A Boy and His Disciplined Dog

Today while I was cleaning the kitchen, I could hear Ethan playing with his animals in the living room. All of the sudden I heard him yell, "no Josephina, no! You have to sit in the chair for 2 minutes." He then waited a second and made a beep sound like our kitchen timer. Then Josephina could join the rest of the animals and play again.

Oh dear, maybe we are doing too many time-outs around here?!

This cute brown dog is actually Clark's childhood stuffed animal named Joseph. One night Clark was still at school when it was time to tuck Ethan into bed, and he was rather sad that his Dad wasn't home to say good-night. I told him that since Joseph was his dad's dog, if he hugged Joseph it would be just like hugging Daddy. Ever since then Joseph has become a favorite and has to be in Ethan's bed everynight.

Poor Joseph, he has been through the washer a few too many times, and Clark was quite dismayed to find out his soft brown nose is peeling away to be a hard plastic pink! We tried to take Joseph away from the bedtime routine to protect him through this next generation...but NO WAY! He is loved too much. And in case you are wondering why Ethan calls him Josephina (or Josapina as he says it)...one day I accidentally called him Josephina, it just came out...and it stuck. Ethan now adds "phina" to the end of many names...Mommaphina, Cadenphina, etc. Poor Clark felt like I was trying to feminize his childhood.

BUMBO

My mom asked the other day if Caden could sit in his Bumbo chair yet...

And the answer is yes, he quite enjoys watching me do the dishes from his little seat.

He was fascinated with the little monkeys on the feet of his cute jammies.

Freezing Time

If I could freeze time right now I would. I love Ethan's 2 year old spunk, and I love Caden's 3 month old grins.

I think this little photo shoot of the brothers captured my boys pretty well:

First Shot: Both boys a little confused.

Second Shot: Ethan hamming it up for the camera and Caden saying, "really mom?"

Third Shot: Ethan goes in for the kiss, Caden is not amused.

Fourth Shot: Brotherly love.

Ever since Caden was born I feel like my time just flies. Both Ethan and Caden have changed so much in the last 3 months. It's fun to watch them learn new things and develop, but I love them just the way they are right now and want them to just stay there a minute so I can enjoy it longer.

I love watching Ethan learn how to use his language skills. The way he constructs sentences is pretty creative. I love that Caden will burst into a full body grin any time I say his name and smile at him. It is just so fun being a mom to these cute brothers.

3 Months

A few pictures that Grammy Tammy requested of a cute 3 month old. Definitely a growing, happy boy!

Accentuates his mohawk.

All pictured out...

Until...

Daddy comes home!

Visitors

We rarely get out of state visitors, but every once in awhile people do pass just a mile from our house on I-80 as they travel to other places. And every once in awhile those people stop by for a little visit.

I was so excited earlier this week to get a text from Karin saying that she and Ben would be in our neighborhood! It was fun to see Karin and meet her new husband. Thanks for stopping by.

I just realized this photo looks like a family picture for you guys! Someday I'm sure you'll be a very cute family of four (and if you are really lucky you'll end up with 2 red headed boys:)!

Iowa State Fair

Did you know there is a famous novel written about the Iowa State Fair? It is called "State Fair." Since it is THE EVENT in Iowa (there are 1,818 miles of toilet paper set aside just for this event) Saturday we braved the heat and the other 94,486 people that had the same idea that we did and went to the fair.

Did you know there are 34 rides at the fair? The only ride we did was THE BUS we got to ride there and back to the park n' ride. This really was probably Ethan's favorite part of the whole experience, he sang "The Wheels on the Bus," the whole way home.

Did you know there are lots of animals at the fair, including a bull that weighs 3,122 lbs? We saw most of them, and don't worry, Brown Dog saw a lot of them too. We even watched a cattle show, the winning steer sold for $45,000 this year.

Do you know why this sheep is trying to gnaw his way out of his rod iron pen?

My guess is he doesn't want his wool to be used for knitting a pink nightmare to be displayed at the 2011 fair like the one pictured below.

Did you know the woman that made this quilt was ripped off? This photo quilt is made of about a million little squares, each one the size of a postage stamp. I can't even imagine cutting out all of those squares, let alone sewing them all together. AND she didn't even win a blue ribbon!

Did you know that a diaper can hold about 50 lbs. of water? We learned that as Ethan had a blast playing in the fountains.

Did you know that the famous butter cow sculpture is made from 600 lbs. of good Iowa butter?

We loved that there were also several butter sculptures with scenes from "Green Eggs and Ham," right now it is one of Ethan's favorite books.

"Would you could you with a fox, could you would you in a box?"

Did you know there are 58 foods on a stick offered at the fair? We didn't really try any, unless you count Clark's barbarian sized smoked turkey leg, I suppose a turkey bone is a stick of sorts. My friend Jessica tried a Twinkie on a stick dipped in white chocolate and rolled in pecans. I loved watching the kids with the healthy moms walking around eating hard boiled eggs on-a-stick, it made me laugh everytime. I can just imagine bribing the kids, "be really good and you can have a yummy egg on a stick." YUM! Ethan didn't get anything on a stick but he did get to stick his head in this flower:

and climb on this HUGE tractor:

The fair's slogan is "NON-STOP FUN," and it pretty much was until this little 2 year old just couldn't keep his eyes open any longer and fell right asleep.

He's Taking Over!

In just under 3 months little Caden has taken over...

our hearts,

our bed,

and when the stars are aligned just right he's even taken over Brown Dog!

My serious little red headed boys.

Caden is the best little baby! From day 1 we could tell he had a very calm and peaceful temperment. He loves to snuggle. The past few weeks he has been taking his afternoon nap the same time as Ethan (yay!). I love to put him on our bed and snuggle with him while he sleeps. Sometimes I read, sometimes I nap a little, and a lot of the time I just sit watching him and I really can't get enough!

Nightime is when he is the most talkative. He just sits and chats with me, I love his little coos. Sometimes he gives big smiles while he is talking and sometimes he looks very serious, I think he is giving me his list of grievances for the day. He is really starting to notice people, he always has a grin ready for his big brother and his Dad.

I've just been loving this baby stage. I think I'm a little more calm this time around than I was with my first. The other night Clark and I were in the kitchen chatting while Caden was lying on a blanket in the living room. When Clark went back into the living room he yelled, "whoa, he rolled over." We missed it, but I'm sure we will see it again soon and I'm not encouraging it...I'm just loving him as a baby right now!

Apparently, Daddy's isn't the only comfy lap!

When a boy needs a comfy place to sleep, I guess any position will do! I sure love these guys! (Clark's hijacking skills strike again!)

Personal Record

This little guy slept 8 straight hours last night in his own bed!

Can I get a BOO-YAH?

Child Prodigy?

Normally Ethan has quite a pleasant singing voice. However, this rendition of Baa Baa Blacksheep is called: "my parents are paying attention to Caden and cooking dinner I must get their attention somehow."

He keeps us laughing!

We LOVE This

Rocking this baby to sleep is the BEST!

My view.

Water

It felt a little weird for us to be seeking out water at the splash pool, while half of Iowa and even half of our city is covered in flood waters right now. It seemed almost surreal to see the hay bales next door to our library appear to be floating in the middle of a lake.

Poor guy just doesn't like his little hat.

The thunderstorms here are amazing! They are like nothing I have ever seen or heard. Several times last week I was woken up in the middle of the night by thunder that shook our house and lightning that lit our room like a camera flash. The rain comes so fast it feels like our house is under a waterfall. Besides the flood we had in our basement last Monday we have been staying dry, and we are grateful for that!

Do you have BIEBER fever?

Don't worry I don't have the fever either.

However, I was noticing how much Ethan's currently needing a cut hair-do resembles the popstar.

Ethan's much cuter though.

And I think his current do still beats out his Trump locks from last year.

Dear Clark

5 years ago today we were married in the Salt Lake temple.

It was a perfect day and we were so happy to celebrate with family and good friends.

Were you there?

Our wedding pretty much lasted 3 weeks with receptions to follow in Boise and Durango. You took me on a fun honeymoon to San Francisco. We had so many fun adventures. 2 of our adventures make good metaphors for how our marriage has been the past 5 years...

One day of our trip we decided to rent one of these Go-Cars.

These tiny little cars are steet legal! We picked up our car right in the middle of downtown San Francisco. We naively put on our little helmets and hit the busy city streets.

We had only gone about 2 blocks before a black truck about plowed us down, apparently in our little 2 foot car we were in his blind spot. You did some fancy maneuvering and after some very tense minutes got us out of downtown and into the more touristy areas where we felt a bit safer!

Since we didn't have a rental car for our trip we decided it would be fun to drive this little Go-Car down Lombard Street, the twistiest road in America.

Each Go-Car came equipped with a built in GPS so we could just type in our destination and follow the directions. When I typed in Lombard Street the route the GPS wanted us to take was crazy long! Since we only had our car for a limited time I looked at the map and said, "there is a way faster way to get there, heck with this GPS, I'll tell you where to drive and then we'll have time to go somewhere else." I then turned off the GPS and started navigating with the map.

I found the street that leads to Lombard Street and we were on our way. What I didn't know is how steep the street was, and how the little Go-Cars pretty much have no guts to go up hills (hence the reason the GPS was taking us on the long/non hilly route to Lombard Street).

We made it about halfway up the super STEEP street and our car just stopped moving, you had the throttle pushed as far as it would go and we were at a complete standstill. I glanced behind us and saw that there was a whole line of cars stopped behind us as well.

I thought that maybe if we had less weight the car would go, so I jumped out...but nothing! You started yelling at me to push, I got us about 6 more inches and then we were stalled again. At first both of us in our state of newly wedded bliss were laughing at the situation, but at this point we realized we were in quite a pickle and it got a bit scary. We knew we had to turn the car around. With me pushing and you trying to steer, hold the throttle and push at the same time we got the car turned around, avoiding hitting a parked car on the side of the road by an inch!

The line of angry drivers behind us quickly drove by and I quickly snapped this picture of our almost turned around car.

We jumped back in our Go-Car and immediately turned the GPS back on and decided to follow the long, but oh so safe directions, to get us to Lombard Street!

We had a lot of fun experiencing Lombard Street from a tiny little car.

So how does this relate to our marriage the last 5 years?

Well, we've definitely learned that there are no shortcuts to get anywhere worth going. We've had a few uphill moments where it took both of us pushing to make it to the top. I think that when we find ourselves in a pickle we've learned how to evaluate the situation, turn around, find the better way and laugh at ourselves.

Another day of our trip we decided to rent a tandem bike and ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito.

We had so much fun riding our bike along the beach. Then we went through a gorgeous park to get up to the bridge. I was overwhelmed by the beautiful trees and flowers, just loving the ride, I didn't even notice we were going up a pretty steep hill. I promise I thought I was peddling!

About half way up the hill you yelled back to me in a very winded voice that we needed to stop. So we pulled over and I noticed that you were quite out of breath, about ready toc ollapse. I thought, wow you must not be in very good shape, because I felt great! Then you pointed out that just because my feet were moving with the peddles didn't mean I was peddling. You had pretty much been peddling both of us up the hill by yourself while I enjoyed the beautiful ride! I'm still laughing about this one.

After that I put a little more effort into it and we had a wonderful day in Sausalito!

So I think this one could apply to our marriage in a lot of ways. But mostly right now I think it fits that you are working so hard in school so you can be prepared to provide for our family, allowing me to stay home with our fun little boys and just enjoy the ride!

The past 5 years have gone by really fast! I think we've both grown and learned a lot. In the past 5 years we've:

added 2 wonderful little boys to our family,

earned 2 degrees, with 2 more in the works,

had 5 jobs and 10 church callings,

visited 16 states, lived in 2 states and 3 cities,

made 1,000,000,000 (approximately) wonderful memories!

Thanks for a great 5 years and for being a better husband than I could have even imagined I was marrying on August 13, 2005. I love you!