After Spring Break...

That has been my "motto" since about February when we decided for sure we would be heading out to Oregon, California and Utah for spring break. We got back from our LONG road trip yesterday.  We had a great time visiting with family and now that we are back I have so many things I need to start doing.  In my mind I told myself that I would start all these things after our trip.  Because why start something when I would just get out of the habit the two weeks were gone. Now that I am more used to having two kids I can start doing all the things I was doing when I just had one like exercising and reading my scriptures.   It's time to make those resolutions and stick to them.
We did have a fun Saint Patrick's day before we left.  I joked with Mark that I had to take pictures of  all the fun things we do because I unfortunately have very few memories of the things my Mom did. If Jared and Lydia have the same problem as me I can just click on a year and they can see how cool I was!

Green Eggs and Ham (A late celebration of Dr Seuss) with green clover shaped pancakes!

A little bit of sunshine

I took Lydia's picture and asked Jared if he wanted to take a picture with her (lately he has not wanted to and they will be cuter if I don't make him) and then he kindly shared his blanket with her.  Makes me smile. ♥

 

We leave tomorrow for a LONG road trip.  We are headed to Utah for a day to rest then Oregon for a few days then California then back to Oregon then back to Utah for a few days. I looked at the forecast and we would be having a warmer and drier spring break if we stayed in Colorado. Oh well.  We weren't going for the warmth anyway! We are really excited to see family and for them to meet Lydia.  It's a lot of driving and it would have been nicer if gas price stayed low for another month but I am pretty sure they will be less now then in July.
Also for the last 2 nights Little Miss Lydia has slept from 9:50 PM - 4:50 AM uninterrupted! Pretty impressive for a 7 week old and pretty awesome for her Mom. I sure hope it continues. If not too bad for me... she will only be this little once so I can handle it.

Goals

Mark and I have always had the goal to have some food storage but with finances and living in apartments and finances really we have never been able to get a decent supply.  We also have the goal to teach overseas one day. So how do the two relate? Let me tell you.
At Mark's school there are 2 history teachers per grade level. The teacher he works with in 6th grade recently got back from an international teaching job fair and will be heading to Dubai next year to teach. She also had an amazing food supply.  She generously offered (asked us to come and take) anything we wanted from her supply.  It was amazing.  We walked into her basement and into her food storage room (so cool) and were so impressed. She would have let us take it all if we wanted.  I am so excited.  Not only can we have some food storage but she had all kinds of stuff that we regularly use in meals so we could use some and save some money on groceries. (Can you believe how much prices have gone up?) It is such a blessing. I had to remind myself that we are also planning on teaching overseas in the next two years so I shouldn't take too much.  As I was talking to her I felt bad about taking her food because she had worked hard to build it up but she kept asking us to take more and more so we did. And happily I found space for all of it in our cupboards.  Thank goodness they made them so tall in our house. We are so lucky that we are being watched out for and keep having people placed in our lives who can help us in ways we don't even know we need help.

This picture is all baking stuff.  And it's funny because those green bags are mint M&M's and she loves them as much as Mark so she bought like 5 bags! He was pretty excited. We are so blessed!

And here are our two favorite blessings.

 Jared gave Mark the camera and said "picture!"

 Babies look so funny (and sweet and peaceful) when they are sleeping.

Tomorrow marks 7 weeks with Lydia.  Such a sweetheart.

Room Time

There are quite a few things wrong with this picture... Can you name them?

I have often written about how easy a kid Jared has been.  Lately he has been doing his very best to disprove that.  Every day (since he was like 6 months old) Jared has 35-45 minutes of independent play time or room time in his room.  Lately it has been more like time to ransack his room.  On this particular day I came into his room and then immediately left to get the camera. We're making memories here.

Things wrong:

1. Pull up on the floor not him: Jared is basically potty trained only he still struggles with going #2 occasionally so as a precaution we put him in a pull up for naps and room time.  Lately he has been more in favor of going commando.  I am not in favor of this.  Shortly after I took this picture he came to the door and said "Mommy: Pee. carpet!" It was a sad moment.

2. CARS Pajamas.  It is no secret that Jared is slightly obsessed really likes Disney's CARS.  He has these Pajamas and when we get him dressed in the morning he is so sad to take of his "CARS jammas". So he decided to try to put them back on but he couldn't quite do it.  And since he didn't have his pull up or underwear so they got peed on. It was very sad.

3. Clothes:  Jared has a very nice dresser that we got for him and yet his clothes are all on the floor. (well just the top drawer where the CARS items are)  I believe he was trying to get his CARS underwear and other CARS pajamas (he has three pairs). He doesn't quite understand that the bigger a mess he makes the longer it takes to clean up. And I WILL make him clean it all up.

Saturday was an excellent example of Jared showing us he is a two year old lest we forget that. Around 4:30 AM we heard some noise in his room but just went back to sleep and figured he did too.  Apparently not.  At 5:30 AM he comes into our room carrying his blanket, pillow pet and Elmo.  (Kudos to him for staying in bed that long but then they get canceled for getting out of bed before we came to get him. He has never done that before (to our knowledge) and we hope he doesn't start doing it regularly.  We have really stressed that he not get out of his bed until we come get him) We were not ready to get up so we had him climb into bed with us, also something we have never done before we had gone and gotten him up. For good reason too as it is much harder to sleep with a 2 year old in your bed.  Around 6:30 I got up to feed Lydia and Mark got up to get Jared ready for the day.  Fast forward three hours to room time.  I am getting ready in our room and suddenly hear water running in the bathroom by Jared's room. I rush to the bathroom and there is Jared with poo down his leg sitting on the counter trying to wash up.  His pull up is in the toilet, there is poo on the floor and Q tips all over the floor. (Sorry no picture this time).  

First things first I get Jared off the counter and call Mark up for back up.  We fish out the pull up.   (While we were potty training Jared we would dump the poo in the toilet so he could see where it was supposed to go. So I am pretty sure he was trying to do the same, good for him for being responsible kind of?) Cleaned up Jared and had him clean up the Q Tips.  We asked him why he needed a Q Tip and he said "boogers!" Which makes sense because we have used Q Tips before to get boogers out of his nose.  I am not sure why he needed to dump put all of them but what do I know.  Maybe he was looking for just the right one?

So, sure it is good that Jared is trying to be independent and take care of himself but it would be a lot better if he could actually do it himself.  But he has to try things/practice to learn right? Since then (all three days) room time has gone smoothly as is normally does and there have been no more pull ups to be fished out.  I am not sure if all this is Jared just being a 2 year old or if some of it is in response to Lydia. Probably both. He sure loves Lydia so I am grateful he doesn't do anything to her except want to hold her and kiss her.  If it is in response to her I wonder how long it will last?  I know it is a lot of changes for him and have to remind myself of that. I will just have to keep praying for patience and understanding.  Except once when I was in Young Women's we had a lesson and the teacher said she hates to pray for patience because then she gets sent more things that she needs patience for so now I always try to think of other ways to ask for patience.

6 Mondays!

It's amazing that this sweet little girl has been here for 6 weeks now!  We're so happy she is ours.