August Update

Bennett is nearly 20 months old now, and we've been reading the Book of Mormon Reader to him. For those of you who don't know what it is, its basically the Book of Mormon designed for little kids. There are pictures and the text is simplified so they can understand it. Its more designed for school-age children, but he loves it just the same.

Yesterday he got it out and I offered to read it to him. I just read him a short story and afterwards he folded his arms for a prayer. I was a little surprised, partly because we don't normally pray after reading, but more for the fact that he initiated it. We've been teaching him how to pray for a few months now. And normally the scenario goes: We say, "Fold your arms for prayer time." He folds his arms with a smile. During the prayer, we can hear him moving his hands around, then when we open our eyes, he not-so-quickly folds them again. Its funny how he thinks he's fooling us. But now it looks like he's going to be more cooperative during prayer time.

As for nursery, he's doing so much better! He cries when we leave or when I have to take him out to change him, but not when I have to leave for a few minutes. There are 3 other kids, so its pretty small, but plenty of toys for them all. Some of the kids are a year older and play mainly with their imagination. One offered Bennett a "waffle" that they had made and held it out for him. Bennett had no idea what was going on. So he's not at that stage yet, but I'm sure it'll be a blast when he does get there.

We're beginning to pack up, we move in less than 3 weeks to our new 2 bedroom apt. As excited as I am for Bennett having his own room, I think I'm going to miss having him sleep right next to us. But its really time for him to have his own room. Hopefully the packing goes well, that we'll get enough help to move (I'm sure as heck not lifting any boxes when I'm 6 months pregnant!), and that Bennett will transition well. Its really nice that our little girl isn't due for a few more months. It'd be too much for Bennett to have to adjust to the new place as well as a new sibling. Andrew will be starting his fall classes at the end of this month. He's excited to be back in school after a lazy summer. Time off is fun, but it can be pretty boring sometimes too.

The Name Game

I'm not sure what it is when it comes picking a name for your child. At first its a fun bonding experience for both parents, looking through the name book and sharing favorites. And with today's advanced sonograms, they usually know the gender beforehand so they have a few months to prepare. So you'd think it'd take the stress off. But, of course, it never does. For some reason, never usually matters what it is, the parents start to panic over the chosen name.

Where I am going with all of this is that we've decided to change our daughter's name. We still liked the first name, we just didn't feel that the middle name fit. Normally that wouldn't have been a problem, but we were planning on using a family name. So then I called that relative and explained so they wouldn't be shocked later at the official announcement. Thankfully the relative was very understanding, it could have been a lot worse. I feel really bad, because I had gotten their hopes up now only to break them. I can now see why some people don't bother to share names until the baby comes. So now we're doing the same thing. Zoe will still most likely be the name, but the middle name is secret until then, so stay tuned!

Shaffer Butte Camping Trip

We just came back from our Ward's camping trip. I was a little worried about how Bennett would handle this outing. This was his 3rd time camping, but he used to sleep inside his infant car seat before. We brought along his pack n' play and thankfully it did fit inside our tent. The start of the day was pretty rough. We had to drive to the top of a mountain just to get to the campsite, Bennett had missed his nap and wouldn't rest after we got everything set up. So we just listened to him scream for a while. But he went down very well when it was time for bed. Ironically I was the only one who didn't sleep well. It wasn't that anyone kept me up, I just was no longer tired for some reason. The following morning, the guys went paint balling with slingshots and the girls played Bocce Ball. Then the infamous Boise heat started getting to us so we broke camp. Enjoy the pictures!

The view from our campsite

Andrew -- armed and ready for paintball!

Bennett sleeping on the way home

Bright and sunny first thing in the morning

Chipmunk nibbling on a used marshmallow stick

Bennett and Bruno

Such a dirty face, very cute!

Our 4th of July

Our 4th of July was pretty fun. We tried some new dishes, some working out more than others. We tried a boneless ribs crock-pot recipe that turned out GREAT! I ate it and I don't really like meat much this pregnancy again. We also tried a turtle cheesecake that was a failure from beginning to end! While cooking it in the oven, some of the cooking grease escaped the pan and baked onto the bottom of the oven so we had to really scrub it afterward. Then part of the caramel crust hardened onto the pan so we really had to dig it out only to discover that it didn't bake all the through. So that part wasn't great.

We live right next to one of Boise's many parks and noticed a whole lot of traffic coming through our area so we suspected that was where the fireworks would be set off from. We just figured we'd wait and see how close it'd be. We had no idea just how close! It looked like they were being set off right behind our complex! We could practically feel the booms! Set off a few car alarms too, that's what those sirens are during the video. Amazingly, Bennett slept right through it all, we watched from outside our door. I doubt we'll ever have a better seat again!

Also we just found out that we were approved for our new apartment! We'll be moving around the middle of August, making our time here about a year. Hopefully we'll stay in this apt til Andrew graduates. It seems we never stay in one place for more than a year and a half. Not that I haven't loved our past places, but moving takes a lot of energy. Anyway, we're really excited about our new apt, its just what we wanted -- 2 bedroom with a washer and dryer and for only $10 more rent than we're currently paying! How lucky is that?!

We are doing well in general too, we're planning on attending the ward camping trip this weekend. It'll be an interesting challenge! Never camped with a toddler before. We're taking it easy this summer for the most part, and trying to stay cool. It gets pretty hot here, one day last week it was 102 degrees, in late afternoon! So needless to say we're running our air conditioning quite a bit!

Bennett is doing very well too, he's beginning to warm up to nursery. Last week when it was time to leave, he started to follow me, then turned around and ran back inside to play some more! That is definitely progress! His latest trick is bringing me my shoes, he's figured out we only wear them when we go outside. So after dinner sometimes, we take him to the park so he can run around. Its just too hot to do so during the day. Zoe is doing well too, she's been much more of a mover than Bennett was, we'll see if that holds true when she's born too. So that's our update!

Its a Girl!

Profile

What long legs!

Her ankles were crossed for this shot

In the middle of a yawn!

Kids say the darnest things

Andrew and I just got back from Rexburg recently and I'll post more on our fun adventures later. For now, I wanted to post one funny thing that happened. One of Andrew's aunts just had her 9th baby and brought her and the rest of the family to a big weenie roast. One of her little ones, abt 4 yrs old I think, was showing me some goats they have. I was crouching on my knees, pointing them out to Bennett, when she causally pointed at my stomach and said, "Your baby is showing." I agreed with her that it was. "My mom used to have one of those," she continued. "Now she just has a bubble." Oh too funny! I told her dad about it later, he found it funny. Didn't have the guts to tell the mom, just in case she didn't find it as funny.

In any case, the baby is DEFINITELY showing, and we'll be finding out the gender tomorrow! So exciting, it really makes it more real when you know. We've finally narrowed down the names for both genders, Jonas Aeddan or Zoe Rita. The later would be awesome because we'd be using my mom's name for the middle. The boy's name has no family ties, just sounds and looks spunky. ;)

Bennett's First Day in Nursery

There comes a time in every Mormon Mom's life where she can't wait for her child to attend Nursery. And after long last, it was finally Bennett's turn! It was so nice to be able to pick a seat in the room that I didn't have to "screen" for Bennett. Meaning that I wouldn't have to avoid seats in the aisle because it'd be harder to keep Bennett in line. He is past the stage of me being able to hold him in my life, and it isn't because he weighs about 25 lbs now. He just likes to move around and it isn't reasonable for me to expect him to sit still for 3 hours anyway.

He didn't last more than a half hour, which I can't say surprises me. He cries whenever I leave the apartment without him, he's just an attached kid. But what did surprise me, was just how scared the nursery worker looked, almost panicked. He's been teething lately and it appeared that it came on suddenly for now one of his cheeks was flaming red as well as his ear which had a little blood because he had been scratching it. I calmly told her it wasn't anything to worry about and I promptly got this "How could you not be worried about this?! You are the mother right?" kind of look. Granted, I would have done the same if our roles were switched. But we smoothed it over and he spent the day with me. I'd like to say he was good from then on, but he wasn't really. He was just in a tired and grumpy mood. But that's life and hopefully next Sunday, nursery will go more smoothly. But I'm pretty sure it'll take a few more tries before he stays for good.