Conversation between Mom and Maes

"Mom"
"What?"
"Come here."
"What do you need? Did you poop?"
"yes"
"Come see it."
"Why?"
"Come see it, come see what shape it is."
Mom goes down the hall to see the poo- not because she is interested in the shape of the poo, but because she wants her daughter to know that she is important."
"It's so special"- says Maes
Mom helps daughter wipe
"That is so disgusting"- says Maes

This girl loves her "Cutie"

New Quilt

I have decided that when we get a new house and the much needed new bed that we will get a king. We need a new bed ASAP (my back) but it won't fit in our bedroom so we will have to wait.
When I was in college my friend Julz had a Martha Stewart mag featuring quilts by Denyse Schmidt. I LOVED them. All I could remember though was that she called one of her Designs "Drunk Love in a Log Cabin". My friend Julz made herself a quilt inspired by the design and later I made one for my bed - after it wore out I made another- this was just based on memory. Only recently did I decide to Google "Drunk love in a Log Cabin" and go to the source. Now that I need to start thinking about and collecting fabric for my new quilt i decided to go back to my inspiration. I was thinking about doing something different this time around but when I saw this quilt I knew I wanted to do it again.
I wanted to post this so that I'd remember to go to her site when I was ready to work again. Here is the address
http://www.dsquilts.com/home.html
Mine are not as great as these- but each time I can get better. Here is the one currently on our bed and then the worn out one- folded.

How to run with two kids:

A few friends asked how I run with two kids. I do it with the baby jogger Performance series jogger. I don't have a full picture of me with the kids in it - but here is one of the kids when Jake was just a baby. I'll add a full picture when I take one. There is a stock photo below. I only have 16 inch wheels on mine- i should have got the 20 for a smoother ride. My single had 16 inch wheels and we were fine- but two kids make for a more difficult ride. I have some 20's that I'll eventually put on the back. Notice how Maesyn has her own portable dvd player. Spoiled! It is nice because we can take toys to play with at the park- we also have treats and extra water, extra diapers, money for garage sales and doughnuts - at one time we even had a dump truck in there. So nice!!!

The pooping place

When kids are around 18 months or so they start finding a "pooping place". My cousins kid would go under the table, hold on to one of the legs and sing while he was doing his business. If we were at a friends house Maesyn would go behind a piece of furniture- maybe for privacy? I thought because they were aware of their "movements" and made certain to find their place to make them that they were ready to be potty trained- not so. Maesyn was already 3 when she finally decided that she would be completely trained. Sometimes in the morning Jake will look out of our bedroom window. There is not much to see. Sometimes the landscaping people are working- but even if they are not there he still likes to look. This morning I realized just what he was doing. I think that the window is his pooping place. I know that he is not ready to potty train though. I think that he is genuinely impressed every time he sees himself pee in the bathtub- the look on his face is like- "wow!! where did that come from?" Once he saw Maesyn pee in the tub and thought that if only he thrust out his pelvis he would pee too. Oh the look of concern on his face. It was so cute I wanted to take a picture but then realized it would not be appropriate.
On a side note- I do not promote peeing in the bath - not even in swimming pools. It is a big no no- bathing and swimming in urine is not ok in this house. I believe I have successfully taught my children not to do that because Maesyn will get out of the bath tub to go potty. However, knowing that Jake will most likely pee in the bathtub we run the water with the plug out for a moment until the running water triggers him to go potty and then we rinse the tub. If a child poops in the tub (which happened on occasion when the kids were younger) the children are promptly removed from the tub, the water is drained and the tub and all toys in the tub get a good cleaning with a Clorox clean up. Because that is just nasty!!!!

We need a bigger bed.

(This picture is not from this morning- but evidence that we don't get to have our own bed)

Nate and I need a new bed and we were debating if we should upgrade to a king. The kids have a habit of coming in the room in the early hours of the morning and snuggling in with us until they wake up. If both of them do this I hardly have any room and my back hurts more than normal in the morning. So we were thinking that we would just stick with a queen and discourage the co-sleeping. After the events of this morning I think that we might need a King.
I got home from my run just before 6 and I woke up Maesyn on accident. Jake had already joined the "family" bed last night and woke up with Maesyn needing his morning dose of Chocolate milk. Because Nate goes to work so early (6:30am) it is not common for the whole family to be awake when he leaves. Sometimes the kids are half awake-when I take them running with me and we can have an actually morning family prayer- but they are never fully awake. So we had an uncommon event where everybody was awake and wanting to have a big family snuggle. The kids were being so silly and full of big loves.. Maesyn would not even let Nate get out of bed to take a shower. Jake kept laughing because he thinks he is so funny (and he is). So- we need a big bed so that we can fit our whole family in it. It really was fun!

I Love to See the Temple

This is a picture from our wedding... we look like babies- I guess we were babies 6 years ago!!! It is nice to have this temple close to our house so we can go there often. I'm so happy that we were married there and that our family can be together forever! It was very nice of my parents to watch the kids so that Nate and I could go to the temple last night. Maesyn and Jake love to go to the temple and walk around the grounds and go into the visitors center. Maesyn alwasys wants to watch a movie. She is excited whenever I tell her that Nate and I are going. I love that my kids love the temple. Maesyn is excited to get married in the temple one day as well- I just have to get it through to her that she is going to have to marry somebody other than her dad or Jake.
She just heard me read that last line to Nate and she got mad and said "I don't want to marry someone else- I'm just going to marry Jake!"

First Prints

So- I just finished up my first ever logo design for a new organic clothing company (at least I hope I am finished). I've never done anything like that before and I'm sure I went about it in a very primitive way (I'm not a graphic designer). My boss wanted the image to be really rustic and organic looking- we both though of wood cuts- so I opted to do the whole design in lino cut. She actually had 3 images and it was a lot of work. Thank goodness it was only black and white.
I decided if I was going to buy all of the brayers and tools that I would start making my own prints and cards. Here is my first card. You can click to enlarge it.
I plan on adding a dragonfly card and a ladybug card to make a set of 3 cards. I also want to make a set of food cards, or fruit cards. I'm looking for any other suggestions. As soon as I have a bunch made then I'll open and etsy shop. I have a place in Tucson that I already sell stuff at that I can possibly take more stuff to and a possible connection in Phoenix. I have no idea how things sell on etsy- so I could just make a few bucks here and there like the shop in Tucson- but it will eventually add up so I can buy a wheel.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

I must admit that I'm not as earth friendly as I ought to be- considering that I was a member of the Environmental Club at one of my 3 high schools. We don't have recycling pick up in our complex- so I do feel guilty when ever I notice that the majority of my trash could have been recycled or composted. But when we get a house you bet I'll recycle away and compost up a storm for my own garden. Feeling guilty does not keep unneeded trash out of the landfills- but when it is convenient for me again(when we have a house) then I'll recycle away and compost up a storm. When we lived in Germany they picked up our different types of recyclables on different days of the week- it was pretty easy to put out the effort. So...sort of in the way of being earth conscious....and more in the way of being cheap.. I have re purposed some items that might have made their way to the land fill otherwise. I started making rag rugs. Nate and I purged our overfull closets and I started making a rug out of our old t-shirts. It is the shorter fatter rug. I'm sure I'll do better the more rugs I make- but it is a good start and will look lovely in a laundry room or play room. The other rug is going to be our new living room rug. I am being very careful to do a good job on this one. Our current rug is falling apart and I cannot afford a new one. I love the look of rag rugs and although this will take a long time it will be nice to know that I made it myself.
Here is a detail of my crochet work. Fab. It takes a lot of fabric and I keep thinking with regret about the torn bed sheet that I threw out a few weeks ago. I felt bad putting so much fabric in the trash - but I am trying to cut down on my clutter tendencies so into the trash it went as it was not useful to me. 

Don't you dare question the manhood of this princess!

This week we had our friends Creedence and Indie stay with us for a night and a day. Indie and Maesyn had to put on their Princess dresses for the morning and Creedence loved our 2 guns. (one is from an Amish shop that was too cool not to buy and I have no idea where the other one came from- not a gun fan but not against the toy ones either). Jake wants to be just like anybody that is bigger than him so he brought me Maesyn's old Cinderella dress to put on so he could be like the big girls and and toted his gun around so he could be like Creedence. Too cute!

Why Nate is so hard core:

When we were out for a bike ride with the kids the other day Nate asked me to remind him why we bought him a bike. I could not remember. I did recall that mountain biking was on my list of sexy requirements for a husband. Nate did not mountain bike before we got married (he did not have a beard either - another sexy requirement- but I got him to grow a beard)- so I thought that maybe I was sub consciously trying to mold him in to the "list" guy. And I felt guilty for forcing him into it. (He assured me that he did like riding bikes- but I still wondered if I had forced him to do it). A few days passed and then I remembered how it came about. We had mentioned that it might be fun to get Nate a bike (I already had one) and a bike trailer to ride the kids around in. We found a bike trailer for super cheap on clearance at target at the end of the summer and put it up for Christmas. Then we were on our quest for a bike. We did not want anything fancy and I set a low budget and started looking for something on craigslist. During our search we mentioned bikes to friends of ours and they started talking up biking and giving us advice. Mountain biking sounded interesting to Nate- and I agreed it was fun- so we upped our standards and budget and with the help of one of our friends found a pretty good mountain bike on craigslist. It had been stored for a while and right after his first ride we discovered that the front fork was messed up and needed to be replaced... shocks are a lot of money. A friend of ours had an extra fork at his house and hooked Nate up with it and some disc brakes (the fork was not compatible with v brakes)- so he made is bike a bit nicer. His other buddy gave him a better seat- which was nice. He later broke a crank we have bought but not yet replaced. We also bought a roof rack for the car so that we could take the bikes places. We've taken the bikes to the zoo and decided it would be nice to have a bike seat for Jake so he could see the animals without having to get his little body in and out of the trailer at each stop- so we bought the only front mounted bike seat that can be attached and detached in about 5 mintues. (This little idea of our has cost quite a bit now). In addtition to our little fun family outings Nate would go mountain biking whenever he had time on the weekends (which was not often) and would sometimes come home with marks like the one shown on his arm on various parts of his body.
Soooo.... we have noticed a few of our friends getting skinny lately (missions and medical school can sometimes put a few pounds on you). We asked them how they lost their weight and both of them mentioned biking ... a lot. So Nate is trying to ride more during the week (going to school full time for 7 years and working and having 2 kids and everything else he does can add a few pounds... especially when his wife is such a fantastic cook!!!!(tee hee hee)- and a lady at work always brings him fast food for breakfast) He is planning to do 3 5am bike rides a week- with his mountain bike on the canals. We will see if he can keep it up when school starts again. His schedule is so demanding. With this new goal in mind we want to get him a road bike too. (He road my brother's and said it feels like you are riding on air). So once we get that nice new road bike and the spandex outfit and the shoes and all the other bells and whistles...and he asks me what made us decide to get him a road bike I can look back to this post and remember. It is not totally because I think it is sexy to ride bikes... he had an interest too.

First Day of Pre School

I can hardly believe that we have a kid in school-pre school- but it is still school. Maesyn has been so excited to start pre school. She has known how to spell her name for some time and even began writing it in July and has gotten really good. She also knows most of her letters and their sounds. She is so ready to be in school. She had a hard time falling asleep last night because she was too excited. She also wanted to cut our run short this morning so that she could get ready. I saw shirts and shoes for $2 at target and needed an excuse to buy them... so we had our first back to school shopping experience as well. She even waited until school started to wear her new clothes. She is so cute!!!

2008 Olympics

Anybody that knows me knows that I'm not a sports fan and I think that watching sports on TV is so Boring!!!. However, if I'm flipping through the TV and happen to see the Ironman Broadcast or a Marathon you bet I'll stop and watch it. Keep in mind I never know when these things are on TV (nor am I sure exactly what time my so called "favorite" TV shows are on-I'm just not in the know as far as any TV). To big time sports fans I must seem like the boring one...watching people run.. I know... I know... I can't explain it.
Even within the one "sport" I enjoy I could not tell you the names of many of the major stars. I am not competitive in my "sport" either. Yes... if I see a dead bird on the road or hear something in the bushes I will stop and make observations...never mind my time. (Running... long distance... Marathon-1/2 Marathons...that is my sport...long and slow- very slow).

Ok- so it the 2008 Olympics and we are all glued to our TVs to watch the events... sports fans and non-sports fans alike. We are watching things like gymnastics and diving (things we would not normal seek out to watch if/when they are aired on TV during the non Olympic years). A lot of us don't know what events are scheduled at what times- we just tune in whenever and start watching. I think I like to watch the majority of the events and cheer on our country.. but here are the dates that the sexiest events will take place.

Men's Marthon- go HALL Ryan- Sunday August 24th(RITZENHEIN Dathan and SELL Brian are also running) (the Kenyans are predicted to take 2 of the medals- with Martin Lel gold, Ryan Hall silver and Samuel Wnajiru bronze.

Women's Marathon- Sunday August 17th NOGUCHI Mizuki from Japan is predicted to take gold- she did so last year- RADCLIFFE Paula (world record holder) fell out in Athens at 22.4 miles- she had an injury and stomach problems (diarrhea!!!!). I believe she is still running this year but is not predicted to place. KASTOR Deena won the US trials and set an American record at the London marathon after placing bronze in '04 . Zhou Chunxiu- China is predicted for silver and Catherine Nderba (Kenya) bronze.
Men's Mountain Bike-August 23rd
Women's Mountain Bike- August 22nd
Men's Triathon- August 19th
Women's Triathon- August 18th
I will be sure to watch the Marathons (if they are not airing during church)- and I'll try to catch the others.
Another American Favorite to watch is WEBB, Alan- 1500 meters. (ok- maybe just my favorite because I remember the hoopla of his record breaking). I'm not a big fan of the shorter distances and LAGAT Bernard (US) is predicted to take Gold. But I remember when Ryan Webb became the first American high school runner to run a sub 4 minute mile indoors (January of 2001, 3:59.86 at New York City’s Armory) He continued to break records that were over 30 years old in the mile and 1500 meters including a run on May 27, 2001 at the Prefontaine Classic,(3:53.43 mile). He is not predicted to take a medal this year.
Lagat lives in Tucson -but was born and raised in Kenya... He could be the one to get our first medal since 1968 when Jim Ryun took silver. It has been a century since any US runner has taken gold in this event.
(predictions are from the August issue of Runner's world- like I know anything about predicting winners in races).

What are real toys good for anyhow?

I love buying fun toys for my kids- but they can have fun with anything.

Who needs TV?

Maesyn loves it when I video her and post it. She and Jake were dancing more together earlier but I deleted it for some reason. This is a long video but if you watch the whole thing you might learn some really good dance moves...and there are some unexpected events aswell.
Enjoy

What does a mom do all day?

At the end of the day I feel tired because I was so busy- but I don't really have much to show for it. When Nate leaves in the morning the kids are asleep and the house is in order... when he comes home the kids are awake and (usually) the house is in order again- but I am exhausted. I feel like I've gotten nothing done but I am so tired. In reality I know I got stuff done... here are some pictures of what a house goes through several times a day. Thankfully Nate never asks what it is I do all day. When the house looks one way when you leave and the same when you come back you have to wonder. This Mr. Potato head and dozens of puzzles will be put away and taken out more than one time in a day. The toast crumbs will be vacuumed up - and then I'll break out the vacuum again to get the chips that some how got in the living room.
As soon as Mr. Potato head and the puzzles are put away the blocks get taken out.. The morning sippies of milk are left on the couch and chair-hopefully not leaking. Flip flops and toys are strewn about.
Oh, the kitchen. The dished need to be unloaded and loaded again- if you click on this photo you will probably see that the green can on the floor is Mandarin oranges that Jakie threw on the floor. I have some art supplies on the table as if I'll be able to find some time between cleaning up mess after mess to work on a logo design that I'm doing.
The counters are pretty clean. I forget what we have spilled over the stove- it will be cleaned up before I can relax. The mail and grocery adds will be put in the "important paper " basket.
This is our play room/treadmill room. Notice the gate- it keeps the kids from throwing stuff at me when I run. The tramp is usually stored with the treadmill but it does look like I got a run in this day (wish I had the buns to prove it.) The rocking chair has been brought in from the living room- as if there are not enough things in this small room.

So this is just the cleaning part. There are lots of things that get done that I only know that have been done- and it gives me a sense of accomplishment. Here are some of them that are not visible - at least to guys- or maybe they do notice but don't really care if it gets done or not.

• I will organize the closets. (i love looking at closets full of labeled boxes and totes knowing that the box labeled "boy 3-6 months" is full of baby boys clothes that were once in a bag in the storage room nagging me to be sorted). Jake helped me sort these things one morning. He "helped" by throwing items I put in the boxes out of the boxes.
• I will sort out the important paper basket. It is nice after 3 months go by and you notice that one of your mortgage statements has a check included with over $300 that you overpaid in escrow.
• Balance the budget- always give me a sense of accomplishment and peace- knowing what money we have or don't have to spend.
• Washing the sheets- I do it every Friday- but you'd never notice.
• Cleaning the bathrooms - this is cleaning again-but I love the look of a white toilet bowl.
• Wiping all of the knobs and light switches with a Clorox wipe. I know this is weird weird weird- but I try to do it once a week. Do you know how many hands have touched those things?

Things I don't do- that people might or might not notice.

• Once I washed all of the curtains in the house- they did not look much different so I will not do it again for another 6 years. That is one things that I did that no one noticed and I could care less about.
• I don't dust. My sister-in-law is a super cleaner and I'd pay you a $1000 dollars if you ever found dust in her house. You CAN'T. (ok- her baby is getting bigger and more mobile so things are a bit harder at her house- but I cannot imagine her ever letting the cleaning ago- even dusting- I think she would go crazy-just like I feel if I go to bed with a messy house.)

Ok- besides all of the house work- moms take their kids to the park- bathe them- at lest once- grocery shop with them- wash the cars- water the plants- go to the library-and visit grandmas.
It's all in a days work. And I really love it.

Close your eyes

I've never been able to get my kids to just go to sleep or take a nap when I want them to. Usually they will fall asleep when we are running or when we are driving and if I'm lucky they stay asleep when we get home. I've always let them stay up late to see Nate after school- and that was often after 10pm. Sometimes they would fall asleep on their own while waiting- but not often. That was our "schedule" or lack of. I've started to feel the chaos of it this last year - staying up until 10pm with kids does not give me any sort of break. (they have more energy than I do). Maesyn starts school in  2 weeks and staying up until 10 will not give her enough hours of rest to be ready at at school at 8:30. I have yet to try the earlier bed time- but I have started working on getting Jakie to fall asleep when I need him to. (I think he will be harder to deal with than Maes). I think I'll practice early bedtime with both next week. But this is what I did with Jakie brother. I began this last week working on getting him to take an afternoon nap around the same time and occasionally getting him to fall asleep in the evenings. I could never just get him to rock to sleep- he is too wild -especially when he is tired- so i've begun threatening him. (harsh). One day I was trying to get him to take a nap at my parents house and my dad came in and told him if he did not go to sleep with Mommy that he would have to go to Grandpa. I guess he did not want to go to my dad- so he calmed down right away. But, when my dad left the room he started getting wild again. My dad came back at sat on the couch and told Jakie to close his eyes or Grandpa would rock him. Jake closed his eyes. I was dumbfounded. So at home I told Jakie that Grandpa would come and rock him if he did not fall asleep. Jakie is too smart and knew that Grandpa was not at our house so it did not work. A few days later I tried to just put him in his bed with the door closed when he was tired. He cried bloody murder and I felt so bad- so I held him and rocked him...but I then I had a new idea. Now when it is time for bed or a nap I hold Jake and we sing songs and I tell him to close his eyes and go to sleep or he will have to go in his room with the door closed. He is so funny because at first he squints his eyes really tight. Too cute. Then he eventually falls asleep. He is ready for a nap any how. By the way. He really loves my dad- he just wanted to rock with his mommy.
I hope things work out next week with early bed times. I guess I should prepare for early rising as well. (When your kid goes to sleep at 10pm they often sleep until 9am. - then I can get stuff done in the morning before they wake up).

The Kitchen is the Heart of the Home

Although our Condo is small we are lucky enough to have a big kitchen - which really makes a difference. We spend a lot of time in the kitchen and have tons of fun. Right now the kids are painting pictures and I took a break to post some of the fun things that we've done this last week in our kitchen. Maesyn and Jake helped make rice krispie treats for the kids in our Wednesday art class. Here Maesyn is sneaking some butter- she would eat a whole cube if I let her. Jake is only wearing a diaper and shoes- I'm not sure what the purpose of the apron is if he is not wearing clothes- but he likes to be like his big sister. We will have to see if one of his grandmas can make him a manly apron for when he is helping in the kitchen. In a lot of the posts at home he is not wearing a shirt- it is my way of keeping his clothes clean.
Here they are tasting the fruits of their labor. Jake is in the pink. At lest he looks like a boy-even though he is wearing the pink apron.
While I was out of the kitchen Jake poured himself some more cereal. The problem... his bowl is too small. He at a bit of it and then played with it for a good 1/2 hour after that. I even gave him a giant spoon.
Jake threw a fit because he wanted the salt shaker this morning. After a lot of tears I finally gave in. I sort of forgot he was playing with it- but while Maesyn and I were cleaning up breakfast we looked over to see Jake shaking salt into his mouth. So. My kids favorite foods to eat are Butter and Salt. I see heart problems in their future.

Jake was a little embarrassed to be caught eating the salt (notice it on his shirt) he kept giving the cutest smiles- but my camera was too slow to catch them. Here is one that is almost as cute.