Remembering Friends

Making friends is a lot harder around here than at home. Most of the time mine are the only children at the park. Most kids from 1 up are in day care/school all day, and then they spend in the evening in the house with their parents. This makes making friends rather hard since my children won't be able to start school until next year, and there's no one around us or even at the park.

We did make friends with a wonderful family from Libya. They have 2 boys that are about 1 year younger than Aaron and Jordan respectively. We loved having friends to play with and I loved their mother. She is a faithful muslim woman who taught me a lot.

Sadly they moved back to Libya. They were here for his Master's, but with political changes in their country and Italy suddenly cutting off their scholarship they needed to go home. I've had a rough week since they've moved. We will never ever forget our friends!

Missing what felt like my only friend (close by) made me think of all of the other friends that I love so dearly and have recently left too. Way too much crying last week.

Fortunately feeling a little better now. To all my friends, and unfortunately I don't have a way of contacting all of you, I'm attempting a post to tell you personally that I'm so grateful for your friendship. I'm grateful for your love. I'm grateful that I've been so blessed to have your good influence. I'm also grateful that these bonds last a life time, and not just the short time I spent with you. Life is about loving and lifting those around you. Thank you for your friendship! I've been lifted.
Going away party. Thanks for the good Libyan food Basma. You're a good cook!
Saleh was making Isabel laugh. It was so sweet.
This is the park that we always played at together. We were so lucky that the last 2 days before they left we had really good weather and could play outside.

What's for dinner?

If you don't like stories about children and boogers, I recommend that you stop reading now. If you don't like being grossed out by what they do, again, stop reading now.

2 nights ago I was desperately trying to get Aaron to eat something before going to bed, knowing that he would wake up in the middle of the night hungry (this has happened more than once). We even made pizza to make him happy, which he didn't eat.

I was trying to brush his teeth getting ready for bed and it was a fight (as usually). As a stalling tactic he starting picking his nose- deep! I was so glad that there were no witnesses to this scene. As I was protesting the deep finger diving and trying to explain good manners to Aaron he popped out a huge, dark-green booger! I tried to hurry and grab his hand so that I could then grab a kleenex for the treasure he pulled out. He was faster than me though. He quickly turned his back and shoved his hand in his mouth. Oh Yuck!

He then turned around to start chewing on his only dinner he'd had that night. It was work, and he even had to stick his fingers in his mouth to unstick it a bit from his teeth. Disgusting. I said to myself as I then brushed his teeth: "I'm so sorry Jordan that you love this tooth brush and will likely use it next! Please forgive your mother!"

First foods

I decided that at 5 1/2 months it was about time I start to give solids to Isabel. I tried once with rice cereal about 2 weeks ago and it didn't go down great. I tried cooking some pumpkin. She made a good face when I put it in her mouth, but once she was able to suck it down, decided it wasn't too bad.

My real struggle with starting solids is having time to pump, at least at first, while replacing a feeding with solids. I'm comprimising by giving a few spoonfuls and then her breast feeding she doesn't eat as much.
Aaron took these last 2 pictures, hence the shadow on the bottom picture. Not too bad for a 4 year-old.

More 2-year-old-ness

And the newest acquired skill growing from an old skill. Old skill: changing his mind 500 times over what he wants to wear. Newly acquired skill: undressing and taking off everything and running away from mom while laughing hysterically that I'm not as fast as he is and trying to make it up to the top of the bunk bed before I can catch him and wrestle clothes back onto him.

Lesson for mom's of a 2-year-old: Never write in INK! Aaron is really into writing and asks how to spell things. So Jordan of course has to do it too. We were writing together (me holding his hand and writing letters). He asked for an O. Then he changed his mind, he wanted an X in the same spot. After doing what he asked he fell apart and had a royal crying fit. It was such a ridiculous reason to cry, I had to take a picture of it. "take it away mommy!!!!!" I can't my dear. It's called ink. You can't erase it.
"Mooooommmmmyyyyyy, hold me!". Sure thing sweetie. I guess we need to invest in some pencils.

Two year old in the house

Jordan has 2-year-old-itis in a bad way.

Example 1: while trying to read the Book of Mormon to my kids the other morning Jordan screams "noooooooooo! I want to read about Nephi building the ship."

I answered "we are Jordan."

Hottily he says "no! I will do it!" He grabs the book from hand and starts using his finger to follow the words (like I do when I read to them to help them follow the words I'm reading) and reads: "Nephi was building a ship. Then he fell off it into the water. A whale ate him!"

"A whale at him, huh?"

"yes, a whale ate him. But then he was following the Lord...."

Example 2, while trying to brush my children's teeth. Jordan has to brush his teeth by himself. I'm not allowed to help him because he has to do it all by himself. I hand him his tooth brush and say "here you go Jordan."

He says falling apart and balling his eyes out "I'm not Jordan. I'm fireman Sam" (a new favorite cartoon).

Me: "ok, here you go Fireman Sam."

Crying even louder: "I'm not fireman Sam, I'm Jordan"

Me: "ok Jordan, will you please brush your teeth?"

Jordan crying even louder now, "i'm not Jordan, I'm fireman Sam. And I don't want a little toothpaste, I want a lot of toothpaste!"

To avoid more crying I put more toothpaste on his toothbrush and at this point he falls onto the floor in hysterics, "nooooooooo! I want more toothpaste. Hold me mommy!"

At this point I hardly feel like hearing screaming in my ear, but I hold him anyway. After a minute and yet more toothpaste we were able to brush his teeth without incidence.

Phew! Glad that's over with.

Tired

I think that tired is a theme that has been lingering around my house for a very long time. I'm still getting woken up by my boys 2-10 times a night. Last night was about 5. Good average number. And then I get woken up by Isabel to feed every 3 hours or so too. I'm wondering if I'll ever sleep again.
Yesterday at the park I put Isabel in the front seat to be able to watch the kids play. Jordan fell off the swing onto his head when it was almost time to go. He had missed his nap and was OVERLY tired. So he decided he needed to lay in Isabel's car seat. He fell asleep in her car seat and took an excellent nap.

Doing much better after his nap.

scripture purse

I made myself a scripture bag. Mostly wanted an excuse to make a cute purse for myself. I originally saw this purse on my friend, Kati's blogspot. I modified it to a bigger size and whipped this up. I had to make two different ones out of scrap fabric (meaning old pillow covers) so that I wouldn't mess up on my pretty fabric.
I did a zipper pocket and a regulare pocket on the inside.
The fabric is Heirloom by Joel Dewberry. Love it more everytime I look at it.

5 months old

I can't believe that my baby is 5 months old!!!! It's such a bitter sweet feeling. Glad she's growing. Kind of sad thinking that she's probably my last one and this is the last time around that I get to enjoy the fun discoveries that she makes daily. Yesterday she started staring at one of her hands like it was a fascinating toy. Pretty soon she'll figure out that she's in control of that very interesting object, and that it can do so many fun things. She's also sitting for about 10 seconds at a time by herself.

Say "cheese"!
Aaron loves cuddling Isabel. Jordan is like Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. He has moments where he is so sweet and cuddling, and the next moment where he's jealous and doing crazy things to her. I have to be careful with that loose cannon for a while.
I like this picture because it's so classic of my kids. Screaming, wiggling, crying, "look at my foot Mom!", and no chance of holding still for the camera (or in general). Love my munchkins!

keeping up with the Jones'

I made the boys some aprons for our cooking adventures we have. They love the cars material that my mom sent.

We've all heard the colloquialism keeping up with the Jones'. Around here there is no time to keep up with anybody, especially 2 active boys. Lately while I've been trying to actually cook a meal, or clean the house these two tasmanian devils have been ripping a path of destruction through the house.
This was great fun for them. A little less fun to untangle, but overall not too bad.
This is a short video of me walking in on them playing in their room. You never know what you'll find when you turn your back for 0.18 seconds. Actually this was pretty tame to what I find normally, but this is the first time I felt like smiling and trying to capture it on video. Most of the time it's me expressing my great displeasure.

First teeth

This morning I felt in Isabel's mouth and to my surprise found two bottom front teeth! She's had her hand constantly in her mouth for about a month. I thought it was just that she's learned to do something with her hands and that's it. I've felt before just in case, but these teeth are definitely well cut through the gums.

Isabel getting big

Just because I love this little girl!!!! She isn't really rolling yet, but she's very close to sitting by herself. She tries to rock while sitting up which makes her fall over. Yesterday she started intentionally reaching for things realizing that it was her hand touching not just a lucky coincidence. In about 1 week she'll be 5 months old! I can't believe it.
Lucky for me, Jordan is off with uncle Daniele so I have a little more peaceful time with these two.
Pink makes me happy. :)

Jordan has been a huge pill lately. Including as I urgently yell don't go there, he smiles at me while running directly to where I told him not to go. The result: more mud. Thank heavens my mom sent new shoes for Christmas and now we have a second pair of shoes for days when he dirties his shoes like this.

The day after Christmas is a holiday here. So we took a train to city in the middle of the mountains on good faith that there was a little town we could walk around and then go home. We got off the train and found that there was no such little town. There was however a lot of snow, and the boys had fun making their own version of a snowman.
My favorite comment from Paolo to explain geographically where we were: "If you spit, you'll hit the Tuscany".


I went for a little exploratory walk with Isabel. I walked up a very steep street to find I was in the middle of the mountain. So the pictures with me is half-way up the hill, and then the view from on top. Despite not having a definite end, I still had a lot of fun, and so did the boys.