I'm back

I haven't blogged in a really REALLY long time.  Like long enough to get pregnant, be pregnant (which takes a good long 9 months), and have a now 5 month old baby.  Here's some pictures of said baby. It's not just the pictures-  he really is JUST SOOOO adorable!!!

3 months and so so so so cute!!!!

4 months- he loves those fingers!

He really loves those fingers.

5 months

I have one question for myself- what have I been doing with my time?  Couldn't really say- might be: nursing, cooking breakfast, school, nursing, cooking lunch, school, nursing, cooking dinner...bedtime...nursing...repeat. Occasional baths, stories, laundry, grocery trips, preschool pick ups, and other life's necessities tucked in there too. Such is the life of a mom right?  And the weird part is I enjoy doing it (well most of the time- no one's perfect).  But no where in the there has there been time for mom to blog and catch up on scrapbooking or do other "just for mom" tasks.  Then I realized the other day, it's not like anyone's ever going to say" hey mom, why don't you take a few minutes for yourself this afternoon".  Haha!! Can you imagine?!  So I'm going to have to just take them.  Another thing I realized, is that I find more humor in the mundane tasks and sometimes annoying moments of life when I can think about how I'm going to try to spin it into a blog post.  I've been visiting friends' blogs again and remembering just how much I enjoyed writing about the every day moments.  So....I'm going to try blogging...again.  I know I said this before.  Whatever.  I'm starting over and there's no rules about how many times I can start over again again.  I might make myself a rule to write a new post and then write something from the past 15 months to kind of fill in.  Maybe.  We'll see what happens.  Follow along if you can.

So, to kick off with, here' s a funny moment from the middle of the night last night.  Owen at 5 months is cute, adorable, cuddly, smiley, babbling, oh and he LOVES his fingers.  We often joke that he must have chocolate or strawberry flavored fingers.  So anyway, last night he woke up with just a shrill cry- part of the little temper he's been cultivating lately also.  (It's actually a cute little temper because his cry turns from whiny to shrill as if he's saying "I SAID I WANT YOU...NOW!"  And who can resist being wanted that badly??).  Jared was fast asleep when Owen let out this cry and as I was rolling over to put my glasses on, Jared mumbles (really pretty much still asleep) "he's an angry elf". HA!!!! (That's a direct quote from a favorite family movie- Elf). It was so funny because Jared was pretty much asleep and the comment was so perfectly pertinent.  I just about burst out laughing at 4 am. 

A few weeks ago we were on a trip to Nauvoo to see some friends get married (John & Like Hasek).  Anyway, we stopped at Wal-Mart (because no trip is complete without a stop at the local Wal-Mart).  Jared ran in for some breakfast items (good man also grabbed me some Reese Cup ice cream scoring him definite brownie points).  While I was in the van with the kids we were talking about how Owen's my baby now, and Ethan was my baby before (but he'll always be my baby), and Katie was my baby before him (but she'll always be my baby too) etc. The conversation ended and we moved on to something else.  Then 5 minutes or so later, Hunter whacked Ethan (who knows why- boys in the back seat together), and Ethan says without even a pause, and just dripping with drama, "Mommy, Hunter hurt your baby!"  I just burst out laughing- which was apparently actually not the reaction he wanted from me.   But it was SO funny.

Coleson is very bright.  (This is just to preface because I do use the word dumb (for lack of a better word) a lot in the following paragraph.)  He was on the A/B Honor Roll last semester.  So he's really not dumb.  But sometimes....the questions?? I just don't understand.  I was sitting in my normal spot between him and Hunter at the island while we were working on school work and Coleson looked at me in all seriousness and said, "how many wheels are on a bicycle?"  It'd been one of those weeks full of duh moments for him and I honestly could not answer the question without saying something I'd regret.  So I just looked at him and waited for it to occur to him the silliness of such a question.  And waited.  And waited some more.  All the while he was just staring back at me.  Eventually I had to laugh- more out of frustration at the week of dumb things leading up to the kicker of all dumb questions.   This is not a one time occurrence. Ttoday I told Coleson to come upstairs to take a shower.  He surprisingly came right up and went to the bathroom, but then came out about 2 minutes later- unshowered.  I asked him what he was supposed to be doing and he looked at me very seriously and said he didn't know.  I stared back and waited for it to come to him.  Nothing.  Finally, Katelyn (who was also downstairs when I'd told Coleson to go take the shower) came upstairs and said "Coleson aren't you supposed to be in the shower?"  Coleson says "oh".  Thank you, Katelyn!  Whoever said there are no dumb questions obviously didn't have a 10 year old boy.

To redeem Coleson a little from the last paragraph and using the word dumb a few too many times, I'll also say that Coleson is doing a fantastic job with our chickens lately.  We had always intended for the chickens to be taken care of mostly by the boys.  But the boys were still pretty young when we started chickens.  This past winter Jared has completely relinquished the chickens to Coleson.  Coleson cleans the coop, looks for needed repairs and then does them, and then of course feeds them, waters them, and collects the eggs. It takes him about 45 minutes to an hour every day.  It's been very interesting to see the change that has come over him as he's developed some pride and ownership in his work.  When Jared first turned it over to him, there were a few days Coleson didn't feed them.  When chickens run out of food or water they stop laying eggs.  It can take weeks for them to recoup and start laying again.  Happy chickens= laying chickens.  So during the time they weren't laying, I had to buy eggs at the store.  When I picked up those eggs from the store shelf, Coleson was actually almost offended and asked if I had to buy them.  I did.  Boy, did that hit home.  Every day since, he proudly announces how many eggs he collected from the hens that day- beaming smile and all.  Lesson learned.

Here's one for Hunter and then I'm done for tonight.  It starts out not so funny.  Hunter is in charge of taking out the trash.  And then on Fridays he has to take the trash cans down the lane and on Saturday's (after the trash is picked up) he has to bring them back to the house.  A few Saturdays ago, we sent him out to collect the trash cans before dark.  A few minutes later we heard a blood curdling scream.  Moms know the difference in their children's cries and screams and what each one means.  There's the 'sad', 'mad', 'angry', 'you took my toy', 'I have a not so serious owey', and then there's the HURT cry and the truly scared cry.  Hunter was screaming in both. The second I heard it I was up and running to the window and yelling at Jared who was closer to the front door than me to get outside to help him.  Turns out he was being attacked by a dog.  Of all the kids in the world to be attacked by a dog, why did it have to be Hunter?  He's already so worried and so afraid of so many things.  This definitely didn't help.  The dog was the neighbor across the street's dog (some very large less common breed who we've never had a problem with before).  They had been out playing when Hunter came down the lane for the trash cans.  And he must've looked like fun- because he is.  When he ran away that was even more fun.  Fortunately, his screaming must've scared the dog off because he only got a nip out of his leg.  But obviously he was still pretty upset. Dr. Dad cleaned up the wound and then we let him play a game on the phone for a bit.  Or so we thought.  We got busy with baths and showers and putting kids to bed.  We sent Hunter to bed (but forgot to take away the phone).  Turns out he played quietly in his bed on the phone until we went to bed.  Then he crept downstairs to play.  And that is where I found him when I was leaving for early church meetings the next morning.  He had been awake ALL night long on the phone playing games.  And we have an automatic turn off timer so if the phone is idle for more than 5 minutes it locks and has to have the pass code to turn back on.  So he hadn't let it sit idle for more than 5 minutes.  He was literally awake playing ALL night.  And there he sat on the couch downstairs with his sheepish grin the next morning.  I just stood there completely dumbfounded.  And then I left.  What else was there to say?  It was kinda my fault for not getting the phone back.  But, Hunter sure won't be enjoying any free game time on the phone again for quite some time.