BINK!!

So, last night Zach put together a puzzle of the Chicago skyline. Carter loves to look at it so it's sitting out still put together. As I was getting some things done I heard Austin saying, "Clean it up? Clean it up?" When I turned around I found him taking apart one edge of the puzzle. Here is the dialogue that followed...

Me: "No, we're not going to clean it up right now. Please don't touch it." Said as I started to reassemble the edge Austin wanted to "clean up"

Austin: "Help you?"

Me: "No, I'll do it. Thank you. Please don't touch."

Austin: With his little pointer finger extended he reached over and touched the puzzle "BINK! Bink! Touch it mommy!" All said with a mischievous smile.

What a character!


P.S. Just as I finished this post I looked over to see Austin helping his little plastic preying mantis attack the previously mentioned puzzle edge.

Picture Post

I thought I'd post a bunch of pictures for the Grandparents. Enjoy!!

My two little fish

For some reason they like to climb in the laundry basket together.

We left Austin alone with a rice krispie treat and this is what we returned to.

One day Carter wanted "just a big piece of lettuce" instead of a salad. He got it.

I love when they play together like this.

Long overdue

So, this post has been a long time coming. Way back at the beginning of August we moved out of our apartment in Hyde Park (south of the city) and into a house on the north side of Chicago. For those of you who don't know, I hate moving. Putting everything we own into boxes just to haul them somewhere else and have to unload all of those boxes and find somewhere to put all of our stuff.... How do we have so much stuff!!! Then there's the cleaning, oh the cleaning. You think, "It won't take too long. The place will be empty. It will be a snap." and 24 hours later you're finally finished and every rag you own is dirty and you've gone through a whole Costco pack of Clorox wipes. The worst thing about this move was that the place we moved into was dirty. The fridge had spills from the previous tenants and a black film from the factory. I got to do another complete clean before I could put things away. YUCK!! Thank goodness that's all over and done with.


We love our little home. We're just renting but it's ours for now. There's a fenced in yard with a little swing set mere steps from our front door. It's so nice to have that kind of access outside. We spend a lot of time here...


There's been a lot of this going on...

*The pictures were taken earlier in the year*

Zach finished up his clerkship for Judge Easterbrook in August and started work at Kirkland and Ellis here at the beginning of September. He's been busy but it's not been bad. That's all going to change here in the next little bit as the trial date for his case gets closer.

Carter started preschool in September. He goes every day from 8:00 until 10:45. We love it. He loves going to school and doing fun things with his friends and teachers and I love having some time to run errands with only one kid. It's been so fun to have him come home and tell me about what he did at school. I think it's my favorite when he sings me the song they learned in music. I love how much he enjoys school. He's doing great!

Austin is a jabber box and a sponge. He just takes everything in and is constantly surprising me with what he knows. For example, last night as part of Family Home Evening we were playing Duck, Duck, Goose!. In the course of the game Carter got bumped and started crying. Austin had been busy running circles around us and hadn't seen Carter get hurt, only that he was crying. Austin went over to him with concerned eyes and said, "Happened? What....happened? What...happened....Carters?" (He adds an s to most names, except mommy) It was so sweet. He's never said or done that before but he's seen Zach and I do that. A total sponge!

I'm in the Primary Presidency in our new ward. Between that, chasing the boys and cleaning our house I stay pretty busy. All in all we're doing really well.

If you ever find yourself in our neck of the woods please stop by, we'd love to see you!!

Jupiter

Every night when we put the kids to bed we all scrunch onto Carter's little twin bed and look up at the planets, paper ones stuck on the ceiling with sticky tack. Zach and the boys run through them making sure to talk about each one. Sometimes there's no particular order and other times they work from the sun out. Carter's pretty good with his planets and even Austin will point his finger up at the ceiling and say Saturn or Jupiter. I get a kick out of it.

One day we were all getting our shoes on to go run errands and for some reason Zach and Carter were talking about the planets. Zach asked which planet had an eye. Carter answered Jupiter and then I hear him say, "Like this!". I turn to see him looking at me with one eye open and the other closed. "See Mom, I'm being Jupiter!" A couple of minutes later he says, "Look Mom, now I'm Saturn!" He'd put his hands on his chest and had his elbows poking out like Saturn's rings. Pretty creative!!

Thought process

I love when I get a glimpse of Carter's thought process and reasoning. Yesterday we were having a conversation about food spoiling. He wanted strawberries on his cereal but when I got them out of the fridge I realized they'd gone bad. When I told him he couldn't have them he didn't understand why, since he could clearly see that we had strawberries. He kept asking "Why?". I was trying to come up with a more visual way to explain how food spoils when I remembered bananas. Here's the conversation that followed.

Me: Carter, what happens to bananas when they get old?
C: They get brown and mushy......And then you make banana bread with them.
Me: Yes, sometimes we do. But when strawberries get old and mushy we have to throw them away.
C: But why?
Me: Because if you eat them they'll taste funny and might make your tummy hurt. How about some peaches on your cereal?
C: OK.

*A couple of minutes go by as Carter eats some cereal and peaches.

C: K. So when cookies get brown and mushy....
Me: No honey, cookies don't get brown and mushy. Only things that grow, things like strawberries, and bananas, or tomatoes; things that grow outside on plants or trees.
C: But Mom, if you take cookies outside and put them on the ground they'll get brown and mushy
Me: Well, I guess you're right. A cookie would get brown and mushy if you took it outside and put it on the ground for a while.
*As I turn and walk to the other end of the kitchen I hear Carter mumble
C: And then you can make cookie bread with them.


Apparently, when anything spoil or gets over ripe you can make bread with it. Who knew!

When I grow up.....

So, this is just a quick post of a few things that happened recently that I want to document. First is a conversation I had with Carter. Here's how it went....

C: What color is that? (Asked of me while I was painting my toe nails)

M: Clear

C: Clear?! Like water that comes out of the sink?

M: Yeah, but we don't drink this, it's just for mom's toe nails.

C: When I get big and be a mommy then I can do that.

M: You're not going to get big and be a mommy. You're going to get big and be a daddy!

C: When I get big and be a daddy and then get big and be a mommy then I will do that and do my make-up and wash my face.

That last line really made me laugh, especially the "wash my face" part. I guess it's really cool when I put a headband on and wash my face. It always surprises me where his little thought process takes him.

Next, are a couple of things about Austin. He's at such a funny stage right now. He's becoming really talkative and will mimic almost anything we say. A few of his latest words are pineapple (in Russian), airplane, Bumblebee (the Transformer), risotto, truck, octopus, tractor, bellybutton (in Russian), and clean up. Every day he says something new.

Austin also really likes music. He'll dance to anything(I find it especially funny when he dances to commercials on TV). A few days ago we were down at the little pond between the two towers of our building. Austin had been reaching in the water to get rocks and then dropping them back in the water the entire time. Towards the end he would pick up a rock and start to sing a little song and do a little dance for a bit. He would then proceed to where he felt the rock needed to go back into the water, drop it in and start the process all over again. Zach and I were rolling.

This last one is totally random. This morning when I went in to get Austin out of bed he didn't have a shirt on. I don't know how or when but sometime between the time I put him in bed last night and got him up this morning He removed his shirt. Crazy kid!

Updated

OK folks, make sure you're comfortable because there are six, count them six, new posts below this one. And yes, they all have pictures. Thankyouverymuch

Latest and Greatest

Here are a few pictures of what's been going on around our house lately.

POM-POM!!I don't know what it is, but my boys love these things. Yesterday we had Cub Scouts and a doctors appointment right in a row. We were gone from the house for five hours and Austin had his pom-pom in his hot little hand almost the whole time. (I took it away while he ate snacks because one time pom-pom went in his mouth right along with the cheerios) I love the picture above because each pom-pom is at a different stage. The pink Austin held yesterday, the yellow one Austin got new this morning and held until lunch time, and the green one was new for Carter this morning. They all start out with a lot of sparkly things like the green one but as Austin loves them the sparkles fall out or get smashed around the pom-pom. Crazy kids!!


TEA TIME
Here are Zach and Carter having a little Russian tea party with warm water, jam and sugar. Carter LOVED it and has been asking to do it again every day since. He mostly liked mixing everything together in the little cups, especially the sugar. He made some pretty "sweet" tea if you know what I mean.

MMLLAAAA! (That's how Austin says banana)
Carter and I were making cookies to go along with the letter of the day("C") and Austin loves to see what's going on when I'm using the mixer so he was on the counter watching. I was watching Carter stir when I heard Austin say, "Mmlaaa?" I turned to see him peeling a banana. They were sitting on the counter next to him and were ripe enough that he could easily pull one off the bunch. Since I was busy with Carter I just pulled the peel down and let him loose. He did great and ate the entire banana without squishing it or eating the peel. Nice!!

GRRRR!
The other day we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo and Carter found this leopard mask in the gift shop while we were in there to stay out of the rain. As you can see we purchased it and this is what we got, a leopard watching TV on our couch. It still makes me chuckle.

Sharing

I love when the boys get along. It makes me so happy and gives me hope that in the future they'll be best friends like my brothers and I are. Here's a little photo shoot of them sitting at the table sharing a snack.




Too cute! I love it! I just need to remember these moments when they're screaming at each other over some random toy.

Hilarious!!

So, one day back in May (quite poetic isn't it) the boys and I went on our big grocery shopping trip. This usually takes us four or five hours. It's a big long event!! We got home, put things away, and then proceeded to the bathroom to give the boys a bath before dinner. Carter was getting ready to get in and this is what I saw....

Do you see it? Can you tell what it is? Here's a closer shot for you...

That's right, it's a little lizard imprint on Carter's left leg/cheek. Apparently, when I told him we weren't going to take toys with us he promptly put his lizard in his back pocket. This my friends, is what you get if you sit for a long time with a little plastic lizard in your back pocket. HILARIOUS!!

Random Pictures

Shades!

Carter had his so Austin needed his too.

For some reason, this was his "smile" that day.

Brothers.

Carter loves my rain boots. Austin does too for that matter, but his legs aren't quite long enough.

Carter found some of his Zach's biking gear and wanted to try it on. This was the result.

This is a little swimming tube that Carter used to use. We were trying to see if it would fit Austin and then he wouldn't let us take it off him.

Swimming

Here are some pictures of Zach and the boys swimming.

Easter

Yeah, I know this is way late but here it is anyway, our Easter picture post.

Me, the boys and the loot. The eggs have been emptied and their innards are contained in those two plastic containers by the sand bucket. It came to a grand total of ten dollars and 15 sweedish fish.

This kid loves balls!

Austin went right past the eggs to get to the ball. It took him a while to get it out because he was trying to get it from that angle instead of just rolling it out from under the piano bench.

Kaput

So, as I was drying my hair this morning my blow dryer died. It wasn't a quiet slow death. I saw smoke, then something popped, there was a flash, more smoke and then nothing. This blow dryer went out with a bang as it seems all of my dryers do. Because of my previous track record with hair dryers (I think I went through four in my two years at college) I keep a spare on hand so I was able to finish my hair. Thank goodness for that! It would not have been pretty if I had just stopped when my dryer died, not pretty at all!!

Now I have the task of finding a new one. I'm sure some of you are wondering, "Why no just use your spare?" My answer is, Because I don't like it but I keep it around for situations like this when it's better than nothing. The dryer that just died has been a good one. I think I've had it for six years. I'm pretty sure I bought it soon after I got home from my mission in 2003. That's a long life for a blow dryer, at least for me it is. I'm trying to decide if I should just get another one like my last one (the current model) or if I should try something new. What do you think? What kind of hair dryer do you use? Help me out here, Ladies! Thanks!

Weaned and other random happenings

Well, I think I've done it folks. Austin is now off the bottle. Yippee! When he hit one year I got him down to two bottles a day. He got one when he woke up and the other right before he went to bed. This last couple of weeks I gradually got him off his morning bottle and tonight he went down without his night bottle. My next challenge is to get him to drink milk. As of right now he drinks juice great out of a sippy but will only have a few swallows if it's milk. It really makes no sense because he drank it great out of his bottle. I guess it doesn't taste the same coming out of a sippy. Go figure!

Now for the random stuff. Today I told Carter that it was time to clip his fingernails and he informed me that while I was doing that he needed to be doing something and ran off to find his phone (one of my old broken cell phones). As I clipped away this is what Carter's saying with the phone up to his ear....

Oh hi..... Yeah...... HaHaHa(fake laughing).....yeah....HaHaHa....Ok, buy.

I was talking to Grandma Tracey. Now I will call Grandpa Kevin.

Oh hi.... Yeah.... HaHaHa....... Did you poop today?......Yeah.....HaHaHa...Ok, buy.

Totally made me laugh. Where does the kid come up with this stuff??

Austin has discovered the garbage in a new way this last week. He used to only pull stuff out of it but now he puts stuff in. Yesterday he found a string and came over to me and said "ku-ku". He then proceeded over to the kitchen cupboard, opened it up and put the string in the garbage. I chuckled, and told him good job. Later on I discovered 3 toys in the garbage as well. Sometimes he gets it right and sometimes he doesn't. I think putting things in the garbage is his new thing because he did it again tonight with the cover off the book I'm reading.

Last thing. Tonight Carter was a crab. He would only respond to "Crab" or "Crab Carter". All through dinner we had to ask Crab carter what he wanted to drink. And tell Crab Carter to eat his food. And tell Crab Carter to go get washed up. If ever we called him Carter He informed us, "I'm not Carter, I'm just Crab Carter." Every thing's an adventure with kids!!


**Sorry for the lack of pictures. We're experiencing some internet difficulties. For some reason the internet won't work on the computer that has all of our pictures on it. Hopefully soon I'll get it worked out.

Small Blessings

Thank you everyone for all of your support, kind and loving words, prayers and service. I want you all to know how much we appreciate it. I just thought I'd post a little update for y'all. We are all doing great. At every step of this trial the things that stand out to me the most are the blessings.
Every stage of the miscarriage was taken care of through doctors visits. I think this helped me stay more emotionally stable than I otherwise would have been.
I had fantastic doctors. My OB/GYN was so kind and loving. She and her office lined up all of the doctors visits I would need. They made sure insurance pre-approved the surgery, they got me in with a specialist to perform the surgery. They were wonderful!
I have had no physical pain. Seriously, none. Originally they thought they would have to give me a lot of medication and things to prepare my body for the surgery and it was going to be fairly painful. It turned out that the fetus was small enough that none of those things were required.
Surgery went really well. They give you the same kind of medication you have when you get a colonoscopy, you aren't "out" but you don't remember anything. I remember getting up on the surgical table and then waking up in my recovery room. What a huge blessing.
Seriously, who could ask for better friends? Girls, you have been wonderful. All of the meals, visits, hugs, babysitting, you name it they did it or offered. Being so far away from family wasn't easy but I never worried about how things were going to get done. I had a list of friends who I could call but never had to because they just came to me. Thank you all.

It never ceases to amaze me how the Lord has his hand in everything. Here we had this sad and difficult situation and He was with us through it all making sure that we were taken care of and knew that he loved us.

Thanks again to all of you for your love and concern.

Sad news

This is definitely not what I thought my next blog post would be about but here it goes.... we lost the baby. I went in today for my 19 week check-up and the Doctor couldn't find a heart beat. She then did an ultrasound and we couldn't see a heartbeat. I then went over to the hospital where they did an ultrasound and confirmed everything for insurance purposes. I think every ounce of liquid in my body has come out in tear form. Of course the first thing to pop in my head was, "Did I do something wrong? Did I lift too much? Did I not eat enough? Did I push myself too hard?" This was all followed closely by the thought, "The Lord is in control. For some reason you need to wait." My Doctor even said they never know why it happens like that. That someone can come in for their 15 week appointment and have a strong fetal heartbeat and then come back for their 19 week appointment and find no heartbeat. It just happens sometimes. Just as a side note, my doctor was fantastic through all of this. She was very kind and loving and she took care of all the details that needed to be attended to that I would have no clue about such as insurance issues and other doctors visits. What a blessing! I don't know why it happened like this but we're going to be OK. That's not to say that I'm done shedding tears but I'm OK.

My little tease

This post is about Austin. I've noticed some things he does these past few weeks. Climbing is a huge one but the one that surprises me is what a tease he is. At first I just thought he was testing his boundaries but after multiple incidents I realized that Austin is a tease. The kid loves to pester people. Here are a few examples...

Carter was quietly playing with one of his trains. It has four cars and he was lying on his side driving them along the carpet totally content. Austin was playing with some other toys in the same room and I was knitting. Pretty soon I noticed Austin staring at Carter. Then he walked over to where Carter was playing and bent down like he wanted to watch. Carter kept playing and then Austin quickly grabbed one of the train cars and RAN across the room laughing his head off. He thought he was so clever. I gave the train car back to Carter who resumed playing and then tried to get Austin interested in some other toys. He played for a second and then decided it was way more fun to grab the train away from Carter and get chased so he proceeded to do that. Luckily Carter found it funny too so they played chase for a while.

Second incident.. I was sitting on the couch knitting. I don't know what it is but my kids are fascinated with yarn. I ended up putting a few balls of left over yarn in the toys so they could play with it and would leave mine alone. Anyway, I'm knitting away and Austin discovers that I've got a skein of yarn hidden between my body and the couch and comes over to try to get it. When I wouldn't let him have it he turned away and acted like he was trying to decide what toys he wanted to play with. I turned my attention back to the hat I was working on and as soon as I was preoccupied Austin turned, grabbed the yarn and started to run. When I got up to retrieve my yarn Austin ran faster and put my yarn in his mouth!! He ended up falling because he was laughing so hard and I was able to pry my yarn from his fingers and mouth. What a goofball!!

Austin totally gets what he's doing. He knows he's teasing you. I never would have thought that a 15 month old could be such a tease. We are going to be in so much trouble when he gets older. The sad thing is I can't blame this on anyone else, well maybe my Dad. I'm almost positive he gets it from the Doney side of the family.

Goodbye Mom and Dad....

That's right, Carter rarely call us Mom and Dad anymore. He seems to prefer Melissa (pronounced Meyissa) and Zach. I really started to notice it last week and it's still going strong. He's gone through stages before where he realizes that I answer to names other than Mom. For instance, when he was little he noticed that Zach called me Masha. It apparently stood out to him more when Zach was in the back of the apartment and needed something so he would semi-shout "Masha" and I would respond. So Carter had a stage when, if he had to call me for something he would always call "Masha" not Mom. Then next time came when we lived with my family this last summer. Out of the seven kids I'm the only girl so all my brothers, my parents and even some neighbors call me Sis. Carter notice this and would try it out every once in a while. It was kind of comical because whenever he called me Sis he would kind of squint one eye and raise his eyebrows like, "Will it work? Will she answer me?". I'm not sure how long this current trend will last. We'll have to wait and see. I'm sure it will pass eventually but until it does I answer to Meyissa.

The number three.

Some of you may have noticed that I've had three blog posts every month. I cut it pretty close in January but I finally did get three posts up on the 31st. I know, February's nearly over and here I am on only my first post of the month. Don't worry, I plan on at least three. It's not that I don't have things to blog about. I have a whole list of things on my fridge and calendar. I just can't seem to find time to sit down at the computer without one of the boys coming and peeking their head around my shoulder until we're nose to nose and they're asking me to do something. I'm sure you're thinking, "What about after you've put the boys to bed?" My answer to that is, that's usually when I go to bed as well. Seriously, I've been in bed around nine o'clock almost every night this week. Now, you may be wondering where I'm even going with this whole thing. It all ties in with the title of this post. The number three. I'm pregnant. Little Holmstead number three is on his way. I had my first doctors appointment this week. I'm 11 weeks along and due September 8th. Anyway, that's the news!!




Isn't that cool!? I've never had an ultrasound so early. It was fun to see the little heart beating. We're excited about our little peanut.

Happy Birthday Austin!!

He's one! My baby is one!! I can not believe how fast the time has gone. Wow!!

Playing in the snow

Austin is such a fun boy. He loves to do whatever his big brother is doing. He loves to play with cars and trucks and even makes the "brrrm brrrm" sound when he's driving them.

He wants to eat whatever Carter is eating. Austin has been begging to eat real food since he was eight months or so. He loves chunks and pieces. His latest favorite food is peas and even if he's just eaten a full meal he will never turn down something that comes off of our plates. If I have to blow on his food to cool it down he seems a lot more interested in eating it. I'll blow on a spoon full and his eyes will get really wide, then as I go to feed him the bite he'll put his lips together and blow on it too before he'll eat it. It makes me laugh.

Austin has been walking since the beginning of December. He's now running and climbing. Seriously, this kid is fast. He'll climb on and in anything he can. His latest climbing trick is to get up on the couch and grab the TV remote. He gets really proud of himself when he does this. He's also discovered that when the dishwasher's open he can lift things out and climb on the door. (I can only do dishes if he's in his high-chair or sleeping.) He's gotten up in our window sills a few times and is constantly climbing on Carter's train table.

climbing

He's a double-fisted player. This kid is always walking around with a toy in each hand. And the two toys are almost always similar. For example, two cars, two plastic animals, two stuffed animals, two bottles, two TV remotes, two books, he's always got to have something in each hand.



We are so glad to have this sweet little boy in our family. We love you Austin!!

New Do

I finally went and got my hair cut at the beginning of January. It had been eight months since my last one. Here it is! What do you think?

Christmas 2008

Christmas was a lot of fun this year. Carter still didn't really get the whole Santa thing until Christmas morning. He woke up around 5 o'clock and came into our bedroom. I tried to get him to go back to sleep, and he did for about an hour. Then he was back up and wanted to watch a movie (his usual morning routine) but it wasn't 7:00 yet, which is when he can watch a movie. (We made this rule hoping he would sleep longer. It isn't working!) He ended up playing in his room for a little bit and then he would come in our room every couple of minutes, walk over to my side of the bed and say, "Excuse me mommy, I need something." At one point he wanted a drink. I told him to go in his room and get the cup of water I'd left there for him. He scurried out of our room and was gone for about five minutes. When he came back in he was so excited. "Mommy, there's a great big train and lots of presents. A great big train that I just walked passed. Dead Marose (Santa, in Russian) did bring them for me." It was so cute! Austin was still asleep so we let Carter play with his train while we waited for him to wake up.

They both really enjoyed opening presents. It took a lot of convincing to get them to take the wrapping paper off a bunch of them before they started to play with them all. One of the first gifts Austin opened was a rattle that Carter had gotten for him. He was totally content carrying that one toy around for most of the morning. I think my favorite thing that Carter said while we were opening presents was, "Dad, let's go gun something." He'd gotten a little gun that shoots those little suction cup darts and was ready to use it. Even better, we told him they were called bullets, (he'd been calling them "gun things") to which he replied, "Dad, let's go gun something with these gullets." Hilarious!!

The rest of our Christmas day was spent playing with toys and just hanging around the house. The boys were both sick so I'm glad it was so laid back. (By the end of Christmas week I hadn't left the house in two weeks due to sick kids. Goo!)

One thing that really surprised me was the after effects of Christmas. For three days Carter woke up at 5:00 wanting to go get a drink and see if there was a train waiting for him in the front room. Seriously, there was no getting him back to sleep those mornings so I just sent him out to play with his toys. Crazy kid!

My favorite thing from this Christmas, and something I hope to make a tradition, is that Zach and Carter decorated and undecorated for Christmas. Yes, you read right. Zach and Carter dug the tree out of our storage closet and set it up, we all put the ornaments on, and then the day after Christmas Zach and Carter undecorated the tree, took it down and packed it away. It was wonderful!! I really think this is our new Holmstead family tradition.