Kid Quotes

Josh- "I want a drink of water"

Mom- "What's the magic word"

Josh- "Abra Cadabra"

Feb 5 2012

Home Alone

What can happen in 2 weeks your husband is gone...  I get sick (I'm pretty sure it was food poisoning), get to go to a great leadership training meeting, go to parent teacher conference (good marks for Josh...working hard on socializing with kids & he doesn't really like his speech therapist...I guess he gives her the evil eye),  Josh colors on our carpet with a highlighter,  forget to avoid I-35 & the construction mess, James screams the whole way home,  Josh throws up at school (he is not sick-must be upset stomach-but he must stay home anyway because of school rules)

Gardner Ward 2011 Craft Day

Details:
Craft Sign up & money due by: Sept 25

Craft Day Info:
Oct 22
9am-1pm
Conestoga Club House (1199 E Santa Fe St Gardner)
We will have lunch at 12pm (signups will come around closer to craft day)
Please bring glue guns & glue sticks, scissors, fabric, old rag and any other colors not listed that you may want for your crafts

• Headbands & Rosettes 
• - Free - Limit 3 per person
• **If you have fabric you are willing to donate for headbands, please bring it and place in box by headband samples 

• Quiet Book- 
• $5 with cover 
• $3 without 

• Watch-Bracelet- 
• $5.50 watch face 
• $4.50 for each double-stranded watchband (colors available: black, white, silver, brown & multicolors)- **if you have your own beads, bring them & just get a watch face 

• PVC Pipe Mirrors-spray paint colors available: black, white, brown & silver 
• $3 for small 
• $7 for large (not shown in picture 1st picture)

• Glitter Trees- $15 for set of three (colors available: red, blue, green, silver, white,gold, ice blue, ice green, purple) 

• Christmas Subway Art (shown with glitter trees) - printout ONLY-does not include frame 
• $6 for 16 by 20 in 
• $4 for 11 by 14 in 
• $3 for 8 by 10in 

• Ornament- $2 each-(includes clear ball, red beads & vinyl lettering "JOY") 

Ready For School

Josh and I are ready for him to go back to school. He is excited to have the same teacher this year, Mrs. Sara. School has really helped him. This summer I have tried to keep him entertained and learning but I'm not very good at it. We have gone swimming, played with James, Jazzercised, read books, & played video games. We even have had preschool once a week with one of Josh's friends. We would rotate each week and teach by topic using the library's 6 by 6 packets. By the end of the summer, we will also finish reading Charlie & the Chocolate Factory & to celebrate, we will have a Wonka party and watch the movie that I checked out from my parents. I finally updated our pictures of Josh that his preschool teacher gave us so here are some of the cute ones in celebration of school starting again.

Shoes

I have been very slowly reorganizing my house. Basically when we moved in, I was still living with apartment mentality. The old ways of my organizing did not really accommodate my growing family and bigger house so that just equalled my clutter taking over. I have been throwing out, throwing things in the basement & organizing the rest. So far I love the way my towel closet looks & my entry way closet (although it could use some nails to hang the broom). Yesterday I started on our bedroom. Its going to take some time & money for it to get to what I want it to look like, but I started the process. In going through some of our closet, I realized that since I have been married (8 years in Aug), I have never bought myself a pair of shoes. I have gotten 2 pairs from my birthday from my mother-in-law & I got one pair from a hand-me down from my sister but I have not bought a single pair myself. Some of my shoes are looking pretty sad now. At least if I buy a pricey pair of shoes, I won't feel bad right. I make my shoes last so it will be worth the price for a good pair. Now in my head I can at least think of at least 7 pairs of shoes we have bought for Jason since we have been married...I thought girls were the ones that bought the shoes.

Photo Opp of My Boys!

So Mom was bored & the kids humored me by letting me take photos of course they wouldn't both have smiles on in the same photo...

Happy 4th Birthday Josh

Josh Celebrated his 4th Birthday this year. When asked how old he was, he said 100.

Here he is opening his gifts...he got clothes, a puzzle, bubbles & a soccer ball.

We went to Chuck-e-Cheeses to celebrate & ride the rides.
I talked to Josh about making a turtle cake a month before his birthday and he really wanted it for his birthday. I thought he forgot about it so I got lazy & thought I could just get by with frosting & sprinkles on cupcakes. The first thing he says when he woke up on his Birthday was..."Where's my turtle cake"... So off to the store I went to get green food coloring and I was able to make his turtle cake and bring it into his preschool class during snack time. He really liked it and all the kids thought they were cool.

The Wonderful World of James in Video

So Here is a video of my dear James..it took me a while to get it loaded. I only could get one to work. If I get the other ones to work, I will add them...(this has been sitting since May and now it is almost August)

1. Was going to capture him eating his first baby Cheetos but he had problems & kept dropping them so it wasn't very camera worthy until I guess he got bored and started doing this... (May 10,2011)

2. I wanted to capture my happy boy. He only cries over wanting milk, tiredness, now teething & if he gets stuck while rolling around. Most of the time he is very friendly & happy. Mom can usually get him to laugh (dad gets jealous of the smiles I get.). (May 16, 2011)

3. Pic-a-Boo is his favorite game. Although I get scared that he will play it when I'm not around li

So I must have thought I recorded this, but I never did. One clip it looked like I was going to but then Josh got in trouble and so the recorder got turned off. Oh, well to late now.

4. He started laughing at himself in the mirror (May 11, 2011)

Potty Training Woes

So I'm still potty training Josh. Bought another box of pull ups :( Don't know what to do with the boy. In public now, he loves to pee. 3 hour church went 4 times. Thought it was a fluke because he had a lot to drink before church. Today got a call from the teacher saying he peed 4 times while at school which is about 3 hours. At Costco, we peed when we got there and half way through he was like "my peepee is coming" really loud. So then I felt like a bad mother saying no you don't need to pee. You need to hold it till we get home. He still wouldn't drop it and was being loud so I lied and said that the toilets were broken and we would have to pee at home. We are now at home. Guess who doesn't NEED to pee. At home he never pees that much. I think he just does it because he is bored or something. At least he doesn't have accidents that way, but I never know when he really needs to go. Poop on the other hand is horrible. He will hold that in and keep getting little poops on his pants until he decides he can't hold it in anymore...usually all of this is done in the underwear...hence why we have pull ups. He doesn't care if it is a pull up or underwear. I do. He also likes to poop outside. Maybe I need to redecorate the bathroom with a tree and some grass. He can tell me where we need to poop but just doesn't DO it where he knows he should...the toilet

Budgeting

So Jason & I have never been very good on a budget. It seems like we talk about and then I feel like I'm the only one striving to be frugal as I order a water and the chicken when we go out and he gets a coke and a steak and other things like that...I then get frustrated he gets frustrated and its not happy times. Our try at budgeting this time is looking bright. We are using mint.com. It will email you weekly on how you are doing with the budget or if you go over it lets you know. For Jason that is really good since I'm the one that does finances and he can't see it all the time. We are also taking a look at all our bills-phone, internet, and insurance & making sure we are getting good deals. Our goal is to save a little each month-right that's the whole point of budgeting. It is pretty tight budget with not a lot of extra, but most of our "extra" money comes at the end of the year with his bonus. I'm excited, hopefully we can get better at living by a budget. I'm having a pretty hard time with food prices rising, Jason on a diet, diapers & formula and the list goes on. I thought this would be easy for me and hard for him. I think it might be harder on me :)

More Josh Funnies & James Update

Josh-

• Went to GM & GP Guernsey's house. Everyone else was talking so I was the only one to witness such a manly comment. Josh goes mommy, points to the TV and says "look mommy its smaller". Their TV is a good size. I would classify it as big...it is just not as big a daddy's TV but the furniture set up is the same so it is easy to compare and see that it is smaller. :)
• He is way into video games. It is so much fun to hear him explain what happened in the video game. He gets so excited and uses his arms to tell you what happened. Sometimes it takes me a couple of minutes to realize we are talking about video games and then it makes sense what he is saying.
• We are back to watching Scooby Doo and in doing so I remember how tender Josh's heart is as he starts crying at "intense" parts. Then as we have watched a couple, I have talked to him about why he is crying, it has become quite clear that he is the son of an engineer. He cries not because the characters are in trouble or it's scary...he cries because buildings or bridges are being broken.

James -

• He smiles
• He coos
• He spits up a lot
• Right now he sounds awful-congested & coughing-I wish he could blow his nose-the nose sucker just can't get it all.
• He loves working out aka mom moving his legs & feet

James William Draper

Little James... He loves his fingers

Before James

The Boys meet for the 1st time

Mom & James snuggling

Dad & James Hanging Out watching Bond, James Bond

He is finally here! James William was born Nov 4, 2010. He was 8lbs 9oz & 20in long. It was a little scary for me since he was breech & they decided it was in the best interest of everyone to do a C-section at my Wednesday appointment. So then we set up a C-section for the next day. Good bye chipotle burritos, A1, sauce & fondue cravings. Hello he is finally going to be here. It happened all so quickly. I'm still not sure what to think of it all & I'm still recovering. I think the worst part of the whole C-section thing is not being able to function for so long because you are recovering from surgery. Holding your baby is even hard sometimes.

My thoughts on my C-section... I really loved the anesthesiologist. He had a nice soothing voice (reminded me of a loving bishop voice) He helped calm me down and talk me through everything. There was also a nurse in training there. she was cool. When they were giving me my epidural, I was leaning into the nurse so they could poke me. I was so nervous on verge of tears and she took my hand. At first I thought it was Jason until I realized it was the nurse in training (they let Jason in after the epidural). That was really nice of her & I really needed it. Poor girl though, she had to leave because she was getting nausua during the procedure. So overall the C-section was ok. It was great to see & hear my baby cry, but I really couldn't hold him for awhile. When we got back to the room, my spinal had worn off & they didn't have my pain killers to run through the epidural line yet. I was in pain so until that died down, I really didn't have a desire to hold him.

Recovery - The worst part was the day after the c-section (Jason went home to sleep & be with Josh), I had a totally sucky nurse and guess what I got her again the next day. She just wasn't very punctual ...15-30 min after I push the freaking button. I was in tears. Good thing I wasn't dying, but she was starving my baby since I couldn't get up to feed him...don't get me started on her. She tried making it up the next day. Still her bedside manner sucked. So after being all emotionally ticked about being neglected then we go through a roller coaster about our son's kidney's heart & at one point his liver & all of this after a sono was done & after my doctor said everything was fine. I guess the doctor on call from my pediatrian's office didn't know there was a sono of Jamse & only saw the sono of him when he was inside of me which showed water around his kidneys. She ordered x-ray and thought the heart looked big and so did the liver so they took another one and had a specialist come in. The specialist seemed very competent that everything was ok & now I know which pediatrician in the practice I will never go to. I don't tell it very well, but it was almost like this pediatrician was on a witch hunt to find something wrong.

On the flip side. I loved my night shift nurses. They are the best. I had one 2 nights in a row. That was cool. She took really cute picture of James. So far, it has been super nice to have my mom, sister in law, & mother in law close by. They have been a big help with Josh & help around my house as I recover. I'm also greatful for all the meals church friends brought by. Recovery after a c-section is a lot harder because you can't funtion like normal...you can't walk very well, lift anything, or drive. You hurt & you are tired all the time on top of it all. Next time I hear someone is having a C-section, I'm going to help them out as much as possible. Especially if they don't have family near by.

Josh Funnies

• If he sees adults out of context. He gives them weird looks and runs away or total ignores them...Example: my friend from church (who Josh has seen at our house several times) is a substitute teacher and she was his sub for gym. The gym teacher also is the crossing guard at the start of the day. She waves and says good morning he turns and runs the other way and I have to talk him into going into the school building. During gym, he just ignored her. Another example we were at the grocery store. He sees one of the paras from his classroom. Gives her a shy smile and runs down the isle in the opposite direction
• Cooking time in preschool, they brought in an old fashion popcorn cooker. They were trying to get the kids to say what we do 1st, 2nd last. Josh blurts out put it in the microwave. We don't even eat very much microwave popcorn :)

Super Saturday Crafts

Overview of Crafts

Overview of Crafts

Placemat Bag

You buy 1 placemat that will suit you for a bag and 48 in of ribbon or webby for handles

no cost

Paper baskets

Necklace or bracelet

(with contrasting beads) pink, black, white, tan

Kids Temple Board

(pink, purple, blue or green)

Chad Hawkins Picture of Temple 11x13-list of temples with order form

Table Overview

Left: Board with Silver Temple "Where Families become forever"

Temples available: all UT temples, SanDiego, Spokane, & Idaho Falls)

Right: Family Proclamation Board

Tile Necklace (mixed papers or bring your own) - no chain included

Left: Tshirt with flower embellishment

Right: Baked Potato Bag (various material to choose from on SS)

Tshirt with flower embellishment, sizes Child or Adult in small, medium, & Large)

(Colors-red, white, black, pink, purple, green, blue)

You may bring your own tshirt

2short sleeve of 1 long sleeve ( we will cut them up)

Left: Christmas Stocking

Right: O Holy Night Brick & color choices

Christmas Stocking

O Holy Night Brick with or without light

Color options for O Holy Night Craft (sorry not very picture)

Clothespins with buttons (Christmas, child, baby, birthday) (hang cards, banners, etc, or use as a decoration) 7 per kit

Vacation 2010

We took a vacation this summer and travelled by car through the openness of KS, the mountains of CO to the oh more mountains of UT. When people ask what did family's do before we had DVD players in cars...Josh's answer would be stickers. That kept him busy for most of the drive. Our first stop on our adventure was Salina. Time to eat. We ate at this little diner not one to write home about but we did meet Floyd. This very friendly guy talking to people at the restaurant. He gave Josh (his parents) a couple of dollars for ice cream. He was quite the character. We went and spent it at Braums. Yummy ice cream.

The next Stop was Denver, CO. We had fun just hanging out and relaxing at the hotel. One day we went to the aquarium, a park, and shopping. The next day we went to the children's museum and the park.

Then we moved on to Vail, CO where we just enjoyed the mountain air at a park. Do you see a trend starting. Josh loves outside.

The next day we arrived in UT and made camp at my brother's house where we did numerous and exciting things such as:

• Hung out at the Guernsey's House
• Eat breadsticks and Pizza Factory (twice, yummy)
• Played the Wii every morning (good thing Calvin knows how to turn it on for Josh)
• I read a book, Jason got hooked on watching Burn Notice and playing plants vs Zombies, and Josh loved the Wii-both Uncle Quentin and Uncle Brandon have one
• Went to a park
• Visited GM & GP Draper
• Visited Uncle Brandon
• Aunt Heather came & visited us
• Ate at my favorite Brazilian restaurant Taconos
• Went to Salt Lake City: Saw the LDS conference center (It has the best waterfall ever if you ask Josh), Listened to a tabernacle organ concert (I was impressed that Josh sat still for 30 minutes and for the most part listened. He did have to tell me when the lights changed color), and Looked at the Salt Lake Temple
• Entered IKEA for the first time. I wish we had one close by & wish that Josh didn't have a melt down about sharing the elevator with people.

s