Who Dat?

Who dat Saints fan? Who dat?

After 25 long years as a Saints fan, my Dad's football dreams have come true.

THE SAINTS WON THE SUPERBOWL!

31-17

Being the righteous man he is, he waited until 12 midnight (Monday morning) to hold a Superbowl party.

There was lots of food, TONS of screaming and in the end...

A VICTORY!!!

Who dat?

LOUD.

Monday was Christa's birthday.

We went to dinner, and our dear Mr. T screamed.

LOUD.

So, Jim took him home and I brought Jim a doggy-bag.

And thus it began.

Christa is not eating sugar in 2010, so Katherine and I made her fat free frozen yogurt and apple bread for dessert...beyond delicious. Happy Birthday to her!

***

Now back to the screamer.

***

Tuesday we went to the Zimmerman's in Ely.

He screamed, all day.

LOUD.

He screamed in the car to her house.

He screamed during nap time (poor Max couldn't sleep!)

He screamed during playtime, while eating snack, and in the car back to the station.

He screamed while I fed him on the train back to Cambridge.

And then he choked on his dinner, and I couldn't get him out of his seat, and everyone on the train rushed to see the commotion.

Mother of the Year Award was thrown out the window onto the train tracks.

By the time we met up with Jim, T was screaming...

...and I was crying.

Oh, what a day.

***

Yesterday me and the kid ran some errands.

While walking through the grocery store Talmage decided to start screaming again.

LOUD.
I must tell you,

the screaming to which I'm referring is not crying.

He's not hungry, sad, or uncomfortable.

His pants are clean, his feet are warm, and most of the time he's in my arms.

There are no tears with this screaming.

Nope, it's just for the fun of it.

And believe me, it's fun.

As I was carrying him through the store (and pushing his stroller full of groceries) an older store clerk said, "Wow, quite the set of lunges that little one has, huh?"

That comment was way better than the dirty looks everyone else gave me.

I couldn't help it, I started laughing.

LOUD.

Talmage looked at me, shocked at my outburst.

And then he screamed some more.

We were quite the scene.

Him screaming, and me laughing.

LOUD.

***

And now it's Thursday.

I'd like to tell you that there was no screaming today.

But there was.

T screamed most of the morning, and the afternoon for that matter.

LOUD.

Today I didn't cry, and unfortunately I didn't laugh.

Today, I was wishing (and sincerely praying) for communication skills to increase, and crazy screaming to stop.

I'll be honest, I was super frustrated.

***

Sadness, Entertainment and Frustration.

All from the screaming of an almost-one-year-old.

Being a mom has taught me, is teaching me and will continue to teach me SO much.

And just in case you were wondering.

His screaming is really, really, really

LOUD.

Month of Enos

Bishop McKee (AKA Dad) is doing a really cool thing in his ward this month. It is called "The Month of Enos" and he has challenged the ward members to read the whole book of Enos in personal study each day, and also focus on a specific verse (it works out pretty well since there are 28 days in February and 27 verses in the book of Enos).

Today everyone was supposed to talk with their father, husband or a father figure, and if possible hear them bear their testimony in a foreign tongue (Enos was taught in the language of his father). My dad asked me to post a video of Jim bearing his testimony in Russian that he can share in FHE. Enjoy!

Dance through the Decades

On Saturday night our ward hosted an AWESOME event: Dance through the Decades. I LOVE to dance, and I definitely don't get enough opportunities to shake what my momma gave me, so I was stoked. PLUS, we got to play dress-up, nothing better!

We decided to dress 40's. Our friends Mitch and Niall had these clothes in their closet (they have incredible vintage fashion taste) and we put on make-up and did our hair to fit the era. I thought the picture above (which is kind of fuzzy and dark) looked straight out of an old movie.

Here are some of our fellow party-goers. Doesn't everyone look awesome! You have to click on this picture and look at Talmage's face up close. I guess he wasn't as excited as we were about the music, dancing and costumes.

And here's our 40's family with Rob's fabulous camera. Of course we had been dancing so please excuse my sweaty make-up face and T's pink cheeks! We learned how to do a whole new rendition of the Hokey Pokey (you should have seen all the American's faces when the whole circle rushed the middle) and a new song called The Music Man (or something like that!) It was SUCH a blast and I hope we can do it again soon, very soon!

Bon Appetit

That is one super-happy, super-full, enjoying-every-single-bite-of-mom's-delicious-dinner (but what edible thing does he not love?) little butterball.

I LOVE that he eats so well (boosts my self-esteem).

I LOVE that he enjoys feeding himself.

I LOVE that he's learned how to take off his bib so he ends up filthy regardless of our pre-emptive measures (OK, so maybe I don't LOVE this...but it does amuse me!)

I LOVE that kid.

And what was he munching on?
The incredible dinner I whipped up tonight.
I made it. All of it. With limited recipes.
And I'm proud. I'm gaining cooking confidence. And I'm proud.
Lemon dill salmon.
Crash hot potatoes.
Cheesy cauliflower.
Cream cheese and ham in puff pastry.
DELISH.


A special thanks to Vanessa for giving us the salmon her family wasn't using.
And Rebekah for giving us some potatoes.
And our landlady Jane for giving us the cauliflower (her gift only slightly eased my jealousy. She is currently on vaca in the Canary Islands.)
And my hubby for taking that picture above. He told me I'd love it. I said I think I liked mine better. I ended up using his!
Anyway...eating that awesome (and confidence-boosting) dinner tonight was just another reminder of how blessed we are!

Our Puppy

Talmage asked me to tell you
that he thinks the GREATEST thing
about crawling
is finding the things
that he knows Mom does't want him to have
and putting them in his mouth
before she even knows what's hit her.
It's a lot of fun,
for him.

Like this time.

And this one.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget this little number after the bath.

That last one is more than I can handle.
The one taken after he escaped from my arms (and his towel) after the bath.
Seriously, I want to eat him up.
I wish you all could see those cute little cheeks
BUT
after consulting with my Mamacita
I decided to do a little consoring...
you know, just in case any weirdos happened to find me in the blogsphere.
I guess I didn't cover very much, but hopefully enough?!

Anyway, I especially like it when he fetches the necklace/cord
and crawls back to me with it still in his mouth.
What a good puppy he is.

While I Was Sleeping...

I have been sick...again.

This time with strep throat. Oh yeah, and swine flu.

It came on SO super suddenly.

I woke up Sunday morning with a sore throat, and by the time I came home from church I was beyond wasted.

I had promised Elder A. borsch for dinner, and luckily I made it on Saturday.

When the elders arrived I was getting the chills and decided to get a sweatshirt from upstairs. Then I felt faint. Then I laid down. Then I remember waking up two hours later totally oblivious to the fact that I had slept through our whole dinner appointment.

Oops!

Apparently Elder A. LOVED the borsch and said it was very authentic (I love the internet!)

Unfortunately it only got worse for me.

Fever, chills, aches, exhaustion, etc.

Nothing a little Tamiflu and Antiobiotics can't handle!

BUT...

The real reason I wanted to post today was because of these two.

Mostly the big one!

I definitely married the right man...I am the lucky one in this relationship. For the last three days he has taken such good care of me, and Talmage. He's kept up on my meds. He has gotten up with T in the middle of the night (teething issues) and with me in the middle of the night(flu issues). He's done all the laundry on schedule (every Monday is my laundry day). He's cleaned the house. He's vaccuumed. He's done upteen loads of dishes. He's played with, fed, changed, and bathed Talmage...and kept him super entertained. He has fed us delicious, well-balanced meals and snacks (see below for the yummy example!)

AND...he has done all of it with a smile on his face (a really big one!)

AND...he hasn't complained once about work he needs to/should be doing.

AND...through all of this, he actually complimented me on how hard I work. "Being a stay at home Mom is a hard and very busy job. Thanks for doing it Heath."

Yep, it's official, I'm in love. Serious love.

He made me these blueberry cheesecake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. And they tasted every bit as good as they looked!

Just a few pics I got of the boys while I was resting on the couch.

And below is a video of Jim playing with Talmage. He was pretending to be asleep and Talmage was trying to figure it out. Sorry the lighting and video quality is bad...thought you'd still appreciate it.

OK, so one more time. Thank you Jim and I love you!