some things never change...

yesterday was my birthday and i am 26...but i haven't felt any different since i was about 19.

kendall is the same awesome person he has always been, just better...he gets better with age.

ethan still likes to cuddle and i just sang my big almost 3 year old boy to sleep, holding him in my arms. he was so tired and fighting sleep, and i just scooped him up and tried it.

my family is a great support to me and always has been, thank you Arizona family, and my mom and dad and sister for making my birthday wonderful.

thanks dear void for listening.

where the heck is jen?

hmmmm...good question. with kendall home during the day it's hard to get my blogging in:) we've been doing lots of family things while he's home, to stock up for when he starts work at Squire Sanders on Wednesday. He is on a campout with the Young Men ("Daddy's on a camp over with the Young Mens" according to Ethan)so now's as good a time as any.

i've recently completed a long overdue project for Avery's room. She has been sleeping inbetween two bed-sized pillows since she was tiny because A. that's how she liked to snuggle and B. anything that helped her sleep and also didn't kill her we allowed, pretty much. and if you really want to regale me with all the dangers of babies sleeping in cribs with pillows and other stuff...i know. But sometimes it's okay. and we checked on her a lot in the beginning and throughout her sleeping, so thank you for your sincere concern, she's doing fine:) but i really want the use of those bed pillows when and if we have company over so i got some travel size pillows for avery and recently made covers for them to match her quilt i made her. see the finished product below. i think they turned out cute.





Avery continues in her quest to be the smallest walking person you've ever seen...she isn't walking yet but she pulls up on everything, everywhere, anything that will stay still long enough for her to get her feet under her. today she pulled herself up to standing without holding onto anything, just my hand on her back, kind of. she is very scary. here are pics of her in her crib...




and finally, i got a new pair of glasses and here is a rather bad self-portrait,



but i think they are nice, kind of olivey green. i like em...now my eyes can have a rest...anyway, we aren't up to too much mischief...just our normal mischief:)

The Host...

i finished it tonight...so good. pretty twisty and sometimes i held my breath...come on, that's a good book people!

read it.

Happy Day to Moms

happy mother's day to all you mothers out there! this is probably the hardest job i've ever had but it is so worth it. i love these children i have, they are wonderful little people and they teach me new things everyday, in fact they teach me how to be a better mother.

i'm with Alacey in my excitement over this book, kendall got it for me for mother's day!

so all the book clubbers...now i have it too, and when i'm done i'll let you know!

i also got this book


which has some reall fun and easy projects in it that i think will be really cool to make! so i am excited about that too! what a great day!

i hope all you mothers out there had a great day as well!

Economic Stimulus

so...we got a new bed....and new mattresses, and by golly, i am getting new bedding too. we have had the same bedding since we got married, and it is woeful now, 5 1/2 years old and our bed was secondhand when we got it and the mattresses were cheap as well...needless to say it's a changing day, as doctor phil would say. the mattresses won't be in until friday, so for now we are sleeping on our futon because we got rid of our old mattresses yesterday...we wanted to make a complete break. we also sent our old headboard to Salvation Army. feels good. i am excited to have new bedding. anyone seen anything amazing that i should get? i really want to stay away from red with this black bed...so maybe something torquoise and apple green, or something relaxing yet energizing...citrus? so many options.

TOOTH

avery is finally getting a tooth...whew! it really started to come in on sunday, but saturday it was brewing for sure, because she was up a lot in the night. needless to say she is very upset about how this process works but is getting more used to it, i think. she hasn't bit me yet, and really doesn't seem to want to let anyone touch it, so maybe that's good. that will probably wear off, but for now, i am happy that the days-away-from-9-months baby has gotten her first tooth...on the bottom, left.

strangeness...

there are some things that are so inexplicable to me that i can't even get my head around it.

one of them is what lurks in the mind of an almost 3 year old someone who lives in my house.

a few examples:
-he regularly screams in the car for no reason, just not making any noise and then BAM! screaming...why? usually avery is trying to sleep. nice.

-yesterday we went to the grocery store, i can now do that alone with two children, but by the time we leave everyone within a 3 mile radius knows his name...anyway, he likes to play this game...it's called running down the aisles, which frankly i don't mind because he needs to get some energy out and when we go it's not usually crowded...get to the point jen...well i've almost got him trained to wait at the end of the aisle for me, so he usually does, but this day he was running AND screaming down the aisle, causing some panic in our fellow shoppers. and that's the end of that story..anticlimatic, i know.

-we are at the checkout in wally world (wal-mart) and there are always these dog toys or baby toys, mostly dog toys, by the register he likes to play with and that's fine...no dogs have chewed them yet, so i'm trying to get all our groceries on the belt, keep avery content and watch ethan and it's going well. but suddenly out of the corner of my eye i see ethan holding a dog toy that looks like a small tire (about 8 inches round) on the end of a rope...and then it's not in his hands, but sailing over the division of the checkout lines, diagonally....so i go looking for it, and i say, "did anyone see a dog toy fly over here (really sounding stupid now)" "yeah," says a lady, " IT HIT ME IN THE HEAD"

what do you do in a situation like that? i mean really, i wanted to laugh and say, "Man the kid's got an arm!" but instead i said, "i am so sorry", hauled ethan over to apologize and had him put the toy away and then talked to him about why we have to be careful and not throw things in the store. and now i look like the young mom who can't keep her kids from acting like zoo animals...great.

avery is doing very well, she's discovered the delights of pasta and grapes, she loves them. i can see this becoming a trend. still no teeth but she gets by. she is crawling like crazy and now has started really trying to pull herself up on you and anything that will be still long enough for her to get her feet under her. so that's fun:)

on the odd chance you are still reading this very long post about my children, ethan is now obsessed with 101 dalmations, which he has seen all of 1 time but we do have a book that we read about 12 times a day. he is always talking about Cruella, Horace and Jasper, and the dalmation puppies. all of his pretending revolves around them right now and we have all been trying to be puppies and run away from the scary Cruella.