picture overkill as therapy

Too many things on my mind tonight. Most pressing is how in the world I am going to come up with, oh you know, like $20,000. But that is a story for another day, a story that I am sure will be broadcast loud and clear from this blog at some point in the future when things are a little less muddled.

Since I can't wrap everything in my life up into a pretty, uncomplicated package right this minute, I shall attempt to at least get a little control over this here blog. I have approximately a million photos all ready to make their debut here, but I haven't come up with a clever way to organize and post them. So tonight, to make me feel like I am making progress somewhere, I am going to dump them all here. One big fat post of pictures. You don't mind, do you?

Her hair is staying dark so far, and I can't even tell you how happy that makes me. A blue-eyed baby with dark hair? In love. Now if only I could order up some dark eyes for the next one...

I took this series of photos one afternoon when we were hanging at my mom's house. Pea happened to have a pretty precious outfit on and was sitting up facing the big sliding doors, the light hitting her just so. I see everything in photographs these days, and when I saw her sitting there I was happy I had my camera.

The seven months of Pearl's life have truly been a whirl. I do not know what happened to months 4, 5, and 6. Really. They are just suddenly gone, and in front of me is this baby who is sitting up alone, rocking on all fours threatening to crawl, and scooting herself around with those chubby little feet in a walker. Not sure what she is trying to taste in this second picture, but that ever-busy tongue makes me smile.

We still haven't gotten into solid foods much, but Pearl Loves-with-a-capital-L when I slice up some fruit and stick it in that little mesh holder for her to suck and gum to death.

I'm not even sure why I like this picture, but I do. Probably just because it is of her.

Remember when I told you I would post the rest of the pictures we took when we were up by the Alpine Loop awhile back? Here they are.

Whenever I look at this picture I think of the Joker saying "Why so serious?" from that Batman movie (John just informed me it is called The Dark Knight) and it kind of ruins the happy moment that usually comes when one looks at a sweet photo of her children :).

Ah, there we go, that's better. I love that they are totally making the same face.

Here is the daddy with the babies.

And the mama. And just so we are clear here: John and I actually didn't really have the intention of being in these pictures. We didn't set out to get family pictures-- we were going on a drive up the canyon so John could bury some scientific wire in the stream to collect data. I got my kids dressed in clothes that I thought might be cute to take a few photos in, but what you see here is mostly luck. John and I happened to be wearing clothes that sort of worked out and we ended up getting a few cute pictures. Happy accidents.

Do you know that Pearl looks a LOT like I did when I was a wee babe? I had dark hair and blue eyes (though by this age my hair had begun to lighten), but I am pretty sure my Pear Girl has a few pounds on my seven-month-old self. She is so round!

We had to settle for bunches of pictures of either John or I with the kids, but not all of us together. It was too hard to get us all looking at a camera that was just sitting there with no one attached screaming and making funny faces.

Ha ha, see what I mean? Can you spot the abnormality in this photo? We tried (to get a family picture), but it was pretty hard and we were pretty unsuccessful. If you can see what is wrong with this picture (besides the crazy wind blowing us away) you will win four points.

This was a moment that just happened where they both were looking at the same thing at the same time and I had the camera on the right settings. Yay for that because it almost never happens.

Unless their daddy is dancing and singing like a crazy man to get their attention. Then they both look.

I know that I said the first photo I posted a couple of weeks ago was my favorite from this day, but I have since changed my mind. These last two are my favorites. I love the way Pearl is looking at her daddy with her hand resting under his chin, and then I love the kiss I captured (again, this just happened, we did not try to set this up) in that second one. And I love that George is just chilling there, probably looking at some really cool rock or stick that he could grab to throw into the water. Looking at these makes me motivated to do less of the "George! Pearl! Look over here!" pictures, and more pictures where I just let them be.

Quite often while Pearl is napping George and I will paint. In fact I have a bunch more photos to post of a more recent painting-while-she-naps session, but I figured I should get to these first. If I don't want to worry about any messes I will tape up some paper to the back of the house and just let G do his thing. Blast winter coming to ruin this delightful activity.

Nevermind the jungle that is our grass.

The thing I love most when I look at these? The dozens of those little animal/shape bracelets that he has shoved onto both of his wrists. Oh three, you are such a perfect age. I cannot get enough of this boy at three.

I have stories to share about this little boy of mine. He is full of so much humor and happiness and I don't want to forget any of it. Here is a little teaser of things that won't make sense to you, but then I will remember to write about them later.

*expecting audible answers from Heavenly Father, and "I thought the Holy Ghost would come, but he didn't."

*the privileges he revoked from his father when J said no to me (ha ha, cracks me up)

*putting a pillow behind Pearl and his promise to me after

*J as Mario up on the stand at church

*sobbing for his sister when she got shots

And to finish up tonight (whew, right?!), I will post these cute pictures...

...so that I can finish with this hilarious one. Her face. Kills me.

With that face in my mind as I go to sleep tonight I should have pretty awesome dreams, right? :)

a dilemma and some eye candy as a reward

So my child is a little bit making me crazy. His sleeping schedule has been kind of off ever since he was sick. For the two-and-a-half weeks that he was actually sick, he slept fine. But once he went on the antibiotics things started to go downhill. I guess the medicine leaves a really yucky metallic taste in your mouth. I didn't know this at first, but once I found out I realized that that must be why Baby G seemed so ravenous-- he constantly wanted food in his mouth to try and get rid of the lingering taste of metal. At night when we put him in bed he would cry and beg for pink cookies and popsicles. When that didn't work his wish was for a new glass of water. And then another one. And another one. We catered to these needs because we knew the reason for them. However, since he has been off the medicine (over 2 weeks), the bedtime routine has been the same. It is one thing after another to delay him being left in his room alone. It is making me crazy because he had seriously been the easiest kid to put to sleep before-- he would ask for his bed, even tell us to leave the room and go shower (don't know why he said that), and then quickly and quietly fall asleep. Where did that easy sleeper go, and will he ever come back? Tonight we started bedtime at 8:15, but after the yells of "another water in the PINK cup, Mommy!" and "My feet are hurting, Daddy!" and "I want to hug you, Mommy! Give you doggy kisses, Mommy!" it was at least 9:30 before he was actually asleep. We have been going into his room to remind him it is bedtime every so often (and make sure when he claims his feet are hurting that they aren't stuck between the bars or something), but now I am thinking that is counterproductive. Just please don't tell me I am back to the beginning of letting him cry it out. We are thinking that if we can just get him back on a schedule of getting enough sleep at naps and at night (the last two weeks have been kind of all over the place--summer is tricky), maybe he will fall back into the routine. Any of you have any experience here? The frustrating thing is that we are going out of town for a week on Saturday so it seems like all our scheduling efforts will be in vain anyway. But I really am not loving this yelling from his bedroom for an hour. Any suggestions would be very welcome. :)

I'll leave you with a few photos of this naughty little sleeper. We go running on the Jordan River Parkway by our house every morning and it is lovely. I was admiring the light there one day and decided to come back that night with my camera and see if I could get any good shots. Here are some of the better ones (and NO, I certainly am not aiming to be an actual talented photographer here-- just a mom who likes to take pictures of her child).

he's not two yet

get any closer and he'll whack you in the face

Aside from the fact that my once very well-behaved and sweet baby boy decided that when he turned one it would be a good time to start in on the terrible-twos (seriously, why the demanding screams and sporadic hitting, little one?), we have had such a lovely (but oh so very busy) last couple of weeks. I have been meaning to post about the things I've learned, and I think I will have time to sit down and get to it all tonight after a certain one-year-old goes to bed. That is, unless watching the Olympics takes over all my brain power. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

In the meantime, what is your best advice to teach a 13 month old not to hit? I don't want to incessantly say "no!" to him, so we mostly just immediately practice being "soft" over and over again if he hits, while I firmly tell him that we do not hit and we need to be soft. He doesn't seem to be hitting to be mean, just mostly to get someone's face out of his face if he doesn't want it there. Okay, maybe that is to be mean :). Hopefully it is just a (short) phase that will pass once his communication skills increase.

Or maybe I am just raising a mean child.

willow lake was lovely and then we almost died...

What does one do when one needs to get away from the the stresses and pressures of work and school?

One packs up his wife and child and takes them away with him to Willow Lake, of course.

At least that is what my husband does, so when he called me on a Thursday from work and told me to come home so we could get outta dodge right then I wasn't taken by surprise. He would go camping and fishing every weekend if he could. Luckily for him, I quite enjoy those activities myself. But the baby? He had never slept in a tent before. So even though I was mildly concerned that we would have a few miserable nights, the thought of a little get-away with my two favorite people sounded like too much fun to pass up. We packed the truck in record time (which is remarkable considering the fact that the amount of stuff we brought with us caused my brother to ask, "Are you moving to Willow Lake?" Who knew a baby required so many things?), and we were on the road a little less than 3 hours after we had spontaneously decided to go. We had the entire campground to ourselves and picked out a site right on the shores of the lake. I loved that we were the only people up there. It was pretty dreamy. Here is photographic evidence:

The babe did SO great sleeping in the tent. I had the wisdom to bring the pack-n-play and, holy cow, it was so nice to know that he was enclosed in his own little space to sleep and off the cold ground. Here he is right after he woke up.

J wanted to get out bright and early to catch the fish when they are super active. Baby G and I decided to join him fresh from our cozy beds in the tent. Baby G's morning hair is pretty nice, but he definitely has had better.You cannot tell me that doesn't look like one of the most beautiful, peaceful places on the planet. It really was so serene.

See?
The first fish of the day, and it was a beautiful tiger trout. Baby G thought it was cute. J and I are sort of neglectful parents-- we would sit the baby down on this blanket with a grahm cracker and a few things to play with and go fish until either 1)the baby got bored on the blanket and had moved onto the grass/weeds and begun to eat them, or 2)he cried for us to bring him down by the water. He is a pretty content little guy though, and so he spent about an hour on the blanket that morning.
Tailgates make for fantastic tables. We were so grateful we had the truck for things like that. Baby G loved just hanging out in the back of it.
Another reason I have a testimony of bringing pack-n-plays on camping trips? He could just hang out somewhere without needing to be held or getting filthy on the ground.An amazingly beautiful and large tiger. Mountain lakes typically aren't known for big fish, so you can imagine J's excitement when he landed this guy. We are normally all about catch and release, but we decided to save this guy and have him for dinner. I was shocked at how yummy the fish was. It looked and tasted so much like salmon. See what I mean about the pack-n-play? Hours of entertainment.

I love my cuddly little boy. He gives the best hugs.

It got chilly enough to need the leg warmers a couple of times, but the weather was beautiful most of the time.

Proof that I caught some fish as well.

So we had such a great time at Willow Lake, but I came up with the idea of heading to Manti for our 3rd day so we could catch the pageant and eat some funnel cakes. We consulted our trusty atlas and saw that the moutain road we were on actually could get us there pretty quickly if we just kept going up over the mountains instead of heading down the way we would have gone to go home. This is the part where we almost died (not really. sort of).

We're driving along the road, gaining some altitude, and we start seeing patches of snow. No big deal, right? Yeah, don't think that. That's what I thought and that is what got us completely high centered in a fairly small snow drift in the middle of the road. I honestly was so surprised when we got stuck because the snow drift really didn't look very menacing, and we had put the truck in 4 wheel drive, which normally enables it to go through whatever we throw its way. Not this time. It had been such a warm day, and we had gotten far enough into the snow, that we just sunk down in and got so stuck. The tires couldn't get any traction. To make a long story (and an even longer night) short, we tried a couple of tricks to get it out, but none worked. We quickly realized that we would just have to dig the truck out. Which, as it turns out, is harder than it seems when you don't have a shovel, it is quickly getting dark and cold, and you can't run the heater in the car because you need to conserve gas. I saw the water thermos in the truck and realized we could dig with that. It honestly saved us. We wouldn't have ever been able to move all that snow without it. Here is J trying to get some of the snow out.This is us inside the truck being hopeful that we would be able to get it out that night. And this next picture is us the next morning after a really long, uncomfortable night of sleeping stranded in the truck. J had been digging for over 2 hours the night before when he started to realize how cold he was. He was completely soaking wet (laying down on your back in snow will do that to you), and had been expending enormous amounts of energy. I was in the truck trying to keep the baby happy and get him to sleep. At about 11:30 PM J opened the door and sat down. I asked him if he was done digging and he didn't respond. He was just looking straight forward. I realized that he needed to get warmed up fast. I told him to get out of his wet clothes. He took off his shirt and then just sat there. He honestly couldn't process thoughts very clearly and I had to go through each article of clothing he was wearing to get him to remove them. I started the car and turned on the heater and made him get under some blankets. His body just started shaking. Once he got a little warmed up he immediately realized he needed calories in his body. He downed a huge gatorade and about 4 handfuls of brownies. I was laughing at him because he seriously looked like he had been starved for weeks. You know it was sort of serious because I didn't get any pictures of him. I asked him why he couldn't respond to me earlier and he said that he heard me, but he couldn't get up enough energy to form words. His body was so exhausted. But other than some tingly body parts (the places on his back and shoulders that had been laying on the snow tingled for a few days), he was fine. It was a little scary, but I think he came in the truck in just enough time to spare himself anything serious. Sleeping in the truck was NOT fun, but it was a good adventure, right?The next morning we had a little more digging to do in order to get out. Baby G supervised from the back (if you look closely you can see J digging on the left side of the truck).After about an hour we thought we had cleared enough snow out to move the truck. One try was all it took and the truck practically zoomed out on its own. This is how tired we were after the long night.The babe slept most of the way home.

Now, anyone wanna come camping with us? We promise it will be exciting.