Shooting

I have a lot to update here, so just bear with me.

Ty has been trying to get me to go shooting with him since before we got married. Last Saturday we finally went, and I'm actually pretty good. My very first bullet even went in the innermost circle. I was quite pleased with myself and surprised by how much fun I had. We'll definitely be going again.

Halloween

We decided not to do anything this year for Halloween. In fact, Ty is at school right now studying. It's just too cold to be outside for any length of time and Leo is still too young to really be interested in the candy. (Side note about the candy: Ty and I each got to pick out a candy bar at Walmart yesterday because we weren't going to be able to eat Leo's trick-or-treat candy.) Any how, we did go to a Halloween activity with the other little kids in our ward on Thursday so Leo didn't miss out on the opportunity completely.

His favorite part, by far, was eating the snacks he got. (It was juice, pretzels and string cheese. The kid was in heaven.)

He was also slightly obsessed with this Tinker Bell wand, to the great distress of Tinker Bell.

I love this picture because it reminds me of this one from last year.

And here's Leo coloring his trick-or-treat bag.

Climbing

About a week ago Leo started climbing on everything. My life is hell. Honestly, I cannot keep him off of things. We have literally started putting our folding chairs away when we're not sitting on them just so he has fewer things to climb on. (And we use them at our kitchen table.)

For some reason he is obsessed with the toilet brush. I have yet to discover a hiding place that he can't find.

He thinks it's hilarious to climb up and sit in front of the computer/TV while you're trying to use/watch it.

And he's obsessed with eating cereal straight from the box.

He gets mad when I take pictures of him.

And he's also found several new ways to get stuck.

As usual, I have to take a picture before I help him out.

Ice Cream

We made homemade ice cream last night for a ward activity. We didn't have room in our freezer for the ice cream maker, so I had to scoop it out into several Tupperware containers in order for it to fit. When I was done I left a little bit in the bottom for Leo and I to eat. Well, it didn't take him long to commandeer the spoon and the container from me. He's definitely my kid!

Deer

So here's the deer story:

Last night I got in the car around 6:30 to go and pick up Ty from work. As we were driving down 900 East (it's a busy, 4 lane road) I see a little blur out of the corner of my eye. "What is th. . . oh crap!" And then a giant deer (it was at least as tall as the car)ran into the side of me, flipped over the top of the car, crushed the windshield on the passenger side and ran off.

I was a little freaked out, mostly because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do (and Leo was screaming from the loud sound that the windshield made when it shattered.) SO I pulled into a gas station and called Ty. "I just hit a deer." I said. "Do we need to report it or something?"

Any how, long story short, we filled out a report and someone from Ty's work gave him a ride to the gas station where we were. The damage was really minimal. There's a dent on the driver's side over the front wheel and the windshield, of course, which we already had replaced.

Yes, that's deer hair stuck in the car.

So, this is the first time in weeks (yes, the "s" is supposed to be there) that all of the dishes have been done at the same time and I thought I would document it for posterity. (It took me two days to do it, and you'll notice I didn't take pictures of any of the other parts of the house because they're not clean.) I've been reading this book called Mothering With Spiritual Power by Debra Sansing Woods. Each chapter starts with a verse from the Book of Mormon and then goes on to tell how it changed her perspective on mothering. Chapter six is Alma 37:6 ". . .by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. . . ." She talks about how frustrated she used to get as a young mother because she could never seem to get her house clean all at once. She felt like she had to choose between taking care of her kids and taking care of her house. However, once she learned to utilize the "small and simple things" principle, she realized that the best way to do both was to just do a little bit each day. Then, even though the whole house was never spotless, no room ever got out of control dirty. I'm trying to implement this mindset into my life because my other option is to just stop cleaning altogether. Any how, I'll let you know how it goes.

P.S. This obviously applies to other things besides cleaning. For example, I'd been feeling like I didn't have any opportunity to sew, which is something that I love doing. Whenever I tried to sit down and work on a project Leo would freak out. So I've started working on things that can be done in bits and pieces. Now I'll pull out a project during nap time or after Leo is in bed for the night and work on it for 30 minutes or so. As long as I'm not too concerned about getting it done by a certain time it works great. Now I feel like I can still do things I enjoy without it causing a major uproar.

FYI

Apparently I really love the taste of chocolate and diet Coke. Not chocolate flavored diet Coke, just diet Coke at the same time as brownies or chocolate chip cookies. It warms my heart.

That's all.

Ultrasound Day!!!

So we went to our ultrasound today and found out. . . absolutely nothing. Huge bummer!!! The machine was acting up and they were having a really hard time getting it to read the signal from the wand thingy. They got it to work for just long enough to measure the baby and see that the doctor had miscalculated my due date. They weren't going to be able to see what they needed to and we would have to wait four more weeks for another ultrasound. (Even though the due date was only off by a week.) Any how, they ended up deciding we could come back in two weeks, so hopefully we'll know what we're having on Nov. 11So we went to our ultrasound today and found out. . . absolutely nothing. Huge bummer!!! The machine was acting up and they were having a really hard time getting it to read the signal from the wand thingy. They got it to work for just long enough to measure the baby and see that the doctor had miscalculated my due date. They weren't going to be able to see what they needed to and we would have to wait four more weeks for another ultrasound. (Even though the due date was only off by a week. Any how, they ended up deciding we could come back in two weeks, so hopefully we'll know what we're having on Nov. 11.

P.S. The new due date is March 25.

This is what happens when you change a diaper in the middle of the night.

Sneak Peak

Just a little preview of what's to come.

Leo is cutting 3 molars right now.

Are you kidding me?

THREE!!!

The last few days have been interesting.

Full of Motrin, Tylenol and lots of tears.

Even so, there have been good moments.

Like these:

Eating a yummy pear.

Hanging out at the bottom of the slide.

(After I chased him down it.)

Sliding down head first.

(Leo's favorite way to go down.)

Playing at the playground near our house.

And going on long walks,

with the corn popper in tow, of course.

Exciting Weekend

So many great things happened this weekend! It was awesome. First of all, we finally got all of our boxes unpacked. Everything is organized, put where it belongs and clean. I can't believe how good it feels to have that done! Here's a little video tour of our house. (I won't be offended if you don't watch it. The quality is terrible and it's probably boring. However, if you do watch it, try to ignore the fact that our bed isn't made. Not only is our box spring being held together by yarn, but the entire bed is now up on stilts so we can store stuff underneath it. It's treacherous to move!)

Second, my little belly bump finally kicked me! Yay! It's nice to know she's alive and well in there. I've been feeling what was possibly her rolling around in there, but the kicking was for sure. (P.S. No, I don't know that I'm having a girl. I've just been calling the baby "she" since we found out we were expecting. Premonition? Wishful thinking? We'll find out a week from Wednesday.)

Also, today we got this awesome desk and couch for FREE!!! We've been looking for a table for my sewing machine for over a year and we couldn't find anything that I liked. This (slightly ugly) little desk is perfect! I love it and I've already used it.

And we had just decided that we were probably going to do without a couch for now, but having one is so much better. Leo loves to climb on it and we love having a place to sit that isn't a folding chair.

Our new apartment already feels so much more like home than Lana's basement ever did. Life rocks, people. Life rocks.

15 Months

Leo had his 15 month appointment last week. His current stats are:

Weight: 22.5 lb (26.5 percentile)

Height: 32 in (86.6 percentile)

Head: 18.7 in (67.7 percentile)

His weight has been in the 9th percentile since he was born and his height has been around the 70th, so he had a bit of a growth spurt these past few months. He's supposed to be saying 3-6 words other than "mom" and "dad", and he's currently at two; "yes" and "no".

Paranoia

Ty and I are about to send our fingerprints off to the FBI to be entered into the AFIS database. I've never been fingerprinted before, especially not by the FBI, and for some reason it's making me incredibly paranoid. I can totally imagine myself having this conversation: "Of course you found my fingerprints on the gun, officer. It's my gun. But I didn't murder that man/woman/prostitute you found in the street last night. No, officer, I don't know how my weapon got to the crime scene. Someone must have taken it. . . ." Also, it seems like it will now be much easier for a disgruntled friend/enemy/co-worker/ex-lover to frame me. All they have to do is leave something that I've touched somewhere that it shouldn't be. Maybe I've been watching too much NCIS. Any how, I'll probably wear gloves from now on.

FYI

I love being a mom, I really do.

But sometimes I wish I didn't have to do it

every

single

day.

That's all.

Leo Turns 2

Leo has decided that, rather than waiting until July, he's going to go ahead and be 2 now. He has started throwing some quite impressive tantrums. He's gotten so good at it that he can even keep going once he's forgotten what he's crying about. Yesterday was probably the best one I've seen so far. We were out for a walk and he wouldn't stay out of the street, (more about this later) so I decided that it was time for us to go back in. I picked him up and, as usual, he started crying. But he wasn't crying that hard and it should have been over in a few minutes. Instead he cried for over an hour. And no matter what I did, he just kept crying harder and harder. I tried holding him, playing him music, offered him food and a drink, ignored him, put him in his crib alone to cry for a while. . . I even threw him in a cold shower with all of his clothes on. Nothing. Finally he cried himself to sleep and stayed that way for three hours. (His usual naps are 1.5 - 2 hours long.) The worst part was that he woke up in the same grumpy mood as he had been in all day. I'm not looking forward to the next couple of months.

Some other things that Leo has learned are:

-How to knock on doors. It's pretty cute to see him do it when he wants into the bedroom or the bathroom, but not so cute when he knocks on all the neighbor's doors when we go outside to play. We've been apologizing to a lot of new people these past few days.

-How to close his eyes when he doesn't want you looking at him. He seems to be in a little bit of a shy streak right now. Whenever we notice that he's doing something and turn around to look at him he makes a grunting sound and squeezes his eyes closed. If he opens them and you're still looking at him you get screamed at.

-How to say "no" when he means it. He used to just babble, "no, no, no" all day long. Now he actually tells you when he doesn't want something. (It happens a lot.)

-How to test/push parental limits. This mostly happens with the "no playing in the street" rule. Leo loves to wander around outside, so we generally take a walk every day. And every day I have to remind him that he's not allowed in the street. He's started trying to trick me. First he'll walk right down the middle of the sidewalk. Then he slowly moves over until he's right along the edge but still on the sidewalk. Next he'll lean over and get something out of the gutter (usually leaves) and show it to me. Then he'll do that again, only he actually gets down in the gutter and looks at me like, "Can you tell I'm in the street?" At this point he guts pulled back onto the sidewalk and reminded that he can't be in the street. After we do this several times I tell him that if he does it again we're going home, at which point he will slowly inch his foot over the curb until just his toes are in the street. Then I pick him up and carry him, crying, back inside. We do this every day. It's loads of fun.

P.S. I'll put some pictures up sometime soon. I have no idea where the camera is.