The New Place and The Routine

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On November 16th, 2009, Jed, Taggert, Brigham, Ammon & I began renting the first floor of a house, along with the unfinished basement and the 2 car garage. The picture shows all the rooms we've got, except for Taggert's room. (The reasons I didn't include his room are two-fold: He was napping when I snapped these pictures, and fitting all our stuff in this place has resulted in his room--which is at least twice the size of his old room--being half-filled with boxes and the stuff we don't want to get rid of but can't store anywhere else.) So, starting at the top-left, we have a pantry room with lots of storage room for food, one wall of our bedroom, the dining/library/computer/shelves and boxes room, the hallway, the family room, our one bathroom, another view of our family room, the kitchen, and two more views of our bedroom.

It's quite different to live in a much smaller place, but the one of the only reasons I mind it at all is because I was so organized before. Everything had a place, and I knew where everything was. !! It's a bit too crowded here to achieve something like that. And some previous tenant's children have literally left their mark (aka their names and other random things) on some of the doors. But here's a list of things I really like about the place!

• The shower has a removable shower head which I didn't think I would love, but it's actually AWESOME for washing the dog and Tagg loves it when I take it down and let him use it to wash himself instead of a bath or a shower.

• The kitchen has a little spray thing which is great for washing my mesh strainers.


• Scorpions have been replaced by ladybugs! Yippee! (That is actually quite heartfelt!)

• Since I don't have a dishwasher, I've learned how to sanitize stuff that has had raw meat on it (Yuck!) -- Jed inspired me to come up with my current method of boiling water on the stove in our tea kettle and pouring it over all the stuff that touched that disease-y stuff. It's also working great for cleaning out those sippy cup spouts that get so un-cleanable... I'll still use this method for doing that when we have a dishwasher again!


• And, since we don't have a dishwasher, we have been really consistent about reading together!
• Vacuuming doesn't take as long!
• The moulding around the doors and windows is big and pretty, and the front door is pretty and vintage-looking.

So, we're having a good time. But my posts have been practically non-existent since we moved here because this pregnancy has wiped me OUT! Daily workouts from my first pregnancy have been replaced by daily naps... Here's my daily routine:

7:30am --Wake up cuz Tagg woke up. Knock on his door to be greeted with "Mommy, come!" Take him out of his crib and go sit on the couch to cuddle for a few minutes while we wake up. Usually we put on a movie or some tv to watch while we share a bowl of cereal on the couch.

8:30-11:30 -- Play! Tagg & I learn new words, new abc's, and new things about each other while we play, snack and take a bath or a shower/bath. His current favorite things to play with are his Star Wars guys, Legos, puzzles, and ladybugs.

11:30-12:30 -- Make and eat lunch. His favorite food right now is Scooby-Doo macaroni & cheese, which is stinking GOOD! :) (Any of these activities could be accompanied by random web-shooting ;)

12:30-1:15 -- Naptime Routine: Clean up the toys, go potty & brush his teeth, then run into his room to read a book and sing a song. The book is usually punctuated with a lot of Taggert-comments about each page, and the song is something that I make up by putting lyrics (which don't rhyme and which Taggert makes up and tells me beforehand--usually a story about something that happened or something we watched that day) to the tune of some pre-existing song. Lately, when I put him in his crib and start to walk to the door, he will say "Please don't leave, Mommy. I wanna show something really really cool to you." That something is clearly something he begins searching his brain for the minute he asks me not to leave, and it's so cute!

Pictures Taggert asked me to take of me coming to get him after naptime. Yes, they are staged. By a two-year-old. :)

1:15-3:00 -- While Taggert sleeps, I finish my lunch if I didn't get enough when we were eating earlier. Then I check my emails to make sure I don't have any hold that baby business to do. Immediately after that, I take my own nap! If I don't take one, I get unbelievably sleepy by like 8pm and I have to force myself to participate in the nighttime routine I adore so much! (By the way, this slot used to be filled with blogging. I am making a tentative return to that today, just cuz I got the blogging bug. :)

3:00-6:00 -- More playtime! We often use these morning and afternoon playtimes to visit family, to go to doctor's appointments, or to the library or the grocery store.

6:00-7:00 -- Make and eat dinner.

7:30-8:15 -- Another round of the naptime routine, except this one includes pj's and teeth-flossing. I didn't even consider flossing a two year old's teeth until I started noticing that they weren't really getting clean. So we started it up and he does great with it! (It encourages me to floss my own, too ;)

8:30-9:50 -- I do the dishes and clean the kitchen while Jed reads to me! LOVE IT! We tried to read together when we were first married because the idea appealed to both of us, but it never worked. Jed's voice is so soothing to me that I would fall asleep ten minutes into the book! Then we came up with the genius idea to read while I did the dishes so I would stay awake! Since then, we've successfully read the entire Harry Potter series and "The Name of the Wind" (which is the most amazing book! I couldn't recommend it more heartily!), and now we're on to "Angels and Demons." So far we've only read books that Jed has read and knows are awesome so that we don't lose steam and fall out of this fun habit due to a boring book.

9:54-9:59 -- (Yes, I mean those exact times :) Jed and I get snacks to eat while we watch The Office! They air one episode Monday-Friday evenings, and we really enjoy watching it together. It makes us laugh :)

10:30-11:30 -- We wrap up the day and get ready for bed.

Life is good! So I just had to document this routine because I adore it and want to remember what our days were like at this time in our lives! I love having such good things to count on every day and such good people to share them with.

That Thursday Thing! Bead Hunt

Tagg and I ventured to downtown Glendale about a week ago for That Thursday Thing! It's a once-a-month dealie where they send you on a little treasure hunt... this month you were trying to make a bead bracelet. You start at the visitor's center and get a map of the area, which tells you which shops have a piece of your bracelet. You walk around the quaint little shops, amid live music, other smiling bead-hunters, caricature artists, face painters and horse-drawn carriages, collecting your beads and making memories with your date.

My date was lucky enough to get not only a map at the visitor's center, but two little tiny balls, as well! He had a blast throwing them around and watching me pick them up (especially the mini pigskin... I never knew which way that thing was bouncin!)
We took a free horse-drawn carriage ride, which Tagg didn't seem to think was all that great...
But I did!

When we were all done, we sat down to have dinner before driving home. It was then that Tagg noticed that I had clandestinely put his hood up--and he tried to get it off by pulling it on tighter! Not surprisingly, that soon turned into a game......especially when he noticed that I was wearing a hood, too!

February was random, too!

My friend, Maria, gave Tagg a ton of really awesome toys, and this singing, talking dog is one of them! Tagg really has fun with it, as you can see!

He just loves pushing this huge yoga ball around... thanks for leaving it here, Grandma Kim!

Jed noticed that Tagg's feet were cold the other night and didn't want to go all the way upstairs to get a pair of his socks, so he grabbed a pair of mine that were laying around the family room! They look like boots! Awesome!

Still loves that snot ball!

Even when it's in his nose!

On a random nose note, Jed started a game with Tagg... one night this little guy was putting one of his fingers in his nose! So Jed pulled it out and put the finger in his (Tagg's) ear instead! That totally cracked Taggert up, so he's been picking his nose (just in order to initiate the game :) quite frequently ever since! Sometimes he even picks both nostrils at once with each of his index fingers!

Grandma McClure has been sending her grandson tons of fabulous books in the mail! He loves to read, especially when there are animals involved! I do animal sounds for all the animals I know the sounds for... but since bunnies don't make sounds, I sniff instead. Tagg imitates that sniffing every time he sees a bunny (except when he saw a real live bunny... oh well!)

We take out the exercise trampoline once in a while and Tagg really enjoys trying to bounce on it :)

Our spectacular friends, the Skinnells, gave me this marshmallow gun for Christmas! Too bad Tagg can't blow very hard yet! ...Guess he'll just have to stick to eating the marshmallows!

Is this a GQ pose or what?! He had just gotten done putting half an Easter egg on his nose, so I guess he was trying to remind me that he really isn't a complete goofball! (well... I don't know... check out the gangsta pushed-up pantleg he's got goin on... his right pantleg always does that! Weird! Does that ever happen to your kids? (or you?! ;) )

Just look at those eyelashes!

Taggert is the master at finding fun things to do with random household objects. And he knows when he's being funny and cute, too.

Reading with Maggie

Just another community event!

We went to the Glendale Public Library with our friends April and Justin, where we read with Maggie, the therapy dog. She was just a sweet, small black lab... unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of her sweet sweet face. Tagg was way more interested in the kind daddy of the dog, who (with his wife) takes Maggie to special-ed schools, libraries and hospitals to visit children. The dog just laid there while the husband and wife read books with Tagg & Justin.

Afterwards, we just walked around downtown Glendale, letting the boys lead the way! We even went into an antique store. I let Taggert walk around in there and he was perfectly behaved! Bravo!
Hmm... what a funny thing to do to a chair! April had a good thought--she said they probably put shoes on it so it wouldn't slide around so easily!

Eating

The other day, as Tagg was taking a swig of severly-watered-down apple juice, he realized that he was hungry as well... he promptly grabbed the nearest kernel of popcorn and held it up to his mouth as he drank, just so it would be in his mouth that much quicker when he was done. Ha!
No caption necessary ;)
Can't even think of a caption for this one.

He is my baby! Corn lovin, bike ridin baby!

Santa gave me some NASTY generic M&M's for Christmas last year, and they were sitting in a drawer in the kitchen. I have no idea how Taggert found them in there, but he did, and he's been standing just like this, opening the drawer to ask for one of those sick little candies just about every day since!

This is another one of his "I know you've got an M&M in your hand!" poses!

He's really puttin on the heat now!

What a cutie!

This video is so long and my grandparents will probably be the only ones who make it through to the end :) but that's okay because it's basically the same thing over and over! (It's actually only one minute or so, but it seems way longer :) Tagg randomly started doing Darth Vader breathing into his little Tupperware thing one day at dinner-so funny!

Then he wanted to let me have a whirl--

And, he gave up on me pretty quick! Guess I have a lot of work to do before I become a proficient tupperware breather!

Mall

I thought Tagg would have fun at the mall playground, so after we went grocery shopping (near the mall) I promised him we would go there. He understands loads of what I tell him, but I don't know if he understands all my promises... I still keep them, because I want to get in that habit :)

And he really did enjoy himself...

...Sitting on the bench with me the whole time!

He just didn't want to get up and play on stuff! He liked watching the other kids play.

I took a infinity (thanks for the awesome phrase, Napoleon ;) of pictures of this little dude, trying to get a good one for the cutest baby contest, and although I didn't get any that would work, Tagg got a new friend out of the deal! This little girl came up and asked if I would take a picture of her :) and she sat by Taggert for a while, talking to me. I love how willing children are to make new friends!

Daddy!!

You'll have to forgive me for the lack of creative captions... I just feel quite void of them!

So, just enjoy the sweet pictures and ADORABLE video!

Kisses...

...Smiles...

...Great tunes...

...Nose picking...

...Dizziness...

These are my favorite boys' favorite things :)

My Gospel ABCs

I made a book for Tagg called "My Gospel ABCs." The purpose is to have somewhere to turn to for child-friendly and timely answers to the questions about the gospel he's bound to have.

I sent it into Deseret Book about a month ago--it'll take around 2 months to get a response from them on whether or not they're interested in publishing it!

I've put all the pages in this slideshow so you all can check them out--what do you think?!

Gabi Surprise: Random Good Things

So, Gabi is just beautiful, and here are some examples! :

Here she's demonstrating her professional-quality hand massaging skills!

She had her hair all up in a tight, gelled, hairsprayed bun the day before, and THIS is what her hair looked like after she slept on it!! If I were her, I'd start my "count your blessings" list with this picture!Not only is she beautiful, she's also funny, witty and very creative!
We got this little flyer for the Coca-Cola museum at the hotel, and her and I spent like 45 minutes in the car folding it and turning it into an unbelievable amount of things! ("No, it's a...!") Think heart, mustache, airplane, bed, headband, bib... it was so fun!

Me and my awesome kiddos played a game where they would take turns crawling away from me on the bed and I would grab their legs and pull them back! Luckily I enjoy repetition!