Knees and a Harvest

For those of you who don't know, Scott had knee surgery on Monday. He is doing very well and is walking around very comfortably now. The worst part was getting all the anesthesia out of his system. Once he was over that hurdle, he did just fine. We spent the afternoon after the surgery at his parent's house because it was close to the surgery center and there was someone else there to either watch Scott or Stephen, whoever required it the most. I spent most of my day waiting in different waiting rooms (in the surgery center and the pharmacy) and it wore me out! Scott was able to walk to the house and car after the surgery, so it was good. That evening, once he was feeling a little better, we walked to the end of our street and back. He is doing very well. He had some broken cartilage cleaned out and, according to the paperwork, something was done to the meniscus, but we don't know what. Hopefully they will talk about that at the follow up appointment on Monday.

In other news, I went out to water our garden yesterday and came back in with this:

I know, it isn't much, but it is our first harvest of the season. We have gotten a few strawberries, but this was by far the most we have gotten in one shot (I know, it is pitiful). We are excited, though. Things are finally producing. It is hard to see, but there is one blueberry there. Last night, I picked a cucumber, too. yea! We are finally getting things! It won't be enough to can or make jelly/jam with, but it is a work in progress. When we actually have a garden spot, we should be able to plant more. ahhh, those future plans are always so nice...

Projects

So, I have not been on the internet all that much recently. I haven't really been reading up on the blogs, or checking my email all that much. I have been working on projects! Scott has teased me about 'nesting' all too early, but I have gotten a few things done. My brother-in-law is getting married in a couple weeks, and I decided maybe a month ago that I would make them a quilt. I had all this denim that I have been saving for a project and all these other scraps of fabric, so I made a plan and started cutting and put the quilt top together. I really like how it turned out. I told Scott at one point that I wanted to keep it and that we could just go get them a set of bowls or something, but I didn't. Mostly because I'm pregnant and hot and the last thing I want right now is a quilt (and the fact that I WAS making it for them). I am pretty sure that I was talked into a fabric that was way too heavy for the back and I'm pretty sure they won't use it because it will make them sweat, but ask me in a few months if my mind has changed or not - once I'm not always boiling. Here is the best picture that I have of the finished project. If I am ever in the same room with it again and have a camera handy, I might remember to take a better picture so I have it.

This isn't the only quilt I made either. I made a crib quilt for our next boy! This one was very easy, I just tied it, minky and tricot (spelling could be off on both of those), so it is soft and silky.

I also made a couple changing table covers out of towels and have been working on a few picture books. One for Stephen that is church-y stuff and I am working on one for that second boy that will have alphabetical pictures and family and colors and whatnot. I have one for Stephen and he really likes it. It needs to be updated with a few new family members, so they may end up sharing this next one.

I have also finished a few flannel board stories and have a few more to finish. As well as get the flannel board put together, I have flannel, so that is a start.

Baby clothes are out, sorted and put away. Not washed, I'll save that for another day.

There are other things, but I can't think of them right now. I have been very happy to get all these little projects done! It doesn't seem like a month's worth of work, but I usually only have a few hours a day to work on these things, depending on Stephen's nap, and that is outside of my normal cleaning/cooking/playing with Stephen day. Naps are also becoming part of my daily routine. I haven't been sleeping well at night, so I'm napping during the day. That really gets in the way, too, but sometimes I have no choice but to lay down! I have been so hot, I am glad that I'm not in the South right now, I would have melted into a puddle by now. I actually sat on an air vent today - ugh. Less than 2 months, less than 2 months...

Our helper

Yes, more to say about the yard here. We have been in a bit of a holding pattern on doing too much out there, but working on smoothing out the dirt we have, filling in holes, and removing unwanted rocks. We have discovered that Stephen is very good at putting rocks in the tractor when we don't want them. Tonight, he was having a hard time settling down for bed, so we thought he just had more energy to expend, so we went outside and let him move more rocks around! I finally got a few pictures. He was wearing a white shirt, so I put on his little Home Depot apron that we got there one day. He seemed happy to have it on and loved moving rocks around.

It is so nice to have a helper!

Unwanted house guest!

Free Loader Alert!!!

I guess he didn't quite make it back to the cave or barn where he usually lives, so he decided to sleep away the day right above our front door. Freaked Jamie out. You should see a pregnant Jamie jump away from the door yelling "it's a bat!!!"

Anyway, by morning, he had moved along. Probably off to where he usually calls home.

something is actually finished!

Just a few yard pictures. Feel free to skip this post if you aren't interested. :)

Here is Scott 'in the trenches' if you will. Some of this dirt was really packed down, so he was not looking forward to cleaning it out. Some of it came right out though.

And then - sprinklers! The pipe is under the sidewalk and everything! yea! (and THEY WORK!)

We got some gravel and filled in where the utility boxes are on the south end of the property. This also shows some new trees and sprinkler pipe (the sprinklers work and everything). What is that nice building behind us? The elementary school. Yup - right there, and the bells will ring all summer, evidently. Excellent!

Here is the gravel around the utility boxes at the north end of the property. Yes, we have boxes on both corners. Isn't that lovely? You can also see some sprinkler pipe in this picture. (Did I mention that THEY WORK?!)

We haven't been able to get too much done over the past few weeks because it has been raining. Unusual for these parts, but welcome. It makes Stephen a muddy boy just about every day that we are able to go outside, but he doesn't mind. The yard is coming along. We will be excited when those sprinklers are able to actually water something. But for now it is nice to know that Scott was able to design and install those all by himself! Way to go!

The boy likes rocks

We got a load of gravel for the house and boy was Stephen excited! I wish I had a video camera when he saw the gravel falling out of the back of that trailer! We had just about gotten all the gravel out when we put him in the trailer (his dad was in there pushing it out and he wanted in!) He wouldn't come out for a while! Here is the happy boy.

This is the "I am so excited I can only scream!" face. I wish you could hear the noise that goes with that face and stance.

More yard pictures to come!

The haircut

It is now summer, and so to celebrate, we decided on Friday evening to give Stephen a nice summer haircut.  Here is what he looked like before we cut his hair:

This is actually with a little trim in the front, I had been doing a little here and there just to keep it out of his eyes.

Here is a better shaggy view

And then there was this!

See that trauma face?  He screamed the whole time we buzzed his head.  He is usually pretty good at getting his haircut, but I guess he is at a stage where he isn't interested in anything like that.  He freaked out at his last Dr. visit, too.  I don't know if you can see the amount of hair that is all over his back and all over me or not, but there was a lot.  He was starting to calm down and then Scott brought out the dust buster...  that didn't help.  We used the longest setting on the trimmers, but it is still pretty short for him.  It is actually shorter, we believe, than it was when he was born.  

This is a little blurry, but here it is after all the trauma and after a good nights sleep.  

I actually expected it to be blonde, but it is still dark over most of his head.  On Saturday, after he woke up from his nap, I came in to find him rubbing his head on his mobile.  That made me laugh.  At church on Sunday, quite a few people came up to me and told me that they didn't know who he was until Scott or I were with him.  He does look different, but it is a great summer cut, don't you think?

I see you

Jamie chastised me the other day for not being a part of the blog. So I thought I'd post something kind of creepy. More for my own peace of mind, to know we aren't getting people in China and Russia trawling our blog for potential identity theft info, I started tracking all our visitors a few weeks ago. So here you are:


So far nobody from China and Russia though. Just some South Americans. We'll keep an eye on them.

Jamie seems to be keeping you up to date on my project, though nothing was done yesterday, or today, because my back is done. Not sure where it went, but I think a combo of trenching, and basketball did me in yesterday. Who knows how long I will be out of commission. We'll see if large amounts of OTC pain killers, anti-inflammatories, and a heating pad will do the trick.

couple more photos

Here are a few follow up pictures to the whole trenching day:

This was the scene about 20 minutes into the trenching project.  This machine didn't work too well.  After the chain came off twice, Scott took it back to the rental place and got another one.  The second one was much better.

Here is Scott loosening up the dirt in the 'mow strip'.  This is in there mostly for those of you that think he only works while riding the tractor.  Can you tell what time of day it is with the long shadow?

Stephen finally seems to be over his fear of the tractor.  He was really enjoying this ride.  He kept looking over at his dad with that excited look on his face.  So fun!

So there you go, just a couple pictures.  Maybe some day I'll put up a post about something other than the yard progress...  

hey! I can see our house from here!

So, this past Friday, my parent's-in-law got to take a little helicopter ride above our little valley.  Once, they finished, I got some nice aerial photos of our house.  So... I'm sharing them with you.  This is two fold, really.  I think it is neat that we now have aerial shots of our house and the area (even though Google maps still doesn't recognize our street as existing) and to show you the recent progress on our yard!  (Sorry if that makes you groan...  for those of you that aren't interested, I tricked you, I know!)  Scott and his dad were able to do some trenching on Friday.  Yes, Scott took the day off of work to play in the dirt.  Good thing he also has Monday off to recover!  So, below are pictures of our house from the sky and the neat lines that will hold pipe to water the grass once we get it.

Don't those trenches look great?

Lookin' good!  If you look real close, you can see the boxes that are holding our garden by the back deck (which will also be upgraded, but not until next summer, most likely)

Since these pictures were taken, Scott has installed the main pressurize water line and it works!  We tested it tonight.  It is so exciting - for us.  

Stephen has thoroughly enjoyed filling in the holes that Scott has worked so hard to put there.  He is filthy every night and loves getting that way.  We are making progress and love how close we are to having grass!

Piano time

Stephen and I hung out at my sister's house yesterday.  My dad is still in town, but he was golfing yesterday, so I didn't see him too much, but Beth and Kathy were there.  While we were at her house, the boys started to play the piano.  This picture was taken at about the last possible second that it could have been taken.  They had been playing, but as you might be able to see here, the cover to the keys is being closed.  Seconds after I got this picture, screaming happened.  I don't know if fingers were caught or what, but the fun was just about to end.  This is a cute picture anyway... don't you think?

More yard updates!

We had lots of help on Saturday and we are both very happy with all that got done!  Scott has been up in the canyon three times to get rocks and once we figured there was enough, we had my family up for a pancake brunch and got working!

Here is my dad, my brother-in-law and Scott (can you see him behind John?) wondering where to start.  Those are the rocks we have to work with.

There they are working some more.  Scott was on the tractor while dad and John worked on getting the rock in it.  Then Scott would take the rock over to the front of the house and dad and John would help him get it into place.  Here you can see that the wall is just beginning.

Meanwhile, I was chasing Stephen around and talking to my step-mom and two sisters.  One of which was chasing her 2 year old around and keeping an eye on her newborn.  Stephen did take a little nap in the afternoon, so I planted our tomatoes in our Earth Boxes.  I'm glad that is done!

Here is Stephen with his rock.  He found that last week when his dad brought one of the loads of rock home.  It fell off of one of the big rocks.  He has been carrying it around for a while now, and always seems to remember where he left it in the yard, which is pretty good since it is all rock and dirt!

Here is the finished product.  We have quite a bit of fill dirt in there now, so we just need some topsoil and a few plants and it will look great!  My mothers Day present of bulbs arrived today so we'll get those planted this week and decide what else we want in our raised planter.

We would never have been able to get any of this done without all the help we got on Saturday.  At about 2:00 or 3:00, my in-laws came to help, and then my family took off since the second shift had arrived.  I'm sure there are a lot of sore backs and sunburned necks and faces courtesy of all this work and we appreciate it!  Thanks everyone!

Date day

Yesterday Stephen and I went to the zoo with my sister and her two kids.  We had a good day.  I'm not sure if Stephen really saw all the animals very well, but he did notice some of them.  All animals are dogs to him anyway.  The orangutan, I think it was that ape, took an interest in Stephen and he just sank deeper and deeper in his stroller as the monkey stared at him from the other side of the glass.   His favorite part was the train, we rode it once and watched it go by quite a few times.  We rode the carousel, but that wasn't as fun as the train.  He really liked watching it go around while we were in line, but then when we were on it, he wasn't so sure, it was fun in the middle for about a minute, but not at the beginning or at the end.  Weird.  He was so tired at that point, way past nap time!

He slept all the way home and for another hour or so when we got home.  It gave me time to get ready for my second date of the day with Scott!  We so rarely go out just the two of us, I was pretty excited.  Even if we were going to see Star Trek.  We use to see a movie just about every weekend.  Before last night, I can't remember the last time we went to a theatre.  Scott was so excited to see this new Star Trek movie, and I have never seen hardly a scene of Star Trek, but it was alright.  I had a good time going out and eating popcorn!  I love popcorn.  Now, we are back to business on the yard work this weekend!

Our weekend

My dad and step-mother are in town, they got here on Friday.  They are staying with my sister, or at least they did this weekend.  So, we spent Saturday at my sister's house (much to Scott's chagrin, no yard work happened, but it rained, so it was ok - or at least it wouldn't have happened anyway...).  We let the kids play and we got ready for Sunday.  After all, Saturday is a special day.  It is the day we get ready for Sunday.  

Sunday was Sarah Ann's blessing day (my niece, if you didn't catch on to that).  So, we spent Sunday at my sister's too.  It was a great day.  We had lots of family there and it was great!  I love it when there is an excuse to all get together!  My sister did a great job getting food together, and we had more cookies than we could see over.  That is alright, we did a good job on getting them eaten.  The only one scare of the day was Stephen picking a fight with a crock put full of meatballs.  He lost, but not too badly.  Those meatballs were trouble from the start anyway.  (They weren't quite warm when it was time to eat, so everyone had cold meatballs.  Maybe that is what got Stephen all riled up about them, I don't know)  :)

Anyway - I now know how you make an entire house full of people stop and stare.  A loud crash,  a crying child, and then a frantic cold water hose down in the kitchen sink.  My Aunt is a nurse, she was right there with me and checking him out.  She saw the bruise before I did.  And that is all that there was.  No burns (that is good, because the burns on his fingers from him checking out a heat lamp earlier this week have not yet healed), just a bruise on his nose, and a little under his eye.  These pictures were taken this morning.  Once he calmed down, he was back to normal and playing around with all the other kids.  

I know I'm really in for a lot more adventures like this.  One curious boy and another one on the way.  I'm sure I'll know the quickest way to the emergency room here soon.  

All smiles this morning, but you can see the bruises.

 

Here is the happy boy again.  This is a good shot of the eye and of that new molar.  (If I had waited a few more minutes to take this pictures, you would see his new bump above that eyebrow...  sigh, adventures...)

Continuing

We are all still alive here at our house.  Scott is feeling much better and sleeping better.  His Doctor gave him some cough syrup with codeine in it.  He takes it at night and slowly, but surely, his eyes get droopy, and I have to tell him to go to bed.  In his drug induced state, he kind of grunts and nods, and hops - uh falls - into bed.  I am glad he is feeling better.  

Stephen got a little burn on his finger today.  One of the ladies I visit teach had some chicks that had recently hatched in her kitchen.  Stephen was checking it out, but then seemed more interested in the heat lamp.  It took a while to calm him down from that.  But I think he is fine.   He is sleeping now but still doing the gasping that happens after heavy crying.  

Our current yard project is to fill in our ditch.  Evidently, when this property was a field, that was the secondary water ditch.  We are taking the fill dirt from the empty lot that all of our neighbors have put their junk dirt in and filling in our ditch.  We think it will take quite a few more loads in the trailer.  Should be fun!

I'm still not really feeling pregnant.  Should happen any time now, right?  I am wearing stretchy pants, but I feel normal.  That is good.  We are excited that we are having a boy.  I'm just excited that I don't have to worry about a whole new wardrobe.  Just a few things here and there.  I hope.

That is our update.  I just wanted a shorter post to prove that I'm not really all that long winded all the time!

What a week

It has been an interesting week. Last weekend, none of us made it to church. We were able to get some yard work done of Saturday, that is what the last post is about, but Stephen was sick in the middle of the night, and Scott was feverish all night. Yes, it was great. By Sunday afternoon, all fevers had broken and we thought things were fine. Stephen took a few days to get back to normal, but things were all that bad. Scott's cold wasn't going away, but it did settle in his throat and chest so he didn't really have much of a voice. We didn't think much of it.

Thursday was our Ultrasound. Scott took Thursday and Friday off of work for Alissa's (his sister's) Graduation. But the Ultrasound kind of had to happen on Thursday, so we did that instead. We felt fine about it, missing one ceremony, but going to the other. It was nice that Scott was able to take the day off. My Dr. is great about the fact that I drive a long way to see him, so I had my ultrasound and 20-week check-up the same day. It was a family affair, Scott and Stephen and I all loaded up in the car and spend the day in Salt Lake. On the way to the first appointment, Scott was kind of quiet. He said his throat hurt, and was just resting it. After the Ultrasound, we had lunch, and he was really starting to drag. He mentioned that he thought he had a fever again, and started to look up InstaCare clinics in the area. I then began to worry. We couldn't find anything, so we ran an errand or two, then went to my second appointment. Scott was feeling worse, and Stephen was just barely putting up with being held and strapped in. When we left, we found a few clinics that couldn't see Scott or that wouldn't take our insurance.

At about 3:30, we finally found a clinic to go to. Stephen had just fallen asleep in the car, so Scott went in and I drove around and waited for him to return. He was in there for 2 hours! I was beginning to worry. After an hour, I knew that he was in the exam room, so I didn't think it would be too much longer. He did indeed have a fever - 103! Yikes! The Dr. then took a few x-rays of his chest and found nothing, so it wasn't pneumonia, that's good. But the x-ray was a little high, and the doctor noticed that Scott's throat was narrower than it should be. He told Scott of some unpronounceable -itis thing that could cause death. So Scott got some heavy antibiotics shot into his arm so that "He would wake up alive in the morning." That is really good - thank you. We stopped and picked up more antibiotics on the way home and met some of Scott's family at a restaurant to eat, since they were just finished with Commencement. All the while Scott practically had his head on the table.

I got him home and he went to bed immediately. Poor thing. Once Stephen was asleep and I got a few things done (since I was planning on being home by 3:30 or so to get things done at home, I was a little behind), I went to bed on the couch. I have been waking up at night and just being awake for a few hours before being able to go back to sleep. I figured with the fitful night Scott might have, that I would be better off on the couch. It didn't work, I still was awake for an hour, but it was only one, so I am improving. Scott's fever broke sometime in the night and he was feeling much better in the morning. We did end up going to the graduation ceremony on Friday. Then we went to dinner with the whole family and had a great time.

We had hoped to get some yard work done on Saturday, with the help of family, but it was rainy, so we didn't get much done. We did get a few things done though, and there are pictures below!

Scott is loading the awful trees into a trailer Friday night

here we are at the dump. "Yea!" is what Scott is saying. They are going away!

We lifted the trailer and they didn't move, we needed a little help.

There they go! away! away! Hip hip hooray!

(we are so happy they are no longer on our property, or distressing the owners of the property next to us)

So, not much else happened for the weekend. We did have a nice sourdough pancake dinner with the family Saturday night, then a fun game night. We were going to feed pancakes to everyone on Friday morning, but with the timing and illness in our house, no one wanted to come over. So we did them for everyone Saturday night. It was a great breakfast for dinner meal. And game night was really fun. We decided to stay home after church on Sunday, too. It is so nice to rest!

I'm thinking I didn't mention something... hmmm.... what could it be? Oh, the Ultrasound... do we know what we are having? Yes, yes we do. Do you want to know? It is another boy! We are very excited. Two boys will be fun. We are still due 09-09-09 (ish).

That is our week, and another long post.

Finally! Nice weather!

We have finally had some nice weather, and Scott is taking every chance he can get to work in the yard.  We have tried to chip up the nasty bush/trees in the back, but that wasn't really working.  We even tried to burn then, but they wouldn't light.  These things are trouble!  We have heard through the grapevine that the people that own the empty lot next to us don't like that something has been dumped there, so we have decided to take them to the dump.  We have a free dump pass that we can use once in the month of April, May and June so we are going to load them up on a trailer this Saturday and take them away.  Yea!  Below is a picture of the nasty thorns.  The one in the middle is a big thorn with 5 coming off of it.  Yuck!

Thorns!

Stephen likes to watch his dad on the tractor.  He is still a little afraid of it, but not when it is outside and he is in.  He can't figure out if it is a bus or a train.  (He is learning signs and he does both of those when he sees it)

Scott has been out on the tractor leveling out the yard.  It looks great!  He and my brother-in-law did a lot of work on Saturday to get the side yard ready.  The rest of the yard won't be that much work, Scott got the front and other side done Monday evening after work.  From here, we just need to fill in the ditch in the back and the side by the empty lot.  I'm excited - we might have grass soon!  I know the picture doesn't show John working, but he did - a lot.  Thanks John!  Zach - the little one - also helped.  He had on his little guy gloves and moved rocks around!

This is the beginning of one of the rock walls that we will have.  Can you see the two trees staked up behind?  Those are the cherry trees!  Yea!  They are in the ground and not in the house!  Doesn't the grass next door look nice?

That is our yard update for the day.  I hope you aren't bored to tears!

**grumble, grumble**

That is really all I have to say. Yes, this picture was taken today... Arg! Where is spring?

Easter

So, I'm a little late in posting a bit about Easter, but we did just finish our third and final Easter Egg hunt today.  On Saturday, we had a nice cool Easter Egg Hunt at Thanksgiving Point.  My Sister an her family joined us.  It was fun.  Stephen was happy with one or two eggs in his hands.  I had to keep taking them out of his hand so he would pick up another egg.  This hunt just had eggs in a field.  Stephen was in the 0-3 age group.  We were over taken by kids near the end of the hunt and at that point, Stephen wanted to hold his yellow spring bucket.  I didn't give it to him, because I knew that if he dumped it, that we would lose all the eggs because we were surrounded by thousands of little hands!  Thanksgiving Point said that they had 40,000 eggs out there.  I'm sure that was a total for the 4 different age groups, I sure hope so.  

Sunday was a great day.  I created a game for our Sunday School class where they got a lot of candy and really got into to.  And it was actually the lesson!  I think it went well, it was chaotic, but what did I expect?  Scripture chases, candy flying, competition..  that just spells chaos!

After Church, we went to my in-law's house and got ready for dinner and the Easter Egg hunt.  There were 3 other families there besides the normal group, so we had a good number of kids.  The little ones got a head start, and Stephen really had a good time.  He found a couple eggs that I didn't even see!  Being able to be around everyone and chatting was the best part of the day, though.

Today was the 'Mommy and Me' Easter party.  That is the group that I attend with my church.  We had a little egg hunt there, too.  Stephen was really just not fast enough there.  He got a couple eggs.  That is fine, we currently have more candy at our house than we did before Easter!  Anyway - we had a great weekend and it wore me out.  I had to take a nice long nap yesterday afternoon.

This was taken Sunday.  He was fascinated with the metallic eggs.  (What you see in the background is someone - Leland - putting eggs in Stephen's bucket, not taking them out.  No one was stealing candy from a baby - don't worry!)

This is the actual hiding place of this one.  And he found it all on his own, I didn't even need to point it out.

Here are the big kids checking out their loot in the eggs.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend.  

Teething

So, I don't like teething.  I especially don't like teething when teeth come through, then go back, then come through again.  Yuck! Stephen hasn't been napping, he has a runny nose and he is crying all the time.  I know that his mouth hurts.  It seems to really hurt - but I am running out of patience with the crying!  I gave him a cup of crushed ice this morning to see how he liked that. He put quite a bit of it in his mouth before he dumped it on the carpet.  That is ok, it seemed to numb him long enough so he actually smiled and giggled.  

In better news it was a nice day yesterday!  Yahoo!  We actually spent most of the afternoon outside.  Stephen loves being out and I think it distracted him from his painful mouth.  There are only little girls on our street, but he does fine finding the pink bikes and wanting to play with them.  Scott got the tractor out of our garage last night (before the game) and started to chip up the awful tree/bush things that we haven't done anything with yet.  Stephen has been fascinated with the tractor, but once Scott was on it and it was running - it was the scariest thing he has seen.  Scott drove it over to the gas station and when he came back around the corner with it, he started to cry again, and he was about 4 houses away!  Poor thing - life is hard.   Scott did take him on the tractor and he was ok when they were going slow, but when he had to rev it up a little (in other words, make it louder) it was scary again.  

I didn't get a picture of the tractor and the chipper last night, but we hardly made a dent in what we need to do, so there are still picture opportunities (I know you are all on the edge of your seat for that one!)