First Haircut

Jonathan's first official haircut took place about a month ago. I just haven't posted the pictures. We went to the salon that CW and i normally go to. I asked how much a haircut was for kids and she told me $15. I thought that was a little bit on the expensive side but they all know Jonathan and they were excited to do it.


Jonathan discovered his one true love - squirt bottles. He didn't care what they were doing to his hair as long as he could have the squirt bottle. We all ended up a little damp. When we got up to pay, they said $25. I thought What?! I am not the type of person to make a scene so i paid and thought that i wouldn't have them cut Jonathan's hair again. Now he needs a haircut and i am in a quandary. CW likes his long hair and i have to admit i like his hair on the longer side. So where do i get it cut?

Unstuck

I know it has been awhile but anyway here is Jonathan talking to dad on the phone today. He was playing with the phone earlier so i called him and he got a kick out of it so i had CW call and he really liked that.

Jonathan's vocabulary is pretty limited much to CW's chagrin. I ask him how to say certain works and he uses his sign language but today we were at the grocery store and i got him a cheese stick and while eating it he dropped it and i was only half paying attention but he says "Mom. Cheese." I was quite shocked and of course he wouldn't repeat it again when i asked him to.

Last thing for right now. CW and i went to Utah for a short trip. CW was recruiting for work at the UofU Law School and at the Y. So we decided it would be fun for Jonathan and i to go up with him. Because Jonathan can climb out of anything we laid him down with us in bed until he fell asleep and then put him in the crib. Something was kind of stinky so CW asked me if it was me and i said no and then he asked Jonathan if he was poopy and Jonathan said "No" in this funny voice. It was so funny. CW and i laughed and laughed because Jonathan hasn't really said no and it wasn't expected!

Yesterday

Jonathan has hit the terrible twos! He likes to push his limits. Everyday he goes into time out for hitting me, picking tomatos (luckily he knows to pick the red ones), getting into the entry way dresser and opening the garage door, and playing on the organ. Everyday. On top of that he is still teething and is cranky and whiny.

It is funny that one minute of cuteness wipes away hours of crankiness and you forget that you were pulling your hair out of your head!


Jonathan falling asleep while picking up CW from work.

A New Garden Box

We decided to build another garden box. It is about half the size of our other box and all we need is dirt and we are ready to go! I am love looking at seed websites and trying to figure out what we are going to plant. We are waiting for what we have growing in our other box to produce and then we will start planting in there. We still have strawberries, lettuce, brussel sprouts, carrots, celery, and radishes.
Isn't Jonathan helpful? This boy has no fear.

The Magical Fruit

Have you ever wondered what 28 pounds of green beans looks like after it has been cut, canned, or pickled?

On Saturdays when we don't have things going on (which is close to never) i get fruit and veg from a co-op called Bountiful Baskets. They often have offerings of large quantities of certain in season items and i sometimes get the canning bug and buy them. This time it was 28 pounds of beans. It took me a couple of days and i thought my had was going to fall off from cutting but i did it. I processed all of the beans. We now have enough beans to last us a good long time. Plus, i have discovered that i LOVE pickled green beans often referred to as Dilly Beans. Yum!

Rain storms and rainbows

A couple of weeks ago there was a really terrific rain storm. We watched the rain fall and we were surprised to see such a great rainbow. We ventured out onto the golf course to take pictures and enjoy the green. It seems the world is such a pretty green after it rains.
The first thing Jonathan did was run to splash in the puddles. He is such a little boy!
We ran from puddle to puddle. He fell down and got muddy but that didn't stop him.

Here he landed head first it to a not so muddy spot thank goodness.

I just can't get enough of this cute boy!

The Garden Update

I will get to the garden but a post wouldn't be complete without Jonathan. He is trouble for sure! There isn't anything that he can't find a way to get into.


On to the garden. These pictures are a little old but our garden is still growing. I heard something about a good gardener keeps trying and a better gardener keeps trying and also keeps notes. (or something like that) Originally we were going in as partners of sorts with friends from our ward but life happens and since it is in our backyard, it mostly became more my project. This is not any sort of complaint by any means. Their excitement and man-power helped get the project of the garden going. It has been a great experience. I am ready for another garden box. I have learned more of what not to do but here is a list of things from our garden:
Lots of lettuce for salads
Spinach- which wasn't too nice for salads but it cooked up nicely for a spinach, potato casserole
Broccoli that was a little past its prime, i didn't know that it had small yellow flowers - still good freshly steamed,
Purple Broccoli -good because i figured out when to pick it
Cauliflower-good steamed in milk and butter (a friend said this is how her mom cooked it and they loved it. It really just tasted steamed but good)
Carrots - they are very small but good
Strawberries - only a couple have grown but they are alright. I have to fight the birds for them
Tomatoes - I envisioned gobs of tomatoes sitting on the counter and canning them, freezing them, cooking with them but i guess since we only have 3 plants that is not going to happen. I have had a couple and they are pretty good.

Having a garden makes me miss my Grandma. She always had a huge amazing garden. Summers as i remember consisted of getting up at strange hours for irrigating, canning vast quantities of this, that, and everything, and eating great meals in the evening from what we picked that day. I remember doing these things but i never really paid attention to the details. Now when i look at my broccoli and wonder when it is ready to pick (i waited too long) i wish that i had my Grandma's vast knowledge and experience to rely on. I guess as it is with a lot of things, you don't really appreciate them until they are gone.

Behold- the garden.

He used to be afraid

He hated the vacuum but not anymore. When it is out he wants to vacuum and he knows the difference when it is on and when it is off.

Horse Show

We have had some fun adventures with Becca lately. Luckily she brings her camera along and then emails me the pictures.

Monday we went to the Horse Show. I figured that along with dogs, Jonathan would love horses. Turns out that is not the case.

You may think this is a smile but this is more of a get me away from this thing!


Jonathan is shaking his head NO! and below he is trying to kick at the horse.
It turns out the stars of the show were the tractor (not pictured), the golf cart, and Becca. I forgot the stroller so we had to carry him around. Jonathan did not want me to hold him at all. It was all Becca all afternoon.

Jonathan and Jasper

I was going to put this on order but i can hear that Jonathan is up from his nap. Jonathan loves dogs and it is a good thing that both our neighbors have them.





By the way, sorry for such a long break. Posting is something that if you don't do regularly then you sort of get out of the habit. I will be back soon.

Thoughts

I have two long posts percolating in my brain. They are all about Jonathan of course. We celebrated his 1st birthday yesterday but today is his actual birthday. I will write about that later. I can't believe a year has gone by already. Life is so different then what i thought it would be staying home with him. It definitely is not as easy as i thought it would be, and the difficulties are not what i thought they would be. Sounds kind of confusing but i don't even want to try to articulate my thoughts here. Hanging out with Jonathan has been great. Looking back, Jonathan has gone from a little baby to a walking little kid. He no longer sleeps through the night and in fact is now waking up twice. I guess next is waking up every three hours. CW goes out of town next week for a few days and so Jonathan and i will have a couple of intensive nights of sleep correction. At least that is what i am calling it.

Saturdays are generally good days around here. We are off peak for our electricity so we can turn the AC down to 76. I can get so much more done around the house when it is cooler. General Conference was good today and i am looking forward to tomorrow's meetings. I have to say that i am happy we don't have to go to church tomorrow also. Usually Sundays are pretty long and stressful. It will be nice to relax! Stay posted for more of Jonathan.

The Saga of the Garden

As i mentioned before, my friend Alyssa and i decided to grow a garden. We were going to share costs and work 50/50 but since she lives in an apartment, our garden will be at our house. I was really excited as this has been a goal of mine for ages. This is my M.O. - get interested in something , read a lot about it and then dream about it, maybe get around to doing it. A garden was sort of that way for me. I am glad that Alyssa brings some practical experience to this adventure. This picture is from a few months ago. The point of posting it is sort of a before picture.
Early Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago the Frost's came over to help cut down the tree and clear a spot for our garden. Dale and Alyssa have a baby a month or two younger then Jonathan named Maddie. She is cute. Anyway so while the husbands were out working hard and sweating a lot, Alyssa and i were inside playing with kids. I kind of felt bad that us girls decide to grow a garden and our husbands get to do all the hard work. This picture is of the tree almost gone. They found 4 golf balls embedded throughout the base of the tree. No wonder it was dying.

Husbands working hard - no tree.
So the boys built the box. I got information on where to go buy dirt and made arrangements to go out and pick it up. It is a place that is by the dump and well, it generally didn't smell very nice. Sometimes as much as it is a pain to bring Jonathan around, not that it is Jonathan that is the pain, it is getting a car seat in and out of the car and carrying it around that around that is the pain. Anyway, usually when people see that i have a baby they are very nice and helpful. This was the case with the man that worked at the dump. He was strange and i probably wouldn't want to meet him in a dark ally but he was very nice. He was joking that Jonathan had more teeth then he did and he called the stray dog that lived there his wife. Weird but nice and helpful. So we loaded the dirt, then we got back to the house and unloaded the dirt and we planted. This is the picture of the garden planted. It doesn't look like much but i hope to take pictures weekly!
Of course i missed the funniest picture of the kids. They both were standing at the garden box and looked up at me. They both had rings of dirt around their mouths. Oops guess weren't paying enough attention to them.

OK gotta go. We are celebrating Jonathan's 1st birthday tomorrow and i have loads to do. I still have another post that i want to do of all the things Jonathan is doing these day. It will have to wait.

Getting down with Jonathan

Here are some clips with Jonathan dancing. He is pretty darn cute. Sometimes if i am dancing then he likes to come up to me and dance with me.

Ellie Belly the Newest Edition

Her name is really Ellie May but i call her Ellie Belly. She is my new niece, daughter of Ryan and Kimberly. I am really sad that they don't live in Arizona anymore. I miss them. Luckily they were staying with my parents for the summer so when i went up for Mel's wedding i had the added joy of getting attend Ellie's baby blessing.
There is something wonderful about holding such a small human being. She is about 6 pounds at the time of this picture. I can't believe how great Ryan was with her. I have never really seen such a father take to his little girl. Ryan continually impresses me in so many ways.
I held Ellie and i felt a little spot in my heart that melted into longing for another little baby, but as soon Ryan and Kimberly talked about how little she slept at night and that longing fled. No thank you!

Mel's Wedding

My Sister Mel has been dating Clayton for a few months and he is in the Idaho National Guard and his Unit has been called to Iraq. They were in an unfortunate time crunch in progressing their relationship. Basically, without getting into too much unnecessary detail, she recently got divorced and was still sealed to her ex-husband. They (the Bishop and Stake President) expedited the sealing cancellation as much as that can happen as most of it is out of their control. We have all been playing the waiting game to see if the cancellation would come so they could get married in the temple before Clayton left. So Wednesday evening i get a call from Mel saying that they might get married civilly if the cancellation didn't come by, i don't know, Friday or Saturday. She said she would let me know. Well i didn't hear back Wednesday so Thursday i tracked Mel down and she said that they were probably going to get married Saturday. I purchased an airline ticket to leave the next day. So with not much notice and to every one's surprise, (Ryan didn't know until 2 hours before the event was to occur) they got married. It was a happy occasion and I like Clayton. He will be good for Mel and her children but it was a bittersweet occasion because i couldn't help wishing that we had more notice because CW could have come with me. To both CW's and my regret, a 2 day notice is not very convenient for CW's busy work schedule and cost prohibitive to fly 2 people at such last notice. Oh well what's done is done.
I was the unofficial photographer so the pictures didn't turn out so well. But Clayton looks sharp in his military duds and Mel is cute too.

Mom and Dad worked hard to make this weekend a success!

The happy couple.

Cute Elise.

Nate and Michelle

The happy family.

And would a blog posting by me be complete without a shot of Jonathan?