Super Saturday: Baby Shower, fish eating fish and Frys!

I got to kind of throw a shower for my good friend Krista at church. Luckily her mom and mother-in-law helped SO much. I don't know how to be cutsie and they do so I was lucky to have them. My friend Nicole let us do the shower at her house. Here is some of the cute decor from the shower!
Diaper cake anyone? Krista's mom-in-law made this super cute cake out of diapers and doodads, I LOVE it, such a cute idea!

Krista's mom brought this idea from a different shower, my photography skills are terrible but just trust me tinsie onesies on a clothesline are adorable!

The bags are full of little baby doodads; bottle brush, comb, hair things, mesh eater, cups and so on all for the mommy to be.

After the shower I joined the boys at home.

This is how Teagan is while Zac is home on the weekends. If you look close he has his "squealy" face on. Teagan thinks that when daddy is home I'm always going to be chasing him for tickles, which I do love.

I put him in nice clean clothes for the stake party and the second I turn my back he's sittin in a pile of dirt...I suppose that boys will be boys

Frys electronics store has fish aquariums throughout the store so we went to give Teagan a try at sea life for free. This fish had a whole other fish stuck in its mouth! It was so funny!

The store also has a large selection of rolling chairs and Teagan wanted to try every one out. :)

Frys is the best! We all love that store, it is HUGE and carries everything from laptops to appliances, to plasma TVs, we like to go in and dream. Today was a good one, but I'm ready to go crash now!

Grape Thief!

I looked over on the couch and Teagan had a big bunch of grapes in his lap. I figure that he just climbed up on the chair and grabbed them while I was looking the other way. I asked him what he was doing and he flashed that winning smile.

Then I came after him so he grabbed the goods...
...and started shoving them in his mouth as fast as he could.
"What mom, nothing is in my mouth, I swear!"
How can you get mad at those eyes???

Why would I be mad, he's eating grapes, funny boy.

Update on Teagan's food

I realized that I have a lot of post that are calls for help in my quest to be a good parent and I thought I'd thank everyone for the good advice about food.

Teagan is eating SO much better now after trying some of the ideas everyone gave me.

Instead of giving him 3 meals and 3 snacks everyday I just do 4 meals. He eats at about 8:30, 12, 3:30 and 7 and no snacks in between, usually. He is eating more substantial foods and more food in general. Before he mostly wanted fruit and graham crackers and he'd turn up his nose to most other things. Now he actually has the chance to get hungry and he'll at least try new things for a few bites. We had beef stroganoff the other day and he ate a bunch of the meat and noodles and he used to gag at that stuff, whoooo!

I have to always give him the least tasty foods first and then end with the fruit and he'll eat so much. I'm less stressed out and I think he is happier too! This is why blogs are so great.

I love you too much to argue...

So in the Love and Logic book they have a section about what to do when your children try to pick fights with you and argue. They say to just look at them and say "I love you too much to argue about this." Teagan doesn't argue with me yet, thank goodness!!!!, but I've tried it with some other people and it works like a charm.

The other night Zac and I were getting to bed a little late and I was slightly grumpy, yes I get grumpy when I'm tired. One of us "jokingly" said something about not making the bed that day, the other one got a little defensive and given the very tired and long day circumstances it could have turned into a "my feelings are hurt" arguement, YUCK! So I said the line from the book "I love you too much to argue about this" and zac started laughing and it was over. I ended up saying that a few times while we were getting ready for bed and we were just laughing so much. It is amazing how great those 7 little words are. The last couple of days any time something starts moving towards a disagreement one of us says it and we both start laughing and it's over.

I even tried it on our neighbors who were over and they stopped fighting (they're brother and sister) it's like magic!

I highly recommend trying it on your spouse and kids!

The good ole' San Diego Zoo

Yesterday we went out and enjoyed one of the wonders of San Diego, the San Diego Zoo. It is ENORMOUS. We didn't even cover 1/2 of it in 2 1/2 hours. We got season passes so I plan on going there for my exercise once a week or so. There are lots of hills!

I have to share the awesome deal we got. Admission is normally $35 per person so we would have paid $70 just to get in. The season pass is only $84 and it comes with 2 free passes and 2 buy one get one free passes. It also works at the San Diego Wild animal park which is closer to us. We got the pass and then turned around and sold the tickets for $2o a piece and next time we'll sell the buy one get one's for $20. So we will end up spending $4 for season passes to two of the biggest and best zoos around, yeehaw!!!!

Teagan LOVED the animals and he loved climbing on the fences around the exhibits...icky germs though, I was wiping off his hands constantly!

He did have a little confusion about the animal noises.

He mooed at this camel and thought most of the other animals were elephants and dogs...hehe
He successfully climbed inside of the elephant exhibit....

And threw a large embarrassing tantrum when Zac pulled him out. (he had to return to the stroller and we went and sat in front of a wall until he was "ready to see more animals politely", hehe)

He loved all of the big animal models. The zoo has elephants, birds, cheetahs and lots of other fake animals for the kids to play on and touch, Teagan loved to touch them!

We could hardly tear him away from this elephant to go see the real ones.

I think the birds and elephants tied for favorite. He just loves elephants in general, but the birds were so active and chattery, he just couldn't get enough.

Thank you Zac for finding out about the sweet deal! We had so much fun and I can't wait to go back! Come visit us and you can come with us!

Love and Logic at Work

So my awesome sister Julie is loaning me her "Love and Logic" parenting book. I basically follow everything Julie does because she has the perfect daughter. I'm 2 chapters into the book so tonight I thought I'd put some of the ideas to work. The book pushes for giving kids choices and letting them learn things for themselves and figuring out logical consequences for their actions.

Teagan wanted to take his car into the bathtub so instead of saying "no! Absolutely not" and making him scream I decided to let him learn why we don't put cars in the tub.

Me: "Do you think it would be a good idea to put the car in the bath"

Teagan: "ya!"

Me: "Okay, lets try and see how it goes"

I haven't gotten to the part about what to do if they don't figure it out on their own, Teagan thought the car was awesome in the tub so i just had to take it out and tell him that cars don't belong in the tub. Maybe I should just finish the book before I try the ideas.

Teagan! Where are you!!!

Today we went to the park and it was SO hot! Teagan and I went to go refill his sippy cup and he was following me back down the sidewalk towards the playground. I turned around after about 5 seconds and he was gone. I looked around on the toys and back by the fountain and I started getting frantic because I really couldn 't see him anywhere. I started yelling his name and then I heard his little voice and followed it. To the right of the sidewalk there are a bunch of 3-4 ft bushes forming a sort of wall and Teagan had found a trail that went between them and went right through and sat himself down in the middle of the flowers to watch the elementary kids playing. He was also trying to catch one of the MANY bees flying around the flowers. Talk about freaking me out, I about had a heart attack, luckily I had my camera to document the incident!

My child is an angel, what are you talking about?

Warning---this is a long post

This is my little angel playing quietly with his toys. A lady from my church gave/borrowed this train set to Teagan and he loves to play with it! He'll disappear into his room and I'll find him driving the trains around and putting the pegs into the holes, love it! It's hard to believe that this little sweety is capable of a public tantrom...


Ever get an evil glare from another mom when your kid is misbehaving? I'm not saying we didn't deserve it, but man, I don't like dirty looks. Me and Teagan went to toddler story time at the library and I was so excited. We went in and the kids had little cushions to sit on and EVERY kid sat on their cushion the whole time except for Teagan. He was the youngest one there by probably 6 months, but still. He sat still through the songs, but when it came to the stories wouldn't sit still or on my lap and he threw a nasty tantrom right in the middle of the itsy bitsy spider, all in the first 5 minutes. So I picked him up and we left while every other mom glared me out of the room.

What the heck are those moms doing that I'm not??? Glaring at unexperienced moms for one thing. But I think they probably also waited until their kids were an appropriate age before they tried to get them to sit still for 30 minutes. All I know is that I was sad to miss the rest of the stories!

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Ever get the evil eye for misbehaving yourself? Again, I was in the wrong, but what is up with people and evil looks today? I was at Henry's Market which is my favorite for a number of reasons. 1) They have CHEAP and QUALITY produce 2) They give Teagan a balloon every time we go and 3) They have YUMMY free samples of muffins and cakes every day!

Lets just say that I went back a couple times throughout my shopping experience for more samples and so did Teagan. Apparently there was a lady watching me and she gave me a dirty look and shook her head at me!!! Can you believe it??? I'm sorry but they put 3 types of muffins in one bin and I NEED to try each kind at least once. Plus Teagan kept saying please for more. I just gave the lady a really big smile as I went in for thirds....
PS: I got all of this produce for $9, isn't that a great deal! Everything was 1/2 the price I buy it at my regular grocery store!

Despite the dirty looks, today is a good day. I exercised, grocery shopped, attempted to enlighten Teagan at story time, made dinner, showered AND got ready, Teagan's been asleep for 2 hours, my house looks decent, and now I'm blogging, all by 2 in the afternoon. That never happens!

Queen For a Day

I love mother's day, it is great...Mostly because Zac treats me like a queen and I get a new determination to be a better mom and wife. At church I get to realize that nobody is the perfect mom, we just have to try.

Today was great. I got french toast and a cheesy egg burrito for breakfast along with king size candy bars (new diet starts tomorrow). I am always so impressed by Zac's gifts, he is always really thoughtful and practical. I am always afraid to cook bacon because of the popping grease so Zac found these cool covers for the pan that will protect my eyes from flaming hot grease. He also got me a new fancy razor. I was so excited!

I got to relax and read the Ensign for a while and catch up on my spiritual side until it was time for church. Teagan was still asleep so Zac stayed home with him until he woke up so I could enjoy the cheesy mothers day talks and primary kids singing songs about moms without a crazy toddler climbing over me. It was so nice. I loved it. I got to remember why I love my church so much.

We ate a simple spaghetti dinner and went for a walk this evening, it was pretty great. I think my favorite part was just getting to enjoy being a mom. Zac took care of the cooking and cleaning so I could play with Teagan and rock him to sleep and relax without worrying about what needs to get done. Now I'm closing my day with blogging, life couldn't get much better than this. I wish every day was mother's day!

Silly Boy

Here are just some latelys of Teagan that I thought were funny.

We played Frisbee golf on Zac's last day off and Teagan did not want to go in the stroller so we let him walk, he mostly wanted to push the stroller. After we went up a huge hill he was exhausted and pointed to his stroller and climbed in. I think he is learning to appreciate a free ride. We bought him one of those $10 pools and it spends most of its time empty on our living room floor. Teagan played hockey with my mop and his big ball a good part of the night the first day we had it. He loves to throw all of his toys in the pool and then sit inside and play.

He loves glasses and sunglasses. He always brings them to me and asks me to help him put them on, we're trying to teach him thumbs up now.

Here are his animal noises. Right now I think me and Zac are the only ones that can decipher between all the different sounds he makes. It amazes me how bird, duck, and chicken all sound the same to an outsider, but to me, the difference is obvious. I'm starting to understand Teagan's babble, it's like learning a new language. This will be fun to compare to when he is older and has animal noises mastered.

We're going to American Idol!

So, Zac called into our favorite radio station and won 2 tickets to the finale of American Idol!!! We get backstage passes to meet the top 10 contestants...I am SOOO excited.
Living in California definately has its perks!

Viva Las Vegas

We took a trip to Las Vegas with Zac's parents this last week and had a lot of fun. We stayed at Buffalo Bills out in Primm and drove into Las Vegas a few times to play at the strip. This is going to be a post by picture, because there are a lot of pictures!


We saw the Belagio gardens and the fountain show which were both beautiful.

We ate at at least 1 buffet a day which was really fun for Zac, I'm not a huge buffet lover, but my favorite ones are the breakfast ones! Teagan never seemed to be hungry when we were eating which was SO frustrating, but he was always up for dessert!

Praising the ice cream gods

Stuffing a cupcake down his throat.

Teagan always wanted to hold grandma and grandpa's hands, it was pretty cute.

We bought this monkey leash/backpack for Teag before we left. It was so nice because he didn't want to be in his stroller all day.

We visited Ceasar's Palace and hung out by the huge aquarium for a while. Teagan loved the fishes. He kept hitting his head against the glass trying to get in. hehe We went back again and ate at The Cheese Cake Factory which was AMAZING, the food is SOOO tasty and Zac's parents treated us each to our own slice of cheesecake. It was so good.

The pool was shaped like a buffalo and ICE cold. I tried so hard to get in, but it burned and ached it was so cold. Zac and his dad both dived in...when Zac got out he said "That was NOT refreshing"

Teagan ended up running through the sprinklers with daddeo.

On our last night we went to Freemont street which was really fun. There is a big dome that goes over the strip of old bright hotels and TEagan couldn't take his eyes of the pictures that were on top (they were clean, don't worry). There were street performers which were entertaining too!

The best day was the last day. We got to ride the rides at Buffalo Bills and they were a blast.

On the way to the rides we decided we better go to the bathroom and while Zac waited he gambled one dollar in a penny slot machine. He was down to one penny and he hit the button and the music went crazy, he apparently got a really good combination and won 25 free spins. He won $16.98 after the free spins and cashed out. I think the lady next to him was super bitter...always quit while you're ahead!

I was sooo excited, now I get why people can get addicted to gambling. That was the only dollar any of us gambled so we can say we walked out of there with a 1698% increase. whoo whooo!

Zac, Kurt, and I went on the Desperado which is a super intense roller coaster. It reminds me a lot of 'Goliath" at Six Flags. My favorite part was listening to Zac yell the whole time, it was so funny!

Then we went on the log ride and they let us take Teagan. They said that we could ride all together because we would get stuck at the top. "Is that a fat joke???"

Overall we had a really fun time. It was great to see Zac's parents and we were treated to a really fun time. It is always really nice to be home where I don't have to sanatize Teagan every five minutes and make him go from carseat to stroller to highchair all day. Zac totally disagrees last night he said that "it is only nice to come home from vacation if you're on vacation for 51 weeks a year and home for 1 week."