(At) our house

Frankie is as awesomely strange as ever. He has recently been getting our money's worth out of a dollar store bug catching kit Many a potato bug has lived it's last moments inside of it.

(I don't really know why he had the sticker on his forehead. I think it was giving him super powers or some such. 

And I'm happy to report he got a much needed haircut last Friday. )

My hard drive has been infected by some terrible, unrepairable virus not once but TWICE in the last two weeks. That means two formats. (Luckily I keep most of my data on a secondary hard drive and I have a genius husband, so I didn't lose any data, just programs.) When it happened the second time last week I had just installed itunes, which was the last program I was missing. Now I'm starting over again, with a newfound fear of browsing the internet. We think the weather underground website may be the culprit, but it seems like a pretty legitimate site, so who knows. I wouldn't recommend it just in case.

Jerm is working hard. Often all through the night. Have I mentioned that on top of all the clinicals and ambulance ride alongs he has scheduled he also has class 2 evenings a week, and some Saturdays, and he is still working 30-40 hours a week. To say the least, he is tired when he is home. 

Do not overlook the glorious fatness of the Bingley cat in this photo.

I've been working on a portrait which is good fun. I painted almost all day yesterday. Check out my art blog, the post from today is from earlier this week, I'll post yesterday's session as soon as I get the ambition to take a picture. Which will probably be before the next time I paint.

In February there were 2 weekends I wanted to make note of. The first was when we had a family reunion of sorts with Jeremy's family. His sister and her family were here from Reno, and Aunt Kathy and Grandma.

We visited pioneer park for a picnic, photos, and much exploring:

Frankie was exhausted afterwards, and fell asleep on the floor even though he was excited for Angie to come over to our house that day. It turned out she had fallen asleep as well, so they came to visit the next day instead.

The kids had so much fun playing together and with everyone else.

There was much card playing by the adults. A little bidding game called Shitsky. I have no idea where this game originates, but I'm pretty sure I've never heard of anyone besides Jerm's family playing it.

Everyone took a turn trying out the Moon Sand. I think the grown ups were more fascinated with it then the children. It is crazy stuff.

I really wanted to get some cute pictures of Frankie and Angie. I made several attempts, and got a few cute ones this day and on the red rocks. My camera has a hard time with cloudy weather sometimes. It's probably something I had set weird, but the pictures get this weird pink glow to them. Any fellow Canon users with some tips? My point and shoot does this too.

The next weekend, as is tradition, I hit some parade of homes with my Mom and sisters. This year Laurie's kids Hunter and Mayzie wanted to come too. I was skeptical and thought they would hate it, but they actually seemed to enjoy themselves. This picture was taken after Hunter had tried to sneak this sign from one of the booths in the garages, but the lady saw us and gave us her whole speech. Even pointing to Mayzie for dramatic effect when she talked about all the exhaust getting in children's lungs. She said he could have the sign he posted it somewhere. I must confess I have made more of an effort to be "idle free" since then.

And of course we must have lunch.

Frankie says relax

I realized recently that it's been a long time since I recorded the general traits and happenings of my handsome, wonderful Frankie. As I look back through my blog, it seems that I tend to do this at about this time of year, very close to his half birthday.

He's going to be four and a half! That's nuts. Four has been the hardest age for us. By us I mean me and Frankie. We've had a harder time with each other these last six months. But the last few weeks things have started flowing better again. I doubt it's him, I think it's because I've been studying my scriptures consistently during that time. Makes me a happier person. And a better Mommy. That's all there is to it.

I made a little handwritten list to go from, so I will now warn you: this is going to be long.

All about Frankie at 4.5 years:

-He is an amazing helper. Really. And it's to the point that his helping is actually helpful.
  He helps with:
      Laundry (Matching socks and putting them in a pile for me to fold. Putting clothes in and out of the washer and dryer. Folding clothes: one day he folded an entire basket of whites without me asking him to.)
      Dishes (Helps unload the dishwasher and put away the dishes. He likes to climb up on the counter to put away the bowls and plates in the upper cabinet. It makes me nervous, but I remember being up on the counter all the time when I was his age. Also helps load the dishwasher.)
      Cleaning his bathroom (The first time he helped me, we were finishing up and I said "you just cleaned your bathroom for the first time." He said "I will always remember this day!" Such enthusiasm. His future wife will thank me. The only problem is I have a hard time convincing him the toilet brush does not need to be dried off with a rag after use. Gross.)
      He is in charge of getting the kitties their water, and he likes to brush the cats
      Helps me wash our sliding glass door. I do the spraying, he gets his own paper towels.
      Dusting
      Sets the table
      He loved helping me water the flowers outside.
      If he's done the other things I've asked him to, he can earn a quarter by running the little vacuum we have in the kitchen. Every time he does it, I help him learn to be a little more thorough.
     Probably the most difficult chore for him is picking up his toys. Since he still mostly plays by "setting things up" he always wants to leave them set up. It's a tough concept.
      He sometimes makes his bed. We need to work on that one a little more.
      He likes to help me gather items when I'm making Jeremy's lunch in the morning. He will sometimes hide a fruit snack in the lunch sack, and then tell Jeremy where it's hidden.

-He is extremely articulate and has a vast vocabulary. He always wants to tell anyone who will listen about his favorite toy at the moment, the trip we took to California last fall, Lightning McQueen, or anything else that's on his mind. When we are with a group of people, he will often say "Guys! Guys! I want to say something!" To try to get everyone to stop talking and listen to him. It's not that he's ignored, it's just that the social grace of waiting for a lull in the conversation is not something a four year old grasps.

-He gets dressed/undressed on his own. All except for buttons which remain elusive to him when he can't see them. I still pick out his clothes. He hasn't cared yet, so I figure I'm not going to open that door until I have to. He usually picks out his own jammies, though. We are also working on teaching him to shower by himself.

(As you can see, Manny and the tools eventually came to live at our house.
Frankie used his Christmas money from Grandma Pat to buy them. )

-Daddy is still the hero, but right now he is Mommy's boy. Probably due to the fact that Daddy has been gone a lot. And Frankie misses him much. But even when Jerm is home he usually wants to go with me, or have me be the one to take him up to bed. He is always giving me loves, and he is so sweet to me. Giving me compliments and asking if I'm okay. A certain ailment I was dealing with a month or so ago had gotten better. He asked me about it one day, and when I told him it was better, he said "I will give you a hug for that."

-He always wants to pack toys out with us when we go somewhere. He has done this since he was 1, I think. I thought he would grow out of it. Even if he is going to Grandma's or a cousins or friends where there are plenty of toys to play with, he insists upon bringing along some of his. Often they don't even get touched when we get to where we are going. He also likes borrowing toys from others, but he is good about returning them. We've packed much of Aunt Laurie's toy stash back and forth over the years.

-Frankie's favorite thing to play with us is the "present game." It has many forms. But the basic gist of it is we take turns setting up or even pseudo wrapping some his toys. The person who is receiving the gifts has to pretend to be asleep. Frankie usually goes upstairs, Jerm and I usually make it to the 3rd step. Then the person setting up the present says "cock-a-doodle-do" and it's time to open everything up, ooh and aaah... etc. Sometimes he pretends Santa brought the stuff. Repeat 12 times, adding to and changing the setup every time. We have been playing this game A LOT since last summer. I would be lying if I told you that I still thought it was fun and cute. When he asks to play now I usually want to poke out my eyes.

-He likes to paint, cut/glue, and use stickers. He is not as much a fan of drawing or coloring. He used to draw all the time, but now he usually doesn't want to. Along these same lines, he hasn't been too interested in writing yet. He can do his name if he's in the mood, but he'll often pretend he doesn't know how. Stinker.

-Frankie loves riding his bike, and playing with the kids outside. It took him a while before he wanted to ride the real bike instead of his trike. He is such a cautious little soul. But he has finally realized it is a much better deal.

-Frankie spreads joy wherever he goes. When we are out and about it amazes me how people light up when he talks to them.

-He knows the phonetic sounds of most of the consonants. He's already irritated with the English language. He'll be over playing, and he'll say "Cat. Cat... Mommy, cat starts with K!" I'll say, "No actually cat starts with C, sometimes C can make the same sound as K. Or it can make the same sound as S." Then he looks at me in complete betrayal.

-Frankie says many funny things. My current favorite is "holy-moly-hecker-man." Yeah, I have no idea. Along the same lines is "what the heck in the world." Whenever he tries to come up with a number that he doesn't know (such as "how many degrees hot is it outside?") he will say "sixty-ninety." He often tells us and others that he is "super fast!" He also speaks with a drawl. Have I ever mentioned that? Just on certain words, and it has gone down the last few months. But it has always baffled us, where did he pick it up? His buddy Kennadi did too, so they somehow picked it up together.

He makes awesome sound effects. Airplanes, animals, lasers shooting, cars driving, etc. He always makes this little musical sound when something is a "mystery." He has a signature "that's wrong" beep and a "that's right" bell ring sound. Perfect for playing game show or the like.

-He still naps. Usually for 2 hours plus. I still get to snuggle him at nap time. I love it.

-He is obsessed with holidays. As soon as Valentine's Day was over he was begging to get the Easter decorations out. Every now and then he will say wistfully "I just wish it was a holiday everyday." It's going to be a long summer with only the fireworks on the 4th of July to get us through.

-Frankie loves learning about animals (especially sea animals), dinosaurs, and bugs. He equally loves his little figurine toys of these things. We keep accumulating more and more.

-Current Favorites:
Song: Real Gone from Cars
Movie: Cars (since the first time he saw it)
Color: Blue or Green, usually
Food: Spaghetti and pizza
Board Game: Boo Who, Cranium Hullabaloo
Holiday: Whichever one is coming up. And he will literally tell you that if you ask him.

-Frankie is a little photographer. He thinks our point and shoot is his, I have to remind him it's not. (It probably will be someday.) I love looking at the pictures he takes. Random shots of our house, often when it's messy. Self timer photos of himself. Jeremy and I during the morning grind & evening wind down in our pajamas, or cleaning house, or asleep on the couch during General Conference. (Caught, AND preserved for prosperity.) I laughed until I cried when I was looking for pictures for the collage below, and I discovered a shot of our cats by their empty food bowls. With Bingley staring into one forlornly.

My funny Valentine

 

(I was instructed to leave red and pink paper, some cut out hearts, and stickers on the table with glue and scissors.
This is the Valentine Frankie made for me with the supplies.)

 

I didn't used to care all that much for Valentine's Day.

But now I have a four year old Valentine.

Need I say more?

p.s. Jerm is a pretty good Valentine, too:

Fire and Ice

Snow Day in the desert. (Yes, at the beginning of January. I know.)

Me and Frankie went to my Mom's and played in her yard. Frankie was especially excited about having a snowball fight. I was glad we had this little bit of snow fun time since we didn't make it to the cabin this year over Christmas or New Years.

After the picture my Mom took of Frankie and I with the snowman, he wanted to add a few more touches. Including grabbing a bird out of one of Mom's pots, and declaring that the snowman needed a hat.

On Martin Luther King Day, we joined some of my family at the red rocks for a picnic and what Frankie has decided to call a "hike-out." I was *shingle-ing at the time, so I was so grateful for my neice and nephews taking care of my boy while he ran around. It was so nice to be outside on such a beautiful day.

Hunter is so awesome to play with Frankie and help him out. It makes my heart happy to see this 16 year old kid being such a good cousin. Frankie adores him.



*Still shingle-ing, if you were wondering. We're in week five now, yay! For the last few weeks it's been a second round, which the dermatologist said is actually a different kind of rash. It basically feels like a more mild version of the shingles, only SO ITCHY. Sometimes I want to lose my mind. Hopefully this is over soon. But hey, it could be worse.

Teeter, totter; bread and water

Up:

How crazy Jeremy's schedule will be this semester was over hyped.
It won't be any worse then last semester, and perhaps better.

Down:

Shingles. Ouch and itchy and much frustration. They're better one day, miserable again the next.
2 weeks of annoyance now. If you have no idea what shingles are, google it.

Up:

Beautiful weather. Beautiful child riding his bike. Red rocks. Sunshine.

Down:

I haven't been able to exercise much, the stiffness is settling back in.

Up:

I think my normal face is finally back, and my new hair is curly.

Down:

Any tips on styling short, curly hair? I look a bit homeless sometimes.

Up:

Frankie's current obsession (since last fall) is dinosaurs.

Down:

I can't pronounce dinosaur names to save my life.
Some of them are about 25 syllables.

Up:

We're loving streaming Netflix from our Wii. It was fabulous while I was stuck on the couch.

Down:

Frankie loves the Land Before Time... he loves 4 more then 1.
He hasn't yet realized we can also stream 5-16.

Up:

I bought some adorable scrapbook paper last week,
and I think I've finally figured out how I'm going to tackle scrapbooking
without trying to make it all-inclusive

Down:

I need to clean and de-junk our extra room so that I can organize my stuff

Up:

Life is mostly good.
And the chocolate Cadbury Easter eggs have arrived in stores to prove it.

Wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas

A Very Merry December 2010



Chrissy and Ryan had raked the leaves in my parent's yard, and kindly invited us over to have Frankie play in the leaves with Jarek and Tayden.

Frankie is loving having lots of stuffed animal buddies in his bed with him right now.

We made gingerbread houses at Kennadi's house. We had bought a kit on clearance last year, and we added our own touches.

Frankie's Halloween addition to the Christmas decorations.

His favorite Christmas movie this year was The Muppet Christmas Carol. I think it's my favorite, too. I had a ray of inspiration one day when I was needing to get some work done and Frankie was sad I couldn't play. I said, "Do you want to watch a Christmas movie that has spooky GHOSTS in it?"

You should have seen the look on his face.

As we were in transit in the car on Christmas Eve, Frankie sighed and said "I wish we could go Trick or Treating on Christmas, too."

We made not one, but TWO batches of Christmas sugar cookies this year. I had another stroke of genius (must have been a good month for me) and thinned the frosting out enough that the cookies can simply be dipped, and then decorated with sprinkles. (As opposed to trying to spread the icing on with a knife or use decorating bags.) It makes the final step about 1,000 times easier.

Now I will confess that the first time I put Frankie in his new little suit outfit, he stepped back from me and I started crying. Only a little. He looks so grown up and so tall. But also so handsome. On this day before we went to church, Frankie and I watched some Nativity movies. (Jeremy was at meetings.) Frankie was all about making sure our Nativities were set up how he thought they should be this year.

A few days before Christmas a big package came in the mail for Frankie. It was a huge Hot Wheels track/garage set from his cousin Angie and her parents. I couldn't believe how well this toy held his attention. He sat and played with it for hours. We are so grateful for all the gifts we receive - it really does mean a lot.

We had Christmas party at my Mom's on the 23rd. The kids acted out the Nativity for the first time in a few years, I was excited that Frankie got to be a part of it. He was a very knightly Wise Man. I guess the Nativity pageant is one time it's good that my family has more boys then girls.

After the pageant the kids opened their presents, Frankie got 2 Cars he doesn't have yet, he was stoked. Then we decorated cookies, and the kids dispersed while the adults played some Cranium. My poor Daddy had shoulder surgery in December, and still wasn't feeling to spry at Christmastime. We also got our cool present from Christina and Ryan's family: it's a picture board thing which I just realized is hard to describe. Basically you can change the pictures in and out of it very easily. I will redo my walls someday and show it to all of you.

Christmas Eve at Jeremy's parent's house. The tradition at their house is that the youngest has to distribute all the presents. Jerm is so excited that Frankie is old enough to do this now. And Frankie enjoys it too. He also followed around the room and was right next to, and often helping, whoever was opening a present. Nick and Ali gave Frankie a fish tank lamp. That is my kind of fish tank. Frankie will tell people "we don't have to feed them or clean it and the kitties can't kill them!"

Nick got Alison a new wedding ring to replace the one that was lost with her purse in November. I was taking pictures and didn't realize until later that Frankie was the one that nabbed it out of the box. Sorry, Ali. And the new ring is very pretty, if you were wondering.

We had a bit of a Toy Story Christmas this year. Santa brought Frankie movie-size versions of the main Toy Story Characters, (although Buzz is the only one that talks,) and a Lego set: Pizza Planet Rescue Mission. The Lego set is what he asked Santa for when he sat on Santa's lap. He loved the character dolls more then I would have expected. He wanted to take them everywhere for a few weeks, and he still plays with them quite often.

The Lego house was from Grandma and Grandpa Anderson the night before. Frankie was so sad when we got back to our house on Christmas Eve that we didn't have time to set it up and play with it that night. So he left Santa a note with the cookies asking Santa to set it up. Santa's a pretty nice guy.

It was a happy Christmas morning. The other present highlight for Frankie was a Penguin Pillow Pet, from Great Grandma Schulz. I was very excited that Santa brought me new slippers. Can you see my old ones? They are masking taped together so that my toes wouldn't flop out.

As luck would have it, Mayzie, Tayden, and Jarek all got penguin Pillow Pets too.

Jeremy got me the "Just Dance" game for the Wii. I had been requesting a game of this sort so that I could exercise to it. We had a great time on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day giving it a go. I also bought myself Just Dance II on my birthday, and I have been exercising to them. It's so much fun.

I had one of my best birthdays - real or half - ever this year. Jeremy took the day off and watched Frankie while I got to go shopping and to lunch with my Mom and sisters. We hit the Target Christmas clearance, it was good fun. After I got home I had time to take a nap, and then Jeremy and I went to the temple, out to dinner, and shopping to get my new game. Later that night Frankie was very distraught that I didn't have a birthday cake. So we made some little ice cream treats in our fancy cups, and each blew out some candles after he sang happy birthday to me. It was adorable. It was a happy day with family, I felt really remembered and loved. I reflected a lot on how blessed I've been this past year.

As is tradition, Frankie and Kennadi opened their presents from each other together. This year it ended up being after Christmas, and I ended up having some serious Camera user error with our point and shoot. I'm not really sure what I was thinking.



We finished the year with a dusting of snow on all the hills. This day the light was perfect, but by the time I got out there it wasn't as great. Nonetheless, beautiful. We don't see this contrast very often.

Home for the holidays