March

Ah, the madness of march. Potty training, sleep training, ward split, oh my!

Toby is getting so big. He now is the proud owner of 6 teeth, cruises like a madman, and can sign "more" and "food" as well as clapping and waving. He has the cheesiest smile and eats like it's his last meal. Every meal. He sometime out eats Gideon!  Despite that he's in the 44th percentile for his weight. Go figure. He's finally sleeping better, although he does tend to wake up (usually around an hour after going to bed and an hour before time to wake up) screaming at the top of his lungs for 10-30 min before going back to sleep. Kids. Anyway, he's so funny because he's so adorable, but he still spits up (often), and sometimes bites. He's like the ultimate weapon. He's loving eating solid food and REAL food. He recognizes certain foods he knows he can have, like bread or pancake pieces, strawberries, bananas, etc and will insist on getting some. He also just received his first haircut last week!

Gideon has conquered the mountain. He's potty trained! At least during the day. He loves puzzles and can do 125 piece puzzles by himself. He also loves board games and will play them by himself if he can't get a playmate. Which is kind of nice for him because then he is guaranteed the win. :) We just finished the Book of Mormon for the first time with him last night. It's a pretty big accomplishment for a 3 year old!

Our ward just split, so now there are 3 wards on our square block. I've been called as the 1st counselor in the Primary Presidency. I haven't been in a presidency since I was in Young Women's...as a Young Woman!  Trevor is now a Wolf leader for the cub scouts.

Merry Christmas!

Reflecting over the last week has left me pleasantly surprised. Last Sunday I felt like I was spinning my wheels of life. So much to do, so little time, plus two boys. I've had some things on a to do list for six months plus! So I decided to just focus on what was important and not worry about the rest. Did I succeed? I don't know, but somehow I caulked every window upstairs, busted out my sewing machine for the first time ever and learned how to use it, mended one of Gideon's clothes with it, learned how to whip stitch and hand mended Trevor's coat, finished several wooden ornaments for our Christmas advent calendar, shopped in an actual store with kids in tow, wrapped gifts, bought and shipped gifts, grocery shopped, and visited the library. And Gideon was sick Tuesday. I don't know where the time came from, but I'm grateful to feel like I accomplished something!

Toby has also been busy. Yesterday he cut his first tooth (bottom center). He's rolling like a champ, just upgraded from infant tub to an inflatable tub that fits in a regular tub. He's working on sitting up and crawling. He's quite vocal, too.

Gideon is loving the Christmas season. He's learning to sing carols,  wrapping and decorating like a champ. He's a great helper for me!

It's Been Awhile...

So, after a 10 month break in writing in this blog, you may be asking yourself, "I wonder what major event has transpired leading to a return to the blog? What is so exciting that this mom just had to tell someone but didn't quite know who to text?" Is it that we had a baby?  Because we did (May 15!*). Is it that I officially became a "minivan mom"? Because I did (back in March). Is it that we finished a large project and wanted to brag? Because we did (The garage has built in shelves now! That's right, we park 2 cars in our 2 car garage and one's a minivan!). Finally replaced a dining set that was quickly becoming a liability due to large cracks in its supporting pedestal? Vacation?  Finding a wicked cool recipe?  Too cute for words pictures?

No. No that's not it. For you parents, you may understand. For you not yet parents, you'll just shake your head. Maybe roll your eyes.


Today, my 2 3/4 year old went potty in the potty. Voluntarily. Without tears. Twice.


Really? Really.


I know. I think there was more celebration and excitement in the air than if it were New Year's Eve. We showered the little hero with all sorts of paraphernalia to celebrate, most covered in Thomas the Train. He got to be officially done with his nap early. He got 2 Thomas the Train stickers. He got a couple Ice-Breaker mints. He finally got to open a new Thomas Tic-Tac-Toe game. High fives. Tossing him in the air to "Three cheers for Gideon, Hip-Hip Hooray, Hip-Hip Hooray, Hip-Hip Hooray!".

You non-parents may be thinking, "That's nice."  No, no, no, no, no.  We have been working toward this moment for over a year. OVER A YEAR. Focusing on something so long will make anyone crazy, but when its the bathroom that you keep talking about, encouraging, trying to put in a fun new light, checking out books from the library about it, READING OVER AND OVER AGAIN those kids potty books...it's awkward, uncomfortable, embarrassing.... but it's essential.

Now, we obviously still have a long ways to go. I realize that. But there's a light at the end of this potty-training tunnel. A glimmer. Huzzah for glimmers!


*Just for clarification: Having our second child definitely is a bigger deal.  Not downplaying that. It just didn't inspire me to blog. It inspired me to get even farther away from Facebook and blogs to enjoy spending time with my kids. Tobias is a delight!  And since pregnancy makes life difficult and then the C-section that followed it, and then newborn care...blogging wasn't the top of my list of to-dos. Jus' sayin'.

All At Once Part 2- November

 Gideon is growing up so quickly! He wants to be big in the cutest ways. Here he's taken to trying on our shoes. He's also denounced the high chair and is barely content with a booster. He's trying to dress himself as much as possible and help with EVERYTHING. Below he's helping Trevor put together his toddler bed, which he isn't using yet, thank heavens.  We'll leave him in the cage...I mean crib...as long as its still safe.

And here's the wonder of the first snow of the year. We actually got over 6 inches and it stayed over a week!

Gideon LOVES football. BYU football is, of course, preferred, but he won't say no to watching the other teams.

 Dominos with Dad.

 More of Dad's shoes

 The next adventure in our saga is our Thanksgiving vacation down to visit family in Utah. Gideon was captivated by his grandpa's fish tank and loved watching Rachel feed the fish. Here the room is dark because we just got up and the rest the house was asleep, but Gideon was content to just watch the fish.

 Happy Birthday, Trevor!!! Trevor requested 2 cakes for his birthday. To the left you see a pizza cake, which is essentially 4 or 5 pizzas layered on top of each other cooked as a whole. On the right is Salted Carmel Pumpkin Cheesecake. Needless to say, the beginning part of his birthday was spent cooking. Luckily my mom is a great cook and helped me through it!

 My parents/family gave Trevor two games for his birthday, Jenga and 5 seconds. We played a round or two of Jenga, then commenced playing blocks.

 He's cool and he knows it. Or at least he knows sunglasses are cool.

 The day before Thanksgiving, the Hogle Zoo in SLC, UT had a free day. Wahoo!

Ah, the King of the beasts. Gideon pulls a cheesy smile when he thinks the camera is on him, so I posted both pictures. I love that kid.

Elephants!  This is actually the oldest elephant in the US or something like that.

 Another favorite...the rhino!  I was surprised how close we could get to it.

 Sitting in the eagle's nest together. Can you guess which one is the real eagle? Eagle Scout at least. ;)

Uncle Brian helping him through the tunnel without getting in the puddle.

 Sea lions and seals with Uncle Brian.

 Another favorite...the tiger. He could have played with these all day if another family hadn't come wanting to take pictures. Aunt Rachel is behind him making sure he doesn't get eaten. lol.

 The rest of these pictures are up at my Grandma Edlund's (Gideon's great-grandma) house in Mendon, UT. It's so nice to spend time with family, especially Grandma and Grandpa Edlund.

 Ahh, feels great to get that all out of my system. And my missionary sister will have pictures to look at when she comes home Thursday and her only nephew is 6 hours away. More importantly, it's nice to share the things I'm grateful for and I feel like the more I reflect the more gratitude I feel. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

All At Once Part 1...October

Have you ever noticed life seems to be trodding along at its own speed and there's just nothing to really write about and then suddenly it smacks you right in the face and suddenly you're intimidated by the mere thought of trying to jot even part of it down? No?  Just me? And then you go to put in a pic and you notice that life was happening before and you should probably at least mention it?

Well, here's my attempt to capture the moments that make life magical.

These first pics are of our first trip to Zoo Boise, and Gideon's first trip to a zoo. He LOVED it! There's an ocelot in the lower right hand corner. :)

 This is one of Gideon's favorite animals...the lion. He loves to roar like a lion and it was hard to get him to turn around long enough to take the pic.

 Another favorite, the zebra, came right on over to say hi.

If you ever wanted to slide down a giraffe's neck, here's the way to do so.

My what big ears you have, my little fox.

Gideon loves playing games. This is a tic tac toe board that we got for Christmas years ago and and he loves playing with it, dominoes, memory cards, etc.

Gideon has a great love for reading. Here's a nice picture of him reading with Trevor.

Ok, so those are my pictures for October...on to November!

Garbage Day II

I'm pretty sure we have the coolest public workers here in Meridian, ID.  So today is once again trash day. But its not just any trash day...its trash AND recycle day. That means that we have trucks in our community 4 times!  (each truck comes through twice to be able to get both sides of the road).  Well, as usual, Gideon and I head out to watch/follow the trucks. This round the drivers made it an extra special tour for Gideon. The first act of coolness was the recycle truck guy using the arm of his truck (usually used to pick up the trash bins and dump them in the truck) to wave to Gideon. Down the road, he lifted up the back of the truck dump-truck style (I assume this is to move everything to the back of the truck to make more room at the front but I've never seen it done. I'm not sure therefore if he did this because he needed to or to be cool. Yes, I'm a toddler mom who is starting to call garbage trucks cool.) Later, the trash truck guy stopped and asked Gideon's name. He then introduced himself as Bart and told Gideon that "I love picking up your trash". Like we were making his day or something. When the recycle guy came back to finish his route he lifted the whole truck again. Anyway, they wave, they honk, they make his day.