You're afraid of what??

Jake was quietly sitting in his chair with his nose in a book the other day when suddenly he stopped, looked up, and exclaimed, "I'm afraid of birds!" Joseph and I were a little taken aback, and didn't know quite how to respond seeing as he's never said anything like this before. We thought maybe we heard him wrong, so we responded, "You're afraid of what?" And he repeated, "I'm afraid of birds. Birds will eat me." I wasn't exactly sure where this all came from, but I tried to explain to him that birds only eat bugs and berries, not people. As much as I try to tell him that birds are friendly and don't bite, he seems to think otherwise. One day when we were trying to leave the house, he stopped cold on our front step. I tried to get him to move his little tush, but he wouldn't budge. I couldn't grab him and carry him since I had my hands full with Eli's carrier and diaper bag, so I just had to pursuade him to follow me. Then a big flock of birds from the bush outside our house raced passed us and Jake stood frozen and wide-eyed. All of a sudden it dawned on me. OH! He's probably afraid of the birds in front of our house. He probably thinks they'll run into him. Either way, I'll let him tell you about it:
P.S. This was the second take. During the first one I had to keep telling Jake to get his hands out of his pants. Boys...

Rebuked

My sister gave me a stern talkin' to today. I was told over and over again, "Angela, you NEED to update your blog!! I need to see your babies!" Even if no one else cares, my sister is dying to see my two chunks, so, see them you shall.

I wish I had more exciting things to blog about, but I suppose I'm in a little bit of a rut lately. Actually, that's a copout. It's not that things haven't happened. In fact, LOTS of blogworthy activities have occurred. We went to the Wisconsin Dells over Spring Break again, Joseph turned 28 (Happy Birthday, babe, love you!) I signed up Jake for preschool, and Eli is growing like a weed. In all actuality, the reason that I haven't been up to speed with my blog is that I'm simply embarrassed that I haven't taken pictures of any of these events. And, let's all be honest here, no one comes to my blog to hear my ramblings. You all want PICTURES!

So, consider myself rebuked. Also, if anyone feels the need to buy me a nice, beautiful, new camera for my birthday, I won't stop you. My birthday is in August. You can start saving right now. Just a thought. :)

Until then, or at least until the batteries in my camera are charged, a grainy picture taken on Joseph's iPod will have to do.

Thanks, Abby, for the matching pajamas, the boys love them!! And, I promise I will update again sooner than later. You have my word (get it? like blogging words? ok, that was lame...)

My new gig

I love books, especially children's books, and I love to read them aloud to my kids. One of my favorite parts of each day is sitting on the couch with Jake and having him bring me book after book to read to him. A few weeks ago my friend invited me to an Usborne Books and More party that she was hosting in her home. I went to it having never even heard of Usborne before. While I was there I fell in love with the company and the incredible quality of educational children's books that they produce. I was completely sucked in, and ended up leaving the party as an Usborne Books and More consultant!!

I am pretty much obsessed with these books right now. I want all of them!! I love how they entice the child to read, and are so much fun that the he doesn't even realize how much he's learning! The more I learn about these books, the more I love them. I really could go on and on, but at the risk of saying the word "love" one too many times, I decided to just make a different Usborne business blog where I can ramble to my heart's content.


My mom hosted my very first party while I was in Michigan. I really wanted people that I knew to be at my first party because I was SUPER nervous! It went really well, though, and I had a great time sharing different books with people. I also came away with lots of ideas to make things better for the next time around.

This is something that I've really gotten passionate about. The future of our country depends on the education and literacy of our children (I'm having a flashback of Miss Teen South Carolina right now.) I truly believe that every child should be surrounded by good books, and I am so excited to get all kinds of great Usborne books in my home and share them with others!

I also decided to work on getting my educational consultant license so I can work with schools and libraries on book fairs, pledge programs, matching grants, etc. If you'd like to check out the books, you can see my website: www.myubam.com/L3659. I also am putting a link to my new Usborne blog on the sidebar. It's a new blog, so there's not a whole lot on there right now, but hopefully I'll get lots of good stuff going on soon. Yay for good books!

We're back!

We just got back from Michigan, and first and foremost, I must shout from the rooftops and let you know that JAKE IS POTTY TRAINED!!!! WAHOOOO!!

As you all know, I was up to my witt's end with trying to potty-train Jake. When I went up to Michigan, my mom graciously decided to take on the enormous task with me - thank goodness for mothers!! Together (and with Grandpa's help teaching him how to pee standing up) we tag-teamed the effort and he is officially out of diapers!! I'm pretty sure Joseph is mostly thrilled that he didn't have to do any of it! :)

This picture was taken right after one of his successful potty attempts. I know you're all thinking, "What a cute kid...and is that a blue toilet?" Why, yes, it is. We're pretty sure it's original to our 1970's home. Don't worry, our bath is blue, too. We're living in style over here.

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Michigan. I got to see some wonderful friends and family and witnessed my niece's blessing (she is 6 weeks younger than Eli and just a doll!) Originally, Joseph was going to come up for the weekend of my niece's blessing and take us back to Iowa, but the road conditions were pretty severe that weekend so we decided to fly home instead.

We happened to get our tickets on Jake's birthday, and he was beyond excited to fly in an airplane. The trip started off great. The pilot knew it was Jake's birthday so he let him sit in the cockpit! Then he made an announcement saying that it was Jake's birthday and he had the whole airplane sing to him. Jake was thrilled. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera (I know, it's a problem) but fortunately, we happened to be sitting across from a photographer who took pictures of the whole thing with his fancy schmancy camera! He is going to send them to my e-mail, so stay tuned.

Anyway, the trip started out well, but it just went downhill from there. You all remember this picture? It was taken when we were flying to Orlando a couple of years ago.

That's Joseph with the barf bag on the plane. He gets REALLY motion sick. As it turns out, Jake inherited Joseph's stomach. In the middle of the flight, Jake kept telling me he was really tired. I thought it was because we had to wake him up from his nap in order to make our flight, so I didn't think much of it. I just had him rest on my lap while I was holding sleeping Eli. Then, just as we started our descent into Chicago, Eli woke up and started crying, and Jake spewed. Big time. The plane emptied, and the flight attendants and the pilot all came over to help me clean up. Just when we changed Jake and had everything cleaned, he threw up again. All over. And, of course, Eli was screaming the whole time. And we were only halfway done with our trip!

By the time we got on the second plane, Jake's stomach had eased and he was completely excited to be on the plane again. Until it took off. As soon as it started to ascend into the air, Jake got very lethargic and I hurried and grabbed the barf bag and got it there ALMOST in time. This one made it mostly into the bag, so there wasn't as much to clean. To make a long story short, he threw up 2 more times for a grand total of 5 for the whole trip. And we were in the air for only two hours. Oy...it looks like our family may single handedly keep Dramamine in business from now on!

I just realized that this entire post revolved around Jake's potty habits and throwing up. Sorry guys...

Eli's Blessing

On Sunday we had the wonderful opportunity to bless little Eli during church. We were especially thrilled that we could have both sets of grandparents there for the special occassion. There was such a sense of peace and love during the blessing, and it was a special moment for our whole family.
The blessing was beautiful and I wrote down notes this time (I forgot to with Jake's...sorry Jake. You live and learn.)


Eli was as handsome as ever, and as you can see, he's beginning to be quite the little chunk!! As per usual, he was a perfect angel throughout the entire meeting.

I'm so grateful for my two handsome little boys and for a husband who is a worthy priesthood holder and can give them blessings. I love being a mother for my little family.

After the blessing, my family left to go back home to Midland and Jake, Eli and I all tagged along! Joseph is in his super-block of dental school right now, so I thought we would get out of his hair for a little while so he can get things done a little more efficiently. We're in Midland for a couple of weeks, and if anyone is in town we'd love to see you!

Impressed or horrified?

For Christmas I got Joseph Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the wii. Often when Joseph comes home from school, he will sit down and play for a few minutes to unwind while Jake watches him and helps him look for stars. Lately as soon as Joseph walks in the door, Jake starts to jump up and down and yell, "Get the stars daddy!!" It's been a fun activity for the two of them to do together.

However, you can imagine my shock when I woke up one morning to find that Jake had left his room, turned on Mario, and had started playing all on his own! As in, he was in one of the levels (I'm amazed that he got into a level at all, it's not easy with all kinds of buttons and pointing that you have to do) and had figured out how to run, jump (and run and jump together), shake the controller to spin, fly, and collect stars. What is even more amazing to me is that had connected the two controllers needed to play this game, and he was using them both in sync. At that moment I didn't know whether to be impressed or horrified. He's not even three yet and he's already playing video games!! He was so cute, though, I wasn't going to stop him! Of course, he died and fell off cliffs several times, but I really was slightly amazed while I watched him play. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he figured everything out. Still, I wasn't expecting having to worry about my son becoming addicted to video games before he was even potty trained!!

Yes...that's right...still not potty trained...ugh!! But that, of course, is a whole other post.

The dental school hates us

The news is calling it snowmaggedon. Students are calling it a blessing. Joseph and I are calling it a nightmare because the dental school is calling it a funny little joke.

Like much of the country, we got blasted by snowpocolypse '11. Official records say that we got anywhere between 12-15 inches of snow, but the drift outside our house was well above two feet. The whole city shut down. The Iowa City Transit busses stopped running, the public schools and university closed, and we were all expecting a nice little snow day. But, apparently the dental school hates us because they are separate from the rest of the university and their clinics were open!! Which meant that Joseph had to go in!! Which meant he had to walk!! Which meant that he was out of the house at 6:45 am shoveling a pathway through the snow so that he could at least get out onto the unplowed road in front of our house and trudge through the snow. Luckily, right after he finished the path he got a phone call that one of his friends was getting a ride to the school and asked if he wanted to tag along. YES. So at 8:30 I kissed my husband, and a day that had such great potential, goodbye.

He called me later to inform me that hardly any of the faculty showed up for clinic, but every single student did. They must have thought they were playing a funny little joke. We're not laughing!

Oh well, Joseph got some good studying in which would have been hard for him to do at home, and he ended up coming home after lunch anyway so the day ended up not being all that bad afterall.

On a completely unrelated and much happier note, Jake peed in the potty today. On his own. And he wanted to! Forget the fact that half of it got on the floor and not in the toilet at all, but, hey, we've got to celebrate the little things over here.

Also, Eli is still just as sweet as can be. I love my boys.