Easter from a 2 year old

Robert is approaching 3 years old this year--August. Anyway, Easter was this month and he helped me put out our Easter decorations. He loved looking in our enchanted Easter eggs and putting out all of our eggs and flowers, etc. We dyed eggs and had an Easter Egg Hunt which he loved.

Then comes the real meaning behind Easter. It's never too early to start teaching about Jesus. I've been telling him about Easter and the eggs and "we celebrate Jesus." Well, Easter was getting closer and closer. I started thinking that in nursery they might elaborate a little more than "we celebrate Jesus." So I started suggesting to Robert that Easter is about "Jesus was resurected." (2 "s"s?, 2 "r"s?)I have picture cards of Jesus that Robert looks at during Sacrament meeting and a couple of them have Resurection pictures. I got those out and showed Robert, "See Jesus was resurected. He has a body. He's living. He's not dead."

Well, as new things and ideas go with Robert, he put up a fight. "No Jesus was not resurected. He's not have a body. He is dead." I tried to explain that Easter is because Jesus got a new body. Jesus was resurected "No, Mom it's not time for resurected." Well, that part he has right I guess. We'll have to work on it through out the year so next year we can have Easter for real. Maybe by then I can at least get, "Yes Jesus has a new body."

Parenting really is a joy. Sometimes there are those rough spots, but overall the joys make it all worth it. Some parents might not agree I suppose. I haven't had to watch my kids suffer (thinking of my friend Mauri and her new baby Tanzi and my brother Jason and his son Connor).

Everyone asks if Hank is a good baby. I ask the same question to other new mothers. He has his good days and bad days just like the rest of us. I've been thinking, what baby isn't a "good baby." Some babies cry more than others or have a hard time sleeping, but does that make them bad? I think not.

Babies are such angels, so close to heaven, they are all good I like to think.

Robert is so funny. He's starting to answer questions with real answers instead of imagined answers--He's 2 and a half. We are really trying to teach him to be obedient and mind and he's catching on quickly. Just like the rest of us, he also has some days better than others. When he's not minding I call his attention to it and ask him to tell me what I asked him to do. Then I ask if he's minding me. Sometimes he says, "Yes, I am, " even if he's not so I point out what he IS doing and say, "you're not minding me. I asked you to . . ."

So yesterday I was in the front yard trimming our roses and he was outside playing. He climbed into the bed of our pickup truck (by himself--he's getting so big). He played there for a bit and then swung his leg over the tail-gate to climb down. His foot dangled about 2 inches above the bumper. I told him if he reached his foot a little bit more he could stand on the bumper and climb down. It was a little scary so he climbed back into the bed of the truck. I walked over to give him some moral support and told him again how close he was and encouraged him to try again. He asked if I would put "this" (the tale-gate) down. I encouraged him again to swing his leg back over and reach for the bumper.

Then with a stern look on his face he looked at me squarely and said, "Mama, you're not minding me. Please put this down." While he still has a lesson to learn that Mamas and Papas don't do the minding of their children, but children are to mind their parents, I saw that this was a situation that I needed to "mind." So, I put the tale-gate down and told him we could try reaching for the bumper next time. He promptly climbed down and moved on to the next thing.

brothers

Robert is so cute with his brother. He loves on him and wants to hold him--that's the scary part. But he loves to help and will run get me the burp rag or Hank's bib or the phone if it's ringing while I'm feeding Hank. Before Hank was born I had some big brother, little brother shirts made. Robert doesn't want to wear his of course. He doesn't really go for new things too well--although he loves his new brothers. Anyway, I thought I take some pictues of the boys in their shirts. Well, not IN their shirts, but WITH their shirts.

"I want to give him loves, Mom"

Could this be any more perfect?

Henry William

The birth weight pic. A must have for any baby book.

"Momma and me" face to face at last. Another must have for the baby book.

Hank's first day home.


"Happy Birthday Mom!" Hank on my birthday--4 days after his. The best present ever!

Henry William Smart. He's here and he's a biggin'. That's right 9 lbs. 11 oz. 22 in. long. We are very happy with how things (labor and delivery) progressed. I labored for 10 hours--7:40 a.m.-5:40 p.m. There were a few hang-ups. He was posterior for a time which kind of slowed things down because he wasn't dropping into my pelvis--aside form being big. I was changing position a lot to get him to flip over; however, I couldn't stay on my left side too long or his heart beat would drop. After delivery we found that his cord was in a loose (THANKGOODNESS) double-overhand knot which was probably the cause of the "no left-side laying." The cord must have been in a precarious position when I was on my left side. The "no left-side laying" also meant that my epidural, which was primarily on the right side due to my screwy anatomy, couldn't "float" to the left side.

See, what happens when an epidural is primarily on one side more than the other is the patient lays on the side that the ep. is not affecting as much. Gravity kicks in and allows the epidural to affect both sides. So I went in to delivery with half an epidural, expecting a full epidural. But, hey women deliver with out epidurals all the time, right. I wouldn't choose it, but turns out 1/2 and epidural isn't too bad.

Now, if you asked Andrew he'll give you the honest truth about the situation. Truthfully about an hour before delivery I was emotionally exhausted, in tears, and wondering what we were thinking going through this again. Of course I am extremely grateful and don't doubt our decision one bit, it was just exhaustion talking. Once the show started rolling and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, spirits quickly turned. Funny how when our guard is down we become so....movable depending on the situation.

Hank is such a joy. Robert is a loving big brother. Sometimes a little too loving, but helpful none the less. We are so glad to have our family.

Alameda Park is our newest, most fun place to go. It has a "TaiLung Bridge" Ya know Kung Fu Panda and when the furious 5 try to head-off TaiLung the snow leopard at the bridge? Well, our playground has a `bridge and as you can imagine, the imagination begins reeling.

It's a lot of fun to watch.

He's mastered every ladder and slide there is.

Living with Wild Animals

Most mornings instead of walking into Robert's room and being greeted with an eye-rub or yawn, lately I walk in and he's some kind of growling animal. We are immediately stalking some kind of animal from "good morning" to "good night". His favorite characters to take on are lions, tigers, bears, gorillas, we've recently added coyote (he saw some Loony Toons--Wiley Coyote). I hear the growl and the guessing game begins 1)what animal is he? 2)am I prey or predator? 3)how much longer until our characters change unknowingly?

With my prego belly getting.....quite large, I'm the slower moving animal in the pack. The other day we were running from the family room to his bedroom (opposite ends of the house), to get some more animals to add to our pack. He darted off pretty quick and I lugged behind. He turned and looked at me and said, "Is your belly too big, Mom? You can't run fast." Alas, kids are so smart.

sucker and a haircut

A few months ago Andy started going to a barber on Oak St. You'd think he found a key into heaven or something! He loves the barber--enough with those places that do women's hair. The barber is where it's at. Don't get me wrong here. I'm glad he's found the barber. He definately gets a better haircut than the last place he went. It's just so cute how much he loves the barber.



So Robert's hair was getting long. Up until now, Andy has always cut Robert's hair with the clippers in the bathroom, but now that we've discovered the barber..... The barber says that the earlier you start taking little kids to get their haircut, the easier they accept it and will sit still. Not to mention, we're also PAYING THE SOURCE OF THIS INFO FOR THE SERVICE HE'S SUGGESTING :) haha, We're such saps! We took Robert to the barber. I'm sure it'll be the best haircut in nursery. He sure looks handsome! AND he got a sucker out of the deal, so what's not to love?

Twigh-Light Zone

Woooooohhhhhh.... Is there someone there?

It's December!

This is priceless, right? "I've been good this year, I promise." He loves his Santa hat. Some days it even replaces his camo cap that is usually glued to his head.

Here's my Dec. 1st belly. I've been having Andy take my profile the first of each month just for fun I guess. See how big I get from one month to the next.

Boys' Afternoon

Lacey went to go see the Nutcracker this afternoon, so the Boy and I went for a drive to find some deer on the winter range.  We ended up seeing about 50 or so, and we'll call it time very well spent away from the ballet.

Robert loved it.  He just needs to figure out that you need to turn the binoculars around to make things appear closer.

Another shot of the Boy with his 'noculars.

This one had some horns.  Of the 50 or so we saw, this is the only one that had a noticeable rack.

Same one with the antlers.