Helping Hands

Oliver loves to help. If he ever gets his hands on a screwdriver he will spend hours "fixing things". Here he is helping Grandpa with the power washer. He also loves to stir and pour. Yesterday I was making a pasta salad and I let him stir it while I turned around and chopped olives, when I looked back over at him he had poured the entire bottle of Salad Supreme spice into the salad and stirred it in. It was a bit potent. His favorite way to help lately is in bossing the dogs and animals around. If he ever hears anyone say anything to the dogs he will come running from wherever he is shouting the same command. He loves to yell at them to "sit" or "get down" even if they are all the way across the yard.

In case you were wondering, Ruby is also a big help. Here she is holding all of the laundry in the basket for me. What would I do without her?

Our little gem...

I felt so bad about not taking any pictures of Ruby lately that I decided to post these simply for the sake of posting something (I have no cute story or anicdote to accompany it). I will say though that we are madly in love with our little Ruby, she really is such a gem (no pun intended). She smiles and coos and keeps us all begging for more.

Whew!

I had to begin this post with this picture of Sam because it pretty much sums up how we all have felt about this past week. Our week included packing all of our belongings into boxes and moving them to a storage unit (with the help of a U-haul truck and a couple faithful Elder Quorum members, thanks again!) Cleaning our rental house and then driving to Utah through a horrible snow storm that turned our nine hour drive into fifteen. Once here we quickly unpacked, bought a pumpkin, celebrated Halloween, then began cooking and cleaning like crazy to get ready for everyone who came on Sunday for Ruby's baby blessing. I just have to add a special thanks here to my mom, without whose help we would not have survived. She flew to Colorado Springs to help with the packing and cleaning then flew home with Ollie so that I would only have to take Ruby in the car with me. Once here she worked tirelessly to get everything ready for the blessing so that it would be a wonderful day for all of us (which it definitely was). And, she even had the energy to chase Oliver through the corn maze at the pumpkin patch. Thanks again mom, you're amazing!

Before coming to Utah we got to celebrate our first real snowstorm of the year in Colorado Springs. Oliver was fascinated with making tracks in the stow and spent a good hour just walking back and forth across the backyard.

Oliver is currently obsessed with machinery, i.e. garbage trucks, tractors, trains, etc. So, you can imagine his delight when he discovered a whole row of tractors at the pumpkin patch we visited.

They also had a corn maze, but Ollie was more concerned with chasing the chickens into the maze than finding a way through himself.

Out of all the pumpkins, Oliver set his heart on what he dubbed the "white baby pumpkin" I'm not sure whether it was a pumpkin or a squash because it was misshapen and slightly rotted, but we took it home with us anyway

And here is our little monkey. If you ask him what he is he will tell you he is a "monkey jumping on the bed." He had me put the costume on him a few times leading up to Halloween so he could jump on my bed while I sang the song. He didn't care too much about the candy on Halloween, but as you can tell he thought the pumpkins were fascinating. He made us relight them every night until finally the pumpkins got mushy and had to be thrown out.

For the record, Ruby was dressed up as an adorable little pumpkin. Unfortunately, we forgot to take any pictures. We also forgot to bring our camera out for the blessing so you will just have to take my word for it that she looked cute (despite the fact that her cute hair bow and the panties to her dress both got lost somewhere in the move). It was wonderful to have so much family here to support us and Sam did a beautiful job on the blessing. All in all it was a great week, but I am sure glad its over!

Gone Fishing. . . . .

Sometimes life feels like a game of Go Fish. You hold a certain set of cards and then spend all your time looking for the right match. Well, right now we are looking for just the right match. Sam has been offered a good position in Colorado Springs with the company he interned with over the summer. We knew that they would be making an offer and that is why we decided to move to the Springs back in May. Now however Sam is thinking he would like to begin his career elsewhere and has been interviewing and sending in resumes to companies from Utah to Timbuktu. We are currently waiting to see if we receive any additional job offers. In the meantime the lease on our house ran out and we didn't want to get stuck in another lease if we aren't really going to be staying. The solution: we packed all of our belongings into a storage unit and I brought the kids out to stay with my parents while Sam stays with some friends for the remaining weeks of school. While it is not the ideal situation, we figured that it would give us the most options whilst we play yet another round of Go Fish.

Perspective

I prefer my house to be cleaner than it currently is.

I'd much rather look for something to wear in my drawer than dig through the laundry hamper or the pile of unfolded clothes like I did this morning.

I'd like to make a yummy dinner instead of warming up leftovers as I am planning to do tonight.

Somedays I just have to look the other way and remember that I am not sealed to this house for all eternity, but I am sealed to my kids forever. And so, I am going to stop perusing blogs and go start dinner so that when my toddler wakes up from his nap I will have plenty of time to play trains and read books - even if it is the same book over and over and over again.

Because I am a mom first and foremost.

Moldy

I am beginning to think (much to my surprise) that we may be a mold family. Not that we are stinky and rotting - although that may be true as well, but that we are going to be one of those families whose kids look like they all popped out of the same mold. I figured that since Sam and I look so different our children would as well. However, that has not been the case - it is hard to tell from these pictures, because Ollie is so much older here than Ruby, but they both have the same eyes, nose and face shape, not to mention hair color. Of course, Ruby is still changing a lot so I may have a different opinion next week, but for the moment I have to say "Hooray for molds!"

Another Day

So, I don't have much to report. Our lives have not changed significantly since the last time I posted. We just keep busy chasing after Ollie, feeding Ruby, and enjoying one another's company.
Ruby changes everyday. She looks more and more like herself everyday - I know that sounds funny, but it is true. She is loosing the newborn look and getting decidedly cuter.


In between conference sessions on Sunday Sam and Oliver raked up a big pile of leaves to jump in. Ollie thought it was so much fun that he spent most of the day Monday working on those same leaves, when he decided that there were not enough on the ground he got up on his picnic table and started picking more.
I probably won't show this picture to Sam - and I think I'm safe because he rarely reads our blog. He wouldn't like to see Ollie in a pink bow, but Oliver insisted on wearing it this morning when I was putting one on Ruby. We must be experiencing an overload of feminine hormones at our house because it seems they are rubbing off on Ollie. When we asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween he was insistent on being a butterfly. Fortunately, when we took him shopping for a costume Sam intentionally stood in front of the butterfly costume and Oliver decided to be a monkey instead. Then a couple of days ago we were watching football at a friends house and Ollie put on their little girls tutu and began dancing around the living room - he insisted on wearing the purple tutu for the duration of the game. Poor Ollie, he has to spend all day everyday with a bunch of girls - maybe if Sam does decide to read this he will start spending less time at the library and more time at home doing manly things.

Double Take

Seeing as I have now been a mom of two for three whole weeks I feel qualified to give my expert opinion on the raising of two children. Simply put, it is awesome!! I have been happily surprised at how smoothly we have made the transition from a family of three to a family of four (thus far:). Of course, we have had our rough spots. I have had the opportunity on more than one occasion to chase Oliver at a dead sprint through stores and parking lots while lugging along a car seat and baby. There have been a couple of days in which a shower was simply not an option and I did experience one horrific grocery shopping trip with a sobbing toddler and a screaming infant. I am proud to admit though that we are all still happy and still sane. I am constantly busy, but I love it - there is no down time and certainly no time for boredom.
Having two children has required some attitude adjustment on my part. I have found that I am much less tolerant of things that are messy as I have less time for cleaning. I am also much more lenient in regards to cooking and laundry. This morning Oliver asked for Doritos and Froot Loops for breakfast and I didn't even hesitate before giving it to him. (As you can tell from the picture, he is thoroughly enjoying his new dietetic freedoms).


I have also picked up some new baby-skills that I never acquired with my first child. I remember being so proud of myself for managing to cook entire meals with just one arm while toting Oliver around as a baby. Well, that skill is nothing compared to my new found ability to cook, clean and chase after a busy toddler while not just holding onto Ruby, but nursing her as well. Now, that is talent! (Sorry if that was more than you wanted to know, but my life pretty much consists of diapers, nursing and sporadic sessions of Ring-Around-The-Rosies, so that is what you get!)

Baby Update

I have been rather remiss in my photo-taking responsibilities with Ruby. There just seems to be a lot more to concentrate on with two kids and the camera never seems to be around at the right time. However, here are some shots of our newest addition. She is now one and half weeks old and is such an angel. Although it is still early, we are guessing that she will look quite a bit like her brother. Their hair is the exact same color and although I have only detected one cowlick on Ruby, she seems to have the same natural-forming mohawk as Ollie as well. The only difference is that Ruby's hair flips out all over her head.

We have also been blessed once again with a good sleeper and eater. We never had to go through that horrible night/day mix up and she regularly sleeps 4-5 hours between nighttime feedings and goes right back to sleep when she is done. Yahoo!! Also, rather than lose weight, she put on a whole ounce before her first doctors appointment. She does have a set of lungs, but at this point she only exercises them when she is hungry or getting changed (she is just really modest and hates to have her clothes off).

We love our little Ruby and are so glad that she is a part of our family!

Nothin' but Handsome

Check out that handsome boy! When I went into labor, not only was my friend Megan kind enough to answer her phone at 6:30 a.m. and agree to watch Oliver, but she also took this great photo of him while he was there (did I mention she was a super talented photographer). She will be taking shots of Ruby later this week so be sure and check back.


Learning to share the limelight with little Ruby has been hard on Oliver, but I am beginning to think that we are over the worst. He is kinder to her now and is starting to act more like himself again - I hope he keeps it up after Grandma leaves this week.