Saran wrap children

This is what it looks like when I try to ignore Rosalee and let her "play by herself". She takes it upon herself to be oh so nice and make me some food. To do this she uses 65 dishes from her 75 piece set and creates meals with 23 of her 25 plastic food items. I love being loved and I know when she's 14 and giving me the "go to the store with you!?!?!" look I'll miss these days. But for now I want to let it be known that Mommy doesn't need, or want, any friends when she's in the bathroom! It does make me laugh to see those tiny fingers under the door and hearing her sweet voice saying, "Mommy...MOMMY!" or better yet, "Mom, I take care of you."
So how does a mother deal with a super clingy toddler and a baby who has decided he needs to eat every 45 minutes? She goes to the store and buys 80 cent wooden items to be painted! The item for this week- automobiles. I let Rosalee pick out one for her, one for Dad, one for Grandpa, one for Grandma, and one for Aunt Tia. (Mommy doesn't get one because she has to supervise.) Grandma was nice and decided to donate her car to the keep Rosalee busy campaign.

"Paint!!!!!!"

Two paintbrushes are better than one apparently.

Focus...focus!

I know this is going to look cool
Even Grandpa and Dad got in on the action, but I was nice and let them keep their shirts on. I loved how focused they were while painting. I'm pretty sure at one time my father-in-law asked if we had any chrome paint. It took a few hours for their automobiles to dry but Rosalee's 32 layer painted cars took almost 24 hours!


Here are our fabulous cars on parade. Rosalee's tie-die Mardi Gras cars lead the front, followed by Jesse's under the sea tour bus, with the pretty pink rust truck taking up the rear.

But how can I blame her for being my shadow when we wake up with matching Wolverine hair-dos? Hugh Jackman, eat your heart out with jealousy at our natural fabulousness!

Now on to Zeke... how do you distract Starvin' Marvin from thinking he needs to be fed all day long? Watch and see!

Snowy weather

The weather man went on and on about the nice weather in Washington and how it was coming our way. Of course that meant it had to snow today... all day. Good job channel 8!

I've been feeling trapped inside and wanted to go outside so despite my hatred for snow I headed outside with Rosalee.

It's hilarious what joy she can get out of the weirdest things!

Trouble was SO happy to be outside and to have someone play with her. It was fun to play soccer with the dog even if it made me worry that she was going to pop the ball.

Rosalee saying, "Brrrrrr!"

Despite my warnings, Rosalee wanted to drive her car in the snow. It got stuck, she got frustrated and quickly backed it back onto the porch.

After the car fiasco Rosalee went around the porch collecting pieces of wood and cleaning them up. When I asked her what she was doing she told me, "Mommy I build my house."

No trip outside would be complete without Rosalee "cooking" something for me. Today's special included two pinecones, a large rock, snow, and a rotten tomato from the dead plants I've neglected to throw away.

After Rosalee made me my snack I convinced her to come inside and make a real snack with me. We made brownies and halfway through the cooking process she informed me that we need to add "chips" to it. So I pulled out the brownies, stirred the top around, and let Rosalee dump a rather large handful of chocolate chips on top. End result- gut busting deliciousness!

Child like faith

In the scriptures we are told that "the natural man is an enemy to God... unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit... and becometh a saith through the atonement of Christ the Lord,
AND BECOMETH AS A CHILD,
submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things... even as a child doth submit to his father."
Yesterday Rosalee and I were walking to the car to run some errands and she told me, "Mommy I want more snow." So I told her, "You pray to Heavenly Father and ask him to send you some." She said, "Okay" and proceeded to say a quick, grammatically incorrect prayer for "more fresh snow please".

Today I woke up to this-

Apparently I need to be more like Rosalee.

While eating a breakfast of strawberries I pointed outside and said, "Look Rosalee, Heavenly Father answered your prayer and make it snow!" Rosalee's response, "I know. He love me."
I guess I have A LOT to learn.

Dearest Zekey,

My sweet boy you are now 5 months old and I'm amazed at how you've grown SO much in such a short time. You have almost outgrown your 3-6 month clothing so I've started bringing out some of the 6-9 month clothing. You fall asleep almost immediately if we lie you on your back and pat your back/bum. Then we'll place you in your crib for the night... or at least until you wake up around 2 starving. Your idea of tummy time is having us lie you down and then practically rolling out of our arms onto your back. I find it hilarious that you won't stay on your stomach but I guess that just means your muscles are strong. You love to talk out loud, unless someone is looking at you. As soon as you make eye contact you start smiling and forget all about what you were saying. I've tried giving you a spoon to play with to see if it helps with the cereal... apparently you think spoons are projectiles and are meant to be tossed on the floor. Your stranger anxiety has NOT kicked in AT ALL! You don't care who holds you, looks at you, etc. as long as someone is loving you. This is very helpful for those times I need to pass you to someone to "help" your sister with one of her "toddler moments". Due to you fascination with watching your fingers I've started working with you on ASL. I show you the sign for "milk" and then feed you. For a few days now you'll look at me, sign "milk", and proceed to fuss until I come and feed you. But sometimes you confuse me because you'll sign "milk" when you just want your pacifier. I can only assume that to you "milk" means "stick something in my mouth to make me happy".

Sadly you have your first cold so you've done a lot of sleeping over the past few days. Surprisingly you haven't been that fussy though. You still smile, laugh, and love to be snuggled despite not being able to breath that well and coughing like an 80 year old smoker. You do want to be held more than usual but honestly I don't mind! We've found that the best thing for you is to take you into the bathroom when we're showering. After breathing in the steam you usually shoot snot all over and then are a happy, less gross baby for several hours.

You LOVE to laugh! You have a very unique laugh that I'm trying to capture on video but for some reason Mommy isn't as funny from behind a camera...

You LOVE to have people look at you. Faces and finger fascinate you. I've found you, several times, awake from a nap just staring at your fingers lying quietly in the crib.

We love you!

Snip, snip

EVERY morning Rosalee runs and hides when I try to cut her hair. I bought some fancy leave in conditioner so it'll be easier to comb, but she stills cries and tells me that it's "too ouchy". For a few days I've threatened her that if she didn't cooperate I was going to cut her hair. I had her watch her aunt get her hair cut to try and encourage her. It didn't quite work. She said grandpa, grandma, dad, mom, and Zeke could get hair cuts, but not her.
Tonight while watching Up I started playing with her hair. Then I got a comb and combed out all the nasty tangles while she sat still and watched the movie. I figured this was the best time to try and cut it so I got some scissors. I cut the back first and I thought I was doing great at being sneaky about it. After my third cut Rosalee said (while still looking at the television), "Thanks for the hair cuts Mommy. You make me be so pretty okay." Then she started wiggling around a bit but I got it cut fairly even and cute looking.
My end result-

I thought about keeping some of it since this is her first real hair cut and not just a trim. But then I thought "Where will I keep this?", "Will she want me to keep it?", and "Jesse will shoot me if I try to keep yet another random thing for our children." So sadly it all went into the trash.
Out of pure paranoia I made my sister-in-law (who went to beauty school) look at Rosalee's hair and make sure it was perfectly (or as close as you can get with a two year old) even. There is one spot on the back of her neck where the hair is shorter and she has a scrape on her neck. But it's only noticable from close up and with her hair straight and wet. For the record that was the first and LAST cut Jesse made on her head tonight. To be fair, Rosalee did move right as he was making the cut though.

Rosalee being the wonderful two year old she is didn't want me to take her picture so I now have several angles to show off her new look I guess.

FINALLY I got her to look at me... okay so I had Tia hold her and I yelled, "Rosalee!" to get her attention, but whatever works!

Then I realized that enough is enough and apparently some of us were over having our picture taken...

My week

This week has been interesting to say the least! Rosalee got sick, then Jesse, then Zeke, and now me. It's just a cold but it make our throat REALLY sore which means Rosalee isn't eating, Zeke wants to eat all day, and both kids have been doing that nasty barking old man smoker cough.

This week Jesse was only called to work one day- and that was only for half of the day. So he got to help out at home with the kids and have the pleasure of going to the doctor.

This week we've been kind of lazy...

playing games

sleeping

and watching movies.
Rosalee told me, "Mom I need to nap on the couch." When I asked her why she said, "I sick so I need to watch a movie and nap on the couch." She's already got the sick routine DOWN!

This week we celebrated the 12th day of Christmas (January 6th) with the kids. Some traditions are that it took the wise men 12 days to follow the star to the baby Jesus's manger bed. So on the 12th day the children get a little present because that is the day that Jesus received his. Or it gives Mom and Dad an excuse to buy something on an after Christmas sale and/or not pay extra for expedited shipping on online orders...

This week the kids got to spend time with their great grandparents from Alaska (the Carlsons). We went swimming, read books together, watched movies, and had a lot of sweet quiet moments together. Yesterday we went to Rexburg and both sets of great grandparents were together. I took the opportunity to take a picture because I figured this would be a one in a million opportunity that I wanted to be able to remember.

This week we (Jenny, Tia, and I) took Rosalee to see The Princess and the Frog. It was Rosalee's first time in a theater (since she was a tiny infant) so I was nervous. For the most part she did great. During the lovey cute parts she'd start to get bored and then during the scary voodoo parts she was glued to the screen. She even started laughing during the creepy end when the shadow voodoo man was sucked into a grave by these weird voodoo dolls and shadows. The best part was when she started dancing in the aisle when the fireflies played the Cajun song. Rosalee would do well in the South.

This week was pretty crazy but at least it kept me busy!

The end of 09

2009 was an interesting year to say the least! We had some ups- the birth of Zeke, Jesse graduating from Purdue, going to Hawaii, and we had some downs- Jesse being unemployed, our house in Indiana having mold and then flooding right before we moved. It will be a hard year to forget, that's for sure!
Here are our pictures from the end of 2009 and some of the first 2010 pictures. I didn't take a lot of pictures because I was having too much fun with my family. Oh well!
The first part is right after Christmas when John (Jesse's brother) and his family stayed with us for a few days. It was fun letting the kids play together and make several messes with all of the new Christmas toys.

Our gingerbread houses were getting old and stale so we let the kids dig into them.

We got out an old Nintendo track game and let the kids stomp around playing. It was funny to watch them play, but even funnier to watch the adults!
For Family Home Evening on Monday we had a lesson on music so I got out my instruments from teaching and Jesse's Uncle Dave got his guitar out. It was a lot of fun to let the little ones play music and to have everyone singing along.
*I didn't realized that the Christmas lights made a glare until after I uploaded the video.*

As I was putting the Christmas pictures on the blog Rosalee came up to help. She told me, "I give you my rascal face" and it cracked me up so I took her picture. Then I decided to take a nice picture of her too.
On the 29th we packed up the car and headed to Utah to stay with Jesse's sister and her family. We left later than we had hoped so by the time we got to the Salt Lake area the roads were icy and slushy and filled with rush hour traffic. One word to describe it- UGH! Poor Zeke cried the last twenty minutes and the worst part was we could see the exit but the cars were going SO slow that we crawled there. When we got to Kristi's house we discovered that he had a messy diaper that had leaked out. Poor baby, no wonder he was crying! We spent the vacation playing the Wii, watching movies, spending time with family, and playing in the snow. It was nice to be around kids Rosalee's age so she had other people to play with. She really loves her cousins so I hope whenever Jesse gets a job we'll still be close to them.
One thing we did on the trip was give Zeke his first try of baby rice cereal. At first we was more interested in the bib than the spoon or food.

The spoon went in with ease and then...

the look of 'why on Earth would you put that nasty junk in my face' happened.

He's not a fan, but I think if we try the baby oatmeal he'll be happier. On the other hand we does like sucking on apple slices.
It snowed quite a bit while we were in Utah and Kristi has a small hill next to her house. When Rosalee was sleeping I kept hearing sounds of "whhhheeee!" and I wasn't sure where it was coming from. I looked out the window to see Jesse, in his pajamas and coat, sledding down the hill. He was having a great time so I just let him play while I stayed warm inside with Zeke.

When Rosalee woke up from her nap I got her dressed so she could go outside and sled too. She's never gone sledding before so we weren't sure how much she'd like it. It turns out that she LOVES it! She kept saying, "one more time Daddy" even though her face was bright red from being cold. I went down the hill a few times with her but my camera battery died by then so we didn't get any pictures of it. When it was time to go inside I had to bribe Rosalee with a candy cane to get her back inside! Apparently she didn't care that she was half frozen.

Our brother-in-law Jared got a giant inflatable package of lunch meat from a garage sale that he used as his sled. I can only assume that it was used at a grocery store for a display but now it is used for sledding, swimming, and maybe even as a bed for a young child.

My niece Sydney spends most of her time being held by her mom (which is exactly how she wants it) but I did manage to steal her away and get a few pictures of her. When I pick her up I can feel the difference in weight between her and Zeke. It's funny how much 1 1/2 pounds can do for a person that small!

Most nights were spent with people playing games and other people watching a movie. One night Rosalee and Allie climbed up on Grandma's lap and snuggled together to watch a movie.

Rosalee had discovered the joy of Mr. Potatohead, only she thinks his glasses are for her!

New Year's Eve was pretty calm for us this year. For dinner we had a feast of favorites which means everyone got to pick their favorite snack food to have for dinner. We ate hot wings (Rosalee had 3 and really liked them surprisingly), cinnamon rolls, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers, a fruit platter, a vegetable platter, chips and 7 layer dip, nachos, goldfish crackers, cookies, Cheetos, fruit snacks, Sun Chips, and Hostess cupcakes. Not the healthiest meal, but we know that everyone was happy with at least one of the items!
We put the kids to bed at 9 p.m. and then just played games and watched television. None of us stayed up too much after midnight. Honestly I think the last person went to bed at 12:30, but I guess that's how it goes when you have little ones.
On New Year's Day we went to Jesse's cousin Jason's house and had a Carlson (my mother-in-law's side of the family) reunion. There were several cousins, aunts, and uncles that I had never met and some that we haven't seen in a few years. Jason and Amelia have a toy room so Rosalee was in heaven playing with the kitchen and books in there. For lunch we had pizza and salad and Rosalee being herself refused the pizza and only ate the salad. People asked how I can get her to do that and I just told them she came that weird. That night we went back to Kristi's house where we stayed until Sunday.

My original goal was to go around, get candid photos of everyone, but that didn't happen. I had too much fun talking with people, meeting new family members, etc. Plus Jesse's uncle had a video camera so I figured I'll just get a copy of that and call it good.
The above pictures are of Jesse's Aunt Laura singing and Dennis (my father-in-law) playing the drums on Rock Band. The other picture is of the kids playing and people talking which is what most of the house looked like all day long.

Here's the best picture I got on my camera with all of us (minus Jesse's sister in Ohio and her family) with Grandma and Grandpa Carlson.

Jesse loves being around all the kids. I have so much fun watching him interact with our nieces, nephews, and children.
Jesse's cousin Terrence is a NATURAL with children! He didn't care if he knew the kid or not, he'd just start playing with them. When Zeke started being fussy, Terrence took him and got him to calm down right away! Zeke was smiling, laughing, and really enjoying being with him. If anyone would do well with 12 kids, it'd be him!
We left Jesse's sister's house around 11:00 a.m. so we could get back to Idaho fairly early. Jesse was starting to feel sick, we needed to get the dog, etc. so we only went to the first part of church and then left. On the way Rosalee said, "Mommy I want to see the Salt Lake temple." For those who don't know LDS (or Mormon) temples are all over Utah so as we were driving around we'd point them out to Rosalee. We decided what could it hurt to take a short stop and let Rosalee see the temple. Zeke was asleep so we kept him in his car seat and he stayed asleep for the whole trip. (It wasn't that long, we only walked around for 30-40 minutes.) The Christmas lights were still up so we got to see them, even though they weren't on. Maybe next year we'll bundle the kids up and go at night when they are on. It was a nice, quiet, short stop that I'm thankful we decided to take.

The pesky sun was barely peaking over the Tabernacle so it made a weird glare on the picture. :(
But this is a manger scene that Rosalee found while we were walking around. She kept asking "What's he doing outside?" about the baby Jesus because I always tell her that babies can't go outside for very long, if at all.

The temple is so large that it's hard to get a picture of the whole thing in one photo. Here's my best attempt at being creative/artistic with my photography.

Rosalee made it her goal to find all of the water on Temple Square. If a fountain was on, she was there! She also made it her goal to put her fingers in all of the water... Oh well, she enjoyed herself.

A view of the Salt Lake temple and the reflection pool

Here's dad and daughter next to the reflection pool. It's hard to see but the white statues are one of the many nativity scenes found on Temple Square during the holiday season.

Rosalee was so excited that she kept running everywhere saying, "Let's go Daddy! Let's go Mommy! I see more temple!"

Our car was parked right in front of the Conference Center so it was our last stop of the tour. As you can tell Jesse is in LOVE with his Christmas present and wears them as often as he can. I asked him if he had known in advance that we'd be stopping at Temple Square would he have worn something different. His answer, "No, these things are comfortable!" Rosalee enjoyed seeing the large waterfall on the building and just HAD TO put her fingers in the water.
As soon as we got back on to the freeway she asked for some crackers to eat. Then within 10 minutes she was fast asleep. She slept all the way home (even with a stop to feed Zeke) and when I woke her up to say we were home she said, "We need to go get Trouble." So I went inside with Zeke and Jesse and her drove off to go get the dog. It was great to visit with family but I'm glad to be back home, sleeping in a bed (not an air matress), and having some quiet time.