Keeping It Real...

Ellie Girl has Hippo Teeth

2012-01-24T14:03:00.001-06:00

We've found RJ's little Radio Flyer bike works a lot better as a walker than the bulky one in the background. The bike has 4 wheels so it's pretty stable and the perfect height for her to walk around. She has had a tumble trying to get off herself, but walks around really well otherwise.

Here's our cute girl, she's 10 months old now.

She's a light sleeper and hates to take naps.

Shirt hat.

Here's the latest development.

Hippo snaggle teeth and piggy spikes.

Her hair was getting in her eyes and by the end of the day the tips of her bangs were crusted with food she'd rubbed in trying to get it out of her eyes. I don't want to deal with bangs, so we're growing the hair out and so she now has cute little pig tail spikes.

RJ loves her new hair style and has told me at least 4 times today: "Mom Ellie's hair is so cute!"

Here's a better shot of her huge gap between her front teeth like her mom had and RJ

Thanksgiving

2012-01-08T22:52:00.002-06:00

Rhett had to work again on Thanksgiving this year so I took the kids down to my mom's house in Highland where we had our family. We broke off from going to my Grandma's a while ago, so it's nice to just have my parents and siblings and to have a really nice dinner on china and not sitting on a card table.

The huge paper plate Thanksgivings are fun too, but it was nice to have fancy meal.

It was fun to see my parents since we don't see much of them now they live in St. George. RJ especially loves my dad and had fun raking leaves all morning with him.

Lynette crocheted this hat and scarf for Ellie, and made her this little wool coat, and the lace fancy pants.

After dinner my dad, my brothers, and Lynette and Drew and myself went west of Utah lake to shoot guns.

I'd never really shot guns and it was really quite fun. The weather was so unusually warm and nice.

We took the left over pumpkins from my mom's porch to shoot.

Not all of us had ear protection.

This rifle was my dad's favorite.

I think my favorite was the .22

Herschel knows a butt-load about guns.

Here's my dad trying to get his ear plug out of his ear canal with Herschel's machete he got for his birthday that day.

The rest of the night was pretty lazy, except for Drew who threw RJ high in the air over and over.

All in all a really great Thanksgiving.

RJ Menace

2012-01-08T22:30:00.001-06:00

Trying to catch up on the last few months.

RJ cut his own hair with scissors...to the scalp.

In his defense, it was kind of my fault. I put the clipper case in front of him and told him when he was done eating his breakfast I needed to cut his hair. I went up to change out a load of laundry and came back to his new look.

Here's his technique.

Another occasion he gave him self a dry-erase marker beard and uni-brow.

He laughed and laughed when he saw what he looked like in the mirror.

{Notice his shaved head from the previous exploits.}

Sweet Ellie Girl

2011-11-07T13:05:00.001-06:00

There's something extra sweet about a baby daughter.

Kids

2011-11-07T12:35:00.000-06:00

The kids still look really similar, but we feel like Ellie is growing into her own look a little.

We love visiting Lynette!

Boys In the Kitchen

2011-10-10T00:28:00.000-05:00

Rhett doesn't cook much. Both our families growing up didn't depend on our dad's cooking (although my dad does make his own chocolate cake).

But there are a few things Rhett makes that are really great.

Mainly fresh pasta.

He served his mission in Italy and loves pasta. We have it a lot. A few years ago my mom got him a pasta roller for Christmas. We've been perfecting his methods for some time now.

Rhett has had an easier rotation this month and we've been loving having him around more. He's only working 40 hours a week and it feels like he's on vacation.

So he and RJ made dinner tonight.

RJ was actually a really great help and is on his way to being the family's next pasta expert.

Rhett really let him do a lot of the pasta making. He cranked the handle for everything, and helped a lot preparing the sheets. Rhett would help him obviously, but I was really impressed how much RJ did on his own. Six months ago when he was helping with pasta it was kind of more work to have him involved, but tonight he was a good little sous chef to his dad.

Rhett is a really patient guy, which helps RJ as he's learning and all the repetition gave him time to get pretty good at doing a lot on his own. I was surprised when RJ would load his dough himself and run it through.

To make fresh pasta, you first make the dough from eggs, flour, and a titch of olive oil. In this batch Rhett added spinach which is why it's slightly green.

Then you roll it into thin sheets.

You can see how excited RJ was when a sheet was all done.

Then you add a cutting attachment to slice the sheets into fettuccine!

It was so fun as a family to watch the boys cook, and I have to say I enjoy having a night off from making dinner...especially when it tastes better than anything I ever make.

Miss Elle

2011-10-09T02:01:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've put anything on the blog, and Ellaria is obviously changing so much so fast these last few months.

She's 6.5 months old and can sit and play with toys on her own, toddle in the walker, and continues to be a happy, patient little girl. She sleeps through the night for the most part. We put her down at 8pm or so and she sleeps until 5 or 6am to eat.

Which brings us to our biggest frustration with this girl.

She hates eating food.

It's such a chore to feed her baby food with a spoon. She won't open her mouth to anticipate it or swallow it really well. We've been doing it enough she's learning, so I feel she knows how, she just has no interest in it and would rather just nurse. So we basically have to jam the food in her mouth and she'll passively swallow because it's in there, she won't actively eat it off the spoon.

Definitely not like her mother in this area.

She may have a hard time fitting in our family if food isn't important to her!

I'm hoping she'll snap out of it and start oinking down the food like RJ did.

One night I looked like bonch and was taking pictures with Ellie by holding the camera angled at the mirror.

I was looking at Ellie in the mirror, and with the angle of the camera it made for a really creepy shot of me. Crazy-eyed looking...freak!

I thought it was a good shot of her sweet little lips though.

I recently made a dress for Ellie and was taking photos of her in it for my craft blog and to document her 6 month mark.

She's been sick with a cold so she wasn't her usual happy self and kind of just sat there sad.

She always smiles for her dad but not even he could get her to cheese it like usual but he did come in handy helping her stand.

RJ is usually a really obedient kid for the most part, but for some reason he was being such a pill when we were trying to get these pictures. He had a time out and snuck in on his stool with his hurt feelings, wanting to hold Ellie.

Eventually we let him hold her.

This photo tells a lot about their relationship sometimes.

The adoring older brother and the little sister who would like to be less loved quite often.

We think it's pretty cute he still thinks she's amazing. I tend to call Ellie "my sweet girl" and RJ always corrects me to inform me Ellie is HIS. "Mom, she's MY sweet SIS! Not yours." I explain she's mine too, and remind him she grew in MY belly, that she's my daughter and his sister, but the logic doesn't fly and he usually gets frustrated and tells me to say sorry to him, and say she's his.

So far it's easier to oblige than go on disagreeing on how we must share her.

Some pics from summer activities

2011-09-12T03:17:00.001-05:00

Idaho State Fair

The Eastern Idaho State Fair

RJ got on and rode this train all by himself. He is getting so big!

RJs favorite ride at the fair was the carousel.

RJ, Jess, and Ellie in front of the big ferris wheel.

By the end of the fair day the kids were exhausted! RJ just wanted to be pushed around although the two didn't fit that well!

One last ride before heading home.

St. George

This was when we went to St. George during July.

Just watching TV as a family.

Shortly after RJ went upside down in Grandma's pool. Luckily it was only for a second, but still scary!

Las Vegas

Las Vegas vacation

The Bellagio is Jessica's favorite place on the strip.

Eating at Maggiano's. Yum!

Ellaria Phoebe

Our little Ellie girl has been getting so big we can hardly believe she is nearly 6 months old!

She needs a little assistance, but is pretty much sitting up all by herself.

She is learning how to eat solid food.

She likes to play outside with RJ. This is her in her new sun bonnet that her mom made.

One thing about Ellie is she is a very happy baby! She is always smiling or laughing and brightening up our day! We are so grateful to have this happy girl!

Rarely do we get a smile right into the camera.

Just hanging out laughing with the boys!

RJ is the best at getting her to laugh and smile for sure.

He loves his sister so much!

They are pretty good buddies. Don't they look like brother and sister?

Best of all, Ellie is a total daddy's girl and loves to give her Papa lots of smiles when he gets home from work.

Other Summer Fun

Rhett LOVES his SUV and it's easy to tell by the care he puts into it. Even RJ likes to keep the SUV looking nice!

Doing his best to scrub off the sprinkler spots!

It's September 11th and already the Halloween stuff is going up. RJ and Jessica love Halloween! Rhett tolerates it.

Working on the yard

We've been working on our yard since we moved in. We'll probably have it to our liking as soon as it's time to move! That's okay though because half the fun is just working on it.

More of the yard. That's our garden in the back of this picture. It's been producing pretty good this year.

Here's our patio we love! We still need to fill fine sand into the cracks, but it is basically done. Jessica made all this patio furniture all by herself! Isn't she amazing?! I can say that since this is her husband writing this post.

Night time falls on our back yard. Jessica made these sails for shade and put up the lights plus made the chandelier. She is the mastermind. I guess I can say I helped move everything around and put together this picnic table. The only thing left to do is to get rid of that ugly green trim!

4th of July

2011-07-05T13:09:00.000-05:00

We ususally celebrate the 4th in Delta. But Rhett had to work a night shift on the 3rd, so we were home in Idaho this year. We ended up having a great day, and Rhett was post call so after he slept a few hours it was kind of like a day off.

RHett bought RJ a fighting fish at Wal-mart. He loves it and it's his first pet.

My dad and uncle were in town for the weekend, even though I didn't take any pictures of them, and so we went swimming at their hotel.

RJ loves jumping in from the side.

Here's Ellie in her red white and blue outfit at our little BBQ.
After dinner, my dad and uncle left, and we roasted marshmallows on our new rock patio we just finished.

Ellie has the funniest face in this one.

RJ, like all little boys loves fire and smores.

It was a fun evening, the street behind us was a block party with a live band, so we could hear and enjoy the music from our yard.

Rhett bought RJ a little $10 firework kit, which RJ LOVED.

I was glad to have a camera where I could manually set the exposure to have a really long shutter speed, I think this one of Rhett's name was 5 seconds.

RJ loved sparklers of course.

Our front yard is a perfect view of the fairgrounds down the street where they set off the city's grand show.

Hope everyone had a fun 4th of July!

Miss Elle

2011-06-26T21:12:00.000-05:00

Ellaria is 3 months now. Time is flying by and she's so big. I love this stage because they're still little babies but they interact and a little personality starts peeping through the newborn eat, sleep, coma.

She continues to chub out, and everyone always comments on her cheeks, then occasionally her blue eyes.

RJ is still her biggest fan. Sometimes I call her "little sis" and RJ always corrects me and says: "she's MY sister!"

I made this little brown dress the summer I got pregnant with RJ. He ended up being a boy, but I did put him in the dress when he was 3 months old. He's on the right.

Seeing both babies in the same clothes at the same age, Ellaria doesn't look like his clone much anymore to me. Both have the chubby cheeks and look like family though.

I love her huge flared nose smile...I had to get her dad in order to get her to smile. She's already a total daddy's girl and smiles the most for Rhett.

She is a good little sleeper. I put both kids to bed between 8 and 9pm and she sleeps until 5 or 6am to be fed, then goes back to sleep until 10 to 11 am. So sleeping well is making such a big difference for me.

We love this chubby girl!

Random

2011-06-19T21:07:00.000-05:00

I read in an Ensign article about reading scriptures with little kids. It suggested to have the toddler repeat one verse a night. We've been doing this for months now and I've been surprised how well RJ stays interested and follows the stories and reminds us if we forget. So far he's actually really liked it, I hope I can continue this as that's always something that was hard to keep going when I was growing up.

After we found out Rhett's dad passed away, we spent the week in Delta preparing for the funeral. Here's our niece sleeping in with Ellie.

Another niece holding Ellie. The babies were hot commodities among the tween girls and caused a lot of fights about who's turn it was to hold them.

RJ actually had a pretty great week with the boys. Since he was a baby he's loved the boy cousins and tries to fit in and be one of the boys. They're all really close and always let RJ cuddle with them while they watch shows. It always surprises me how RJ will just waltz up and snuggle on one of the boy's shoulders and they just scoop him up and let him get cozy. Even the older teenagers are really nice to his unexpected affection.

Ellaria sleeps with her hands totally sprawled like RJ would.

It's rare lately to get a picture of RJ's real smile, he always just does a fake grin.

Thomas

2011-06-19T20:46:00.000-05:00

Since Christmas RJ has loved Thomas the train. He got the train set for Christmas and watches episodes on Netflix. They have an actual Thomas fake engine that tours the country in the summer, and it came to Utah for Memorial weekend and we took RJ for his birthday present.

We thought the day would blow his mind, but all his pictures he insisted on wearing his hood and never smiled. I think he loved it because he talked about it for a long time, but just didn't show any excitement while we were there.

He had to wait in line for a while to meet Sir Topham Hat. RJ was excited, but when he got up there, just like Santa Claus, he didn't want to be there and the guy in the suit tried to touch his shoulder and RJ wriggled away and left. He looks like he's being forced to be there.

Finally it was our turn to ride the train. RJ liked getting his own ticket torn by the conductor.

The cars were super old, one corner had a coal stove in it and the paint was peeling off the ceiling.

RJ loved being on the train. The ride was pretty lame, slowly creeping along for about a mile seeing people's backyards, then creeping back.

But RJ thought it was great.

This is the only picture of Ellaria from the day. She was good and slept most of the time.

Rhett bought RJ a glob of cotton candy. If we ever went to things when I was a kid, we never got concessions, so if I'd just been there RJ wouldn't have been so spoiled. I'm the mean mom.

He even got to play a round of mini-golf.

RJ loved the Thomas tatoo on his cheek. He just pouted the whole time in the tub when I had to scrub it off nearly a week later.

Red Ripe Strawberry

2011-06-16T11:29:00.001-05:00

RJ has always liked strawberries.

But after we read this book about a mouse picking, hiding, and finally eating a strawberry he calls them "red, ripe, strawberry" every time. It's pretty cute.

So we didn't get our garden planted with seeds due to the crazy weather and unexpected events in May.

So we just went and bought small plants with the whole family. Rhett suggested a strawberry plant and I said I wasn't planning on it, in my memories growing up garden strawberries were always gross. But little RJ and Rhett both wanted it and we bought this larger strawberry plant. It had little baby green strawberries starting on it, so it was the only plant we got that RJ could recognize what it would grow.

He loved the plant. We didn't plant them right off, but just put all our plants in the garage for the night. He kissed the plant and said: "goodnight red ripe strawberry" and put it on the table. I was surprised he was so attached to a strawberry plant.

But it became his baby.

The next morning he woke me up and immediately told me we had to go plant his red ripe strawberry.

So we got it settled in the back yard and he gave it a drink with the watering can.

Later that afternoon he ran out and checked the plant and came to me to ask why it wasn't red yet. I told him it takes lots of days to grow a red, ripe, strawberry.

So each morning we go and check his strawberries and he likes to give them a drink of water.

But this morning one was finally ready.

He was really excited, despite the fake smile face.

We washed it off and I was curious to see if he'd like it, thinking it might be sour.

But he seemed to like it.

Pretty darn good.

Hopefully he'll like gardening. He helped me plant corn the other day and I was digging the little holes and he was putting the kernel seeds in. But a few got a whole chubby handful of seeds and he spilled a bunch in the watering trench. So we'll see how the corn ends up. Last year he tromped on a ton of my plants, but maybe he's better and can understand now.

Missing Loy

2011-05-30T12:25:00.000-05:00

Our family has had a tragic loss this week, my Rhett's father Loy suddenly died due to heart failure Sunday morning. We're obviously with family this week in preparation for his funeral.

Grief is difficult to deal with, but our faith helps us get through and realize how blessed we are to have had all the years with him.

Loy's two younger sons both had babies on the same day, and we were able to bless them together last month. Originally we planned to bless Ellaria next Sunday, but we crashed Joshua's day in Orem and we're so glad so all the Crapo men could be together one last time.

As for my part, the father makes the son.

Loy was a perfect example for Rhett and I attribute so much of Rhett's kind, hard-working, patient, affectionate nature towards me and our kids from watching his dad. So not only having him as the perfect father-in-law and Grandpa to our kids, I feel so blessed to have the privilege to have snagged a son of Loy Crapo.

Jessica

St. George Temple

2011-05-25T11:31:00.001-05:00

A former Stake President of mine gave parents the advice to have in each child's room a picture of Christ, a picture of themselves, and a picture of the temple. So I had a stack of temple photos and RJ picked 3 and they're taped on his wall next to his bed. I told him that temple is Grandma's temple in St. George and for the weeks prior to our visit we'd talk about going to see the temple when we visited.

At first he thought my mom owned it when I said it was hers, but we explained temples are the House of the Lord and she just gets to visit this one because she lives close. So we were explaining it was Jesus house and took him into the visitor's center to see the huge Christus statue.

He loved it and kept telling us about the prints in his hands and feet and how the mean guys killed him but he came alive again. We kept trying to show him the other art depicting Christ's life, but he kept running back to the statue of Christ so we spent most of our time here.

It was funny as we were walking in, the older missionary guy at the desk had darker hair and RJ said: "The prophet? Thomas S. Monson?" The guy thought he was just yelling out the fact and said: "Yes you're right the prophet is Thomas S. Monson." He didn't understand that RJ thought he was the prophet. As we were leaving I was telling him to go ahead, out the door (which is by the desk) and he asked: "Go see Thomas S. Monson again?"

The front of the St. George temple has two big staircases to doors no longer in use. He climbed all the stairs so he could touch the temple.

We walked around the back and he told my mom: "come sit on the temple with me," in front of the door to the baptistry.

It's been so exciting the last few weeks, it's as if all the sudden his brain can begin to understand who Christ is, or at least that He's important and he's eager to learn more. There's a little 20 minute video from mormon.org we first showed him for Easter depicting events from Christ's life. RJ watches it all the time and says he wants to watch the "show about Jesus....the one where He talks." It surprises me how often he watches it, and how it holds his attention each time.

The first scene is Christ calming the water so his cloak is white and wet against his head and RJ asked: "Jesus wears a hoodie like me?" I thought that was pretty cute.

It's just fun to be able to teach and see the child-like faith in your own kids.

Wedding, Mud Fight and more

2011-05-24T14:42:00.000-05:00

I met my friend Molly the day we moved into the dorms when we were 18 at Weber State. We were roommates and instant friends. Together we met Rhett and were all close friends, then I married him. So we were excited to be able to make it to her wedding in West Jordan last week.

Her reception was in the UofU Football Stadium overlooking SLC

I made a little dress for Ellaria to match the flower girls.

Rhett had to leave from the reception to go home to Idaho and I took the kids to Delta to visit the family.

They kept getting Ellie to smile really big but this is the best shot I got.

Saturday was finally warm after days of freezing rain, which left huge mud pits in the sage brush fields or "grease woods" behind my in-laws house. We were going four-wheeling out there but stopped to have a mud fight. I helped RJ wade into the mud up to his ankles and he did not like it. I was showing him how to make mud balls, but he wouldn't touch the mud with his hands. It wasn't until we started crushing red fire ants with mud globs that he warmed up to the idea and soon was lobbing mud with everyone else.

At one point he got in the line of fire and caught a mud ball in the side of his head and started bawling, but he was fine and blamed me, although I wasn't even close to him. It was really fun, I hadn't played in the mud for a while.

Next we drove down to St. George to visit my parents who moved there a few months ago.

RJ loved swimming and wore himself out. He wears floaties and a little tube around his waist and dog paddles all around the pool. I'd like to know where the long dark lashes came from.

He's had fun with Grandma and Grandpa. Since we lived with them the first two years of his life, he instantly latches on to Grandma and wants nothing to do with me, which isn't all bad once in a while.

We watched a show with a big bowl of popcorn one night.

Here's a picture of Rhett holding chubby Ellaria a few weeks ago.

Trying to hold those huge cheeks up on her own.

I can never get her to smile, this is the best I got.

Rhett is Three

2011-05-08T20:23:00.000-05:00

RJ had a birthday. He turned three and his day was pretty low key. I had strep throat and it kicked my trash and so we just lounged around the house. Some people throw huge celebrations for kids birthdays, but we only got one birthday party growing up when we turned 8, so maybe I'm just doing what I grew up with not having birthday parties for my kid.

He did want a robot birthday cake he saw in a family magazine. My version stinks compared to the magazine, but RJ loved it. He just stared at it all afternoon saying: "Mom it is so pretty! I love it! It's so awesome!"

I was lucky he is only two, the square shapes and the fact it was blue and orange like he wanted are the only things that turned out. But it was awesome to him, where older kids would have known their cake stunk.

Easter

2011-05-08T20:10:00.000-05:00

Here's the kids on Easter. RJ's birthday was the friday prior, I had strep throat, and I totally forgot about Easter...so the bunny didn't make it to our house this year. Lucky for me RJ had no idea the easter bunny existed and he missed out on anything.

We did watch a video about Christ on the church website that night, teaching RJ that Easter is about Christ's death and resurrection. RJ LOVED the video and has watched it over 10 times since--I was surprised he is so enthralled by it. He tells me he wants to watch the "show where Jesus talks".

Notice RJ's tie. He loves to wear his dino tie his cousin Drew gave him, but "it chokes him" so he wears it as a necklace. He has another clip-on tie he clips to the front of his vest.

Last Few Weeks

2011-05-08T19:55:00.000-05:00

Lately RJ has become interested in costumes out of nowhere. I'd made him a superhero cape he never wore, and his old Halloween costumes. His favorite is by far Max the wolf from Where the Wild Things are. I made it for him when he was 18 months, so it's short in the crotch but he loves the tail. We have stools at our kitchen counter and he threads the tail through the hole each time so it can hang off the back of the chair.

Chunky & Poop Hair

2011-04-18T15:11:00.000-05:00

Ellie had her 1 month doctor's appt last week. She weighed 10 lb 9 oz. She's in the 90th percentile for her weight, but only the 50th percentile for her height. So she's hefty and we love the chub!

I always get in a hair rut in the spring and want a big change. Like last spring when I cut it all off.

I still would like a big change again, but am still growing it out. I do however need to take care of my nasty roots, and I'm aware my hair looks not the best.

A few days ago I was sitting on the ground changing the baby or something and RJ was standing nearby and said: "Mom, yours hair looks yucky." I replied something like: "really? I know. Mom needs to fix it."

Looking confused he walked over and grabbed a hunk and rubbed it between his fingers. He looked down at me and sympathetically asked: "Oh sad. Did Baby Ellie poop in yours hair?"

So I guess if a 2 year old really thinks there is dung in your hair, it must really literally look like crap.

So we'll crop as much out as we can.

Mom and the Kids

2011-04-17T22:04:00.000-05:00

RJ really didn't seem in as bad a mood as his face.

Motherhood Is Disgusting

2011-04-17T21:58:00.000-05:00

Sick kids.

Makes a disgusting life for the mom dealing with all the bodily fluids. Puke, poop, urine, and breast milk. Have you vomited on your keyboard yet? Or you're a mom too and nodding.

We've just got through a long 2 weeks with sick kids, I should I say I've gone through a long two weeks with sick kids, because Rhett has been working night float and working up to the 80 hour work limit.

He has tried to help the few hours he has been around, just a bad rotation for us to have sick kids.

Sweet little Ellaria isn't too much different sick than just a messy newborn, other than being congested and having trouble sleeping.

But RJ boy started with an entire night of vomiting every 20-40 minutes. He actually did really great, making it in the cookie dough bucket most of the time.

At one point I was sitting on the edge of the bed nursing Ellie, and reaching across to catch RJ's vomit in the bucket, thinking I'm glad I'm not a pioneer and have a washing machine for all this laundry piling up.

After a few days and the puking stopped, the poor boy got the runs.

To make it easier for everyone, at one point I just had him watch movies on the toilet for the diarrhea.

One time he woke up in the middle of the night on a weekend night Rhett was home with an attack. Rhett said he helped RJ and he told him: "I wanna see it!" So Rhett let him look in the toilet before he flushed it, and he looked at RJ's face and his cheeks were bulging and his eyes were rolling. RJ insisted he wanted to see his dump, but it grossed him out so much he proceeded to vomit all over it. Rhett said he kept puking until he was just dry heaving. We were laughing at this story.

Another occasion, actually the day after the all-night puke party, he had fallen asleep on my bed since we'd been up all night. I was doing laundry and walked by my room and smelled nasty. I found RJ collapsed by the door with diarrhea all down his pants, face down asleep. Five feet behind him, I found a puddle of diarrhea on my floor. Apparently he'd woke up and tried to run to the bathroom, had a blow out, then collapsed back asleep a few steps further.

As gross as all that was to clean up, I actually felt bad for the little guy. After all, I've crapped my pants too.

RJ's Life

2011-04-09T21:51:00.000-05:00

Here's a bunch of pictures of RJ these first few weeks since Ellaria has been born. His life has changed quite a bit:

He found he could be very sneaky when mom is busy with the baby like grabbing a huge Costco muffin and chowing down eating-contest-style.

DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY MUFFIN!

I don't really remember what he's saying, but he looks serious.

While my mom was here, she slept in RJ's twin bed and he slept in the crib. I went to check on him one night and here he was sleeping like a caged animal or something.

One day I came to check on him as he was eating his lunch and he'd rubbed his milk all in his hair--thus the spikes, and put his shirt behind his neck. Sitting like that made me think he was trying to model or something, baby Zoolander.

Here's more of his faces:

Scared.

A new favorite: Scary

RJ and I made many forts the last week or so of my pregnancy. He loved watching Incredibles under the kitchen table and I would try to get a quick nap like a beached whale under there with him.

He has regressed in some areas, wanting to be the baby. Like telling me Ellie's turn was over in the Bumbo and him jamming his bum in there too. Or a few days ago he wanted me to put the binky in his mouth, telling me he's the baby. So far not a big deal, I just tell him he can't trick me I know he's a big boy. I've been glad he hasn't gone back with potty training, that was my biggest worry and I don't want to have crap in his pants again.

I think it's been a hard change for him in some areas to have a sister around and have to share my attention, but overall he's done well and he really does adore her.

So hopefully they'll always be buds and he'll be a good big brother and look out for her.

Meet the Family

2011-04-06T23:57:00.000-05:00

Rhett had a weekend off between rotations, so we jetted down to Utah so our families could meet Ellie.

We went to Delta first and the weather was actually warm. I think it was the first day this year we played outside without coats. RJ loved playing with the cousins as always. He also stayed up too late and was a troll the next day.

We also got to meet cousin Joshua. Rhett's brother, Wade and his wife Nancy had their baby the same day as we did. Nancy and I had the same due date, and ended up having our babies on the same day, so weird.

So Ellie and Josh have the same birthday, Ellie is about 12 hours older.

He is a little cutie, Ellie was just sleepy and I love her little gut hanging out.

All the family loved the babies, and it was fun to see everyone.

Here's a photo of both the babies with Grandpa.

Pretty cute.

3 weeks old

2011-04-06T23:34:00.000-05:00

Ellaria is 3 weeks old now, and doing well at her 2 week check up she weighed 9 lb 1 oz, so she'd gained over a pound at two weeks. She's a little chunk!

RJ is doing pretty good. He really didn't deal with her being around until my mom left and it was just me, him and Ellie with Rhett working a lot this rotation. More frequent tantrums, but overall not too bad. He's a really good helper and just plays too rough sometimes. He is always telling me I'm talking too loud and I'll wake Ellie, but I think he just wants me to shut up because he's bugged by me.

My friend Natalie sent me this cute little baby bracelet for Ellaria, and I thought it was so cute. I'd never thought about baby jewelry.

Miss Chunk

(her dad bought her that "could I be any cuter" onesie the time he went overboard right after she was born)

I was surprised how well she sat in the Bumbo seat. After a while, she got tired and her head started falling to one side, but she was in there for a few minutes holding her own.

With her perma-scowl. Hopefully she'll grow out of the mean face.

Fat Family

2011-04-05T20:11:00.000-05:00

Rhett has mentioned a couple times how it would be great to be "the fat family". You know, the family in the neighborhood where everyone is fat and we only wear sweats.

Hopefully that won't happen, and even though our wardrobes will never be that great, at least they will have something other than sweats, but here's some photos of our kids.

There's an app on Rhett's phone, I think it's called Fat Photo Booth, where it makes your face look fat.

I still need to get Rhett to email our shots to add the parents to complete the fat family.

But for now, the fat kids.

FEED ME!

And unrelated, but we recently watched Jared Hess's most recent film, Gentlemen Broncos which received awful reviews. We finished it and thought it was also crap. But we keep talking about it, so I think it's one of those movies that gets funnier the second time....if you have weird humor like us.
One of our favorite scenes:
OH MY HOLY CRAP.

Pictures of Ellaria

2011-03-30T12:17:00.000-05:00

I told RJ to get a shirt on, but he wouldn't.

We love the ruffle bum!

Announcing:

2011-03-30T12:05:00.002-05:00

Back to the Grind

2011-03-28T12:55:00.000-05:00

Today we got back to normal life.

My mom went home yesterday, and Rhett went back to work this morning, starting with clinic at 8am and going right to the ER to work until 10pm.

So the newborn vacation is over.

It was fun to have my mom with us and she's always so much help. We eat really great food and have fun just hanging out. I'm feeling pretty great compared to my recovery with RJ, so I feel physically up to doing everything on my own now.

So we'll see how I do with two kids solo now. So far so good. Having to up my multi-tasking skills, but I had a shower and we were all dressed at least by noon today. :)

I just hope RJ continues to be a good boy with Ellaria around. My mom was so fun for him, playing with him all day long and I know he'll miss his fan club when it's just us again.

Ellie smiles a lot in her sleep, and a few times has chuckled. It's really cute.

Ellaria had her first bath. She is so quiet. Her cry is really soft and more of a squawk. So far she's just a chubby, sweet, little girl.

Chubby Ellie

2011-03-24T11:27:00.000-05:00

Big Brother

2011-03-22T11:44:00.000-05:00

I was really nervous at RJ's reaction to having a sibling in his life.

I assumed he'd feel dethroned and resent the baby.

But so far he has done so well. He just loves Ellaria.

He is quite possessive of her, and every morning comes in and asks: "Where's my sister?"

The majority of the time he refers to her as "his sister" rather than "Baby Ellie", which is what we've always called her until she came.

The night we brought her home from the hospital, we came in and RJ was just jumping up and down so excited and happy to have Baby Ellie home.

We were only home 15 minutes or so and they called Rhett to say he needed to go back with Ellaria because they forgot some things and didn't discharge her all the way.

What a pain.

So Rhett got her back in her car seat and was loading her in the car and RJ freaked out. He just started sobbing yelling: "Don't take my sister!" Rhett explained they would be back, and went in the garage, and RJ was just breaking down crying: "my sister! My sister!"

So he got to go to the hospital and my mom went with to wait with him in the car so he'd feel OK about Rhett taking his sister.

Here he is giving Ellie all her gifts from Grandma, just piling them on her.

He went to run errands one day with my mom and ran in the house and over to Ellaria and said: "It's OK Ellie. Don't be sad, RJ is home." (She was totally asleep)

He loves to help fetch diapers, spit rags, or give her a binky. He also loves to kiss her probably too much.

But there have been things that have been hard with RJ. The whole early morning birth and crazy schedule messed up his sleep schedule, thus falling asleep at dinner.

He's also regressed a little with potty training. He hadn't had accidents for weeks, but has wet his pants a few times since she's been born, which I actually expected and I'm just glad he doesn't want to be a baby himself and go back to diapers or anything.

He's been loving having Grandma here to play with him and she's a lot funner than I am right now. Also having his dad around has been fun for him, here they are making "bugs for fishing" = tying flies.

He's excited to go fishing, but I told him he can't fish with his dad until the trees grow leaves. So every once in a while he'll look out the window and tell me the trees are still "nakie" = naked.

So things are going well here at our house adjusting to the new baby and getting used to our little family of four.

2011-03-22T11:25:00.000-05:00

Here's Ellie 5 days old. She had a doctor's appt early because she didn't get the full antibiotics before she was born. She weighed 7 lb 13 oz, so she's gained 3 oz. I was glad, we want to keep those cheeks chubby!

So far she's been such a good baby. She's so quiet. She's really only cried hard once, when I was making foot and hand prints--she did not like that.

Everything has been easier this second time around. The delivery, my physical recovery, and her temperment are easier than it all was with RJ.

She's just a sweet little squishy girl we love!

Obviously she sleeps a lot.

HER WARDROBE:

The night we were able to bring her home from the hosptial, I realized all the clothes I did buy for her were too big. I wasn't sure how big she'd be, so I didn't buy newborn size.

So her first night I put her in a onesie that fit from RJ with basketballs. She already looks so much like RJ, wearing his clothes, it looked like a baby boy. Rhett said: "so we have no girl clothes for her?" I told him we do in a couple months, and it's not a big deal what she wears.

So the next morning Rhett took RJ and they went and bought her girl newborn clothes. He came in and told me he went a little overboard, but at least she will look like a girl with all the clothes her dad picked out for her.

That morning I put her in her new clothes and gave her to Rhett, as I was leaving the room he told Ellie: "I know you don't care what you wear, but I do. I want you to look like a girl."

Then our best friend Molly gave us another huge gift of a feminine wardrobe, so now she can look like a girl and I put away all the baby boy jammies I'd been planning on using. I guess it's probably a good thing she has people looking out for her fashion.

Birth Story

2011-03-21T02:04:00.001-05:00

I know some people aren't interested or care, but for those that are, here's our little birth story bringing Ellaria into the world.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ ON...

I never thought I would spontaneously go into labor. All my miscarriages required surgery (DNC) or medically induced abortion (cytotec), and RJ was also induced. I just assumed with my history, this 5th pregnancy would be like the rest and my uterus would need medical help to get going.

So my last appointment with the OB, I was 39 weeks and had never been checked because I figured what's the point, nothing will happen anyway. So I was surprised I was 3-4 cm and he stripped my membranes. With RJ, that OB wouldn't strip the membranes because I was strep B positive. My OB this time said it didn't matter, which is what we thought when she refused with RJ since stripping membranes doesn't break the amniotic sack, but whatever, every doctor has their way of doing things. But we scheduled my induction for Monday March 21 (tomorrow actually) anyway.

So that was Tuesday morning. Rhett went to work from noon to midnight in the ER. RJ and I ran some errands and in the late afternoon I started having random contractions. I was surprised because I never had any Braxton-Hicks with RJ. I actually remember walking into labor and delivery to be induced wondering what a contraction would feel like.

So I had contractions throughout the evening, but they didn't hurt and were random. I called my mom and she decided maybe she'd come down a few days earlier just in case, since she was originally coming Sunday to be here for the Monday induction. I also shaved my legs, just in case, thinking it was just wishful thinking since I'd probably just be going in Monday anyway.

At 3:00 am I woke up because the contractions were intense enough I couldn't sleep through them. So I started timing them and they were still totally random. I took a shower and kind of fixed my hair, (just in case) then at 5:00 am the contractions were consistently 5 minutes apart. So I woke up Rhett and in a sleepy daze he was questioning my validity in thinking this was it. "Well how long have they been 5 minutes apart?"

"I don't know, 20-30 minutes. I've been awake for 2 hours though."

He slowly sat up and we had all the supplies and he checked me and all the sudden woke up and said: "You're a 6 I guess we better pack." I had already packed my crap in case, so we got our stuff together, and I'm thinking, "CRAP! It's 5 in the morning and I never talked to anyone about being willing to take RJ in case I ever went into labor!" My mom was always going to be here because I was always going to have to be induced.

So we're getting closer to go and Rhett asked what we were doing with RJ. I told him, I'm not sure who to call because I haven't talked to anyone to give them a heads up.

He said: "So you're saying we have no friends."
Me: "That's what I'm saying. We have no friends to call at 5am to dump our kid on."

We both laughed and I told him to call our poor neighbor across the street who we've traded babysitting with a few times. They didn't answer, which is understandable at 5 am.

So Rhett hung up and said: "So who do we call now. We've lived here almost a year and we have no friends? What the crap have we been doing?"

I suggested we call the other neighbor down the road with little kids. They answered and she was actually awake and getting back from the gym. So what a lifesaver to help us out without any warning whatsoever.

I was relieved, but felt like such an idiot not having planned or talked to anyone before then.

Rhett scooped up RJ and ran him down to the neighbor. I stood in the driveway and vomited all over the pavement, and thought that it's nice it was raining, at least I won't have to worry about cleaning that up. Rhett ran back and we got in the car, and still wanted to continue the conversation of us having no friends, and how well did I know her, do we really know her well enough to dump our kid on her last minute like that? It was in the middle of a contraction and I just told him, "who cares how well I know her!" I guess he'd forgotten I was in labor or something and I get feisty and not in the mood for conversation.

So we get to the hospital and walk up to Labor and Delivery around 6am. The nurse comes out and is chatting with Rhett. She asked if I was planning on having an epidural and I told her no, so she recommended going in the midwife room so I could labor in the tub if I wanted. That sounded like a good idea. So before we got the tub going she said she'd check the baby on the monitor and check me.

Baby looked great, then she checked me and looked at Rhett and said: "uhh...she's an 8 with a bulging bag." and ran out of the room. We looked at each other and Rhett said: "I feel like an idiot. I'm a freaking doctor and bring my wife in at an 8 knowing she's strep B positive?" We both shrug our shoulders as 4 nurses rushed in, one setting up the sterile table for delivery, one admitting us into the computer, one setting up my IV, and the other getting the baby stuff ready.

So we get everything settled and I'm laboring along, Rhett asked if he needed to press on my back like RJ, and I was totally fine without any help. I was fine and in control with these contractions, where he helped on every single one with RJ.

So things are working along and the nurse can't get a hold of my OB.

They keep calling, but have the other OB who is there for a scheduled c-section standing in the hall just in case he'll have to stand in as the attending. At this point I'm in transition, and having to work through the contractions a lot as they get worse, and they tell me my OB was working out at the gym and was on his way, probably 10-15 minutes.

So I had to wait, and they hadn't broken my water to keep things from going any faster. I made it through transition contractions and started feeling pressure and wanting to push when he showed up. He and Rhett got gowned up and broke my water which was a relief.

I pushed a couple times, and my OB realized she was posterior (face up), so once she started crowing, he took her head and turned it between contractions, kind of uncomfortable, but worth it in the end. After he turned her, Rhett took over and a few more pushes and he held up our little baby girl to show me and it of course is such a great moment.

Physical relief for sure, then the whole overwhelming feeling of seeing your baby for the first time. Rhett delivered the baby, I held her for a minute, then they took her over to the heat lamps and he went with the baby. The OB said something like: "sure... do the fun part and leave all the dirty work for me."

Rhett just said "yep" as he was taking pictures of Ellaria.

So that's pretty much it. It was a butt to deliver the placenta. I guess my uterus contracted down really fast, and wouldn't let it deliver, so it was actually really painful as the OB tried to pry it out, but then the umbilical cord started tearing off, and after a while, he finally got it all out, but the whole "placenta extraction" was surprisingly quite painful and I almost felt the same relief when that was over as I was with Ellaria actually being born. Obviously not as intense as delivering the baby, as it's just a dead placenta, but I was glad that was finally over. Really weird.

Then I got to hold her cleaned up and gooey eyed and that's always such a precious time to hold the baby really for the first time and to be done with everything and just to see a perfect little miracle that will change your life forever. It makes it all worth it...especially if she has chubby cheeks and a lot of dark hair.

JUST IN CASE YOU'RE FURTHER INTERESTED:
Here's what I have to say about

NATURAL BIRTH:
Spontaneous Labor vs. Induction

So both deliveries I didnt' have any pain killers of any kind, well they did shoot me up with some Nubain? for the placenta extraction after Ellie was born, but for the labor/ baby birth I prefer natural birth.

There's lot of reasons I make this choice, but it's a personal choice and one way is better for someone and not better for others. Saving money not paying an anesthesiologist is a big motivator for me, (yes this is the ultimate example of how cheap I am) It probably sounds weird, but I like feeling in control of everything going on. I like being able to feel what my body is doing and so I feel more in control of the whole birth experience going natural. It's obviously more work I'd imagine, but I do feel pretty great after, I wanted to get my baby and go right home rather than go to the post-partum floor. (I do hate staying in the hosptial though) Other than being sore/ pain from the tears, etc. I felt better right after giving birth than I did the night before being 9 months pregnant. Maybe that's the same for everyone though, who knows.

But moving on, in case you care, this is just from my experiences with each way.

Natural contractions are WAY easier than pitocin induced contractions. I think naivety worked to my benefit being induced with my first. I had no idea what contractions were like, and my OB said being induced doesn't cause any more pain than going into labor on your own. It's just a muscle contracting and it can't produce more pain with pitocin.

So I labored through with RJ. Through all my prep, I always tried to mentally prepare for transition, as it seemed that's where a lot of women lose the mental control and need epidurals/ spinal blocks. So the whole time I'm in labor, Rhett is pushing on my back helping me through each contraction. All the sudden I jumped up and ran to the bathroom because I felt I had to go, but it was actually the pressure contractions telling me to push out a baby, not take a dump. I was so focused on being ready for transition, it had come and gone and I had never noticed a difference in the contractions as all. They had just got closer through the process of labor, and all the sudden I was sitting on the toilet and my nurse was telling me to get back in bed, and I realized I was done, I'd made it through transition without knowing it, I was and ready to push.

So this time with Ellaria, I was interested to see if there really is a difference in pain to have a natural contraction versus a pitocin contraction. I'd heard and read induction is a lot more painful, so I'd hoped that was actually kind of true, because this would mean this delivery would be less intense.

And it was. Natural contractions were a ton less painful. Like I'd say half the pain of a pitocin contraction...until you get into transition.

With Ellaria, Rhett was there, asking if I needed him to coach me through the contraciton, and push on the pressure points on my back as he did with RJ. I knew I was at least 8 cm and was laying there and told him no, I was fine, these are way easier.

I'd compare the two kinds of contractions like a natural contraction's pain is like a wave. It slowly builds, peaks for a second, then fades gently away. As you progress, the wave moves a little faster, and may peak a little higher, but it's a gentle process, actually the whole time, even in transition.

A pitocin contraction goes from 0 pain to intense immediately, and stays there, then dies. As you progress, the intensity increases, and the time you sit at intense gets longer. So if I'd graph it from my experience, it would be a spike, plateau, and free fall. I think that's why I didn't notice any change in transition. It was like all of labor was transition, just shorter.

But with natural contractions, there was a big change when I did hit transition and while it was still a wave, it built faster and stayed intense then faded. So the change was much more apparent and did require more mental control to work through, where being induced it was the same contractions I'd been having for hours, just longer without any real change.

Pushing was pretty much the same being induced and natural contractions. My babies were totally different, making the experience totally easier with a 7.5 lb peanut compared to a 9.5 lb rhino, but as far as contractions, I didn't notice a difference for pushing. Probably because to me, it's not as much pain as stretching/ burning and you're focused on pushing, not relaxing through a contraction--you actually get to do something productive, so I think it feels good to be able to push. Maybe not feels good, but kind of a relief to push finally.

Another thing I'm interested to ever experience, was the fact with Ellaria all my labor she was posterior, facing face up basically. According to all the books I've read, and my mom's experiences, laboring with the baby posterior is more painful because between contractions you have the back pain due to their being the wrong position. After the OB noticed she was posterior and flipped her the correct way, looking back, I did think how there was the underlying back pressure the whole time, even between contractions. So what would be interesting is if I have another baby who isn't posterior to see if it is easier that way.

Hopefully I'll always be blessed to labor fast, she was just really 2.5 hours of painful contractions, and probably could have been born earlier had we not had to wait for the OB. So nice to go fast and good to know to stay close to a hospital, and maybe next time make a friend and give them a heads up before you have to dump your kid on an unsuspecting, but totally kind and nice neighbor.

Also, I took some photos of the petechiae this time. It's just the capillaries busting from pushing. I don't know if I'm just more prone to get this and have wimpy vessels, or if I need to learn to put my energy in the pushing where it's useful rather than exploding my face, neck and shoulders.
It is interesting to see where you have more capillaries, like my red dot goatee with milk mustache of no dots.

Or I never thought there were so many in eyelids.

Kind of gross, well this whole post could be considered gross, sorry if you read this far and regret it. I tried to warn you by having the jump in the post to make you click only if you really wanted to know.

Can you tell who's who?

2011-03-18T20:51:00.000-05:00

One of these babies is RJ and one is Ellie. I'd say they look a bit alike.

RJ is on top.

Hospital

2011-03-18T20:10:00.000-05:00

PHOTO OVERLOAD FOR FAMILY

We are home from the hospital! I hate being in the hospital--the OB wasn't done sewing me up and I asked when I could go home. Rhett teased me about it later. But they made us stay 36 hours because labor went too fast and Ellaria didn't get the 4 hours of antibiotics she was supposed to from my having strep B.

So here's some shots of our time in a tiny corner room in the hospital.

I should say, this hospital was about 500 times better than with RJ in Missouri. The nurses left me in the birth mess for 4 hours, and RJ was still had blood dried on him all day until 9pm that night when I asked where I could give him a bath. I had to have a roommate in Missouri, which meant we had to share a bathroom and she wasn't very hygienic. To describe that entire hospital stay in one word: hell. Maybe a little dramatic, but I felt like the crazy lady in Happy Gilmore that jumps on top of his hood and pleas: "Get Me Outa HERE!"

This time I still wanted out, but it was just because I hate being in the hospital. Good facility and staff.

Here's Ellaria right at birth.

Here's Ellaria around 24 hours old. She did well her first night. Grammy, Rhett and RJ went home and I opted to let her sleep in the nursery and they'd bring her to me to eat. Someone told me once: "with your first you keep them with you in the hospital the whole time, then you get smart and let them go to the nursery." So it was nice to get a few hours sleep.

Our hospital room was pretty tiny, and so we spent a lot of time squished in there. RJ was really good, watching cartoons....

...but after a while got cabin fever and started jumping off the walls.

So Rhett took him to run to the store, then planned to take him to the pet store to look at animals, but he kept saying "No! go back to see Ellie!" So I guess his little sister is better than a monkey.

RJ has actually LOVED his baby Ellie. I liked this picture of his huge hand. When he first held her, he unwrapped her hands and kept staring at his own, then looking back at hers, totally amazed at how small her hands were compared to his. (Granted, he has big hands like my dad)

The boys adore little Ellie.

This is one of my favorite pictures so far of Rhett with his little girl.

Rhett has wanted a daughter forever. A few years ago he showed me a photo of one of the residents in Kirksville with his family and he had 6 girls and he turned the computer screen my way and said: "the luckiest guy in the world". So this little girl is pretty exciting for all of us, but especially her dad.

Ellie looking up at Papa. She never opens her eyes. Maybe 20 minutes a day so far.

Sweet little tongue.

My mom left at 4:00 am from St. George the morning she was born. I called to tell her I was in labor and going to the hospital and was shocked she was already on the road to come...mother's intuition or something.

We're so happy to have her here to help, especially RJ who is loving someone fun around here for once.

Stink eye.

We think Ellaria looks a lot like RJ. Rhett was talking to his mom on the phone telling her Ellie has the "thick Crapo brow" and saying she has the mean face too--perma-scowl, but maybe she'll grow out of that.

Here's me. I got petechia (busted capillary vessels) again from pushing--so nasty spot face to go with my nasty roots.

I made it in black and white so you can't tell...as much.

We're so happy to be home and doing well. I'm recovering physically so much better this time than with RJ and actually feeling pretty great.

Thanks for the well wishes and hopefully we'll be down near family soon so you can see her in person.

Ellaria Phoebe Crapo

2011-03-16T13:29:00.000-05:00

We welcomed our new daughter Ellaria Phoebe Crapo to the world this morning. Jessica and baby are doing great.

7 lbs 10 oz, 20.5 inches

Chubba Cheeks

2011-03-13T23:13:00.000-05:00

After church today we went to Rhett's Residency Clinic to check out Ellaria.

Their sonogram equipment really stinks, and Rhett just took photos with his phone, so they're not the best shots. I put arrows everywhere so you can maybe see what's what. Her face is on the side with her right side down, the top of her head at the left of the screen.

The biggest things we noticed were the huge cheeks! Also her dad's thick brow bone. She looked pretty squished. Rhett measured her head and it was 9.5cm in diameter, which has a crude estimate of her being 7.2 lbs. That would be nice if she was just a little 7 lb, but I saw the huge cheeks and it reminded me of rhino RJ's first appearance with jumbo cheeks, thighs, and double chin. Hopefully she's just small and fat.

So we're 39 weeks. I have my last appt this Tues. where we'll schedule my induction most likely for Monday March 21. As much as I hope to spontaneously go into labor, we'll probably have to kick this little girl out of there with a bunch of Pitocin.

Last I knew, Rhett is planning on delivering Ellaria and she'll be his 50th delivery.

Sunday Morning

2011-03-07T23:31:00.000-06:00

This is RJ ready for church, but having to wait for us to get ready.

He was watching an episode of Thomas the train.

2 Week Countdown

2011-03-04T22:02:00.000-06:00

What we've been up to:

Reading James and the Giant Peach with RJ.

Rhett just finished another OB rotation and starts ER next week. ER should be nice, shift work with pretty dependable hours. He's recently taken up tying flies. Apparently he was into fly fishing a lot before we met, and the hobby was recently rekindled, which is good because for a long time he didn't seem to have any time for hobbies. His drums are still boxed up in the garage.

RJ decided to jam all his play-dough in his shoe, which was fun for mom to clean out.

He found my glasses and thought he was hilarious.

One morning I came down from taking a shower and found him in the kitchen with the blankets off my bed. I asked him what he was doing, and he said: "just having a nakie snack."

Just to clarify, we usually don't have "nakie snacks" at our house.

Here I am at 37 weeks. I'm feeling a lot better this last month with Ellaria than I did my last month with RJ. I actually have quite a bit of energy--the last month with RJ I felt like a huge exhausted hippo. My belly doesn't seem as huge to me, so I hope she'll be a little peanut rather than another 9 lb+ rhino.

Sometimes I think RJ is excited to have a baby around, but other times I expect total disaster when she comes home to dethrone him.

Bird Hair

2011-02-19T00:55:00.000-06:00

It seems like we don't have tons of events going on to tell you about, just updates.

We did have a mad rush weekend to Utah so Rhett could go to the State Wrestling Tournament and bracket his brains out. I don't know if he loves spreadsheets or brackets more.

But also our nephew was wrestling this year which was fun. In the almost 7 years we've been married, I realized there have only been 2 years I didn't go to the Utah State Wrestling tournament--the 2 years we lived in Missouri. So at least this year we had family participating.

But Delta High School won the 2011 3A team champions so it's always fun, winning Wasatch High School which I think is as important as being the champion team. I once thought how great living in Heber, UT would be but Rhett snuffed that idea out in a hurry, vowing he couldn't live with himself raising Wasatch Wasps. I guess I don't understand generational high school rivalries.

PRESCHOOL:

Four of us wives of residents got together for a little mom preschool. So there's just 4 kids all almost 3 or barely turned 3. It's just once a week and so you teach once a month. When I taught they ended up taking all the toys out of the toy bench and fit in. RJ seems to like preschool, and it's probably more important for him socially and to have a break from mom now and again.

Speaking of RJ needing a break from me. This morning:

ME: Guess what?

RJ: what?

ME: I love ya!

RJ: Hmm. I don't love you mom....I love Papa!

Pretty funny.

I have 4 weeks left before Baby Ellie arrives...or I get induced and we kick her out of there which is most likely going to happen.

So I am feeling like a walrus. The stage where shaving your legs feels like an acrobatic accomplishment and rolling over to your other side at night feels like a feat of strength....and causes you to run out of breath from the effort.

So I wanted my toenails painted but didn't feel like stretching around the belly, holding my breath for each stroke. So I decided to let RJ have a go. He'd been wanting to paint, so I thought this might be a quick substitute. I thought he did pretty good. I let him choose the color, and he went straight for the red because "Milo the dragon is red."

Milo is the main character in the ongoing story Rhett tells him each night.

I've been growing my hair out for quite a while now. Remember the dog butt haircut? It was fun to have short boy hair last summer, easy. But I realized I need my hair long enough to go in a pony tail.

Growing out boy hair is a pain and a slow process. It's finally almost to my chin and I finally was able to fit it in two little pig tails. I showed RJ and asked what he thought of my pig tails.

He looked at me and cocked his head to the side and said: "You have bird hair."

I guess since the tails were so short they were poking straight out from my head. It made sense and you have to love kid's honesty.

Like the other day RJ pointed out he had a "little bum" and "Momma has a HUGE bum!" I agreed and told him it is just getting bigger as I grabbed another hand full of frozen peanut M&Ms. Which is another sad thing. I was hoping my Costco 3.5 lb bag of peanut M&Ms would last me through the end of the pregnancy, but they're almost gone.

Rhett's doing well. He was on surgery last month and saw some cool things. One night they were doing a bowel obstruction when different parts of the patient's small intestine just started bursting and what Rhett described as "volcanoes of crap" were shooting up out of the abdomen. There were more interesting stories, but that one stands out in my mind.

This month he's on OB which is one of his favorites. His goal is to have at least 200 deliveries by the time he's done, and he calculated he needs at least 3 per 24 hour shift. So the more deliveries the better.

I don't think he's decided if he wants to deliver our baby. My OB is also faculty through the residency and will be there either way. It seems like a lot of the other residents delivery their baby, cut the cord and let the attending do the rest. But Rhett wonders if he'd just like to stand back and be the dad for the whole experience.

Anyway, that's the latest with us.

Chocolate Bundt Cake

2011-01-29T21:38:00.000-06:00

really just a glorified cake mix.

This is a really moist cake.

I've never baked it in a regular 9x13, but I'm sure you could. I guess in the bundt pan it seems more fancy...especially when it's really just a cake mix with extras!

Bundt Chocolate Cake

1 pkg devil's food cake mix (or any chocolate, I think I used chocolate fudge cake for this)
1 (5.9 oz) pkg instant chocolate pudding
1 c. sour cream
1 c. oil
4 eggs
1/2 c. warm water
1 tsp vanilla
optional: add 2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.
In large bowl, mix together everything. Stir in chocolate chips at the end if you are using them. Pour batter into well greased 12 cup bundt pan.

Bake for 50-55 minutes, or until toothpick in center comes out clean. Let cake cool at least 1 hour before inverting pan to dump cake out.

For the frosting, I used Katherine's Dark Chocolate Ganache Recipe, but only used 1/4 recipe for this cake. I'm not a frosting lover, so I spread it on pretty thin.

Sledding

2011-01-29T21:24:00.000-06:00

Last week Rhett got off work early, so we took RJ sledding.

Or Rhett took him sledding while I watched. I felt too big pregnant to sled myself.

We go sledding at the golf course nearby. RJ rode the sled the majority of the ride there.

Talk about pampered kid. His dad carried him up the hill every time.

RJ was loving it, and despite the few spills and white washes, he kept wanting to go over and over.

Then there was the bad crash where he jumped off and totally ate it.

He had dirt and snow all over his face, and even in his ears.

He stood up and yelled: "MOM!" He was more scared then hurt, and didn't end up crying.

But he was pretty much done sledding after that.

Here I am with only 2 months to go. But that still seems really far away.

Hello 2011

2011-01-15T10:35:00.002-06:00

Just a quick update.

RJ is getting big, in April he will be 3. We just started a little "preschool" with 3 other kids. Once a week a mom teaches a little lesson. So it's more like an organized play group, and I only have to be there and teach once a month.

Rhett is on a surgery rotation. He really likes surgery. After surgery he has OB, ER, then a week off the week our baby is due (which will be nice) and then he does a month of night float, which is the internal medicine night shift.

I am getting the huge basketball belly. I have 9 weeks left until the baby's due date, and I most likely won't go into labor before then, and am planning on being induced. But I had placenta previa, which has now resolved, which I'm glad because I'd rather not have a c-section.

I've got a list of projects I'd like to finish before the baby's born, so we'll see how much I get done in these next 2 months.

I'm kind of lazy about checking our mail. So usually what happens is Rhett checks it at night at RJ gets zipped up in his coat and tucks his legs up so they don't "get freezy."

Lately RJ's been more and more into books, which makes me glad. Although I've been reading the same 4 Thomas books to him multiple times a day, and might hide them to give myself a break from Thomas the train and Percy.

Lately I've been trying to help RJ prepare for a baby coming into his kingdom to dethrone him.

So we talk about baby Ellie a lot.

I was telling him she doesn't have teeth. That babies don't have teeth so they can't eat food, just drink milk.

A couple days later we hosted a dinner at our house for Rhett's program, and two babies around 12 months, had teeth. He came up to me confused and kept telling me those babies have teeth! He'd try to pry their jaws open to look at their teeth.

So now he's totally confused and probably thinks I'm a liar, because all the babies he's seeing lately have teeth.

When he saw this picture, he laughed and said: "RJ has scary teeth!"

Christmas!

2010-12-24T15:25:00.000-06:00

Rhett works a 24 hour shift on Christmas, so Santa came a day early at our house.

The last few days, I'd ask RJ if he'd been a good boy. He'd say: "No. I bad boy." So I guess he didn't expect his Thomas train from Santa, but I guess Santa felt he was good enough, and he got the train.

We got the stockings stuffed.

The Crapo's get huge nylons stuffed with a fancy drink, orange, then treats and toys--usually adults get a thigh high and kids get a knee-high.

This year Rhett and I shared one big pair, a leg each.

RJ had a hard time opening his other gifts because he was so enthralled with the train.

But he did like the Leap Frog alphabet magnets for a second.

I made him a stuffed Bullseye toy for Woody to ride, and Bullseye can stand on his own.

He held it long enough to get this fake smile and back to the train he went. Pretty funny.

I also made him a little cow print vest to match Woody. It had a star that says: "SHERIFF RJ". He wore it a half second, I wasn't sure how it would go, good thing it was easy to make.

Grandma's spoiled him with lots of fun toys.

But he kept coming back to the train. He got Toy Story 3, but brought the train tracks down in front of the TV while he watched it.

We had a great little Christmas, and have been really blessed this year!

Thanks for all the gifts grandma's and grandpa's!

I Want The BIG One!

2010-12-22T16:42:00.002-06:00

Lately RJ likes everything BIG!

Mainly his utensils. Rhett was helping him get his cereal, and started with a regular spoon.

RJ wanted the big one, so he got the large spoon.

RJ wasn't sold, so he went over to the drawer to pick one out himself and chose a huge serving spoon.

You can see he could barely stretch his mouth wide enough to get anything in.

But at least it was big. At least he's not eating cereal out of a punch bowl or anything.

Here's one of his fake smiles for Grandpa Kelly.

MoTab Christmas

2010-12-22T16:32:00.000-06:00

You may remember how much I look forward to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra Christmas Concert.

Like last year when it didn't work out to go last minute and I bawled about it like a baby, then the next day Rhett totally redeemed himself and it was a great night.

This year I tried to get tickets, but out of the 1.5 million entries, none of mine were lucky to draw out tickets.

But luckily, my best friend Molly got some and was kind enough to let us use them. We went to a great restaurant before, had great seats, loved the show like always, and it was a great night.

Here's Molly and her fiance, Glenn who got engaged just the night prior.

Here's the baby gut at 26 weeks.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

2010-12-22T16:21:00.000-06:00

Rhett's program has a Christmas Party each year for the kids. RJ didn't have a good experience seeing Santa at our ward party, so all day I tried to prep him, telling him to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas.

So we got there and he decorated a cookie, only to lick all the frosting off.

Then refused to let them paint his face, but instead wanted a jingle bell on his hand.

Then Santa came. The kids lined up, and when it was RJ's turn he didn't want to go. We pointed out kids were getting candy, but he didn't care. Finally Rhett told him he had to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas, or he wouldn't get it.

We'd been practicing all day saying:
"I want a Thomas train please."

But I guess Santa is scary.

So he hesitantly sat on Santa's lap.

He told Santa all about Thomas train.

But I guess RJ misunderstood, because he thought if he sat on Santa's lap then he'd get the train right then.

He felt the Hershey kiss candy cane was a total riff off.

He kept asking: "where's the train?"

So we explained Santa would come to our house, but I think he still felt Santa was a cheap skate.

Bread Bowls

2010-12-21T13:03:00.000-06:00

We like bread bowls for creamy soups in the winter. You cut the top off, gut out the bread for dipping, and enjoy!

Bread Bowls

2 1/2 c. warm water

2 T yeast

2 T sugar

stir or plop in mixer and let froth until doubles

Add:

1 T salt

1 T shortening (I don't measure, just guess with a cereal spoon)

7 c. flour ***Add about 5 cups, then add 1/2 c. at a time until 7 cups, or until dough cleans side of bowl

Knead until smooth and satiny, not as sticky as your roll dough would be.

Put in greased bowl and cover. Let rise until doubled, punch down. Shape into cylinder globs, 4 globs to a greased cookie sheet, and let rise until double or so. *Can brush with beaten egg whites just before baking.

Makes 8 large bakery bread bowls.

Bake at 375 for 20 min.

Here are my dough cylinders. I split one bowl into 2 baby bowls.

Here they are raised right before I baked them.

When it was just me and Rhett, I would halve this recipe and make 4 big bread bowls. This full recipe makes 8 bakery-sized bread bowls. Or tonight I made 3 large bread bowls, 2 baby bowls, then the other half of the dough I made a big loaf of french bread.

You can also freeze the bread bowls for future meals.

Polar Express

2010-12-10T22:53:00.000-06:00

We've been reading the Polar Express quite a bit this month. RJ likes the train in the book.

We got the DVD from Netflix today and after dinner we watched the movie. (the computerized Tom Hanks movie--not the best in my opinion) but RJ was kind of just laying on his side in the beginning, but when the train stopped in front of the kid's house, he got really excited and jumped up on his feet with wide eyes and whispered: "mom the polar express..." in awe. It was really cute and it's fun to see the kid magic of Christmas. After the show we were laying under the Christmas tree looking at the lights, while RJ was telling me he lost his bell too and would Santa bring it to him, and he eventually fell asleep on the rug.

We're loving the Christmas season!

Days Off

2010-12-06T23:28:00.000-06:00

We've been loving the Christmas season at our house. Since December, we've been doing this advent tree. I made these little envelopes, one for each day and I put 3 chocolates in each night and RJ finds the stuffed pocket. My mom sent him this little stuffed elf and we told him the elf brings us treats every day and he's of course loving it. I love it too, a quick family time each night in the dark.

Rhett's been on a busy rotation and working a lot. Mainly long days, usually 12+ hours, but the biggest thing is he only has 3 days off in the month. He had Sunday off after 8:30 am church, he somehow fell asleep in this chair curled upside down all afternoon.

I couldn't figure out how he could sleep like that, kind of little kids that are totally exhausted and just crash.

This little kid wasn't tired, but loves to have pictures taken of himself acting sad. After I'd take the picture he'd run over to look at and laugh at his sad self. Don't ask me.

Monster Hat

2010-12-01T16:12:00.000-06:00

It's been fun with RJ's developing imagination lately.

For example, the other day he told me: "Elves have red poop mom."

He earned a gummi worm, and never ate it, but carried it around all day telling me it wasn't candy, it was a dead worm. He'd let me pet the dead worm, but that's all. Oh and the dead worm lives in an old baseball cap he found in the DI bag.

Or he's been giving Woody time-outs. But Woody gets put in the fridge while RJ stands and counts. Many tiems he forgets Woody is in time out and I try to put something away, and there's Woody hogging all the fridge space.

Yesterday morning he saw a Gap add as I was checking my email and they had these kid hats that were animals. There was a monster and he got excited, loving the monster hat.

So I made him one, and it was really fun. He picked out the orange fur, which surprised me because I thought he'd want the red fleece I'd grabbed. Everything has to be red lately, from his cup, shirts, pants, and even things he likes like elves, have red poop.

But he found the fur, I had kind of forgot I had it.

RJ actually picked/ planned most of it. I asked how many eyes his monster had, "just 2".

For the eyes, I told him to pick out a scrap and he chose the green.

He was really specific on having sharp teeth too.

He stood by me the majority of the time I was sewing, watching the monster come to life.

I finished, and he told me he wanted "monster tails" too, the hanging pom pom things.

So we added them, and it was good enough. He loves this hat.

We finished the hat and he wore it while he and Rhett played some video games.

Then it was bed time and at the last minute he crawled out of bed to get the hat so he could sleep in it.

This morning he was still wearing it for breakfast.

And while he did his chores.

He thought it was funny when Woody wore it.

Then we took out the trash and he actually got to use the snow hat for what it was made for.

of course Woody came too.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-30T23:16:00.000-06:00

Rhett had to work all week and on Thanksgiving, so RJ and I went down to Utah to be with family. RJ was glad to see Grandma and Grandpa. My dad has this ring from my Grandpa. RJ's always liked it and put it on...it's a little big.

My brother-in-law Drew (Lynette's husband) cut my dad's hair which was a big deal because Scott is very particular.

I didn't take very many photos, it was a fun weekend, and RJ was excited to be able to watch Nightmare Before Christmas. Lynette was carrying him on her back and he was holding the DVD. Drew told RJ not to drop the movie, and RJ said: "I got it Drew."

The way he's sitting in this one really makes him look like he has a thick neck.

2010-11-13T16:51:00.000-06:00

This is an old post, but a fun memory.

I think I've mentioned my mom's a big gardener.

Some of the gardening is fun--like eating fresh corn on the cob, and other parts stink. Like a childhood of picking 2 buckets of rocks every day all summer.

But RJ and I happened to be visiting this year on the big harvest day when a lot of produce has already come and gone.

Harvest day is mainly the orchard and pumpkins, and grapes. It's a lot of fun actually.

I opted to start off in the raspberry patch. My absolute favorite. I think it's genetic and got passed to the next generation.

This year my mom grew butternut squash that I was excited about.

Apparently this was a bad year for the orchard.

My mom didn't get any peaches, the plums stunk, and not much else was as great as years past.

There's a tree with golden delicious apples that had nothing, but the gala apple were good.

Then we had all the pumpkins. My mom always grows a huge pumpkin patch with different varieties. Some for canning, some for carving, some just for looks.

Lynette was nice to give RJ rides after dropping off a load of pumpkins--he looks pretty comfy lazy kid!

As kids we would sell pumpkins off our porch. But I guess my mom just gives them to friends and family now.

She also grows concord grapes. She saw a youtube video on pruning them specifically for juice, and she said it made a difference, along with harvesting a lot later.

It took 2 days to juice them all.

Once on a girl trip a few years ago, we were eating our fancy complimentary breakfast in the hotel and Jayne said how grape juice was such a luxury. That seemed so weird to me. Grape juice for me was like peasant juice for poor people since my mom made it and we had it a lot. For me, orange juice is a big splurge and delight. Grape juice is good too, but not special.

I did have a little garden this year and it didn't do too well--a total disgrace to my farmer ancestors.

I'm blaming it on planting late since we didn't move until July, having to leave from the end of Aug to Oct to Boise for Rhett's work, and it being my first try.

Maybe one day my harvest will be as plentiful as my mom's. For now I can only help eat it and cart it out of the field. She really grew it all.

A Little Early..

2010-11-10T21:20:00.002-06:00

We put our tree up.

If you know me you're probably not surprised... I really like Christmas.

Rhett had an easy rotation this week, so we took advantage of him being home to put out our Christmas stuff. Monday he starts Internal Medicine and we won't see much of him, so it was fun to put it up so he wouldn't miss out, and our house feels really cozy, especially since it's been snowing a little this week.

RJ had fun helping fluff the fake branches, but his favorite was the lighting.

This was our first Christmas with a normal sized tree. We've always used a little crappy tree. We bought this 7 foot fake tree this summer at a garage sale for $10.00 Pretty sweet deal. I thought some things might be missing, but everything was there, and it looked better than I expected.

It was also fun because I've been buying a few red or silver ornaments once they're on clearance in January for years, and this was the first time we actually opened our stash we've been collecting and putting everything together.

I really liked the silver and red combo all together after all.

So sorry if early Christmas gags you. I've always liked it, and I guess I've converted Rhett to tolerate it.

It's also fun this year because we have a fireplace and mantle!

Snowman

2010-11-09T19:42:00.000-06:00

Rhett came home from work and helped RJ build a little snowman.

The arms are tassels from our dead corn stalks,

Rock eyes, and a dead crookneck squash for a hat.

First Snow of the Year!

2010-11-08T16:25:00.000-06:00

We were glad Rhett's sister handed down these snow clothes!

Week in Delta and Halloween

2010-11-06T13:39:00.000-05:00

Rhett had a week of vacation scheduled, and we went to visit his family in Delta. The boys went on the deer hunt and no one caught anything.

RJ had fun playing with cousin Drew. They hunted bugs and rocks in Grandpa's rock junk yard, fed the chickens and the bunny. RJ calls everything black Halloween, so the black chickens were "Halloween chickens" and the black bunny was the "Halloween bunny".

For Halloween this year, I made RJ an ewok costume.

I think most people thought he was a bear, but a few people knew he was from Star Wars and liked it.

It was also nice and warm for trick or treating.

I had to wake him up from a nap to go trick or treating, and he was sad and mopey. I asked him to smile for a picture and this is what I got:

He ran around to see himself on the camera, and saw the above photo and busted up laughing saying: "RJ sad!"

Then I got this one of him laughing at his sad self.

Weird sense of humor...wonder where he could have got that.

We went trick or treating with the cousins, princess and butterfly. I didn't get any photos of all 3 kids looking up because Hannah and RJ kept looking at their candy.

Our little fam on Halloween.

RJ got quite a bit of candy, and we let him run around all night once we got home eating it and helping himself to the cooler of homemade rootbeer. He also watched Charlie Brown's The Great Pumpkin, which he loves.

Finally I took the pumpkin of candy away at 9:30 and he quickly had a sugar crash, still holding his "pumpkin patch" balloon.

He picked out these jammies from Costco, not because he especially likes dogs, but I found out later because the little dog heads on the feet, which he puts on people to "bite" them. It's pretty funny...maybe it shouldn't be funny since that's kind of a bully action. And he is kind of a bully. His little cousin Drew (age 5) told me RJ beat him up 3 times in one night, putting him in a headlock and squashing his face in the bed. Hopefully we can steer his passion for wrestling and playing rough into being a productive athlete or something because he's on his way to becoming a Scott Farkus...minus the coon hat so far.

Hopefully a little sister might soften him up, or she'll also become good at headlocks and choke holds.

It's A Girl!

2010-11-02T12:32:00.000-05:00

We're thrilled to share our big news with everyone:
We're expecting a baby girl March 22, 2011

I'm 20 weeks along, so half way!

We're so grateful to be pregnant, and to have come this far. She is my 5th pregnancy and today was kind of bittersweet because we had the ultrasound, and it just happened to also be the due date of our last pregnancy. My miscarriages have always been the hardest first when you find out you've lost the baby, the DNC or passing of the baby, and then again on the baby's due date. But today our exciting news about this girl made the loss of the last baby easier to handle, although I can't help but think about the last pregnancy at the same time I'm cutting out fabric to make Ellaria her baby quilt. Miscarriages are hard, but one positive thing I've found is a deeper gratitude for these occasions when we do have a healthy baby that survives the dreaded 12 week appointment. Those past, and potentially future heart breaks make me more grateful to be a mom than I would be otherwise.

We actually knew this baby was a girl for a while. Out of nowhere Rhett had a strike of father's intuition and came home and said he knew it was a girl all the sudden. He was the same way knowing RJ was a boy. So far he's been 2 for 2 accurate on just knowing.
But this time we went into his work--the resident's clinic one Sunday afternoon to clean out his mailbox and while we were there he did an ultrasound. Their machine was pretty old, and Rhett hasn't had that much experience doing ultrasounds yet, but as we were leaving he said he was 50% sure it was a girl--the same accuracy with no ultrasound, lame. A few miles down the road he upped his confidence to being 70% sure it was a girl. By the time we got home, he was up to 90% it was Ellaria after all saying: "I looked at that baby's crotch a lot, and not once did I think it could be a boy."

So I actually started making/ planning baby girl crap based on his 90% surety, and today we found he was right all along. RJ will have a little sister.

We're naming her Ellaria. It's Italian, but I think the Italian spelling is actually Ilaria. A four-syllable name can be kind of long, so she's already nick-named Ellie. We've been telling RJ about the baby and he says: "Baby Ellie's in your belly!" We've had mixed reactions about the name. Years ago our nieces said they don't like Ellaria, and they told me they plan to call her exclusively Ellie. Kind of funny. We thought as an adult she may prefer Ella as an option to shorten it too.

It's surprised me how excited I've been with the idea of having a daughter. I always thought I'd be an all-boy mom, but I've been really thrilled about a daughter. Having a girl is fun to think about the cute stuff to buy/ make, but at the same time it is terrifying to me. When I heard this talk about mother's relationships with their daughters, I thought how glad I was I didn't have daughters--the pressure and responsibility. With boy's their hero would be Rhett and I always felt good about that. But now I will have a girl of my own and need to step it up I guess to be a better example for her.

Anyway, this pregnancy is going well. Ellaria is healthy and I am in the happy stage where I'm not sick anymore and feel like my energy is back. My gut has popped, although I was home visiting my family and Herschel (little brother) and a brother in law both asked if I was pregnant. I thought the news had spread. Actually, a few weeks ago my older brother visited us and said he thought I'd just "let myself go since I was married". So I think this protruding gut in the front is obvious I'm pregnant, but apparently I'm still in the "chubby or pregnant? phase". But my belly is big enough I can't breathe when I bend over.

I feel like a Twinkie trying to bend in half.

Hiding

2010-10-13T13:58:00.000-05:00

Lately RJ has loved hiding. This time it was in the clean laundry.

Boise Zoo

2010-10-13T13:55:00.000-05:00

Also while we were in Boise, we took an afternoon to go to their zoo.

The Boise Zoo was OK, RJ's favorite was definitely the penguins.

He also liked the bats and tiger.

We're glad Boise is over and the rest of residency will be at home. At least we got it over with in the beginning and while the weather was nice.

Corn Maze Farm

2010-10-13T13:52:00.000-05:00

Rhett had a Saturday night off, and had wanted to go to the BSU v Oregon football game, but couldn't get tickets. So instead we took RJ to a corn maze/ farm. We chose not to pay for the maze, but just did the little kiddie farm activiies.

They had this little petting zoo with a camel, porcupine, and a wallaby. Then the usual sheep, pigs, goats, cow, etc. The camel was really slobbery and gross.

It was a cute little farm, RJ had a lot of fun.

Feeding Ducks

2010-10-13T13:47:00.000-05:00

Rhett has been working in Boise, about 4 hours away, for these last 8 weeks. Pocatello is too small to have their own children's hospital, so for his Pediatrics rotation, he worked in Boise. The program has a furnished apartment you live in, so RJ and I were there most of the time, but went home now and again to mow the lawn and take care of things.

One of Rhett's days off we were able to go to the park to feed all these ducks our moldy bread.

Trip Home part 2

2010-09-19T19:48:00.000-05:00

Fun in Utah continued:

Halloween movie night. The kids got really into Hallween and we made paper ghosts and bats to tape on the wall. They wanted a Halloween movie and chose Corpse Bride.

RJ and Katie (6) were good buds this trip, as she was the only one willing to wrestle and rough house with him.

That is why is other cousin Cael said "He a jerk". RJ plays too rough sometimes and hurt his leg I guess.

Skateboard lesson from uncle Drew.

THE FOOD!

This is a great time of year to visit my mom because the massive garden is in harvest time.

She grew carrots for the first time this year, and that massive cabbage the size of a basketball.

I made these cinnamon/ sugar almonds. I got the recipe from another blog but can't remember which. They're good, just like the hot nuts at christmas.

And caramel apples!

We picked some apples off my mom's tree and made caramel.

I posted the recipe on here a while ago. It's good!

Parker's Drive In

2010-09-18T23:03:00.000-05:00

If you grew up in Northern Utah County, you probably already know, and hopefully agree with everything this post has to offer.

I'm talking about American Fork's greasy spoon,

Lee Parker's Drive In

It's a historical part of AF. Last summer there was talk they were closing, and it seemed like a little panic whenever I would talk to anyone about it. Luckily, Lee's daughter is keeping things going.

This little restaurant was huge in my childhood. Any time cousins would visit my grandma from out of town, we'd always have to get Parker's. As a kid, it seemed like special occasions needed Parkers.

Another reason this dive seemed personally important, was the fact my mom and her two older sisters all worked there through high school.

But back in the late 70s they'd call it "the pit" back when it was an Arctic Circle.

We heard lots of stories from my mom working at Parker's, like one time she was leaving and had 2 melted, nasty, frothed milk shakes leftover and was holding them standing out the sun roof of her friends car, looking for someone in town to throw them on.

Two unsuspecting cowboys (most likely from Lehi) were on the curb and just got drenched--a high speed car chase ensued through the back streets of AF. As a kid my mom seemed like such a rebel.

Anyway, there's a lot of nostalgia associated with this place. A lot from my own life, and a lot hearing about it from my mom and aunts. I remember one time I was in there to pick up the food with my mom and I actually saw old man Lee Parker myself... in real life.

I think the menu is as old as I am, they just increase the prices over the years.

NOTE: The two older ladies in the back worked with my mom. My mom would always brag that she advanced to go behind the counter and worked the grill, where beginners just cashier and make drinks.

So here's the food.

I made this whole post to enlighten people about the difference between hamburger sauce and fry sauce.

You have to ask for hamburger sauce, (I think it's $.50 or something) but it's a lot better than fry sauce. My mom knows the recipe, so she always makes hamburger sauce when we make burgers at home, and so I forget how much better it is than your usual fry sauce.

Fry sauce = equal parts mayo and ketchup, and some places put pickle juice or relish in it...sick!

Hamburger sauce: mayo, ketchup, and a little buttermilk.

Anyway, if you are ever driving through Utah County on I-15, get off at the American Fork 500 E exit and drive north to state street and try the hamburger sauce with your fries.

Hopefully people like it as much as I do. Rhett says it's just OK, so maybe you have to grow up with the greasy magic of Parker's to really appreciate it.

Trip Home!

2010-09-18T00:15:00.000-05:00

RJ and I recently spent a week visiting my family.

Lots of fun things at Grandma's house.

First off, picking raspberries for breakfast to go with her raspberry lemonade.

We visited Lynette at her Tailoring shop in Provo, but RJ fell asleep and Lynette thought he looked like a posed dead kid the way his hands were crossed and his feet together.

We spent a few days with the cousins.

ASTRO POPS!

Under the table for shade.

The Saturday I took the 4 oldest kids up AF Canyon to Tibble Fork.

I was bummed we were too early and leaves hadn't started changing.

Main Attraction for us:
Feeding the ducks, then throwing rocks at them once they'd gained the kids' trust

{RJ's varsity jacket was a hand-me-down from Rhett's sister. It reminded me of EMILIO Estevez in Breakfast Club. I tried to watch Breakfast Club the other day on instant Netflix but shut it off due to all the f-bombs. I guess I'd always seen it edited on TV or something. Bummer.}

The drive down the canyon, Cael and RJ held hands the whole way.

From these photos, it seems like these two boys are good friends.

But the next morning my sister Heather asked Cael if he wanted to go to grandma's to play with RJ and Cael said:
"No! He a jerk! He hurt my leg."

So cousin spats already...and RJ always seems to be the mean bully. But Cael did scratch RJ's arm the next day and got his vengeance.

more to come from our trip...later

Where Is Fall?

2010-09-07T05:00:00.001-05:00

A couple days ago, it was cool and crisp, and I thought fall was here and got excited to bust out the sweaters and make caramel apples. But a heat wave came through and it's been unwanted and I keep hoping fall will come, as I love it and one season closer to Christmas.

pictures taken in AF canyon

Autumn is best in Utah I think...although I've never experienced fall in Vermont.

Papa

2010-09-05T23:42:00.000-05:00

I love that my son loves his Dad. Especially when Dad comes home and RJ wants nothing to do with me for a while...I think the feeling is mutual some days.

RJ's face showing I ruined the party.

Rhett's current rotation (Pediatrics) schedules the overnight call for 30-hour call. So he goes to work at 7am and gets done at 1 pm--the next day. The week is split between 3 interns, so you usually only have 2 a week. The other days are normal clinic days (7am to 7pm). I imagine they must have a good reason, but working 30 hours straight, as a doctor, taking care of little kids, seems stupid to me. Maybe because I couldn't function and might kill someone if I was in charge...but whatever. I could barely work 12 hour night shifts, so I am a sleep deprivation wimp.

But Rhett hasn't killed anyone yet, so I guess working 30 hours straight is manageable for some people.

The longest I've ever gone without sleep was when I was 16, and stayed up all night watching movies at the drive in, then went on a Pioneer Trek with church the next morning. I didn't realize you go right into hauling handcarts full of heavy dutch ovens up cattle trails in Wyoming the first day. I don't know if I got what the leaders wanted us kids to get out of the whole experience, but there were moments I wanted to die, so at least that part gave me a taste of what it was like for the real pioneers. Oh and I took shoes that were too small and bruised all my toe nails the first day, so walked the rest in socks, so that too seemed hard core pioneer to me...especially a few days later when most of my toe nails fell off.

I probably ended up being awake 35 hours straight that experience, and by the end of the second day I was totally exhausted, bawling, and delusional. Unfortunately a few of my friends probably still remember my condition that night as the "mob" came and drove us out to take down our tents and relocate in the dark, I had just fallen asleep in the weeds sitting indian style. I bawled the whole dark walk to the next weed patch.

Once we were there to stay, I was lame and didn't help my group set up our tent, I just put my sleeping bag in the weeds and went to sleep. Needless to say I wasn't a favorite in my assigned "family" group and the rest of the trek was much better for me once I slept.

Although it got better in some ways, in others it became more stressful--a kid named Sean Moon had a temporary crush throughout the trek. If you know Officer Moon, you'll know that makes for some interesting stories and awkwardness. Like the time he punched my friend Spencer in the top of his head because Officer Moon thought Spencer had pushed me. Or the catcalls at my butt as I'm bending over pushing the hand-cart up a steep hill, and Sean is riding in his hand-cart right behind ours, yelling my name, telling me what a great job I'm doing, and whistling at me, as I'm sweating like a pig, tripping over the pioneer dress they made us wear, so mad I could and did spit, and grunting with effort. I do have to hand it to Spencer Heaton, the huge, strong kid that pulled Sean up that entire mountain that was really nice of Spencer, but I kind of wish he hadn't so Sean wouldn't have been so well rested to yell the whole way.

I have a photo of Officer Moon and I on the trek. Maybe I'll dig them up, and if anyone knows where Sean is and how he's doing, I'd like an update. He's the only boy in my high school years that I was ever aware had a crush on me, even though it was only the 3 days of the trek, so I hope he's well. He actually kept calling my little sister Lynette for a long time, and she was only 13 or something. I guess I looked a lot better unbathed, stinky, sweaty, and filthy and once we got home he lost interest.

Anyway, I don't know why it seems so crazy to me to schedule people to work 30 hours straight--like prisoner of war Vietnam torture tactics or something.

Croc Hunter Revealed

2010-09-05T22:53:00.000-05:00

...for Marianne and Melody

Melody is racking up the memories in the Lame Clothing Contest. Thanks for the memories!

Both Marianne and Melody mentioned the slumber party in 8th grade where we made videos.

I did some impersonations of Steve Erwin: Crock Hunter as seen here featuring the ferret.

Later we learned the cafeteria dance to Superstar to "Everybody Dance Now" and filmed that.

Pretty great days running a muck in the middle of the night in Alpine, Utah.

I remembered I had scanned this photo of that night, but unfortunately, I'm wearing my Spanish Fork boys soccer shirt I bought for $1.00 at D.I. instead. Another fashion gem, but I don't think I actually had inherited the red dawls shirt yet, thus I was dabbling in little boys city-issued sports tees instead.

Don't worry, I'll still count the memories in the winnings.

just a reminder:

HAVE YOU KNOWN ME IN THE LAST 10 YEARS? THEN YOU'VE PROBABLY SEEN ME WEAR THE SAME SHIRT AND SKIRT OVER AND OVER. EVEN RECOGNIZING THEM GETS YOU AN ENTRY.

ENTER THE CONTEST HERE.

Clothing 101

2010-09-04T19:53:00.000-05:00

Right after I started the lack of fashion contest, I read these tips from from: The Lucky Shopping Manual.

-If you’re unsure about a big ticket item, put it on hold for 24 hours and think it over.

I don't think I've ever considered a big ticket item of clothing. Unless you consider big ticket a pair of jeans for less than $50.

-“Don’t buy anything that doesn’t flatter you or isn’t comfortable, no matter how of-the-moment it is.”

I don't ever think about whether it's flattering, just if it's comfortable.

“If you have to talk yourself into a purchase in the dressing room, pass on it.”

I rarely try anything on.

“If there’s nothing in your closet to wear with it, skip it.”

Pretty much I only wear jeans and t-shirts, so I'm lost at coordinating "outfits"

“Never purchase something just because it looks good on someone else.”

duh.

“Don’t save a pair of jeans for that anticipated five-pound weight loss. Owning them is bad for your psyche. If the time comes when you drop a size, chances are you won’t hesitate to run out and buy a new pair”

I'm pretty sure I always buy pants way too big, and I have garbage bag butt in the back, so they're comfortable but not at all the right way they should fit. I was told having a really short torso, I should wear low rise jeans. But I hate crackage with my bubble butt so no way! I loathe low rise jeans. They were made for girls with no bum I think.

“If a stain didn’t come out at the cleaners or when you toiled over it in the sink it’s permanent. Time to let it go.”

“If we kept every item of clothing with a memory attached , we’d be buried in clothes.”

I have a big problem with this one...thus the contest

“Ask yourself if each item of clothing in your closet:

1) flatters your shape,

2) fits perfectly or is fixable,

3) is the right color for you,

4) has been worn in the last two years

– only things that get four yesses should stay.”

I don't think I have one thing that gets 4 yesses!!

These tips were kind of depressing to realize how little I know, and even less that I actually implement. But they seem to make sense, I guess I just never think of it.

Clothing to me is like shelter--just to cover my nakedness and protect me from the elements.

But I'd like to change.

Contest for Your Memories of the Past

2010-09-02T17:01:00.001-05:00

Another little contest and giveaway to celebrate this time:

my lack of fashion sense/ style.

When Rhett graduated in May, it was obviously an exciting event for our family. But it was also exciting for my closet, because I'd always had the plan to get rid of all my clothing that I've had since high school when no one in our family was "student" status any longer. With that plan, I also planned to replace everything I threw out, but that has yet to happen, and may not happen for a while.

Anyway, I think most normal people probably don't have much or any clothing from high school, I guess depending on how long ago you graduated. I graduated in 2003. So the newest items to go would be at least 7 years old.

So after all the high school (there were even some Jr. High) clothing were bagged for goodwill, I was left with a little less than half of what I started with. Pathetic? Well I kept waiting for someone to nominate me for TLC's What Not to Wear, but no one did. So I had to throw it all out myself, leaving me still clueless about style and how to dress myself, and not having the fancy new wardrobe the show would have bought me.

Anyway, there were 2 items that should have been thrown out but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

The red "dawls" t-shirt.

The blue mini-plaid a-line skirt.

These are my favorites.

I wore them together one last time early this summer.

I walked in the kitchen and my little sister Lynette was there and said: "Wow. You still have those?"

Yes. And I can't get rid of them.

I am kind of a pack rat.

But these two articles of clothing I've had for so long, worn so much, and have so much sentimental value, they have become kind of like baby blankets you can wear. The skirt more than the t-shirt.

HISTORY of the T-Shirt

Just a hand-me-down from my older sister when her chest out grew it--I was probably in 9th grade. Nothing special, but for some reason I always liked it. More sentiment than style obviously.

HISTORY of the SKIRT

please don't think I'm disgusting when you read how long I've had it, think of it as vintage or something

This skirt started as a jumper when I was a girl. I don't know how old I was exactly, less than 10 though. I don't necessarily remember loving it as a jumper, but I got too big, so my mom cut off the arms, and made it into the skirt.

So I've had it at least 15 years if not more.

I've worn it for 15 years.

But I'm moving on.

The skirt is also moving on to something in a different shape and form.

I have plans for both of them...but here's where the contest comes in.

If you recognize either item, that is 1 entry--make it 1 post

If you remember a story or have a memory/ event where I was wearing one of these, 1 entry for each memory/ story, make each a separate comment to count.

I haven't pinned down the prize, because it depends on who wins it, (i.e. if you don't have kids you'd hate to win baby crap) but I think in the past with my Stalkers Come Out Contest I had pretty good prizes.

Marianne won this just for having the funniest comment, so hopefully this will inspire you to rack your brains in the last 15 years if you know me to enter to win.

If you have a photo of me wearing either item, that is an automatic prize.

Email the photo as proof to: jessica.crapo@gmail.com

I don't expect much of a response on this contest, so don't feel embarrassed for me when no one comments, I'm expecting very few to have paid attention to my lame wardrobe. But I'm excited for the few who do.