And The Rocket's Red Glare...

Well we have had some interesting achievements this past week in Andi and Sammy's physical developments. Let's start with Sammy. He can now pull himself up to standing and has now mastered crawling and making his way around the house and loves to pull on any cords he might be able to grasp. This usually results in large objects falling from their perch and landing on him. This has not stopped him, however, from continuing his quest to destroy everything we own that plugs into the wall. I am pretty sure that he will be more cautious once a steady flow of electrons travels through his body. Stay tuned for that post.


Anywho, Andi was signed up for swimming lessons last week and has recently decided it was time to get serious about going underwater. She was reluctant at first, but now she swims underwater and can swim all by herself with little to no help at all. She loves the pool and would live there if she could. She began her swim lessons today and amazed the instructors as a 3 year old toddler jumped into the pool and started to swim. Good job Andi.



In other great news, Brittany had her birthday this past week and was treated to Andi's first gift she picked out at the dollar store. Andi was confused at first but then excited about the idea that she could pick anything in the store for Mommy's birthday. She ended up with some nice candles that are now in the kitchen on display. It was a close call between the candles and a porcelain train gravy dish that had the name of a casino on it. Good choice Andi! And happy birthday Britt!

Ahh yes, the 4th of July celebration. What better way to celebrate our nation's independence but by burning a small portion of it. We all had fun watching Walter singe his eyebrow hair off as he tried to master lighting 3 items at once. I have been videoing a lot recently trying to win my share of money in America's Funniest Home Videos but to no avail. Sammy did not like the loud noises and Andi plugged her ears for most of the show but the glow sticks were the most entertaining part. We know what we are going to get next year...

Our science experiment hatched this past week as we picked the SEVEN POUND ZUCCHINI from our garden. Yes that was not a typo. Although impressive in size and grandeur, a seven pound zucchini does not BBQ well.


And last but not least, Sammy grew some toothies the other day and decided to become more like his favorite cartoon character, Mater. "Shooooowt!"

On The Move

So Sammy is officially mobile! He loves to crawl around the house drooling after anything that is remotely shiny or hasn't been tried out for size yet... Interesting enough you see similar actions by females at the mall... Fascinating.


And for all those who enjoy the intelligent comedy of Zoolander, he's almost perfected 'Magnum'


Now that The Dude can crawl, Andi is really excited and wants him to do everything she does. Her latest kick is for me to make a fort out of the couches so they can chase each other around.



Anywho - Andi is being creative and loves to paint a lot. Our fridge is (was) completely covered in her "Pictures for mommy". She really enjoys her alone time with paints and digging in the dirt.


So we have been teaching Andi about the temple when she asks questions; basically she knows that you bring a boy there to get married and that you have to be old to go. Well she fixed that problem today with her blocks by making a temple for little people. She came to me and said, "Daddy come see! It's a temple for little people like Andi! Daddy you can't go in!"


Problem solved...kinda

Fire In The Hole!

Ok we are all now one week older and it's time for another fabulous update so the world may know exactly what we are doing on a daily basis.

But before all the good stuff, I must make a confession. It is true that you can only understand someone else's situation until you walk a mile in their shoes. Well I have been a MR. Mom for a few weeks now and can truly say that it is a hard job. Many of us men think that all women do is sit t home and shop all day. This is simply not true. Kudos to all the mothers out there.

We have been working on a project for my mother's birthday the past few months. If you know my mother, she loves to take pictures. So many in fact that she has an entire closet full of them and in no particular order. We took the job of taking all the pictures and organizing them into groupings as a present. We went through 5 Rubbermaid buckets full of pictures. While sorting pictures, we found out who Sammy looks like. The following picture is of Tara - My eldest sister.


And here is Sammy - Kinda strange.


Ok - so Andi had a blast at Nicholas' birthday party swimming, sliding, jumping and playing with all her friends.


We also had a good experience watching Andi's cousin Kalie be baptized this past week. Congrats Kalie! Andi has had issues in the pool with going under the water until she realized that, to be baptized, you go under the water. She now is determined to get over her fear so she can be baptized ASAP.

Sammy is finally starting to move forward instead of backwards. It's not a full crawl yet - it's more like an army crawl. Chuck Norris would be proud. Here he is in the backyard.


Speaking of Sammy, we took him to the foot doctor for a checkup and the only thing the doctor was surprised about was the fact that he now weighs 23 pounds and wears a size 4 diaper at 7 months. FATTIE! You know your baby is large when the great grandparents can't even hold him.

Anywho - Andi spends a lot of time out in the garden digging for worms and making castles. So much in fact that I felt bad for her and borrowed a beach umbrella for her to dig under.


Sammy sleeps, Andi digs, and daddy finishes projects around the house. The fountain is now complete with plants around it - Looks good.


We took the next step in household modern warfare today as a 50 count package of water balloons slid across the check stand at the grocery store. Now all Andi wants to do is throw water balloons. Interesting enough, she wanted to ambush grandpa down the street when she realized that the balloons can be thrown at people. Our little princess is growing up. Good times.

Houston...We Have Liftoff!

Well I got punished for not updating the blog on at least a weekly basis and she threatened me with taking her blog back if I didn't. So...

Last week we had 'Crazy Day' for play group and I totally forgot about it. It was a good thing I got her dressed that morning because she looked good anyway.


Sammy is growing up so fast and now is nearly crawling around. He loves to make noise by screaming really loud and/or throw toys from his high chair. Once the toy crashes to the ground, he looks up at me and giggles; so much like his mother.


I am not sure how I get myself into certain situations but yesterday I found myself on the upstream side of a rope pulling Andy across the yard multiple times. Yes it might make her day but all I could remember about the experience was silently singing the lyrics to 'Here comes the ox cart, oh how slow'. Once all the energy was drained, I fell to the ground gasping for air as Andy gets off the sled, kisses my forehead, and tells me 'Your all better now...Let's do it again!'


Yesterday we went with the scouts to fire off some model rockets for the Space Exploration merit badge; we lost one and destroyed 2 others = Good times.

Anywho, Andy was very upset about not being able to go so we went this morning and fired off a few. This is what she does when you say 'Smile Pretty!'. Isn't it nice to have a girl.

Full Circle

It has been 5 years in the making but we have officially gone full circle once Brittany entered 'The Truck' again and pulled away. As if it wasn't bad enough, her face lit up with excitement when I ran outside to snap her photo. So happy.


Anywho, to bring everyone up to speed, last week we went to CALM and had a great ole time.


Then we had a great weekend with family and friends for Memorial Day - We even ressurected the Fun Island (AKA Death Island) in the pool at Grandpas. Only a few children got stuck underneath the giant floating raft. I am pretty sure some of the kids had near-death experiences; Savannah cried for a while. Good times.


Let's see...oh yes. My wonderful mother came over yesterday with a KITTEN! Or better known in the Ray circle as "The 'K' word". Everything was great until the kitten had to leave. I'm pretty sure it was like chopping Andi's arm off and giving it away.


I got her to finally calm down when I asked her if she wants to do something fun. This usually works for her because she knows that when daddy says those words...something awesome is about to happen.



The end.

It has begun...

I'm not sure what was worse for Brittany...
Me losing my job or her giving up blogging rights.

I guess now would be a good time to put my disclaimer.

'The up-coming posts were performed on a closed course with self-proclaimed, semi-professional stunt artists. Although we cannot say for certain about the children, no animals were hurt during the making of this blog. Please do not try this at home.'

Rolling with the Punches

I've have gone back and forth about whether or not to post about this, and finally decided that since I make my blogs into a book once a year I need to do it for the sake of my family journal keeping.
It has been a tough week for us, but as of today we feel very blessed and loved and are grateful to our wonderful friends and family. Thad lost his job Tuesday morning, which came as a complete shock. We knew the company was making cut backs in some areas, like taking trucks away from some employees, but as of the Man power meeting Friday morning there was no mention of impending layoffs. Tuesday morning however Thad found out that every district in the Company was told to lay off 5 engineers, and being at the end of the senority line meant Thad.
So of course the minute he got home Thad was sending out resumes and looking on line for jobs in the area, but being that most companies in the industry are in the same boat, I don't think he was feeling very positive about it. I however was. I kept saying he'd have a job very soon and that the severence the company gave him would then be like a bonus towards our "I need a bigger master bath" fund.
This is what I was praying and fasting for the next day. Our prayers were definitly answered but it seems the answer never comes exactly the way I had planned. I know I've been saying that over and over again for at least 6 years, but it still amazes me when it happens. My wonderful friend who has employed me off and on since I was 11 years old, as a baby-sitter, part time at her office during HS and full time during my college summers, called Wednesday morning. She told me I could come back to work for her full time as soon as I wanted.
So for the next few months as Thad continues to look for employment we will be switching roles. Thad get's to be Mr Mom, and as he keeps telling me with his obnoxious grin "There's a new sherriff in town!" He has also informed me that since we are switching places he is taking over the blog. You have all been warned.
It should be an interesting few months, a growing and changing time for us both I think. And being the slightly OCD control freak that I am, I can see I have a lot of gorwing to do in learning to let go.

milestones and mothers day.

Both kids have hit some fun milestones lately. Sammy's all physical, Andi's a little more mental.
Friday Sammy started doing this:


He doesn't actually move with it yet, but at least he's up and seems to like getting up there. He is surprisingly mobile these days though. Between his rolling, and the scooting backwards he moves all over the floor.
I realized last week as well, that he should be starting to sit up on his own now, but because of the wonderful invention that is the Bumbo chair he hasn't had to try. So I have retired the bumbo and brought out the high chair for meal times.

and in just a few short days he's doing this:


It really has been an exciting few days with Sam. Plus he is transitioning down to 2 naps a day, and yesterday one of those naps was 3 hrs long! it was very nice.
Andi had an eventful Mothers Day. The primary kids always do a musical number and being a sunbeam she was old enough to go up this year. However, her potty break came at the wrong time and she walked back in to the chapel just as the pianist began playing. So Andi came back and stood by me where I was sitting and sang as loud as she could along with the other kids. She didn't care at all that she wasn't standing by them, she was just excited they were singing songs she knew. And I was very impressed with how well she sang both songs.


She also gave her very first talk in Primary. She talked about baptism and it went really well if I do say so myself. She is definitely not a shy child and LOVED being allowed to talk into the microphone. When she was done you could tell she was very proud of herself. She marched back to her little seat with a big smile on her face. It was a fun mothers day at church. We spent the afternoon/evening at Thads parents house for a BBQ and family time. It was really nice.
We also managed to squeeze in a yard sale over the weekend and got rid of a bunch of stuff, including our old camera. Which also meant we got to go get a new camera! It's so much faster and lighter than our old one. I love it.

Finishing Touches

I have mentioned in the last few posts the finishing touches Thad has been putting in our yard. Like the water feature that now has plants and fish in it. And the bench swing I have been wanting to go next to it. We still have a few things to plant around the base of the water feature, And I have to make the awning for the swing, but here are the pictures as promised.

Feature in the dark

Andi on the swing. The feature is to the left of the swing.

6months going on Tank!

Sammy had his 6 month check up yesterday, He's such a beast, are you ready for this?! He weighed in at 20 lbs 2 oz, and that's without his shoes. He's 29 inches long and as you might guess is in the 90 - 95 % for both height and weight, and 95% for his giant Charlie brown head. I thought Andi was big, but comparing the stats, Sam is the size she was at 1 year! Little Dude is going to be a linebacker or something.


I had Andi in at the same time again for her allergies. Everytime we go to the Dr's and the nurse comes to call us back, Andi walks up to her and says " I have a snot nose." and whether we are actually there for her or not it's always true. Earlier this month they gave her an antibiotic to clear up her sinus infection and changed her allergy meds, which worked for a few weeks and then everything came right back. So now on top of her daily Zyrtec & Singulair she has to have a nasal spray, and an antibiotic again for 2 weeks. My poor drugged up kid. We are really crossing our fingers that the combination of the three daily meds will control her allergies, if not, they are talking about allergy shots. Yuk. I've realized that Andi is probably always going to have some chronic problem, and the minute we think we have it all fixed(like getting her tonsils& adnoids out & tubes) something else will pop up.


I am starting a little bit of work from home next week. It's kinda funny, becuase there are days when I can't seem to get dressed and out to the grocery store, when I really have absolutely no excuse and no reason for not getting going. But it seems I work better with a very full plate. When it's empty I do nothing. So knowing that I am going to have to be more on top of it to get this work done on a daily basis and keep up with the house and the groceries, and the cooking, and those kids, I have been on such a roll, my house is so clean! Being productive just makes me feel so much better.
Thad has been busy with the yard lately. He's been "perfecting" out little water feature. I love it. Again, I have no idea why I haven't taken pictures of it yet. I will make an effort to have pictures of our yard improvements in the next post.

Conversations with Andi

Andi is getting to the stage in her verbal development where she says things like she is a little adult. Things like, "can I watch TB's(TV)? I won't freak out." meaning if you let me watch a show I promise not to throw a tantrum when you turn the TV off. We've been having some interesting conversations lately; for example:

context- she was looking at a book about kittens
Andi: Momma, I want a smiley kitty
Me: you do?
Andi: ya, I want a kitty at our house.
Me: that would be fun, but we can't have a kitty because mommy is allergic to them. They make Momma very sick.
Andi: well, you can just stay at Grandmas house.
Me: But If I stay at grandmas who will take care of you?
Andi: the kitty.
And that quickly I am replaced by a cat.

Context- we were in the car and Thad and I were trying to figure out a time reference on something and I said "I think it happened right after we got married."
Andi: what's married? (simple enough question but how do you explain it for a three year old to understand?!)
Thad: Married is when you go with a boy to the temple.
Andi: But how do you get married.
me: When you go to the temple someone seals you together forever.
Thad: And then you get to be like Mommy and Daddy.
Me: I went to the temple with daddy and we got married.
Andi: but, who goes with me to the temple?
Thad: a boy
Andi: what boy?
Me: whoever you want.
Watch out sunbeams, Andi is on a mission.

Context- Sammy was being pretty fussy and Andi wasn't getting a lot of attention.
Andi: Momma, put Sammy back
Me: put him back where?
Andi: put him back in your tummy, I don't want to play with him anymore.
Me: but he won't go back in, he doesn't fit anymore.
Andi: make your tummy bigger and put him back in.
Only a 3 year old would think it a better idea to put him back in the womb than just put him in his crib.

Easter

Easter was an interesting experience this year with Andi. My mom gave her a tinkerbell egg dying kit a week before Easter and she carried it around everywhere. The first thing she asked for when she woke up every morning was "mom, wheres my eggs?" So needless to say she was really excited Saturday morning when I told her we would finally be dying eggs. She did really well this year and only cracked one of the eggs. When she went down for a nap I took all the eggs over to my moms to be hidden thinking that was the best way to get them off her mind.
oh no! She woke up looking for the eggs and would not stop asking. Thad and I hadn't really wanted to push the whole easter bunny issue, but Andi just wouldn't take"the eggs are hiding and we'll find them tomorrow" as an answer. And after ten minutes of "but why mom, where are they, I need them" I finally broke and said "the bunny took your eggs." She just stared at me trying to figure it out and then "why does the bunny have my eggs? tell him to bring them back." So she doesn't really get the whole Easter bunny thing, but to be honest I have no idea why a bunny hides the eggs either. She did love finding all the eggs however!


Church is at 9 for us so we waited till afterward to have an egg hunt at my moms and then a big lunch with all the family. We had way too many eggs for just Andi and Walter, but we couldn't talk bradon or any of the older kids in to hunting, so both little ones filled up two baskets. Don't worry I only brought one basket home. Later we went to Thads Grandparents for a nice quiet dinner. It was a really nice day.

adjustments

Sammy has been in the shoes for a full week now and I have to admit they are not that bad. The first night was awful, but after a whole day on motrin he slept fine the next night and has adjusted to them quite well. He is even rolling over like crazy. But he definitely gets excited when we take them off for baths and things. He does this weird chipmunk sounding laugh and kicks his legs around like crazy. Oh, and huge bonus to being out of the cast, he fits in the bumbo again! He loves sitting up and looking around.


I forgot to mention earlier that we started Sam on solids, or the baby mush version of solids a couple of weeks ago and he loves food! He sort of growls at his food when he takes a bite and makes a huge mess because he always sticks his hands in to "help". The draw back, we now have colorful spit up. . . on everything. Apparently I blocked out that part of Andi's first year but the first time he spit up carrots all over me it came rushing back with a vengance and I'm really hoping he outgrows this sooner than she did.


Andi had her first taste of grounding this week. She's been throwing tantrums like you would not believe and after a battle royal Sunday night I finally had it. No tv, no computer games (yes my 3 year old plays computer games) no friends, and no grandmas house. Harsh I know, but trust me, she deserved it. We had a "big girl jar" that we used when she was potty training, whenever she had dry panties all day we'd put beans in the jar and when it was full she'd get a toy. So I brought back the jar this week, and when she let me do her hair without a tantrum she got beans, or ate her dinner without a fight, or picked up her toys. And if she threw a fit we took beans away. You would have thought we were cutting off an apendage when we took a couple of beans out of the jar, but by Thursday she seemed to have figured out the whole crime and punishment angle, and that good behavior was the only way to get to see her friends.

In fun exciting house project, we got trees and plants in the backyard!!! I haven't taken pictures yet, I don't know why, but It's amazing the difference a couple trees, vines, and bushes can make in the backyard. It finally looks finished. Plus we planted a garden on the side of the house. Corn, tomatos, carrots, cucumber, zucchini, lettuce and strawberries. It's small, but Andi had a lot of fun digging, and will be so ecited to actually eat what we planted.

Sammy's Stupid Shoes

I took Sammy to LA today to get his final cast removed and get fitted for his "Dennis Brown Bar" and shoes. If you couldn't tell from the title of this post I hate these shoes, with a passion.I realize it has only been a matter of hours since we got them, but I really really hate them. Through out this whole process nothing has really bothered me. I mean, sure put a cast on my 4 week old, not a problem. Do surgery on my 4 month old, go ahead. People kept asking me, especially in the beginning how I was doing with it, and my silent mental response was always, "stupid, I'm not the one in a cast, so obviously I'm fine with it." I seriously did not understand why people kept asking me that question. Until today. The casts have not hurt him, he woke up from surgery and after a bottle acted like nothing had happened. But today, it took me almost a full half hour to calm him down after putting the shoes on. They hurt him! Then he cried half of the way home, which for those of you who don't know, it's a 2 hour drive, meaning he cried a full hour in the car on the way home. Then I took the shoes off to give him a bath tonight, and again a full 30 minutes to calm him down when we put them back on. All I have to do it look at those dumb things and I want to cry for him.


When the Dr told me he would need these shoes he explained it was kind of like braces, once you get them off you wear a retainer. Again my silent mental retort "I wore my retainer a total of 3 days and 10 years later my teeth are still perfectly straight" Bad attitude I know, but I just hate this!
Anyway, on a lighter note here are some cute picture of Sammy and Charlotte from our play date earlier this week. These two are 2 months apart, and Sammy finally realize this last time that there was another baby in the room and kept watching her and laughing.




We also had Grandpa Richards 92nd birthday party on Sunday. Some of Thad's cousins were able to come in to town for it, and it was a lot of fun to see everyone. 25 people in all, many of them children. There is a back room at the Richards that has seen years and years of madness and chaos as it is the room that all the kids go into and shut the door while the adults talk. Most of the kids at this celebration were in the 6-10 age range, except for Andi Paige & Kate who are all 2 &3. Part way through the night I realized that Paige and Kate were sitting with their parents and Andi was the only little one in all the noisy screaming chaos. So I went back to make sure she was okay in time to see her run across the room and jump on the back of one of the 8 year olds and like swing from his neck. Apparently it was like a prison rules wrestle mania going on and she didn't know that she wasn't one of the big boys. That's my little princess. . . way to go Thad.