Surprise!

When my parents went on vacation, they asked me if I could stop by their house and feed the bird. Quick and easy, I figured. I figured wrong. You might think they would have told me that they were setting their house alarm. They haven't done it in a long time, so it was not expected. When I entered the house, the beeping started. I knew instantly that I had seconds to put in the code or someone would come over the speaker to warn me that the cops were coming.(They actually did come when my sister had a similar experience previously).  But thinking this was a quick in and out, I had left my phone in the car. I raced out to get it to dial my Dad's number. You have to be inside with all the sirens to fix anything though, the sirens which were even louder now that I had missed my window to enter the code. It's so easy to dial and focus under those circumstances! Luckily Dad answered just as the lady came over the speaker asking who I was. I told them my situation and she asked for a password. Dad told me over the phone just in time and any major catastrophe was averted. But really, who expects their parents to booby trap the house for you before inviting you over?! I almost peed my pants, ha.

Chillaxin'

So we have had some time lately to catch up on life a little bit. We got to take a few days of vacation at the Rowley's cabin, which was really fun. I got some massive bruises on my arm from archery. I thought it was because I had bad form, but Brent and Kaden also had that problem, and I was hitting the target fine (before I got so scared of it getting me that I couldn't hold my arm still long enough, ha). So now I just think that's not my favorite sport. We tried out the zipline again, as you can see on the left. I jumped off a little early and made my knee into hamburger, but it was still fun. We also rode the 4-wheeler back and forth a lot, which is Ty's new favorite thing. He got spoiled for those few days, and now that we are home, I have to take him on rides around the orchards now and then or he is completely crestfallen. He is learning though. Once you put him on the seat he reaches to move the keys, and then puts his hand on the ignition button. And then he gets the biggest grin and just looks up at you like the world couldn't be happier.

He has also taken lately to talking on the "phone". The phone can be a remote, a play phone, a block, or even the power block for the computer. He will sit and have great conversations, but when you give him a real phone with a real relative on the other end, he freezes. Like a deer in the headlights. We're working on it.

The little guy and I also enjoy our popsicle dates. He runs to the freezer and says "popo" and we sit together on the kitchen floor to eat it. It seems he must be sitting in my lap before he can take a bite, so that's what we do--every day after watering the garden or playing outside.

This last week we went into town to the county fair. I love the fair. The rodeo is my favorite, but the food--though completely unhealthy and overpriced--is delicious. And you would never eat it otherwise. We got a good ol' funnel cake for good measure. Landon's little brother came with us. He wasn't too excited about most of the rides, but we talked him into the Spider with Landon. But he wouldn't let them spin much, ha. Our little guy went on the ferris wheel (which is probably the scariest ride in my opinion), and Goliath's slide. And he was pretty interested in seeing all the animals.

 I got a hole-in-one to enter a golf sweepstakes, just sayin'. And we hit up the buckin' broncos at the rodeo. We were there when one of the rodeo girls fell off her horse and got dragged around the ring because her foot was stuck. It was pretty crazy. Luckily she was ok. Whitney even watched Ty so we could go on the ride that drops you out of the sky. Wooh! I have a video but haven't changed the format, so I can't post it yet. Sorry. Let's just say I might have screamed.

 We finally finished our garage. It's all painted and organized and we can even fit the car and truck! I really was skeptical that huge truck would make it in. We have to really squeeze it in, you know, butter the sides even, but we can fit them both :) And, I painted the front door. Unbeknownst to me, it's really hard to get normal paint to stick on doors. So you may not fully appreciate this task unless you've tried it, but I was pretty proud of myself after putting 4 coats on to get it to look good.

And Ty got to go swimming for the first time. He clung to me pretty tight at first, but once we gave him a ball to chase around, he actually tried to paddle and loved it. Good times. I love summer when we actually have time to take advantage. Now we just have to roast some more mallows and watch a meteor shower and my summer is complete :)

I know these are blurry but it's all we have.  Landon says he was shaking because he was cold ;)

Though I must say. This is the first year where school has started and my life hasn't changed a bit. We have no one in school anymore. WEIRD, but AWESOME!

Sunday duds, as Anita calls them :) He likes to look just like Daddy

Aunt Angie came to visit. It was fun to see her and show her the new house! Thanks for making the drive!!

His new way of looking at the world lately. Not sure why, but he does it all the time.

Someone asked me to make their son's brithday cake a few weeks ago. I was really rushed for time the day I did it because Tyson was really not cooperating, so I'm not sure it was quite what I planned. But I made a big angry birds cake, and then these cupcakes, with the blue bird cupcakes as well. Had to pipe feathers on all of them! I think it turned out looking good, but I am definitely learning a lot. It was my first experience making marshmallow fondant, and it turned out pretty great! And they had a delicious raspberry cream cheese filling.

Our little wrangler says "hope your summer has been fun too!"

Green Thumb

I just wanted to post about our garden because I'm pretty proud of myself :) Our yard may be a wasteland of dirt and new poplars popping up everywhere, but the garden represents some major sweat and hard work, ha. For real though, I even sprained my thumb weeding this week and now I can't really grasp anything with my right hand. 

We moved in a little late for the usual planting season, so we didn't have high expectations. The night we actually had time to do it, we ran into town to get seeds. There was a slight miscommunication with the peppers and we somehow ended up with several full rows of hot habenero or jalapeno peppers. Let me know if you are a salsa maker. Then we came back with a little bit of light left and a storm approaching. Landon and I hoed like crazy and spread some miracle grow in that soil as fast as we could. We were sticking plants in like lightening to avoid any lightening striking Landon, who was holding the shovel. Luckily, we got everything in--partly in the dark--about 20 minutes before the rain started.

When we started the endeavor of this year's garden, I told Landon to keep it small-scale. There are only two of us, and with cherry season, I knew I would have to take care of it by myself. And yet, he is always the one who chooses how much we plant, ha. With our little guy around, I could only weed about a third of it a day, so it took 3 days to finally weed it, and then a few days later I had to start all over again. Kinda disheartening. And then I discovered Preen. It's awesome--weed preventer. I put it in between the rows and this week I weeded the whole garden in like 15 minutes. 

I've also had to watch some youtube videos on how to harvest our crops, since neither Landon nor I know much about any of them. We had no idea when they were ready, or how to harvest them, or how to water. It's been mostly guess and check, but I thought I would consult the experts when figuring out some things. Despite the poplar trees trying to grow in the middle, and the gopher taking half of our lettuce, we are pretty happy with how it's turning out.

This is actually from Grandma and Grandpa Rowley's garden, but I laughed and thought you might like it too. He loves his veggies.

Lab Rat

Yes, that's me. The lab rat. I've kinda felt that way lately, anyway. I've had to go in for several tests lately, EEG's, tilt tables, etc., all of which are meant to make you dizzy or lightheaded (trying to recreate symptoms I'm having and monitor my body's reaction). The last was definitely the craziest. They actually didn't have to do anything to recreate symptoms, but the setup and take-down was bad enough. First of all, they said I couldn't put any gel or products in my hair. We all know how that goes. They were reconsidering when they saw me take it out of the hair rubberband. Lion's main. I'm  pretty sure I haven't gone that long without gel for over 10 years, and for good reason. Then, they had to rub my scalp with abrasives so the stuff would stick on better, but they rubbed to hard that I have tender cuts and scabs all over my head. After that, they basically super glued the 22 nodes for the 22 wires all over my head, and a couple for an EKG on my chest. So, I have my dry hair tangled in with all of the wires, and they velcroed it together behind my head, ha. All the wires came to a box in a strap on my chest, and those connected to a recording box around my waist.  To top it off, my whole head was then wrapped in gauze so the wires weren't exposed. Fabulous.

I had to wear it all for 24 hours. I was worried that the baby would pull out the wires. They told me--just don't let that happen. Great. Surprisingly, when he tried and I told him no, he left them alone for the rest of the test. But he did give me plenty of funny looks for having my head wrapped in gauze. Landon decided that if I basically had my head in a cast, he had to sign it. And he made sure to sign it for Tyson as well. You just can't have a cast without signing it, right?

The good thing about the whole test is that I had to right down everything I did. That means that I ate a lot less junk food and snacks, because you don't want to write that down for everyone. Anyway, when they took it off, I was told that there was a high chance I would have super glue dandruff for weeks. But my odds were best if I put a whole bottle of conditioner on my dry scalp ("Saturate it", she told me), and left it for a half hour. The best part is next. Then we had to use a fine-toothed comb and try to scrape all the glue off and comb it out of my hair--all before getting it wet. I don't even own a comb or a brush. You just don't do that to my hair, especially when it's dry. Luckily Landon had one with his haircutting kit. Bless his heart, he tried loosening everything with the comb. He had a hard time distinguishing between the red wax markings they put on and the red areas that were from the abrasion before, so it was slightly painful. But I took another half hour in the shower, and I think we did a pretty good job.

The test was crazy, but I think my hair made it all the more enjoyable. I don't find out my results for a couple weeks, but we are praying that it's not siezures--which will last at least a year, and probably for life. Pray!

Christmas

I'm still playing catch-up from Christmas. But here are some fun pics of our break. 

Grandma Rowley made him a super cute hat

He's always so excited when Daddy comes home!

Meeting Santa

Most little kids seem to be terrified of Santa. At least a lot of those at our ward Christmas party were. Not Tyson. He was "Santa's Little Helper", or so it said on his shirt. Santa named him his little "Beard Stealer"...

Now all of our ward knows if Santa's beard was real. He checked twice to make sure. Once when he first got on his lap, and once while we took the picture above, ha. From the minute he got on Santa's lap, he was just looking for things to pull or play with. The tree caught his attention next.

He had this thing with posing for a while.

He loves the bubbles!

Our tree. The top was too flimsy, so the star went in the middle, ha. And the tree was dead in two weeks. We even cut it ourselves and still--dead as a doornail. Good thing we weren't here until Christmas.  If you look you can see our elf Sparticus too.

Just makes me smile.

At the Basin City Ward party.

Grandpa Draney said he needs to start young. So we let him try out the drums.

I was pretty proud of our gingerbread houses this year. Makenna and I made the one on the left.

His first Christmas!

Landon and I were in charge of leaving a plate for Santa. Landon is all for bribery. 

Baking rolls, you gotta have a stylin flamenco apron.

Ty wanted to play too.

My new snow clothes

Landon made me get him some Christmas socks last year, since I  have so many.  He was pretty proud of them.

Decisions, Decisions

Since our computer has issues, I can't get any pictures from my dropbox to my blog. So, my blogs might be boring without pictures until we buy a new one. Sorry.  But I was laughing at little Tyson yesterday, and I thought I would share.
The doctor and internet say that at 9 months, I should start giving my son more options, so that he learns to make choices (which is probably good, because Landon and I are both incredibly indecisive). And, I can see what preferences he is developing. So, at lunch I decided that I would put both a yogurt bite and a Puff on his tray, and see which he chose to pick up first. Of course, he has two hands, so he went for the best of both worlds.  He is learning now how to pick things up with just his thumb and forefinger, and how to successfully get that into his mouth by turning the wrist a little. Who knew there were so many skills involved in eating, huh. So it took him a second to pick them both up, but he was pretty proud of himself.
So, I decided to throw in another puff, just to make things interesting. Would he grab the yogurt bite, or just stick with Puffs? He is definitely his parents' child. He sat for a minute or two and figured out how to pick up two with one hand and one with the other. Then he looked up at me with a big grin. Why settle for two, when you can have three, right? So much for making him choose.

Love and Marriage

Did you sing the title when you read it?

So, I was at the chiropractor yesterday, watching Tyson while Landon took his turn on the rehab machines. I overheard two girls talking. (I wasn't eavesdropping, they were just talking pretty loudly and animated, so it's really hard not to notice;). Anyways, one of them says
"My parents are just so pushy.  I was just thinking 'Why would marriage even be an option in my mind again'. I mean really, who is happy in marriage??! Tell me."
And of course the girl she is talking to just agreed with her.  My first thought was, "Wow, someone is obviously bitter and slightly dramatic."  and "You really should get to know some happier people." But really, it just made me sad. She had a bad experience, so she chooses to look at everyone else's relationships in a negative light. It just got me thinking. I'm glad I have the gospel in my life. I had some pretty rotten experiences too, but the Savior helped me forgive, and keep a hope of finding a deep-down good man, like my brothers and father. And I did. When that girl went on her rant, I just wanted to raise my hand and say "I am. I am happy to be married!" But I didn't, because I didn't want them to know I was listening in, ha. But for the record, I'm telling anyone who reads this. Marriage takes work, but I am happy to have a wonderful guy to share in my happy times and my sad times. I enjoy trying to figure out parenting with him, and I am happy when I am together with my little family.  I am happily married, and I plan on keeping it that way for eternity.  

Progress

I decided it's about time I update.  If anyone read my post about Landon's cooking ideas, then you might appreciate this pic. I had company coming, so I was avoiding the eyes watering. 

We saw the movie Julie and Julia, and the part where she is practicing cutting onions and the husband came in cracked me up. It totally reminded me of this, ha. 

Ty is now 5 months old!! Yay. He's still alive, so we must be doing something right, eh. He's now at the stage where everything goes in his mouth. Thumbs, feet, toys, flowers...you name it. I'm told this is normal :)

He has also found his voice. All day long he is squealing or trying it out, it just makes me laugh a lot. This will be our first normal church meetings since the discovery, which will be a whole new kind of interesting during sacrament, I'm sure.

He's getting some cute cheeks, and little more hair. So I like to experiment sometimes. I'm told I should just leave him to do his own hair when he's old enough. 

He has also learned to turn over from his back to his tummy. So putting him to bed has some added difficulty. But he's a pro--4 times the first day.

I'm not really sure what was going on here. Landon claims that he was showing him how to use the toys. I think he just wanted to try it out.

As far as our family news, we got to go bowling with some of the Rowley fam. It was really not my night. I kept getting 9's, which as everyone knows, is so close to being amazing, but leaves your score pretty unimpressive. Here's my reaction to one of the bowls--Landon was so kind as to document it. Can I just say, I want bowling shoes for every day use. 

Ry was daring enough to show up at the Wilk in complete Boise attire right after we lost to them. 

And Ty was pretty amazed by the whole thing, especially the lighting. Becky and David would hold him before their turn for good luck, ha. Landon did pretty good the first game. We did some crazy bowls on the second round, which changed his score a bit. I, on the other hand, did just as well lefty and crazy as I did when I really tried. Figures. Becky was going for the Obama bowl--a 37 in 7 frames.  Sadly, she and Landon were close, but missed it.

 And we went to another football game. Ty was all dressed and ready.