Had ya given up on me?!

We're still here and doing really well.  Just not much time... I can't believe how quickly time is going!

Connor is doing really well.  No seizures since the first of December and he's starting to catch up again developmentally.  We're trying really hard to get him to crawl right now and he's SO close.  But not yet.  Hopefully soon.  :)

Andrew's doing great.  He's busy learning in preschool and Sunbeams and he amazes us with some of the stuff he recalls and comes up with.  He's really enjoying being able to spend a lot of time outside which makes us all happier.

Mason's enjoying his job and is the Elder's Quorum Secretary so he's a pretty busy guy these days too.

I'm loving life (most days) and enjoying being with my little boys and Big Boy.  I'm one of the nursery leaders in our ward and while I wasn't necessarily excited about it at first, I'm really loving it now. 

The days just come and go so quickly... but some days that's a blessing.  :)  On the other days, I'm just so grateful I get to be a part of it.  Hope you all are doing well too.  I'll try to stay "in touch" better.  :)

what you've missed...

Here's what we've been up to the last little while....

we made snow toast, yum!!

we toilet trained and are all SO glad this is over.  i think i may outsource this one next time.  my little brothers provided a lot of inspiration and motivation over christmas, but they didn't have to do *much* of the dirty work. 

first day of sunbeams (sunbeams is the 3-year old class in primary where all the children go after sacrament meeting.  it's the first class after nursery he's he's in with the big kids now, and so proud of it!) and first day wearing underwear to church!  followed by absolute refusal to look at the camera.

andrew's become my big helper most of the time.  when he wants to be a big helper, he is BIG helper.

"i love you big brother"

this just cracks me up...

we've been so tired of being stuck inside that we resorted to playing with buckets.  that's our raw milk bucket... EVERYTHING in the house is a toy of Andrew's.

we bounced and jumped!  connor LOVES this thing.  but he's so big, it's really difficult to get him in and out without some help.  and unfortunately, andrew can't really help me with that.

we've played in the snow...

some really liked it

others really didn't!

we dressed ourselves!  and in our little brothers' pants no less!

and then we had the "Vasoline Incident of 2011"

Connor's doing SO MUCH better.  the new medicine is miraculous!  he's behind developmentally - he's still not crawling or scooting - but he's catching up quickly.  he's regained everything that he lost and we're back to where we were when he started having the seizures.  he's got his own personal occupational therapist, nurse and developmental milestone worker that each come twice per month.  what a blessing!

these are long days... but overall we're happy and healthy!  we CAN'T WAIT until SPRING!!!  this has been a long winter for us, but i think we're going to make it! :)

the current sayings of Andrew

Andrew was telling me something but I couldn't hear what he said because Connor was "talking" so loudly, so I asked him to say it again.  He said, "You heard it Mom.  I heard you hearing."


His Taggart aunts and uncles will appreciate this one:

"Can we watch Muffins in Space?"  (Muppets in Space)

Andrew is VERY curious about my makeup drawer (and my jewelry too to be honest).  One morning while I was getting ready, he was asking what everything was for the upteenth time.  He wanted to put on some eye shadow when Mason told him that only girls and Thespians were makeup.  Undeterred, he said, "Well, boys and girls should share."  He might have worn a little bit of eye shadow to the library that day....


He's starting to pray all by himself which we are, of course, loving.  I had to bit my lower lip to keep from laughing because, in his effort to find something to say, he wished Heavenly Father a Happy Birthday!  I'm sure it was appreciated!

Here's one of his first, all-all-by-himself prayers:
"In the name of Jesus Christ, Thank you for when I ask for something, Amen."


"You're a pretty good mommy, except when you're so tired."  I tried to explain that super busy little boys make me tired but he didn't get it.

i learned how to use a fire extinguisher today!!

everything happened so quickly, i hardly knew what was going on.  i was going to make some vegetable broth so i put a stock pot in the back burner and turned the burner on.  turns out i turned on the front burner.

i went back to the table to give connor a bit of food and suddenly i heard a pop, pop, pop.  i turned around and there was a fire on the front burner!!  a FIRE!  i didn't even see it before but a plastic cover for the microwave was on the front burner and now it was on fire!  it wasn't just a little fire either, the flames were reaching all the way up to the microwave and totally encompassing the large burner.

i ran over to try and put it out.  i almost grabbed the stock pot of water but i got near the flames and it was so hot already that i couldn't reach behind it.  then i got concerned about grease fires.  embarrassing fact:  my burners have been smoking a lot lately because i really need to clean out the little burner do-hickies so i was afraid that there was a lot of grease under there and if i threw water on it, the fire would spread.

so then i ran to the front room to the utility closet and got out our fire extinguisher  given to us by mason's mom as a house warming gift when we moved up to wellington.  (thanks judy!)  i ripped open the box and ran back into the kitchen.

by that time, andrew had noticed the fire and let's just say he was concerned and in true andrew form, was firing off questions quicker than i could even register tham.

"what are you going to do with that mom?  why is the stove on fire?  what did you do?  why did you light a fire?"

i didn't even know how to use a fire extinguisher, i've never used one before, but i remembered something about pulling out the pin.  i really have no idea how i knew about that but i guess it proves that if you learn something once, it will come back to you when you need it.

thankfully it worked the first try (i can so see myself standing by my burned down house still trying to get the dang fire extinguisher to work!).  a couple shots later and the fire was out!  thank goodness!

connor was laughing, he thought the whole thing was hilarious, and andrew was freaking out because, by then, every every smoke alarm in the house was going off.   he really hates the smoke alarms and who can blame him.  they go off more than i care to admit because of my dirty stove.  i think i'd better just bite the bullet and clean it and/or buy a smooth top stove.  we didn't have these issues in the last house, we had others of course, but at least we weren't battling the smoke alarms.

i ran around the house opening up every window and door with andrew on my hip clinging so tight i could hardly breathe.  all he kept saying was, "i'm afraid, i'm afraid."

it was mind boggling with all the noise.  every smoke alarm is on it's own frequency and timing so the chorus of all of them together was, well, alarming.   i'm sure the whole neighborhood could hear.  dogs were barking because of all the commotion.  so embarrassing!

somewhere in there i had called mason.  i'm not really even sure why because by the time he got here i had all the smoke alarms off and we were starting to calm down.  i think i was just in shock and didn't know what else to do.  he came in the front door and andrew said, "look at the BIG mess mommy made."  mason surveyed the damage and said, "you could have used water.  there wasn't enough grease for a grease fire." 

ok.  so i guess i didn't need to learn to use a fire extinguisher today afterall...


this actually happened on friday but i didn't get the pics uploaded until today.  :)

our not so quiet quiet time

 We moved the boys into the same room and, overall, it's gone really well.  In fact, they are actually getting closer - Andrew is more accepting of and loving towards Connor - since the move.    However, one day during quiet time I heard Andrew giggling and Connor fussying.... I opened the bedroom door and saw this (actually I made Andrew get back in the crib for the sake of the picture.  He knew he was in trouble so he quickly got out when I opened the door).

 

Andrew got a toothbrush holder, filled it with shampoo and then using a tooth flosser, proceeded to "shave" his face and Connor's too.

 Both boys' cheeks broke out after all the shampoo, they have such sensitive skin.

 There was shampoo everywhere!!  In fact, two days later, when I went to cut Anders' hair, his hair suddenly foamed up when I sprayed it with water.  I thought  I had gotten him all clean....  :)

 I should have hosted a greased pig contest!

Just like Daddy....

I'm actually very thankful for the blog... When I first went in the room, I wanted to scream at all the mess.  But, I knew that somebody would probably find this funny if I posted it and so I ran and grabbed the camera.  Then I was able to see the humor in it too.  I'm grateful that I took a moment to think about it before I reacted.  He'll only be this age once, after all.

What wasn't funny, however, was that in the process of getting everything cleaned up, Anders rubbed his eyes.  I felt so bad!!  I finally got them rinsed and got him calmed down and he just looked so miserable.

  I said, "Let me take a picture of your poor little face," feeling sorry for him.

I came back with the camera and he said, "My face is poor!"  I need to be more careful what I say I guess.

quiet evening at home

Coloring with markers...

Christmas... and some other pics

Hugs on Christmas morning in the new PJ's

Bryce and Maly practicing.  They are expecting a baby in June... we offered to lend them our kids for a while to get some more practice, but they declined.

Hanging out with Uncle Justin

All ready to drive a big rig.

Riding in the tractor with Grandpa

This was from our recent trip to Salt Lake for Connor's doctor's appointment.

I'm not sure what would make stepping in a pie seem exciting, but Andrew thought he needed to try it.

Lounging around.

Connor sleeping with Great Grandma Ellgen.

Favorite cousin Lindsey (Andrew has lots of favorites, just so you know!)

Playing Wii... we played a lot of wii. ha, ha!

Mase was so involved watching Andrew find his Santa surprises that he didn't even check his stocking!  After several minutes he finally looked and then noticed his BIG present...  a NIkon D700 camera.  He turned and looked at me with his mouth wide open.  He was VERY happy and excited.  It was both of our Christmas gifts, actually, and birthday presents as well.  But it's totally worth it!  And it was SO fun to surprise Mason.

I didn't get the groceries put away very quickly and this is what I found...

Our first Sunday together at church in a long time.  It was really nice!!  I had to put at 24 month shirt on Connor and still the stop buttons and the wrist buttons wouldn't fit.  And his feet are still too swollen for shoes.  But we made it work. 

We made homemade egg nog and it was wonderful...  We should actually make some more... who says we can only have it during the holidays?!