Is this considered nesting?

I have been busy lately making a mental list of projects for me to do which will keep me busy for the rest of the summer. I've lately run across a bunch of great ideas for sewing boys clothes. I would like make some of these racer shorts from www.dana-made-it.com for the older boys.

For Will I would like to try to make some of these cute t-shirts call the 90-minute shirt. The tutorial is also from dana-made-it.com and the boy in the picture is her son. So cute!

Next I have projects for the new baby. I have been noticing a lot of women in my ward using various slings to hold their baby while they are at church and I'm sure they use them at home and elsewhere. So I've been researching the different kinds of slings and how difficult it is to make them and I'm probably going to end up making 3 different kinds.

Now the term I guess people use is called "baby wearing" since instead of holding the baby you are wearing them, duh. Here is a link to a post about the different kinds of slings/carriers for baby wearing. Some are easier to use but don't offer a lot of support/comfort and others are comfortable and supportive but use a lot of fabric. A neighbor gave me her extra pocket sling so I already have one of those.

I am planning on making a ring sling and a wrap sling by buying a bunch of yards of fabric, cutting it lengthwise, do some hemming and voila. They are pretty easy to make.

At first I ignored the mei tai, but then I started looking at them more and found them to be a compromise between support and not too much stuff wrapped around you like the wrap. You can also easily put the older child on your back. The only downside for the mei tai is that it doesn't seem as supportive and comfy for the newborn/little baby. I found some good tutorials for the mei tai and I believe I could fairly easily sew one up.

I'll probably end up using the pocket sling for times when I am sitting a lot, like at church. Or for quick baby wearing. I would probably use the wrap and ring sling for longer periods of time especially for the baby when she is little. Then the mei tai will be used when the baby is a little older and for longer periods of time.

Boy's Bedroom Design

We are thinking/planning on moving all the boys into a room together sometime this summer. I also have been promising the boys for six months that we would paint their room. I thought it would fun to do a jungle theme since they have cute jungle pillowcases and their grandma is making them sort of jungle themed quilts. I also wanted to cut out a big tree in a MDF board, paint it and put it on their wall. On the branches there would be pegs and shelves for their hats and trophies. (Doesn't that sound cool?)

So today I was trying to layout the room and "design" it a bit. I have this:

(click to make larger)

The tree is going to be also inspired by these two pictures:

Problem Solved

"Mommy, Will turned off the TV!"

"Will, don't change the channel!"

"It's too loud! Will turned it up!"

Problem Solved.

Twilight Zone

I wonder how the rest of today is going to be. It sure started out odd. It was 7:50 am I was still in bed asleep even though the sun was up. The house was oddly quiet. KC had gotten up to work an hour before and was in his office. The garbage truck woke me. I needed to get the trash bins to the street today they were really full. After rushing through the quiet house and donning shoes and a jacket, I went out into the bright, cool morning and lugged the bins to the street. Mission accomplished.

Once back inside I thought, "Almost 8, Will must be awake." Now Will is an interesting baby, for the last few months when he wakes up in his crib he doesn't cry. He doesn't make noise. He just sits there and plays with the blankets and stuffed animals. I could leave him there for an hour and he'd not cry, not that I've done that, no way. Maybe after two hours he'd make some noise and cry. I haven't fully tested this one. Anyway I couldn't hear him but that didn't mean he wasn't awake. He's always awake by now and usually I have no idea how long he has been.

I go upstairs and look in on the older boys. Still sleeping, even though Isaac was up at 6:30 with a leaky pull-up, but he wanted to go back to bed so I didn't argue. Fully expecting a happy baby smile when I opened Will's door, instead I see a baby still zonked out sleeping on his belly. I'm not one to wake up babies unless necessary so I quietly shut the door and went back downstairs not sure what to do with myself because it was almost 8 am and I wasn't getting bottles or bowls of cereal and refereeing requests for the TV.

So I decided to blog. The magic of course only lasts for 5 minutes before Isaac came down then Andrew but it was there. As KC said though, by Saturday they'll be back to their usual thing of waking up at 6:30 and making plenty of rukus.

August Pictures

Apparently I haven't posted any new pictures of Will lately and my sister didn't let me forget it today. She made me promise to post something soon. So here are a few pictures I took of the boys with Will a couple of weeks ago.

Who's Who?

These are pictures of Andrew, Isaac, and William all at about the same age. Can you tell who's who?

Effects of Nostalgia

Don't we all get nostalgic now and then for our younger years, our years of innocence, our childhood and all that came with it? We remember our friends, our favorite toys, or favorite places to play, and of course our favorite TV cartoons. Now, thanks to the wonderfulness of the internet you can find almost anything online, especially on Youtube.

Periodically KC and I will spend a few minutes looking up our favorite cartoons and watching the opening credits or some clips from the shows. They are never what you remember them to be. I can't believe I actually enjoyed some of them. I think some shows though are classic. They still inspire the imagination and delight in a little boy or girl.

One of those shows I guess is He-Man. I never really watched it as a kid, though I think I watched She-ra a bit. KC says He-Man was his favorite cartoon when he was about 5 or so. So it's no suprise when the other day KC pulled up the opening credits to He-Man on youtube to show the boys. He was hoping to find an episode to show them, but didn't have any luck. For some reason I remembered seeing that Fancast.com had old cartoons on it and sure enough they have a bunch of He-Man episodes available to watch. So we all gathered around the computer screen and watched it.

Now it's no wonder then, that the night before last I had a certain song in my head all night and the next day, and I had certain phrases run through my head willy nilly. Why? Andrew and Isaac have been watching episodes of He-Man on the computer every chance they get. Isaac has been pointing his play sword in the air and trying to repeat the phrase "By the power of Grayskull!" He only get's out the skull part though. It's cute. They've really been into swords lately and since He-Man uses a Magic Sword, well it's a no brainer they they are drawn to it.

I have to leave the room when they watch it. It annoys the heck outtta me. Why to do they care so much to protect or conquer a land that has no plants and is filled with craggy rocks and mud? Why do they live like they are in stone age/medieval times but they have flying vehicles and computer guidance/targeting systems. Why is the cat/tiger so afraid? Why is Skeletor's voice so high pitched and annoying? What is the deal with those circle shapes on the women's outfits? If you've seen it, you know what I mean. I could go on, but I won't.

There is one redeeming thing about the show. At the end of each episode they have a short moral or uplifting message about something that happened in the show. That is something that a lot of the cartoons out there should have. Still, I'm hoping that this phase blows over soon and I can enjoy more episodes of Wow, Wow Wubbzy and The Backyardigans again. I get those songs stuck in my head too, but they don't annoy me as much.

Rrroar! Yikes!

"Rrroar!"

"Yikes!"

Sitting next to Isaac in the Energy Solutions Arena during the Walking With Dinosaurs show last night was a treat. A few months ago KC heard about the show and thought it was be a fun thing for the family to do, so we got tickets. The boys have been looking forward to it for a while, and they weren't disappointed.

(We went sledding yesterday morning and Isaac scraped his cheek a bit on the ice.)

The first dinosaur came out was a smaller scary one and Isaac literally yelled "Yikes!" to the delight of all sitting around us. Each one they showed was a wonder to the boys. They had a huge mommy brachiosaur (not sure on the spelling) protecting her kid and later a huge scary Tyrannosaur protecting it's baby from two larger armored dinosaurs. Three Utah Raptors where shown eating a dinosaur corpse. "Yucky!" Isaac said. Andrew says the end with the Tyrannosaurs was his favorite part. They loved the fight between two triceratop-like male dinosaurs as well, Andrew compared it to a Super Smash Bros. fight from the Nintendo. He wasn't fooled by the wires used to make the flying dinosaur fly, but thought it was pretty cool still.


Here is a shortish video showing some of the boys' favorite parts.

Our December in Photos

December flew by so here is a fly by of pictures from our December.

Andrew telling Santa what he wants for Christmas. Isaac wouldn't get on Santa's lap. Maybe next year.
The Christmas card we sent out to some friends and family. Sorry if you didn't get one. Let me know if you want to be added to the list :-) We couldn't get a good family picture of us all at once so we decided to pose and take them separately to create a winter scene courtesy of photoshop.

One of the photos we decided not to use for our Christmas Card creation. Yes our house is really that yellow.

My boys and friends at a Christmas Party.

Transportation to and from the sledding hill. The snow packed roads made it easy.

Isaac at the sledding hill.

Our church meeting time was during Isaac's nap time. So this is how we found him soon after coming home from church once.

Andrew's favorite thing that Santa got him. Santa must have listened when we visited him.

The backyard after the Christmas snowstorm. There are a couple steps down right in front of Isaac so it was pretty deep back there.

Isaac and his cousin sharing the scooter. He was nice to let her ride and she was nice to always let him drive.

Day at Lagoon

Last Saturday our little family spent the day at Lagoon. For anyone who may not know, Lagoon is Utah's amusement park. As seen from the pictures the boys had a lot of fun. There were a lot of really cool kiddie rides and a lot of rides that we could go on with the boys. They had a kid type drop ride like at the Stratosphere Tower, I saw kids crying to get off on that one but my boys handled it okay. Isaac screamed for fun at first, and then got a little tense at the end. They loved the rides like this one where they could "drive."
Look at their faces on this one. They are loving it!Here is one ride that Andrew didn't want to go on but Isaac agreed to go. Anyone who has been on this type of ride knows that it can really drop your stomach and be intense if you're on the ends so that's why Isaac and Casey are in the middle.This is a close up of Isaac and Casey on the ride. Isaac has his head up here but the rest of the time his head was in Casey's lap.
Isaac and Andrew are both tall for their age and so they were both able to go on rides that normal 2 and 4 year-olds wouldn't qualify for. One ride Andrew was tall enough to go on with an adult was a ride called The Bat. KC was about to put Andrew on this one for his first ride, but I made them wait and go on some of the other rides to see what he could take. Andrew still wanted to go so they went. I guess Andrew really liked it because as soon as he got off he wanted to go again. This is the second time right before the ride started.
We also went on the haunted house type rides 2-3 times. I was surprised the boys weren't more freaked out from them. I saw a 9 year-old girl come out of one crying. Isaac only said at the end of the second time, "scarrry." At the end of the day we rode the rides that get you wet. There were 4 different rides, including one where you are on a raft going through a tube just like you would at a water park, but we were clothed. At the water rapids ride we all got soaked, but the boys loved it all. After Isaac fell asleep in his stroller we decided to head home, good thing because as we were heading out of the gates it started pouring rain. We were very glad we already had a full day of fun on a beautiful mild day and didn't have to quit early because of rain. We plan on doing this again next year, so let me know if you'd like to join us.

Summer Update

With the selling the house and moving business I never got around to updating about our many summer adventures. We started out with lots of camping. We camped in Mapleton, up Payson Canyon and later, twice in the Brian Head/Panguitch area.

We then had some excitement from our backyard with a homemade water slide and a forest fire on a nearby mountain.

We went bowling and spent some time with family.

Then just before the move we spent 4 days in Park City with the boys. We went on the Alpine slide, which the boys really enjoyed.

Isaac Turns Two

Last week Isaac officially turned two years old. I can't believe the little guy is already two. My parents, sister and her kids came to celebrate the weekend before his birthday. We had cupcakes, opened presents and played outside with bubbles. The weather was actually really nice that day which has been really hit and miss lately. Here is a picture of the boys and their cousins on one of our rarely warm spring days. The boys sure love seeing their cousins and grandparents.

For more celebrations, the next weekend we met up with some friends at Kangaroo Zoo in Pleasant Grove and had a fun two hours playing. Isaac is fearless even with the biggest slides. He could climb up the ladder and go down the steep slide all by himself. He and Andrew LOVED it.

The boys also had their yearly check-up last week and here are the updated measurements for them.

Andrew - 4 yrs old
weight - 37 lbs - 57 %ile
height - 42 in. - 77 %ile

Isaac - 2 yrs old
weight - 34 lbs - 97 %ile
height - 37 in. - 97 %ile

A Day of Firsts

December 1st, 2007 was a day of firsts. It was the first real day of snow this winter. Isaac was too little last year to play in the snow, so it was his first time playing in the white stuff. He loved it! The boys built a snowman with their daddy. Not only was it the first snowman of the season it was the first either of them had ever built.

Daddy bought a snowmobile this year. Although there was only a couple inches of snow on the ground Andrew convinced daddy to get it out and ride it around the yard. So Andrew had his first ride on a snowmobile. Daddy hopes that Andrew will grow up to be a snowmobile man like himself.

We are hopeful that this day of firsts will not be our last this winter. Daddy is planning on many fun days of snowmobiling and sledding. So lets all pray for snow!

Zoo Fun

We went to visit KC's brother in Phoenix this Thanksgiving holiday. It was great to be able to leave the cold and go down to the nice mild almost warm weather in Arizona. For a family activity the day after Thanksgiving we went to a local zoo, the Wildlife World Zoo.

At this zoo they haveplaces where you feed the animals. The first feeding place was the Lory Parrot feeding area. You hold an apple out in your hand, hopefully you soon have a new Parrot friend. They only let you feed them for 15 minutes at a time because they have fast digestive systems (watch out!). We all got to have at least one parrot eat from our hands, all except Isaac who fell asleep in his stroller right before we went in. KC had a Snow White experience when he twice had more than one parrot on his arms. Two even landed on him where there wasn't an apple in sight.

The second feeding place was a petting zoo for the kids. Baby goats, llamas, and deer were all available for petting. Isaac didn't want to leave. He loved all the Isaac sized animals that he could touch.

The last feeding place was the Giraffe Tower. We climbed up to be level with the Giraffe's, paid a quarter for some food and got to drop it on the Giraffe's lengthy tongue. Sometimes the tongue touched your hand, ewww slimy.

It has been so fun lately to do activities like this with the boys. They are getting to a really fun age where we can interact with them and they like to play with each other. The 10 hour drive to and from Phoenix wasn't even that bad. They are such good travelers. I guess the portable DVD player and stash of Disney movies helped too.