Sunday Potty Progress

After having an absolutely awesome potty day yesterday, this morning Ethan had a rather inauspicious start. He did well going first thing, but then pooped on my bedroom carpet. Oi. And then after breakfast he peed on the couch. 

But then he did really awesome at church, even though he was wearing a diaper! He told us twice that he needed to go during sacrament meeting, and was successful both times. The nursery has a little kid-sized bathroom, so we took him there. He even went during nursery time when we weren't with him. 

We're really proud of him. He's doing so well! Accidents are becoming less frequent, and he's even had a couple days accident-free. But since he's still rather young, I wonder how long it will be before he's really independent in all of this. I also wonder if he'll have a regression when the baby's born as I've heard so many other kids do. But in the mean time, he's just doing great and I'm loving not having to take care of so many diapers.

After church, Terral went to go pick up Ethan while I talked with my visiting teaching partner, and I met them in the hall afterward. Terral had seen a friend of his from another ward who had a little girl just older than Ethan, and I found them being all chummy leaning up against the wall next to each other. I just can't even tell you how cute those two little kids were with each other! It was adorable, and I really wished I had a camera.

Today we went into town to get our old Volvo and work towards getting it road-ready. The good news is that now we know what needs to be done and Terral was able to fix a couple little things. The bad news is that there really wasn't a whole lot of headway made, and we are without a car. Nothing could be done with insurance until Monday.

I went to the General Relief Society broadcast this evening. It was really good! And I was very emotional. I think I have a big cry in me yet—who knows when it's going to burst out. But I was very grateful to listen to inspired leaders.

There's been quite a stir among my family's friends because of this.

It's a picture that was taken when my mom and two of my sisters went to the General Relief Society meeting in SL two years ago. It was in the Ensign, and now it popped up as the banner for this year's meeting. Fun! It's a great picture, isn't it?

A Song and A Car

This year the SUU choirs started what they hope to be an annual tradition, and they invited alumni to come sing in a concert with them. I was able to go, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I knew more people there than I had expected. It was fun to catch up with some of my friends, and it was fun to feel like a musician again.

The rehearsal started at 5:00 and we went for roughly an hour and a half, with a break for refreshments.  Then we sang in the concert which started at 7:00. It was a bit of a whirlwind I guess, but it really didn't feel that way, and it turned out really well.

I don't have any pictures of it, though. Terral was going to try to come, but this afternoon he got in a car crash. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but our car is out of commission. We're  hoping this will just be a blessing in disguise because the other guy's insurance should pay for our car. It needed replacing anyway, so hopefully this will help us do that.

I was pretty worried sick when Terral called me, but he took everything really well. We're grateful for our friend Adam, who happened to be at the gas station nearby and saw that Terral was in a pickle. So he stayed around for an hour while Terral talked to police, etc. and then gave him a ride home.

Three Things

Terral's been very busy with a business competition the last few days, and we have stayed up later than I intended to as a result, so I'll make tonight's post brief.

1. I did quite a bit more tree trimming today and found that cherry wood is easier to saw through than peach.

2. We got our first eggs today! There weren't any when we looked this morning, but this afternoon when Ethan and I went to check on the chickens again, there were two pristine white eggs in the coop. The chickens seem to be warming up to us a bit.

3. I went over to help a friend move this evening, and I got there just as she was sending off one of her goats. The people who were buying it seemed to really love their animals, and they said they could provide a good tempered milk goat at a good price when we're ready for it. It might be a long while yet before that day comes because we have quite a bit to learn still, we need to prepare the area for them, save up for it all, and make sure we're ready for the commitment. But I really think we'll do it someday! It was fun to visualize the possibilities.

Henke Gathering

We had a Henke Family Reunion on Saturday, so we set out for Delta that morning. Unfortunately, I lamely left the camera in the car and didn't take any pictures of the actual reunion. We didn't get there as soon as we would have liked to, but once we were there we had a good time. I enjoyed talking with some of my cousins that I hardly ever see, and Terral and Ethan did a lot of playing. Ethan was very much being a daddy's boy that day, which worked out fine because that meant I could do more visiting.

We had lunch at the park and then we spent a couple hours swimming at the pool. We haven't done hardly any swimming this year, and Ethan had a blast. I would have enjoyed it a wee bit more if the water had been warmer. :) But as I said, we all had a good time.

Afterward, we headed back to my parents' house. It was fun to see Ethan play with his cousins because even since the last time we got together, he's become much more just one of the boys and less of a baby.

Terral, Ethan, and I got to take a little ride on the "wheeler". Ethan sure loves four-wheeling! Funny how you enjoy doing things just because your offspring likes it. It really was a nice evening ride though.

We talked, played a game or two, and watched a movie. And then on Sunday we got to attend the second session of the Brigham City Temple dedication.

We were the last ones to leave on Sunday. Reluctant to leave a good time, I guess. :) Ethan had taken a really late nap, so he didn't fall asleep on the ride home, but he did really well. We bought a little potty when we decided we were serious about this potty training thing, and it has turned out to be a good investment. I always thought a seat to put on the regular toilet would be good enough, but Ethan likes being able to do most of it himself, and I think it makes it more special that he has his own potty. Plus, it seems to be much more comfortable for him.

Anyway, we brought this little potty with us to Delta, and on the way home we stopped a couple times to accommodate Ethan's cries of "potty!" He just looked so cute enjoying himself there on the side of the road, I couldn't help but snap a picture.

The Chickens Arrive

Today was mostly a lazy reading day for me, although I had plenty of other things I could have done. But it was also marked by two things that made it special. One was that we went for a walk as a family this morning. It's not that unusual to go for a walk, but we want to do it more regularly since I haven't been exercising much and Terral hasn't been able to run with his back and foot injuries. Anyway, Ethan was being rather cute as usual, and he "rode" his stick horse for quite a ways.

I took a little video of it. The little "Tractor Tractor" song is something Terral found on YouTube last week, and Ethan just loves it. He'll break out in it at random times, and in fact I heard him singing it in his crib just before he went to sleep. It melts my heart when my little guy sings.

The other big event today was that we officially adopted some chickens! Ethan loved watching them, and he kept asking to go see the chickens whenever we came inside. We're all very happy they are here and it seemed like a momentous occasion. We didn't have everything quite as ready as we would have liked, but it's good enough for now. The chickens don't seem to mind. They have quite a bit more space to roam now than they did before, and there are plenty of bugs for them to munch on.

Terral cleared out some of the weeds, but there are still areas of "forest" in their run. I got the idea that they rather liked having someplace to hide and find bugs though.

There is also some garbage left over from the previous owners that we haven't cleaned out yet, and some shingles from when we redid the roof. See, I told you I could have done something besides read.

 This evening Terral and I peaked in at the chickens to make sure they were sleeping in the coop. They were, but none of them made use of the roosting pole because they hadn't had one before. One chicken chose this corner as her bed. . .

 And the others crowded around the doorway. Silly chickens. Still, they seemed comfortable enough.

We're using the cardboard boxes the chickens rode over in as nesting boxes until Terral has a chance to build something more permanent. I don't know if they'll use them or not, but I guess we'll find out soon.  Terral told me that Ethan sure had a lot of fun helping to scatter the wood shavings. He kept saying, "Mess! Mess!" as he threw them. He's really good about helping to clean up, so I think it was a novel thing for him to have permission to make a mess. :)

Coop, Tree, and Baby Progress

We were gone over the weekend, and I'll tell you more about that later, but first here are the promised coop pictures.

On the back of our garage, there is a separate room that looks like it was once a trailer or something. On one side of the room they had stinky carpet and a structure they built for their dogs. Here it is after Terral cleaned out a bunch of the junk and tore up some of the carpet.

He took of the big board here which left an L shaped counter, which is where we plan to put some nesting boxes.

 Then he used that board to make a partition since we didn't want to use the whole room as a coop. You can aslo see the beginning of the door he put in too.

 And here's a shot I took tonight from the other side. We wired the chicken wire together after I took this picture.

I took Ethan inside to get him ready for bed after this, but Terral stayed out and worked for a little while so there will be more progress to show you soon. 

And here's a little something I worked on today. I've decided that even if things aren't necessarily on the priority list, if I feel like working on it I will. I think that's going to help me get a lot more done and feel better too. Anyway, I've been itching to trim off dead branches for quite some time, so I tackled it today even though normally I would have told myself I had to get the dishes done first. Apparently peach wood is pretty dense, so I it was rather difficult for me to saw this big(gish) branch off. I was rather proud of myself, so I had Terral take a picture. I trimmed quite a few more branches after that, but I ran out of time before I could finish the job. Oh, and I should also mention that Terral used the big branch as a roosting pole in the coop. 

 I also had Terral take a picture of my now-visible baby bump. Only it doesn't look like much of one in the picture. I was trying not to stick my belly out more than it does naturally, and I think I maybe sucked it in on accident. In any case, the child is growing, whether other people can tell or not!

Coop Coming

Terral's been working on turning one area of our shed into a chicken coop because as I mentioned before we're getting chickens next week. I do have some pictures to show you, but for some reason I'm super emotional tonight and just don't want to deal with it all. So just know that it's coming. :)

Temporary Railing Fix

I've been meaning to show you the temporary fix we did for our stair railing, but I didn't take a picture for a long time. For one thing, the camera battery charger was missing and I didn't think the phone would do it justice. For another, I seemed to always think about it at night. And finally, I wanted it to be a good picture so you could really tell how much better our little fix made things. Well, I gave up on that last one and just snapped a really quick picture from the couch while it was light outside.

As you can see, we bought some rope and Terral tied some fancy knots and nailed it into the posts to make it a little more safe for kids to use. We also later installed a similar looking railing up top.

It doesn't look as good now as it did at first though. He had the ropes really taught, but I've been using them as clotheslines when I couldn't dry outside, and the moisture stretched the rope so it's a little saggy now. But we haven't bothered fixing it because it's all getting replaced anyway.

When we first put it up, it looked so good that we were half tempted to keep things the way they were, but of course we wanted something even more safe in the long run. So it's a little disappointing to show you the above mediocre picture, but I wanted to share all the same.

Words

I've been meaning to catch my little guy talking on camera, and I was able to do a bit of that today. You can hear his version of Grandpa on here, although sometimes he rolls the L quite a bit more when he says it. I don't know if that will make sense unless you hear him do it.

He also says his name, and "helicopter". When he first learned about helicopters, he would say "dye!" for sky. Then he actually started attempting the word, and it came out something like "dolodoto". He made sure to get all the syllables in, even though he couldn't quite manage all the sounds. In the past few days it has morphed yet again to where he has the right sounds, but is missing one of the syllables. "Helateur". Sometimes it sounds a little bit French. :) Its so fun to hear him learn!

Beautiful Day

Today was fifty times better than yesterday. At least. For one thing, I got a little more sleep last night. For another, I had a much better breakfast and was able to feel full. That didn't happen yesterday and the result was I was queasy all day. I've been wanting hot cereal lately, but all we had was Cream of Wheat and I felt like I needed more variety and nutrition than that. Terral found a new cereal made from whole wheat called Cream of the West, and we tried that this morning. Two thumbs way up!

After breakfast I did dishes (so nice to have that done!) and turned on some fun music and Ethan and I danced while I worked. It was a great start to the day! I think all three of us were feeling much better than we have been. Terral's foot is healing very nicely, which we are extremely grateful for.

I wanted to introduce you to that book I mentioned. The design and beautiful pictures are half of why I like it so much, so I really ought to have some nice photographs to introduce it properly, but I haven't taken any and I'm too impatient. I wanted to share with you some of the gems in it, and I'll start with this one.

Into the woman's keeping is committed the destiny of the generations to come after us. In bringing up your children you mothers must remember that while it is essential to be loving and tender it is no less essential to be wise and firm. Foolishness and affection must not be treated as interchangeable terms; and besides training your sons and daughters in the softer and milder virtues, you must seek to give them those stern and hardy qualities which in after life they will surely need. 

Some children will go wrong in spite of the best training; and some will go right even when their surroundings are most unfortunate. . . . Teach boys and girls alike that they are not to look forward to lives spent in avoiding difficulties; teach them that work, for themselves and also for others, is not a curse but a blessing; seek to make them happy, to make them enjoy life, but seek also to make them face life with steadfast resolution, and to do their whole duty before God and to man. Surely she who can thus train her sons and daughters is thrice fortunate among women. 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Silver Linings

After all the activity going on around here lately, I felt pretty lazy today. But this day just didn't start out right, and I felt yucky all day. I did at least wash our bedclothes after Ethan peed on them. And come to think of it, there was a bit of progress on the house as well. I straightened out some things with our countertop purchase, and Dad is going to pick them up tomorrow! It will be a few weeks (at least) before we can put them in though. And this evening Terral cleaned out a bunch of junk where we are going to put chickens. Some friends of ours are moving, and they aren't taking their chickens with them, so we are inheriting some that already lay. I know chickens are really not hard to take care of (I remember taking care of them when I was a kid) but it feels like a big deal somehow. Maybe because it means our little homestead is really becoming a homestead. :)

The Garage

Saturday afternoon Dad decided it was time to work on the garage. This was one of those "that would be nice" projects that I didn't expect to get done so soon.

Here is the before shot of the shed, which will now officially be the garage. We like the look of the barn doors, but they are pretty decrepit and not very functional. So when dad told us he had a free garage door from a job he was working on, we said, "okay!"

Before I move on, please note the lights at the peak. We couldn't figure out how to turn them on. There was also a mystery light switch in the house that we didn't notice for a while that seemed to go to nothing. I asked dad if he thought he could help us figure out the light switch Friday night, and he was outside looking for something, when suddenly he pointed up at the lights on the garage and said, "I bet it goes to that" and all of the sudden they turned on! It was like magic. ;) I just never made the connection before because the lights are motion activated, so they didn't turn on with just the flip of the switch. It sure will be nice to be able to use them now!

 The garage door is bigger than our opening was. If you compare this picture to the one above it, you can see how much the opening was widened. **edited to add** I can't believe I forgot to mention that while Terral was helping dad move the beam on the left, it came down on his foot! He was hurting quite a bit and we worried it might be broken. But he borrowed a boot from a friend and put some essential oils on it, and now it's doing much better, thank goodness.

 Dad had to cut through the cement. Very handy that he had the tool for that!

 It was a very dusty job. And he had to do a lot of it because we didn't have a sledge hammer. (I actually did finally manage to locate one at the neighbor's, but the job was done by the time I brought it over. Bummer!)

Trimming out the new door frame.

 Ethan sitting contentedly on the lawn watching the action and munching on an apple from our tree. (PS That's the compressor we scored at the garage sale!)

 Here the garage door mostly installed. We ran out of time, so dad will finish it next time he comes down. But it actually isn't any taller than that, so we'll have to fix the gap. Dad forgot after he dismantled the door that it's a certain brand that doesn't do standard sizes, so the door is actually wider and shorter than the opening they made. Darn it! But luckily dad is handy and can figure out solutions for things like that, so it's not that big of a deal. And if we ever decide to replace this door with a newer one (I'd love a carriage style!) then it will be the right size for that.

 And finally, here's another little discovery we made. Dad brought things to wire a place where we could plug in the dryer because we could only find a gas set up and ours is electric. I've been line drying our clothes, but that has been a little tricky with all the rain we've had, and now cooler weather is coming and the sun doesn't reach that side of the house as well. I started looking at the water softener to see if I could move it, because I would rather have the dryer next to the washer if I could, instead of at a 90 degree angle like we thought it had to be set up. Well, I moved the big part of the system, and lo and behold, there's an outlet for a dryer! Very cool! So that was one less thing for my dad to do. So we brought in the dryer, but it's still not hooked up because our the cord on the dryer has the wrong sort of plug. So we bought a new cord, but have yet to install it. Oh, and we have to get a little creative with the venting because the dryer will be on the "wrong" wall. But it shouldn't be too much longer until I have the option of using it! I'm very excited about it, if you can't tell. :)

Before I forget, I also wanted to share a couple cute things about my dad's visit that aren't house related.  When he pulled up, I told Ethan that grandpa was here, and he started to say "grandpa" for the first time! (Actually, I think he had a word for it at one point, but he hasn't said it for months and months.) It morphed the first several times he said it, but then it settled into it's current form: blablam. So funny!

He became pretty attached to grandpa this visit. At one point, Terral's parents were at our house too. They had taken Ethan for a little while and were bringing him back. Well, as you know Ethan is currently obsessed with baseball and he wanted to play. There were plenty of people willing to throw the ball to him, but no one would do but blablam! We all tried to toss it to him, but he just hugged his bat and turned away. Then he'd come and get the ball and take it to grandpa. Sometimes he is very particular.

Windows and Roofs

A lot has happened in the past few days! We'll see how much of it I can get through tonight.

First off, here is the beast that we took down from our bedroom window. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to not have that hunk of metal in there anymore!

 And here you can see where it used to hang on the house.

The main thing that Dad did with Terral yesterday was replacing five of our windows. Four of them were broken, but the fifth was one we decided to do now so that all the windows in the "tower" would match and be functional, since you couldn't open any of them.

Here's dad working on the window in the storage room.

 And Ethan helping Terral in the guest bedroom.

 Both windows from the outside.

And the new ones put in and calked!

 Here's a close up of one of the tower windows. Because of this little damage, we got to buy the window at half off! We were going to put it up high, but dad got going and didn't notice which one he grabbed and it ended up on the bottom. Oh well! We'll sand it and maybe fill it in with something. It still looks so much better than the old one!

 Here's one of the cracked upper windows. It had a ton of dead bugs in it, and I was always worrying about the kids because it's a lower window and they could touch where the glass was broken.

 Besides the cracking, the old windows also had film and condensation on the inside.

 Dad trimming the space so the window will fit. (Incidentally, this window seems to be a favorite with kids because they feel like they're on the roof. :) )

  And here is the new lower window! It is such an improvement. We didn't really expect how good the white windows would look with the trim on our house.

 After the windows were all in, dad and Terral did some work on the garage before it got too dark. Here Terral is removing a strange cat walk thing made from crown molding. Bye bye!

 While he was doing that, dad was filling in some screw holes that got missed on the roof last time.

 I am so impressed that my dad can do moves like this at nearly 67!

 My honey getting some more edge screws.

 Then today, they put all the final touches on both of the roofs. (Well, almost all the final touches. Terral still needs to put tar under some of the old shingles so they will last longer.)

Doesn't that metal roof look so nice? They do great work! And even though my dad says he gets tired fast than he used to, I'm amazed at what he does. It makes me tired just to watch him. I tried to pitch in here and there where I could, but mostly I took care of my house duties and Ethan. I'm so grateful for all the work dad and Terral did! Dad has been so very generous to us. I'm so lucky to have him for a father. :)

Windows

My dad is here helping us again this weekend, and today he and Terral replace five of our windows! No more cracks, hooray! It's quite exciting. And now that I have my camera and my battery charger, I did actually take some pictures. But I'm tired and it's time for bed, so I won't post them tonight. I'm excited to see how much we can get done tomorrow!

Some Randoms

I put off posting tonight because I didn't know what to write about. I got a little fired up over something, and posting just seemed kind of exhausting. So here are some little snippets I considered until I finally said to myself, "Just spew something out and get it over with!" I must say, this goal of mine has been very good in some ways, but I think it will be nice when the year's up. I think it's maybe a little overwhelming for some of my few readers too.

Anyway.

This afternoon Terral and I wrestled a metal shelf out of the shed, and then after I sprayed it off I brought it in to our "storage room". I'm super excited to have a little more organization in there. I needed to get boxes out of the way so that my dad and Terral can replace the window in there without bothering about stuff in the path. I just love making progress!

I've killed three big scary spiders in the past two days (plus a few little ones), one of which was a black widow in our bathroom. *shudder*

Although Ethan is still having accidents (not unexpected), we are definitely making progress. Tonight he even asked to go potty in spite of the fact that he already had his night time diaper on! We make a big deal out of it, and it's so cute to hear his little voice say, "Yay! Potty!"

Speaking of him speaking, he is now stringing words together to make semi-sentences. I really need to record him talking. He's doing so well!

Baseball and Other Things

I struggled this morning. The little boy I watch just didn't want to be here (again) and cried and cried. He had some good times eventually, but it just wears on me. And then Ethan had several accidents on the carpet. Yes, we're potty training again. And I could just feel my patience wearing more and more thin. The boys wouldn't share. M cried every time Ethan got near him, even when he was being nice.

I needed a nap.

Well, I did get some rest, but not really a good nap. But then somehow my attitude changed (I'll have to tell you about this neat little book I have that helped) and my afternoon went much better. I got two loads of laundry done, and even if I do say so myself, I made an awesome dinner. Which is a pretty huge accomplishment these days with the way I feel about food.

While I was finishing up dinner, Terral came home from work and went outside with Ethan. Ethan found this water squirter thing and out of nowhere asked for a ball. We're kind of unsure where he learned about baseball, but I think he's addicted now! He and Terral had so much fun, and Terral loved that he can play ball in our own back yard. It just made me smile so much. :)

PS It wasn't quite as fun when he threw a major fit because we made him stop to come eat dinner.
PPS Yes, he's got a naked bum because of the aforementioned potty training.

And then this evening I convinced Terral to let me help him get the swamp cooler down. It's a beast of a thing, and he was going to call some of his friends over to help. Well, it was a bit of an adventure, but we did it! And without a moment to spare, too. We barely beat nightfall. But now that eyesore that let in air and smells and bugs and water is no longer hanging in our window, and I'm so happy! Man, it feels good!

Pregnancy Update

Although the past few days I've been telling people I'm 12 weeks along, a quick check just told me that I'm already 13. I'm having a harder time keeping track. I guess that's pretty normal. People are surprised that I don't have anything showing yet. It'll come. Actually, when we went camping I felt like I just suddenly popped out. I had a bit of a belly over the weekend, but it somehow subsided after we got home. It's mostly there when I'm really full.

We had an appointment with our midwife last Thursday. She was able to come to our house, which I was really glad of. We heard the baby's heartbeat. She found it right away, and there weren't all the swishing sounds that there were when we first heard Ethan's because he was moving so much. It seemed quieter too, but I'm not sure if that's because the volume was lower or what. Terral said it made it feel so much more real. Ethan was pretty fascinated with it. It was very comforting to hear, and I thought it interesting that even listening to a heartbeat can tell you that this little baby has her or his own personality!

Until last week I hadn't thrown up at all. I just felt yucky quite a bit, which made it hard to do things. I also have been very tired, though not as much lately. After we moved, I started taking a nap nearly every day. It was just necessary. Now I'm not quite as tired, and even though I've thrown up a few times I am starting to feel a little better overall. Yay for the ushering in of the second trimester!

I've told Ethan that there is a baby in my belly, and he gives it kisses. He will be such a sweet brother! At the baby shower on Saturday, I won a little baby doll that Natalie made, and Ethan loves to hold it and have it do things that he does. Today he was helping it sweep with my big straw broom. :)

I went to a Relief Society activity tonight that was on first aid. Talking about all those things that can go wrong made me feel a little emotional about my family, and I just wanted to hug and hug them when I got home. Ethan wasn't asleep yet, so I got to rock and hold him, and sing to him.

Baby Center tells me my little baby is almost three inches long from head to bottom already. It makes me weepy to think of how fast the time is going and how I'll be able to hold and love this baby too. There is nothing so precious in life as family. I feel so blessed to be a mother, and in awe (and trembling!) of the responsibility that is mine.

A Shower and Some Fish

On Saturday we took a little trip down to St. George. It didn't go exactly as planned because, true to form, I was still making gifts that morning and we didn't get away as soon as we would have liked to.  But everything worked out in the end. :)

The plan was for me to take Ethan to Heather's shower so that Natalie could get in some grandma time since she doesn't get to see him as often anymore, but he was being a little ornery since he hadn't napped and he was being very much a daddy's boy. He cried and cried when Terral went to leave, so we decided it would be better if he hung out with daddy while he went fishing.

This is the only lame shot I got of the shower, but you can still see how cute Heather is pregnant. :)

Afterward, I rode with Maycie and Kaden to pick up our men at Sand Hollow. They hadn't been there very long, so we waited for them a while and let the boys play on the beach. It was so hot, it was killing me that I couldn't get in the water because I wasn't dressed properly!

 Terral, Chris, and McKade all caught a good sized bass and were satisfied. Well, I should say for the moment. I think it awakened a thirst to fish some more in Terral and McKade. ;)