Tagged by Olivia

A-Attached or Single? Attached
B-Best Friend? Doug and James
C-Cake or Pie? Pumpkin Pie at Thanksgiving
D-Day of Choice? Saturday, it is so nice to have a break from James, and to have someone to talk to .
E-Essential Item? Stroller, otherwise we would never get out of the house.
F-Favorite Color? Red
G-Gummy bears or worms? Worms -but only if they are a little hard.
I-Favorite Indulgence? Cold stone chocolate ice cream with brownie and fudge.
J-January or July? July, I am so sick of the winter and James loves to get outside
K-Kids? 1
L-Life isn't complete without? Loa, we love to sit on the couch together and read while James is taking a nap.
M-Marriage date? August 20, 2005
N-Number of brothers and sisters? 3 brothers, 1 sister (Doug says in-laws don't count. But if they did 7 brother, 4 sisters.)
O-Oranges or apples? Depends on the time of year, I love apples in the summer but oranges in the winter
P-Phobias or fears? Spiders and calling people on the phone.
Q-Quote? "Your killing me Smalls" or "I'm a busy woman!" Myra Jane Keyser
R-Reason to smile? Anything James does. I can't really get mad at him
S-Season of choice? Early Autumn
T-tag 3 people:
U-Unknown facts about me? I get really angry when playing games. I have been know to get so mad that I have thrown the game off the table.
V-Vegetable? Asparagus
W-Worst habit? Leaving my Toys out
X-xray or ultrasound? I don't really know what this means. I have had 1 x-ray and 1 ultra sound and I enjoyed the ultra sound a lot more.
Y-Your favorite food? Cafe Rio, known in our house as Gooey Burritos.
Z-Zodiac sign? Aries

Raising a Fish

I am sure you are all wondering why I titled this "raising a fish". Let me explain. As I sit to write this I am exhausted, a similar feeling to running a mile. I just had to change James' diaper which may not sound hard if you've never had to do it. Here is how it goes. Lay him down on the changing table, while I am picking up a toy from the floor he rolls over. Turn him back over and give him the toy, which he throws on the floor and turns back over. Take his pants off, grab a different toy and turn him back over. Once I find the right toy that will occupy him long enough I can take the diaper off. As soon as the diaper is off he rolls right over again, before I can clean him off. So now I not only have to wipe him but also the changing table, and occasionally his legs and my hands. I decide it might be easier to wipe him before I turn him back over. So after everything is clean I grab the new diaper, several toys from the floor and take a deep breath. Open the new diaper and put it down then grab James and lay him on the diaper pinning him down with my arm. As I reach to pull the diaper up around him he rolls over undoing all my work. He now stands up and wraps his arms around my neck and jumps off the changing table. I put the diaper back down hold him down again and start over. After several attempts I finally get the diaper somewhat on him. By this time one or both of us is crying. I have to button his shirt while he is standing up, I look at his pants and decided he doesn't really need them and set him on the floor where he immediately starts playing with all of the toys he has thrown there.

A lot has happened this past week, but I don't have a lot of pictures of it so I have had a hard time deciding what to post this week. James got hives on Monday and Tuesday. It seemed like he was allergic to something but we couldn't really figure it out. We hadn't fed him anything new and I washed all his clothes and bedding even though we hadn't changed detergent or anything. Wednesday they went away except for when he fell off the fire place and got really upset then they came back next to his eyes.

We got my bike on Saturday and went for our first family bike ride. James hated it. I think he enjoyed being pulled in his trailer but he hated the helmet. Finally we had to take it off and just go home. Doug was pretty sad that he hated it so much. Hopefully he will learn to enjoy it more.

I asked Doug to put some safety locks on the cupboard under the sink so James wouldn't get into all the cleaners. James decided that he had to help.

A Fun Week

We have had such a fun week. Grammy came to visit from Florida on Tuesday and is staying until this Thursday. James loves to have different people around, and I am excited that we have been able to get out of the house. On Wednesday we went to Toys R Us and Grammy bought James his birthday present. A little early but now she doesn't have to ship it. We went home and filled the bathtub with the little plastic balls she got for him and he had a lot of fun.

On Thursday Grammy, James and I drove up to Bear Lake for the weekend. We stopped in Logan to get Myra. It was so fun to see Myra and James together. They fought so much it was pretty funny to me. Myra would have a cup of cereal and James would follow her around to try and get some and she would yell at him to "go away" and cry because he was "looking" at her. James would get jealous of Myra if she was getting too much attention from Grammy.

On Friday we took the kids to the park. James loved to swing. He was so relaxed and loved to laugh at Myra on the swing next to him.

Later that day Doug, Chad, Shannon, Lexi, Blake and my cousin Chris came up. We were pretty packed in the small condo! James took his first steps! Shannon was holding a graham cracker which are his favorite and he took a couple of steps to get over to her. We were glad that we had our camera ready. He continues to love to walk around holding onto my finger but wont take any more steps on his own.

Saturday was my birthday and we had a fun day. We spent most of the morning playing Wii, which was a lot of fun with so many people. Then we went to Montpelier to go bowling. Doug and I did awful! We had Pizza then went back to the condo for cake. It was a lot of fun.

Easter

We have been having so much fun this past weekend. Doug's parents came to visit for the Easter Holiday and James had so much fun visiting with Grandma and Grandpa and his uncles. Doug took Friday off and we went down to Provo to visit the BYU campus. James was too excited to take his morning nap so we were hoping that he would sleep in the car. He fell asleep just as we got there and actually took a nap in his car seat for 30-45 minutes. I wish I had a camera! Then we went to lunch at Brickoven Pizza and James had so much fun putting his hands in the pizza and jumping on the bench, again I wish I had my camera.





On Saturday Doug spent a lot of time playing at the park with his brothers. They had a lot of fun. Grandpa took James over to play with his Lightning McQueen. James loved to push it around and play in the grass.

James found this ball to play with on Sunday. He would crawl over to it then throw it to himself and then go get it again. Then he found the vent under the sink. He loves to play with that now and push it around on the tile.

Temple Pictures (and some James)

I thought i would put a few updated pictures from the Draper Temple on. These are from the west side of the building. All the stone is complete and the window frames and stained glass is in.

This is the south face of the building and the stone is nearly complete at this area. Windows are being set now.

The weather has been really nice this weekend, and after a whole week stuck inside we could not resist going out on Friday and Sunday. (Saturday was too cold) When we got back from our walk on Friday the house felt so hot that I had to open the window and back door. I was in the kitchen doing some things, when I turned around I found James out the back door and down the stairs. He was so excited to be outside, but that is the one place that we haven't baby proofed yet so I had to make him mad and take him inside and close the door.

On Sunday we had to keep him home from church (we didn't want to spread his possible RSV germs to all the other babies) so we took him out after Church for a little fun. Doug has been so excited to take Lightning McQueen to the playground at the nearby school. James had so much fun walking all over although he still has a little trouble with his shoes on.

After the park we were finally able to take Doug to see the ducks. There weren't as many but they were hungry. James had so much fun throwing his cheerios to the ducks. I didn't think that he would but he figured it out right away and would grab a handful from my hand and throw it in the water to the ducks. (Occasionally the cheerios didn't make it to the ducks because they went in his mouth instead.)

Wishing for Spring

I think we are all really sick of winter. James and I can't wait for the spring so we can get out of the house. It has been really hard this winter only having one car. This past week has been very warm (high 40s low 50s) so we have been out walking every day. James loves to go outside and screams when we go back inside the house. There is a trail by our house that goes along the Jordan river that we love to walk on. There is also a bunch of ducks that James loves to go and watch, he even tries to give them some of his cheerios. These two ducks hang out in front of our house. They drive Loa crazy.




When we go for walks James has to hold Loa's leash. He grabs on and laughs and laughs. I don't know why it is so funny but it is pretty cute.
James has also been learning to walk. Doug decided that it was time to really work with him to get him walking. He has been using his Lightning McQueen car to help him walk. Now James uses his Lightning McQueen and his Tonka Trucks to walk everywhere! It is so funny/frustrating because he will walk across the room then get stuck on something. He drops to the ground, looks at whoever is near and starts throwing a tantrum so we will come and turn the car around so he can go back the other way.

Happy Boy

We got a new camera so hopefully we will be back to our regular cute videos that I am sure you have missed so much. Here is the video that we took right before the camera broke. Doug is playing with James and he loves it! James' tooth count is now up to 5 when he got a new tooth on Monday on the bottom, so his cute vampire smile is still intact.