3/4/09 - 3/12/09

Wednesday 3/4/09 – The other day when we went to WalMart we picked up some cotton candy for a Sunday afternoon treat and we discovered that Lijah is not a fan of cotton candy. I gave him a piece and he put it in his mouth, gave a sour look, spit it out, and said "kitty, kitty". Apparently he thought it tasted furry like the cat, and I'm not sure I want to know how he knows what a cat feels like on his tongue. Lately Lijah has been speaking in fuller sentences and it is fun to see his progress almost on a daily basis. I'm excited to hear all of the funny things he will start to say. This morning at work I met with a co-worker that is looking into becoming a business analyst (Kelly Sundsmo). I used to work with her back in the day in University Services. We talked about BA stuff but then got into talking about photography. She is shooting a wedding in August and asked me to come as a second shooter. I'm not really excited about weddings, but it would be good experience. I think we are going to get together to take pictures for fun sometime as well.

Saturday 3/7/09 – This morning we went to the library, but unfortunately I forgot to bring Lijah's checked out books with us, which were the whole reason we went to the library in the first place. They are on reserve by someone else so I cannot renew them so I am racking up fines on them – but it's only 5 cents a day or so, so I can bring them in another day. Lijah picked out an octopus puppet and got a new Charlie and Lola video. Then we went to Walgreen's to pick up a few things and I let Lijah pick out a few matchbox cars. He kept trying to throw other things in the basket, as if we were on a shopping spree, but I had to reel him back in. Then we stopped by the co-op so I could get some henna for my hair. At about 1pm Cherie, Dan, and Abbie came over. And then at about 1:30 Jared and Camille came over. Dan and Jared are going to help us with re-doing our bathroom without charging labor costs. With the carpenter ants, the offer of free labor, and the tax refund we will get, we decided to just take down the walls and re-do the bathroom. We'll have to re-do it before we sell the house anyways, and we really want to open it up to see what damage the ants have done, so the timing seems perfect for this. Jason then had his studio time at Winterland Studios to record some vocals from 7-10pm so I decided to do my hair while he was gone.

Sunday 3/8/09 – Jason was out late at the studio so he stayed home from church and slept. He and his cousin Camille, who is recording with him, stayed at the studio until after 11 and then went to get a bite to eat at Perkins. He left me a note recommending that I stay home too, but I kept getting a prompting that I should go. It is generally a struggle to go alone with both boys, but I had the feeling that if I just acted on this prompting everything would be ok. And it was, Lijah was only slightly wiggly during church. But after church, that's a different story. I left class a few minutes early so I wouldn't have to deal with the crowd and went to pick Lijah up from the nursery. He was walking ahead of me and suddenly started running away. Stacy Creer was with me so we chased after him. But….it was too late. He had slipped into the sacrament meeting of another ward. I had Stacy hold Clark (while she was also holding her own baby) and I went in after Lijah. He was at that point going out the back door of the chapel so I came back out and headed to that door. He saw me, and thought it was time to play 'catch me' and started to run back into the chapel. He forgets that I am faster than he is and I did catch him and drag him out, meanwhile I looked up and noticed a bunch of people giving me smiles of condolence. It is pretty funny and cute when it's not your kid I guess…..

Monday 3/9/09 – Tonight we had a family home evening and talked about food storage. I filed my taxes on Friday and we are getting a huge refund ($6800) so we decided that we are going to start our food storage with part of that money. It is recommended that we save up enough food to last each family member an entire year. I'll take a quote from a church home storage pamphlet: "Our Heavenly Father created this beautiful earth, with all its abundance, for our benefit and use. His purpose is to provide for our needs as we walk in faith and obedience. He has lovingly commanded us to “prepare every needful thing” (see D&C 109:8) so that, should adversity come, we may care for ourselves and our neighbors and support bishops as they care for others. We encourage Church members worldwide to prepare for adversity in life by having a basic supply of food and water and some money in savings." We haven't had money to really get going on this besides buying a few extra items at the store when we go each time. But the timing is perfect because once a year members of our church get together get together and make an order with Walton Feed where we are able to get large quantities of food without shipping at a pretty low cost. We are going to get some 6 gallon buckets of wheat, beans, and rice (which will keep for 30 years!) so if something does happen we at least know we have food to live off of. We'll get other stuff of course as well, but those three, along with a good vitamin supply, are the big things you need to survive. We are hoping to get water storage supplies as well. We also made a list of things we truly need but have not been able to afford: freezer chest for food storage, bathroom update, fireproof safe, software for Jason's music and my photography, a gun (I am against having a gun in the house, but will sure be happy if we do ever need it – as long as it is locked away safely I am ok with this one even though I do not prefer it), paint to freshen up the house, and the rest to pay down some credit cards.

Wednesday 3/11/09 – It's Jason's 33rd birthday today!!! But…..he woke up sick so I had to stay home from work. He said it was the best present I could have given him (so he could sleep). I had planned to take PTO, but had so much work to do that I thought I would try to log in remotely from home. It worked perfectly and I was amazed at how much work I was able to get done with two kids. It helped that for most of the day at least one of them were napping. I think I may have gotten an equal amount of work done as I would have actually being in the office. After Lijah's nap he was feeling a little bit better so we went to dinner at his mom's house. She made him his favorite chicken with cornflake breading. Angie and her kids were there and Lijah had a fun time playing. Cherie had a printer that would not install right on her computer so she gave it to us. She always gives us things at exactly the right time. When we didn't have money for paint and Lijah ripped up the wallpaper, there she was with paint. Our printer just broke this week, and voila, she has a printer she is getting rid of. We needed a cordless phone because we got a land line and voila, there she appears with a phone. It's amazing.

Thursday 3/12/09 – I spent the evening clearing out what I could from the bathroom for the demolition this weekend. Lijah helped for a bit, but spent most of the time brushing his teeth with both his toothbrush and my toothbrush. These days if you ask Lijah what you do to the ants he'll clench his fist and say "crushhhhh". It's pretty funny. But the other day I saw him grabbing Clark's arm saying "crushhhhh" and I had to remind him that Clark was not an ant. Lijah has turned into a little parrot lately, copying everything we say. He also insists that cheese, waffles, yogurt, and toaster strudels are called 'real'. This stems from when he would want a treat we would tell him that he had to eat some 'real' food first. Not sure that a toaster strudel qualifies as 'real' food, but he associates it with real food, so whatever….. Clark just hangs out a lot and is a happy baby. I think his favorite time is waking up and hearing me talk to him, he always seems so interested in me in the morning. I've started to play a game with him where I hang him upside down by his hips and tell him to 'give me all of your money' and then bounce him like I am shaking the money out of his pockets. He thinks it's pretty funny….. He's also eating a lot of solids – Blueberry puree, sweet potato, carrots, green bean puree, applesauce, mashed potatoes, and guava. He's a good eater – but seems to make more of a mess when he wears a bib then when he doesn't. When I put it on he is so interested in playing with it that it just makes a bigger mess. He's starting to pull himself around really well – it looks like an army crawl though.