Owen, My Sweet Boy....

....Today, oh how do I describe today?  You've recently discovered how to climb, and this has opened up a whole new world to your innocent 16 months of experience.  Everything is fair game... the soft blue chair, the couch, the bed, and of course, the kitchen chairs.  They have been climbed and fallen off of more than once today, they have given you access to window looking, to curtain pulling, picture knocking, cookie grabbing, water spilling, spoon banging...all of the fun things any little boy would love.  In addition to this, you've sprayed the milk in your sippy cup all over the carpet, pulled the recyclables out of the bin and scattered them throughout the living room, reached a hand into big sister's not-so-empty potty chair, found the TV remote and played up/down volume, pulled my ziploc bags out of my kitchen drawers, pulled my kitchen utensils out of my kitchen drawers, attacked my potted poppies with a trowel, stolen big sister's stuffed animals much to her shrieking dismay and emptied my hair/makeup products from the bathroom drawer.  This amidst all of what mommy was trying to accomplish today: two loads of laundry, two batches of cookies, breakfast, mid-morning snacks, lunch, mid-afternoon snacks, making dinner, playing jungle, reading books, singing songs, not going crazy....the usual. 

 It's been a very challenging day my young sir, but in addition to all of these things, you've giggled when big sister dropped her toys to make you laugh, you've snuggled into me while I rocked you and hummed you a song as you drifted to sleep, you've reached your still chubby hands up to me to pick you up after you fell off the kitchen chair, you gave me big cheesy smiles as I was making dinner that made me smile, you squealed "DADA!!!" when daddy came home, and you let mama kiss and kiss and kiss your freshly bathed and lotioned face before I handed you off to daddy for your bottle and bed.

You are no other than my little Mr. Mischievous, but I couldn't be more in love you, my sweet boy.

Whirlwind Summer

I am almost incredulous that it's the END of June.  Really, the END of JUNE!!!  What is going on around here?  So far the start of this summer has just been an absolute whirlwind!  We start the week and all of the sudden it's Friday again and we celebrate the weekend, phew!

I feel like I have so many little updates to share, I just don't know where to start, so I'm really hoping I don't forget! So, let's make a nice little organized list, I can't help being organized...(most of the time):

*Kristoffer received a new calling!  He's the new ward mission leader!  He's been a ward missionary for about 8 months or so, and now he's assumed the lead.  This means more meetings of course, but it's obviously important enough for the Lord to call him to it, so we as a family (read: me, as a wife) will see/support him through it.

*Samantha received a new calling!  I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share, since I haven't been sustained yet, but no one from our ward reads my blog, so I think I'm safe.  I'm now the stake primary chorister!  So.....I'm not really sure what that means/entails, but I'm eager to get started.  The only thing I do know is that I'll also have a few more meetings; *more*, what am I saying, I don't have any meetings *now*!

*Next month, Kristoffer starts a new shift at work; he's signed up to work the 2-10pm shift for July-September.  We've chatted about this and have decided it's something we can do to minimize cash outflow and maximize cash utilization to it's highest potential...AND we're realizing that Kristoffer will get to spend even more time with the kids in the morning, since he won't have to leave for work until about 1pm.  This is something that makes my little mother heart so very, very happy!  I may even be able to pick up a few extra hours at work in the morning.  But, we'll see how things go for the next three months and go from there.

*I getting my hair done on Saturday!!!  I know that's totally not big news, but I couldn't hold my enthusiasm any longer.  I LOVE getting my hair done...

*I've been doing a little experiment with Owen.  I took him in for his shots at 15 months and while his height was in the 90th percentile, his weight was surprisingly in the 20th percentile.  This kind of caught me off guard, he's always been a pretty solid boy.  The doctor wasn't worried, and I wasn't really worried either, but as a mom who knows her little guy, I left the office with some thoughts brewing in my mama-noggin.  The week before the visit, Kristoffer had mentioned that Owen really hadn't had a solid stool since I stopped nursing him when he turned one.  Then I also recalled that as a child, I was lactose intolerant.  I made a very fluid/tentative decision that Owen may be lactose intolerant, and started doing some research online.  And I stumbled across....goat milk!  I know, I know, ya'll are scrunching your noses and raising your eyebrows at the thought of drinking goat milk.  I was a little hesitant too...before I researched how amazing this stuff is for you!  SOOOO much better for you than cow's milk; it's like canned green beans vs. fresh green beans from your garden.  Anyway....Owen has been on goat's milk for about 3 weeks and he's been doing great.  His stools are more formed (TMI, right?) , I haven't totally cut out all milk from his diet-he still eats cheese so I think that affects his belly somewhat.  And he's climbed up into the 30th-35th percentile in these last 3 weeks, which is amazing!!!  Goat milk ain't cheap, and this makes me sad, but my little buddy is totally worth it.

*Marin, the little cutie-patootie is just growing and learning and getting ready for pre-school in the fall.  She is pretty excited, and I am too.  When we moved here last summer, I was amazed that so many people were starting their tiny just-barely-three years olds in pre-school!  We weren't ready for that last year, but this year, Marin is ready to socialize!  She'll be going 2 days a week for about 3 hours each day which is perfect.

*I'm also doing a little diet experiment, although, it doesn't involve goat milk.  This is my final, last ditch attempt to lose the weight by myself before I do Weight Watchers.  This past week, I've been doing gluten free and as carb free as I can stand.  It's been going surprisingly well, and I've felt pretty good!  I LOVE carbs, and pasta and all that stuff, and even though we always buy whole grain bread and pasta and I'll try to limit the gluten, it still doesn't work.  I can't eat a healthy low carb wheat wrap with veggies and tuna inside and lose weight.  So, I'm cutting out the wheat (gluten) and cutting my other carbs (rice, potatoes, corn) way back to hardly anything.  I've had success in the past doing this, so I'm crossing my fingers it will work this time around, it's still too early to tell!

*My sister's coming to town!!  She and her little girl, Lydia are coming to Salt Lake in about two weeks and I'm so excited!  I'm mentally making a list of all the fun things we need to do together while she's here, so hopefully we can get them all done.

I hope I remembered everything!

These are picture of last Saturday, we took the kids to an indoor aquatics center just a few miles from our house.  It was our first time and it was soooo fun!  They have a perfect setup for little kids, and they have a little half lazy river and a waterslide and fun water spout things for the kids to play with, totally worth the 16 bucks for the whole family.

All About My Dad- By Marin

Marin had some help filling out a little sheet for Father's Day in her Sunbeam class at church, and Kristoffer and I just barely read through it tonight.  It was the cutest thing!

MY DAD IS  as old as my grandpa YEARS OLD.

MY DAD WEIGHS as big as an elephant POUNDS.

MY DAD WAS BORN IN oregon.

MY DAD'S FAVORITE COLOR IS blue.

MY DAD'S FAVORITE SUPER HERO IS super grover.

MY DAD ALWAYS SAYS no when I hit Owen.

MY DAD'S JOB IS to fix the leak on the house.

THE FIRST THING MY DAD DOES IN THE MORNING IS gets me breakfast.

MY DAD LAUGHS WHEN he gets hurt.

MY DAD'S FAVORITE FOOD IS I don't know.

I LOVE MY DAD BECAUSE he gives me hugs.

Awwww, does this not just melt your heart?  She is such a sweet girl and she just *loves* her daddy.  I am so grateful to have an amazing husband who loves our sweet children and is an incredibly loving father.  I must have done something right to deserve this great guy and such cute kids.

Chalk Family

The other week, we were outside as a family and Marin had her sidewalk chalk.  We started with tracing daddy, and then we all jumped on board, because, let's face it....sidewalk chalk is fun!

I traced Kristoffer...he keeps joking that I gave him a wooden leg (I'm literally laughing right now about this), but he didn't have his foot to the side, so that's how it looked!  Daddy decorated his own tracing....who wears short shorts?!  Evidently daddy's chalk-man does.  Marin took one look at the hair and laughed and said "Daddy, you have crazy hair!".

 Kristoffer traced me, although, he did add some rather impressive biceps...thanks honey.  I like my big cankles...they look pretty awesome.

 And our little gingerbread-head Marin.  I'm not sure why her head came out so big....

 Awwww, little buddy!  Owen wasn't quite sure why were pinning him down on the pavement, so it was a very quick tracing.

 And here's our crazy little chalk family!

Fun with Colors

This morning, Marin and I had some fun with colors...courtesy of a cool idea that I found through Pinterest, my new favorite go-to website for inpiration-palooza.  And, let me preface by saying that I really struggle finding things like this to do with my kids.  It's not so much the actual 'doing' per se that is hard for me, it's finding the time to do the prep work.  If it's involved and requires more than 5-10 minutes of prep-time, I'm hard-pressed to find that time when I don't have one to two children crawling all over me trying to figure out what I'm doing.  

SO....I was happy to find this super simple, super fun, super age-appropriate little activity for Marin.  I took some glass glasses and filled them with cold water to about 2 inches below the rim.  Then, we squirted on some of daddy's shaving cream, so it simulated a big, puffy cloud.  And, using liquid food coloring, I squeezed some drops into a crevice of the "cloud" and we watched as the cloud slowly diffused the color into the water below.  It was really quite cool for ME to watch!  Then we used another primary color and did the same, so Marin could watch the colors mix and see what new color they made, it was a great learning activity.

We started with just blue.

 I love this picture of her, just studying the glass, this is truly my daughter right here.

 So intent!

 And check out her new specs!  Her last pair was hanging by a thread (well, paper clips, to be exact), and she was due for another eye exam anyway, so we chose this pair together and I *LOVE* them, they compliment her face so nicely.

Watching the yellow diffuse and mix with the blue to make green!

 The next glass we started with red.

 And added some blue to make purple.

 That's my girl, finger-in-nose.  *sigh*.

 Our glasses after we finished all of our color mixing experiments....they look like they could be something you would drink!  They were awfully pretty, I was sad to dump them down the drain :(

 There's my cute girl with our color experiment.  We will totally be doing this one again, it's so cheap and easy and quick and perfect for young ones with short attention spans.