Blogging Tips

Last night I went out with some friends for a ladies night and of course blogging came up. My friend Amy passed on some cool info that I thought was so cool so I am sharing it with all of you!
Do you know about google reader? Maybe I am behind and everyone else knows about this but if not I will tell you. You sign up with google reader and you copy and paste all of your friends blogs onto it and then when you want to check out the new posts from people you just log in to google reader and it tells you who has updated and how many times! That is right, no more scrolling through the list waisting time because most people have not updated. It is so cool. Check it out.

Also, my friend Sarah who doesn't have a blog and was feeling left out of the conversation ended up contributing the best information of all. I have often wondered how the best way would be to print off my blog since it is really my only journal and scrapbook. She told us about a site called Blurb that will turn your blog into a book. I thought the prices were pretty reasonable and they seemed really cool and good quality. How cool would it be to do it yearly and then have a yearly blog chronicle book. I can't wait to do it.

Another Jib Jab starring us

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!To all those I made democrates I mean no offense!

Jib Jab Square Dancing

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!This is too fun to play around with. I saw one on my brothers blog and Ayden and I have been having a blast making our own. She thinks it is hilarious!

Proud Husband, Framing Jenni is happening

This week Jenni has be pretty busy working in her garage with some great little projects and I thought I would take a couple pictures of some of the frames Jenni has put together. I enjoy hanging out in the garage watching her work and see her doing something that she enjoys, does well and gives her some fulfillment. It's exciting that she has been able to put this business together in just a few months and now she is ready to market this great skill. I am not the only proud family member, Ayden often comes in and out of the garage while Jenni is working and says in the sweetest, most sincere voice, "Wow mom, what a great frame you made."

Note: Jenni probably doesn't approve of this message since the frames are wrapped and not displayed properly.

These pictures will be displayed at the Town Square Dental office building.

A couple frames she has done for some friends.

Caramelized Apples, Pumpkin Carving and Pumpkin Seeds

We had some friends over the other night to carve pumpkins and make Carameled apples. We had a great time. Elizabeth and I spent most of the time making the apples and pumpkin seeds while Brad and Wade helped the kids with their pumpkins. We had a great time and it really put me in the mood for Halloween.

We dipped the apples in caramel, almonds, score bar and chocolate. YUM!

I guess it is pretty serious work carving a pumpkin by the look on Wade's face. He looks kind of creepy holding the knife like that. And I let this guy drill in my mouth?

This is his creation. The puking pumpkin.

A postitive post about Ayden

Lately it seems that Ayden has been really difficult but I must focus on the positive things she does too because it is not all bad. The other day I told her that we needed to go clean her room together and once her mouth started to open I was preparing with a "Ayden, you need to do what I say" sort of response when to my amazement I heard an excited "ok Mom, but I want to do it all by myself and then you can come look." What? She wants to do it AND I don't have to help? She ran to her room and started picking things up. It was pretty messy with books and toys everywhere. I was really curious to see how long her positive attitude would last and if she would get overwhelmed by the task at hand. To my surprise she was happily cleaning for a good 10-15 minutes and then came out excited to show me her "clean" room. I was so happy that she did it so and I really wanted to encourage her behavior so I was overly excited and complimentary of her work. Of course it wasn't perfect but she had everything picked up off the floor and put away somewhere. To add to the praise we took some pictures of her work.

Look how proud she looks!
(notice the toy box bursting and the bed unmade but the floor is clean!)

Alex wanted to show the room off too.

Family Pictures

Back in August when we were in Park City we had some family pictures taken and I just got a CD of them! They are all pretty interesting and I really like them. Here is just a sample of what we got.

This is my little sister, Hillary, I just love this picture of her.

The video is of Alex in the bathtub last night. A few weeks ago she pooped in the tub and freaked out. We got it all cleaned up, of course, but now she hates baths and the whole time she looks around the tub looking for poop with a concerned face and then starts crying and saying "poopoo!" If she ever gets comfortable enough to start playing it is short lived and the concern begins again and then the crying. The first time she took a bath after the incident and freaked out I though maybe she had to go poop so I hurried and got her out but then she never pooped so then I figured out what was really going on so I did not give her another bath for about a week and half (she took showers with me) in hopes that in that much time she would forget. Last night is confirmation that she didn't. Is it showers for this girl from now on or should we bring her to a baby shrink? Haha.
(the video is kind of long, you only need to watch about 40 seconds to get the idea but all of it is cute)

Books the Crib

Today I tried to get the girls to take a nap at the same time so I could get some rest. I was just really tired today and decided I would try. I put them down for naps and I heard Ayden playing in her room but I figured at least she was having quiet time and maybe I could still sneak in a cat nap. So I fell asleep and then about 45 min later I heard Ayden and Alex laughing. When I went to their rooms to see what was going on this is what I found...

Books are her absolute favorite thing so at least Ayden knew what would make her happy. Alex was fine until I got there and then she wanted out of the crib but of course I had to snap a few pictures which really did not make her happy. Poor girl. At least this was one of Ayden's messes that wasn't terrible to clean up and she didn't ruin anything.

*Quick rant* I have no clue what to do about this transition from naps to no naps with Ayden. I would be perfectly happy if she took a nap until she was 5 but she is really fighting them lately. When she takes a nap she fights it miserably until she falls asleep or about half the time she just plays in her room. On days I just forgo the nap by about 5 p.m she is a walking zombie, she is terrible to deal with and usually falls asleep on her own on the couch or in her room, but by that time I don't want her to take a nap. I just don't know what to do! HELP!

*UPDATE*

Case and Point. See what I mean? This is at 4:37 p.m. I found her asleep on the couch because instead of taking a nap she played and put a million books in Alex's crib. ahhh!!!

Linder Farm again? Yep

For family home evening last night we went to Linder Farm to get some pumpkins, go through the corn maze, take a hay ride and a barrel train ride. It was a lot of fun to go back as a family and also enjoy the farm in the evening. The whole atmosphere changes once it gets dark, you know what I mean?

Alex getting ready to go.

The girls waiting for me to get a few more things. "Can we go yet?"

The girls loved the barrel ride.

So did Brad!

The girls are becoming better and better friends. It is fun to watch their relationship grow.

Ayden led the way through the maze picking which way we should go at every cross roads.

Alex and Dad coming along.

Yeah, we made it through! Good job Ayden. We then stopped for some pictures on our way to get some treats and then head home. It was a fun night.

Linder Farm

Yesterday for a preschool outing we went to Linder Farm here in Meridian. It was complete with a hay bale maze, a hay ride, coloring, treats and they all got to go pick their own pumpkin out of the patch. We all had a fun time.

Ayden leading the way through the hay bale maze.

Looking for a pumpkin. They told the kids they could get what ever pumpkin they wanted as long as they could carry it out themselves. Ayden was very particular about what pumpkin she would pick. I don't know what her criteria were but she finally found something.

The preschool class with their pumpkins.

Waiting to color a pumpkin and learning about corn.

The Hay ride behind a tractor.

Takin' a break for a drink.

Ayden, Ayden, Ayden, Ayden (sigh)

What am I going to do with my three year old! All of the sudden she has become so destructive. Of course she went through a destructive phase around 2 but it stopped so I thought we got over it, until lately. I turn my back and she is into trouble. Here are some recent examples.

She has this thing about spreading toys all over the house. This mess was in 10 minutes, 10 MINUTES! See the toys in the back round too. She takes all the toys in her room and just spreads them around. I don't know why. But multiple time a day we put them all in a basket, take them back to her room and put them away. They always find there way back.

Next, the paper from my paper shredder. I think this was while I was showering. We have had a paper shredder for over a year and this is the first time she has gotten into it. I always leave it off and unplugged and would wonder if I really needed to but now I am really glad it was off because realistically bloody fingers would have been worse then this mess, oh wait...

No, not bloody fingers nail polished fingers. Last night while I was fixing dinner she came out looking like this! She found some nail polish in my bathroom and hid in her little house in her room while she painted her nails more like fingers. AHHH. Don't you love that she is wearing a pretty white sweater? Amazingly she only got a tiny bit on her sleeve.

Yesterday she also decided to color on the wall and window seal. These picture don't do justice to how much she colored on! She hasn't colored on the wall in FOREVER. Why are all these naughty 2 year old behaviors coming back? Why is she regressing? I can't think what it is except maybe that we have been trying to get her to stop sucking her fingers and if she can go 6 days without sucking them then she gets an Little Mermaid polly pocket. So maybe she has to get into trouble to distract herself from sucking her fingers. What do you think?

On a positive note, I will also share some positive (sort of) things about Ayden.
-She is getting pretty smart with electronics. The first example is she came to me with my cell phone and told me she wanted to call Grandma Kay. I was on the other phone with a friend so I asked her to wait just a minute. The next thing I know she is talking to someone on the phone and sure enough it was Grandma. How she found her number, I don't know. She wasn't the last person I called so it would be pretty hard to find her number. The second example is that she drew a picture and then left it on the ground, then Brad not knowing what it was picked it up and crumbled it to throw it away and Ayden was devastated. I tried to get the wrinkles out as well as I could and gave it back. Then a few minutes later she came running to me really excited saying that she fixed her paper. Sure enough there was the same picture only perfectly smooth. I asked her how she did that and she said "I copied it." I had no clue that she even knew what a copier was let alone how to use it.