SAM THE JAM MAN

June and July are our favorite months here in north carolina. Not because of the heat and incredible humidity, those I could do without. The reason is the u-pick farms. Fresh produce that you pick yourself, and since you do the work of picking it, it is a lot cheaper. our favorites are strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. Not only is it cheap, but vine ripened fruit is incredible. Imagine blueberries as big as grapes! Nicholas loves to find the ripe blueberries and eat them, he goes around and finds the bushes that are full and says " look mama here's a good one!" then he starts picking and eating. Today he was trying to reach a nice ripe one that was just out of his reach and when he finally got it he said "I caught it mama, and it's a good one!" after we have picked a few buckets full we go home and wash them and freeze them or make jam, and eat them of course- even christian loves blueberries. Sam has become quite the jam maker. He's gone a little wild if you ask me, but it makes him happy, and I think it is kind of cute to see him all domestic. we have 24 jars of jam in our freezer! I have decided to call him sam the jam man.

My Life's Work Is Complete!

Or at least my life for the last 7 months that is. last august my friend emily and i went to a relief society class about making quiet books, and everyone in my ward can testify that if there ever was a child in need of assistance in being quiet, it's nicholas, so we decided to make the quiet books for our kids. the lady teaching the class said it took her about 60 hours to make it. Emily and i both though that was ridiculous. There was no way on earth it would take us that long. considering that neither of us are really experienced sewers, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. everything took longer than we thought. first there was finding all the materials-a story all it's own, then the cutting, tracing, reinforcing, sewing, coloring, and then the zipper case, neither of us had ever made a zipper case before, and the was on of the few things there wasn't a pattern for. well, 7 long months and 2 babies later(one for me and one for her)we finished. It's not perfect, but i have to say, I am dang proud of it.

Check out my Slide Show!

quick update

so we moved to a bigger apartment down the street, but we haven't switched our internet over yet, so i can't really blog right now, but i have lots of things i want to post, so hopefully i can do it before we go to utah in 2 weeks. for those of you who don't know we are going to utah for a month and half, so my blog might die a little while i'm gone, but i'll try to update it as much as i can. anyway i would add some pictures now, but i can't find the usb cable to download the pictures from my camera, so hopefully in a few days!

Christian trying to crawl

Christain really wants to crawl. he does really well when it comes to getting up on his hands and knees and then he rocks to work up to it, but then when he tries to go somewhere, he always falls over, poor kid. i think he is really close though.

I"VE BEEN TAGED!

My friend lisa tagged me, so i guess it's my turn to tag people, those who get tagged have to answer the following questions on their blog, so i'm tagging... Kathy, Dezra, Tiffany, and Russell.

1. What were you doing ten years ago?
Ten years ago i was 17, and just finishing my junior year in high school. I worked at mcdonalds, and hung out with my friends at the drive in movie all summer long. It was also 10 years ago that this boy named sam brady gave me a huge bouquet of red roses for my birthday. My dad didn't like that at all because at the time this boy had long hair, and he wore funny hats. I told him that sam was just a friend so he didn't have to worry about it. my dad said that no boy gives a girl flowers like that when they are "just friends". It was then that i said the fatal words" I don't know why you are all worked up about it, it's not like i'm going to marry him or anything." Little did he know that a few years later he would actually be talking me into marrying that boy.

2.What were you doing one year ago?
Throwing up probably. i was only a few months pregnant with christain. i was also getting ready for young womens camp, i was the camp director in my ward- yes i went to camp while i was pregnant and it was hot and miserable, and all i did all day was hike up the hill to the bathroom, then when i got back i'd drink more water and then hike back up the hill to the bathroom again.

3.Five Snacks You Enjoy:
do i have to just pick 5? I guess the top 5 are...
-most kinds of chocolate- especially see's.
-ice cream
-fresh fruit- pineapple, blueberries, watermellon, grapes, etc.
-cottage cheese
-cereal

4.Five Songs You Know All The Words To
Hmmmmmmm... Lately sam and i have been into classical music so it doesn't have any words, however when nicholas makes a pee pee in the potty chair we get to "fast dance" which means we turn on rascal flats and dance/run into each other for the first 2 songs, and once you do that 5 times a day, you have them memorized. so " bless the broken road" and "where you are" by rascal flats, and then at least 2 dozen nursery songs-snowman, popcorn popping, the wheels on the bus,and several primary songs.

5.Five Things You Would Do If You Were A Millionaire:
-go shopping all the time
-put my kids in private schools- public schools out here are crap.
-buy my dad a garage
-buy a house with a great big back yard for nicholas
-sam says he would make me invest.

6.Five Bad Habits:
-stay up way too late watching the home and garden channel.
-spend too much money
-forget to turn out lights
-i gossip too much
-i procrastinate

7.Five Things You Like Doing:
-shopping/ finding incredible bargains
-spend time with my family
-blogging
-anything crafty- scrapbooking, sewing, making decorations for my appartment
-cooking- believe it or not, but i do enjoy cooking, not always, but i love making certain things.

8.Five Things You Would Never Wear Again:
-my party clothes from my 20's:the black leather pants, the black shiny jacket, the "I love Me" shirt, and the "men" shirt, the colored wigs, and the blond stripes in my hair- no they weren't highlights, they were actual stripes. Yikes!
- a size 2, I would wear it again, but i have accepted the fact that it will never happen, but i guess a size 6 isn't too bad for someone who has had 2 kids.
-a 2 piece swimsuit, again 2 kids, the belly stretch marks are not attractive.
-hot pink spandex-yes i was a child of the 80's.
-my 9th grade choir dress- it was huge and purple and it looked like a maternity dress.

9.Five Favorite Toys:
-mini van- yes i LOVE my mini van
-digital camera
-sewing machine
-internet
-bread machine

one way to get your toddler to eat his veggies

What cookie mama?

I made some cookies yesterday, and nicholas kept asking me for one right before dinner, so i kept on telling him no. well i turned around from fixing our dinner plates and discovered a cookie was missing, and nicholas was running down the hall. i called to him to bring back the cookie, and of course he was silent, so i went looking for him and he was in his room hiding while he wolfed down the cookie as fast as he could. unfortunately the whole thing looked so funny that i had to let him finish it.

Faith

Tonight as i was putting Nicholas to bed he asked me to get him his cars, choo choo train and mater to sleep with. Well they were all buried in the toy box, and Christian was already asleep, and i didn't want to wake him up by digging around in the toy box, so i grabbed a few cars off the top, and I told him I couldn't find his choo choo train and mater. Then we said his prayers and in his prayer he said "Please help us to find mater and choo choo train." As soon as he finished he said "OK mommy NOW we can find choo choo train and mater!" How can you argue with that? So I went back to the toy box, and to my surprise i quickly found them both. I don't know why that surprised me, Nicholas fully expected me to be able to find them. I learned my lesson on faith.

Sharing

This was a rare moment when nicholas was feeling VERY generous. I asked him to share his toys with christian, usually he reluctantly gives him one toy, but this time he brought him almost every toy from the box! Poor christian didn't know what to do with so many toys, so he eventually freaked out. I think nicholas was offended by his lack of gratitude, because he refused to share with him for the rest of the day.

"Look at all the stars!"

The other day nicholas and I were playing one of his favorite games- the one where he pretends to put me to sleep. Well this time he rolled over and said "Look at all the stars!" and we laid there for an hour star gazing in our living room.