Tammy's Routine

We've settled into a good routine in Clinton. The boys usually sleep until 7, at which time I get the boys fed and dressed for the day. I've been potty training Levi for the last week and he is doing fantastic. I have to take him every 30-45 minutes, but he catching on pretty quick. It may sound bad, but I bribe him to go so often. I bribe him with snacks, just a couple things every time he goes. 

I usually exercise in the morning before lunch sometime. Every other day I run and the days in-between I try to do some resistance training.  I'm also trying to eat less sugar. I finally admitted to myself I have a sugar addiction and to be able to lose these last 10 lbs of baby weight I've got to really eat better. It is sometimes hard to exercise with two little kiddos around, but exercising is really the only thing I do for myself. 

Winter is a bit harder for all of us because we can't go outside as much.  We had a few weeks of really nasty smog, but the last week it's been completely clear and sunny so we've been able to get outside again. It's refreshing for all of us. Levi loves riding his new bike, especially over the ice and snow. I can tell Malachi loves to go for walks too. We go around the block, to the park or to the duck pond. 

I work at ManorCare which is a skilled nursing facility as a Registered Nurse. This was my old job before we moved to Missouri. I had a hard time finding a job that only would take me weekends, so I went back to my old job. It is only 20 minutes away. I work 3-4 days a month only on the weekends working day shift (6am-2pm).  I don't even feel like I have a job. I go, do my 8 hours and don't ever think about work until I go back. It is nice to not dwell on work at home. Adrian watches the kids while I work and though he enjoys being with the kids, by the time I get home he tells me he is in survival mode.

Adrian's car was in the shop for 8 weeks. Yes, this is the car he bought just a few months ago. We had to have the engine basically rebuilt and there were a lot things wrong with it. It cost us way more than anticipated, but we're hoping Adrian's school will approve an emergency loan for the cost. So, for the most part of 8 weeks I have not had a car to go anywhere during the day. I've had to be very creative as far things to do to entertain the kids. 

We got put into a new ward in October. Since the ward boundaries were redone, they had to start from scratch with callings. Adrian got called to be the secretary of the Young Men. He is very excited to be with the young men. Since he was converted at age 22, he never experienced the Young Men program first hand. I got called to be with the sunbeams. They had me move up with the same kids I was teaching with the new year so I now teach the CTR 4 class. This was the exact same calling I had in Missouri for 2 years. I enjoy being in Primary, but it is sometimes tiring to try to keep ten 4 year olds under control!!

The only other things going on in my life is all the household chores. I must admit, I have no motivation to do the same chores day after day. Laundry, dishes and cleaning over and over. I frequently just play with the kids instead of doing my housework.

We like our neighborhood in Clinton.  There's a lot of families with kids, but we haven't gotten to know most of them because a lot don't go to our church and we only see them in passing. We get along with a lot of people at church, but don't really have many friends we do things with. In fact, the only person I see outside of church is my neighbor 2 doors down (and I know her from church). I babysat her boy for a few months while she went to school and now we have play dates every now and then. It's hard to meet new people in the ward when I'm in primary. As far as my neighbors, they seem to keep to themselves and I only see them in passing.

Levi and Malachi are so fun to take care of each day. Levi is talking so much and he says the most random things that often times has me laughing out loud. I recently told him that when papa goes to work he helps people have babies (Adrian's doing an OB/GYN rotation). Levi then said "papa going to work to make babies." I can't stop laughing at that one. Malachi is so active he loves to be right in the middle of the commotion. He is in such fun stage where he is so curious and is discovering how everything works. Since the day Malachi was born Levi has always right by his side. And I hate to say this, but Levi pesters him all day long. Levi bumps, pushes, takes toys away and growls at him all day long. I think it's just Levi's age and he needs to mature more before he stops. He seems jealous of any attention Malachi gets. But it really is all day long. I feel like a referee all day long and it's exhausting sometimes. But, I love my kiddos and enjoy being home with them all day.

Malachi: 10 months

This little dude is becoming so active and it's so fun to see his personality coming out. 

He loves to snuggle and be close, but he will also be content playing by himself. 

One of his favorite games is handing something back and forth. 

He loves for me to sing to him and he knows all the actions to pat-a-cake. 

 He loves to dance by moving his body back and forth, shaking his head vigorously or spinning in circles while sitting on his bottom.

He is able to crawl, pull himself up to a standing position and cruise along furniture. 

He can independently go up and down stairs. He has only taken a tumble a couple of times.

Malachi is eating solid foods and some soft finger foods. He a really good eater. He has just recently started to prefer some foods over others. He will even spit food out if he doesn't want it.

He is babbling quite a bit. He can even say dada, though he doesn't know the meaning. 

He has eczema and we are usually able to keep under control. He's had a couple bad flare-ups, but nothing that's lasted too long. 

He has his two bottom teeth and had a hard time cutting them.

He likes to cuddle/roll around on soft things such as pillows, blankets or piles of clothes.

He makes car noises when he's zooming cars around.

He loves to wrestle with Adrian and Levi. If there is any rough play going on he wants to be right in the middle. Up until it gets a little too rough and he gets hurt.

He sleeps about 10.5 hours each night. If he wakes up at all during the night he immediately stands up and cries until I come in and put his binky in and lay him down. 

He is so curious and is into all the drawers and cupboards. 

He reaches for things he wants. 

He loves to play with cars and balls. 

A week ago he got his finger shut in a door. He had to get 5 stitches because the tip was halfway severed off. The top of the bone was also chipped off so he's been on antibiotics for 10 days. I was almost in tears because I felt so bad for him. There is nothing worse then seeing your kids in pain and suffering. It was cut from behind the nail bed and was hard to stitch so there is going to be nasty scar.  He's been a trooper and has continued on as normal.

At 10 months:

Weight 20.5 lbs

Height 28.5 inches

Levi: 2 years 8 months

This little boy is seriously a handful. He has so much energy and is hard to keep up with. He brings so much joy into our home and it amazes me how fast he is growing and learning. Here's some things he does:

He is a total back seat driver. Whenever Adrian is driving you can hear from the backseat: watch out papa, careful papa, slowdown papa, turn papa and don't crash papa. He says them over and over :)

Levi does not like candy. If he's offered candy (or most sweets) he will say it's yucky!! He does though like fruitsnacks, donuts and crackers. He also will not drink plain milk, it has to have chocolate mix in it. He also loves to dip almost everything in ranch dressing.

Levi still sleeps with his two blankies. He recently will not sleep with his pants on. He will take them off once I'm gone from the room. I've told him he can sleep with no pants as long as he sleeps under the blankets (which he usually does not like to sleep under). He's been pretty good at sleeping under the blankets lately.

Levi's bedtime routine consists of taking a bath, reading books and singing songs. Levi always hates to stop reading books and one night he was mad at me for stopping and making him go to bed. As we were saying his night prayers that night he said "thanks for mean mama". I couldn't help but chuckle.

Levi likes to scream loud when he's frustrated or mad. I hate to say it, but it's quite annoying. We make him go outside to scream and tell him to get all his screams out because we don't like screams in the house.

Levi knows how to count to 11. He basically knows the order of the numbers because he really has no concept of actually counting things accurately.

He's been really into pirates and captain Hook lately. After we rented Peter Pan, a few days later while Levi was sitting at the table eating dinner, he could see his shadow on his feet. He asked me pull his shadow off because he wanted to play with it. He even told me "like in Captain Hook movie". I felt so bad telling him he couldn't really play with his shadow.

Levi knows his colors. Though he frequently mixes up yellow and blue.

Levi knows a few shapes.

I tried to teach Levi how to spell his name. If you ask him he will say "L, E, Levi"!!

Levi loves to read books (or be read to). 

Levi's favorite movies right now are the Polar Express and the Land Before Time. 

Levi loves to turn music up loud and dance. He dances by spinning in circles until he falls down.

Levi thinks Adrian can do anything in the world. There have been times when I have not been able to do things (that are out of my control) and when I tell Levi I can't do it, he always says " need papa's help".

Levi has some imaginary friends, spider friends that is. This picture is of his spider friends (his hands). His spider friends are mean sometimes and growl/ roar at us. There have been a couple times in the store when a stranger tries to say hi to him and all he will do is throw his spider friends up in front of his face and roar at the person. He also loves his hands to be airplanes.

Levi is always asking me "what's that", or more commonly, "what's that noise?"

Levi figured out how to turn the light on in his room. He stacks things up under the light switch so he can reach it. Frequently now, he will turn his light on and play with his toys instead of going to sleep.

If Levi has not seen Adrian in a day or two Levi will be mad him and give Adrian the silent treatment. Adrian usually has to bribe Levi with something to like him again. Levi just gets his feelings hurt when Adrian is gone so long.

Levi is such handful since he's so strong-willed, but he brings so much joy and love into our lives that we wouldn't have him any other way.

December 2013

December went by so fast. I wanted to do a lot of Christmas activities to bring the Christmas spirit into our home, but the season just went too fast. 

Levi and I put together a cookie train. He was nibbling at the cookies the whole time we were putting it  together. He just kept wanting to tear it apart and the only reason I pushed him to finish it was to take a picture. After the picture he immediately tore it apart. And he doesn't like sweets so he only took a couple nibbles of the cookies. He was so sad when Adrian got home and he wasn't able to show Adrian the train we put together because it was destroyed. He wanted Adrian to help him build it again. Adrian was a good sport and tried his best just to piece things together, but nothing would stay together.

These boys love their papa! They cuddle with Adrian and love to be around him. They both prefer Adrian if we are both around.

Malachi got his first major haircut. We have trimmed it here and there, but Adrian buzzed his hair this time. It was getting long and wild, it doesn't lay flat, it just sticks straight out (just like Adrian's).

We went and saw the Temple Square lights. They were pretty and both boys enjoyed seeing them.

We went to Cedar and spent Christmas with my family. We had Christmas Eve dinner with my dad's family and white elephant gift exchange later that night with just our immediate family. It was a fun enjoyable time.

Due to being up late Christmas Eve the boys slept a little later than normal Christmas morning. It was our family, my parents and Cari and Neal. Stacia and LeAnn's families came by later that day.

The boys are spoiled and got way more than they needed.

After opening a few gifts Levi did not want to open any more. He wanted to save them to open later. I ended up opening them throughout the day. The morning after Christmas Levi woke up and wanted to open more presents. I felt bad, I should have not opened his gifts and he could have taken a few days to open them all. He would open one gift and play with it for a while because he wasn't interested in anything else.

Malachi loved the wrapping paper more than the toys.

We went ice fishing the day after Christmas to Navajo Lake. We snowmobiled in and were there for just a few hours. Adrian tried fishing for a good half hour getting nibble after nibble and only getting his bait taken. He never did end up catching a fish. After he tried I took over his hole and immediately caught the biggest fish caught that trip!! We tried to get Levi to tube down a hill while we were there. After bribing him with pretzels he finally got on the tube and smiled and laughed the first half down, then he all of a sudden started crying and screaming the second half down. Not quite sure what happened there, but he never mounted the tube again. We then roasted hot dogs for lunch and headed home. It was a fun outing.

I had to work the weekend after Christmas so my mom kept the kids for a few days and Adrian and I took off home and had some time together without the kids. Our house was very quiet and we missed our kids a whole bunch.

We did absolutely nothing to celebrate the new year. I had to work at 6am new years day so we were all in bed by 9:30pm new years eve.

It gets a little routine being home all day with the kids and they, (I mean Adrian), was getting restless. We ended up going bowling one night. It was fun, but what Levi loved the most was when they turned on the disco lights. Levi was rolling/dancing/hopping all over the floor where the lights were shining. I think we have a natural break dancer.

Another night we took the kids to the Clearfield Aquatic Center. Both kids were playing and splashing around like they were fish. Levi loved the water, but he did not care for the water playground they had there. He loved the most jumping off the edge to Adrian or I. Malachi lasted a lot longer than I thought he would. He loved the water too.

Family Pictures

We had family pictures taken in October. It was 40 degrees that morning and the kids only lasted 15 minutes in the cold. We loved how they turned out despite being a super fast photo shoot. 

Fall 2013

We really enjoyed the fall season. My boys have a lot of energy  and the weather was so nice we spent a lot time outside. We got a fire-pit and we spent some time in the evenings sitting around the fire roasting marshmallows. Levi does not like marshmallows or chocolate so he would eat the graham crackers plain.
  We went on a walk a couple times a day. Usually once to the park and the other around the neighborhood. Levi has gotten pretty daring on his bike and loves to speed down hills. Makes me cringe every time. He took a couple tumbles and tore his face a bit and got some black eyes.

Playing in the leaves was a big hit. They both loved it. 

We went to a pumpkin patch and picked us each a pumpkin. There was tractor at the patch that Levi got to sit on and we practically had to pry him off it. He would have sat content on it all evening.

As Halloween got closer and closer I realized Adrian would never have time to carve pumpkins with us. So, Levi and I carved his and Malachi's pumpkin while Malachi slept. Levi was not afraid to help clean the pumpkin this year. Levi wanted a bat on his pumpkin. Malachi got a cute face carved into his.

Malachi enjoyed playing with/sucking on his pumpkin.

I never found the time to carve Adrian or I's pumpkin, so they sat on our porch until Christmas. 

I made the boys' costumes this year. I added spikes to a jacket for each of them and made Levi a dinosaur tail. I keep it pretty simple around here. I even made them while visiting my mom in September.

They were both pretty cute in their costumes :)

We went out in style. Levi rode his bike and Malachi cruised in the stroller while we trick-or-treated. Adrian and I were both able to go trick-or-treating with the kids. We headed out around 5 and were literally the first trick-or-treaters out and about. We were out for about an hour before we headed home. We did not collect any candy for Malachi and Levi does not like to eat candy. Levi thought the candy was just another toy to play with, and he loved to line it all up and toss it around. We ended up just giving away Levi's candy to trick-or-treaters who came to our house. 

Our stake rearranged the ward boundaries and we got put into a new ward. The ward Halloween party was the first event we went to with the new ward.

For Thanksgiving we were able to go to Cedar and spend time with my family. We had dinner at my sister Stacia's new house in Kanaraville. We had an enjoyable time with the family and loved being in their company.

We were able to go to the ranch on Cedar Mountain to get Christmas trees. Adrian and I had no way to get a real tree home so we did not cut one down. We tagged along for the outing and had a lot of fun. We built a snowman and had a family snowball fight!!

Cari had her little babe blessed on Dec 1st. She and Neal had a little girl named Cambree on October 28th.

Adrian watches the kids on the days I work and he took them to Brigham City's Peach days. They walked around the temple while they were there.

Levi loves going to the park. We would go there at least once a day when the weather was nice.  He loves to hang on the bars.

We went to Black Island Harvest Days in Syracuse. It was fun, but very busy and crowded. Levi liked the giant slides and corn pit.

All these boys want is to play and have fun!