Me as a Mother

I always assumed I would be a micromanager mother.  My kid was always going to be real fashionable, clothes always match, etc... Turns out I'm not that way.  Who would have know? I use to like to have every part of my life micromanaged by myself, but I never liked to be a terribly involved babysitter, so...  Anyway, I'm glad to say I'm not a micromanager mother.

Yesterday we were at the library for storytime, and in the end the kids made fall necklaces. They strung beads on strung paper leaves. Some kids necklaces looked very uniformed, and followed a strick pattern.  Then came my sons, it looked like a two year old made it, there was no rhyme or reason to how he put the beads on or the leaves.  Unlike many of the others who had 5 beads a leaf, and 5 more beads. Well I'm sure there was actually a lot of reason to where he put things, he is very determined. 

Most of the children lost interest very quickly, I assumed it was because that is a difficult fine motor skills for young preschoolers to thread small beads on a piece of yarn.  Obviously that plays a factor but also maybe its because some got bored of listening to their parents tell them how to put beads on. I heard one mom say, why is it always the mom that has to finish the craft? I thought why are you finishing it?  If she doesn't want the necklace she doesn't want the necklace.  Who cares, it will eventually end up in the trash or lost anyway, if she doesn't want it today, she is definitely not going to want it tomorrow. My child's didn't look at nice as some others, but there was no doubt my child designed it himself. After a disaster project the previous day with pom poms, I left the library feeling good, that I didn't tell my son how to create something.  

Stories of Motherhood

Yesterday my son and I were out and about. We happened up upon a Home Depot that my husband and I were looking for on Saturday, we went about a million miles in the wrong direction when its super close to our house. Anyway, so my son and I happened to find it across the street from JoAnns. When I realized we were on the street with JoAnns I told my son lets stop at JoAnns so we can get stuff for your puppy costume. (I'm too tired to make a bug costume, so I didn't ask about a bug just asked about a puppy and low and behold he wants to be a puppy.) As I turn onto the street for JoAnns he says, "JoAnns!" very impatiently like you are missing it mom, I was, you have to drive past it to get into the parking lot. First off how did he know what store JoAnns was?
Second he looked across the street to the grocery store we have only shopped twice and said, "I wanta go there." I said, "no we are going to wait for daddy to go grocery shopping." He wanted a truck cart, he knew across the street was truck carts. This kid amazes me.
The real amazing part of the day, was when we were in home depot. They had this play rug for toy trains on display, and my son wanted to look at it, so I let him. (That's a great line I let him, since I can't pick him up, and he climbs out of shopping carts, let him, means he gets to go anywhere he wants to as long as he doesn't run because if I don't let him, he falls on the ground crying. And since I can't pick him up, he stays there until he decides he is done, while all the other people stare at me. Yes, my child is the maniac in the store you see and think, gosh can't that mom can control her kid? Here is the answer, no, that mom can't control her kid.) Back to the story, so he is looking at the play rug, and he points to an orange truck and says, "Home Depot Truck" how in the heck does my son know what the home depot logo looks like in order to be able to pick it out? Before a month ago, I don't know if he had ever even been in a Home Depot. To me he said it as clear as day, I wasn't even paying attention to him when he said it, but I'm sure other people wouldn't have understood him. So I'm wondering where he gets all this from? How is his visual recognition so good? Thank goodness we don't have TV channels for him to see commercials.
Its beginning to become very apparent that my future problem with my son and school, will be boredom, and nothing else. Although so far his math skills do leave something to be desired. Up until recently he counted, 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2, no matter how many things there were, he just count to two over and over. Now he counts, 1 2 4 5 (sometimes he adds a 6, occasionally we get a 7 or a 9) if that doesn't cover it, he keeps repeating 4 5 4 5 4 5.
The other day we went to my grandparents after we had to make a few stops on the way. Every place we stopped my son kept crying, "great grandmas great grandmas." I told him we were going to go to great grandma's and he was upset we weren't getting there fast enough. While we there, I was trying to pull out the party tricks. So I asked my son to tell his great grandma his name. Then how old he was, he said, "Im four." Then were he lives, he is able to say the township. We were there for multiple hours and as long as we were there, and she asked him, he always said, "Im four." When my grandfather surface, we pulled out the same party tricks, except this time he said, "Im eight." He kept this up the whole time we were there, if it was grandpa asking he was always eight, if it was grandma it was always four. He never did tell him two.
That is my sons new joke. A week ago, I asked him how old he was, and it was the first time he said, "Im four." I kept asking and he kept responding the same. Then all of a sudden he burst out into laughter and said, "Im two." I figure that is my son's first real joke he came up with himself.

Free Ice Cream on Thursday

Free Ice Cream September 25
5-8pm at your local cold stone. One of two choices:I don't know how in the heck giving away free ice cream helps a charity but whatever.

A follow up

There were some questions concerning our mantle picture. Here is the story. I was thinking about buying one of those fashionable canvas prints for above the mantle. (Not necessarily this one, whatever one I liked at my HUGE tj max.)

Then I realized if I'm going to spend $50 for something over my mantle, might as well find an extra 50 for Prayer at Valley Forge, and get it at one of those half price sales, that the religious bookstores in my area have every other month.My husband whole heartedly agreed, because he would have seen a canvas print as a waste of money. Then we were looking at pictures, of when our camera broke. This is what it looked like when you tried to take color pictures.

So until my parents sent us their old one to use until we could afford a new one, my husband enjoyed taking black and white pictures. Only the color broke, the black and white pictures turned out fine. This is one of my all time favorite pictures of my son.

The afternoon light, through the window and trees outside, with black and white made some interesting pictures.

Anyway so for whatever reason we were looking at these pictures, and my husband said I really like this one, as in the kitchen chair and the stove. And yes, it is Pam's basement, and one of their grandpa's old kitchen chairs. I said me too, he said it looks all artsy. He meant he thought it had nice compsition with the persepective and contrast of grays, especially since the stove and chair are so old. Then we decided to blow it up and use it instead of spending lots of money. Between blowing up the picture and buying the frame we spent less than $20 so it worked out well since his car was stolen and we have to cover the costs ourselves since we didn't meet the deductible. We thought the frame was $20, but it rang up at $4, we told her it wasn't right, but she had no desire to fix it. So we got it for $4. It was a good deal. Its not a picture to keep up there forever, but it will do for a year or so.

Cheek Massage

My younger brother and I both happened to get new Colgate 360 wave toothbrushes from dentists in the same month. We both love them, everyone else should go get one too. See that rubbery stuff on the back it massages your cheeks while you brush. Its a great feeling.

Mantle

Eventually we do plan to hang that picture.

FHE Treat

Family Home Evening treats always start out with a bang, when I set the goal to do them, then my family doesn't see them for another 3 months or so. My son and I made cupcakes Monday morning. I got an old mini bundt cake pan from my mom's kitchen a while back, and had never used it, so I started out with that.Then I added cool whip dalop things on top. For high class fanciness.
Close up, oh ahh delicious. They would have looked fancier with ganache poured on top, then cool whip, but my family is not so much a ganache family.
We are a fan of chocolate cake and cool whip in my family. Recently cool whip started packaging its product so you get all the great taste of cool whip, with the fun of whipped topping can.
This is how they started all beautiful. But me and my family agreed that isn't nearly enough cool whip for chocolate cake. So we had to add more, lots more.
And this is the reason my husband likes me, the mass of amount of long skinny limbs that flail everywhere. Let it never be said I only posted attractive pictures of myself on my blog.Mmm, lots of cool whip. My son had already had plain cupcakes after they came out of the oven, so in the evening he assumed he just needed cool whip added to his cupcake about 8 times.
I decided this is what Family Home Evening desert is all about. All three of us had a blast decorating the mini bundt cakes with cool whip. I think my son just had fun laughing at his parents.
Mmm, they were so good only had about 7. Luckily they were about half the size of a cupcake. But that doesn't include the 5 I ate earlier without cool whip. I have a problem, if I keep my cupcakes topingless then I think of them as muffins then they must be good for me to eat.Ahh, desert. I often find it surprising that my son likes family home evening. But tonight it was fun. I guess that is suprising because the only memories I have of it, are complaining at as teenager.

P.S. Happy unconstitutional federally mandated holiday to celebrate the adoption of the United States of America's Constitution today, back in 1787.

Update on Crime

The cops found my husband's car, unfortunately. The criminals stole the stereo, the speaker from the driver side, which messed up the door, his skateboard and all the Kleenexes but left the box. The perp also left a lingering smell of nicotine in the car, that my husband can not smell, but makes my pregnant nose sick. I'm rather not excited, by the time we get the car rekeyed, replace the stereo and fix the door, we will be out at least $500 to meet our deductible. Not to mention my husband will want a new skateboard, which is covered under renters insurance not car, our deductible for renters is $100, so its probably not even worth it to make the claim where they left the rest of the stuff there. Oh and they took a $10 set off tools, probably the same tools they broke the door with. Anyway, by the time we meet our deductible, we will probably be out more money than if the car wouldn't have been recovered and we had to get a new one. Not to mention this one will be crappy from here on out, they probably ran over curbs and did other things to screw it up. We thought about going down to the skate park and watching the skaters to see if anyone shows up with my husband's board. The lucky thing is, it was on the verg of being broken, and needed to be replaced soon. I'm glad we hadn't replaced it yet. I don't want to meet my $500 deductible want an area rug for my living room, and a recliner (I think my pregnant body would apperciate a comfy seat, and it would been nice for rocking an infant and feeding). Not to mention I soon need a double stroller, ahh, I hate being adult sometimes. I hate spending money on things I have to buy and not getting to spend money on things I want to buy.

New Game

To all you google reader users, this post was suppose to be published on the 16th of September, I forgot to post it. But I am posting it for my recorded history. By October 29th the "I see" game is old news.
My son has a new game he likes to play with me. Its, "I see" I don't know where he learned it, because neither my husband or I taught it to him. But when we are out side, he says, I see a duck, I see a truck, I see whatever. He goes through it pretty fast unless I can get him to start laughing. So I have a hard time getting in there to tell him what I see. But as with everything he has a surprisingly long attention span for it.
Today he played it on our donuts run. A few weeks ago after the park we walked to the grocery store and got some perishables, but also got donuts, them ate them on the bench outside the store. Today we went and got some after dropping my husband off for work, since we are down to one car. I went to get in the car, and since we didn't get much else he said, I waha sit bent (bench). So I gave in. We sat on the bench to eat our donuts. Since I can't really walk to the park without getting contractions I figured this could be a substitute. While we were sitting there he started up a game of I see. Which got him giggling when he went for farther away things, like the birds in the sky. I was surprised when he said I see stop sign. I don't remember teaching him what a stop sign is. How the heck is he so dang smart?

Voting

Do you remember the first time you voted?
I do, I remember the excitement the thrill. (I know I'm a political nerd.) I turned 18 in September of an even year, so I got to vote. It was just a local elections, but still it was exciting. My parents are people that believe in the phrase vote early and vote often, well minus the often since its not allowed, but if it was, I'm sure they would vote often. So on a Saturday before the election after my parents had finished yard work, I remember going down to the county court house with them to vote. In my first real election. It was very thrilling, to show my card. But also very nerve wracking to try and get my ballot in the voting box thing, and hope I was doing it right. I remember pulling out my ballot and turning it in, then getting the I voted sticker. Then all of sudden doom came over my good mood, I thought oh my goodness what did I do? How do I know I voted for the best candidate? How can I go home with those choices a made? I was too embarrassed to ask anyone if there was anything I could do. Which I'm sure there wasn't since I already turned in my ballot. But whoa was that a weight on my shoulders, I still don't know if I've recovered. I'll make a confession I felt guilty for voting for a republican for an environmental position. When I think back to that day I still feel like I made a mistake. Although my dad told me in the car on the way home I shouldn't worry about it. Maybe thats why I take my husband and his siblings so serious, when they say voting for the lesser of two evils, is still voting for evil. Who knows.
But still the joys of voting.
The memories of voting.
This past spring was so exciting, I had never voted in a Presidential Primary before. Oh and civil elections voting in my north college town were always fun, they gave you a piece of card stock with a few names and boxes and you take a pencil and mark your choice then put it in a box. Nothing like small towns. I remember the first time I voted on a voting machine, feeling like no matter what I hit on the screen life wouldn't matter, because it could all be hacked anyway. I still think the Presidential primary was the most exciting, boldly talking with my husband about who our choice would be, feeling like these people in our state needed once last chance to hear something about someone other than Romney.

Life can be Annoying

Today my husband left for work, after closing the front door, he then opened it a few seconds later saying I can't go to work. My immediate thought was...Monday holiday? what holiday, I always know when its a holiday. No it wasn't that it, was that his car that was parked on the street had been stolen. Some time between 8 pm and 8 am, it was nabbed. We both stared at where it was last parked for a minute wondering where it could be, its hard to believe someone we don't know has it. He is upset because his skateboard was inside.
I'm annoyed because I don't want to buy a new carseat. Convertible carseats are stupid I have decided. My son was able to stay in a rear facing infant carseat until he was 12 months old. Then we got a convertible carseat because it was either that or a booster seat. Well obviously a 13 month old can't sit in a booster seat. Even though my son is not a large child for his age, normally he is right in the 50% percentile. He is about 3 months away from out growing the convertible carseat. His shoulders are about at the top of the straps, and when children face forward the manual says the straps should hit at the shoulders or above. We can't move him to a booster seat until he is 4 according to government regulations, and he still has 12 pounds to go until he meets the 40 lbs size regulation for booster seats, which I'm assuming is going to take a while. We had two car seats, one in my husbands car, and one in mine that is the convertible seat. Which means I have to buy a new carseat in a few months. I think this is my future. The Graco Nautilus 3 in 1, I hate evenflow carseats, that is what was in the stolen car, I was always happy with my infant seat so Graco is the way to go for me. But who wants to spend an extra $100 on a new carseat. I guess the positive thing is if politicans decided to go crazy and mandate children must be 8 or older before they don't need a booster seat, this will grow with him until he is 8. Hey by the way, did you know carseats have expiration dates? If you use it beyond the expiration date, and you are in accident all liablity falls on you the parent. My current infant seat will only last this coming baby before it expires and I have to get a new one. What I don't know is this really about safety or about keeping carseat companies in business. I mean I do want my child safe in the car, thats why I'm not moving him to a booster seat now, thats why he sat rear facing for 12 months. But still... I never planned on buying 3 carseats with shoulder straps for my first born.
By the way, we are also annoyed the car was stolen, it had new tires and we just re-registered it. Luckily we have car insurance and renters insurance.

FHE

My husband usually helps with the passing of the Sacrament at church, because we have a lack of teenagers in our ward. Recently this has made my son very very excited. He loves to watch where his dad is going. Bizarrely enough, my husband helped in our old ward, because he was Deacon's leader, and my son never cared and rarely watched. During the Sacrament in order to keep him quite, I sometimes tell him things about the Priesthood, like he will get it when he is 12, and then he can pass the Sacrament. Or daddy holds the Priesthood that is why he can give blessings, remember when.... The other week for Family Home Evening we decided it would be good for my husband to give a lesson on the Priesthood for my son. I have never seen my son so excited in FHE, he loved it. To finish it off we looked through a few family pictures, and showed him pictures of his grandpa's and uncles, all the priesthood holders he is related to. That also made him pretty excited. Ever since I've been thinking, maybe we should change the way we do family home evening. A typical one in our home is sing 2-8 primary songs, and then read an article or two out of the Friend. He only cares about the Friend about 50% of the time. Then I saw this, the new nursery manual, and thought hmmm maybe we need that. Then I thought, ahh, nah, ours are fine is he only two.
Then...
I went to regional conference today. When I saw Sister Lant walk in, I thought she is totally going to talk about the new Nursery Manual. I was right. She said it will also be an excellent resource for Family Home Evenings. Then told a story about a 9 year old who was able to prepare a lesson by himself because the book is written in a non complex manner. What stood out to me was she said, "We must have meaningful family home evenings that teach and engage everyone in the family." I have always kind of figured my son got a raw deal being the oldest, because any two years olds after him we won't care if they aren't involved. Apparently that is a wrong thought. This isn't to say I expect my two year old, or any other two years I will have to follow a 20 minute lesson. But my two year does very much enjoy learning about the gospel, so why not try to teach him as much as he can understand.
At the end President Monson spoke, a few things stuck out to me in regards to teaching my two year old. First, "We do not demean the prayer of a little child. For they have more recently been with our Father in Heaven." I don't think I've ever demeaned the prayer of a child, but he said with such boldness that I keep thinking about it. He also said, "If you have small children in the home do not hesitate to teach them from the scriptures, they understand more than we give them credit for." He then talked about a child psychologist who long story short, said age 3 has the most receptablility for teaching. (The psychologist also found, that the way a child learns, changes when they are 8.)
I have sort of been thinking, I should spend more time talking about the gospel with my son, or something, but I keep shying away. But after today, heads of the church, have inspired me to act instead of just thinking. I plan on getting the new Nursery book. Also I've been thinking I need to start reading the Book of Mormon to my son, right now we only do those scripture readers. But he is very receptive every time I read it out loud to him, during my scripture study, but I usually read during his nap, because its the only spare second I have. The other day I started reading to him, and he went and grabbed another Book of Mormon so he could have his own. At that I thought oh I do need to step up in my role as his mother one of his first teachers of the gospel. But I didn't act. Hopefully hearing the Prophet's words, will help me act. Not to say that teaching the gospel to my son doesn't not totally daunt me. I think I barely know it myself how can I teach him? Or how can I read the scriptures to him, I doubt I understand well enough to explain it to him. But if I don't do it who will? Once a week in nursery is not enough.
Not that our current family home evening are bad, but he seems to get more out of when we talk about a simple principle, then when we read a story about an 8 year old. He understands the principle, well as much as a 2 year old's brain can, but he doesn't really understand the stories in the Friend beyond a story that his parents are reading. I can see the difference when we actually teach principles and his receptiveness. Although I think singing the songs with him, is one of the best things we can do with him, a friend of my mine in a Relief Society lesson said, Primary song time is like Gospel Doctrine to the kids, because everything the songs teach. Until all my kids are older, I plan on singing multiple songs with them, well either that or until my son is old enough he complains and detracts from the spirit so I have to sing the songs with the younger kids during the afternoon. If my children don't grow up to be teenagers that complain about family home evening, they will be better kids then there mother was. My other goal is to make a FHE treat every monday night, with my kid during the day. He loves helping in the kitchen. It will give us a reason to do something fun together while daddy is at work, and make FHE something more enjoyable for everyone.

Size correlation to Time

Turns out when I lived in a small apartment I had oodles of time to do whatever I wanted to do. This often was filled with a lot of wasted hours on the internet. Now I never have any time, I barely accomplish one day a post, rarely check my email more than once. I use to check google reader for updated blogs multiple times a day, now I usually only check it every other day. Our house always has some chore that needs to get done, and we always have something else keeping me from that too. Who knew bigger dwellings were so time consuming? (Apparently my grandma.) My visiting teachers before I moved told me bigger house don't look as messy, because you have more space (they both lived in small houses, I think it was wishful thinking on their part.) I do agree my place doesn't always look so tragic, but I would hardly say get a bigger house because it looks less messy, we always have more messes that need to be cleaned up because we have more space. (PS I'm not complaining, more just surprised about my lack of time.) After my baby comes my blog may get very sparse. Then again, if my uterus doesn't calm down, I may have to be on bed rest, in which my oodles of time would come back. (No my doctor did not mention bed rest, but she did seem concerned about my contractions, and there is a definite correlation between my activity level and contractions. Which I didn't notice until she told me to pay attention. And she did tell me to be mindful of activity that causes them, and try to stop. Which means picking up my son is now officially out. I've tried to cut back on picking him up for months, but now after my doctor's concern I guess its out. I always get contractions whether painful or not when I pick him up. A baby a few weeks early would be nice, a baby a few months early would not.)

Food Storage

I received an email from a friend asking how we do food storage. I've been thinking ever since how to response, then I decided to do a post, because although we (my husband and I) are by no means experts, we have started, and we try and sometimes starting is the most intimidating thing. Especially when money doesn't seem very plentiful. Maybe someone else will find it useful too. If I didn't answer the right questions, she can email me back, and ask more or anyone else too.
First off, here is the Church's link to food storage.
A great place to start is 72 hour kits. That is where my husband and I started because our first bishop being married told everyone in his ward to get 72 hour kits. You can buy them, for lots of money. Or you can easily make them. I'm sure googling making 72 hour kits will give you lots of hits. I guess they are suppose to be 96 hour ones though now. My mom bought us some for Christmas one year, but we really need to add them and update them.
Next water is extremely important. Plus easy, its easy to collect water in your closet. Don't buy water in milk jugs because those decompose super quick. Either buy containers made for storage of water, or use things that are heavier like juice and soda plastic containers. If you use those make sure all the sugars are washed off or they will go moldy like ours. We figured that out in the move. We need to do water again, we will have no water to drink if something happens. Hey thanks for emailing me its reminding me of everything I need to do. If you are putting water in old juice containers don't put bleach in it, like you sometimes hear. Our tap drinking water has plenty of preservative chemicals. To me it seems like you could really never have enough water saved up. If you only have one gallon of water per person for 72 hours, you better hope your emergency gets solved quick. Not to mention, hope its not too hot. Water is so important in survival, especially like me being pregnant, I try to drink at least 64 ounces of water a day, in addition to other liquids. So the more water the better.
After that, I would start with short term food storage. My husband was totally ready to do food storage from basically the time we got home of our honeymoon, and I figured you have kids and money first, I was wrong. We started small in the beginning, because that is the way finances work and the way I worked. I hated food storage in the beginning, I thought it was so stupid to buy food to sit in your closet for 40 years. I told Brent we are only buying food we can rotate. So we went to case lot sales and stocked up on can food that we eat. There are plenty of people who can't go out and spend an extra $200 on food that month, so start slow. Looked at what we ate and started with one case or two. I know a lot of areas don't have case lot sales at their local grocery store, because most people in the US don't care about food storage, heck probably most of the people commanded to care don't even care. Just like how I was. We started with the types of can food I make casseroles out of in the winter. Even if it wasn't on some sort of church food storage list. We got things like chili, and corn. I don't know it depends on what you and your family eat on what you would buy. If you don't have case lot sales in the area, watch ads for when can food goes on sale, say like chili, when it drops under a $1 and buy as many as you can afford to get extra that month. Skip one night out at dinner than you normally wouldn't or something. Although this isn't the wheat type stuff that you hear about at church, its extremely useful, because if something happens, like a natural disaster for just a few days you aren't going to want to bust open your wheat. You got to be pretty hungry to want to bust open a gallon size can of pinto beans. I doubt three days of power, and road outages are going to do it. Not to mention, if something changes in your financial situation you also won't want to necessarily get into your long term food storage. Whether someone gets laid off, or you have an unexpected car bill, that you can't really afford, things like cans of chili, or tomato paste and such, that you can make dinners out, can really help offset tight finances. I truly believe food storage is not just for when everyone needs it, but also for when individual family circumstances need it, because its not a year, or month of plenty for the family. To me if something happened like someone losing a job, or someone being out of work for an injury if you had a good supply of food storage, it would be a blessing. Life would seem much better, if you didn't have to go to the bishop and say we need food, as humans I think we like to be self sufficient, and food storage helps in that. So that's first, short term food storage. Obviously you need to rotate things like tomato paste every few years, so we stock up, and use them, then once they are rather low we stock up again. We had a winter of plenty last year, so our short term food storage was barely been touched, so we didn't need to stock up again this fall. Not to mention, its really nice not have to run to the store to make something like burritos or spaghetti. For example my son and I love kraft Mac and Cheese, so what I should do is stock up a little at a time, until I have like a million boxes, because I would be almost positive that my two year old is not going what to eat whats in a 72 hour kit if a disaster happens, and we are still at home. Also Sam's or Costco is a good way to stock up on food storage, even if you don't have a card, usually a family member or a friend is more than happy to take them with you, and let them piggy back on their card. Just make sure you bring cash, because they have to pay for it with their debt card if not. Note on small children and 72 hour kits, make sure you have lots of diapers if case of an emergency.
Long term food storage like wheat is a different story. I hated long term food storage, I told my husband we would not buy anything from the cannery unless I could use it, so wheat was out, we got things like black beans, and potato flakes maybe? I can't remember but two years ago I would have described myself as anti food storage. Kicking my feet the whole time, then I went to fine you can get whatever you want but I'm not apart of it, food storage is your deal. I thought buying a bunch of wheat when you get into your first house, to move from house to house, until all your kids go to college is stupid, and I didn't want to do it. So he started building up supplies. Luckily my husband was faithful in this matter, for my own salvation. I love marriage for that reason. Somethings he is good at, other things I'm good at, hopefully together, it will be good enough. Somewhere in the last 6 months, I've gained a testimony of food storage, and I don't really know how, but I tell my husband when I see wheat on sale and usually tell him to get one more 20 pound bag. In fact I almost bought some without him the other day, but I was worried lifting the bags would give me contractions so I just told him about it. I'm very gratiful that somewhere a long the lines, my heart changed. For a long time I said I won't get things like wheat until I know how to use them. I decided to do it the other way around. I can buy wheat now, and its better to have it, and learn later than not have it, and want to learn. I guess its like paying tithing, we start paying before we understand the law. Our next step personally is learning about grinding it into flour and starting to use it ourselves. If you have wheat I would think you want a manual and a electric grinder. We have a manual, but haven't gotten the electric, electric will take saving they are expensive. But I've heard coffee grinders will grind wheat, those are a lot cheaper, $20-30 at at your local box store but they only will last a few months if you are grind wheat, still a great place to start if you can't afford an electric one. To me you don't need to bake bread every day, to understand your food storage, just be able to, maybe do it a couple of times a month, because to me personally warm homemade bread is like desert. If you don't live somewhere that sells hard wheat at your local grocery store, Distribution services sells these great boxes kits. They are cheap too, we found a lot of time less expensive than what the grocery store sells. I think they even deliever free to your house, I don't know we just drive down the street to Distribution, we are spoiled when it comes to food storage, because of where we live. Other heads up about wheat, if you are planning to use it one day, you should prepare now, because it has too much fiber to go from never eating it to eating it every day. It will make you rather sick.
Also you may think we can't do food storage we don't have space. That's not true. You can get very creative with storage, or just take over one of your child's bedroom walls like we did in our last place. If something happens, and we are told by our priesthood leaders to use food storage I don't think our lack of space will be a good excuse. Not to mention, hopefully we never have to use food storage, I would die a happy women if I never had to break open my boxes of wheat. That doesn't mean we aren't still suppose to collect it. Whether something happens or not, I still think we will be held accountable for it when we die. The thing that just popped into my head, is from the parable of the talents, in Mathew 25, when he says, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord." (Although don't quote that as doctrine) To me, saying I don't have room or money, is no better than the servant who hid his talent in the ground because he was scared.
Hey, emailer this probably way more than you wanted, and don't think this is all directed at you. Its not really directed at anyone. Just a bunch of thoughts in general. You, is a rhetorical term.
Hopefully this was useful information to the emailer and also to other people. It probably has more than just one person was looking for, but I figure hey maybe other people are interested. I by no stretch of means think I'm expert, this is just the road we have taken for food storage since we got married.

Week long

This is my week long assessment of Palin. Maybe longer than a week, how every long she has been in the news, two weeks? As you probably know, my husband and I were/are big Ron Paul supporters. I say were because he is no longer in the race, but are is more accurate word, we still support his views and voting record. When Palin showed up we thought hey maybe she is young enough in the political world (I mean by years of experience not age) that she hasn't been corrupted yet. We didn't make any judgement calls at first, we thought we should read about her for a while. I read quite a bit about Obama before I made a decision on him, he seems like a nice guy, but his views and my views don't exactly coincide. I like the free market a little to much to support him in my opinion, although he is very skilled at public speaking. I haven't read nearly as much about Palin but, I got a sour taste in my mouth that I just don't think I'll ever be able to shake. The Time Magazine, said as mayor she tried to get the librarian to ban books. The librarian was appalled as was I when I read it. I don't know what books she wanted to ban, (I don't think she accomplished that task) but in my mind see a group of angry parents saying books written by authors such as Mark Twain are bad. And well that comes down to my entire decision. How can I support someone who might not like Mark Twain? She might not be against Twain, but I never have wanted to support McCain, so its easy not to support her, since that is her job to be McCain's running mate. I don't like McCain's voting record. I also get angry when the newspaper reports on American military causalities in Iraq, and since he is in support I can't support him. Nothing makes me more angry about American politics than deaths in Iraq, in my opinion there is never a reason to start a preemptive war. You might disagree, which is fine, but I will never support a preemptive war.
Anyway back to Palin, the news media like to make her out as McCain's mistake in acting too fast. I disagree, it he getting so much publicity because of her. I doubt any of it was a mistake. Any publicity is good publicity when most voters vote based on name recognition and not issues. Research shows mud slinging ads against a competitor do more good for the competitor than the one paying for the ad, because all that matters in an American election is name recognition. Which is part of the reason our beloved Ron Paul didn't do very well, his name is not well know.

state fair

My kid and I went to the state fair on Monday, with some cousins, and my kid's aunt, and one of her friends. I haven't been to the state fair since I was kid, every since they gave fall break, instead of state fair day. The state fair is kind of weird, you walk around and either look at animals or arts and crafts. I didn't know what to expect, but now you know. We had fun though. I was impressed my son was the one that wanted to pet the sheep. Sometimes real animals can be intimidating. The cows were really big. I felt bad for some of those poor dairy cows, they looked like they could use a good milking, but man their were bodies were huge.
Mmm, cotton candy. I should have done a movie instead of a picture, he was scarfing it down.
Isn't he cute in his little hand's farms outfit? I thought he was adorable.
Milking the cow. The other two partial faces are his cousins.
My son absolutely loves this older cousin. Nothing like a boy 10 years older than you, to worship. I think he is probably the favorite, at least on this side. This statue thing is made all from butter. Crazy huh?This was by far the weirdest art and craft. A barbie Winnebago made out of that yarn stiff stuff. Some of the arts and crafts were really impressive and neat, and other, I thought...how did this make it to the state fair.

Pink?!

We decided we wanted to paint our living room, since we painted our dining room, since they share an open wall. The dining room needed to be painted, and the living room looked fine, but once the dining room was painted, the living room looked bad. Which is why I refuse to paint anymore in this house, unless the owner decides to sell the house to me. Which he should do, because I think it would be lovely not to have to move for another 6 years or so. Since the dining room is blue, and the kitchen is green, I figured the only color left, is yellow. I was thinking a nice Tuscan sunrise, (which really means mustard yellow, its very big this fall.)
Turns out, I hated every single paint chip I got at 5 different stores. I kept thinking I just didn't find the right shade, after like 30 paint chips. Until my husband said I hate the mustard colors, and I said yeah me too, but I don't want our living room to look like a baby nursery, which is what would happen if it was light yellow. We decided yellow was out, so we did pink!

And grey for the other two and an eighth of the wall. I was thinking a nice pewter. We called my mom to ask about color combination, because she is good about picking colors for houses to be painted. She told us, be careful about grey because it makes the room feel depressed. My husband didn't want after that, because he doesn't like me depressed. But it was either, gray or pale lemon yellow and plum (over the fireplace). We decided grey would be better for the retail rent value and we like to be good renters. But we did make sure to pick a really light grey to cancel the depression. We absolutely love the grey. Although sometimes I feel like we have two different colors of light blue in our front rooms, but it makes me like the dining room blue way better. See in the picture.
Actually we would have never painted painted our living room pink. That was the primer. At first we really hated the red, but once it dried, it wasn't red orange. It makes me not hate our ugly fireplace, so now I don't have to cover it up. We are going to put a picture in the middle, we just need a frame.
Here is the third wall. I need to hand quilt my first quilted quilt, that is a wall quilt. So I have something on this wall. I'm planning to relearn by the end of the month.

Ups and Downs

Pregnancy is very weird in my opinion. Most of the time, this pregnancy's hormones have made me feel like I'm on cloud 9. Oh yes my body won't stop with the braxton hicks, and yes this baby likes to kick just as much as the last, but isn't the world lovely?! Sure taxes take out way too much of my husband's raise, to the point with our new rental we are making less money, but hey isn't life wonderful?! Yes, thats how my outlook on life is 95% of the time, overly sunny to the point if it was someone other than my thoughts I would want to barf, or at least say, barf and make the action like I did in elementary school. But since I'm overly sunny 95% of the time, I have to be overly negitively emotional the other 5% of the time. Like this weekend when I was trying to tape and newspaper so we could paint, and it wasn't sticking, because I was only taping the newspaper not the wall. Then I started to cry, and my husband looked at me like I was crazy, and I was crazy, I was crying that the I only tapped the newspaper. But oh how life is.
Anyway, after a not so sunny day of braxton hicks, I hate that terminalogy and usually call them contractions, because most definitions say braxton hicks are painless. Well yes, they were painless 2 months ago, 3 months ago, and even a month ago, but they have not be very painless lately. Doctors will tell you braxton hicks can be painful. As far as I can tell the real definition based on my last doctor is if they put you in active labor they are contractions, if they don't they are braxton hicks. Even with that definition I feel like braxton hicks does not do justist to my pain, so I must call them contractions. After a full day of painful contractions basically the whole day, I was very tired last night, and very tired all night long, and very tired in the morning, when my son woke up, as my husband was leaving for work. So I told my husband to send my kid into to me. I heard my husband say, go find mommy in her room. Next thing I know I have a 2 1/2 year old climbing up, I said did you have a good night? yes, did you sleep good? yes, did you have good dreams? yes, then he did it, he laid a big fat kiss on my cheek without being ask. And life again was in seventh heaven, no matter how sore and tired my body was.
Now I'm trying to decided if I want an area run for my hardwood floor living room, or a poncho for my birthday. I really want somewhere comfortable other than a couch and beds in my upstairs like an plush area rug, but once it gets cold I will also want something warm to wear that is attractive, last time my options were my husband's snow coat, or my late grandfather's grey fleece pullover my sister gave to my husband. Life gets dready in the winter.... and cold, the rug will keep my feet warm, hmm, decisions.

Can I cry?

Shopping today was nightmare of nightmares for me. We first stopped at Kid to Kid, to get elastic waist band long pants for my boy. Button and pottying will have to wait until at least next winter, at least only twice a week not every day. (I love baby jeans.) My kid was playing in the walled off play area, and I was shopping in ease, sort of, I never find searching for second hands that fit shopping in ease. When I came back luckily no other kids were playing in there, because there was a huge wet puddle and my son pants were soaking wet. I cleaned up, we bought the pants, and went to the car to change. I changed him, and his shoes and socks were also soaking, but I didn't have extras of those and put him the carseat to drive off. He cried the whole way to the next store, which mind you I got lost on the way because I just moved. He wanted to go play at Kid to Kid again. We went to the grocery store, and he refused to sit in the cart, he kept trying to climb out, I didn't want deal with him falling out, so he won, he got to walk along me. Then he decided he wanted to hold on the cart where I was walking so I lift him up so he could ride on the outside, unfortunatly I hit his lip, so then he was crying because mom hurt him. He didn't care that it was accident. So then I put him sitting on top of the handle for pushing, so he could hug me while I kept pushing the cart. He did want to hug me but this didn't stop him from crying. The whole time I'm having extremely painful braxton hicks. It killed if he even touched my stomach because of the contractions so I'm leaning way far back so he can't reach my belly, which makes my bum stick out far, because I need my neck close to him. And with my maternity jeans that are falling down my stomach lower and lower, I was a sight. Everyone that didn't have kids which was every other customer but one, keep looking at me with this degrading look in their eyes like you chose to be a mother. Finally we finish our shopping trip, and we ran across the street (actually drove, I don't run across streets with a 2 year old) to look at paint chips for my living room. When we get back in the car I wiped something in my eye, or something blew in my eye, I don't know how it got there but boy did it burn. The whole way home my eye felt like it was on fire, and it was watering up the wazoo. At one red light I try to find what is bothering my eye, and I manage to pop out my contact. Then I really started getting worried. Luckily I got it back in before the light turned green. Once we get close to our house, I took the wrong turn lane so I was about to turn into Firestone tires instead of my neighborhood, luckily I was able to get on the road. But then when I did turn for my street, the 2 1/2 dozen eggs sitting on my back seat, went sliding, and start to fall on the ground out of the container. Oh at the point I though please someone either shoot me now, or hire a nanny for the rest of the afternoon. Luckily the eggs didn't break, I don't think I could stand that, the smell of raw eggs in my car for months, so I am very extremely gratiful they didn't break. And the other luckily is that we were home, so life went on, needless to say when my son went down for his nap, I also took a nap.

For your weekend enjoyment

I have nothing post, but if you haven't noticed I like to post daily during the week. Since its Friday I didn't want to go three days. So here it is, a song that has been in my head since I did 10 songs.
Roller Derby Queen by Jim Croce, my favorite line is, "And the roller derby program said, That she were built like a 'fridgerator with a head "
My husband's saturday morning music is often his Jim Croce stuff, so that's why its here for your weekend enjoyment.

Here are the lyrics so you can read along:

Gonna tell you a story that you won't believe
But I fell in love last Friday evenin'
With a girl I saw on a bar room T.V. screen

Well I was just gettin' ready to get my hat
When she caught my eye and I put it back
And I ordered myself a couple o' more shots and beers

Chorus:
The night (you know) that I fell in love with a Roller Derby Queen
(Round and round, oh round and round)
The meanest hunk o' woman
That anybody ever seen
Down in the arena

She were five foot six and two fifteen
A bleached-blonde mama
With a streak of mean
She knew how to knuckle
And she knew how to scuffle and fight

And the roller derby program said
That she were built like a 'fridgerator with a head
Her fans call her "Tuffy"
But all her buddies called her "Spike"

(Repeat Chorus)
Bridge:

Round and round, go round and round (3 times)

Well I could not help it
But to fall in love
With this heavy-duty woman
I been speakin' of
Things looked kind of bad
Until the day she skated into my life

Well she might be nasty
She might be fat
But I never met a person
Who would tell her that
She's my big blonde bomber
My heavy handed Hackensack mama

(Repeat Chorus)
(Repeat Bridge)

ma, I sorry

When my son has an accident I want to be mad. Not violent angry, just mad so he knows its bad. As I clean up the mess he sits there in shame and says, "ma I sorry" as clear as day. He keeps repeating it until I acknowledge his sorrow. How can be mad at a child with his head down and shame written on his face, that says, "Ma I sorry"? Today I was washing undies in the toilet (Sorry if you don't have a toddler and find that utterly disguisiting, if it makes you feel better your mom probably did it when you were a toddler.) He thought it was funny, I said very sternly, this is not funny, it is bad to have an accident. He immediately stopped laughing never to start again, saying, "I sorry" "Ma" Ma?" (are you listening?) I responded yes, then he said once again "I sorry." He seems genuinely sorry, so how can I be upset with him? It makes me want to wash my hands and hug him, instead of being annoying how gross it all is.

Labor Day

How did you labor on Monday? We painted.
We weren't planning to paint yet we just went to look at some more colors, because we didn't like we paint chips we had gotten earlier. But we decided to buy the paint and do it, because of the sale ending that day. We did most of the painting while our kid was sleeping during his nap.The finished product.
This is the dining room where we eat because the kitchen is not equipped for a table.The homeowner told us we could paint. The dining room looked awful, so I figured why not paint. But now we have to paint the living room that is attached, the rooms only have 3 walls each. After that I'm done painting, the whole downstairs is in desperate need of paint, but I'm not painting any of it, because once one room gets painted the rest do, and I don't to paint the whole house if I don't own it.
View from our kitchen. The kitchen is green was painted before we arrived.

More of the same

For the sake of my history, I have to make another potty training update. My son has finally learned to pee standing up. This is a very big deal to me. When he is doing the potty dance, and I ask him if he has to go potty, he now says, "go potty like daddy". By the way if anyone has any 3T boy sweatpants they want to give my son, feel free. I won't stand in your way.
He is quite the stinker though (no pun intended) he now knows when he has a pull up on or a diaper on, and knows he doesn't have to go in the bathroom not to leak on the floor. He doesn't like to take off his diaper after he wakes up, but I made the rule you can't eat without big boy pants, and he is quite hungry when he wakes up so it works. Brent says to him, you finally learned to be lazy like the rest of humans. The other day he had a pull up on, because we had just got home, I asked if he had to go potty, he said yes, then quickly said no, no, no, repeatedly. He remember he had a pull up on, I told him if he didn't go potty I would eat his potty treat. (Not that I really want one m&m that has been in the bathroom for weeks.) He quickly said, no, go potty, my potty treat. Which means since he has discovered how to be lazy, I have to not be lazy now. No more pull ups at stores, he almost always comes home dry, I just don't want to deal with an accident in the store. Not to mention he tells me when he has to go in stores.
But church that is a different story. Still no progress on that front. I decided I was just going to tough it out, have him wear underwear, and go to nursery with him. If I saw he had to go, I would take him, until he got use to the fact, we aren't wearing pull ups anymore. Then Sacrament meeting happened. I THOUGHT he was doing the potty dance, so I asked him if he had to go potty. He said no. Then a few minutes later he said go potty. We then sat in the bathroom for almost 15 minutes. I think he just didn't want to sit in sacrament meeting. If he has to go, it never takes me longer than 5 minutes to get the urge again. Finally I made him leave the bathroom, he was crying, but I was going insane. Plus I have to teach him bathroom is not a way to avoid church meetings, its for peeing and then leaving. He was still crying in the hallway, and there was no where to sit, and I can't hold him long, being rather pregnant now. So I told him he could stop crying and come sit in sacrament meeting with mommy, or daddy would hold him in the hall. He stopped crying. (He is not allow to play in the hall, he has to be held that's the rule, so he wants to be in the meeting instead. He has quiet toys at the pew.) Needless to say after such a disaster, I lost my gumption to do underwear at church next week. Whats another few weeks of no potty training at church? We only have about a half a million pull ups. It takes a long time to go through them, because he rarely pottys in them, so we have a HUGE stock pile. Before potty training it would have taken less than a month to use that many diapers, but after potty training, that many pull ups looks like a huge stock pile.
In other potty training news, unfortunately for my laundry, my son loves prunes. Like huge raisins but sweeter. I thought only two a day would be fine, after a week or so, it added up, we got rid of the prunes.

A book from the children's section

The Magic Thief: Stolen by Sarah Prineas

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I think its a 3 star book, but if I'm judging it by the fact it is juvenile fiction, and written for children, it seems to be 4 star. I got this book while my son was picking out picture books in the kids section of the library. I enjoyed it more than I expected. I thought it had in interesting twist on the magical chosen one. It seemed to mix the way magic is, with how we study science. I would recommend it as a good children's chapter book.

10 songs

Shannon added at the end of her post, "I hope others of you pick this up and decide to do it on your blogs as well." So am going to do it. I am starting from when I went to college, but really from when I met Brent. I had songs I liked with roommates or what not, but they really haven't stuck, like the songs that I related to during life with Brent. I guess this is the soundtrack of my life with Brent over the last 5 years. (Warning, the music videos might not be g rated, I don't know I don't think I watched any of them. I just listened while other windows were open.)

1. Blink 182- I Miss You
I've already blogged about this song. But a quick recap, the song came out when my husband and I were friends. And it always made me think of his, because he was "already the voice inside my head". It made me furious, I hated that I liked him so much, and he claimed not to like me. In my opinion he shouldn't have talked to me so much, and hung out with me so much, if he didn't like me, and was dating other girls. The most annoying part was when I tried to avoid him, he was always around.

2. Counting Crows- Accidentally in Love
This song is actually pretty annoying, but yet its on the soundtrack of Brent and I. Shrek 2 was one of the first dates we went on, when we started dating. I swore it wasn't a date, because we were only friends. (See previous song, Brent had made it very clear we were only friends 5 months previous) He said one guy one girl, dinner and movie is a date. Anyway, we accidentally fell in love, I really never planned it, in fact I spent probably 8 months (not consecutively) trying to make sure it wouldn't ever happen.

3. Jim Croce - Time In A Bottle
Soon after Shrek 2 we started talking on the phone every night, in comparison to talking online every night. If it wasn't for Brent not have Internet in his apartment, I'm sure I would have never upgraded to phone conversations. After we would get off the phone, he would text message me at night. There are only so many ways you can say, I love you on text messages, without saying the word love. For a few nights he kept sending me stanzas of this song. He said sorry its lame, but I was so smitten, I loved it. Here are the lyrics. I don't know stanzas he sent but all of the lyrics remind me of my husband.

4. Postal Service - To Such Great Heights
That summer I was a big fan of The Postal Service. I was so in love, I was sure this stanza was written for me and Brent, (since we both have freckles)
"I am thinking it's a sign that the freckles
In our eyes are mirror images and when
We kiss they're perfectly aligned"

5. Brad Paisley - Ain't Nothing Like
For the 4th of July when we were dating, we stayed at my parents house, and watched the DC and Philly show on the the TV with my dad. It was a much better show than anything my parents town would have come up with. Brad Paisley performed in one of the cities, and sang this song. And I remember sitting in my parent's overstuffed chair, thinking it true... Ain't nothin' like finding that man, that you know you're gonna love for the rest of your life. I also remember thinking oh we'll have' a bunch of young'ns, run screamin' through the sprinkler in their little bare feet. I have now witnessed that little young'n run screamin' through the sprinkler in his little bare feet, while my husband and I sit on the porch swing laughing.

6. Howie Day - Collide
Fast forward our engagement and the first 4 months of marriage. I got pregnant, 5 months after our wedding. I was sick all the time, really sick, like not able get out of bed. Plus I got prenatal depression. And life was not happy. I had fallen down, and the stars were not shining. This obviously put stress on my brand new marriage. I remember driving to work, stopping at stop light and crying when I heard this song, because of my hormones. Since that, this sort of became my first pregnancy anthem, and recovering from being sad, and recovering from being a terrible wife.

7. Josh Gracin - Brass Bed
That summer we were living in Altanta. Not only was I everything above, but my husband was working 12+ hour a days, and often also working on Saturday. During the week, he would leave before the sun came up, and come after it had set. With me not feeling well I really wanted my husband around, but the more I complained (hence the terrible wife comment above) the more he couldn't handle me. I usually only saw him for about an hour at night, before we went to bed. Ever morning he would get up to get ready for work, I wanted him to stay in bed with me, even though I was so nausea I could barely get out of bed. The bed frame we slept in was a brass bed. (That will horrify anyone who ever has, and who ever will in the future sleep in that bed.) But he always had to leave, to go pay for the next year of college.

8. Counting Crows - Hanging Around
Fast forward and my son has been born, and at least 6 months old. I was in school 12 credit hours a week, and my husband was in school either 15-18 hours, and working as many hours as his boss would give him, which never exceeded 25. In the late afternoons, when I really needed a break, but no break was coming for awhile, Jobo and I would turn on music, rather loud. Hoping it wouldn't annoy Pam upstairs. My choice of music at the time was Counting Crows, everyday we would listen to Counting Crows, first song being Hanging Around. It became my son and I song, when it comes on now, he smiles knowing its he and his mommy's song.

9. The Smiths - The Boy With the Thorn in his Side
This I already blogged about, remembering my husband singing along to the Smiths, to impress his wife. And boy did it impress me, the memory still impresses me.

10. Colbie Caillat - Capri
My husband actually does not like this song, but in his defense he didn't know I've become hormonally attach to it. I heard this song right before I got pregnant, and once I got pregnant, I loved it, just because I'm hormonal like that. If Collide is the anthem for my first pregnancy, I guess this is the anthem for my second. I would have thought about the name capri, if I didn't think everyone say, like the pants. So it quickly got voted off before I even mentioned it to my husband.

9 days, shy of 6 months

I bought two new pairs of maternity pants. I heard full panel is were its at for the third trimester. Old Navy has an interesting opinion of full panel, the jeans are not full panel, maybe the khakis can be defined full. I didn't really have maternity jeans last time, although I did have maternity black pants (I wore them WAY too often, especially with my white tennis shoes), maternity cords, and some interesting jean experiments. For a long time I wore my fat jeans, from my freshman 15 keeping them unzipped with a rubber band around the button until I got too big. I love my new maternity jeans, I only have one pair of jeans that I look better than this in, when I'm not pregnant. Especially with a shirt like this, I barely look pregnant.

My husband took this many pictures and I decided they were all help to get a full visual of what my baby bump looks like.

The khakis don't look quite as good. But they still make me wish old navy maternity would have had longs in pants 3 years ago. (They have recently add longs to their online collection for non maternity women, making me excited to try them out in 4 months, hopefully as a low cost option in comparison to Gap longs.)

This outfit I look quite a bit more pregnant in, at least from the correct angle.

In case you didn't read the title I'm 9 days shy of 6 months in these pictures. Only 99 days to go.