B+M+kids= craziness

Inspiration

2012-02-08T21:03:00.000-08:00

So for those of you who keep abreast of the activities on this blog (thanks for the love btw) you will notice that there is a big gap of events. I KNOW! aaaand, I apologize. I'm going to be catching up on it pretty quick hopefully so that you can see all of the things that we've been up too. I do like to post in chronological order (because I keep it mainly as a journal for my family) so you may see a lot of posts all of a sudden from the past months.

Today, however, I want to show you the inspiration for my current project which is Miriam's Room. I had already decided partially on a color scheme when we moved into our home this past year and have painted the walls a lavendar color. I had originally wanted to do an argyle under the chair rail molding in the room only to realize that hers was the only bedroom without this thereby foiling my plans. Drat! I had also had a butterfly/bird/woodland theme in mind as well so I just switched it all of to this frame of mind. One day while scouting out the local thrift store I came across this dress:

Ignore the wrinkles. Like I said, thrift store find. It's hard to tell how vibrant the colors are, but I had that "aha" moment and knew that this was my color scheme and theme. This quickly led me to finding this at Michaels.

I was in love with the colors and the birds and the cages and some very beautiful things not shown here. You know when it seems like a project is just coming together?

Lastly I saw these at homegoods:

And I thought, "CUTE!" and "I can totally make a lot of this stuff for less than it is here." Soon I'm going to post my frames project for each of the kid's rooms.

So what do you think? If I keep going I envision something really beautiful. You just might find me bunking with Mimi every so often ;) I can't wait to finish to show off the transformation.

From pinterest to reality

2011-11-09T11:30:00.000-08:00

My husband would be the first to agree that I love Pinterest. It quickly becomes addicting.

Source: cheezburger.com via Marie on Pinterest

I love to see all of the things that you can make, create, design, place, read, etc. A while ago I was talking to a friend about this site and she asked me if I had actually made any of the things that I had pinned. This is also a frequent running joke on that site. I thought about and I could only recall about 3 things that I had made and I'm thinking that most of them were food. So you can all see the evidence I'm going to be sharing my projects with my readers. I just started this yesterday and am currently working on a scarf as a present. I found this crochet pattern on pinterest. The tutorial is for a ripple blanket, which is beautiful and I decided to use it to make a scarf. More to come. I hope you enjoy the journey with me.

2011-11-08T05:47:00.000-08:00

So I've been meaning to catch up on my blogging. I have all these blog posts sitting in a folder because I haven't uploaded pictures yet. Sometime this week I'll be able to get to those, but until then here's a sneak peek.

M now looks like this (just an fyi she did this on her own):

And J looks like this:

Ben and I pretty much look the same.

Like I said, it's been a while since I've updated this. Miriam is soon to be 7 months old. And John is coming up on two and a half in a few months.

What have we been doing? Halloween was a few days ago and you can read about our adventures here. (when I make this a link). I'm getting over a weird science infection this week. And John and Miriam are just being two crazy, fun-loving, kids. Miriam eats mashed up food and tries to eat everything else that she can possibly keep her hands on which means I have to keep on eye on her brother because he seems to think that he needs to feed Miriam anything that he is also eating. At least he likes to share with his sister, right? Miriam is also sitting on her own, rolling to any destination, gooing and gaaing-with do da in between. She loves to bounce and stand on our laps, sit in her bumbo, etc. John continues to impress us with all of the words he knows and the sentences he can now form. He's really great at opening the fridge now too and was in awe at the past holiday where people he knew kept giving him candy.

Ben is finishing up the semester and is almost done. YAY! And I? I have just started working twice a week at the lds church offices. LOVE it.

So, soon I'll be all caught up on the blog and will be posting about our holiday season adventures and about the amazing crafts I'll be making for them thanks to my new friend, PINTEREST.

Catch you later peeps!

Winner, Winner

2011-09-02T21:17:00.000-07:00

The coolest thing happened to me. I had been talking to Ben about getting season passes to the aqaurium so that I could take the kids to do something fun and educational on boring house days (or quite frankly days where I just needed to get out) and thank goodness I didn't buy them. I entered a contest and won myself one and was able to get Ben one for half the price. SWEETNESS! I also ended up winning ksldeals daily giveaway with free minigolf and batting. I was feeling pretty awesome and better than that I had an auto date night outing. This free thing is not overrated people. Pics to come of usage of these sweet prizes.

We all scream for ICE CREAM

2011-07-27T20:47:00.000-07:00

We went to Ben's parents' home on Monday evening and, what a treat, we were able to have homemade ice cream to boot. Ben wanted to use the hand crank ice cream maker and his parents were nice enough to do that. As you can see John caught on very quickly and was soon a pro at alternating ice and salt in the machine.

Here are Ben, his mom, and Miriam waiting for ready and delicious ice cream.

A very rare moment. I've captured a picture of Ben's elusive brother. Mwahahaha. Of course, he did manage to hide his face. /:<

Miriam was very patient. Here she is happily waiting for her ice cream. And again here she is just moments later and tired of waiting. It's ok though cause she wasn't going to get any this year anyway.

Here's John giving it a crank. He was a great helper and obviously very involved in the ice cream making process this year. He even tried to churn it again at the very end when it was hardest to turn. Maybe next year he'll have the muscles to do it :)

Below to the left you'll see that scout, the family cat, is also waiting for her portion of the ice cream.

For informational purposes today was also a holiday, Pioneer Day. See my other post for that info.

John and I together. Lately I can not get this kid to pull of a regular smile. So here we have crazy face and Mr. Wiggle worm.

It's probably best this way though since what you really get to see is the energy that my LO has and just how much fun everything is for him. So while I would like to have a nice family pic of all of us together smiling, I love these peeks into what real life is like.

The finished product. A deliciously yummy rasberry cheesecake ice cream. I was posed the question of whether I would like this particular flavor to which I replied something to the effect of, "anything with cheesecake in it tastes good." This was not an exception.

What better way to end a summer night than to sip water from the hose? John sure got the whole summer experience tonight. Grilled hamburgers, potato salad, home made ice cream, and cool hose water. He has been inaugerated into childhood. I couldn't be prouder.

Yogurt face

2011-07-27T09:27:00.000-07:00

I gave John some yogurt and this is what it became. He at with a spoon and apparantly draped it all over his shirt and face (including nose and forehead) before actually putting it into his mouth.

Somebody's been sleeping in my bed

2011-07-27T09:03:00.000-07:00

Looks like goldilocks has some competition.

Mac sleeps everywhere. I don't mind if he curls up in his own bed or on the floor, but I am constantly finding him on the couch, on our bed, in John's bed, on the big stuffed monkey, on the chair, on Mimi's changing table, and in the cradle and crib.

Just look at poor mimi and her bed companion.

You better believe I kicked him out. Sheesh!

Happy Birthday John!

2011-07-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

We can now officially enter the terrible '2's. Though, if my chunk-a-munk wants to postpone or skip that phase, I wouldn't be too crushed.

We greeted John with Blues clues pancakes and we let him watch the show too. It was so cute because John saw these pancakes and said 'a clue, a clue' . He loves blues clues and can sing all of the songs. It is so amazing to me all of the things that a two year old knows. Ahhhh! I have a two year old. This went by so quickly.
.

What a crazy day. I was kind of procrastinator and ended up having to make most of the cake today, but I think it turned out pretty well.
However, I did need to do some damage control. I went to check on Miriam and then John comes running into the room with chocolate and crumbs all over his face and hands. OF COURSE he thinks this is the best thing ever. I think, "oh no" and go running to the kitchen and find this...

Luckily it wasn't something that a little frosting couldn't fix. Shhhh! Don't tell the parentals.

While this was all going on, Miriam sat adorably in her swing. That's my girl :)

We had a pretty chill day and the grandparents came over for some cake and present fun. All minus my pops of course since he is still living in Hawaii. (miss you dad) I wish we could have had more family and friends over but with all the events we'd already had with everyone I was a little partied out and just needed something easy.

My Bro (Uncle Fish) enjoying the Hunger Games series

Miriam is ready to PARTY!!!

John got some great gifts and it was SO thoughtful of our parents to get him something that he would really love.

See. Toys so fun, even Ben can't stay away. Lol.

Time for cake (that's supposed to be Elmo)

I can't believe that two years have gone by since our little boy entered our lives.
He is so smart and can understand and say so many things now. He is able to do so much too. Every day he surprises me with the things that he knows.

Some of his favorite things are:

Reading. He loves to read. He is always bringing books to us and pointing things out. Even when he goes to time out in his room he ends it by trying to get a book to read with us.

Dancing: We have an electronic keyboard in place of a piano. John likes to turn it on and put the beatboxing sounds on and then he goes into dance mode. I have NO idea where he gets these moves. He's bouncing back and forth, twirling, doing somersaults, bending his knees, working the arms, the head, the hips. I mean seriously this kid has some talent. The one draw back is that I am now so tired of hearing the same beat over and over and over again and he will finish dancing and just walk away to leave me "enjoying" his tunes.

Singing and music I am so glad that John loves these things, because we all know that I really love these things. John is always singing. He sings along to Blues Clues and Elmos World. He sings primary songs. And the other day in the car and then in the store he sang along to Bruno Mars' song Amazing. And my boy John IS amazing.

Cars and trucks Ok, so I took social work, psychology, sociology, and anthropology classes in college. I even took a women's studies class in high school. I remember learning about how we tend to provide our kids with gender cues and faux pas (ie boys playing with dolls and girls with trucks). Well, I did not push these on my kid (to the ultra feminist out there no I also didn't push the opposite either) and he still discovered his need to push cars and trucks around, crash them, and make sounds. John also like to point out the real-life cars and the obvious size difference in very big trucks, fire engines, bull dozers, etc. He does this by the eloquent "WHOA! Big truck!"

Coloring This boy loves to color. For his birthday we got him an easel with a dry erase on one side and a chalkboard on the other. We were smart and haven't given him markers yet. However John has discovered that chalk writes on other things around the house. Grrrr. He loves to color in his coloring books, and lately if we aren't watching he practices his artwork in reading books, on chairs, walls, doors, and the blinds. Joy.

Food: I am very thankful that our little boy is not a picky eater. He will eat or at least try pretty much anything. Sometimes he doesn't want it right away but he will eventually eat it. He's getting to the "everything around me is way more exciting than sitting here and eating" phase so we take what we can get.

Words and counting I can't believe all of the words John has learned in two years. Children are amazing. He expresses himself pretty well and is really good at mimicking what we say and retaining the memory of the word. He's able to pick out the letters of the alphabet in words now and Ben has done a really great job at teaching John the numbers. He counts to ten.

Show and tell: He loves to show us things. He points or just says " Airplane in sky, neigh horse, grass, dog, uh oh crying (when Miriam is), Daddy's home" and much more. It amazes me how much he notices.

Helping out: John is an excellent helper. He always wants to be around to help with dishes, vacuuming, feeding the cat, taking care of Miriam, etc. It's such a fun thing to see him so excited about doing everything.

Play time: Our little boy has no trouble getting into play mode. Just a hint of a smile or encouragement and he is running, dancing, yelling, talking, thinking, you name it and our boy is doing it. He loves to play. He hasn't really developed any aversions to any type of play either. He loves to figure out the mechanics of things, he likes reading and art as already mentioned. He likes puzzles and stuffed animals, being outside, animals, planes, puppets, sports, you name it and he'll probably play with it.

Church: Since we've moved to our new home and ward John has been great in Sacrament Meeting. I don't know if it's because there are so many other children now that we don't notice it as much though it seems that he really is calmer. Maybe he's still in awe at the constant children's voices hum in the chapel. At any rate he is being really great. I hope he's getting used to nursery though I can tell that he really misses his friends and nursery leaders from our old ward.

We have quite the special little boy and I feel so blessed to have him as part of our family.

Singing in the rain

2011-07-11T08:24:00.000-07:00

There have been a good number of summer storms lately. On one such evening Ben, Miriam, John, and even the cat took part in the fun.

As you can see, John thoroughly enjoyed himself. We can't seem to get him to let us wash his hair in the bathtub without a fit or fuss but put him outside to play in rain or any type of water situation and he is inevitably doused from head to toe.

Smartest thing I ever did was put him in these swim shorts.

I thought that the clouds around our house were really beautiful. You an see a very faint trace of a rainbow if you look closely and furher back along the horizon you can see the clouds start to change colors in lieu of the coming sunset. My camera skills were a little lacking to capture it all but I think you can still see the beauty of it.

Here's Daddy as he wrangles the kids and the garbage can all at the same time.

See, even Mac had a lot of fun in the aftermath of puddles. Usually our little trouble maker cat is right by the door at any sign of rainfall ready to be let into the house.

It's these lazy days of summer and family time small moments that are definitely to be remembered. The little things that make the kids laugh when we spend time together. I'm glad I thought to take a picture to remind me of the memory.

Cereal Monster

2011-06-27T15:40:00.000-07:00

I don't think that there is anybody that loves cereal more than our family. Ben even puts chocolate chips in it at night and eats it for dessert.

Well it must have rubbed off on John because he is always happy to eat it. Every morning we pour him a bowl and he goes to town using his spoon, then his hands, and finally slurping down all of the milk. I have to be careful about leaving the cereal box out though or this is what happens.....

Mr. Mischief here thinks that he can just take the bag out of the cereal box and fest on the contents. As you can see his place of choice for this delicacy is mommy and daddy's bed. I have to be pretty swift because once he knows that I know what he's doing he runs out of the kitchen through the house laughing and screaming. He makes it pretty hard to be cross sometimes and I have to try not to laugh as that would defeat the whole purpose helping him understand that he's doing something naughty. Sometimes I just can't help myself though.

Do you see this face to the left? This is what I mean. This cute little expression just makes it that much more difficult. It's a good thing you're so handsome little john. Lol.

Taylorsville Dayzz

2011-06-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

LOVE me some T-Ville Dayzz!

One of the downsides to living in Magna now is our vastly different proximity to Valley Park and the Taylorsville Dayzz festivities. Luckily our friends, the Tappanas, still live in the old neighborhood behind the park and we had a great excuse to go. Nothing better than food, fireworks, and fun....oh and of course shopping:) They had so many great booths this year and I picked up a lot of company cards for further perusal.

What was really great was watching John have fun with Lydia Tappana and Jackson Bassett (son of our other friends). He ran around and around dancing and laughing and playing.

Here's John enjoying some eats at Taylorsville Dayzz.

A blurry pic of John but that's ok.

Here's our baby girl Miriam along for the ride in her stroller.

John's friend Lydia. She's pretty stoked about the straw she has. She and John have a pretty good time together. And it was really cute to see all the running around they did. I was amazed at all the words she knew.

All of our friends chillin and waiting for the fireworks to start.

John loved seeing the fireworks. After each one he kept saying "whoa" or "ooh" or "wow" and often "boom" and he would twirl or run or play. It was hilarious and really made the fireworks more fun.

More of the show

Here are my boys. Ben and John always take cute pics together. It's really nice to have John at this stage of "not too heavy to carry on your shoulders" because he really loves it.

No matter where we live for the rest of our lives I definitely plan on coming back every year for Taylorsville Dayzz.

Junior Picassos

2011-06-23T11:32:00.000-07:00

Today I took the kids to the Salt Lake Arts Festival in downtown Salt Lake http://www.uaf.org/. I was hoping that Ben was going to be able to go, but it just so happened that the only day that we could go was also the day that Ben was going to have to work late. So I packed the kids into the car with extra clothes and a huge water bottle and cruised on downtown.

There are a few things that I wish I would have thought about before making the trip.

#1- Parking

Parking downtown already sucks. I went in the afternoon- so parking meters weren't scarce but you can only put in so much change and A: I didn't have any change B: there's no way I'm walking back and forth with two kids just to put change in a meter. There are parking lots but they were charging 6 and even 10 dollars to use them. That is RIDICULOUS!!! Especially since one of the 10 dollar places was the library. Yeesh! I ended up deciding to Park on 5th south in free parking. This did require me to walk with John while pushing Miriam in the stroller a few blocks. Which brings me to my next thought...

#2- Event Transportation

Had I been thinking, I would have parked by the trax station further up the street and taken the kids to the library. That way I'd besitting in an air conditioned train with total control of the kiddies. The next ideal would've been to bring my sling to carry Miriam and push John in the stroller. (What I would've given to have already bought the double stroller) I had decided not to take the sling because I thought it would be easier to have a place to put Miriam knowing that John would just get restless and I'd be stuck pushing an empty stroller while chasing one kid and carrying the other.

In the end, what I did end up doing was walking with John those few blocks,and then; quickly realizing at that rate I wouldn't get there til Christmas, putting him on my shoulders and pushing Miriam to the entrance. This is also how we came back. The upside? Excercise for me. :)

#3- Making the health booth your first stop is the best idea.

Here you'll find free cold water and fans. They also gave us a plastic water bladder to fill up for John to carry (yes, I did bring our own water but this was way more fun for him). In addition to that they had adult and kid sunscreen and sunscreen in packets. I'm really glad that we stopped here first because it made the festival a lot more enjoyable.

#4- Swimsuits

If you think that there is going to be water for your kids to play in where you are going, bring the inswimsuit either in your bag or by having them wear it there. We stopped at this little fountain (before and after we did everything else) and luckily I had the foresight to have John wear his swim shorts. He had a lot of fun and I didn't worry about him getting his clothes wet AND it dried quickly. PLUS it made a hot day bearable for my little boy.

We walked into the water and at first John was a little unsure of what I was letting him do. "You want me to play in the water and get my clothes wet mom?"

It didn't take him long to warm up to the idea though and pretty soon he was splashing and even sitting in the water here.

#5- How hard it really is to take to small children to any public place.

I applaude single parents who do this kind of thing everyday. It was an interesting experience and I think that I'll definitely take Ben with me to this next time because it sure was a balancing act.

.

"Mom, get me out"

Someone's a little sad. :(

John thought that this dragon was pretty neat and he kept trying to shake his hand. I had to pull him away finally though cause I didn't want to be "that mom" who let her kid break the dragon art.

Playing with the blocks in the shade

John is trying to figure out how to get up on the slide. One little girl saw him and said, "um I think this one is for the bigger kids." Lol.

John loves the teeter totter and this Aligator one was right up his alley

This green sand was really soft and John loved playing in it with the other kids. They also had other sand boxes full of blocks and other toys.

Under the red shade of the stroller is Miriam dozing away while John has his fun in the sun.

FYI the arts festival is a great place to take kids. Ages 12 and under are free and they have some great activities for them. There were 6 to 8 booths with things to do and take home and they were free. There were even a few more things to do if you wanted to spend 7 - 10 dollars more. I'm glad that we went and I hope to make this a tradition.

Sunset with Daddy

2011-06-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

Ben called me outside the other day and I'm glad he did. There was a beautiful sunside outside our door and it was lovely to watch together. It's nice to take some time and just enjoy nature together as a family. It's fun, pretty, and free :)

This photo reminds me of a baby picture that my mom and I have together in Hawaii in front of a sunset, except the ocean is there instead of the street.

John decided that he would run around in circles as an expression of his love for letting him be outside.

Can you see John? This is the only pic I could finally get where he was holding still and by then it was almost too dark.

What a great night!

curly sue

2011-06-22T21:43:00.001-07:00

My little princess' hair is so curly. I thought it was wavy when it was born, but then we took her out of the bath the other day and this is what we saw.

Can you believe it. SO cute!!!

Marcus Aurelius aka Mac

2011-06-22T21:14:00.000-07:00

So a couple weeks after we have moved in and began putting the kitchen in order Ben advises me of a better arrangement for our food and dishes. One morning I go to the cupboard in our dining room and proceed to move the food out and the dishes in. Much to my surprise and dismay I notice that on the second highest shelf a package of instant oatmeal has a hole in the middle of it and oats sprinkled onto the shelf. I'm sure you've guessed. Yes, our almost ninety year old house must have at least one mouse. GROSS!

Of course like the scared housewife that I am I immediately text my husband and advise him of said problem. He comes home and says that yes, we are going to get a cat. A CAT?! My first thought is defnitely not.

Ok, ok, okay. I'll be the first to admit that I was the first to suggest that now that we had our own home we could start the pet process. But I was thinking puppy and 2012 sounded nice together. While I understood the necessity of a cat (because I really can't stand the thought of finding a dead mouse in a trap) I also thought of my newly complicated life of a toddler and a newborn. And now I had to take care of a cat? So I proposed a plan. We could go to the animal shelter and if we found a cat that we loved and knew would be the best fit for our family then we could get it.

Guess what? We found one. After wandering passed a gazillion barking dogs we got to the cat area and there were at least 40 cats who needed a home. I saw a few that I liked and settled on one that I really loved because she looked nice and was beautiful. We took her out to meet each other and she scratched Ben in the face. We put her back.

Then John started to play with a skinny orange tabby cat and somehow our whole family fell in love. We took him out and he purred and we knew that this was our cat. Good job John.

John loves Mac. He chases him around and tries to feed him. Mac definitely needs some help in learning house rules like not sleeping in certain places or jumping on the table and breaking things. Sometimes all I can think is "oh that dumb cat" but he really is sweet and seems to be able to tell the difference between the adults and the kids. He leaves Miriam alone and plays well with John. He likes to play bite too, which truthfully I hate but all the guys sure get a kick out of it. He has his cute cat moments though, so he's a keeper.

HAIR

2011-06-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

My hair for halloween 2010. Someone actually asked me if it was all mine.

John's "I fell asleep during sacrament meeting" hairstyle

Miriam's first bath and hair washing experience

I never realized how much people notice hair until I grew mine out again and had two children blessed with an abundance for ther young age. EVERYWHERE we go at least one of us gets a comment on our hair. I hear things like, "look at all that hair" "such beautiful hair" "wow that's a lot of hair" "can you cut off the bottom of your and give it to me?" "How do you/they have so much hair?" "My so and so has a lot of hair too" "That is thick hair" " there's more hair there than I have had in a lifetime" "all my babies were bald" " That's more hair than my kid has and they are ____ years old" "how often do you have to cut their hair" and on and on.

Really I'm flattered, and to be honest, I am also ecstatic that my children have a good head full of beautiful dark locks, I just never realized the extent to which people notice/think about it. I'll tell you what though...I now spend a lot more time down the hair aisle because now I KNOW ya'll be lookin at my 'do and I don't know if I can handle the pressure. ;)

Miriam Losana Roe

2011-06-15T17:19:00.000-07:00

Two months later and I finally have a breath to talk about our newest family member. Things have been so busy with the move to our new home, getting settled, the baby blessing, birthdays, graduations, etc. And so, NOW I can share.

For starters, we had no idea what to expect since our first child came in at 10lb 1oz and 21 inches long. When you have your first child and no one in your family has ever had a ten pound baby you don't expect to go in there and pop one out and so you're not thinking about it. What I was thinking was, "Women everywhere do this, the dr. is expecting about an 8 pound baby and that's normal, so let's go." It's an entirely different feeling when you think that you know what to expect and now your nervous because you know that there is a very real possibility that you could be going for another good sized child.

Miriam was 7 lbs 3 oz and 19.5 in long and was born in the evening. I can't believe that we went from ten to seven. For the first few weeks (and really who am I kidding, even now) we didn't know what to do with such a tiny baby (when we took her home she had lost the normal weight that they do in the hospital and was under 7 pounds). We had to go out and buy more newborn diapers because we weren't expecting to get a child who would actually use them.

Things that were nice about this hospital experience:

-I knew what to expect. I had already done this once and I knew how I wanted things to go, when to call people to come and visit, when I wanted the epidural, I knew how the whole birthing process worked, etc.

-I knew what to bring. I didn't pack for a two week bunker down, I packed for a couple of day stay at the hospital. I knew what I liked and lacked from the last time.

- I got to watch Miriam be bathed. I totally missed out on John's first bath, but this time I asked and made sure that we got pics, etc.

-Miriam and I both knew how breastfeeding worked. It was crazy amazing. I think that John would have gotten it faster if I had known what I was doing. From the moment she was born she knew what to do and so did I. Yay for passing that stress ball right over.

Miriam was born with a lot of hair and at first I thought it was just as much as John's but I have since realized that she has more.

John loves his new sister. He always wants to hold her and sit next to her, hug her and kiss her. I think he didn't really get that she was around for good at first, but now he is finally getting that she is not going anywhere.

Miriam coming home

She spent the first few weeks waking up in the night sometimes, but for the most part our little girl has been a fantastic sleeper and has been sleeping through the night.

John is giving his new sis a little too much love and attention.

I will say that it has been an adjustment with both kids. John is at an age where he is able to get into everything and he usually chooses the time when I am busy changing, nursing, or doing something with Miriam to get into mischief. Typical.

We really love her. I didn't realize how much you could love one child and now I can't believe that my cirlce has expanded and I am able to give so much love to two children. It amazed me constantly. I am just as excited to see her do things as I was with John. I wish I was a little more camera happy though. Sometimes there just isn't time to grab the camera (again, the mischief maker). Hopefully that will get better soon.

Miriam's Baby Blessing

2011-06-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

One of the first things that we did in our new neighborhood and ward was the blessing and party celebrating the coming of our daughter Miriam. It was a pretty hectic time leading up to it as we had to unpack, organize, paint, fix, etc. our new home. In the weeks leading up to this we had Ben and my third anniversary, my brother's high school graduation, mother's day, my dad's coming to town, my school finals, actually moving, and the day before was my 26th birthday. Needless to say, May left us a little worn out.

It was a wonderful day. Up until the day before I was wrestling with myself on whether or not to buy a blessing dress. I had made John a blanket for his and had always hoped to have something to pass to my daughter someday that was special. I caved. I found this gorgeous dress at the LDS Distribution Center and made the rhinestone flower on this headband myself. Miriam looked absolutely precious that day and I was glad to get so many pictures of her. I actually wasn't able to take too many of just her on the actual day so the pics of just her I took the following day.

Here's a group shot of some of our guests. We had Ben and my immediate family and their kids as well as our grandparents and some of our friends. I had wanted to keep it small and I think that it worked out nicely.

This is my niece Kaylee. She is a week younger than John and is my sister's third child. Isn't she so darling? I don't know why, but for some reason she is the only kid besides ours that I took a picture of. I must have been too busy handling the hosting to take any pictures of anybody :(

Kaylee's mom aka my sister Milika. Isn't she cute?! I always tell people that she's the beautiful one of the two of us, cause she is. She's got great skin and seems to be effortlessly beautiful. I hate that. ;) Lol. JK sista!

YAY!!!!!!!!! I got a generation photo. I always wanted to have one. This is my mother's mother Roseann, my mother Sara, myself, and Miriam. Four generations.

One of the most special parts of the week was having my dad fly in from Hawaii. He spent time and money to be with family and it really meant a lot to me especially because I really want him to know his grandchildren and for them to know and love hime. I've learned a lot from my dad. Many of it has come in hindsight and I wish that I could go back in time and soak up more of the knowledge that he tried to impart to me during those growing up years. He's a good man and has a good heart.

Grandpa Tafui and our sweet girl. We gave Miram the middle name Losana which is tongan for Rosanna. We did this so that our children would have a piece of family and heritage in their names. I still don't know a lot about my Tongan family background but I hope to learn and love it along with my children.

Ben and I each with our turn to hold this special girl. She has truly changed our lives. We had a great family before she was born. We loved each other and we truly loved and still love so much our son John. Miriam allowed us to love yet another person and for me, to love more people so much more than I thought possible. She has truly affected the three of our lives and everyday is full of new experiences and happiness together.

These next two picture are our attempt at a family portrait. Unfortunately I waited to long to get it organized and, as you can tell, John just didn't want to participate. He just couldn't hold still with all of the excitement occurring around him. Ah well, C'est la vie!

Here is our next attempt. At least Ben was able to corral John, but a happy face just was not in the cards for us. Maybe in the coming years.

Blessed on June 5, 2011. In this picture you can really see how precious she really looks and what an adorable, darling, cute, loveable, and so much more baby she is. Just like her brother was before her. We sure are truly blessed.

I thought it appropriate to put feet at the end of this post. Just a little peek at the tootsies and the detailing in the dress.

Uncle Fish graduates from school

2011-06-02T21:39:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it. My baby brother Joseph graduated from high school this year. He looked really great and I especially enjoyed seeing his mountain of leis. My mom even made some of the candy and money leis. Feels weird to have a sister with kids and two brothers that are now so old. We are all officially grownups and in the real world. It seems like only yesterday that we were excited to see our new baby brother and now I have two kids of my own.

Look at how much taller Joseph is than I. He's eight years younger than I am and almost a whole foot taller. This picture is funny to me too because we both seem weighed down. Joseph by the enormous amount of leis and his cap and diploma; and myself by my two churres (northern Peru slang for little ones/kids). Do we look related?

Joseph with Auntie Ana, Dad's sister. She made those candy bar leis that you see around his neck. Her family does some pretty amazing stuff with candy.

Here are the grandkids or in Joseph's case neices and nephews. I think they look like they're posing for their lates album cover. Grandma Sara gave them each a candy lei.

John looks excited to be here right?

Hey kiddo badidos, could you look at the camera?

Miriam is very ecited to be outside ;) I think she was pretty tired and was crying until loving grandma Sara took her out of her car seat and held her.

Well Congratulations Uncle Fish! West Jordan High School Class of 2011.

(Almost as cool as my Alma Mater Cottonwood. GO COLTS!!!)

Welcome to Magna!

2011-05-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

Well besides the excitement of having a baby, our new family of four has also recently purchased a home in Magna Utah.

Here's our house. It's a red brick rambler with approx 2700 square feet. We have a garage in back and a good sized yard too. (Why yes that is our cat in the window) We love our new home and as you can see it needs some love in the front yard to look more inviting. I'll post pics of the rest of the yard so that you can see the fun work ahead of us in the back yard.

It's been a lot of fun painting and putting up pictures on the walls knowing that we can do what we want. I'm excited for the projects ahead of us though mostly for the end result. We're excited for our new adventure and love the neighborhood and our new ward. I think it'll be a great place for our kids to grow up. Best part about this? I know that in a year from now, we won't have to move. Longest place we'll have lived in our whole marriage and it feels really nice.

I wanted to post this pic because this is the moment that I knew that we were home. When the boy scouts came by and put a flag in our own front yard. It was pretty cool.

The Magic number 15

2011-05-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

Well Ladies and Gents,

It's happened once again. On April 15th beeeeeeeeeeeauuuutiful Miriam entered our lives and 3 became 4 officially. She was born 7 lbs 3 oz and 19.5 in long, she is definitely the little lady of the family.

Miram and I meeting each other in the "outside world"

Daddy seems to like her too. In fact, up until this moment Ben was unsure of whether or not he wanted to have more kids seeing as John is entering the "two" phase a little early. But after she was born, he says, "Oh, well I guess we can have more." Cute, right? Miriam is already learning how girls get their way ;)

John and Miriam saying hello. What this really is, is an attempt to get a pic of John kissing Miriam, but the cameras all snapped too slowly or too quickly. I know it happened though and it was precious. From day one, John has been a great older brother. It was good to be back with my first baby boy, I missed him that whole day.

Part of Miriam's first bath. This was especially cool for me because I totally missed John's. I don't know why they didn't have me go and watch at that time. We didn't get any pics either so I made Ben take a bunch of Miriam. Both of my babies love getting a bath.

Wearing clothes for the first time. What a cute girl.

Pretty much everyone lost the bet on how much she was going to weigh since John was our 10 pounder. Right away Miriam showed me that each child is different from the other and thankfully she was born a natural breastfeeder. I was so grateful because I know how hard it can be (from my own experience and that of others) to get started and she has just never been a problem. Interestingly, my first night after she was born was the worst I'd ever experienced, which is remarkable since as I stated before, I gave birth to a Big boy. Naturally. As I look back on it I realize that it was probably from the anesthesia. When I was prepping for the epidural the anesthesiologist had to numb me three times because I could still feel the epidural needle. Since the pain seemed to be coming from that area I think it was the repeated poking that wore me out.

Because the practice of my OB office moved we ended up delivering Miriam in a different hospital than St Marks where we had John. As soon as I learned that I was all over the internet looking up reviews on JVMC and to my sadness many of them were not good. Luckily I noticed that the hospital had done some remodeling after the reviews were posted and I was also able to find some friends who had gone to that hospital's maternity ward in the past two years. Thank goodness they all had rave reviews and calmed my fears. As for my own experience? LOVED it! The nurses were wonderful, the rooms were big, I got a lot of time with Miriam, and the food wasn't too bad either. Overall I felt like they really wanted to do their best to take care of our family. What more can you ask for, right?

John is a great BIG brother and loves his sister to smothering. He always wants to hold, kiss, hug, lie next to, play with, feed, and inevitably love to pieces our little princess. John is also discovering a new love for forgotten toys that his sister now enjoys. The baby swings have resurfaced and he seems to think they are still his. I guess it can be confusing for the little tyke having until recently been an only child. I definitely have to watch him more now since he doesn't seem to care if his sister is already using it or not, he just plops right in. Poor Miriam:(

Getting used to having two kids has been fun, and all I can say is that I can't afford to be too unorganized with my time anymore.

Goodbye for now SLCC

2011-05-06T22:07:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally did it. I finished my sojourn for now at SLCC and got my associate's degree. WOOHOO!!! It took long enough, but it feels good to have accomplished something. Next stop....bachelor's degree, and probably at the U (sad face cause I'm a total Y fan but who can commute with crazy life happenings?). Anyway, for now it's helping Ben finish his degree at the U and get to where he wants to be.

So goodbye for now SLCC it's been fun and maybe we'll see each other again sometime.

Hippity Hoppity Easter's on its way....

2011-04-27T22:49:00.000-07:00

It's weird to think that it was Miriam's first Easter and only John's second. I can't believe that only a year ago our little boy was about to turn one. It seems like we've had him forever and for no time at all at the same time. Miriam is a week old. Her clothes are still so big on her and she could have worn her easter bib by itself and been almost completely clothed ;) On the aturday before Easter we put little candies into plastic eggs and hid them around the back yard. It was a lot of fun to see John with his basket gathering up the eggs and Ben leading him around at first to get him started on what exactly he was looking for. Miriam just sat there, of course :)

Above is a pic of John's haul. A full basket of bright eggs and as you can see, he has already discovered the candy inside and is sharing it with daddy and miriam. To the left is a pic of pretty much what Miriam did the whole time. She's pretty cute if I do say so myself.

Here I am chilling with my wonderful and gorgeous kiddos. Miriam looks so tiny.

We went to visit great grandmother Gerstner (my grandmother on my mother's side). It's always fun to see her and we don't go as often as I would like to. I'm so glad that she got to hold Miriam as a newbie newborn.

Here's our little boy enjoying what the Easter Bunny left him. Lot's of candy and some bubbles. As you can see, he was not confused as to what was to been done with it all.

Closer look at Mr. Monk's Easter basket.

Miriam's first Easter basket. No candy for her (for obvious reasons). Cute Easter hair accessories and a bib. Yay for having a girl!

We went to visit family on Easter Sunday. Here's a pic of Grandma Sara (me mum).

It's always fun playing with Grandma's toys.

An attempt at a family picture. Ugh, I'm in it.

Here we are again. I wonder if I actually looked into a mirror that day.

The wonderful boys in my life.

Look at the talent and the reach that he has!

I wanted to add that Easter for us isn't just colored eggs, candy, and bunnies with baskets. It's really important to us as parents that our children learn about why we celebrate Easter religiously. We did talk to our kids about it this year though I'm not sure how much of it actually registered. But, we'll keep doing it every year. I'm grateful for a reminder of the Son of God who died for us and was ressurrected that we might also live again and live together with our families after this life. What a great weekend to spend remembering Him and being with family.

Fantastic four

2011-01-29T20:58:00.000-08:00

Well now that I have less than 3 months of this pregnancy, I guess I should probably document the coming of our second child.

Around April 18th, we'll be welcoming a baby girl into our family and John will be a big brother and no longer an only child.

I was pretty sure that this one was going to be a girl since the pregnancy has been SO different from John. With John, I didn't have any of the unpleasant symptoms, but this little girl just loved making me nauseated during the first trimester. Thank goodness that is over.

We ended up having 3 ultra sounds during this pregnancy since at my first doctor visit he couldn't find the heartbeat. MUCH to my relief everything was fine and we went on to have the second Ultrasound a month later (finding out that it was a girl) and a third a month after that because she was hiding her face. John did this too at his first Ultrasound so it must be that our teasing personalities have been passed on to our kids even before they leave the womb.

Because I'm a girl I don't feel bad about saying that I love the idea of getting to dress my girl in pinks and pastels, flowers and bows, cute shoes and tights, and all that jazz.

John can now say baby and we try to explain what's going on, but the fact that he still likes to jump on me and looks at my expanding belly as a new trampoline tells me that he doesn't really get it yet. He's only 18 months after all. Oh well, he'll learn eventually and I'm sure he'll be a GREAT big brother.

I'm not sure how we're going to handle 2 kids, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Just more craziness for our Roe clan and more fun for our growing family.

John's first birthday EVER

2010-07-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

We had a great time for John's birthday. I wanted a big bash for my special guy and lucky for me, Ben was in agreement. We probably won't do a big party every year for our kids, in fact we may not do another party for people other than family until John is 5. But hey, you only get one first birthday.

If I were to do this again I probably would have done a lot more the day before and just had it ready to bring out. I was glad for the menu we picked. It was easy and delicious.

These girls could almost be twins by the look of this picture. I normally don't think they look so much alike but the camera really captured something. Such cute cousins John has. He also had his my sisters 3 other kids and the brother to these two there. John is not without playmates his age in our family, thank goodness.

Mmmm.....Tacos.

Enjoying the good eats!

Here's the schmorgesborg (sp?) It was super yummy, easy to make, and kid friendly. What more can you ask for at a party for a one year old and most of the guest being under the age of 4?

It was really nice because John's birthday is in July and we were able to use our Landlord's backyard for the party. We had tacos and of course cake. It was my first time working with fondant and I guess it turned out all right, but took a LONG time to make. Hopefully I'll get better with practice.

While it may not be the best looking cake, it sure did taste excellent. Ben took the remaining cake to work and everyone loved it. So yay.

John was most excited about the food and the fact that we let him get messy and run around. We had a great time watching him.

My two favorite guys.

Some of John's haul waiting to be opened.

Opening presents with you one year old really involves you opening most of the presents and being excited and feeling blessed for the amazing things that your child got while at the same time pulliong him to the next amusing package and coaxing him to open it.

Starting to get the hang of opening his presents.

It was a great first birthday for our little boy. We are truly blessed to have so many wonderful family and friends who love and support our family and we are especially grateful for this little guy. I can't believe that one year has passed.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T21:30:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure that Valentine's day isn't the most exciting holiday for babies. But, we're first time parents and so you can count on pictures of John participating in most major holidays this year.
John and I rocking our sweet and appropriate Valentine's day attire. Of course you can't tell, but those pajama pants actually have red, white, and pink hearts on them.

Grandma Roe (ben's mom), mailed a special Valentine to John. She's pretty talented and thoughtful that way. John's first Valentine:)

John was not very excited about getting his hands cleaned off. In the following pics you'll see that what Daddy Ben was removing was yummy frosting from John's fingers.

Hmmm.....I think that someone over there has something for me to put in my mouth.

What better way to celebrate the day of love than in your tux while eating a giant cookie? Thanks Grandma Sara for the tasty Valentine's day treat!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2010-01-01T21:47:00.000-08:00

Stardate 1.1.2010....JUST KIDDING hahaha.
What an exciting new year Ben and I had as we said Happy New Year and went to bed. Yep.

Family Christmas

2009-12-31T21:49:00.000-08:00

Well, our first Christmas with John was a success. We were able to attend all of our family parties, go to temple square, have a Christmas Eve dinner with yummy food and spend the holidays with our families. John was adorable as usual and seemed to really enjoy the christmas wrapping paper. (He thought that the presents were neat too) We couldn't have asked for anything better but being together.

Ben with his fake sad face. He got coal for being naughty. BUT, he musn't have been too bad because it was really filled with chocolate.

WOW Mommy and Daddy, Do I get the tree too?

John's christmas haul.

It came with packages, boxes, and bows. Yes sir, we were one of the lucky ones and no grinch stole our christmas. John did try to eat it though.

Christmas traditions

2009-12-20T21:48:00.000-08:00

It's our second Christmas for Ben and I as a married couple and the first for our family of three which really got us thinking about which family traditions we wanted to bring from our own families and what we wanted to add that was new.

What's been nice is that our extended family seems to continue the traditions at the Roe and Gerstner family parties and so it's made it really easy for us to make our little family Christmas all our own. We did decide to make a Christmas book like the one that Ben grew up with and to do the family line-up like my family does and Ben is pretty adament about having steak. (men and their meat haha)
One thing is for sure, whatever we do, it will be a special christmas with John as it is his first ever since his existence on this earth. NEAT!

Shopaholic

2009-12-18T22:37:00.000-08:00

Hello my name is Marie and it has been 3 hours since my last shop. I suppose what I really am is a look-a-holic. I love to go out and browse, window shop, and so on. And now that I've been blessed with cute John, I can't help but look at cute things for him. Perhaps I should join a group? You know what doesn't help? Commercialized holidays that create such cute things and a Joann Fabric and crafts within 5 minutes of my home.

Roly-Poly uh oh

2009-12-18T22:19:00.000-08:00

John began rolling last week. He went from barely rolling to Mr. Roly-Poly overnight. We are officially in the "daredevil" stage of John's babyhood. He rolls everywhere! He rolls around on the ground, on the couch, on my lap, EVERYWHERE! So much so that yesterday I set him on my mom's couch, sitting up, all the way back and turned away for a minute to check on something. My brother Joseph comes in and I ask him to watch John. I then hear " hey, did you put him on the floor?" "No, is he on the floor?" "yep" JOHN!!!

...and the worst parent award goes to............(drumroll)..................Me!

Sadness, my baby fell off of the couch. Weird though, he didn't even cry, he just kept playing. I checked all over and no marks. Needless to say I have been closely monitoring him ever since.

mmm...the tastiness

2009-12-10T22:22:00.001-08:00

On November 24th John got to have his first taste of rice cereal and he's loved it ever since! These pictures are of his first ever venture into the world of utensils an food. However, it's pretty much like this now, too. The first time he tried it he liked the food but wasn't too sure about how the spoon was going to help him get that yummy food into his mouth. This is definitely obvious when you see how much got near or in his mouth but no further. Now, while he's mastered the art of the spoon feed, he has decided that feeding himself is much more fun as he tries to take the spoon from mommy or daddy or better yet stick his hand in the cereal and then all over his face. However messy he gets, it sure is fun as we watch his face when he tastes all these new and different foods. So far John has tasted (notice I said tasted, not portionally eaten) pumpkin pie, beans, yams, icecream, rice cereal, carrots, potatoes, cheese, spaghetti sauce, lemon pie, and some other stuff. I suppose many of you are reading with your mouths agape at our 5 month old trying all this stuff. However, the Dr. said too, soooooooooooooooo we follow dr.'s orders. :)

John trying to grab the spoon from mom to feed himself

looking and waiting for that delicious cereal

"mmm mmm" clean so far!

The end result of little John John's feeding frenzy.
Thanks turtle bib!

Like father, like son

2009-12-10T22:13:00.001-08:00

SO........This isn't the best picture of ben (mostly because the upper half of his head is cut off here) but this is a good time to point out the similarities between my two boys. It's a little hard to say for sure who John will end up looking the most like, but at this point let's point out a few with Daddy and baby. Notice the mouth, the nose, and the chin. Obviosly the hair color is from mom. The hairline is a mix between mom's pointy widow's peak and dad's hairline. The eyes and ears are also mom's. Anyway, this may sound boring to all of you, but I've had so many people ask and comment that I thought I would give you my view.
(PS. this pic is of John's first day eating rice cereal. see post entitled mmm...the tastiness)

"I love daddy" is ruined

2009-12-10T11:05:00.000-08:00

This past week I pulled John's clothes out of the washer and somehow one of his pjs was stuck under the spinner. When I pulled it out the damage was already done and I found three small holes in it. This was especiall sad because Ben had just said that he was going to be sad when John grew out of this outfit because he loved seeing him in that "I love daddy". I hope that I can sew it up before he grows out of it. In the meantime here are som pics as a tribute to that beloved pajama.

Bouncing Baby

2009-12-07T07:40:00.000-08:00

John is becoming more and more active every day. He now can mostly sit on his own, until he decides to lean back. But, even before that he's loved standing when we hold him. Now however, we've started putting him into his bouncy chair. Thus I present bouncing baby:)

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

2009-12-06T22:10:00.001-08:00

Last Friday we went to get our Christmas Tree. It was great! This is actually the earliest that I've ever gotten a tree so I was pretty excited to get that holiday spirit going. John of course was overjoyed, or he would have been had he not slept through the whole thing.

We picked it up at a tree lot about 3minutes from our house and were both impressed by how nice the "tree guy" (totally technical term) was. After packing the tree onto our subaru we got it back into our tree stand and started stringing the lights. By this time John had woken up, yet he still found his bouncy toy to be more interesting (go figure). Well, I'm sure by the time all the lights are on and ornaments put up and the shiny wrapped presents are underneath he will be more than happy to hang out over there. By this time however I'll be doing something along the lines of "no honey, don't touch" (oh we moms, what can you say).

So, here at the Roe home we have officially kicked off the holiday season. Ben and I have even started talking and planning the yearly traditions we would like to begin as a family which to me is the best part. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

2009-11-13T23:17:00.000-08:00

Today was Granddad Gerstner's birthday so John and I went to visit he and Grandmother in their home.

Here they are! John's middle name is Siosefa which in Tongan means Joseph. I chose that name in honor of this man Joseph Dean Gerstner. He said that John is pretty heavy and he's not kidding:)

Here's Granddad with his cool shades and John with that signature brow furrow of his. A couple of cool cats.

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...............Also, today my sister started her new job, which gave me the opportunity to watch her youngest child Kaylee. Kaylee is one week younger than John, but the difference in size is just craziness. Even so, the two together equals cuteness. Here are a few pics of them together. I tried to get them to smile at the same time, but working with two almost 4 mo. olds produces a cornacopia of photos where one smiles and the other doesn't. First John would smile but Kaylee wouldn't and vice-versa OR neither would smile and one would look away. Here are three of the best photos we took (BTW notice that Kaylee is in pink and John in blue. It was a funny coincidence.)

Chillin' on the couch together. They had fun playing together and talking to each other.

Check out John's chunky legs. REALLY they are only 1 week apart!

Hanging out on the bed, propped on the pillows. John had some obvious drool issues.

Overall it was a pretty great day, filled with family fun. At the end of the day when you can look back and say you spent it with family, it's always one of those good days.

"Little" John

2009-11-12T16:27:00.000-08:00

On July 15, 2009 one of the best things in the world happened to us. John Siosefa Roe was born. At 10lbs 1 oz and 21 inches long, with an abundant amount of dark hair, our little boy almost skipped the little part.

I can't believe he was ever this little. It's almost sad to think that he'll never be this little again, it goes by so fast!

Here's our "bebe" minutes after he was born. He hasn't stopped sucking on that hand since, haha

The Family Blog

2009-11-12T16:18:00.000-08:00

I guess we'll see how this goes. The family blog. I should've started this earlier because it would have made things to post SO much easier. But now, I want to post everything from back in the day up until the present. AYE!

I suppose I'll start with an intro to us. Some of you know both of us really well, some only me, some only Ben, and some may be lucky to even know John.

SO, here we go...