GoldiLUKE

A couple of months ago we tried moving Luke to his "big boy" bed. Let's just say....he's not ready yet! :)

This is what we found when we went in to check on him not too long after putting him down. He loves Beau so much that once he fell asleep he thought he'd snuggle in close to him, pull up the covers, and settle in for the night. When I first walked in, Luke was actually lying there, sucking his thumb, trying to go to sleep. When I came back with Tom and the camera he greeted us with a mischievous smile.

Apparently, Beau's bed is juuuust right!!

Monsters have God in their Hearts, too!

Beau has become quite the artist lately. Since I can't even draw a decent stick figure, I'll admit to having not given him much direction in this area, but he seems to be figuring it out all on his own....and loving it! He's drawn SO many adorable things for me in the last few months that I wish I could save them all.

This particular drawing was accompanied by such a precious commentary that I just had to take a picture of it. He brought the Magnadoodle to me and said, "Look mom, the monster's got God in his heart."

Aw, isn't that sweet?

Blogging, Menu Planning, and Scrapbooking

Blogging: Okay, so I'm a horrible blogger! I LOVE to read others' blogs, but keeping my own has been super challenging. I think my last entry was in July. BUT, I'm making a comeback! Blogging is something I really, REALLY want to do for my family, so I'm going to start taking the time to get it done. I have a problem not doing things unless I know I'll be able to do them perfectly and with 100% confidence. Yes, this is exactly why I don't do much at all! :) I'm going to have to settle for mediocrity and a substandard level of confidence on this one.

Menu Planning: I know how to do it, have the desire to do it, but never quite accomplish it. I want to be domesticated.....I really do! I feel like I need to be a good steward of my family's money and grocery shop on a budget, plan meals, and actually cook them once they're planned! We eat out WAY too much! So much that I can't even bring myself to confess just how much. My friend Brooke knows, and she still loves me, so maybe there is hope! It would be easier if Tom didn't want to eat all healthy and stuff, but whatever!!

Scrapbooking: I don't necessarily want to manually "scrapbook", but I would at least like to find a way to get my photos organized and easily shared. Digital scrapbooking?? I don't know. Just another thing that I'm stressing out about lately. I don't want to be buried in pictures 10 years from now that I have no recollection of when/where they were taken or who's even in them. I've seen this happen. Not good.

These are just a few of the MANY things I want to get the ball rolling on. Baby steps....

Family fun? Not so much!

My mother-in-law (Rita) wanted to have a family camping trip, so we conceded and went along, although I have to tell you, it's not something I was looking forward to with and infant and well, Luke.

Rita and Ron went up Friday to find a site for us all at Woods Canyon Lake and we were to meet them on Saturday morning. We drove up early Saturday morning, caravan style, with Ray and Amanda (brother-in-law & sister-in-law) and the girls. It was about 20-30 degrees cooler up on the rim than down here, and the 3 hour car ride went pretty smoothly, so I was excited for that and thinking it might not be too difficult of a trip after all.

Weeeeellllll, after driving around for well over an hour looking in every campsite in Woods Canyon, we were unable to find them and ended up finding a site of our own. The natives were getting seriously restless and needed to get out and expend some pent up energy.

The camp site was SO rocky that the boys fell down, on average, about 4 times an hour.....EACH! This means that I was dealing with a tired, cranky, crying child every 7.5 minutes! And so the good times began! We hung out, the kids walked out to the rim with Tom and Ray, we went to lake (though briefly), played some cards, and while everyone slept, I tossed and turned over the large "cliff" beneath my sleeping bag that was in just the right place to seriously encumber my sleep. I tried to turn upside down and sleep that way, but the incline made the blood rush to my head. Needless to say, I was pretty happy when Luke, my early riser, was up and ready to start the day.

And boy did the day start! Tom woke up and felt queasy. We decided to pack up camp early and while he was off in the woods getting sick, I did just that. 20 trips to the van and 20 child-centered "interruptions" later we were packed and ready to go home. What a bummer!

Even though the trip was sort of a bust, I did learn a few things.

1.) Never camp up on the rim again. At least not until the boys have grown a right foot to replace one of their two left feet and are capable of staying upright for longer than 15 minutes.

2.) Make sure that I get in on the planning to make sure important details (like where the rest of our family can be found) are taken care of! Grrrrr!!

3.) OR, send the kids camping with Tom while I stay behind and sleep in until noon, just in time to make it to my massage and pedicure appointments, only to return home with P.F. Chang's take-out and a half-gallon of coffee ice cream!

It's a Dry Heat!

While I've heard the expression "It's a dry heat!" tons of times growing up here in Arizona, I never really appreciated the depths of its meaning until our vacation in Florida a couple of weeks ago. DANG! "It's a dry heat!" is right! Florida is green and lush, and surely a beautiful state, but I'll take a scorching hot 115 degrees with 7% humidity ANY day as opposed to 90 degrees with 90% humidity! Blech! It felt like you were breathing under water! I don't know how people live there?! And my hair!! I'm pretty sure I'd still still be a single gal if I lived there, for two reasons: 1) It's so muggy I'd never want to leave my house to meet anyone, and 2) Men would have taken one look at my hair and ran the other direction! I'm already "hair challenged", but there I was "hair hopeless"!

We asked my mom to go along to help us take care of Beth in the hopes that we could spend a day together at the Magic Kingdom and have a couple of evenings to ourselves as well. Well, in order to do this, I had been trying desperately to get Beth to take a bottle for six weeks prior. The week before we left she started to take one bottle a day, though still not without a struggle much of the time. My mom had only been successful at giving her one bottle and the other attempts resulted in a hysterical baby girl. No, really.....HYSTERICAL! You would have thought we were trying to get her to drink an acid solution of some kind. So, needless to say, we were in Florida for 5 days and 4 nights and she NEVER took a bottle. Stinker!

Regardless, we had a really good time! We spent a couple of days at EPCOT, one at Magic Kingdom, and an evening at Universal Studios. I felt kind of badly for Tom because I wasn't such a good sport all the time due to the feelings Florida's disgusting weather cultivated in me. I was also constantly worried about Beth overheating and trying to keep her out of the direct sunlight. Hard task! She was such a trooper though, and barely ever made a peep. We've got ourselves a good little girl. She was even a great passenger on the flights to and from Florida. Benadryl is our friend! :)

Overall, it was a nice trip, that I likely won't be making again! ;) I think our family will stick with what Disney has to offer us on the west coast.

Farewell, Tishy!!!

A couple of nights ago I walked across my kitchen to give our family pet, Tishy, a few morsels of food before bed. To my surprise, this is what I found...

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not much of an animal lover, yet oddly, I felt a little sad at Tishy's demise. And then I got over it! :) My only concern was how Beau might react and how I was to tell him. Do fish go to Heaven? Do we flush him? Bury him?

Well, after procrastinating for over TWO days I decided to bite the bullet and tell Beau. The dead fish in my kitchen was starting to creep me out!

Me: "Hey, Beau, I've got to tell you something."

Beau: "Yeah."

Me: "Tishy has died."

Beau: "Oh, let me see!" (said with a giddiness that unnerved me)

I lift him up to take a look at Tishy on the counter.

Beau: "Mom, why did he die?"

Me: "Well, fish don't live very long lives, and he was getting pretty old. It was just his time to go. We had him for a really long time, huh? Maybe we'll get another fish some day."

Beau: "Are you sure it's not because we didn't feed him?"

Beau traipses off to the living room to play. Tra-la-la!!

Hmmm...I guess I was worried for nothing.

Such the businessman!

I LOVE me a good back rub, so of course I've been trying to teach Beau how to massage my shoulders. Nothing better than your own masseur, right? Well, today, all 33 pounds of him was squeezing the tops of my shoulders as hard as he could. It was actually feeling really good so I told him what a great job he was doing and how I should give him a dollar for his hard work. He continues to squeeze with all the super hero strength he can muster, pride and confidence abundant, and we have this conversation....

Beau: "Mom, I'm still doing a good job, right?"

Me: "Yes, Beau, I love it! It feels really nice. I might have to make you my official back rubber."

Beau: "Do you think you should pay me two dollars then?"