3 Wheelers

Dreamy Belle Photography

2012-01-30T13:34:00.000-08:00

On Friday Benton and I met up with Jessica of Dreamy Belle Photography and had some amazing pictures taken. She started sending me the pictures later that day! I couldn't believe how fast I got to see them. It was such a cold morning, and Benton was having a hard time smiling (which he normally does all the time) so I was impressed that she was able to get so many great photos. Here are a few of them.

This one I used as my new blog header, he just looks so cute!

He definitely liked that he got to swing, that and the skittles that were used as bribery near the end.

Doesn't it look like a cold morning?

I think Jessica did such a great job. You can see a few more (there may or may not be pictures of my big belly) on her Dreamy Belle Photography blog.

A Bumper and a Skirt

2012-01-28T13:24:00.000-08:00

Remember how I had that goal of finishing the crib set this week? I actually achieved that! Thursday night I finished the crib bumper and the crib skirt. That was a great night. Dallin came into the room as I was finishing and I said to him that the baby can come anytime now since his crib set is complete. He replied, "Hopefully not, I will still have to work." Ok, baby please don't come early. Not that I thought he would! I am still planning on a few days late.

So let me tell you a little bit about the fabric first. A few months ago I decided on a gray and white theme. It wasn't until just recently that I added the Sunshine to it. I really wanted to get a fabric that could be the focal piece of the room since I wasn't having a theme that you can decorate around like and animal, boats, or cars. I really wanted this fabric to be bold and stand out. Naturally I headed to JoAnn's to see what they had. I left the store quite disappointed. They didn't have anything close to what I had in mind. So next I went to Mill End in Beaverton, that trip ended with the same result. At this point I started to get nervous.

What is the next thing to do? Look online. After hours of searching with finding a few things that might work but I didn't really like I stumbled upon Spoonflower. Have you ever heard of that website? I hadn't, but since then I have heard about it a lot! It is a great site that you can design your own fabric and have it printed. Quite genius. You can also design fabric to sell. While browsing though their gray options I found the perfect fabric! I really wanted something white with a gray design that was simple and bold. But there was one problem, the print was too large, it wouldn't work for the bumper. So I contacted the designer Honey & Fitz and asked her to re-size the print so I could use it. She did! How awesome is that? So this little boy has a custom designed custom made nursery set. Fancy huh? You can check out the other fabric she has designed here if you want.

Here is the crib all put together.

Isn't that fabric great?

It is so nice to have something that you picture in your head turn out exactly how you want it. I simply love this crib set.

Can you see my little helper?

He kept pointing to the crib and saying "baby". Yep bud, that is for the baby.

Now we have just a few more touches to make the room complete.

Curtains

2012-01-26T12:43:00.000-08:00

Did you know that it is almost impossible to find gray curtains at a store? Ok, probably not impossible but I went to at least 6 different places and no one had plain gray curtains. I really didn't want to make them, but I ended up deciding that would be by best option or else I would end up keeping the outdated hunter green ones that I have disliked since we moved in.

I wasn't looking for anything fancy, so I knew they would be fairly easy to make. And they were for sure. Dallin helped me hang the new curtain rod last night. He also helped me get the crib in the room and move out all of Benton's toys. It is finally starting to look like a little nursery.

When the light shines though them they look a little mauve, but believe me they are gray (faint pink lighting is pretty calming I have found out, I kind of like it).

The curtains aren't too exciting, but they are done and we are one step closer to being prepared for the little guy.

A Quilt for my Baby

2012-01-24T15:19:00.000-08:00

The first part of this little boy's crib set is finally finished, and it feels so good! It took me a long time to decide how to decorate the room and after a while I finally ended up deciding on a nursery decorated with "You are my Sunshine". Most of the room will be gray and white with little touches of yellow everywhere. Originally I was going to paint gray and white stripes on the walls but decided that I was running out of time and there were other things I wanted to focus on. Plus my inspiration photo was being pinned (or already pinned) to everyone I know on Pinterest. So we are keeping the neutral beige walls and going from there.

I have never been very big on super babyish decorations. Like cartoon airplanes and such. I would much prefer real vintage airplanes (which will be Benton's big boy room when I get around to decorating it). So for this baby I wanted to go a little modern, use clean lines, and keep it simple. I think this Pottery Barn inspired quilt fits that perfectly.

It was quite simple to make, and the quilting was easy too. I goofed when sewing on the binding so I ended up having to hand stitch the backside (which is the more traditional way of doing it). I always used my machine to sew the binding on but after hand sewing it, I might do it more often! It takes quite a bit longer but it ends up looking so much better I think. I am really glad that I made that mistake and blind stitched the binding on this quilt.

As you can see my quilting lines aren't as straight as they probably should be, that is what I get for not drawing lines. But I still really like the way the diamonds turned out in the middle of the quilt.

Well, there is my baby's quilt. I can't wait to snuggle him up in it. There will be many more projects coming soon!

The Final Countdown

2012-01-21T21:44:00.000-08:00

It was mentioned that I don't really blog about this pregnancy very much. I have been meaning to write down a few things for a while and now seems like the perfect time. So far this pregnancy has been pretty easy. I remember taking a nap almost everyday during the first trimester and having no morning sickness. I did have motion sickness though, weird right? So from the first few weeks on I started driving instead of Dallin. That eased up a bit when I entered the third trimester though. With Benton I definitely wanted sweeter things while this pregnancy is all about salty savory foods. I also have had no real cravings this time. Maybe one time I had to have salty potatoes, but that is it.

It feels like I have been pregnant for a very long time but it is also hard to believe that I only have two to three weeks left. Am I ready? No. I have a list of things to do before the baby comes and rather than it shrinking it keeps growing! Though the last few days have finally felt progressive. I almost finished the baby's crib quilt and bumper, but haven't started the crib skirt or the curtains. My goal is to have the nursery put together this week (I bet you can't wait to see it huh? Stay tuned for lots of posts over the next few weeks). Once that is ready I will feel much more prepared for this sweet little boy to enter the world.

That still wasn't too much about the pregnancy, but that is all I have for now. We are so excited to have another little boy in our family and I promise to blog a lot (a lot) about him. You might be overloaded with pictures really. Fair warning...

Me Time

2012-01-19T22:41:00.000-08:00

Over the holidays we ate lots and lots of goodies and treats. It seemed like we kept getting more chocolate everyday. I don't even want to know how many calories I consumed a day during that time. With the start of the New Year we got rid of everything (and took it to my sister's house, lol). I decided no sweets until the baby comes. Dallin decided to try it with me. Because of this Benton got dragged into doing it too I guess. We try not to give him too much anyway.

I did save a few pieces of chocolate for Benton, I give him one every few days. These photos are of Benton having his little me time on the kitchen floor with his lone piece of chocolate.

You can see him very carefully picking up his garbage.

hmmm.... is that a chocolate beard?

ahh, there is some chocolate on his hands!

Just try to lick that all off buddy, get all the chocolate you can.

I hope you enjoyed that chocolate bud, it sure looks like you did.

Just a little snow

2012-01-19T17:02:00.000-08:00

We love it when we get snow around here. Probably because it only happens about once a year, if that. After a super dry winter we have finally received some moisture. It started with snow early this week and has now turned to rain. The seven day forecast is rain, with more rain. It doesn't seem so bad after it being so dry though!

The first time it snowed it didn't stick, but on Tuesday morning we woke up to white covered ground. We knew we had to act quickly before it melted! We got all bundled up and headed out in the cold. There was even enough snow to make a snowman. We went with a Benton sized one this time. Here he is showing off our snow creation.

He decided that he'd shared the hat with the snowman long enough and it was his turn.

Unfortunately he can't wear two hats at the same time.

Just a few short hours later the snow was gone, probably not to be seen again until next winter. Thanks for making an appearance and allowing Benton to break in his new snowsuit. Who knows, maybe next year we will get him some snow gloves, do you think that will help it to snow twice?

One Great Week

2012-01-18T23:09:00.000-08:00

Last week was pretty great at our house. Dallin took the whole week off and we spent lots of time together as a family doing just about everything we could fit in. We started off by going swimming on Saturday. Benton sure loves the water, and the water slide! On Monday we spent the day moving our guest bedroom into our office so we can use that room as the nursery. I am pretty sure I am in full blown nesting mode so that day was pretty awesome for me.

We spent Tuesday morning at the zoo. We decided that as adults the zoo is cool once ever 5 years or so, but as a kid you could go every month and love it. It is fun seeing Benton get so excited about seeing all the different animals. Here he is checking out the polar bears.

We didn't take the camera with us anywhere, we just used our phones so the quality isn't the best. Here are a few more of the fun things we did last week like swinging at the park.

Dallin and Benton spent some time at Lowes.

We had to stop by the Children's museum for a day. This was by far Benton's favorite area.

They had a lego castle exhibit, it was awesome!

We also visited family, went to wunderland, and loved every minute we had together! It was great to spend some time just the three of us before we welcome our new little guy into the family.

Dinner Conversations

2012-01-11T22:28:00.000-08:00

Let me preface this statement with informing you all that Benton loves eating rice. After a friend mentioned that she did it, I started forming rice into little balls (using a 1/2 teaspoon) so he can easily pick them up and eat them. He shovels those things into his mouth like no other food. Now that you know that, let me tell you something that was actually said (by Dallin to Benton) at our dinner table tonight.

"You can have more broccoli after you eat some more rice."

hummmm..... I guess I should make broccoli more often!

Favorites

2012-01-10T22:17:00.000-08:00

When Benton was younger I used to write down his favorite things, and the new things that he was doing every month. Once he was a year old that ended. I think it is time for a little update on Benton's favorite things right now, at 21 months old.

His favorite word is probably owie. I am pretty sure he knows what it means because when he falls and scrapes his hands he says owie. But he also says it for everything else! When I am putting his pants on and he doesn't want me to, owie. When he doesn't want to get into his car seat, owie. I guess it is better than hearing no all the time right?

Since we are talking about words, he can say so many these days! His vocabulary is increasing everyday and he can repeat most of the words we ask him to. It just takes time for him to actually understand what they mean and use them on his own. We took him to the zoo today and he learned the words cougar, eagle, and elephant.

Benton's favorite store is Lowes. The other day Dallin and I were talking while Benton was playing with a toy on the floor. He wasn't paying any attention to us as he hammered away. I asked Dallin if he wanted to go to Lowes to which Benton looked up and quickly said, "Yes, Lowes". It was so funny! He loves everything from the wrench aisle to the big carts he can push around.

I am pretty sure that Benton was made to have siblings. Which is great since he is going to have one next month! I think this because he loves to be around other kids. Loves it! He can be super cranky and while it seems that nothing will help all I have to do is bring him somewhere that has other kids and he is a happy camper. He also loves babies. My oldest sister who has baby Asher came over just to pick something up so the baby was in the car with the rest of the family. Benton was super sad that he didn't get to see the baby. We had to go outside to say hi. I hope this is the case with his brother.

He still prefers to be outside, no matter how cold it is. I swear his nose could freeze off and he wouldn't notice. Yes I do dress him as warmly as possible but there is little you can do for those noses!

His favorite book is The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear. It is a little board book that I have completely memorized because of how often we read it.

Benton likes things to be in their rightful place. This doesn't however, apply to his toys (or his toys are meant to be anywhere and everywhere). We are trying to get the nursery ready so yesterday we moved our guest bed into the office. He wasn't sure what to think about that. I also moved a chair so I could stand on it to reach something and when he noticed it was gone he wasn't going to let it go until it was back in it's place. My favorite part about this is when he sees garbage anywhere he picks it up, says, "garbage" and goes and throws it away. Yes!

A couple of months ago I started "chill time" with Benton. Basically whenever I noticed that he was getting close to losing it, but before he did anything to get in trouble or throw a fit, I would put him in his crib with his binkie and a book. I would tell him it was chill time and he could get out whenever he was ready. The light was left on so he knew that he wasn't expected to fall asleep. It worked really well. After 5 or 10 minutes he would call for me and was ready to play again, a little chill time was all he needed. I started doing it less and less and then we moved him into his big bed. Now, he on occasion will run to his bed and ask to lay down. This happens once or twice a day. The other day he laid in there for 20 minutes! Another day he actually feel asleep two hours before his bedtime. My favorite part is now when he is done he comes running out of his room laughing. I am sure this has been the means for avoiding many melt downs.

He also loves playdough, bowls of cereal, fruit snacks, hammering anything, running, throwing rocks in the river, hammering the lock on the door, going bye bye, helping daddy and hammering. That about wraps it up for now. He is a pretty fun boy and we love spending every day with him.

The New Year

2012-01-09T20:31:00.000-08:00

Want to know what we've done with the new year? Well we've spent a lot of time with this little guy

We've enjoyed watching him make faces

And of course, lots of relaxing.

Here is Benton's "I know there is going to be a bright flash" face.

And the "oh I guess there wasn't a flash" face.

We've also read a lot of books. Not the ones in the background, but still good books.

We've done some baking, Benton enjoyed it the most.

Also some good mess making.

Since the rain has decided to stay away during the day we've spent lots of time outside. Even though it is super cold. I don't think Benton cares... at all!

He just wants to go, go, go!

Well there is a little of what we've been up to so far. I think this is going to be great year.

End of the year pictures

2011-12-29T22:42:00.000-08:00

We haven't been up to much around here, but I do have a few cute photos of Benton to share so here they are.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-26T23:45:00.000-08:00

It was a wonderful, and interesting Christmas this year at our house. We are lucky to live close to my family and so that means every holiday we have a family dinner. This year we were the hosts for Christmas. We decided to have dinner on Christmas eve since we all had church at different times of the day on Sunday. Friday night I ran to the store to pick up the last minute things and made my list of everything to do before family showed up the next day. It was all ready.

Then Saturday morning came... and I was sick. I kept trying to convince myself that I wasn't but whenever I would start moving there was no denying. After talking to all of my family (who have ALL had this same stomach bug and so generously shared it with me) we decided to go ahead with dinner. What was I thinking?! Dallin helped me get the turkey in the oven and then I took a long nap. Dallin, being the great guy that he is, let me sleep and took Benton while he himself started getting sick. Double no fun.

Somehow we managed to set up for dinner and then as soon as my family started arriving we made them do everything. Basically we had the dinner at our house while Dallin and I watched. It was nice because my family was able to entertain Benton for the few hours they were here. Otherwise it might have been movies all day for him, poor guy. We were just grateful he didn't get sick!

I do have to say that it was nice to not worry about anything that day. The turkey wasn't even done and I didn't care. Ok, I probably should have cared about that but it did teach me to calm down a little when hosting, because everything will be fine (my sister brought a ham so there was food to eat).

After a good night sleep we all woke up ready for Christmas. We absolutely loved watching Benton that morning. First he woke up with candy outside his door, he was excited about that!

The flash was a little bright I guess. A moment later he knew there was more going on down the hallway.

Benton got the hang of opening presents really fast and loved everything he got. The first thing he opened were these books, he was pretty excited about the handle on top the the case.

The second gift he opened was a plastic tool set. Do you think he liked it? Well let me tell you...

He immediately picked up the hammer and wouldn't let it go. Then he realized there were more tools!

"Finally, my own tools!"

He then proceeded to open EVERY gift with his hammer. First he had to hammer it to make sure it was good, then use it to rip off the paper. There might have been some more hammering after the gift was opened too.

Some presents needed the saw too.

While he was happy with everything he opened there were a few gifts that actually made him put down the hammer (for about 10 seconds, but still). One of them was a mini keyboard and the other was this tricycle.

He loved ringing the bell, and being pushed around the house.

And then there is this toy. I thought he would like it, but I had no idea he would LOVE it as much as he does.

After opening all the gifts I needed to lay down for a little while and take a nap, I guess I wasn't ready to jump back into life yet. While falling asleep I heard Benton hammering this toy. An hour later when I woke up I heard still heard him hammering. He literally didn't stop the entire time. A full hour of hammering.

But that wasn't even enough. Throughout the day he would sit down and hammer for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, or just a few minutes. I would bet he spent over 2 hours of Christmas hammering this toy. It has the dents and dings to prove it too. It was the best $10 ever spent.

We spent the rest of the day playing with toys, watching a movie and relaxing. It was a wonderful day, and so nice to enjoy time together as a family. We sure love Christmas around here, and not just the presents. It has been so nice enjoying the spirit of the season and remembering what it is all really about. We are grateful for the Savior and for the life he lived for us. It was truly a wonderful day.

Nice weather

2011-12-20T22:53:00.000-08:00

I have heard a joke among missionaries serving in the area about the rain. They say, "It only rains twice a week here in Oregon. Once for three days, and once for four." During most Decembers, this is probably true. But that is not the case this year. It has rained a total of 0.1 inches this whole month! That is almost unbelievable.

In November the rain started and I seemed to move into "it is always raining we don't go outside" mode. Then after a few clear days I finally realized that we need to take advantage of every day that it isn't raining. We took Benton to the Zoo lights without worry of rain, played outside a lot, and have gone on lots of walks to look at the Christmas lights around our neighborhood. All things that we normally wouldn't be doing during the month of December.

I know everyone wants snow for Christmas, but a rain free December is perfectly fine with me.

Such a Big Boy

2011-12-19T22:05:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of growing up going on around here. First Benton sat through an entire sacrament meeting on Sunday. He has been getting better but this time was awesome! We had a snack and a book, that was all. He did so well. It is nice to finally feel like you get something out of church again.

Also on Sunday we set up Benton's big boy bed. I just wanted it in there so he could get used to it but he was ready to sleep in it that night! We tried putting him in his crib and he wouldn't have it. Dallin went in and laid with him on his bed for a minute or two and read a book with him. That was it, he fell asleep with no problem! I was afraid we would have problems with him getting out of bed, we didn't!

I have to admit I was a little nervous about him falling off the bed. It is a twin sized bed and is a good 3 feet off the floor. I kept checking on him but he seemed fine. Then at 1:30 he fell off the end of the end, not the side but the end. I put him back in the bed and he fell right asleep again. About an hour later he fell off the side. I felt so bad. I ended up putting him in his crib after that so he could sleep safely and I wouldn't be paranoid all night.

The next morning I wanted to see what he thought of his big boy bed that he was so excited about the day before. Was he still going to like it? Would he want to sleep in his crib again? Well I asked him about it and he just kept smiling and saying he liked his big bed. He wanted to take his nap in his new bed and did great! Here are a few pictures of him just after he woke up from his nap. I think it is safe to say he loves his new bed.

Showing you how he likes to sleep.

"I just love my bed!"

We are on round two of sleeping in the bed at night. So far so good. I think we might have to look into getting rails or some kind of frame that will keep him from falling off. Any suggestions?

But the growing up doesn't stop there. Today while eating lunch Benton told me he had to go potty. We went into the bathroom and he went number 2 on the potty! I didn't even ask him, he brought it up. Go Benton! When did you get so big?

Throwing Rocks

2011-12-18T21:13:00.000-08:00

I have some catching up to do. We have been back to the Lowes workshop a few times, Benton really loves it. Since Dallin was there I was able to get a few shots of them working on it together.

No, I am not going to post pictures every time we go. But I had to one more time because he just looks so cute in that little apron holding his hammer!

Because you have to have one picture like this... He wasn't a big fan though.

Yesterday we went to the park to walk around for a bit. Nothing exciting but here are a few pictures of Benton while there.

One of Benton's favorite things is to throw rocks into water. What little boy wouldn't love that though right?

There isn't very much going on around here, but we are loving it anyway.

Raking

2011-12-11T21:38:00.000-08:00

Benton has found a new hobby. He loves to rake. Pretty much he loves to re-spread around the leaves that I have just raked up. He sure tries, and he sure loves it!

I have to be careful not to get down low while he has a rake, he almost wacked me here! And later he tried using a shovel (because he has to try using everything that I use you know) and he got really close to wacking me with that one! Of course it wasn't on purpose, he just doesn't know how long the handle is.

The last tree has only a few leaves holding on, after those fall we will have to find another hobby.

A little Christmas

2011-12-09T22:35:00.000-08:00

This Christmas season has been my favorite one so far. I haven't quite figured out why, but I think I have focused a little less on the presents and more on the right things. We had a wonderful church activity that really helped me thinking in the right direction early on. It also is so much fun watching Benton enjoy this season. We set up the tree and decorated it while Benton was sleeping, he loved it when he first saw it. A few days later I saw him walk into the room and say "oooohh pretty tree". It was adorable.

Surprisingly Benton hasn't messed with the ornaments or the presents yet! I am thinking that once he realizes what it inside of them, presents will no longer be safe. Luckily they won't be around for a while after that though. Here are a few more pictures of our tree.

Last year I talked about making stockings but I don't know if I ever posted pictures of them. So here is Benton showing them. Eventually I want to have our names embroidered on the top but they work great for now. They were really fun to make, I am looking forward to making another one for next year. I am thinking a penguin, or maybe a snowman.

We hope that you are all enjoying this wonderful season.

Grin

2011-12-04T21:56:00.000-08:00

What a lovely smile

I know my Calculus

2011-12-02T14:44:00.000-08:00

Benton's first Calculus lesson.

Advent Calendar & Frisbee

2011-11-30T14:41:00.000-08:00

It's official. I have been terrible about taking photos this whole month. I had a goal of taking some pictures of Benton today to post on here and we actually took some. Before nap time too. But first I want to show you my new advent calendar. Two years ago I started this thing, two years. Sometimes it is hard to judge how long a project will take you while you are thinking about doing it. That is something I have tried to take into consideration more and more before I begin a project so I don't end up working on something for as long as I have with this one. The other problem is that it is a Christmas item, which means that as soon as Christmas is over I don't want to touch it for at least 10 more months. So finally here it is, ready the day before the count down starts.

The original inspiration picture was in the shape of a Christmas Tree, however I knew that if I were going to have mine in the shape of a tree it would still be uncut at this moment. Do you know how hard it is to cut out a tree that size? I knew it would look funny (like lots of photos I have seen online) so I decided to just go with a simple shape and actually finish it. Here are some close ups.

I think my favorite one is the penguin.

It is now filled with candy and ready for tomorrow!

For anyone interested in making one of these, just keep in mind that this took no less than 35 hours... I should have just bought one!

And now for the best part of the post, Benton with his Frisbee.

I love that cute little guy.

Build and Grow

2011-11-19T11:49:00.000-08:00

Lowe's offers a free Build and Grow workshop on some Saturdays. I have heard of them but never looked into what they offer. Well this Saturday we decided to go and find out. It was so fun! Here is Benton when we got there, he was anxious to start.

What kid wouldn't want to have a hammer in his hand?

Today's project was a sleigh. When you arrive you get your own apron and sleigh set.

Then the kids get to hammer the nails into place as they put it together. I don't know if Benton could have been happier.

When you are finished they give you a little patch to sew onto your apron so show off all the projects you've completed. We will definitely be going to these workshops more often!

Doesn't he look so cute in that apron?!

Yep, we've found the perfect Saturday morning activity.

Cranky

2011-11-17T15:58:00.000-08:00

The past week and a half haven't been the best at our house. Lots of crankiness and sickness. It all started with the time change, it took Benton a lot longer than I would have thought to get used to it. He slept fine at night but his nap was completely off and he was just cranky. Then he got sick. That was no fun for him. But when we thought we was better he was still super cranky. I mean throwing full on fits and tantrums about everything. I was afraid that this was the new norm. Then Dallin got sick. He said he then understood why Benton was so fussy. Finally today everyone is better. And Benton isn't throwing fits every two minutes anymore, that makes me very happy! Anyway here are a few photos I caught of Benton during a minute that he was somewhat happy.

Some happier posts to come soon.

Baby 2's First Blanket

2011-11-15T22:10:00.000-08:00

After finishing a few more baby blankets to be donated from the material that was given to me I was finally ready to make one for my own baby. I am not anywhere close to coming up with designs (or colors for that matter) for quilts so I always find one that I like to copy. Here is my inspiration photo.

Photo credit

Isn't it lovely? I have to say this is probably the epitome of my style of quilts. I look at so many quilts and think they are too busy. It takes a talented person to sew a quilt with a million pieces and pick the right fabrics, I bet it takes lots of practice. My Mother in law is that way, her quilts are always great. So I will leave those quilts to the talented few who can pull them off and stick with my simple ones. I love solid colors in a quilt, I love stripes, I love simple. That is why I chose this one.

I had to change the colors slightly to what was available at the store but here is my version.

I need to work on getting my layers tighter while I am quilting, but other than that I am really happy with how it turned out. It was really easy to sew, and to quilt. I will admit that I underestimated how long it would take to quilt those lines, but it was worth it. I hope baby number 2 likes it!

Hats

2011-11-08T21:56:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I've posted. Sometimes it just happens. Today I tried to take some pictures of Benton so I would have something to post about. Well he wasn't interested. We went to the park to play and I can usually catch some of him but not today. I think he looked at the camera once... but here are some anyway.

I love seeing him run through this field, he looks so cute.

He loves wearing his winter hats, he sometimes wears them all day. That's fine with me, he looks pretty cute in them I think.

It's Halloween again

2011-10-31T23:21:00.000-07:00

It has been a long, fun filled day. We went trick or treating at a shopping center in the afternoon and Benton got the hang of it really fast. His favorite part was putting the candy in his bucket. That is until he got a sucker, then his favorite part was eating that sucker. We next went to our ward trunk or treat, by then he was a pro at collecting candy. After that we went out door to door with his cousins. We didn't get him to say trick or treat this year, but I have a feeling it might happen soon. Especially if he remembers that is gets him candy. Too bad it won't get him candy until next Halloween...

In between some of that we headed out in the backyard to snap a few photos. I love the leaves that fall in our backyard, the color is wonderful! We will probably be taking some more pictures out there over the next few days.

Here is the little sailor.

Notice the anchor on his shoes?

As soon as I saw this little jacket I thought it was the cutest thing ever! And I loved that it came with the little hat too.

Finally getting to enjoy a well deserved piece of chocolate.

Good things take time.

yummmmm

Asher Kent

2011-10-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

We have been wanting to go see baby Asher for a while but Benton got a cold so we had to wait a week. Finally we got to go see him today and he was as cute as ever! He is still so little, probably not even 8 pounds yet. Benton loved seeing him of course, he wanted to hold him a lot.

He gave him some soft hugs and kisses too. It was so sweet.

While we were there we took a few photos of him. He was so sweet! I love little babies.

It is so fun having a baby in the family. We are all looking forward to watching him grow. Welcome to the world baby Asher Kent, we love you already.

Little Black Chair

2011-10-26T16:27:00.000-07:00

During my weekly visit to Goodwill (yes I do go that often...) I found this little chair for 3 dollars. While debating on whether or not I should get it I began rocking it and Benton got the biggest smile on his face. So I gave in and got it but one thing was for sure, there will be no pink camo in my house.

It was in pretty bad shape anyway so it was going to have to be reupholstered. It got it completely taken apart in just over an hour. I thought that it had been reupholstered before, but then I wasn't sure. All I know is it was done terribly. There were staples on the outside of the fabric, who does that? Anyway after two trips to the fabric store and going back and forth on what to do we ended up picking black corduroy (for $15, more than I wanted to spend but fabric isn't cheap). Plain, I know, but it will match anything and most importantly *should* hide any of the snacks Benton spills while sitting in it.

For anyone who is interested in trying out reupholstering I would highly suggest starting with something like this. It was so easy! It took a little over an hour to take apart and just under two hours to put it back together. I got it done in just two days (it would have been one if I could have found the fabric faster), so anyone can do it.

What is that big gash on Benton's face you ask? That is from falling off a block right into the side of the shed door... ouch right? Poor guy. Hopefully his new little chair will make him feel better.

Kruger's Farm

2011-10-22T20:31:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again, time to go to the pumpkin patch. We headed out to the same farm as we went to last year, it is such a great place! They have lots of activities and tasty food. While walking with Dallin Benton stopped to check out the big tractor, he was amazed.

Our first stop was the corn maze.

It's the perfect place to let your kids run! There really isn't anywhere that they can go but on the path, well until they get smart enough to go through the stalks. It is also a great place to wear them out.

It was a pretty good sized corn maze, we were probably in there for about an hour.

Next up was a hay ride to pick out our pumpkins. I think Benton liked sitting down for a few minutes.

Dallin picked out the first pumpkin and Benton approved.

Then it was Benton's turn. His way of deciding if it was a good one was to pick it up and then throw it. Well everyone has a method I guess.

The last stop was the food. We started out with some corn and then some caramel apples. They were so good! We should definitely have them more often. Benton loved the corn.

There is only one better way to eat corn, with a friend! They both loved the corn and ate it until there was nothing left. Norah was nice to share when Benton wanted a bite of her's too, I guess his own wasn't good enough haha.

We had a great time at the farm and are looking forward to going back again next year.

Project Shed

2011-10-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

This is the last of the projects for us this summer. It is such a relief to have them all finished. Now I can concentrate on getting things ready for the baby. Which by the way I am having the hardest time trying to decide on a nursery theme, any suggestions? I really need to pick something soon so I can start making the crib set. And don't even get me started about trying to decide what to do with Benton's big boy room, no idea there either. But back to the shed for today.

As you can see in this picture it was in pretty bad shape.

We didn't take before pictures, so that is all I really have, but you can see how the roof is sagging and the foundation is too. There was water damage to the roof also. Dallin replaced everything but the frame. It was a lot of work but Benton sure enjoyed it!

Here is our finished shed, painted to match our house and everything!

Now we can relax knowing it won't collapse over the winter. Thanks Dallin and Benton for all your hard work!

A little something from the iPhone

2011-10-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

A few months ago Dallin surprised me with a new iPhone. And while I have been enjoying it and taking lots of photos on it, today is the first day that I have actually uploaded them. It is so nice to have such a small camera with me all the time. There have been many occasions that I snap a few pictures and think that I will post them on here but I just never do. So for no reason, here are a few pictures from my iPhone over the past few months.

This was Benton's first time bowling, he loved it!

You have to have the reading hat on to read this book.

Fixing, like always.

Enjoying summer in the best possible way.

He's checking out the ducks, he loves them.

Just because we found a yellow wall with a nice little cement "seat" in front (any kind of a curb is a seat to Benton).

And most importantly, here is Benton holding his newest cousin! My sister had baby Asher just yesterday. He is so little! Benton loved seeing him, he gave him a nice hug and loved holding him. I think he will be a great big brother.

More pictures of Asher to come shortly.

Playing is important

2011-10-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to a new park. Finding new parks is always fun, and this one was great. I happened to bring my camera and am really glad that I did. It has been a while since I have taken pictures of Benton. When I come home with 200 pictures on my camera I know it has been a good day. So here are a few from the park.

He somehow got a mouth full of barkdust... don't really know how that happened but some pretty awesome faces appeared shortly after.

This park is actually right across from the apartments that we used to live in. It was finished shortly after we moved. It is quite the park. It is definitely built from older kids than Benton but he still had fun.

I honestly think his favorite park was finding this rock. He played with it for about 15 minutes (longer if we didn't have to leave). He would throw it then run and pick it up. Sounds like a blast right?

It was such a beautiful day, I am so glad that we spent most of it outside. Who knows how many more sunny days we have left.

Stylin'

2011-10-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

How did you like project week? I actually had one more thing I was going to post on Saturday but we ended up going down to Corvallis to see BYU play OSU. It was the first college football game I have ever been to, and it was great. BYU won of course, which made it even better! It was an entire day event though, which means there wasn't anytime to post about the project (or finish it, haha).

Truth be told every project that I posted about last week we finished either the night before or minutes before I posted them (except for the house, I finished painting that two days before). Really the whole reason I wanted to have a project week was so that we would have to finish all of our projects, and it worked! So you can expect the last project to appear sometime this week.

Now we can return to what we all love to see the most, Benton. Because I finished most of the projects right before posting that meant that Benton was taking his nap. Therefore I had no cute model. So this week we will make up for the lack of pictures of Benton starting off with Benton's new haircut. I normally cut Benton's hair. It started out that way because I didn't want anyone else to have scissors near my little baby's head. And I have been pleased with the way that most of his haircut's have turned out (luckily). But it is a big ordeal and quite frankly not my favorite thing to do. It takes two days to give him a haircut. The first day I have to give him a popsicle or something to keep him entertained while I cut as much off as possible. I use clippers for the sides and scissors for the top (clippers cut it too short). By the time the popsicle is gone he is done.

So I spend the rest of the day and the next morning looking at all the spots that need to be touched up and quickly try to get them as he is constantly turning his head to see what I am doing. It has worked out every time until last time. He was done and so was I before I could get everything cut evenly. And because we spike his hair normally you couldn't really tell. He had that haircut for about 3 months. It grew way too long and was ready for another haircut. I decided to let someone else try it. We went and saw Lisa at the salon I used to work at.

He wasn't too sure about it, he just starred at her the whole time. And check out how long his hair was!

He did so great! Because he was unsure about it, he kept completely still! She finished in about 5 minutes.

Here he is showing off his new do, that is much better! Thanks Lisa!

Week of Projects Day 5- Wing Back Chair

2011-10-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

This project took by far the longest to complete. Not because it was the most time consuming, it just took me forever to finish it! When I say forever do you really want to know how long? Well way back in June... of last year... I mentioned in this post that I bought some ugly stuff from Goodwill. Well this chair was one of the things that I bought. I don't think I would have gotten it if I had known I would take a year and a half to finish it!

Way back in June I naively walked through Goodwill and saw to matching (yes you heard me say two, and you will only being seeing one today because I haven't touched the other) wing back chairs. I fell in love with what I thought they could one day look like. For a whole $10 I snatched them up and brought them home. Then I started looking up how to reupholster them. That was when the fear set in. Yikes! What did I get myself in to? Needless to day I was ~~super~~ intimidated. They sat in my garage for months. Dallin finally got the bright idea of moving the ugly things in to our front room so I would look at them all the time and be forced to work on them. In a way it worked. After another week or two I finally decided that while putting the fabric on would be hard, taking it off wouldn't be. That was how I convinced myself to start.

One by one we pulled out every staple and took pictures all along the way so I would know how to put it back together. About 500 staples and a few more weeks later it was just wood and padding. It felt so good to be done with the first stage. Every single thing I did with that chair I had to convince myself I could do it. I thought every part of it would be impossible, but somehow I would tell myself this one piece won't be so bad to put on. Then when I would finish that I would wait a few more weeks to gear myself up for the next intimidating piece. I can't believe how long it took! And the worst part is that every time I got a step further I realized that it really wasn't that bad.

Anyway enough of that, here is the chair before in all it's ~~ugliness~~ glory.

What you can't see is that a cat got to it and scratched up the sides completely. It was pretty bad. And to prove that I really started this project a long time ago here is Benton helping me take the staples out.

Sorry if you came to my house and the chair looked something like this. It was that way for a long time...

And here is what it looks like today.

Another project done! My front room looks a little better with a complete chair. Now all I have to do is the other one... Any bets on how long you think that one will take?

Week of Projects Day 4- Master Bathroom

2011-10-13T14:12:00.000-07:00

The day has finally come. We are finished with the master bath! Dallin did such a great job, I am so proud of him and the great work he did. And we can't forget to thank Benton for his help too. Here is a before picture of the ~~terrible~~ bathroom.

Let's talk about this bathroom for a minute. First of all, who in their right mind would put shelves like that in a bathroom? We had very little storage space and I don't like things on the counter so we just used them. I hated them though. Right when you walk in all you see is a big mess of cluttered items. And to top it of they weren't even centered on the wall. It was weird. But we didn't remodel the bathroom because of the shelves.

The tiles on the floor were bad, you could literally just pick them up. There was some water damage that made them loose I guess. We also wanted a bathtub rather than a full sized shower. And lastly (and very importantly) we wanted to get rid of the almond color theme. No one wants an almond colored toilet.

Dallin got to work pretty fast. We took out the vanity to stain it a darker color and then the demo began.

Benton loved to help as usual.

After months of hard work here is what our bathroom looks like today.

Doesn't it just make you want to take a hot bath and relax for a bit. That sounds like a good idea to me.

Week of Projects Day 3- Bathroom Facelift

2011-10-12T12:43:00.000-07:00

As you know we have been remodeling our master bathroom, but that is not what I am showing you today. Our second bathroom also needs to be remodeled but we (luckily) decided to wait and do them at separate times. However we didn't want to live with it the way it was any longer (ok maybe it was more that I didn't want to live with it the way it was). We pretty much left it the way it was when we moved it. We even kept the ugly yellow shower curtain up. So here is a before picture of our bathroom.

I took that picture shortly after we moved it. But this one shows the bathroom a little better. I took it after we replaced the toilet but before we did anything else. Don't you love the curtain?! Everyone that came to my house while it hung thought I had terrible taste I bet... oh well.

We didn't do too much since we will be remodeling it soon but what we did made a difference. No more yellow!

I think it looks much cleaner, which is the way a bathroom should look.

Week of Projects Day 2- Blankets

2011-10-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I showed you a picture of a baby blanket I made. Well I had so much fun making it that I decided to make a few more. Our church is collecting them this month so I wanted to get a few more done before the deadline. After buying some more fabric I realized that it could easily get expensive to buy as much fabric as I wanted to make as many blankets that I would like. Granted it would be worth it because they will be donated to charity, but I thought I would ask around first to see if anyone had any left over fabric they wouldn't mind getting rid of. I have to say that I was a little surprised with what I got.

One person gave me a Daisy Kingdom quilt kit, another person gave me 8 yards of matching fabric, and someone else kindly gave me money to buy fabric! She said she had wanted to help but wasn't a seamstress (not that I am by any means, but I do like trying) so that was her way of donating to this blanket drive. And just when I thought I had enough to make quite a few blankets another sweet woman said that she wasn't going to sew anymore and gave me everything she had. Everything. We are taking 3 1/2 garbage bags full! There were yards and yards after yards of fabric in there. I have to say that it has been really nice having so many options to work with. I have gotten quite familiar with Bob the builder, Dora, Diego, Superman and Thomas the train.

Here are all the blankets that I have completed in the last month.

There are 8 quilts and 4 flannel blankets. Someone gave Benton two flannel blankets when he was born and they have been mine and his favorites ever since. They are bigger and warmer than receiving blankets so you can wrap them up as they grow bigger. This blue quilt is my favorite I think.

It has been really fun making these blankets. I have learned a lot (and called my mother-in-law a lot). It was my first time quilting a blanket, making a ruffle edge (which I have to say took a lot longer than I thought, probably because I messed up a few times), binding a blanket, and I tried a self binding technique. They have been great practice. I felt like I got better with matching up corners, the blue one was almost perfect. But then I made the Thomas the train blanket and it was all over the place. But I did like the self binding method on that one.

One thing in life that I have found to be true over and over again is that people want to help. But not everyone can help in every way. Years ago when I was heading to Brazil for my second trip a very sweet woman heard about the orphanage that I was heading to and she decided to send me with some donations for the children. When I say some, I mean a 70lb suitcase full of donations. Every child at the orphanage received lip smackers, hot wheels, hair ties, pencils, games, toys, and about anything else they could want. She even gave me the money to pay for the extra piece of luggage that carried all of her donations. On that same trip another sweet woman made a bag for each child and embroidered their name on it. I can't imagine how long that must have taken.

Once again I have been greatly touched by people wanting to help. Sometimes we just need the opportunity. Thank you to everyone to gave me fabric so I could make these blankets. We can't all serve everyone and give everything, but we can each do something.

Week of Projects Day 1- House

2011-10-10T13:09:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the week of projects. Everyday this week I will post about some project that we have been working on around here. Some are big and some are small, some are new and some I have been talking about for a while... like today's project. We are going to start the week of right with a big project, my {finally} painted house! This past Saturday Dallin took Benton all day so I could finally finish it up. I started painted back in May, yes 4 months ago (it was the end of May). It took longer than I was expecting, which I should be used to by now but still am not.

Just in case you forgot here is a little reminder of the progress we've made. Here is what the house looked like when we bought it

Here it is with a new garage door and stained cedar shingles

And finally, this is what it looks like today... literally, I just took the picture.

The peach is gone! It has been gone of the front of the house for a few months but now it is gone everywhere. It is so nice to have this done, and just in time! I think I waited until the last nice day to finish, but at least it is done.

We love planning projects around here. We love prepping for them and starting them. We may hate them for a short time while working on them, but it is always great to finish them. So come on back and see what else we have been doing during our Week of Projects.

For your viewing pleasure

2011-10-09T22:49:00.000-07:00

He chooses all his own poses

Buddies

2011-10-09T22:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some cute kids. They get along some of the time, but when they do they are pretty good buddies.

Newport Aquarium

2011-10-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

We decided to take a day trip down to Newport to let Benton see the sharks at the Newport Aquarium. First we headed outside to see the otters and the sea lions. He loved them!

When we finally walked inside to see the fish he was taken back. He just starred at them unsure what to think. Then after a little while he decided they were pretty cool.

He would point and say wow over and over. I love seeing him experience new things.

We all had a great time in Newport. It was the perfect little getaway before it gets too cold.

Fall inside

2011-10-04T22:28:00.000-07:00

I usually take forever to come back and post things that I say I will (usually months right). I mentioned that I had some new fall decor inside that I would show you and guess what, I am doing it now. First I found these little decoupaged pumpkins online and decided that they must be made. All it takes are some pumpkins from the dollar store.

Notice the hideous line through the middle? That is why I hadn't bought them before. But add some paper, mod podge and moss and you end up with this.

Much better right?

My black wreath made it back this year, but all the snakes fell off and I haven't glued them back on yet. I don't know if I will. So for now it just hangs there without really making sense.

Anyone want some candy corn? You can come get some if you like. I can't guarantee it will always be full (someone keeps eating them, ok all of us keep eating them).

Happy Fall everyone. I love this season.

Newest friend

2011-10-04T13:32:00.000-07:00

Benton has a new friend. He loves his new friend and spends lot of time with it everyday.

He also has a new camera face. Whenever I pull the camera out he instantly does his fake laugh and cheesy big grin. I don't know where it came from but you are about to see it a lot.

In case you didn't notice, his new friend is a screwdriver. He will easily spend at least one hour a day going around the house fixing things. He opens cupboards and "fixes" the hinges. He "fixes" all of his toys. He "fixes" the car

The ground

Cue cheesy grin

And again

But it doesn't stop there, he also uses it as a... fork?

His new favorite thing is to put his strawberries on it and eat it off the end.

On any given day you could also find him with it as we change his diaper, go on a walk, and while we are reading books. Benton sure loves his new friend.

A touch of Fall

2011-09-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

Last week I pulled out all of my fall and Halloween decorations. I was happily surprised when I found a lot more in the box that I thought was there. Then I remembered that I had picked up a few items at Goodwill after the season last year. I am so glad that I did! After putting everything out I decided I needed to add a few touches to make it all look good together. Well I headed back to the wonderful (and super cheap) Goodwill to see what I could find. I rarely go to Goodwill and find the things that I am actually looking for, but I usually find something. Today that was not the case! I found tons of great stuff. The first thing I got was this wreath.

I have been wanting a wreath for a long time, I really didn't care what season it was for any of them would have worked. But I didn't want to pay a fortune for it. So this one cost me a whopping $1.50 or so. Good deal! But I wanted to add some fall colors to it. That is where the dollar store and the glue gun come in. Three more dollars and about 10 minutes and this is my new fall wreath. I love it.

While Dallin was picking up a few last minute supplies for the shed I managed to sneak a few mums to the cart. I thought they would go nicely with this lovely topiary (something that I have wanted for a long time also), that I picked up for free on the side of the road. Yep, for free! Sometimes if you wait long enough you can get a really good deal on the thing you want, or even for free. I think it was worth the wait. The top two balls need to grow in a bit but who cares.

sorry about the bad lighting, I didn't want to wait and try again when the sun was better

Anyway there is a little touch of fall for you. There is more on the inside to show you soon!

Notice the lack of peach in the color of the house, yeah I love the new color. I still haven't shown it to you yet huh... whoops! And I just noticed that I definitely need a new door mat...

They say sleep is a good thing

2011-09-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

Ever since Benton was little we have tried to keep him on a schedule. I personally feel that most babies, and adults for that matter, do better when their schedules are somewhat consistent. As they grow older they become a little more flexible, which is nice, but still sticking to a routine is good.

All kids are different. Some kids sleep a lot and some need little sleep. Then there are some kids that seem to be fine with whatever they get no matter how routine it is or isn't. Well we have known for a long time that Benton is not one of those kids. After a good friend of mine babysat him for a weekend she said that he goes and goes and goes and then he is done and it is time for sleep. In fact I was out one evening and didn't have Benton with me and someone asked where he was. When I said that he and Dallin stayed home because it was Benton's bed time they kind of started teasing me that I wouldn't keep him out late. My friend immediately piped up and said not Benton, when that kid is ready for bed he is ready! I had to laugh a little, but it is so true. (yes we do keep him out for special occasions, we are not super uptight about it. Its just when you have to pick between a happy Benton and staying out late we tend to pick a happy Benton.)

Benton has recently started throwing more and more tantrums. It was driving me crazy! We were trying to do everything right and not give in and to ignore him but they seemed to still increase. I thought that maybe some of it was teething. Then I realized that we had been spending most evenings outside in the backyard while Dallin worked on the shed. Benton loved it, I hated it. I love being outside with him but not when every second he is trying to pick up a nail gun, staple gun, climb a ladder, or PURPOSELY step on nails that are sticking straight up. I was telling him no about every 30 seconds. Ok it wasn't quite that bad but it was a lot more than normal. So maybe his increased tantrums were because he was often in an environment where he couldn't do a lot of things, but still wanted to.

As I kept thinking about it I thought they might be caused from hunger. No I do no starve my child, but sometimes a snack gets pushed out a little bit and he might get cranky. I know I have waited too long to give him a snack when he is cranky. My last thought was that they could be caused from his current sleep schedule. I thought it was fine but maybe it had room for improvement. I usually put him down for a nap between 11 and 12 and he would sleep for 2 hours. Then he would go to sleep by 8 and wake up at 8. Sounds fine right?

In an attempt to crack down on these tantrums we decided to make a few changes. First Dallin finished the shed so he wouldn't have to be in a place that I had to tell him no all the time. Secondly I started giving him more snacks in between meals. And lastly we worked on his sleep schedule. We decided to push his nap out until 12:30 or 1 so he was waking up later in the afternoon (the time that he normally reached his crankiest) and we moved up his bedtime to about 7:20. He still takes a 2 hour nap and sleeps until 8 and the difference is amazing! I would have never thought that just changing the time of sleep by an hour or two would make such a difference. He hardly ever throws fits now. No he is not perfect and still has his moments, but they seem to be more under control. I am a much happier mama and he a happier Benton. So in conclusion, sleep is a good thing. And sleep at the right times is a great thing!

Reading

2011-09-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

Every night before going to bed we read to Benton. He has never been the kind of kid that sits of your lap and reads books with you so we had to figure out a way to make it work. We usually read to him while he plays. I wasn't sure if he was really listening but a few months ago he started getting books to "read" on his own while he read to him. Now I know he likes to be read to, he is just too active to sit still the whole time.

When he noticed that I had the camera he pulled some awesome faces.

That is some good reading time...

New shirts

2011-09-22T21:39:00.000-07:00

We had our ultrasound today...

18 Months

2011-09-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

Benton is 18 months old today. You know what that means. He gets to go to Nursery. Luckily they let him go in last Sunday because I was just called to teach Primary starting this Sunday. I got one Sunday of church, it was nice. Anyway back to Benton's half birthday.

He is definitely growing up. He is learning new words everyday. And oddly enough has recently started talking in jibberish.

He is finally down to one nap a day and sleeps great. In fact he loves to sleep. As long as we wait until his normal nap and bedtime when he is tired then he is happy to go to bed. I love it.

He still loves being outside, I don't think that will ever change. And like I mentioned he loves to help.

We sing pat a cake and the Itsy Bitsy Spider every night before bed. Oh and we pray at least once. He loves to fold his arms.

For the first time in his life people actually guess his age correctly. He is also wearing size 18 months perfectly. I was completely expecting him to be in size 2T by winter so I have had to fix that and pick up some warmer clothes.

He loves shoes, he also is picky about which ones he wants to wear. Not that he has that many choices, but if he did I am sure I would always get it wrong.

Benton love Yo Gabba Gabba. His Aunt Jenny showed him a video and ever since he has been hooked! I will have to post more about that later.

He is pretty cute, and pretty cheesy when the camera comes out.

We love you Benton!

The biggest helper

2011-09-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

I am sure that most toddlers are big helpers, and Benton is definitely not an exception. He loves to help. Whatever we are doing he wants to do it too. Which is why when he sees me weeding he helps by picking my flowers. Or when he sees me throw something dirty in the hamper he throws whatever he can find in there too, it may be his freshly folded blankets, some socks, a rock, cars or maybe even a pass along card. Whatever it is he knows he is helping.

This is also the case when it has anything to do with what Dallin is doing. Because Dallin uses the fun stuff, tools. There is nothing in the world like a hammer for Benton. Last week we were outside and I was pulling up all the tarp that was under our dirt. I think the previous owners thought it would help keep weeds out, but they buried it 6 inches deep so I still get all the weeds but it also prevents all my plants and flowers from spreading because the tarp stops them. Anyway Benton loved helping me with that. It has been a long time since I have seen him that dirty.

Then Daddy came and started working on the shed. And Benton found his favorite tool.

He was one happy (and dirty) boy.

He of course would rather work with Dad so this is how he spent the rest of his evening.

We love having Benton help so much, it makes it so we can do a lot more things with him.

This and That

2011-09-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

Ready for another little update on some projects we've been working on? We are slowly but surely making progress on our checklist that we mentioned a few months ago. The bathroom is almost finished, well it is finished and has been for a few weeks but I have to paint the ceiling and haven't gotten to that yet. Maybe next week...

Our house is 3/4 painted... ugh I really need to finish that before the rain comes. And Dallin just started working on the shed. yay! We are trying to get as much done this year so we don't have to worry about doing much when the baby comes.

For today I have just a few little things to show you. First is this paint chip mosaic. All I did was grab paint samples and cut them up into squares. Then I mod podged it and added a little stain for an added touch. I am still not too sure about it.

A friend came over and said it would look better with a white frame. That was when I realized that the blue on a blue wall probably wasn't the best idea. So I might add a frame, I might not. Any ideas? I don't have anything to replace it right now so it just hangs there still.

I know, I know more burp cloths. But these are so cute! My friend is having a boy next month and had a monkey theme so I made these for her shower. I was so happy with the way they turned out that I made a second set for my sister.

When I put them out on the floor to take a picture of them this happened...

Silly face

I didn't even ask him to! Super cute.

Our stake is collecting baby blankets and ever since I heard about it I have wanted to make one. Well the deadline is coming up so I finally did it! My main goal with this blanket was to keep it simple. I usually try super hard patterns and they take forever. Mainly because I get intimidated and and keep putting it off. Plus I have never "quilted" anything yet so that part had to be easy. So here it is.

Easy right? And I actually like it. I am planning on doing a lot of quilting once we find out the gender of our baby so this was a great warm up blanket. Benton wasn't so excited about having the blanket around him.

But once I put it on the floor he wouldn't stay off of it.

Until he came to give me a (slobbery) kiss

Lastly we have the solution to my toy dilemma that I mentioned forever ago. They were super easy to make and I love the way they turned out.

I just wrapped diaper boxes in burlap and lined the inside with some softer material. Then I made the little flowers to embellish the front a little bit. Perfect.

Now I don't have toys all over the room anymore. And I think Benton likes pulling out a box and getting his toys out.

Now I just need to make two more for the other bookcase...

Well that is what I have been up to lately. I went through a stage of not wanting to make anything, but now I am definitely back in the creative mode. Hopefully there will be more to show you soon!

Down South

2011-09-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

Since we drove all the way down to Ogden we decided that we just had to drive the 3 more hours down to see Dallin's family. It was a quick little stay but it was great to see everyone while we could! I didn't get any pictures of Benton with his Grandma, but I got some of Benton in his grandma's shoes, does that count?

And of course we always get some pictures with cousin Kadence, they had fun playing together outside.

And then Benton sprayed her with water...

But she didn't mind, she even figured out how to spray herself with water. There was a little hole in this balloon and she held it up to her face.

We could get used to visiting twice it one summer!

Grandma Herbert

2011-09-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

Last week we drove to Utah to attend the funeral of my Grandma Herbert. She passed away on August 26th of natural causes. My whole family drove down to be there which was really nice.

My family moved to Oregon when I was really young so I don't have as many memories with her as I would like but I do remember spending time at her house the summers that we visited. She had a vast collection of old Avon perfume bottles in all different shapes and she would let my sister and I search through them and pick our favorite ones. They all smelled horrible after the years they sat on the shelves but we didn't pick them for their scent. I remember picking out swords, swans, lamps, dogs, and other random shapes all filled with perfume.

I have learned a lot more about my grandma's life in the past few years, it was not an easy one. I admire her for everything that she went through and did in her life. She sounds like quite the amazing woman.

Though we all wish it were under different circumstances, it was still great to see all of my Dad's family. I didn't really take any pictures though. We just enjoyed chatting and seeing each other. My cousin Tyler let us stay the night at his house, it was nice to have time to catch up with him. He and his wife Ashley just had a baby boy (on Benton's 1st birthday) so it was really fun to see him. Chet is sure a cute little guy!

We had a great time staying with them, and Benton loved playing with their dogs. He would get so excited that he would screech and stomp around, it was so funny! Then Benton tried playing fetch, but he would throw the ball right into the dogs mouth. We might have to work on that.

It was great to see everyone and celebrate the life of my Grandma Hilkina Herbert.

Detroit Lake

2011-09-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

I think this is becoming an annual camping trip. Last year we joined my sister and family camping there and it was so fun we did it again this year. We are already making plans of going back next year too. Most camping pictures look the same so I didn't take that many but here are a few.

Benton climbed on the picnic table and tumbled off. Dallin just had to have a picture of his sad little dirty face. Poor kid.

I think Benton enjoyed every minute of camping (except the falling and the sleeping part). He just loves to be outside, there is so much to do! Especially when you have your cousins around to play with.

We might try to squeeze in another trip before it gets cold, we'll see.

Today is the day

2011-08-27T23:50:00.000-07:00

Today is the day that I can't hide it anymore. I woke up this morning and my tummy grew two sizes overnight. Dallin and I are expecting our second baby in early February. We are really excited about adding another little one to our family. Dallin thinks that it is a girl, but I have no idea. We will find out in a couple of weeks but we will be equally excited with a boy or a girl.

And for documentation purposes, here is a little bit about this pregnancy up to date.

We officially found out that we were expecting on June 3rd. About two weeks later was when the tiredness kicked in and I took a nap about everyday until about 11 weeks. I (luckily) had no morning sickness, just a little struggle with low blood sugar. About 13 weeks (3 months) was when I noticed my tummy getting a little bigger and at 15 weeks I felt the baby move. And today is the first day that I really feel pregnant (other than the low blood sugar episodes).

We are really looking forward to all the things that the next few months will bring.

Sippy Cup Update

2011-08-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

First of all thank you so much for all the advice! I really appreciated what everyone said. It has only been two days but I have noticed a difference already. We tried a few new things. I think the biggest hit was a straw in a regular cup. Why didn't I think of that?! I also started up apple juice again. I give him that when we go on a walk or are in the car (once a day). Another thing I learned is he likes to hold the handles on mugs, so a straw in a mug works great.

Some of you mentioned fruit, that is something that he eats pretty well. So I know he gets some liquid that way. The last thing that I want to try is buying matching (or close to) water bottles. That way his will be just like mommy's (great idea by the way), but his. I feel a lot better about the amount that he is drinking. Thanks again.

Sippy Cup Dilema

2011-08-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

Alright my wonderful readers, I am in need of some advice here. Not long ago we took Benton off of bottles completely. He has done great without them. The only problem is since then I have struggled to get him to drink enough. I read something online about it taking a few days for them to realize that sippy cups are where they get their milk (or drink) from now so I kept expecting him to catch on. For a while it seemed like he did.

But then this past week it has been so hard to get him to drink anything. When he used a bottle and sippy cups he would drink about 16-20 ounces of milk, 12 ounces of water, and then some juice every day. Now a good day is 4 ounces of milk and 8 ounces of water. I know he is not getting enough liquid but I don't know how to get it into his little body.

I don't want to make a big deal of it, especially to him because that is never a good idea. So I have just been trying new ways to see if he will be interested. Here is a little list of things that I have tried to get him to drink

We would go on a walk in the morning with crackers and a sippy cup and he would usually drink 6 ounces. Now he doesn't touch it.

He likes to drink out of big people glasses, but he only gets about one ounce that way

I try to make sure that a sippy cup of water is available at any time especially while he is eating or riding in the car.

He will drink a full sippy of juice (watered down) or chocolate milk but I don't really like to give that to him when he hasn't had enough water. So the I have stopped them completely the last few days in hopes to get him to drink water.

The best thing so far is a camelbak. Wow he loved that. But the novelty of it will wear off after about a day.

And of course I have tried several different sippy cups. I haven't bought any special ones to get him to drink more yet but I am ready to. I just have a few different kinds already. He doesn't seem to prefer any specific type. What do I do? t is way to hot outside for him to be drinking as little as he is. Have any of you had this problem? Is there anything that gets your child to drink more? I can use any advice here. It would be great if I could find a way to double (or triple) what he is drinking. Thanks!

Water with Norah

2011-08-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

Our good friends just had their second baby and Benton wanted to help them out. He came up with the idea of taking Norah, their oldest, to the water park for an hour so mommy and baby can have some alone time. I thought it was a good idea too so we did it.

As soon as we got there Benton was ready for the water. He went right up to it and started playing.

Norah wasn't as sure.

She stayed with me sitting along the edge and ate some yummy strawberries. We liked watching Benton have fun in the water.

Benton soon saw that we were eating strawberries and wanted to join. Can you blame him? What is better than fresh fruit on a hot summer day.

Finally after some more snacks Norah decided to walk out to the water.

But she usually came right back

I have to admit that I kept waiting (and hoping) for the water would shoot up onto Benton while he was close so I could get a picture of it. But he always got lucky and moved before the water came up any taller!

I think they both had fun. Though next time I think we will plan on playing at the park too, so both of them can have lots of fun.

Thanks for coming to the park with us Norah! Let's go again soon.

Hornings Hideout

2011-08-16T12:37:00.000-07:00

We went on our ward camp out over the weekend to Hornings Hideout. What a great place! It is only 30 minutes away and I have never heard of it before. It is privately owned and well taken care of. They have over 50 disc golf baskets throughout the campground, a well (and I mean well) stocked lake for fishing, and tons of room for camping. You can also go for just the day and fish or play disc golf. I can see us returning there soon.

The first night there we played some disc golf, Benton came with us and loved getting the discs into the basket. I would throw it once and he would run and find it Then he would carry it to the end. I got a birdie every time! haha. That was when we noticed that our camera battery was almost dead so we decided to wait until the next day to take the few pictures we could.

The night went alright. I wasn't quite sure what to expect now that Benton falls asleep on his own. I knew he wouldn't just fall asleep here. And I am sure that it didn't help that we completely forgot to borrow a pack and play. We tried putting him down on a little mattress on the ground. ha! It took about an hour to get him to sleep and within 2 minutes of falling asleep he rolled over and off the mattress... He stayed asleep for about an hour and then the only way to calm him down was to sleep in between us. That was fine with me. That way I knew he was warm enough, it was cold! Benton slept well but Dallin and I can't say the same. In the end he did pretty good. We are going camping again soon so hopefully that will go well too.

The next morning the ward came together and had a huge breakfast. It was so nice to wake up to warm food! It has been so warm here lately but Saturday just wasn't warm. I don't think it hit 70 until the afternoon. And of course I only packed short sleeved shirts for Benton. So he stayed in his pj's all day. And boy did he get dirty! Here are the few pictures that I took to prove it.

The ground was uneven so he fell a lot. Luckily it wasn't muddy.

He loved being outside all the time.

The field where the disc golf starts

Where we camped

And finally, here is Benton catching his first fish.

He liked holding the rod, but did not like the fish!

Ready for some more!

Camping was so fun, I am surprised that it took us all the way until August to do it this year! Next year we will start much earlier.

Handy Man

2011-08-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

This is how I caught Benton the other day

How to make an edible arrangement

2011-08-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

My sister's birthday was last week and I really wanted to make her an edible arrangement. She had received one before and loved it so I knew it would be a good idea. They seem pretty simple to make right? Just cut out fruit and put them on sticks. Well I knew that it would be a little harder than that so I tried to look up some tips and tricks online and found none! Several people posted about making one, but didn't give any ideas on how to make it easier.

So I decided that as I was making this one I would jot down little things that I learned that would make it easier to make an edible arrangement should any of you ever be interested in doing one too. So here is how I went about making one, hopefully it gives you some good ideas too!

First look online and pick an arrangement that you would like yous to end up looking like. Then you have to get all the different kinds of fruit. For my arrangement I went with pineapple, strawberries, grapes, apples, cherries, cantaloupe, and of course chocolate. You will also need bamboo skewers, knife and cutting board, melon baller, cookie cutters (mainly for pineapple), something to arrange it in (I used a glass pot filled with styrofoam and pretty paper on top) and I also used lollipop sticks and toothpicks.

Because you are dealing with fresh fruit you want to make it right before you deliver it, or have it at your party. You can refrigerate it, but I would still make it the same day. Mine took about 1 hour to make start to finish.

I decided that I would prep everything first and then begin assembling it. As you can see I started with the pineapple. I trimmed of all the sides and then sliced them into 1/2 inch slices. You want them to be thin so the pieces aren't too heavy. Then cookie cutter them out in whatever shape you want.

Next I used my melon baller to make little balls on cantaloupe to go on the center of my pineapple flower.

Then I removed the stems from the strawberries

And finally put everything on sticks

You want to make sure you put lemon juice on your apples after slicing them so they don't turn brown (I forgot this step...). Now they are ready for chocolate!

When melting your chocolate chips, make sure you add some milk so you have a nice smooth consistency. I dipped my pineapple in plain melted chocolate and they were not smooth! But hey, they still tasted great. Another thing that I found is it is actually easier to dip the fruit in chocolate before putting them on a stick. That way you can stick them in the freezer to harden them up a bit so you don't get chocolate hands while arranging everything.

After your fruit is dipped in chocolate and you are ready to put them on a stick I found it helpful to dip your stick in a little bit of chocolate so when it hardens it will help keep the fruit in place. That is why you see little spots of chocolate on the sticks in the fruit. I didn't do this with the grapes though, they stayed just fine.

When you are ready to place your pineapple on the skewer do it at an angle, it will help while you are arranging the piece.

Once everything is ready, you can start assembling it together.

And before you know it you have an arrangement

Does it look perfect? No, but it tastes great! After completing it I thought of a few more things I would try the next time I made one. I think it will help to make it look better in the end.

I would not put as many pineapple flowers, I did 8. They take up a lot of space and are difficult to work around.

I think it might be easier to put the skewers in first, then put the fruit on. Once I had half the fruit in place, my hand couldn't fit near the bottom to put more sticks with fruit on them in. That is when I stuck some sticks in by themselves and added the fruit. That worked great.

I also found that using toothpicks worked great in filling in the space at the bottom of the arrangement.

Well I hope there were a few tips that might make it easier for you to make an edible arrangement. If you have made one or do make one and think of something else please let me know! I am looking forward to trying this out again.

Happy Birthday Tonya, I hoped you enjoyed your gift! Dallin said I should make them more often, he loved the variety of fruit we had leftover (and of course the chocolate to dip it all in)

Words

2011-07-29T21:47:00.001-07:00

Benton's vocabulary seems to be growing daily. It is so fun to hear him try to say new words. This evening I caught him on camera saying a few of them.

You can see he wasn't to interested in saying mommy or daddy, but he got the other words out. His list of words that he uses often are

mommy
daddy
dog
go
ball
bath

park

bubbles
no
bye
hi

banana
shoes
more

There are more words that he has said at least once, but hasn't quite figured them out yet. They are snack, Grandpa, Jenny, Grandma, and Tonya. I am sure more will be joining each list as the days continue.

No more bottles

2011-07-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

We decided that Benton is old enough to stop having bottles. I figured that since we were going to be coming home from Utah we could just stop them then. He had his last bottle on the airplane home. I wasn't sure how it was going to go.

After all the traveling he was so exhausted that he fell asleep in the car on the drive home for about 30 minutes and when he got home I put him in his crib and he slept for 3 1/2 hours more! Traveling really wore him out I guess.

After a lot of playing we started his bedtime routine but this time we used a sippy cup. He wasn't too interested in the sippy cup, but he did like to have his binky. I rocked him for a little bit and sang a song trying my best to calm him down before I put him to sleep. After about 10 minutes I put him in his crib and left the room. He cried. Lots and lots. I wasn't sure if it was the lack of bottle, or because he wasn't tired enough yet since he took such a long nap. It took him a while to calm down. After 30 minutes I went in to see if he would take the sippy cup and of course he wouldn't. I gave him back his binkies that he had thrown on the floor and left the room again. After 5 minutes he stopped crying and went to sleep. He woke up a few times that night, since that is what he did while we were out of town. But I couldn't give him a bottle to calm him down so I didn't go in, he fell back asleep after a little while.

I have to say that was I most nervous about naps though. I was afraid that he would cry for an hour and then not sleep. He never sleeps well for naps when he cries for longer than 5 minutes. When nap time came we went to his room and after a few minutes of rocking and reading a book I put him down and he went to sleep without a peep! Success! Nap #1 went well. When nap #2 came around (he switches between 1 nap and 2, I never know if it is a 1 or 2 nap day. I wish the transition was a little quicker) he went to sleep after 3 minutes of crying. Success!

Now came bedtime. Was it going to take forever like last time? Nope, he went right down. Awesome! I was starting to think it was going to work without any problems. Yesterday went great, he always fell right asleep without any crying. And he starting drinking more milk from his sippy cup.

Then the morning came. I never thought that the morning would be the worst part. I got in the habit of giving him a bottle of juice every morning and surprisingly that is the thing he missed the most! He wakes up and cries. When I go to his room he doesn't want to get out because he knows he will have to leave his binky behind and there is no bottle waiting for him. A sippy cup is out of the question. But after a few different tries I found that a sippy with some crackers might be a good substitute for his morning bottle.

In the end, the transition hasn't been that bad. I am so glad that he figured out how to fall asleep by himself a while ago, I think that helped a lot. Benton is becoming such a big kid, it is fun to see what he can do.

Last days of Utah

2011-07-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

The last few days we were in Utah all of Dallin's siblings came. It was great to have everyone together and to let all the cousins play. Benton liked playing with all of them! They played ball,

They played with hoberman spheres

A little bit of baseball

they watched some yo gabba gabba

And of course they all went out on their own 4 wheeler ride with uncle Dallin

We even got to meet the newest member of the Wheeler family, Kate. She is adorable!

But Benton didn't just get to play with his cousins, he played with his Aunt's and Uncle's a lot too.

Our trip to Utah was great. It was so nice to see everyone. Benton loved having so many people around to play with, I think he is going through some withdrawals now that we are back home. Thanks for letting us come visit, we miss it already!

Manti Pool

2011-07-27T15:11:00.000-07:00

Utah was very warm, hot actually. It was nice to have the sun around every day. On one of those very bright sunny days we went over to the Manti Pool. Benton and Kadence are ready to go!

The pool was awesome. The edges of the pool were only 1-2 feet deep; perfect for Benton and Kadence to walk around in. They loved it!

I think he really liked that he could stand up and play by himself in the water. The only problem was that he thought he could walk throughout the whole pool...

In the middle of the pool they had a lazy river.

Overall it was a great pool for little kids. They did have a deep side and a water slide for the older ones so it was fun for everyone. I wish we had a pool like this here, Benton would want to go everyday!

More Utah fun

2011-07-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

One day Benton and Kadence found uncle Blake's long board and had a blast playing on it.

One of the days we drove up the mountain and walked around a little lake. Right when we got there a couple just caught a fish and they let Benton see it.

He just kept looking at it unsure what to think.

We decided that trails are a great place to let Benton walk, he has no where to go but on the path!

He had a great time wandering around, and if he could have, he would have walked right into the lake! He just loves water.

Ephraim

2011-07-26T22:51:00.000-07:00

Remember that post about all the projects we wanted to do this summer? Well we have been working on them a lot. As you already know we are remodeling our bathroom, which will be done this week. Last month I started painting the outside of our house, but then it started raining and I lost interest... boo. Now I have three sides (the visible ones) painted and that is all. I should know that projects always take a little longer than I expect... but I am ready to get back to painting. Then I can finally show you all the things we've been up to.

But there is one project that was completed in the expected time frame and that was nice. Two and a half weeks ago Benton and I flew down to Utah to stay with Dallin's family. We went a week early so that I could paint the inside of their house. Grandma watched Benton while I painted and it went perfectly! We finished in just 7 days, right on time to have Dallin come down for a week of vacation. I bet you want to see pictures of the house... me too, I forgot to take any! But I did take plenty of the week of vacation so here are some.

Benton loved playing with his cousin Kadence. She is just 4 months older than him and they did great together. I wasn't sure how it would go, if they would fight over toys or attention, but they did great together. It was so nice! They just played and got along great.

While we were there Benton started folding his arms for dinner prayer, it was so fun to see!

Once he saw the camera he started making faces

Normally it is just Benton and I all day with the occasional visitor or trip to my sister's house. He is pretty used to not having people around. But while in Utah there were always lots of people around! It was great, he loved the attention and fun. But I still think it is important for him to have some alone time so a couple of times we went to the park to play. It was a nice calm 15 minute walk there and then lots of fun after we arrived. It was a massive park. As Benton and I moved our way through it on the other side we found a mini one just for toddlers, it was so cute.

After 20 minutes of playing hard he was worn out, and ready to go to bed.

There are a few photos of our trip, more to come soon!

The 4th

2011-07-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

I am way behind in blogging, sorry about that. But be prepared for a massive catch up. Back on the 4th we went over to my Dad's house for a family BBQ. It was the first time that Pa and Oma hosted an event for the whole family and they did great! The food was great and all the kids had fun with some fireworks.

We let Benton stay up a little late, but not late enough to see any of the fireworks in the dark. He was interested in them, but didn't know quite what to think of them. Kris picked up some balloon fliers and he loved those! All the kids did.

After Benton went to sleep the fireworks really started, and they were loud! I remember they woke Benton up last year and he didn't go back to sleep until they stopped, but this year he slept right through them! Yay for a good sleeper. We all had a great 4th and loved spending time with family.I should probably work on getting group photos... next time!

More Water

2011-07-19T10:41:00.000-07:00

Since Benton loved the fountains at the park so much we brought out the sprinkler in the backyard to see if he would like that too. He wasn't sure at first but after a while he played in it.

All he would do is put his hands in the water, he apparently didn't want to get all wet I guess.

Maybe by the end of the summer he will start running through it.

Beaverton Market

2011-07-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

It has been two weeks ago by now but the pictures are still cute so I wanted to share them. We went to the Beaverton Farmers Market for the first time as a family, we loved it! Not only were there tons of fresh produce, homemade items, and music there was also a fun water park. I think that was Benton's favorite part. Check out these pictures and see for yourself.

Yep, he loved it.

15 months

2011-07-06T23:06:00.000-07:00

Benton is 15 months now and I can't believe how much has changed in the last few months. He is growing up all the time and learning new things everyday.

He weighs 24 3/4 pounds and is 32 inches tall

Everyday he can communicate a little bit more. It is so nice! I can now ask him questions and ask him to do things and he does them. If I ask him if he wants to go outside he goes and finds his shoes and brings them to me to put on. Once his shoes are on he goes and finds mine and tries to put them on me.

Of course he still loves being outside anytime of the day. He is ready to go outside from the moment he wakes up until when he goes to sleep. I can't wait to see what he thinks of camping.

He loves to say 1 2 3 Go! You can't really make out the 1 2 3 but he has the word go down pretty well. It is really cute.

Basically he is more fun everyday and we are loving it!

Chalk Art

2011-06-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

Today was Benton's first time playing with chalk and I think it was a success. He liked taking the chalk out of the bag and putting it back in the most.

More chalk may have ended up on his pants than on the ground,

More chalk may have ended up in his mouth than on the ground

Maybe even more on my hydrangea

But wherever the chalk ended up, Benton sure had fun putting it there

Motorcycle

2011-06-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

You know it has been too long since you have blogged when your son has had two haircuts...

I just haven't taken very many pictures in the last month. That will have to change. We have some fun plans for the summer so hopefully more blogging and picture taking will happen. But for now here are some cute pics of Benton from last week.

Our neighbors are moving and they gave us this motorcycle. Benton loves it! He is a little young for it and his feet barely reach the ground so we have to push him on it.

The best day

2011-06-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

Some of you may think that today is the best day because it is going to be 80 plus degrees outside or because it is the first official day of summer. Those are two great reasons why today is a good day, but let me tell you why today is the best day.

Today is this guy's birthday

We sure love having him in our lives

I know Benton has a lot of fun with him

Lots and lots of fun with him

We pretty much think he is the best, and wish him the best day today. Happy Birthday Dallin, now come home soon so we can go play in the 80 degree weather!

What a day

2011-06-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

Hello summer, you arrived today. At least for a day or two, I hear you might leave us again but I hope you return quickly. We loved seeing the sun today, LOVED. Want some proof? Here you go.

We spent the majority of the day outside, I bet if Benton could have napped outside he would have.

Ready for camping

2011-06-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

While walking through a street sale at the high school down the street we found this chair that we thought would be perfect for Benton while we go camping this summer. After we got home we sat him in it to see what he thought.

Needless to say he loved it. Sometimes he finds it and just wants to sit in it and eat his snacks.

Daddy's helper

2011-06-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

Benton loves to help Dallin work on the bathroom. You can often find him like this

These were taken a few weeks ago

Husum Highlands

2011-06-03T21:06:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago Dallin and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary. We decided to go to Husum Washington (just north of Hood River) for two days. It was our first time leaving Benton, so we missed him a lot. My friend Robin watched him and said that he did great. It was so nice of her to take him, and it was great to leave him with someone that I completely trusted. I didn't worry about him once.

On the first day we stopped in Hood River and went to the Western Antique Aeroplane & Automotive Museum (long name right?). It was a pretty cool place. I would definitely suggest going if you are in Hood River.

I love looking at Antique cars. They offer classes that teach you how to drive a Model T, wouldn't that be so fun?!

Everything in the museum still flies or drives. They take them out on some Saturdays. I think that would be great to see.

After that we headed up to Husum Highlands Bed & Breakfast where we were happily surprise with this view

They had a lovely garden that we walked through several times. I would LOVE to have a garden like that one day, but I am not sure I would love the amount of work it would take to keep it looking good. Maybe I will settle somewhere in the middle.

Over the weekend we had some great BBQ, went thrift store shopping, walked around Hood River and just relaxed. It was a great getaway.

One of our favorite parts about the weekend was the freedom. It was so nice to not have to worry about Benton's schedule. We could leave when we wanted and be out as long as we wanted. It was also great to come back and see Benton again after two days. We sure love that boy.

It has been a great two years and I look forward to each and every one to come.

Bathroom redo

2011-05-28T20:18:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before we have started updating our bathroom. It definitely needed some help. It is the bathroom off our bedroom and it had a full sized shower. It all began when we both decided that we would prefer a tub and the tiling desperately needed to be redone. You could literally pick up a few of the tiles on the floor. Here are a few pictures of it before.

Don't you love the shelves! ugh, I have hated them ever since we first saw the house. Even when you organize it they still look terrible, plus they were obviously off center, (like 6 inches) that drove me nuts too.

The almond color of everything was bad too, I think a bathroom should be white. It just feels more clean to me I guess.

Here is Dallin getting started

We are making progress and it should be finished in a couple weeks. We are in the middle of tiling the surround, and about to tile the floor. I bet you can't wait to see what it will look like huh, yeah I can't too.

From a cup

2011-05-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

Check out what Benton started doing a few weeks ago...

What's blooming

2011-05-19T21:22:00.000-07:00

Benton and I have been spending a lot of time outside lately. The weather has been so nice that we want to be out there every minute we can!

It is great that Benton is old enough to play outside now. He gets is own little shovel and digs in the dirt. It is really cute.

He follows us wherever we go and helps us with whatever we are doing. Last week we started our vegetable garden, this time we planned a little better and planted things we will actually eat. haha. And of course we have been doing a lot of weeding, Benton helps with that too. I am just afraid of the day that he thinks my flowers are weeds... hopefully we can learn the difference by then.

But just in case that does happen, here are the flowers that are blooming this week so I can remember.

And of course we have to end with another cute one of my little helper.

And here is the newest addition to our backyard, the neighbors gave us this last week. Benton loves the slide!

Picnic at the Lake

2011-05-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

This past week has been such a great week. Dallin was extra busy with work from about October until March, it was a little hard to have to have him work after he came home and on the weekends. But we are grateful for his job and that he likes what he does so we tried to keep a positive attitude about it. Well, Intel noticed how much his whole division worked during those months so they gave them all the week off!

We had about a week and a half notice about the time off so we didn't plan anything big. But it ended up being really great just to be around the house and do local activities with Benton that we haven't had the chance to do together yet. Also Benton woke up Monday morning with a fever and was sick the whole week... perfect timing right? I think it started out as teething and then turned into a cold on Thursday. Because of this we limited our activities to just one thing a day so Benton wasn't overwhelmed.

On Friday we met up with some friends at Hagg Lake for a picnic and some fishing. The picnic was great. We had some burgers, a salad and lots of fruit. (thanks Janice for the awesome picnic basket set)

Then the guys went to do some fishing... but no one was catching anything that day. While they were gone we sat down by the water with the kids.

Benton really wanted to get in the water so I took his pants of and tried dot put him in and this is what happened.

It was so funny to watch how high he would lift his legs up to avoid the water. But the funnier thing was how much he still wanted to get in! Sorry Benton, not all water is as warm as your bathtub.

Then the guys came back and played with the kids too.

He kept wanting to walk right in

Eventually his feet touched the water.

Norah was keeping pretty dry until she squatted too low and got her bum wet. Then there was no going back. Both kids ended up getting pretty wet. And they loved it, even though it was so cold! At least it was the warmest day of the year so far.

I don't know if he will ever learn that dirt doesn't taste good.

After all that fun we played some disc golf. We didn't have a map of the course so we only played a few of the baskets. Next time we are going with a map!

After hours of fun with the Wilkinson's it was time to head home. Benton must have had a blast because he was exhausted!

Zoo

2011-05-14T17:01:00.000-07:00

You might remember a recent post about Benton's first visit to the zoo. Well we had to go back so Dallin could go for the first time, at least to the Oregon zoo. We went early to beat the crowd and it seemed like we were always one stop ahead of the groups. It was great!

We decided to start at the opposite end of the zoo this time. That way Benton could see different animals (since he can't quite make it through the whole zoo yet). And this half of the zoo had larger animals, so he could see them better.

One of our first stop were the polar bears. They were playing which made them fun to watch.

Polar bears are huge!

When we walked up to these Malayan bears Benton said, "Dog, dog". I think everything might be a dog to him, he saw a cat and called it a dog.

We love that the lions are back at the zoo! How can you have a zoo without lions?

Benton having a good time

I loved the giraffes, I always forget how big they are!

Have you been to lorikeet landing? There is a little area in the zoo that is enclosed that has many lorikeets inside. You can get some nectar in a cup and they will come up to you and drink it. Benton was so interested.

It was a fun day at the zoo, we were happy to have Dallin come with us.

Shorts

2011-05-09T11:06:00.000-07:00

Last week it finally got warm enough to put shorts on Benton. He looked so cute!

He likes hats lately, mostly so he can take them off and play with them.

See what I mean?

Here he is wearing the first pair of shorts this summer. And within two minutes of going outside he already had his first two scraped up knees of the summer. Poor guy.

Playing at the Park

2011-05-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

Last week my good friend Jill came over with her two cute little girls and had a picnic with us. Jill and I have been friends since we were 14 and we would go to church dances together. I haven't seen her in over a year so it was great to get together and meet each others babies. After the picnic we headed to the park to let the kids play.

Claire

Lydia is such a good sister to Claire

Benton loved seeing how the big kids played on the structure, and was ready to try it out for himself

Thirsty Benton?

Slides are always a hit

He is concentrating so hard on walking

Benton loves play dates, and so do I!

Walking

2011-05-03T15:10:00.000-07:00

Benton has finally figured it out. Just this past week he has finally gotten the hang of walking. He still crawls when he falls down but everyday he walks a little more. I was a little worried about him still crawling when we are finally able to wear shorts, but now that doesn't look like it will be a problem.

Here is the big boy

Home

2011-05-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

We have officially lived in this house for a year now, well and year and a month. It has been such a great year and we have loved making this house our home. About a year ago I showed you pictures of our house on this post. I thought that since it has been a year, and we have had some time to decorate, I would show you a couple updated pictures.

My main goal over the past year was to get the furniture we need to fill in the empty spaces and then decorate the TV room and the kitchen. So this post really only has pictures from those two rooms. The other ones just haven't changed that much...yet.

Our kitchen a year ago

Way to cluttered for me, I like empty counters

Our kitchen now

Ok, so I guess I haven't made it that far in decorating the kitchen. I got rid of all the cows and am slowly replacing them with blue items.

The TV room a year ago

{so empty}

Our TV room now

Much better right? Now it looks like we haven't just moved it.

There is still a lot that we would like to do, so here is a list of projects that we hope too accomplish in the next year.

Paint the exterior of the house

Finish decorating the Kitchen

Decorate the front room
Organize and decorate the office/craft room

Remodel the master bath (this has already begun, a sneak peak coming soon)

Re-stain the deck

Re-build the shed

And probably a few little things here and there

Think we can do it? I sure hope so!