Category: E.

Farm Country

(My apologies, but work has kept me really busy these past few days and I haven’t gotten around to sorting through the keychains and weeding out the duplicates for the giveaway. But I promise to do it this weekend and I’ll have the giveaway up on Monday.)

Even with work being crazy this week, E and I found the time to go to Farm Country over at Thanksgiving Point. It’s only 5 minutes away from our house and so it’s a really easy outing. It was the first time we’d been there and E loved it.

E liked seeing all the animals; they have goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, cows, and horses. The goats were his clear favorite, probably because they were the most obliging when he tried to feed them corn.

It was pretty cute. E kept running around staring at everything and spontaneously shrieking in joy.

I think we’ll be back.

Have a great weekend!

J’s Birthday Bash

My nephew J turned seven last week and so E and I went to his birthday party.

The birthday boy and his cake.

The gift-opening frenzy.

The birthday boy’s brother, A. (I have no idea where he learned to make that face, but the little ham did it every time I snapped a picture of him.)

The party was held at one of those inflatable toy places. After a little while E got pretty freaked out by all the kids shrieking and running around and by the huge bouncy castles and slides. And surprisingly, me taking him down the down the big 25-foot tall slide did nothing to improve the situation. (Yeah, I know. But I thought E might like it; after all, he loves the slide on our swing set…yep, I think this little escapade just sealed my nomination for Mother of the Year.)

“The horror, the horror (of the bouncy slide)!”

But E quickly cheered up when we went into the party room to have cake and open presents. Mostly because I got him a balloon to carry around. E LOVES balloons.

Relaxing in the birthday boy’s special chair while the other kids ate pizza.

The balloons contined to be a big hit once we were home and also throughout dinner.

First Blood

E and I drove to the airport yesterday and picked up Gwyn and her baby. E was pretty tired by the time we got home and was being kind of fussy. As soon as I took him out of his car seat he ran out of the garage and towards the street. I grabbed him by the hand and was walking him back to the house when he tripped and fell and smacked his mouth against the concrete. And then he started to bleed a lot.

It was really sad. I kept trying to look inside his mouth to see where the blood was coming from and he kept trying to swat my hands away. I was worried that one of his teeth had been knocked out. The blood was pooling in his mouth and running out the sides and he was rubbing it all over his face. He looked pretty gory. I held him against my shoulder as he sobbed and he got tears and blood all over my shirt.

He was inconsolable until he spotted the jar of jelly beans on the counter. As soon as I gave him one he started to calm down. Three jelly beans later, things were solidly on the way to being right with the world.

It turned out that he had cut the little flap of skin that attaches the inside of his lip to his gums. It bled a lot but seems to be okay now. Poor little guy.

On the bright side, E really likes having his little cousin S around. E keeps gently patting S on the head. It’s cute. I’ll try and get some pictures of the two of them together this weekend.

In Living Color

We drive past this house on the way home from the gym. I love how it’s painted. Most of the houses around here are painted some various shade of brown so this house really stands out. Once the red tulips in front of it bloomed I knew I had to stop and take some pictures.

However E was not interested in standing still for a photo.

He was alternately fascinated by the unfriendly dog in the yard and the tulips.

On the schedule for today: tidying up the house to prepare for my sister-in-law Gwyn’s visit. She and her baby arrive tomorrow–yay!

For E’s Hair

When E was little we learned that he had very, very, very, sensitive skin. His eczema is pretty much under control now but he still has some patches of cradle cap. I’ve tried a bunch of different things and have found that these California Baby products work well for him.

I use the fragrance-free Super Sensitive shampoo and the lavender-scented Calming conditioner on him. The conditioner in particular seems to help his cradle-cap; it keeps his scalp moisturized so it doesn’t get scabby. So far it’s the only scented product I’ve been able to use on E and I love the way it smells. If it didn’t cost so much I’d probably use it too.

Target sells the shampoo and conditioner for about $10 and this week the shampoo is on sale for $7.99. They’re expensive as kids’ products go, but I think they’re worth it if your kids have very sensitive skin. And they last forever. I’ve been using them on E for six months now and still have 4/5ths of each bottle left.

Weekend Numbers

10 loads of laundry washed.
9 loads of laundry folded and put away.
8 hours of my church’s general conference watched on tv.
7 sacks of old clothes sorted, bagged, and donated.
6 times a crochet project was unraveled and begun again.
5 times E got into the kitchen trash (once smearing garlic butter all over his shirt and the floor).
4 marshmallow peeps eaten.
3 days of enjoying N’s company all day (he took Friday off of work).
2 big molars trying to break the surface in E’s mouth.
1 cranky toddler who frequently shrieked or cried at the drop of a hat.

Whew! The weekend was pretty productive but it was a little hard to deal with E sometimes. He would cry or let loose a super high-pitched shriek when things weren’t going exactly the way he wanted them to (like when we told him to stay out of the trash can or no, you aren’t going to watch your Korean vegetable video again).

I feel bad for him, though. I felt inside his mouth and he has two big angry bumps where two lower molars are trying to poke through. It’s weird because E only has his two front bottom teeth. I though he would get his cuspids and bicuspids before his molars. And his top molars don’t show any signs of coming in right now (for which I guess I should be grateful). But having only a patchwork set of teeth must make chewing pretty difficult.

Today was going to be pretty crazy even if E was in a good mood: we’re refinancing our house to get a better interest rate and the appraiser is coming by this morning, I have several hours worth of work to do, and I have a conference call this afternoon (hopefully E will be taking a nap at that time because if I’m sitting at the computer and not showing him that Pororo video he starts shrieking). Oh yeah, and I need to finish my taxes. Bleh.

Happy Monday, everyone.

A visit from family

Last week my mom and my brother Steven were in town visiting my sister Jan. Jan only lives about 30 minutes away and so E and I were able to get together with them several times while there were here. My mom and Jan even watched E for me one day so I could slog through a backlog from work; it was great.

Steven on the trampoline.

Steven and my nephews, A and J.

E with my sister Jan.

E with my mom.

It was a lot of fun to have them in town. Their company (and eagerness to babysit) will be missed.