How brave are you?

I was shopping at goodwill the other day (I love that place!) and as I was checking out, the girl behind the counter asked me how far along I was. I had to think for a minute because I'm still in weeks but unpregnant people tend to time a pregnancy in months (and not realize that it's closer to 10 instead of 9...) When I responded that I was 5 months along she has surprised that I was so far along and now showing much yet. Which got me to thinking....

how was she brave enough to ask me if I was even pregnant? I'm not one of those girls who feels fat when I'm pregnant or minds being asked about the baby or my belly. But if you didn't know me, would you be brave enough to ask this girl:

when the baby was due? This is as big as it gets right now. I am 22 weeks and Eric took this picture at the end of the day after eating a full meal at Chili's (thanks for the date, my love!) with full maternity gear on and nothing to hold anything in....I think I finally look "pregnant" but I don't look like I'm about to explode or anything!

You go, goodwill girl. Way to be brave and give me an opportunity to talk to someone new about this little one.

Scottland

He cracks me up. Sometimes, he drives me nuts (this month he's being melodramatic and collapsing in hysterical tears), but mostly, he cracks me up.

Like clicking. He has always loved buttons and the accompanying click but he has yet to figure out that it's not the noise that makes something happen. For instance, he'll turn on my camera, point it at something, and then click his tongue. And click. And click.

Last week, he handed me the camera and told me to "click it" so I asked him to pose.


Nice work, little GQ man. Now if only I could get you to look at me at the same time...

A few days ago, Eric got home from work just in time to help Scotty out in the bathroom. We're on the slow track to potty training and he had decided he wanted to try it standing up. When we walked into the bathroom he was standing on his tiptoes, barely tall enough to reach the toilet, and making clicking noises, waiting for something to happen. I just got to laugh and tell Eric that I had no pointers to offer on that particular predicament!

Making a Home

I've always been opposed to the term "homemaker" because it felt so old fashioned, simplistic, and not feminist... Eric always refers to me as a domestic engineer because I have a special knack for rigging working things out of random bits and pieces and less talent for traditional skills like sewing and cooking. In our family I am definitely the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) while Eric is the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) and Scotty is the CEE (Chief of Everything Else).

While I still despise the term "housewife" as I am in no way legally or emotionally sealed to my house, I am gaining a certain satisfaction from turning our house into our home. My mom never dreamed that I would be the one coming over to clean her house! Somewhere in the maze of BYU I stopped being the teenager who dwelt amongst piles of everything to the girl who sweeps her floors at least every other day so she can enjoy going barefoot.


In honor of our new home I thought I should post a few pictures. I'm not a decorator by any means but I have no fears about picking up a gallon of paint and getting my hands dirty :o)


(Scotty's "big boy" bed, complete with batman sheets. He now has a bright yellow comforter that I got free and patched up)

I decided about a month ago that he needed "something" on his wall to last until my mom and I had time to get creative with paint, so I made this with ribbon and paperclips. He loves to point out all of his favorite people! If you want to be part of Scotty's vocabulary, send me a picture and I'll add it :o)More storage for toys. Even with a closet they seem to take over everything. We spend a lot of time at Home Depot so I was excited to be there for a workshop (we made a rain catcher) and he earned his own little orange apron.

This was my best find (thanks, Goodwill!) and it set me back a whole $10. It also gives me a place to stash some of the 50 stuffed animals he tries to crowd into his bed every night.

And now a few random pictures of walls that finally have pictures on them. Of all the talents I possess, hanging pictures is just not one of them, so I spent many days waiting for Eric to be home when Scotty wasn't asleep so I could finally hang them. And by hang them I mean stand back and micromanage Eric while he hung them :o)

Front room:

(my BYU graduation present from my parents--love this painting!)

(Painting I bought in Paris in 2005...and yes, that's a bagged diaper on the floor (HA!) ignore that...)


My graduation present for finishing my master's! Thanks mom and dad, I love having a place to put all of my books :o)



(Hallway)


(Living room)


(Eric had our new family photo professionally framed for Christmas--doesn't he have fabulous taste?)

Since I took these pictures, I have painted a wall in the master bedroom, bought a gorgeous print of my favorite place in Italy to hang above our bed (thanks again, Goodwill!), framed a new adorable picture of Scotty for the front room, and painted both coats of purple in the baby's room (you'll love it!). More pictures to come I suppose....

Easter Fun

I made Easter baskets for both of my boys (when it comes to candy, Eric is worse than Scotty). Scotty and I loaded Eric's basket up and hid it while he was at the priesthood session of general conference. When Eric realized at 10pm that his Easter basket was already hidden somewhere in the house (filled with oodles of Reese's that were now fair game) he started looking! At first it was casual, a glance here or there as he walked into a room. Within 10 minutes I started hearing cupboards opening in the kitchen and Eric walking around the house with a flashlight....It is hard to surprise him and even harder to ration his candy so I had a blast watching him :o) I don't have any pictures because he was too focused on searching to put on clothes and continued wandering the house for awhile in his underwear.... He did find it in the morning in the clothes dryer we're getting rid of in the garage.

Scotty doesn't have as much of a sweet tooth as he thinks he does. He often asks for treats only to carry them around and later mash them into the furniture. I bought bubbles and a special coloring book (Toy Story color wonders, thanks for the great idea Christine!). Of all the candy and treats he was most fascinated by the green marshmallow bunny peeps I picked out and kept asking to eat the bunnies. In passing, I told him that mommy and daddy would hide his bucket while he was asleep and in the morning he could go find the bunnies. 7:15 Easter morning brings a bouncing smile into our room, yelling "I want to eat the bunnies!"

After conference we hosted Easter dinner at our house. Basically, my mom made all of the food and we were just bringing a pasta salad but we ended up feeding the sister missionaries in our ward so it had to be at our place! It was a little bit of a scramble for me as our house was in the middle of a sugar craze and Scotty's toys were scattered everywhere during the 8 hours of essentially unsupervised play time afforded him by General Conference (which is no longer broadcast around here and therefore had to be watched online). My mom was AMAZING and so willing to just pack up and bring everything over.

This is the only picture I managed with my mom in it, but sorry, dad, you look a little drug hazed... and the other pictures are only slightly better. Guess you have a special talent for looking stoic!


Dying Easter eggs with Scotty was very efficient. Each egg got dipped in each color for a fraction of a second and when I wasn't looking he kept sneaking the "finished" eggs back into color cups...

Overall it was a wonderful weekend. I especially loved all of the conference messages that focused on parenting and gave some practical tips for teaching your children. It was nice to come away from the weekend feeling inspired and empowered to be a better wife, mother, and woman. Happy Easter!

April Fools and Firefighters

This is when I get all of you thinking that I'm pregnant, or having a baby girl, or something crazy, (and you all fall for it because why would I lie about something like THAT) and then you remember that it's April 1st...

for some reason I'm thinking that gag won't work this year! Good thing too, or I'd have a lot of explaining to do about the purple paint I'm using in the empty bedroom :o)

My mom and I took Scotty to the Hall of Flame firefighting museum a few weeks back. As you can imagine, the kid was in heaven, though he had a hard time because he wanted to climb on everything...
A quick video of Scotty ringing the bell....every time we get out of the car he asks to honk the horn, and every time we walk up to our front door he asks to ring the bell, so I shouldn't have been surprised that he was so enthusiastic about making loud noises.