Boiling Frogs (By Doug)

Note: If you are some kind or animal rights activist or a member of PETA no animals were harmed during the following experiment, for the rest of you please remember this is done in the name of truth.


In my life I have been told many stories to convince me to be a good person and act correctly. I would guess most of you have also heard these and as I do you typically believe them and become a better person. My question is how do you even know if the story is true? If in fact you are told a lie by someone who is trying to teach you to do right is it possible they are trying to beguile you and lead you into temptation? So this brings us to our experiment:

Boiling Frogs
I don’t know how many times I have heard the story that if you throw a frog into a boiling pot of water it will jump out but if you put the frog into the water and bring it to a boil it will not jump out and die. My team and I have decided to test this story once and for all.


First lets meet the team:
Tims – Subject/Volunteer selection & collection.
James – Subject/Volunteer suitability verification (Suitability requirements being if you can survive a two year old boy for one and a half hours you can defiantly jump out of a pot).
Doug – Photographic documentation.

Please meet our volunteers:

Now that you are familiar with the plan we can show you the results:

As you see the frog placed in a pot of water that is brought to a boil will jump out. We did test this on both subjects. So we have in fact proved the story to be a bold faced lie. I say bold faced lie becuase the other half of the story is also false. A frog put in a pot of boiling water dies (Natalie was unhappy with our entire experiment and will not let me fully adress that portion on "Her" blog) but trust me on this one.

James's Busy Day

James is a very busy and active 2-year-old. This week he has been especially fun. Here is a sample of one of his days.
I told James that I was going to take a shower. He ran in the bathroom yelling, "bath hot, bubbles." So I postponed my shower so he could take a bath. He couldn't even wait for me to take his pajamas off. And no this was not a clean diaper!
Finally we got his pajamas off and he spent probably 30 minutes in the tub after which he had to come and join me in the shower, then head back to the bath which I had forgotten to drain, for a total of over an hour in the tub.

Then I found him in Michael's bed playing with his mobile. Yes he is still naked in this picture, but I at least was able to get the bubbles and water off before he climbed in here.

I finally got the diaper on and he needed to spend some time playing with the toys on his rocking chair...with his feet.

After this he asked if he could paint. So it was time to finger paint which he stays surprisingly clean during.

Finally after we washed the finger paint off he decided to do the dishes. Excuse the messy kitchen it took a long time to get the house back together after getting home from Colorado. And all this was accomplished before lunch!

Speaking of before lunch, I need some advice if anyone has any. This past week nap time has gotten a lot harder. I put James in his room after lunch just like normal. Then he plays and plays and plays. Usually I change his poopy diaper around 2 and he finally falls asleep around 3. I like him to be awake by 4 but have been letting him sleep until 5 because he falls asleep so late. Then when it is time for bed at night he isn't tired and we hear him playing in his room after we go to bed. This wouldn't be a problem if he would sleep in the next morning, but he doesn't and is often up before 7. And because of this lack of sleep he is always grumpy. When I say he plays in his room, there is really nothing for him to play with. There is his bed, dresser, and changing table (which is locked), so it's not like he is really playing with anything. The other day I found him stuck in his bed, similar to the vent. So if anyone has any advice on how I can get this kid to take a better nap/go to sleep let me know because it seems to be getting worse and worse.

Trip to Colorado

We haven't blogged for a while because we have spent the past 2 weeks in Colorado visiting Family. Doug's family lives there, and my family was there taking care of their house. We had a ton of fun, but I think we are all happy to be home.
Monday July 20th:
Pack the car and leave for Colorado at 6pm. Michael was amazing and so was James even though he probably only slept for 2 hours. Doug got sick on the way, chills, fever, vomiting, so when we got to his parents house at 4 am he crashed. I got the boys to bed which was no small task considering Michael was well rested and James was way overtired! Finally he fell asleep around 5:30 and I was able to get a few hours sleep before Michael woke up to eat again.
Tuesday July 21st:
We (Doug and James) slept in and Doug felt much better when he woke up. We went to see Great Granny and Grandpa then headed out to Elizabeth to see my family. It was great to be able to see our old house, I haven't been there for 3 years! James loved it. He liked swinging with Auntie Jo, Laying on the hammock with his brother, and playing pool. He also liked the trampoline and swing set.

Wednesday July 22ed:

Doug went Water Skiing with is brothers then we spent the rest of the morning at the park with James's cousins.

Thursday July 23rd:

My family met us at Doug's house and we took the boat to Cherry Creek. I wasn't sure how James would handle the boat, but he loved it. He kept pointing at the "water beautiful" and wanting to touch it. He was a little nervous when Doug jumped out of the boat, but once he saw him Water Skiing it was OK.

Once everyone was done water skiing we blew up the tube and let James get on it. I think he thought he should stand up because that is what everyone else was doing. He loved it so much he wanted to go a second time with Auntie Jo, and didn't even care when they got tipped off into the water.

When we got home we headed over to Great Grandpa's and Granny's to go swimming. James again loved it! He is such a fish. I don't think I have ever seen him as happy as he was this day.

After naps we went back to Cherry Creek with Doug's family for a picnic and more water skiing/tubing. Once again James loved being on the boat and tubing.

Friday July 24th:

We had planned to go get pictures done with Doug's sister and her family so we could get all he grand kids together, but James woke up throwing up. On the way to the pictures he threw up again, so we turned around and went home. I also wasn't feeling well and ended up throwing up also. So me and James spent the day laying around. I started feeling better later in the day, but James didn't.

He decided he needed to take a picture of himself and dad laying on the couch watching a movie. He really didn't know what he wanted all day, "drink, bath hot, mom, dad" poor kid!
Saturday July 25th:

James was still throwing up. We decided to go visit my family for the day. We had fun roasting hot dogs and playing games. Michael also had fun!

Sunday July 26th:

We went to church with my family. It was so fun to be in the ward I grew up in and see a lot of old friends. Then we went back to Doug's for dinner.

Monday July 27th:

Doug left to go home and I stayed with the boys. James got to go swimming with Uncle Scott again.

Tuesday July 28th-Friday July 31st:

We went to Elizabeth to spend time with Grammy and Auntie Jo. I helped paint two of the bedrooms which I really enjoyed and James got to run around all over. On Friday while we were packing up to go home James fell in a cactus patch. So we spent the morning trying to calm him down and get the cacti out of his hands, arms and legs. Then a very uneventful drive home with Doug's parents.

That's a Keeper!

If you have ever seen Bolt then you know that the main human character Penny always takes a picture with her dog and says "That's a Keeper". So the other day I thought it was funny when James got a hold of the camera and I could hear him taking pictures in the other room and saying "That's a Keeper" He took about 13 pictures of various angles of the living room. And I really don't think any of them are keepers!

Today we had Michael's Two Month appointment. I can't believe he is already 2 months old! Here are his stats:

Height-22 1/4 inches (20th percentile)

Weight- 11lbs 7 oz (40th percentile)

Head- 15 inches (20th percentile)

He weighs about a pound more then James did and is the same height, which is why he seems so chubby to us! We are still having some struggles with his eating and sleeping habits. It is so hard to get him to take a nap during the day so he gets overtired then screams and screams. James doesn't seem to help the situation because every time I finally get Michael to sleep James does something very loud and wakes him up. He seems to sleep better if I feed him a bottle so I am thinking that he is not doing very well nursing and we are going to see a Lactation Specialist as soon as we get back from Colorado.

A few nights this week he actually slept for 6 hours straight! I was so excited because I really needed longer then 2 1/2 hours of sleep for once. I think once he regularly sleeps 6+ hours a night we will try moving him in with James.

A really busy weekend!

We had such and fun and busy weekend, so this is going to be a longish post. I will try to keep it brief, but you can just look at the pictures if you want! On Thursday we had some of James's friends over for a pool party. It was a little cool out so James is really the only one who played in the pool, but they had a lot of fun.

On Friday we went camping. We wanted to go to Warm River, but it was full by the time we got there so we went to Lower Mesa Falls instead. It was a nice little campground (only 9 campsites) which I really liked because it was quiet. I forgot how much I enjoy being in the mountains/forest areas. It is very calming and peaceful. We set up camp. James liked helping set up the tent.

Michael was very content in is pack and play. He was amazing the entire time. I am ready to move outside permanently with how good he is.

James found this trail by our campsite. He loved to walk down it and stop at the "chicken log" then walk back. It is called the chicken log because he wouldn't step over it so Doug called him a chicken. So then whenever we got to the log James said "chicken" then turned around and walked back.

We had very yummy tin foil dinners for dinner. James didn't want his so we all shared it.

Once it got dark we put James in the tent and sat around the fire with our fire sticks. It was funny because every once in a while we would hear James repeat what we said. About 11:00 we gave up on James going to sleep and decided to go in the tent with him. He kept climbing in the pack and play and playing all over the tent until about 12 or 1 I put him in my sleeping bag with me and held him there until he fell asleep. Michael on the other hand slept from 11 to 5:30. That is the longest he has slept in his entire life! I would have got a good nights rest if it wasn't for James constantly kicking me or hitting me.

When Michael woke up to eat at 5:30 James also woke up, so we were all pretty much awake then. James took us to see the waterfall. We had a very good view of it, but couldn't get down to it. He loved throwing rocks and wood down the hill with Dad.

I tried to get a picture of his dirty camping face. It was pretty dirty, but he was so grumpy that it was impossible to get him to cooperate.

After breakfast and cleaning up camp we decided to go to the Upper Falls. James had a snack and stuck the entire thing in his mouth at once, it was pretty funny.

I thought it was really cool to see the falls, James really just like climbing the stairs.

Michael was really good the entire time. Here is one of the rare moments that he was actually awake.

When we got home everyone had a bath and got cleaned up, we all wanted a nap but the boys didn't really cooperate. Michael was wide awake after all the sleep he got camping.

Saturday night there was a demolition derby in Rexburg so we went. James liked the Nemo car, but got pretty scared when they were actually going because it was so loud. He mostly just liked walking around.

He was really worn out after all the activities and fell asleep during dinner on Sunday!

And today my new stroller came! I am really excited about this because hopefully it will be easier to take both kids places. I didn't want a double stroller because they are so big and most of the time James prefers to walk. So I thought this was perfect because it is smaller, but there is a place for James to sit or stand on the back.

Oh Cool!

Every morning and every afternoon when I go and unlock James's door and let him out he does the same thing. He grabs his two blankets runs out of the room and says..."Oh...Cool!". It makes me laugh.

Here are some pictures from the 4th of July. We went to Porter Park to watch the parade. I think James's favorite part was that we brought his bike and he got to ride around on the sidewalk. He did a total of 5 laps while we were waiting for the parade.

He loved getting candy, but mostly just eating it!
I thought this float was very creative.

This is what happened when Dad would let him have the whole piece of salt watter taffy. It just didn't fit in his mouth that well!

This was James's favorite float. They put a tumble track on this flatbed truck and had some of the gymnasts do tricks on it. James really thought that he should go ride on it, after all it is his favorite part of gymnastics!

Riding Bikes and Smiles

Michael learned how to smile this week. I love how happy he can be. The past couple of days have been great! He seems to be learning to put himself to sleep better and getting less fussy when he is tired.

I know what the experts say... but sometimes the only way I can get this kid to nap is on his stomach, and doesn't he look so peaceful!

James learned how to ride his bike this week by himself. Now he has to have his bike wherever we are. If we go outside the bike has to go outside, if we go inside then the bike has to come inside. It also helps if he can find Dad helmet and gloves to ride his bike.