat chance, son.

Ghetto

We live in a basement apartment, and the stairs that lead to our place twist around. Getting stuff down them was a bit of a nightmare. We managed to get everything down however, except for our box spring. (We've been sleeping on our mattress on the ground for a week.) Our home teacher mentioned that they had the same problem when they moved into their place, but they were able to take the fabric off and just use the wood frame. We decided to give it a try.
It turns out that our box spring is not just a wood frame covered with fabric. It had a wood base, then a weird wire contraption that's flexible, and then the fabric covering.

Ty spent hours taking the thing apart. Every time the wire touched the wood it was held together with two huge staples and he had to pry them all out. Any how, he eventually did it but it still wasn't easy to get down. We (and by that I mean mostly Ty) had to bend the wire part practically in half and force it down the steps. Then Ty cut the wood frame in half. We re-assembled it on the bed frame, but without using any fasteners. We're basically just waiting for the whole thing to fall apart in the middle of the night and leave us on the ground. Don't worry, there will be pictures when it happens.

Favorite Things

Leo has a new favorite thing to do.

We've had him in here for an hour or more and he just keeps jumping away. He loves it! (Although sometimes he forgets what he's doing in there and we have to say, "Jump Leo, jump!") It's been such a life saver for us to be able to put him in there while we're organizing the house(or eating or cleaning or reading . . .). Thanks Aunt Tami for passing this along to us!

Bliss

Ty and I started Weight Watchers today. In honor of this momentous decision we decided to have one last hurrah on Saturday. (Basically we got to pick one thing that we wanted to eat that we wouldn't be able to eat while on Weight Watchers.) Ty picked Mexican (of course) and I picked this:

Now I know this probably doesn't look very appealing to very many of you, but I love white chocolate and I absolutely adore coconut. I mean, you could give me a plate full of mud and I would happily eat all of it if it had enough coconut in it. I've been eyeing this baby at the store for months now and I finally got to try it. Let me tell you, it was heaven in my mouth. I might have peed a little with excitement when I took the first bite. And then I ate the entire thing (minus one square which went to Ty) in about 23 minutes. It was delectable. 

I must admit I'm a bit sad to have discovered this little gem just in time to start a diet. But I guess it won't last forever. (Read as: "As soon as I get pregnant again I'm running to the store for a little reunion.") Until then, farewell my friend. I'll never forget you.

New House

We decided, right before Ty came back to AZ for Christmas, that we were going to move to a new house just a block away from where we were. We had to be out by the end of December, so we headed back to Utah a few days early in order to do the moving. We had no idea it would be so hard to move with a baby. Especially one who'd just been spoiled by five weeks of near constant attention. (See Fun With Cousins post below.) It was a nightmare. Every time we put Leo down he would scream his head off until he got picked up again. There was almost no time when both Ty and I were working on the move because one of us was always taking care of the little stinker. By the 30th we were a little desperate to get done. We were loading up boxes with random stuff, dumping the boxes at the new house and bringing them back to be loaded again. (We didn't have enough boxes either.) We were able to get out of the old house in time, but the new house looks like this:

We're slowly but surely getting things put where they belong and it looks like this new place is going to work out really well. We're living in the basement of a partially disabled woman and we'll be helping her with lawn and house work etc. She's actually in the hospital right now and will be there for a few more days. It's been good because we have a little time to get settled before she needs our help. So far Leo's room is the only one that's done.
We're praying that we can get the rest of the house looking like this by the end of next week. Wish us luck!

Back in Utah

Well, we finally made it back to Utah on Sunday. It was a thirteen hour drive. Not because we had to stop for Leo, but because we (accidentally) came by way of California. We were headed to Vegas and stopped in Kingman to eat. A short while after we got back on the road we realized we were crossing the Colorado and there was no dam in sight. Then, there it was. "Welcome to California." Let me tell you, that was not a pleasant surprise. We were going to turn around but the friendly border-crossing guard-man informed us that we could catch a highway to Vegas if we just went a little farther in. Then once we got to Vegas the exit for the I-15 was closed so we got to take a fun little detour all around town. It was quite an adventure.
Any how, we got to pick Ty's brother up from the airport and take him to the MTC on Wednesday. The picture below is Leo in the car on the way there. It was super cold and he did not like that. We had to bundle him up and feed him a warm bottle to stop the maniacal screaming. Fortunately he's getting a little more used to it.

Too big

When we decided to go to AZ for six weeks I wasn't really sure what clothes to pack for Leo. Especially pajamas. We had some light weight ones that were just the right size and some warm, fuzzy ones that were a little big. I decided to take both figuring that it would get colder around the time that Leo grew out of the small jammies. I was wrong. It didn't actually get cold until the day before we left. It was too hot to put Leo in the warm, fuzzies and the light pj's were way too small. What did we do? We cut the feet off. How trashy can I get? The limit has yet to be reached.

Bike Ride

We went for a two mile bike ride with Leo in a hiking backpack. He really loved it, but only made it about a mile and a half before he zonked out.

Cookies!

Aunt Meilyn snuck Leo a cookie while we were at her house. He was in heaven!

Christmas

Merry (belated) Christmas! We had so much fun. We ended up not buying a stocking for Leo so we did it the old-school way. (If you blow that up you can tell that it's shaped like a can of baby food. That's because Leo got bananas in his stocking. He loved them.)
Leo wasn't really all that interested in presents which was good because we didn't get him any. :) He did have a lot of fun playing with daddy's mike & ikes, a gift bag and a box.


We had to take a little break about half-way through. The Christmas excitement just wore him out and he was a little cranky.

He woke up really happy though, and was thrilled to get Kung Fu Panda. (He chewed on the box for a good 10 minutes.)

Grandma Reber made us all matching hats. They're getting a lot of use now that we're back in Utah!

By the last present Leo was pretty much a pro at opening them up. We're really excited for next year when he actually knows what's going on.

Fun with cousins

I've discovered that the problem with spending time in AZ is that Leo gets used to having other people around to entertain him. After five weeks of being surrounded by cousins he's come to expect the distraction. Now that we're back in Utah and there's just me and Ty he's about to drive us crazy! If we're not paying attention to him he just screams until we do. It's all sorts of fun.

Gavin

Gunner


Meghan