Alabama

we went to alabama last week and got to stay til monday. One of my favorite things to do with my family on a sunday night is walk the quad. i feel like in the length of the walk you get a chance to rotate through who you're talking to and I just really enjoy it. Most of the time we have to leave too early though and we miss it. On our way back there are some fountains outside of the Ferg that evidently my dad always walks through when its hot outside. Jackson wanted to walk through with him which was fun for him. When we got back to the car, of course he was soaked and didn't want to get his car seat wet. I told him to strip down to his underwear and ride home like that. Jackson told me he couldn't do that because Sam would see his underwear. "Jackson, you take baths with Sam." "Oh yeah" he said.

If I don't just start typing right now I will never remember

my brain is fuzzy. this summer has been fun and slow. yet for some reason I haven't been able to blog. on this blog or the other. so here it goes. just some things rambling around.

i have lost count of the number of times Jackson has said "to infinity and beyond" and then I hear a fall/jump/yell.

whenever i say "ok family let's get in the car" sam starts his fastest waddle that he can manage in that direction.

i've been so emotional this pregnancy. mad. sad. mad. sad. tired. then sad again.

this past week when i put the boys to bed, after prayer, sam will crawl up into jacksons bed, lay his head on the pillow, pull his blankets up and ask me with his eyes if he can sleep in jacksons bed. it is so hard to resist. one night i let him try, convinced that he would get down in less than one minute. i waited and waited and waited and after hearing no evidence i peeked and there he was, still laying in bed. Probably 15 minutes later jackson told me sam had gotten down (no doubt because Jackson had gotten down). So when I went upstairs to put sam in his crib, he knew his crime and was trying to crawl back in bed to lay down.

sam is talking--sort of. Its the kind of talking that only parents can understand its hard to really call it talking. the first word he said was diaper but it was more like "i-uh" other words he'll say are dog, daddy, mommy, jackson, milk, grandma, blanket, shoe, hi and ducky.

jackson loves numbers. i think at least. he likes to pick two numbers and ask me to tell me what they add up to equal. this week as he was eating cereal he put the chocolate pieces together and the peanut butter pieces together (yeah, we eat real healthy cereal around here). Then he said "I know how many 4 plus 2 is" and counted all of the pieces.

Remember this natalie

Important:

Never tell jackson to do anything.

Also, note to self: figure out how to get him to do what you want without telling him what to do. I really want to either help him get over this while he's young or train myself to help him in a more effective way. When I tried to teach him how to swim this summer he was totally doing better at the beginning than he is now after 5 or 6 days of swimming. The more I push, the more he resists. At the beginning of the summer after a few attempts he would put his face in the water, push away from the wall, breathe, put his face back in the water and keep swimming til he got to me. I got too pushy. Today we just got back from the pool. It hasn't bee 2 weeks since he was doing the good swimming. He never got out of the baby pool. He told me 2 days ago that he never wanted to swim. Ok, swimming is a big deal but it's not the biggest deal. What about when we get to issues like grades, church activities, RELIGION. These are really big deals.

I mean you would think that your kids would automatically be better than you because you can teach them all the things you know and then they learn more than that. right? totally not the case.

How do I help a child experience life moment by moment for himself and dealing with the fact that he's not going to trust me to just tell him what's worth his effort and time?

maybe exposure?

im grateful for the holy ghost. i'm grateful for the peace he gives. sometimes in moments of stress i want to demand his presence. i get impatient and don't want to do things the slow way. The thing about it is, so often, it has to be done the slow way. prepare, invite, live cleanly, and listen. i feel like the Holy Ghost will take the world and put it in the proper perspective. i just re-read this blog and the spirit confirms truth to me of priorities and my place. i'm thankful that i have a space reserved for peace and enlightenment. sure it has its gross kids stories. but those still make me laugh and are treasures to me. oh that my soul will treasure the truth and leave the worlds treasures behind.

that is disgusting

this is totally gross. i shouldn't be writing it down. brent told me to.

so jackson and sam were in the bathtub. now that two are in there at the same time i'll kinda wander around the house doing chores if i can hear them. i heard jackson "moooomm, sam whine whine whine." i didn't know what he said but it sounded like a typical tattling remark. ok sweetie i'm coming. when i walked into the bathroom they were both sitting there looking at me. then i saw it. i can't believe i'm writing this. sam was holding two pretty solid poopoos in his hands like they were toys to be played with. OH MY GOSH!!!! i grabbed them and flushed them and he cried like i was jackson taking a ball from him. so gross.

you know what brent said??? "you should have taken a picture."

after browsing all of the beautiful mothers day blogs

i decided i wanted loads and loads of kids. i watched this video and thought wow, my kids must have siblings. they are like automatic friends forever. there to laugh with us, and at us. i want to have some girls. jackson has mentioned several times to me recently he already loves his sister. he just can't decide what to name her. i also think families of all boys look so fun. the moms seem tough but yet so feminine. then i see families of all girls and i think that looks fun too. i will admit though, i don't think brent could handle that. i mean he could because he can do anything but.... it would be a struggle. sometimes i think 2 is too much for me and maybe i'm gonna have a mental breakdown but right now. i'm ready for more. yearning for more. eager. heart pounding kind of ready. i see brent's siblings and of course my own memories with my family and i think one of the best gifts you can give a child is a sibling. best friends forever.

other random thoughts. so this month brent and i really struggled with the budget. it was blown in three categories: gas, miscellaneous, and groceries. now we are very careful people. brent had to go to chattanooga at the end of the month and needed supplies and food and of course to get there. you could justify it by saying these were unexpected and overall good that he went. we also fed the missionaries and family and friends. and jackson really needed shorts etc. when i mentioned it to brent this morning i mentioned that i hadn't paid our tithing yet because we didn't have brent's paystub. i don't feel guilty because of course we'll pay it when we get it but then brent said something i agree with. the lord won't bless us with more money for paying tithing (he could, its within his power) but he's more likely to bless us by guiding our decisions. he'll bless us with willpower at target when we're feeling tempted. it was one of those moments that the spirit confirmed the truth of this. i love brent. i'm grateful for the spiritual way he can teach.

Sam's mischief begins

Sam loves to knock down my dvds. He knocks them down constantly. so much that I won't pick them up immediately. This week he knocked a whole bunch down and I just ignored it for several days. I didn't pick them up until the missionaries were coming over on Wednesday night--like 45 minutes before they came. When they got here, the dvds were knocked down. ergh. silly baby.

Brent was getting Sam a cup of milk the other day and got frustrated that there was a full sippy cup of milk in the drawer with the empty cups. He starts calling for Jackson to get on to him. No sweetie. That's sam. He likes to put his cup of milk away with the other cups.

So yesterday I was really sick. fever. throwing up. sick. I was laying on the couch when I could hear sam crawling up the stairs. He does that a lot now when we leave the gate open. I followed him up the stairs just to make sure he didn't hurt himself then lay on the top step like a slug. Sam continued crawling to the bonus room playing with toys. Jackson doesn't like playing alone with toys. I love that Sam does. I'm sure it has something to do with pecking order. It was cute.