Makin' Cookies

This past weekend was bittersweet. Sweet because Richie was super dad and took Miles most of the weekend so I could do some things just for me, like go to the gym and the RS broadcast. It was also bitter because it made the forecast for Monday and the rest of the usual week seem especially monotonous. Does that ever happen to you? I hope you are nodding in agreement. Well Sunday was just one of those small tender mercies in that the weather was nice, we had a relaxed morning, made some cookies and enjoyed being together all day.
Here's Miles relaxing. :) It cracks me up (and maybe worries me a little) how zoned out he gets when he watches a movie.


Then while Richie was at choir, we made a mess. I mean, we made cookies. Miles REALLY likes to help me out in the kitchen, so I let him "help" me mix the dry ingredients. He usually throws all of his spoons in the bowl and then chooses one to eat from. He then pulls out spoonfuls of flour etc, eats is and says, "MmmM! mmMMm!mmMMM!" like it tastes really good. Crazy kid. Here's the process from beginning to end, complete with doing the dishes and eating the fruit of our labor. In that last picture I asked him to show me what he was eating and this is the pose I got! I only wish there was a mustache drawn on his finger. That picture would have been even more awesome.




In case you're interested, here's a short pregnancy update. I'm about 15 weeks and doing pretty well! We had a little scare and thought I may have miscarried, but all the doctors assure me everything looks great and I shouldn't be worried at this point. Whew! They also said for me not to paint any walls yet or anything, but it looks like it may be a girl! I'm coming out of the first trimester with all the benefits and downfalls of entering the beginnings of the 2nd. Pros: I have more energy and the "nesting" instincts are coming back. I don't feel as "gross" and can eat mostly anything. (Good and bad considering I had an aversion to processed and sugary foods for the 1st trimester) Cons: I'm not truly showing a bump yet. But I sure am showing like I need to go on a diet. I hope all you moms out there know what I mean. It's the time where people look at you and think, "Is she pregnant?? Nah, it just looks like she is gaining some weight" Along with my changing body is that problem where nothing fits. Regular clothes don't fit, neither do maternity. Sigh....

Animal sounds

Miles is pretty into animals these days and knows what a lot of them say. I maybe should have captured it on film at a better time when we weren't making banana bread. He's pretty distracted. Also the dishwasher is kind of loud in the background, but you can still hear him. I'm really sorry that I don't know how to rotate the videos and I forgot to take it horizontally. It's still cute though. :) I think I forgot to ask him about some animals sounds, like bird, snake, sheep, maybe some others. I guess next time you see him you'll just have to ask him for yourself! Disclaimer, I made up what a rhino says because I don't really know what they say. Who does?


The other night we had friend over for FHE and I tried out a new dessert recipe. BLONDIES! YUM! The first time I told Miles we were having cake I about died laughing. His reaction was awesome! It's way more subdued in this short video, but still makes me smile.

I think I'll be done...

This is what I've been spending a good amount of time on lately. We moved some stuff around and have re-purposed this shelving for food storage and we must say it works great! It's a pretty cool feeling to look up there and think "hey, I grew some of that stuff! And I canned 95% of the things up there!" *Disclaimer* I know so many other ladies who do so much more, so my attempts may seem wimpy. However, I did branch out this season and try new things and learned a lot. And that's part of the goal right? I learned how to make pickles, can green beans (which meant using a pressure cooker for the first time), make applesauce...maybe that's all that was new. It's been good, but I think I'll wait till next year to try salsa!!! yummmm. I just finished 25 quarts of pears yesterday and I think that about did me in.

I've also decided that I should announce I'm pregnant on every post just to get more comments. Thoughts?

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Not very good at blogging these days. My bad. We got to go to our newest nephew's baby blessing over Labor Day weekend, and I forgot to bring the camera! Then I temporarily lost the thingy that lets me download pictures onto the computer. Not to worry, I found it and I took pictures this weekend, so you're in for a post.

Just a cute pictures of Miles for good measure

I feel like all I've been doing lately in can things. I know I'm not even canning that much, but it consumes most of the day if I do it. We got all our corn off and divided it between the two couples. When they handed me our share I thought, "woah! That's a ton of corn!" And it felt like a ton of corn as I shucked (Yes, this corn was 'hand-shucked') every cob and cut off all the kernels by hand. It was only slightly depressing when we only got 9 quart size freezer bags.


Richie and I have felt like we've been on over-drive this past week, so we wanted to make sure we had a fun weekend. We had never been to the zoo in IF so that's what we planned. Well we got all of our chores done like good little girls and boys do, waited for Miles to nap and then headed down. We missed getting into the zoo by about 30 minutes. What kind of zoo closes at 4pm??? So we resorted to our dear old friend, frisbee golf. Richie has passed on his slight obsession for frisbee golf to Miles who loves going frolfing and who pretends anything flat and circular is a "wee bwee" at home. We were in luck though! They were having a free concert at the park with the IF symphony and the IF Firemen bagpipers. We stayed for part of it and were thrilled. And since we saved our money from the would-be zoo trip, we tried out a new restaurant. Not the best place if you ask me, but I didn't have to cook, and that's always a nice thing.

Cave Falls

Some of our good friends Mikel and Megan are leaving for 3 months to do an internship. I think Richie and I are going to be kind of lost without them, but the bright side is that in 3 months they will be back! As one last hoorah for Summer and hanging out, we took a day trip to Cave Falls. They know all the cool places to go around here. We had never tried Cave Falls before (on your way to Mesa Falls) so they picked us up in the Westie, had a lunch packed for us and we enjoyed some beautiful scenery! The actual cave at Cave Falls is now caved in...but still, very pretty. Here are some pictures.

I love me some spaghetti sauce

It's true, we're expecting #2!!

FAQ's
*How are you feeling?- Pretty good! This pregnancy has been harder than Miles' so far, but I'm still pretty lucky relatively speaking.

*How far along are you? - About 9 weeks.

*When are you due? - March 20th

*Are you hoping for a boy or girl? - Honestly, a girl. Of course we'll be happy either way, but I've got a gut feeling it's a girl and it would be nice to at least have 1 of each.

Any other questions? Feel free to ask. We're extremely excited, but at this point March seems like an eternity away. Maybe that's a good thing because I'm plenty nervous too. How do you handle 2??? Especially when #1 is a jealous, busy boy? We'll make it happen I'm sure.

18 months

Miles will actually be 19 months in a week or so, but he had his 18 month check up today.
Stats:
weight:77th percentile
height: 97th percentile
head circumference: 98th percentile
All around a pretty big kid. :)

There has been a semi-lack of posting on my part, and that's mostly because there hasn't been really too much to blog about. I guess I could tell you that I threw out all my herbs and flower plants because somehow caterpillars overtook them and ate them to death! I took them all outside to get rid of them because they were pooping on my windowsills!! AHHHH! But then I noticed about 5 of them on the wall or in the tablecloth that had started their cocoons! I'm going to try and transfer them into jars. But see, that's not really post worthy. :)

Rocking Chair

I finally took before and after pictures, as well as pictures of the process throughout! I'm not an expert on painting furniture, I just kind of wing it, but I'll tell you what I did in case you want to do something likewise.
First my sister helped me sand it down with sandpaper and our disc sander. Then we wiped it down with wet cloths, let it dry and then primed it with some extra white paint we had lying around. After the 1 coat dried, I painted it with the blue paint I bought to paint the chair. I had to do 2 coats of the blue to get a nice even texture. Then I rubbed some stain on it. Not everywhere, just here and there to give it more dimension. After the stain dried, it sat in the office area for a few days while I tried to get enough motivation to finish it. This step is very important. :) Then I used sand paper and the disc sander to rough it up a bit. I think I roughed it up more than I originally planned, but it was like a drug, I just kept sanding. Then I sprayed a light coat of sealer over the whole chair and let it dry! All done! It really looks old school now. I love it!

Crosbys in Idaho

My sister Jenn was driving from Missouri to take her two eldest and their friends to EFY up here at BYU-Idaho. So my mom, my sister Adrienne and her kids decided to make the trek up here also to make it a real vacation for us all. I feel so special that family came to visit us! Not the other way around. Wow! We loved having everyone here so much and I'm still on family jet-lag, if you will, missing everyone I mean. We tried to pack as much as we could into the time we had. And since we all know I'm no good at lining pictures up with captions, I'll just let you figure it out. While they were here we went to the splash park, went to our new favorite place in Eastern Idaho- warm slough. A bend near Henry's Fork in the Snake River. It's perfect for wading, swimming, roasting mallows and hot dogs. We also ate at the famous Big Jud's, fed the bread fish, showed off Mesa Falls, watched Pride and Prejudice (just the girls), showed off my family at church, played games, stayed up late etc. You know, the usual Crosby stuff. :) Once the major part of the crew left for SG to entertain the rest of the family down there (whom we dearly missed) Jenn and I got some good one on one time, which was so fun. She's one cool chica and the best dish washer I know. Thanks again Jenn! She even was brave enough to help me start a project I've been putting off FOREVER. We got a hand-me-down rocker from some friends and I hated the way it looked. Function was great, but it needed some sprucing up. Pictures to follow. Of course we didn't see Tay and Tuck as much as we would have liked, but they had a blast at EFY from what I hear and it sounds like miss Tay is planning on coming to school here in one year after she graduates. Richie and I will still be here and we're SO excited to have her close by!!! As always, it's nice to get back to your routine, but it already seems like forever ago that I saw everyone and I'm ready for another get together. Who's in???
Don't forget to scroll down at the end of this post. There's another one. Surprise!

Cutie Pie Miles

We're all waiting on pins and needles for the arrival of Makenna and Ian's baby! The other day Dad Garner called and our first question was is the baby here yet? He replied no. So I said, why are you calling??? (teasing of course) To which he retorted, well why aren't there any more pictures of Miles on your blog? Good question grandpa. Here's a few to keep you satisfied until sweet baby James gets here. What a cute kid we've got. :)







In this video he's playing with some new, super soft, stuffed animals that he just got. When the movie starts, he's in the middle of counting "1, 2, 1, 2," because he thought I was going to take a picture. Of course he didn't perform as well once the camera was on, but if you listen closely, he'll tell you what a crocodile says, which he learned from Peter Pan. :)

Ahh Summer

Check out our growing garden!! We picked our first batch of peas the other night and MAN did they taste good. I don't know how much produce we'll get to put up, but just to have it to munch on is fantastic.



He was totally terrified of the carousel.




Miles is LOVING the splash park lately