Picture Tag

Debbi did this tag and passed it along. I thought I'd try it since I wouldn't have to cheat (by changing anything before I took the pictures). :) The rules: take a picture of all the things listed without changing anything before doing so. Try it-it's great fun!

1. The Fridge-luckily I just cleaned it out yesterday. Not that it was dirty-just full of old leftovers that needed to be tossed.

2. The Kitchen Sink-I hate having dishes in the sink so if they aren't in the dishwasher they are on the counter. I had already done the breakfast dishes so my sink was nice and empty. My sponge looks kind of icky-I wish they made black ones so I didn't have to see all the tomato and grease stains!

3. The Toliet-the only one we have. Well, we have a second one but it's not in use yet. It's actually sitting in the unfinished bedroom in our somewhat finished basement.

4. Your Bed-Someday Jake and I are going to get a real headboard and a new bed set. This one is that one he had on his bed through the last couple years of high school. Not that it's awful-it's just not the look I'm going for.

5. Self-Portrait-ahh...the glamorous me...we are going camping tonight so there is no way I'm worrying about my make-up or hair just to take longer to get ready for bed at the campsite. Not that I usually have make-up on or my hair done during the week-I just have an extra excuse today!

6. Favorite Shoes-Just bought these at Target last month. They are sooooo comfy! Not the best traction and there's not a lot I can wear them with, but I love them!

7. What are your kids doing now? Well, Isaac is sleeping and lest I wake him up (which would end this blogging session) you get a picture of him sleeping from a while ago. Baby #2 (according my book I just read last night) is developing boy or girl parts.

8. Your Closet-It's pretty sad how small our closet is. I don't know that these pictures do it justice. However, being a stay at home mom, I don't need a lot of space to hang up clothes because most of what I wear doesn't need to be hung up. Plus all my skirts and dresses are in Isaac's closest (which is about half the size of ours!). The picture of Jake's side is a little reflective-if you will-because his EMT shirts have little reflective trim on the sleeves. As for the glowing circles down by the floor-that's anyone's guess!

9. Favorite Room-well, this is our living room. I don't know that it's my favorite room but it's where we spend most of our time (excuse the laundry-it goes in Isaac's room and, as mentioned before, he's asleep). I was originally going to take a picture of my craft/sewing/scrapbooking/card-making/dining room, but it's covered in a project that I'm working on as a gift for someone who might see this before they get that gift.

10. Place you would like to go on vacation right now-I love cruises! I've been on two and hope to go on one again someday. Jake and I went on the Disney Cruise with his parents when we were dating and it was SO much fun. We didn't have any kids with us and that made it even better. They have an adult beach on their private island (not that kind of adult beach!) and since it's the Disney Cruise everyone had kids except us and a few other people. The beach was about a mile long! I'd love to go again-with or without kids!

Backgrounds

I always think that everyone else has the cutest background for their blog-and I still am on the hunt for the perfect one for mine, but this one will do for now. I found this website (probably from someone else's blog-sorry for no credit where credit is due) and I really like it because it doesn't erase any of my lists or widgets. Hooray! The blogger templates are so boring. So I just thought I'd pass along my findings (that I stole from someone else!). Enjoy!

Tag Tag Tag

The Rules: List 3 Joys, 3 Fears, 3 Goals, 3 Current Obsessions, and 3 Random Surprising Facts About Yourself...

3 Joys

1. Isaac-while I can still remember life without him, it's really a whole lot more fun with him here. I can only imagine what it will be like years from now when we have a whole house full of kiddos running around. I love that Isaac has so many things unique to his personality (most of which I have yet to capture on film)-dance moves (the good ol' chicken wing thing), surprise "0" look, etc., etc. What a beautiful blessing he is! Oh, and it's nice that he's finally sleeping through at least most of the night if not the full 12 hours-hallelujah!

2. Jake-I really feel so blessed every day that I am married to such a wonderful, hard-working man. I think he really takes a lot of joy and pride (the good kind of pride!) in being the breadwinner and in allowing me to stay home. Ever since we started dating and talking about getting married and having kids it wasn't even a question whether I would work or stay home when we had kids. There are days when he does something or I am doing something for him and I think how lucky I am to be the only one who knows certain things about him. That might sound kind of strange, but it's just one of those things that happens after being married to and living with a person.

3. Being a stay at home mom-alright so this pretty much goes along with my other two listed "joys" but it really does make me happy. Before I had Isaac I was a substitute teacher and I did two long-term jobs in a row-both for girls who were on maternity leave. They both came back so sad to have left their babies. No kidding! When Isaac was 6 weeks old I remember thinking that I'd have to have some major therapy if I had to have left him to go back to work full-time. Jake and I have certainly made our share of sacrifices for me to stay home, but, to us, no sacrifice would be too big for me to stay home.

3 Fears

1.needles-I don't really have a reason to be afraid of needles. I suppose it's a pretty common fear. Due to, well-thanks to-this fear, I was able to have Isaac WITHOUT an epidural. The idea of a big needle sticking into my spine was a whole lot scarier to me than just dealing with the pain (with a little fetanol). Hopefully all of my labors will follow suite. I even hate getting my blood drawn. As much as I'd like to donate blood, I don't think it'd go very well. I was at the mall a couple weeks ago during Donor Day and I had to make a conscious effort to not look at all the people casually lying there with needles sticking out of their arms (trust me, if I had known about it, I would have taken a different route through the mall).

2. Turning left without a green arrow-strange, I know. I totalled my car when I was 16 turning left in front of someone. I was fine (and I got a new, better car out of the ordeal!) but to this day I hate turning left without an arrow. I actually go out of my way sometimes so that I can turn right instead or turn left where I'll get an arrow. Depending on the day I will sometimes make Jake take a different way so we don't have to turn left. He thinks I'm insane (which I may quite possibly be) but he loves me so he usually does as I ask. (See above-Joy #2)

3.Being late and/or unprepared-I'm not really afraid of being late or unprepared I just hate it! Perhaps it's the result of being raised in a military home where neither were an option, I don't know. I guess I'm really kind of thankful that I don't accept being late or procrastinating. Most Sundays we get to church and Jake wonders why we are so early. Thanks to his new calling as the YM President, he has to be there early for meetings so I can come as early as I like. Wohoo! People say that my punctuality may change once we have a whole brood of kids, but I don't think it will. :)

3 Goals

1.Keep Isaac's scrapbook up to date-I really enjoy scrapbooking, I just hate getting everything out just to put it all away again. My scraping table right now is our dining room table. So I can either scrapbook or eat-tough choice, I know. The main reason for this goal is that I will have another scrapbook to start here pretty soon-beginning with ultrasound pictures in a couple weeks. I try to keep it simple because, as Jake sometimes reminds me, I will not be able to do anything to elaborate for all of our kids.

2.Improve the look of our sad yard-this has been an ongoing process over the last 18 months since we moved in. I planted all sorts of flowers last year (8 1/2 months pregnant might I add) just to have most of them die within a couple weeks due to lack of sun and of course the rest died when it got cold because they were all annuals. Dummy me didn't realize that our front yard gets about 15 minutes of direct sunlight each day. This year I've focused on inside projects (which means persuading Jake to work on things) :) Well, I finally went out the other day and dug in the dirt so it didn't look a big weed patch. I suppose we will get some perennials in there some day....

3.Staying out of debt-thankfully, Jake and I are pretty good about saving and not doing too much unnecessary spending. We are both anti-debt to the point that our basement could have been finished a long time ago, but we didn't want to charge the materials (not that we have a credit card to charge anything to come to think of it...). I am happy to say that the only debt we have is our mortgage and our car loan. Hopefully, it will stay that way.

3 Current Obsessions

1. Cleaning-alright, so these first two are necessarily current obsessions-but I'm kind of a boring person and I don't really pick up new things very often. I'm not a neat freak per say, but I just like my house to be clean. I don't really have a string routine that I follow, but I try to do the same chores every week with a few deep-cleaning project here and there. Thanks to my mom for these two obsessions!

2. Organizing-a place for everything and everything in its place, right? Right! At least for me. Jake is still learning this one. I actually really have to force myself to not clean up after him too much-I already have myself a one year-old to deal with. I take a lot of joy in the fact that I don't really lose things because I always know where my things are-in their homes. Crazy, I know.

3. The Library-I'm certainly not a book worm by any means, but I really like to walk to the library (it's only 3 blocks away) with Isaac every couple weeks to see what I can find. My favorite section is actually nonfiction. I look for good cookbooks or random informational books. I try to find good novels, but I'm not much for mysteries and I seem to pick bad ones more than good. I think the one I'm reading right now, "Recipes for a Perfect Marriage," is pretty good despite the occasional profanity. One of the few things I miss about living in Utah is that in some of the libraries there was a sticker on the binding that said "LDS" on it. That made it WAY easier to find a good book.

3 Random Surprising Facts About Me

1. I don't have a junk drawer-I was going to add this in my organizing obsession, but figured I'd use it down here. I know I'm probably one of only a few people who don't have a junk drawer, but I just don't know what I'd put in one???

2. Jake and I met online-most people who know us fairly well probably know this already, but lots of people don't. It's a sort of detailed, yet boring story, but if you want to know the rest, I'd be happy to share.

3. I put ketchup on my tacos. Another thing about me thanks to my mom. I think she and my dad did this in fear the the meat alone would be too spicy. Really, though, it's good-try it, you'll like it!

Independence Day

So I was a slacker and only took a few pictures on the 4th. I'd also like to blame my camera for the lack of pictures-despite my remembering to get an empty memory card, I neglected to take into account that the battery might be low. So whatever the cause...here are pictures from the 4th....

The first is Isaac with my parents over at Jake's parents' house. We all swam and ate dinner there that afternoon. The next is Isaac with my step-grandpa watching fireworks at the church. Isaac was a little worn out by the end of the night-can you tell. He was such a trooper and really enjoyed the fireworks much more than he did last year.

June Happenings...

I was going through my pictures from June and realized there were a few things I didn't post about.

We went to the zoo one day with my two sisters in-law and their kids. This was Isaac second official trip to the zoo, but the last one was last summer when he was only 4 months old. He really enjoyed it this time-his favorites were the fish and the bats. We also fed the animals in the petting zoo part-he really liked that despite this picture where he is screaming. We also got to ride the train (for free nonetheless because it was Member Monday!).

We bought him a little pool to play in at our house. While he's only played in it once so far, he's really had a fun time. It was nice for me to sit outside and just read and get a little sun.

Jake's mom wanted us all to plant some pumpkin seeds out at her house. We'll see how well they grow as we're all pretty much ametuers.

And a picture of just Jake...our poor gutters looked like planter boxes by the end of Spring so he rented a power washer and went to work. Lookin' good, huh? (Please check out his fellow gutter-cleaner here.)

Isaac really loves meat in any flavor or sauce. One day he was done with his food (meatballs in spaghetti sauce) and then picked up his plate and attempted to lick it clean (at least that's my best guess at what happened). Whatever his goal was, this was the result-what a clown face!

Isaac's newest favorite past time is opening and closing and opening and closing and opening and closing....anything that will open and close. All that was in this side of the TV stand was a container with some DVD's in it. I really didn't think he could get it open. And then I turned around and found this....

Vacation Number 2....

Three days after we all got home from Florida, Isaac and I left for Utah for my best friend, Rachel's, wedding. We stayed with my other best friend, Janelle. It was such a fun trip and I am so glad I went. I was a little worried about flying alone with Isaac, but he did great-partly due to helpful flight attendants who gave me two seats when I only paid for one on both of my long flights (Isaac LOVED having his own seat and tray and seatbelt and armrest and window and safety cards....anyone who's ever flown with a small child can understand that)-and partly due to Isaac's great sleeping on planes. The wedding was beautiful and I had a blast getting caught up with Janelle and her family. She has a little boy who is just 5 weeks older than Isaac-yes, Isaac is small for his age and Gavin is very tall for his age...the pictures speak for themselves. I don't know that they became best pals like we were hoping, but they kept each other somewhat occupied if nothing else. Not to mention Isaac loved playing with someone else's toys! Congrats again, Rachel and Micah and thanks again, Janelle!

Rachel and Micah coming out of the temple-not the best picture, I know-I was trying to help Isaac recover from being left with someone he barely knew for an hour. Sorry buddy!

Isaac on his flight to Salt Lake. Isn't he the cutest frequent flier ever?!? Goodness-I forgot already how short his hair was-it's way longer already!

Isaac and Gavin "sharing" some toys and Isaac attempting to master Gavin's truck-his little legs were just a little too short. He had to lean to one side and only one foot touched the ground-the other just dangled.

Happy Father's Day!

This is Jake's second Father's Day as a dad and what a great daddy he is! Isaac is always so thrilled to see him when he comes home each evening. Jake always can get him to smile and giggle and is such a great help with whatever I need. I always knew he'd be a wonderful father and he has surpassed my expectations! Happy Father's Day, Jake. Thank you for all you do-we love you so much!