Like Father, Like Son

So me and Dan were in the kitchen talking and he was leaning against the door drinking juice. Christian was puttering around with his cup when he saw Dan and he stopped what he was doing walked over to the door and tried to lean against the door, cross his legs, and drink juice. With a little help he was able to get his legs crossed. He would keep looking up at Dan to make sure he was doing everything right. It was so cute.

Rambling Thoughts on Motherhood

Well lets first start out with the fact- I do love being a mother, it is one of the most unique and special things I have ever experienced. With that said, when "they" say there is nothing that can really prepare you, there really isn't. It's like when I was getting ready to have Christian I must have read about a million books about sleep training, giving birth, soothing, what pregnancy is like- what's normal what's not.... all of these are helpful, but unfortunately no baby is by the book, no giving birth experience is by the book. For example: I was so ready to have a baby we had our hospital bag ready for weeks just waiting for that 3:00 in the morning moment when I say "Honey, it's time to go to the hospital!"... come to find out- my body doesn't no how to go into labor- in fact it gets pretty mad if you try to put it into labor, so c-section it is.
Being a mom is also interesting, I think as you think about being a mom and how great it will be, I don't think anyone says to you, by the way even though being a mom is great you need to prepare yourself for a lot of repetition- for example, my toddler loves to play "go to work" this entails of him giving me a hug and a kiss and getting on his truck and saying "Bye Mom, Bye- I love you" then I say "Bye sweetie, have a great day come back soon!" then he rides down the hall comes back jumps off his truck and says "I'm home" and then I say "You're home!" and he comes and gives me a hug and a kiss. I must confess it's one of my favorite games, but ask yourself can you play this game for at least a half hour? Especially now that there is a second baby who also needs your attention? It gets crazy trying to balance everything. Or on the other side, how many times can you take hearing Big Bird sing the ABC's at a very rapid pace. Christian loves that toy and it is played with often, I know that repetition is the way kids learn and I try to foster that in our home- but how can you really prepare for that.
Another big shocker and adjustment for me was learning how to stay home. After I had Christian I had to go back to work until Dan was finished with school and got a "big person job." This was hard, I cried all the way to my mom's dropping Christian off and all the way to work- so hard to leave such a tiny little person I had gotten so very attached to. Last September (it has been a whole year now that I have been able to stay at home) I was able to quit work- *HEAVEN* I was not prepared with how to adjust from a constant going, going, going to the different pace of staying at home, it is by no means slower, but different and harder to adjust after doing school and work for so long, it has a different focus of it's own that I had to learn.
Another thing I was thinking about was, obviously, I am a huge fan of "So You Think You Can Dance?" and I would be lying to you if I didn't say I miss dance so very much when I watch that show- me and Dan both did theater as a married couple which was a blast, we both danced our brains out and now none of that is possible right now because we chose to have kids- at least I don't think so, I don't think there is anyway to do dance and shows and be able to give to your kids the way your are suppose to- I think it is a selfish move (sorry if I have offended these are my opinions and I don't mean to judge anyone) to do something like that- I think people choose things like that too often and that's why there are so many messed up kids right now. Anyway, way off the subject. So today I was thinking about dance while I was playing on the floor with Christian and Evan, and I realized man, I love love love dance! But I stare into the eyes of my children and I think "No, I like to dance- I love them more than ever!" It's so interesting that children can curb your passions so much with just a look or a smile, these little beings that are so dependent on you- I now understand why parents cry when kids go to school, I'm sure I'll be right there on the curb waving good bye trying to hold it together.
So to kind of wrap up my ramblings for now, I think there is so much about motherhood/parenthood that you can never be prepared for, there are hard things to learn but those hard things are very worthwhile. Having children is an experience that I wouldn't trade for anything- sorry for the sentimentality- I just had some thoughts I wanted to get down.

My Christian Boy

I love my Christian boy! He gets funner each day, and even though he has his "2" moments, he really is a good boy. He loves the new house and the space we have, all we need now is grass so he isn't covered in dirt when he plays outside. He also loves Evan, he wants to help feed him solids, which is a patient-testing messy time, but I still think it is important for him to be a part of it and learn to be a good big brother. He loves playing with kids, and you will often him find him playing on his truck inside, or on his trike (aka"cycle") outside.
He is saying the funniest things these days like: "No mommy, go play!" (I often say this to Christian when he is getting into mischief and so he tells me it back when he does not want to budge) He says "How about..." when he wants something he comes up and says "Mom how about a fruit treat" and I will say "um how about some lunch first?' and he'll say "ummm how about.. a fruit treat!" His negotiation skills are hilarious. There are more, but I can't think of them, so I will edit as I remember. What a good kid.

A Classic!

Oh man what a cute little baby boy I have. These pictures are the best, he loves to suck on his fingers and ended up picking his nose as well! Evan is such a good boy, he is so different from Christian, he is very mild natured and is a very observant kid. He can sit up on his own really well now, roll over, and push himself backwards. He LOVES Christian, Christian can get him laughing so hard. And he loves to sit and play toys with Christian. Christian has been taking toys away from him and it has been driving me crazy- but Evan has seemed to mind to much. But the other day Christian took a toy away and he got the biggest frowny face ever and started to cry, and Christian went "Ohhhh, it's okay Eban (aka Evan) here you go" and gave him back the toy and a hug- so cute! We love having Evan in our family, it's so interesting how everything seems to work itself out even better then what you expected as you add more kids to the brood. I'm so grateful

Halleujah!

Well the camera gods must be happy with me, because for some reason my camera is telling me that it does not need to be reformatted any more and I still have all the pictures I was mourning last post- WAH-HOO!! Looking at these pictures, maybe it's time to upgrade to a better camera again, the pictures are looking a little poor, but none the less, PICTURES!!!


The top picture is with all of us right before we raced the boats we made
Dan made a wicked awesome Pirates of the Carribean "Black Pearl"
There is a river near and we took tubes to float this year, I love this picture of my Dad and Ty
As you can tell the kids wanted to be in the water the whole time, this little stream was perfect
The Pinnacles at Pinnacle Lodge
Dan trying to help Christian paint his boat, don't you love how long Christian's shirt is

Missing In Action

Well it has been a long time since I posted and a lot has happened. I finally found some time to blog, sat down and plugged in my camera to download my pictures and... the card says there is an error and that I have to re-start it that it will erase all the pictures on it. I'm pretty bumbed because we have a lot of fun pictures- so here's all the text without any of the pictures.
We went to the zoo on July 3rd and we had a blast, we took Christian there last year and he liked it but didn't quite get it. This time he loved it- after the fact he would talk about how he wanted to go back and see the "elepatants" and monkeys and birds. By the way if you have never stayed to see the bird show there, you really should it is way fun.
Also our Grandpa Anderson fixed up the old wagon, we sanded it down and painted it for him and he loves it. For about 3 weeks straight he would ask me to take him out in it. One time we were out it was close to his nap, I took him out and I look back and his head is sunk and bobbing around and he's doing his best to hold on to the sides- he had totally fallen asleep. Think about is, close to nap time, nice warm sun, the sound of the wagon going over the sidewalk cracks. It's a coctail for sleep :)
We also had our family reunion at Pinnacle Peaks, I love it here, it's this big cabin- pefrect for a humongous family-snuggled down in this canyon surround by gorgeous rock walls and there is a tire swing and a pavilion to eat in- I had some really great pictures and I'm sad they are gone. My mom bought wooden boats for us to build and race down the stream, my dad bought tubes to float down the river in, we played some way fun games, and it's just nice to be together as a whole family. Next year we will finally have everyone there because Dave is coming home from his mission soon- wah-hoo!
We have also been working on our new house- yes we finally closed!!!! We have been over there everynight after the boys go to bed until 10 or 11 at night. We are exhausted. So far we have ripped out all the carpets and all the tack boards, cleaned up the dirt that was under the carpet- there was a lot!!! Spackled and sanded all the walls, taken off all the outlet plates, had A/C and a new furnace put in, painted all the ceilings, primed the walls and painted two coats of paint to each wall (the house needed to be majorly aired out after that, our eyes and throat would burn from all the fumes), and we are now onto tiling, we are tiling the dining, kitchen, both bathrooms, and the entry way. After that we will put in our lighting fixtures have the carpet guy come lay carpet, put the base boards in and we can FINALLY move in! It has been so much work, but I know we will be so happy when we get to live there. We also saved a lot of money by doing most of the work ourselves.
The boys have been so fun. Christian is very imaginative right now- he loves playing on his truck, technically it is a dump truck, but it is often times, a garbage truck, mail truck, or fire engine. The other day we were taking a walk and the postman was delivering to our block, we practically chased him the whole way with Christian saying "Hi, hi! I want to get in there!" The postman thought it was hilarious. Evan is such a calm baby, he rarely cries, he is super chubby and way cute. We have been battling a little bit of infantigo on his cheeks and I think we finally have it under control. He is also sleeping through the night now and that is heaven, now if I could stop pulling the late nighters at our house I might finally loose the dark circles under my eyes. As for me and Dan we are excited to have our house, but we will be more excited when it is done and we can go out on a date again! Anyway, hopefully this next time I try to post pictures I will actually have some.