We Heart Visitors

Last weekend our friends from our Spokane year, The Petersons, came to San Diego. Seth and Mike bonded last year over their irrational, emotional, die-hard devotion to BYU sports. Seth's phone keeps track of the number of texts between him and other people. There are more texts between Seth and Mike, than Seth and me. The Peterson's had us over to their house for every BYU football and basketball game.  We've missed spending BYU game day with them. It was lots of fun getting to know their family and we're glad they stopped to visit us during their San Diego vacay. We spent one day at the beach with them and had them over for the BYU game and dinner. I didn't take any pictures other than of the kiddos watching a movie on our bed during the game. They live in Phoenix now and have their very own pool so there is a real good chance we'll be visiting them soon.

I just enlarged this and noticed Taft is TOTALLY giving me the bird! Rude. Oh and he has a slight obsession with band-aids.

This past weekend, Seth's good friend Luke Hayes and his wife Reagan and their two boys came to San Diego for the weekend. They live in L.A. and had been wanting to take their kids to SeaWorld and visit us of course. Seth and Luke (not to be confused with Lukie) have been friends since undergrad (so like over 10 years or something). We went to dinner with the Hayes' Friday night and had plans to meet them at SeaWorld the next morning but the dumb hospital had to page Seth at 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning and ruined all our plans for the entire day. Later Saturday Taft and I ate our depressed feelings through candy and frozen yogurt. It helped a little.

Luke. Seth. Missy

It was a great weekend for the Hayes' to be in town because Seth and Luke's long time friend, Missy, was also in town so we all got together for dinner Saturday evening. Missy is a fantastic cook and offered to make us all dinner the next night. I was absolutely relieved when she offered because I was a little stressed about making dinner for a professional trained chef. I mean, I do make pretty awesome tuna sandwiches, but Sunday dinners usually call for something a little fancier. I should also mention, that Reagan is a interior designer and has her own gorgeous furniture line. So Missy is a wonderful cook, Reagan is a stylish designer, and I.....make good snickerdoodles and sewed some pillows once.

Missy. Me. Reagan

It's been so much fun living in a place that people like to visit. I think we've seen more friends and family in the four months we've lived here than we did the entire year in Spokane. (Not that I blame anyone) We've had lots of fun visiting with friends and family...Keep coming!!

Luke, Reagan....you made the blog. ;)

Taft at 2 1/2

Ever since Taft was born Seth has looked forward to the toddler stage---beginning to talk, imaginations, rough housing-and Taft has lived up to Seth's expectations. Taft makes us laugh every day and I want to remember these things about him.

-The majority of the time he is pretending he is something/someone else:T-Rex Dinosaur, Flynn Rider (from Tangled), Lizard, Dragon, Firefighter, and Woody are his most common personas. He sometimes calls me "Punzel", as in Rapunzel from Tangled, calls Lukie "Pasqual" also from Tangled, and Seth "Buzz".  Taft is much easier to work with if you play along with him and call him by whatever it is he's going by that minute. For example, if it's time to brush teeth and you say, "Come on Hippo, I need to brush those big teeth" it will be 300% easier than it would be if you were to say "Taft, let's brush teeth". There have been times when I am fighting so hard to get him out the door and as soon as I call him T-Rex or Dragon or something he does a 180 and is totally ready to go. Also, if he calls you "Dragon" or "T-Rex" or whatever it means he wants you to call him that too.

-He will do just about anything for fruit snacks.

-He loves cereal. Tonight he told me his favorite food is cake and his favorite breakfast is "waffs" (waffles) and favorite dinner is "macincheese". His diet isn't very good, but he will eat broccoli, carrots, and peas and likes quite a few different fruits. He has to be starving to eat his dinner and most nights cries a little and tells me dinner is "yucky". His favorite drink is probably milk. We pretty much just give him water and milk anyway. Although, he chugs soda when he gets it (which isn't very often).

-He really likes to be read to and loves the library. However, at the moment he is turning into a bit of a tv show/movie monster. He will ask for  shows all day long. I feel bad because we have to be home for two naps a day for Luke, so I've had to start getting more creative with filling our at home time. His favorite shows are, but not limited to: anything Barney, anything Thomas, some Strawberry Shortcake movie that he calls "Candy Butterfly", Toy Story 3, Tangled, and occasionally Sesame Street and the Backyardigans.

-He went through a phase of running away from me at the park and not listening when I told him to stop, but I feel like he's gotten better. He likes the park as long as he finds friends to play with and race. He LOVES to run. He likes to sit in the baby swings and hold his arms out and act likes he's flying.

-His favorite toys are trains and cars.

-At the end of Toy Story 3, Buzz and Jessie dance to latin music. Taft was watching it one day and that part was on. I started dancing and told Taft to come dance with me. He said, "That's not dancing Heidi."

-Seth was singing the Katy Perry song that goes "...there's a party in my head..." and Taft sang "There's a party in my pants."

-Since we've been working on potty training, Taft gets a lot of cheerleading when he's in the process of....you know. Lately he's been returning the favor. ;)

-When Taft is getting dressed he'll ask me to sing the "Firefighter Song" which is something we learned from- surprise!-Barney. Basically it goes "Hurry, hurry put your boots on. Hurry, hurry, put your (blank) on" etc. He gets dressed much faster this way.

-And drumroll please....HE POOPS IN THE POTTY!!!! (cue Hallelujah chorus)

-Doesn't have a lot of respect for authority- or at least for my authority. When ever I try to discipline or ask him to stop doing something he says, "No, YOU stop it MOM." or "No WAY Mom"

-Gives really great hugs and kisses.

(We have some really great videos, but they are all on  Seth's phone so we need to figure out how to get them off)

Toast, it's so unexpected.

The other night I was driving a 13 year old girl home from Young Women's. She was talking about how she needs to raise money for a school trip to D.C. She mentioned that her school was going to have a bake sale and she thought she'd make something to sell there.

Me: "That's a good idea, what do you think you'll make?"
Girl: "I was thinking toast."
Me: "Toast?"
Girl: "Yeah, like I'll have butter and jam of course."
Me: "I'm happy to help you make cookies or something. Cookies can be super quick and easy."
Girl: "Nah. Toast is just so unexpected, ya know?"

I came home and told Seth and we laughed about it for a while. I really need to try to talk her into something else and make sure she doesn't go to her bake sale armed only with some Wonderbread, a toaster, and some Smucker's jam. It would be super sad to see her at her stand, no one buying toast.

We also had this conversation in the car:

C: "I usually go to bed around 8 every night and then wake up at 1:00 in the morning to get things situated, and then I go back to bed"
Me: "Situated?"
D (C's sister): "Yeah, she gets dressed, makes her lunch, gets her backpack ready..."
Me: "Why don't you just do that before you go to bed, or wake up earlier in the morning?"
C: "Well, I used to always fall asleep at 8 and then my cat would jump on me at exactly 1:00 in the morning. I guess my body just got used to it. I adapt really well."

World's Most Adorable 9 Month Old

Honestly, how can you not love this face?! Lukie is 9 months now and is ready to explore the world. He is super squirmy, a lightning fast army crawler, and always wants to be on the move. One of Luke's favorite things to do is shut doors, but always ends up shutting himself in a room and gets stuck behind the door when you try to open it. He is a bottomless pit these days and will eat any food that is in front of him. He is starting to feed himself some finger foods and sometimes get so excited to eat that he yells and starts shaking. He still refuses to take a bottle (only 3 more months Mister). I have to say, I didn't get what the big deal was with nursing when Taft was a baby, but that's probably because I had to pump when I went back to work and was relieved when we switched to formula. This time around though I'm glad I was able to nurse, but it sure would be nice to go out on a date without planning it around Luke's schedule. He loves baths but only likes to lay down in the tub, do NOT make him try to sit. He'll throw himself backwards and whack his head on the hard tub. Sometimes he makes a cry face that looks that that old guy from the "bitter beer face" commercials. 

Luke did a great weeklong stretch of sleeping about 11 hours at night, but has decided to wake up once a night again. He likes sleeping on his side and goes down swaddled, but doesn't stay that way for long. Luke and Taft have been playing together. Taft pretends he and Luke are both dogs and they crawl along the floor together. Luke still does not like Taft to get in his face too much or to be man-handled by Taft either. We tell Taft to take it easy, but also tell Lukie he's gotta toughen up. Taft will be bugging him for the next 18 years and vice versa.

Luke is starting to jabber and does those razzing sounds. He also started biting one side of his lip and I think it's the cutest thing. He's still ticklish on just about every inch of his body so it's super easy to get him to laugh. He's starting to get a little shy around strangers and has buried his face in me a few times. (I love that.) He had his check up today and he weighs a little over 20 lbs and is in the average range for weight and height, but his big ol' noggin is still in the 90th percentile.

Yesterday he pulled himself up to standing for the first time and he can now clap a little bit. I hate to jinx it, but his whining might be toning down a little. Here's hoping!

Just Something I've Been Thinking About

(i really, really wish i remembered where i found this)

You guys, I've been working on something revolutionary: Not turning into a psycho, grumpy, cleaning Nazi wife/mom when my house looks like a dump. What's that? That's really not revolutionary? Well it is for me. 

I saw this quote a while back and I've been trying to remember it. I have kids, and I'm going to have even more kids one day (hopefully), and let's face it kids are professional mess-makers and wrecking crews. Whenever I do get my apartment cleaned (yes, all 900 sq. feet of it) it stays clean for about 1.7 seconds. Instead of letting this make me totally un-fun and a cleaning lunatic who makes everyone hold still for an hour just so we can enjoy the cleanliness, I've decided to accept my life of living in a pig sty. Ok, not a pig sty (all of the time) but definitely not an apartment that could be photographed and posted on some blog for all the world to see and make others feel guilty that their house isn't as perfectly decorated, thrifted, crafted, and designed as well as mine.

My Google Reader is out of control with photography/crafting/interior design/cooking/party planning blogs that I am subscribed to and then there's Pinterest (which I do love). I was telling Seth that reading all of these blogs is making me feel like a loser. He basically didn't have any sympathy for me and in a really nice way told me to get a life. :) He reminded me that comparing myself to others (real or fake people (blogs) ) is not good to do at all. Then I listened to President Uchtdorf's talk from the Relief Society broadcast and that made me remember that I actually have a life and a really good one too. I have a real life that consists of days full of playing with kids, bathing kids, feeding kids, trips to the park, trips to the grocery store, trips to the beach, playdates with friends, changing diapers, potty training, dinner making, and pillow-talking. A real life.

I have to remember that the aforementioned blogs I read are people's jobs. They are spending lots of time perfecting each post, publishing only the best pictures, and although they made, photographed, and packaged perfectly shaped and colored macaroons for all their neighbors, they left out the picture of themselves making them in their pajamas, mascara smears under their eyes, and bra-less. (At least that's what I imagine them to look like to make myself feel better). They are professional photographers, professional interior designers, etc. They have put lots of time into perfecting their skill and talents and instead of feeling like a loser because I don't have those talents, I really need to just admire them for their talents and continue working on and cultivating my own. 

The first step here is for me to cool it on the cleanliness of my house. Although, I have to admit, if we have company coming to stay there is still a good chance I might fall back into my old ways. Baby steps.  Seth mentioned earlier this week that our house has been a more enjoyable place to be and that all of us seem happier now that I've loosened my grip on the Windex bottle. Mission accomplished.