Monday, March 18, 2013

Animals

Yesterday we went over to my Grandma's for dinner. I snuck Calvin out and with my sister's camera  took a few shots of my adorable son. (I can't get over him!) He was tired and wasn't interested in smiling or looking at me as I cooed and spoke in a ridiculously high pitched voice. I was practically selling my soul for a good smile, but I got nothing! However, Tiger the tabby made it look so easy.

I have to share these because I feel they capture what happiness is for a 7 month old.





Saturday, March 16, 2013

Casimir Pulaski





Did you know that the first Monday of March is Casimir Pulaski Day? True story. In Illinois school is out and I'm sure it's a bank holiday too!

Who is Casimir Pulaski? I looked it up in Wikipedia to find out myself. He was polish and saved George Washington's life. He is one of 7 to receive honorary US citizenship.


The Saturday before Matt was listening to Sufjan Stevens and a song he wrote about Casimir Pulaski Day. (Click here to listen to it.) Matt was curious about the story behind the day and looked it up. He thought it would be fun to celebrate it by passing out rice krispie treats and giving
the song on a CD to friends. I figured "why not?" It sounded like a fun idea. So that's exactly what we did, but we decided to record ourselves reading from Wikipedia, about Pulaski, just for kicks too! :)

Does it sound egotistical that not only did we want to make our friends listen to a song that we like, but that we also wanted to subject them to our reading voices?

Our ideas escalated when we thought it would be even cooler if we doorbell ditched people as we left a plate of rice krispie treats and a CD on their door step. We thought it would be more fun if our friends had to listen to the CD to figure out who it was that left them treats. As a result, we chose to not lable the CD or the plate of treats with our names on it. (I was worried people would then not eat the rice krispie treats.) Upon delivering we realized we didn't have a enough time so we ended up ringing doorbells past 9pm. One particular friend received her treats after 10pm. Needless to say, we scared a few friends too.

You ask, "why rice krispie treats??" Um.... because Matt likes them?


  
Sunday morning Matt made these fun shapes! I like the shape more on the right, but Matt didn't think anyone would be able to recognize what it was. Doesn't T-Rex just scream Casimir Pulaski?


Calvin posing with the CD we made.

We didn't know how to pronounce Casimir Pulaski so while reading his named on our recording we  we just inserted this audio recording, which is why we named the CD "Happy _________ Day!"

Thursday, February 28, 2013

7 Months

I feel like waiting for my son to turn 6 months has taken FOREVER. I was always rounding up to how old my son was. As soon as he reached two weeks past his "monthly mark" I'd round up and tell anyone who asked how old he was, that he was "almost 4, 5, or 6 months". I was so excited for 6 months. Now that he's moving on to 7 months I wish he could be 6 months forever. :)




At Seven Months...

Loves to put anything and everything into his mouth




Sits up unassisted and prefers to sit up


Wears 3-6 months clothes
Smiles big when Dad comes home

Loves to reach out for things but has no desire to move (out of sight reach out of mind) 
Is ticklish in the back of his neck
Hates a pacifier
Stares you down as you eat anything 
Wakes up, always, at 5am
Cannot roll from front to back
or from back to front



  
 I can't believe this little man is 7 months! I really liked the 6 months part.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Reflecting on 2012

Here's a collage of some of our memorable moments that may or may not have made it into a post, but things I that I still wanted to share. Sometimes I took pictures and thought, "hey I'd like to blog about this!"

Spring 2012- Finding the hole in our air mattress.
We miss the Pierces, who used to live in Salt Lake. They would come over sometimes on Sunday for "Sunday snack". On this particular Sunday Matt mentioned, "we need to find a leak in our air mattress. We think we should take it out back on the pond." If you dont know Eric, you should, he's kind of spontaneous and the fact that he did this is not a surprise. In response to Matt's crazy suggestion, Eric, in his very "Eric-like-manner" said: "Let's do it right now!" So withouth further thought, they did.

At this point I wondered if Eric was going to be stuck. :)



Eric is trying to listen for the "hole"

Here's a picture of the Pierce's cute kids, Kinsley & Aila.

They let me babysit their kids.  We finger painted and Kinsley, the oldest, thought it was great, Aila on the other hand was pretty excited to see mom walk through the door when the night was over.




They love my son and I love watching them talk to him. They use high pitch voices and make everything sound "cute". Aila keeps calling him Baby Boston. :) (She has a cousin about the same age that is named Boston.) They're always trying to get him to look at them and play with them. I'm sure one day he'll appreciate all the female attention.


REAL Salt Lake. We were kind of hoping we'd go a lot but this seems to have been our only game of the season. 







Trying Something New 2012
We got to do somethings for the first time.


I roasted a marshmallow over the stove

Shot a gun (and being pregnant was a first too!)

We made these reflecting light things at boyscout camp (that was a first too!)



Matt's first with his wet suit in icy cold water!


 Second Grade 2012
I taught my last year of second grade. Man, I miss those kids! We took a field trip to the zoo.
We studied about animal habitats and then went to the zoo to "examine" if the animals had everything that they needed in their habitats at the zoo. My kids for the most part thought the zoo was doing their part but a lot of them were pretty unhappy about the elephants, giraffes, and especially the bats.

They thought the elephant enclosure was too boring. The elephants needed real toys and not just fake ones.The zoo had failed the elephants. They also thought it was unacceptable that the zoo had a "fake" tree for the giraffes. The giraffes needed a real one. As for the bats, the enclosure had too much light. The bats needed to be in a room that was pitch black.

My super cute class. We told them to all wear white shirts and blue pants that day. It made it easier to spot them at the zoo.
This particular class was a lot of fun too. For example, they were tired of being called "little kids" so as a class we thought we should write letters to the "bigger" kids and tell them what we think. They wanted to impress the older kids by using big words and decided to use the word "colossal" (we saw this word in a text we were reading once) to describe themselves. I told them they weren't really giants and couldn't call themselves colossal, so they thought to use it in another way.

They wrote, "we may be little but we are colossal learners!"

Teaching second grade is really that much fun.


Out doors 2012
We definetly got our share of national parks this year.


Zion
Arches


Glacier

Yellowstone

Jackson Hole


For Thanksgiving we headed down to Moab and did some mini canyons and camped out. My sister came along with us too. 


She really "digs" dirt. :)






We camped under this arch!



Baby 2012- Probably the biggest change of the year!
This little  man is SO MUCH FUN.  He is pretty easy to keep happy and I believe he is SO SOCIAL. If it's just me and him he seems pretty bored until someone new walks through the door and then he's all smiles. When we take him out he loves looking at the people and loves it when someone stops to talk to him. These pictures were for my sister's birthday. I took them and then posted them on her facebook page.

                                         

 

Baking 2012
With my recent discovery of Pintrest I've started trying out a lot of new recipes. My most favorite this year has been the donuts.
Making donuts!
Get this... chocolate eclair cake. Best cake ever! SO GOOD.
 I was so proud of myself for making Matt this bouquet for V-Day.









Biggest Excitment of 2012 (next to having a baby)

Seeing a bear!

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Christmas


Christmas? Where to begin.... well this was a year of firsts. 

1. First Christmas with baby.

  


2. First year we put lights up on our house!




 3. First time we checked out the Christmas scene in S-L-C.
I didn't take any pictures but we did witness a "live" nativity. Fully equipped with a live camel, sheep, cow, baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and a mini Bethlehem market place. It was pretty awesome. KSL also had a "Christmas Light" google map where they made it easy to drive around the city and see some pretty awesome displays. We saw quite a few light shows put to music. Those are my favorite! Where you turn on your radio and hear the lights twinkle to the beat in your car.

  One block had the whole Christmas story (from the Bible) on display as shown below.  Each house had one of these huge signs sitting on their front lawn with a scripture and a picture.



 One street had every single house with a cool light display. They had this banner, as you entered the street, that said something like "Welcome to Christmas Street" or something like that. I liked this one the best. The dragon I thought made a great substitute for reindeer.


3. We got to spend Christmas with Matt's family this year too. Not the first time we've spent Christmas with them, but the first time we spent Christmas with them in... Pocatello! (They moved a few months ago.)


My super cute niece.

I told her it was cool to put a bow on your head. :)

Matt lighting the candles for this awesome nativity.

Grandma Elton Christmas morning

Matt showing off Tomatillo's bath toys.

Auntie Kim

Cousins. :)

Ainsley got this tunnel as well as this pink back pack. She loves them both, as you can tell.
 As for our son.... I dont think he really cares about Christmas. I think all he cares about is if he can get it to his mouth or not.