Delicious and Nutritous

Our littlest prince just ate dirt. He is now starting to crawl. Well, it is more like he gets up on all fours and dives forward or does push-ups dragging his feet behind him. It's pretty funny to watch. While daddy-o was putting up the baby gate, he scooted over to a plant (on the floor) and thought it would be a tasty treat. I guess we have a lot more baby proofing to do.

Eight Months

A little past due but still good, at least enough time before he is nine months.

My littlest prince is eight months old, that's 2/3 a year! And I just can't imagine our life without him.

Who wouldn't love this little face? With such big brown eyes and dimpled chin, he is impossible to resist and I can't kiss him enough!

You are almost ready to crawl and can almost get yourself up on your hands and knees. Now you'll finally be able to play chase with your brother and dad.
One of the funnest things that has happened in the past month is that you have really learned what it is to play with toys, you LOVE them! And you're not too picky about what kind either. Pretty much whatever is next to you, you love to play with it. Other favorites: the remote and any cell phone. Our little techno baby.

When it's time for you to sleep you love to grab your blanket and snuggle it up to your face and sometimes over your head, turn on your side and have your face right up next to the side of the crib. It's so cute to see you all snuggled up in the corner!
You know how to use those hands of yours. They are great at grabbing and feeding yourself, which you LOVE to do. You'd like to feed yourself with a spoon if we'd let you. Mr. Independence.
You are a such a goofball and so quick to smile and giggle, especially at that CRAZY dad of yours.

One of your favorite people is Levi. You love to get near his head and 'get him' which means putting your hands on his face, holding an ear, some hair, whatever you can grab. Levi LOVES playing this game with you and you are both usually in giggles by the end, it makes everyone in the room smile when you two play together!

You now have two bottom teeth and you still have a great disposition, nothing can bring you down!
We love you little Max-o!

You're so cute!

At least three times a day (usually more) Levi will go up to his little brother and say "Baby Max, you so cute!" Now THAT is cute!

That is usually followed up by a "Elmo cute too" and when asked, insisting no one but Max and Elmo are cute (not even me!) Yes Elmo is cute, but in this mom's opinion, he is no where near a cute as my own two little monsters!

So good!

Jason loves two things: Oreos and Reeses Peanut butter cups. So when I saw these recipes I HAD to try them for his birthday.

These are called Oreo Truffles and whoever dreamed them up are now a hero of mine. They are amazing!
I made them for Jason and brought a plate down with one candle in it and we sang to him. Everyone loved them and took a couple, what he didn't know was THIS was just minutes away:

The Ultimate Chocolate Layered Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Birthday Cake

One word: rich. Double chocolaty devils food cake, peanut butter drizzle, cream cheese frosting and Reeses on top. It made even the biggest sweet tooth stop after only half a piece.

These two are definitely going in the recipe box.

Here is the link for BOTH recipes. Enjoy!

Oops!

When we moved from Utah to Oregon one of the first pieces of furniture we got was a scrapbook desk which Jason found on Craigslist and gave it to me as a Christmas gift. I feel in love with it the moment I saw it. Going from 1 rooms to 3 left a lot more space for fun stuff (like a craft room!)

Now this scrapbook desk serves as my craft desk and work desk. I am at it many times in the day working on something. Not too long after I got this desk (which is pretty tall) we purchased two stools that were the PERFECT height for it, one being for my desk and one as an extra in the dining room. Well, somehow that extra chair came into the office/craftroom as "Levi's Chair".

So now he loves sitting on "his chair" and working next to me, I even was generous enough and gave him a drawer to put coloring books, stuff to draw with, stickers and other fun things to 'work' with.

Today he wanted to play with some new markers so I got out a piece of paper for him to draw me something.

One minute of not watching and this is what happens. What a masterpiece! Yeah, it's on his face and shirt too.

(Levi was quite upset once he realized what he had done. He's so funny and HATES to be dirty)

Munchkin Land

Though it's right by our house we've never had the oppourtunity to visit Munchkin Land, a fun play place with toy trees, boats, slides.....everything a little kid could want. So thanks to an invite from a friend we decided to make the trip and the boys loved it!

Levi posin' He loved everything about this place. It made me wish we had a whole other floor in the house just like this to play in!
By this time Mr. Max was a little worn out from watching his brother and all the other little ones run around. But he did like the little toy boat they had. Just perfect for him!
Just one more slide, please?

Me so hungry!

This boy could eat all day long and still want more, especially since he's discovered he doesn't have to wait for us slowpokes. I guess we just can't get it in his mouth fast enough!
Yum!
Got it!
Tasty.

Get over here penguin, you have no idea how good these cereal puffs are!
MORE! Lay off me I'm STARVING!

What a sucker

Levi definitly knows who the sucker is in the family. Me. Just now, 10:15pm, at least 1 1/2 hours since he went to bed, on a Saturday night, as I opened the door, which he had been hitting for the past minute or so, says with the sweetest, most innocent smile says "I want some popcorn too". We had just made a batch in the popcorn machine.

I couldn't resist. I picked him up and we went and got a handful. Now he's back in bed.

I'm such sucker! I suppose now I know you CAN smell popcorn in your sleep.

A New Point of View

Though many make a New Years Resolution to lose weight, get fit and be healthier in the coming year, mine was not. I made an after baby #2 resolution, around the end of July to do all that stuff. I had actually started the summer before during a jogging class I was taking to finish up my degree, but got pregnant and since losing weight and being pregnant wasn't exactly smiled upon, I toned things down for a while.

One of the ways both myself and my sister had been working on becoming healthier is jogging on a treadmill in my garage. When we moved here I really wanted to setup a little 'gym' area with the treadmill, bike and other stuff we had, since I knew that going to a 'real' gym was probably not going to happen, I just need something more convienent.

So began operation 'clean up garage'. All this started after Max was a couple months old and sleeping more predictably. It took a while and a lot of man hours of cleaning and organizing but I got a good sized area of the garage cleaned out, where we put the treadmill to start it out.

Then came more junk. How is it that garages are just magnets for it????

Luckily this month we got it cleaned out again (thanks to the help of a new shed for all the outdoor tools!) and I got my area back! Before more stuff could pile up I got foam floor tiles and a little help from Mr. Fix-It himself. If you want a job done to the end, just call Jason.

Here is what I looked at while jogging before.

And this is what I get to look out now. This is what it looked like a week ago, right after we put the floor in. It's the best pic I could get. But it has a bike, a treadmill, a tv to watch videos on and even a love seat (which I don't know if we'll keep, but Levi so far likes to sit and hang out there). And just yesterday we added a brand new eliptical machine thanks to my madre. I've loved working out in the "Goodrich Gym" it has made working out a lot funner, I'm so excited about it!

Bedtime

Lately I have been putting Levi to bed while Jason feeds Max or something else. We go through phases of who puts who to bed since they usually go at slightly different times, or sometimes we'll do it all together.

I have loved putting Levi to bed, at times it is the most rewarding part of my day. We usually read a book, right now he is loving Harold and the Purple Crayon. Then we'll say a prayer. Recently he has been insisting on saying his own and so I'll help him out. He prays about the cutest things! He's said thank you for his kitchen, dinosaurs, animals, rocket ships, cars....whatever he feels like. It's so genuine and straight from his two year old boy heart. Tonight I prompted him to say thank you for his family and he said 'thank you Grandpa Mike, Grandpa Narry (larry) and Papa (my dad). Today we had talked about how he is so lucky to have three grandpas, to which he replied 'More!' so Nese you'd better get on that one!

Also we have been going through the gospel art book, a book which I LOVE because it has a lot of church pictures making teaching the gospel a lot easier to a toddler. He is loving the story of Daniel and the "bad guys" who threw him in the den. We also do songs to go with some of the pictures. His absolute favorite? Latter day prophets and he can say most of them, it's so sweet. He also likes Book of Mormon Stories and I Hope They Call Me on a Mission, he'll even bring me the book and insist we sing in the middle of the day.

I love my evenings with my big boy, it makes me remember what it's all about.

Morning time

I am not a morning person, never have been and probably never will be. It's not like I can't because I did it for school, as a missionary, and as a teacher. I just don't like to and I'm not the most pleasant person to be around right after getting up. I'm lucky enough to have Jason working from home in the mornings which allows me to sleep in just a little bit more than I normally would. I love it.

This morning I woke to a little boy who wanted me to read him a dinosaur book. What a way to wake up! I wiped the sleepyness out of my eyes as we looked at Tyrannosaurus, stegosaurus and triceratops.

This morning was also Max's first time bathing in the sink. I don't know why I didn't think of it before but duh! It's the perfect size and he was quite upset when it was time to get out.

We have a sort of morning routine. Wake up, eat, get dressed and ready for the day, play, sesame street time/some other show, snack time, play, lunch and nap. It doesn't always go like that but basically that's how it goes. Then wake up time and we play until dinner!

Now it is nap time. Levi, my funny little man, just asked to 'go to sleep'. First time for that! But Max was already in the room napping and we told him to be quiet and not wake him up. What do I hear right now? Huge dinosaur growls and the cooing of a little baby. Maybe he's playing dinosaur too.