I've been thinking..

I've been thinking a lot about this stage in life that our family is in. And the conclusion that I keep coming to is that we're extremely blessed. Despite sleepless nights, temper tantrums (not just from the kids), poopy pants (only from the kids :) and a whole list of other things that make day-to-day life hard sometimes, I LOVE my job. I love being a wife and a mother.

Everything up to the point where we got married was a separate life and now I am making a new story. Something that is totally different between my two lives is that I no longer have long spans of time. I live my life in small moments. I think it's partly due to the changing moods of my children. One minute their whole world is falling apart because I chose the wrong cup to pour juice into or because I won't let them eat unidentifiable objects off the floor. So then I become irrationally upset with them! The next minute they are experiencing pure joy because I played a favorite song and picked them up to dance. In return, I also get to experience pure joy because their joy brings me joy. In fact, I tear up almost 20 times a day probably because my heart just can't seem to wrap itself around all the love I feel for my kids and the sweet smiles they give me. So I've learned to take advantage of the small moments. Even if they are really small. This past Sunday Richie sang in the ward choir for the Christmas program. He even sang a solo and brought half of the congregation to tears. However, because he was seated in the stands, I was wrestling two kiddos and I felt like I didn't even hear the songs because I was busy whisper-yelling things like, "Stop putting all the stickers on your face!" However, the congregation got to sing one song with the choir and although I was spitting mad the moment before, as I sang that song I started to cry because the spirit struck me so forcefully. It happened again that evening as I went to turn on the porch light and I caught a glimpse of our nativity set as "Away in a Manger" was playing on the computer. The time to dwell on peaceful moments like that have passed, because right after that sweet experience, someone needed something and I was shaken from my reverie. But, I had that moment, and it was special.


I've also been giving sighs of relief a lot lately because I feel like I really lucked out when I married Richie. Of course you know it's a big decision when you choose that person you're going to spend the rest of eternity with, but I don't think you REALLY understand what you're getting yourself into. It's all talk up to that point, and then after you're hitched you're in it for the long haul and the real work begins. I know of some unfortunate circumstances where the husband wasn't all he was cracked up to be. However I keep finding out that the guy I married was even better than I thought he was! This past Saturday for part of my Christmas, Richie let me go to Idaho Falls and do a little clothes shopping while he took the kids. Best present ever. If it was me, I probably would have put a movie in and called it good, but they went to the duck pond and fed them left over popcorn and played at the park. Then when they got back they painted. He even let Gwen in on the action. :) And then he got them all cleaned up and I came home as they were finishing lunch. These pictures make me so happy.





We decorated a Christmas tree for the birds outside our window so that we can watch neat things going on outside, even if we can't always go outside.


Christmas pictures at our joy school Christmas party today. This first one is dang cute, the other one just makes me laugh our loud. Miles' face cracks me up.

Let the Games Begin

Gwen is now 8 months. Took her to the doctor today and she's making the Garner family proud with the expected 99th percentile for head circumference and 90th for both height and weight.
Some things Gwen has accomplished recently:
*She is a pro army crawler. She is still working on the hands and knees crawling technique. But she's pretty darn fast.
*We're really having to watch what's on the floor now that she has her pincer grasp down pat. She's been putting EVERYTHING in her mouth. I don't remember it being this bad with Miles. All within the past 2 weeks or so she has eaten dog food, choked on leaves and pine needles, almost swallowed a screw and grabbed one of those glass ball ornaments and bit it so hard, shards of it were swimming around in her mouth and cutting it all to bits.
*She can pull herself up on almost anything nowadays and is really enjoying the new perspective. Now that she can do this, our house is always more messy. She pulls all the clothes and blankets out from the changing table (I remember Miles doing that) and a favorite is to pull all the movies out of the box they're in. Now that she's realizing all this mobility, it has made diaper changing and getting clothes on one of my least favorite parts of the day.
*She's cut 3 new teeth! Yowza!
*She'll give you dead fishy kisses if you ask for them and loves to wave hello.
*She's already getting into the groove. She "sings" and "dances" whenever we turn music on or sing and dance around the house.
*I don't know if this is new, but she definitely prefers solid foods to baby foods. Isn't it funny how you can pick up traits of theirs and predict what they will be like when they get older? She's so darn stubborn, but in a very quiet way. If she doesn't want that baby food on the spoon you're shoving in her face, she'll just lift her eyebrows, shut her mouth tight and turn her head away, as if to say, "How dare you." So we've learned that she's more open to eating baby food if you scoop it up on a small piece of bread, or banana, or sweet potato etc. So weird. She's also a very determined little scooter. If she wants something, she goes and gets it.

Anyway, that's Baby Gwen in a nutshell these days. She's one of the most smiley babies I've seen and I LOVE being her mamma!

All dressed up for Church


Snuggling with big brother watching a movie

Using the bouncer as a swing! yikes!



She saw something on the other side of the changing table, so she pulled everything out and army crawled inside.


Cute Girl!

Coming back to reality is hard sometimes....ugh

We had such a fantastic get away for Thanksgiving that it was a little hard coming back. No extra people to watch the kids, no extra play mates, having to cook again etc. You know what I mean. I still can't believe I forgot my camera, but my brother snapped this great picture of Miles. Thanks Russ!

Lows of the trip
*Miles pooped his pants 3 times within 1 hour of getting to SG. That must be some sort of record right?
*Gwen decided that while she was on the trip, her wake up time would be 5 or 530.
...That's all I've got for lows. Like I said, it was a pretty great trip.

Highs of the trip
*Besides the 3 accidents mentioned above and 1 more poopy accident Sunday morning, Miles kept his pants clean and dry all week! That includes nap times and night times. AMAZING!
*Gwen was a little angel. Even more smiley than usual and she charmed everyone she came in contact with. That was nice.
*Got to help my sis with a painting project
*Got to play games with the fam, always a good time.
*Had a short but sweet visit with my Grandma and she told me about her mother, who I am named after. That was special for me.
*Miles got royally spoiled by G&G Crosby at the grand kids sleepover. They went to see a movie, went to "Anti-gravity" (like one big trampoline type place), roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, made crafts, ate goodies, had a fishing pond for prizes, etc etc etc. He was totally in heaven.
*Got to see a bunch of extended Crosby family on Thanksgiving day. This doesn't happen too often, so that was neat. Of course Thanksgiving day had all the trimmings and we had a fantastic time stuffing ourselves and letting the kids run loose.
*Got our Honolulu Grill on, as usual. So good. So fattening.
*I got to meet up with friends from high school and that was a highlight for me. Richie was sweet to always be willing to take the kids while I went and got a cupcake with the gals or went shopping. :)
*We had more time off than we're used to so we were able to break the trip up, both ways and spend some time with Richie's folks too! That was so nice.

Now that it's past Thanksgiving, it is officially ok to put up Christmas decorations and listen to Christmas music in our house. I'm a Thanksgiving nazi and I make sure it gets all the attention it deserves, but as soon as the 4th Friday of November rolls around, I'm all over getting into the Christmas spirit. I've had the Christmas tunes on all day and we've been decorating and baking since we got back. Hooray!

Today I....

Sometime between 12am and 230am: Got up with Gwen again and decided to take the poor croupy baby to sleep with me on the couch.

2am Richie leaves for his concrete job. Yup, you read correctly. 2 am. Thankfully this is not a normal schedule.

3-630 am wrestle with Gwen on the couch, the bed, and finally she settles for her pack n' play. We take numerous trips outside to breathe the cold night air. Miles even joins the party sometime around 330 completely wet, despite his pull-up. How did he manage that??

630 am Richie comes back from grinding concrete, showers and gets ready to go teach seminary all day. We wish each other luck.

730 am finish breakfasts and get the kids dressed, teeth brushed, hair done etc. We do a little mini school in our hallway. (We recently joined a joy school group, so now on most mornings Miles and I have "little school" where we review calendar etc. He loves it!)

845 am Gwen goes down for nap #1 and I put a movie on for Miles. I leap at the chance to get a shower. Miles comes in 2 minuets into my hot shower. "Mommy, Potty!" Stop the shower, dry off, help Miles go potty, finish my shower.

10am I'm almost done getting ready when I peak in on Miles in the living room. He looks ashamed. "When was the last time he pooped?" I think to myself. And then my entire soul fills with dread as I remember that he hasn't really pooped in almost 3 days, not counting the accident he had the previous morning. "Miles come here. Did you poop your pants?" And he runs away and tells me to go away. That seals it. I know what I'm in for.

1015am Clean up poop. I wish this was unusual. It's not though. I get so mad that I spank him twice. Yup, you heard me right. I spanked him! Twice!! Call child protective services on me if you'd like, but in my book he's lucky I didn't make him stand outside in the cold, stark naked for the next hour.

1030am Gwen wakes up prematurely. Feed her while I try and do something productive with Miles. We make a turkey and put what we're thankful for on the feathers. I think I'm such an awesome mom for doing this and Miles will totally appreciate it. I was wrong again.

11am Saw an idea on pinterest and decide to get ambitious and try it out. We put all the magnetic letters in the tub and then I let Miles "fish" for them with a magnet attached to a string and a wooden spoon. Success!


1130am Both kids are wanting to take a bath. Works for me, it's a nice time killer. Miles has to have 2 time outs during bath time because he keeps taking toys away from Gwen. Get kids out, lotioned and clothed. We play toys. Miles gets bored quickly, so we build a fort (a blanket thrown over the card table) and read some books inside. I am almost through an entire page before Miles loses interest and walks out.




1230 pm Lunch time! Put Gwen Down. Put Miles on potty. He poops in the potty!! Enter Parade! I make a big deal out if it and he gets to take something out of his time out box and eat a piece of candy. Wahoo!!

130pm. Nirvana. Both kids napping, I'm eating lunch and watching Office re-runs again. Just about to get to work on a Christmas present when Gwen wakes up. Poor thing sounds like a seal. Breaks my heart. And oh, what's this? A new tooth coming in? Yikes.

330 pm Gwen plays by herself on the floor like a champ while I make headway on the previously mentioned present.

4pm Miles wakes up from naps and informs me that in addition to being "wet" and "gross", that he has a "little poop" in his pants. He even shows me with his fingers how big he guesstimates the poop to be. "Really?" I think. "How much poop can one kid have in him?" His estimates were off, to say it delicately. I'm past mad. I give up. I don't even tell him that it's gross and yucky. Instead I throw out the underwear, clean him up, take both kids into their room and start crying.

430pm Miles quickly notices how sad I am, comes up to give me a hug and strokes my face softly and says, "Alright mommy?" I tell him I'm just sad right now. So he pats my back and says, "Come here mommy, it's ok, calm down." (only it's all in Miles-ese, so it's way cuter) He leaves momentarily and comes back with strips of toilet paper he's ripped off and wipes me eyes and gives me more hugs. I tell him mommy just needs a little time out right now. So I head to my room to relax and he comes in with more "tissues" and snuggles.

530pm Hail the conquering hero! Richie's back and had a great day of lessons. He assesses the situation and immediately takes Miles to go get some pizza. Bonus points for picking up a movie to watch later tonight!

6pm I'm currently sitting here all by myself because Richie took the kids out for a drive so that I could take a nice, long, hot bath. Best husband ever?? Yes sir.

How was your day? :)

5 years ago...

5 years ago Richie and I went on our second date and had our first kiss. We went to a "star show" at the observatory on campus so Richie could get extra credit for his astronomy class. It didn't last as long as we were expecting so we strolled around campus and decided we'd go rent a movie. I don't know why we ended up choosing "The Pajama Game", but I have always liked that Richie was "man enough" to watch musicals with me. We haven't watched many musicals lately, so when we decided to watch this movie again to celebrate the anniversary of our first kiss, we were having a hard time handling all the cheesy-ness. But no matter how cheesy this movie is, we agreed that "steamed heat" is still one of the best numbers out of any musical we've seen. Fosse at his finest, fo reals!! Enjoy! ( I watched it on the blog and it's at some weird angle, it kind of cuts a guy off, so if it drives you nuts, just look it up on youtube)

Shenanigans

We celebrated Halloween a lot this year, and it was so much fun!! In fact, we made a fall "to-do" list like we did for the summer, and we've already completed almost all of it! Maybe we should have been more ambitious.... Anyway, here's the rest of the Halloween celebrations!

Here's one of the pumpkins we carved at an Elder's Quorum activity. Miles thought it was so cool that we put candles inside of pumpkins. Yeah, we're pretty rad parents I guess.

Down the street from us a little strip mall (and by little I mean 3 or 4 stores) was having free Halloween festivities so we took them up on the offer! They had awesome pumpkins on display, people handing out candy and coupons everywhere, cookies and apple cider and the witch from Snow White! Both Miles and Gwen were terrified of her. Her costume was very realistic. She read some Halloween stories and gave Miles an apple, and then they were on speaking terms.


We went to our friends annual Halloween party! I don't know why I didn't get more pictures, but here's a really flattering one of Richie carving another pumpkin. :)




On the actual eve of Halloween we did our traditional meal of pumpkin brains! Yummmmm! Sloppy Joes served in a pumpkin makes for a pretty dramatic dinner. Still all Miles wanted to eat was the bun and some fun jello.



Then we got dressed in our costumes and did a tiny bit of trick-or-treating down our street to our neighbors. I think we were the only trick-or-treaters they got so they were thrilled! Then we drove over to the Christensen's so they could spoil our kids some more. :) Miles thought it was so much fun, which made is so much fun for Richie and I. He ran from house to house and repeated his lines (trick-or-treat and thank you) dutifully and with little prompting. Richie kept Gwen wrapped in his coat all night. It was chilly! Richie was in heaven with a snuggly little baby.

Week in Review

Sometimes I feel like a bad mom because I'm ornery and let my kids watch more movies than they should. Like yesterday, and probably today. It wasn't even 8am before I had my first breakdown. Yikes...could be a long one.
Other times I feel like a great mom, like in all these pictures! Which is why I choose to post these!
Miles and I went on our first date the other day! It was totally impromptu one Friday night. Sometimes it's really nice living in the middle of town. We just walked a few blocks up the road to a frozen yogurt place and used a buy one get one free coupon. I swear, this is the only decent picture out of 10 or so I took.

Gwen's trying out a new face these days. Miles started pulling faces at this same age. It's fun to see such a personality start to emerge.


We had a fun dinner the other night with some friends of ours who have twin boys who are a year old. It still cracks me up that Gwen is about the same size.

We went to our ward Halloween party the other night. Miles was having a blast until some kid showed up in a scary mask. Then he stuck close to mommy! Gwen is learning how to wave! We got Gwen's costume from my sister-in-law (Thank you again!!) so we decided to make Miles a spider to go along with some sort of bug theme. I took the easy way out again and just bought him black pants and a black shirt and hot glued sections of backer rod shaped like spider legs to the back of his shirt. It took about 10 minutes, no sewing required and was super cheap. My kind of costume. This is the first year Miles has actually liked wearing a costume. It's pretty fun.



I managed to squeeze some actual quality time in yesterday between the movie watching and laying on the floor. :) We played with the leaves outside and both kids loved it! I wish I would have gotten more pictures.


When Richie came home, who had also had a hard day, we decided to throw caution to the wind and head out to a straw maze. Never mind that it was a week day or that it was almost dark outside, or that it was 40 degrees at best. It was the best part of the entire day, probably week! Last year we went to a straw maze when I was pregnant with Gwen and Miles didn't really like it. This year Miles thought it was awesome!! We gave him a flash light and he led us around the maze for a good 30 minutes. Whenever he came upon a dead end, he would stop running and shout, "Oh No! Deh Eh!! Quick, Dis Way!! C'mon Mommy, Daddy, Bay Gwe!"

Family Pictures Fall 2011

When Richie's brother Ross came home from his mission earlier this year, his aunt took some special family pictures of the whole Garner clan. So why would we get more family pictures already then?? I came up with 3 reasons to justify getting them taken.
1.Fall is magical time of year! It's when Richie and I met and fell in love. I love Fall! I had this vision of our pictures involving a big red, yellow and orange leaf pile, but Rexburg had other plans.
2.Gwen is no longer a little blob of a baby. She can sit up and smile on command...ish. She's just changed SO much in such a short amount of time.
3.I lost all the baby weight! Shout out! I did it 6 months faster this time around (thank goodness) but I still need to lose more in order for my clothes to fit me "normally". I use the term normal loosely because I think I've resigned myself to the fact that my body will never be "normal" again. *sigh*

So we contacted my old friend Kelly who took our pictures last time around. Remember this shoot?


She gave us a killer deal again. If you need some pictures done you should check out her photo blog and contact her! kellyspencephotography.blogspot.com We took our pictures on Saturday and by Tuesday we had 3 discs of edited pictures mailed to us. Amazing right? She was so patient with our kids. It was the perfect storm on Saturday. Gwen got sick with the flu and Miles decided not to nap. So you can imagine they were fairly difficult. But she managed to get some really fun ones. There are lots of pictures on this post, I just couldn't decide, so many turned out awesome!

We lived in Sugar City for 2 years and never got pictures there to document that time in our lives, so we went back out to the road that we lived on and took some pictures at the Drive in Movie place and a cool red barn down the road.









I made some carmel apples the night before to reveal while we were taking pictures because I thought we'd get some fun reactions out of Miles. He wasn't quite as animated about them as I was hoping, but still pretty fun.








These next three are some of my favorite! Can't wait to get these up in the kids room.







Then we shot a few at Porter Park across from our apartment to document where we live now!