Holy Boxes Batman!!

Seriously, how did Sabe and I accrue so much crap in the 3 years we've been married? I really have no idea. But I can tell you one thing... It's a good thing I kept all the boxes we used to move here [and move to Lehi... and move to Lynne's place... Yeah we've done lots of moving]. Our living room is covered in boxes. Our guest room is covered in boxes. Our hallway upstairs is covered in boxes. We're drowning in boxes! It's T-5 days until the boys and I hop on a jet plane and escape the world for a bit.

Sabe and I have both expressed our excitement at doing a few things again. Like eat at Cafe Rio, seeing big mountains, smelling the scent of Utah [yes it's got a scent and no it's not bad]. We're so ready to spend time with family that we've not seen in a while.

Marcus is so cute. Before the serious packing started, he began helping me clean the toys up by sticking them in the bin and saying his version of "Good job, yay!" So when we started packing up boxes, he gets so excited and starts throwing random stuff in. Today he actually helped for the most part, picking up all the Jenga pieces and putting them away, then putting the container in the box of toys and then helping me pick up a few of the pieces to his alphabet mat. He's getting so big! He's starting to listen a lot better now that his speech is coming in nicely. He doesn't tune us out as much. It's been nice!

Jamesen on the other hand though... I have to warn anybody that we'll be staying with in the next little bit. He's a HUGE momma's boy. He's VERY clingy, needy and whiny. His favorite thing to do is cry and he enjoys doing it all day long. You have been warned!

Bah.. I gotta go. I'm not finished rambling, but it's what happens when you're a mom of two small children and need to pack up your house.

An Ordinary Day

To anybody who's not a mom, the day I had today would look like just an ordinary day. There was really nothing in it that I wouldn't do on any given day of the week. But this ordinary day was filled with such extraordinary doings by two extraordinary boys that I can't say today was ordinary at all. I got to sit in the best seat of the house to watch my boys be themselves, to learn and discover things about the world around them.

I brought my camera with me a lot today and tried to document my ordinary day with pictures. There's lots of gaps because that's what happens when you're a mom of two small children. You don't get to keep your attention on something for very long. The pics start in the middle of the afternoon. I was pretty grumpy this morning so I wasn't thinking about pics until after lunch.

We bought Marcus a sprinkler today. It's a caterpillar that's arms and legs flail about and spray water everywhere. Marcus was afraid of it [which is quite funny to me actually]. I tried to get him to run through with me a few times but he wasn't having it so I grabbed him and ran with him. When I put him down, he high tailed it back to the other side of the yard, leaving a wet footprint on the pavement that evaporated after a few seconds.

Insert nap time and dinner time. The light was fading fast and Marcus hadn't been to the park in a few days so we hurried and got dressed [they were playing with the water again] and headed out. I brought Marcus' trike in from the backyard so he could ride it and he stowed his drink in the trunk.


Along the sidewalk on the way to the park, there's a small section [like two feet long and a foot wide] that's nothing but white rocks. Marcus always stops and picks up a rock and puts it in his trunk. Well in the few days that we've not been to the park, the field surrounding this rock patch became completely covered in dandelions. I picked a yellow one and gave it to him followed by a white one which I blew at him. He tried to blow one at me, but wasn't blowing hard enough. After a few unsuccessful tries, he held it out for me to blow instead.


Then he figured out that he could make them explode by hitting two together.

For the next 10 or so minutes, Marcus went running around exploding white dandelions while I clicked away and Jamesen giggled.




His smile and laugh was infectious.





Finally I got his attention back on the fact that we were heading for the park and he could ride his trike there. He hopped back on and off we went again. When we got there, I pulled Jamesen out of the wrap. He was happy to be there.


After that smile, he got up and walked away from me. He's getting so good and steady. He surprised me with how steady he was with his sandles on, plus the uneven ground.


What am I going to do with these two?

In 9 short months

Jamesen went from this [a helpless, constantly sleeping/pooping, sleeping through the night due to jaundice, lovable, very strong, newborn]:


to this [a momma's boy who can walk on his own, climb almost anything, feed himself, eat almost anything, constantly babbling, very needy, teething like a beast, hardly ever sleeps, baby]:

As much as he drives me insane when he refuses to nap for hours on end [and falls asleep within seconds of Sabe picking him up], I adore him. I love his face. I love his smile. He's harder to get to smile than Marcus was, but that makes the huge grins that much more worth it. I love his laugh. I love the jaw-dropping looks everybody gives me when they see him walking and find out his age. He's so big! He's growing so fast.

Happy 9 months little man. You are one loved kid.

Getting Ready

Well, our contract here is coming to a close. We'll be moving yet again here soon. The boys and I have a very busy summer! This is how our schedule is going:

today-april 21: pack pack and more pack!
21-28 visiting with Brittanie with Sabe drives back to Utah
28-early May: visit with Grandma LaBare for a bit and soak up as much of daddy as possible
early may-early july: Drive down to vegas [with or without Sabe.. TBA on that one] and spend the next little bit with Grandma and Grandpa Hill.

I'll be taking engagement pics of Nano and his fiance Dawn. I'll also be taking maternity pics of Jake's wife Amanda who's due in early August.

In July we'll be going back to Utah for Jamesen's first birthday part and Carl's wedding. What's happening after that is still very TBA. Sabe will be signing active duty papers mid July and we'll know from there what's going on.

I do know for sure that the boys and I will be flying back to Vegas in early September for Marcus' 3rd birthday [SERIOUSLY??? When did that happen?!?] and Nano's wedding.

Busy busy summer! I'm cringing just thinking about it, lol!

Anyways, so if you don't here from us much, that's why. Packing with two kids isn't fun, lol! They move the box, pull everything that you just put into it out, put stuff in that you don't want in there and rip the box apart. Packing one box takes like an hour in this house! At least Marcus will be good at unpacking. He's pretty good at dumping things out :)

Blogging stay at home mom...

Sometimes when you're a stay at home mom, the blogs come faster than you can think. But other times, there's nothing out of the norm to write about. Today's been a crappy day. Jamie is teething like a beast and for some crazy reason I keep forgetting to put his teething necklace back on after his bath so it's ten times worse than it should be. When Jamie is teething bad, all he wants is me so Marcus ends up getting ignored and so he acts out terribly to get my attention too.

It's not fun!

It wouldn't be so bad if it had been a sunny day. Or even just not a rainy cloudy day. Just clouds would be fine! Super teether and monster acting out on a rainy, windy, cool day is a recipe for disaster.

Time is speeding up now that the move is getting close. I loathe packing. Specially with kids. The worst thing though is that we're the last to move out of everyone that came from Sabe's unit so by the time we're ready to pack the Uhaul, everybody is already gone [days ahead of us]. I'm going to have to end up shutting the kids in Marcus' room and helping as best I can. At least I'm not some frail tiny thing that can't lift a toothpick.

I'm excited to stay with the rents for a bit though. Way excited! I'll get to take engagement pics of Nano and Dawn, maternity pics of Amanda and family.. spend time with the bestie and let the rents see the kids! It'll be nice. The only down side to that is that Sabe's not gonna be with us. I was so excited to have a few months of seeing Sabe on a regular basis and now that's not going to happen. Sad! Ok, I'm done with my pitty party. :)

Walking Parrots

Marcus has become quite the parrot. He's been talking up a total storm lately!! It's so cute! He's not put two words together on his own yet, only when he's repeating movie lines or something, but he's saying a lot of stuff. He's getting a lot of concepts now too. Like if I tell him we're going outside, he'll run go grab his shoes. If I ask him if he's hungry, he'll go to the fridge. He's so smart! It really amazes me! Here's a cute vid of him waving and saying bye bye.

Jamesen is amazing too. Just look here! If you want to know, he's 8.5 months. It's 2 months almost to the day before Marcus was doing this. I've been saying all along that he would start walking 2 months before Marcus and it looks like I was right :)

That's it for now! :)

What's in a name?

As you know from a few previous blogs, Marcus is able to write his letters. He's gotten really good at the first 6 or so. Yesterday we all went outside and he went straight for his chalk like usual, and went to town. Sabe and I have written his name out for him before but he kind of brushes it off. Well yesterday, I wrote it 3 times in a row, saying each letter as I wrote it. When I finished, he walked away so I thought he just blew me off again, but he went and grabbed a piece of chalk, found some bare sidewalk [there's not much left] and said/wrote the letters a, m, c, u and s. I thought he was just writing out the alphabet again until we got to the third letter and then I realized he was writing his name! Such a proud moment!


The A is obvious. The M is the four lines next to it, the c is the curvy line next to the M. The U looks like a V and the S is backwards with the top hump tiny and the bottom hump huge. So stinking cute!!! He makes me so proud! He's so smart!

In other news, Jamesen has hit the age where we started weaning Marcus into the crib. I'm at the point where I would like a bed free of kids again so last night we rearranged and decluttered our room so that Jamesen had a clean crib. He slept in it for a few hours last night, which is a great start! I did have to climb in there to get him to go to sleep, but whatever it takes! We hope to have him into his own room by a year like we did with Marcus. We're going to probably be going straight to a toddler bed when we switch rooms since he's like Marcus, he'll probably be climbing out of it in no time!

Marcus has become quite the singer! His memory for song lyrics amazes me! He kind of babbles when he sings like that other video I posted, but he gets a lot of the consonants right and it seriously boggles my mind. It makes sense though because I've got music going all day every day. I frequently leave the lap top open so we have music while we're playing. His current favorite song is Long Tall Sally by Little Richard. He does this crazy dance that Sabe taught him, it's hilarious! You can see his excitement in this video, but he doesn't dance, he just goes crazy at the pack n play, quite funny!

I think that's it for now! Until next time :)