When did I become old?

I did two posts today so feel free to scroll down and look at my other post, but I felt the need to express how old I am feeling today. It is all of the person pictured to the left here's fault. That my dear friends is my baby brother, Glen and that is one of his senior pictures. That's right you heard me SENIOR. Today Glen started the first day of his senior year of high school. How does this make me feel? Naturally, I feel like a dinosaur and I keep wondering how did this happen? Wasn't I just a senior in high school? How on earth can my brother, who was nine when I started my senior year be one now? Oh, people I am feeling old and it is only going to get worse as time goes on. I don't want to even think about June when he graduates... the only thing that will be worse is when my baby sister is a senior...in two years!!!!
Anyway, I hope you have a great senior year Glen! How about you try and do something that all your older siblings have failed at and not get a significant other before starting college?! Hey, I think it's a good idea. By the way, isn't my brother cute?

Mommy Survey

ALL THE PROUD MOMMYS: Fill this out!
-Age of baby/babies? 2 years, 8 mo. and 11 1/2 months
-Names? Vance Thomas and Tanner Mark
-Birthdays? Vance-December 22, 2005 Tanner- September 20, 2007
-Time of birth? (approximately)Vance 1:00pm Tanner-4:00 am
-How long did labor last? Vance-from when I first started having contractions until I gave birth it was 23 hours. Tanner-I was having mild contractions, but scheduled to be induced so we'll go from the time I got to the hospital until I gave birth which was 8 hours.
-How long did you push? Vance- 3 long, painful hours Tanner- 45 minutes
-How much did your baby weigh? Vance-9 lbs 4 oz Tanner 7 lbs 11 oz
-Any hair? They both had a little fuzz
-Who does your baby look Like? Vance-no one really, but if I have to pick someone I'd say my father-in-law, but that has been sicne he's gotten older. Tanner- people say he looks like me so we'll go with that.
-Be honest...how much weight did you gain? Vance-40 lbs (yuck) Tanner- 27 lbs (and my prebaby weight was less)
-Was baby early or late? Vance- 10 days early, thank heavens Tanner- a week early
-How many baby showers did you have? Vance-one Tanner-zero, guess I didn't need another one.
-Did you breastfeed? Yes, for both Vance the first 11 mo. and still nursing Tanner, but will be stopping in the next month
-Who keeps your baby(ies) the most? Me, me, me, and me. :)
-When do you wanna have another? I think that is a personal matter I'd like to keep between me and Stephen. Let's just say I am not pregnant now nor am I trying to get pregnant.
-How did you know it was time to go the hospital? Vance- my contractions were coming so hard I didn't want to exist anymore. Tanner- it was my scheduled time
-Anyone spend the night with you first night home? Thank heavens for mothers. She stayed the first week of both boy's lives. Most helpful
-Did you cry the first time you held your baby? No, I repressed those emotions for a later time.
- Who cut the cord? Stephen cut both
-Where was the baby born? They were both born at Madison Memorial Hospital.
-Did you record the labor? Video recording? No, no way. I did write down the details of both and we took some pictures. You don't really want to remember the labor part anyway, you want to remember how tiny and precious your baby is.

Hawaiian Day

We had a Hawaiian Day at our house. You can read about what we did on my other blog. Here are some pictures of the boys I took today.

Not a young baby anymore...

Tanner is no longer a young, helpless baby. I suppose he hasn't been in a long time, but he is growing up so fast. He loves to help do the dishes, read, play games, he loves being outside. He seems to be more grown up each day!

Peanut Butter Balls

Vance and I made peanut butter balls this afternoon. Vance had a great time rolling them into balls. He would roll them in his hands, toss the deformed ball on the wax paper and say "Ta-da." He found eating them even more fun...shocker... I didn't have any honey so I used corn syrup instead and I don't think they were as good, but it was such an easy, fun recipe to do with Vance and he doesn't know the difference.

Lame Mom

Some days my back bothers me quite a bit and other days it feels fine. I've learned the hard way that the best thing to do when my back hurts is to not do much at all. These are the days that Stephen demands I leave the household chores for him to do and I do. These are the days that I feel like a lame mom. Today is one of those days so I thought I would share some cute pictures I took of the boys yesterday that make me happy.

11 months old

Tanner is 11 months old today. He seems more grown up every day. He loves to pull himself up on anything and everything. He'd really like to walk just like his older brother however, he can only stand alone for a few seconds so there is still sometime before he does that. He loves to play especially with Vance. He loves to eat, as I previously mentioned. He is turning into a mini Vance in a lot of ways, but he is definitely still his cute self. Wow, in a month we will be having a birthday for him!

Food Lovers

My boys are food lovers. Vance has always been this way and Tanner is quickly becoming so. Tanner thinks he needs to eat whenever someone else is eating even if he's just eaten something himself. Yes, he will even try to steal food from Vance as you can see below. The last picture of Tanner he is eating one of Vance's graham crackers.
Here are some pictures of my boys enjoying food.

Anniversary

As I mentioned previously today is our five year wedding anniversary. I met Stephen in January 2003 and he quickly became my best friend. I admit he confused me for a while. He just wanted to be my friend, but he came over to my apartment every single day and hung out with me generally for several hours. I enjoyed his company so I didn't send him away, but I wondered why he did that if he just wanted to be my friend. I knew though that whatever happened was what was suppose to happen and so I didn't worry too much about it. He had some other people he was interested in and so did I. By the beginning of April though, my feelings for him had grown and thankfully, his had too. We got engaged in May and were married in the Idaho Falls LDS temple August 16th. That may seem fast to some, but if you know a decision is right, why wait? We have never regretted our decision and have only be grateful for it. Stephen is my rock. Ever since I met him, he has made me feel at peace. I'm so grateful for his calm, unstressed, unruffled presence in my life. I love you, sweetheart! Happy Anniversary.
Here our some tidbits about the past five years:

*One of us has been a student the whole time we've been married
*We'd been married two years four months before we had our first child
*We've lived in five different places in the past five years (three four-plexes, one trailer, one townhouse)
*Between the two of us we've had five different jobs (not counting my job as a mother)
*I've been pregnant or nursing a baby 3 years 4 months in the past five years.
*We've lived in two different cities (back and forth)
*The first few months of our marriage Stephen made $6.30/hr and we could live off of that.
*We've only owned one vehicle at a time our entire marriage.
*I am grateful every single day that I am married to such a wonderful person.

I love you Stephen and look forward to the future with you!

Slideshow with music!!!!

Okay, for anyone who watched this slideshow the first time I now have successfully gotten music to work, although it doesn't fit perfectly like it is suppose to, but whatever... so if you can stand to watch us again take a look. Or if you are watching for the first time I hope you enjoy. I put this together for our five year wedding anniversary which in this Saturday.

Just thought you might like to know...

These boys wear me out but...


I LOVE them SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!

More Zoo pictures

Not too much excitement around here so I thought I'd share some more zoo pictures with you.

Zoo

We took the boys to the zoo this morning. I couldn't have asked for them to behave better than they did. They both did great! We don't have a big city zoo or anything, but it is a decent zoo considering all that. The lion and zebra exhibits were closed so that was a bit of a disappointment and the snow leopard and red panda were in hiding, but other than that we had a great time. Here are some pictures from our day.

Grocery Shopping without Stephen...

I don't do my big grocery shopping without Stephen. Many of you may find this odd, but let's think about it, do I really want to take my two boys under the age of three by myself for a long trip to the grocery store? No, not to mention my husband is a picky eater so I like to have his help buying food. Anyway, we have one vehicle so we trade back and forth when needed. I need the van every Wednesday and Thursday morning at least and we pick Stephen up for lunch and he takes it back to work with him. Generally, once we are done with our appointments we don't come back home we just stay out and go play somewhere or go to some store. Today I needed a couple of things from Wal-Mart so I braved it alone. Although it was just a few things, I remember why I take Stephen with me.
Vance thinks he is a big enough boy to walk and not ride in the cart. That is fine with me if he'll listen. Well, inevitably he doesn't listen and I end up putting him in the cart at some point. Naturally, this happened early on today. So he is sitting in the basket and Tanner is in the front buckled in. After making a pit stop at the family bathroom (another fun feature to going alone...bathroom trip for the whole family) we headed to the baby section for some jars of baby food. For those who do not know you can not get stage 3 baby food in the plastic containers. I put some in our cart and immediately Vance starts banging them together. I tell him to stop a few times with nothing so I put them up by Tanner, who begins to eat them. It didn't do me much good there anyway, as Vance could still reach them. After looking at something on the shelf for a minute or two I look down to see that Vance has ripped the label off one of the jars. Irritating, but oh well, then I look closer and see another jar has broken- cracked, it's a gonner. On the plus side it hasn't exlpoded on anyone or anything so I take everything up to the check out and get an irritated clerk. Yes, that's right I can't control my 2 1/2 year old so sue me. I haven't even mentioned the crying and whining that Vance has carried on throughout the entire experience. I rushed to the car, packed the boys up and we drove to Stephen's work although we were 15 minutes early. I didn't care. The situation could have been worse, but still I don't want to push my luck. Maybe I'll go on a "No Stephen no Wal-Mart strike."

Zoo Week

We are having a Zoo Themed week at our house. You can hop over to my Mommy's Little Helper blog to check out what we are doing in more details if you want. :)

Breaking Dawn

Do you think my boys have good taste in novels? Vance is giving Tanner the juicy details. :)

Cricuts, Weddings, and Babies

I bought a Cricut Machine the day after Thanksgiving and I haven't regretted yet. I love to scrapbook, make cards, and do projects for and with the boys so it has been a great asset. Michaels had their stock over 50% off this week so I got some new ones. Woo-Hoo. Vance even loves it. He likes to watch it work and I have a Mickey Mouse and a Winnie the Pooh Cartidge so he loves to have me make things out of those. I'm not overly creative or good at making cards but I thought I would share a couple of the ones I've made recently and show you a picture of Vance enjoying Winnie the Pooh.
The first is for a friend/co-worker of Stephen's who got married on Friday. This friend and his wife both went through the automotive program around the same time as Stephen. In fact, that would be Stephen's second friend to marry and automotive major. Go figure. I can already see how fun it will be to hang out with those five together... ;)
Stephen's supervisor/friend and his wife had a baby on Friday (big day for their work) and so the second card, I made for them. We went and visited them at the hospital today. Their baby is a doll. I love newborns (not ready for another of my own yet though!)
I've got a few project ideas in my head I need to do using my Cricut. Really, they need to come out with some LDS themed ones and I would be set for life! It could really come in handy teaching those Sunbeams.