Happy Halloween

I am going to attempt to take Thomas to do a tiny bit of Trick-or-Treating in about an hour. We won't be going far, since my back hurts too much to walk much. And we will just be going to the members houses around this block. Thomas doesn't care for candy much anyway, and I certainly don't need it. I just want him to have a little fun.
We will see what he thinks, and report back later :)


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well , it took me about an hour to even get him out of the house.
He literally threw a fit when I told him we needed to put his football jersey OVER his coat - but once I wrestled him into his coat and got it on over top - he was just fine.Once we got outside, he saw the other kids out walking around, I asked if he was ready to go for a walk - and he was quite excited about that.
He would knock on the doors and say "Treat" and then "thanks" so cutely after he got a treat. He had fun, but really enjoyed the walk more than the trick or treating part.
We didn't go too far - about 2 blocks, so maybe a dozen houses or so.
I brought his favorite "lightning treats" (fruit snacks) with me, and put 2 in his bucket after we were done, so when he looked at his stash, he found something that he actually liked. I got to eat his snickers and milky way bars LOL. The rest of the stuff, I will see if he wants to test anything out tomorrow.

A Halloweeny Slide Show

I am not sure if I am slowing down, or if Thomas is speeding up. But this last week, I just feel like I cannot keep up with this little boy.
He seems to get smarter with leaps and bounds. He can now pull open the drawers on his dresser (and those drawers are really hard to open, but he set his mind to it LOL) I hid toys in there that I sometimes "rotate" into his usual toys to kinda spice things up. Well, he got them ALL out. So I have had an over abundance of toys all over the house. It's good that he has some new things to play with, though, he seemed to need the new stimulation. He has gotten really good at the puzzles that not too long ago were just too frustrating for him.
He wants to do everything at the same time - so all the puzzles are out, all the flashcards, the play-doh, the crayons, the cars, the trains. And he switches back and forth all the day.
We have been partly successful at getting him to try new foods. We changed his highchair to a "lowchair" and push it up to the table with us, and give him the same things that we are eating for the meal. Some meals are miserable failures, with all the screaming and kicking, but sometimes he actually cooperates and we find more and more foods that he decides he likes.
oh, yeah, He can now open up the fridge on his own, and get his waterbottle, juice box or whatever out of there, and then closes the door. It's a good thing I keep the snacks and treats up out of his reach, I don't want him to start ruining his meals.

I have been tagged

Suzanne Tagged me, which I guess is a good thing, since I had nothing special to blog about anyway. So here goes:

8 favorite TV shows:
not sure I have 8 - definately not that are on TV right now
1. Star Gate Atlantis - just watched this tonight - season 5 is almost over, and then rumors are that the series will end - that will make me sad.
2. Designed To Sell
3. Pretty much anything on HGTV
that's all I got, sorry

8 things I did yesterday:
1. went to the Dr. - baby is looking just fine - next visit I have to do that Glucose test - drink that nasty orange stuff, and have blood drawn - not looking forward to that visit much.
2. Made Ghosty Cookies:


3. Listened to Christmas music - that's right - I am a nut.
4. played outside with Thomas
5. made beef stew in the crockpot (made so much, it should last us all weekend!)
6. played on the internet - gotta get my message board fix- Scrapjazz.com, Baby Center.com , and Mommysavers.com
7. washed a few dishes, but still have a bit of a pile to finish up tomorrow
8. went to bed early (yet was still really tired this morning)

8 things I look forward to:

1. Mom's big birthday bash tomorrow. The new tradition is for a "Halloween Carnival" type party. Mom just wants to have the family together, and especially to have fun things for the grandkids to do. I think it's a fabulous way to celebrate a birthday! We are going to go to the Pumpkin Walk in North Logan first, and then we'll be going to Newton (Mom&Dad's house) to carve pumpkins, watch the kids play and do a pinyata (sp?) and have lots of wonderful food!
2. Thomas being fully potty trained. he is doing well at it by the way - no accidents in over a week. but that is a long story, so maybe I can tell it later.
3. Baby Grayson's arrival. down to 99 days today - according to my countdown calendar :)
4. but before that we have Thanksgiving and Christmas!!
5. when Tyson doesn't have to work 2 jobs.
6. buying a house someday
7. a less scarey economy
8. someday having a dishwasher - I hate washing by hand :(

8 favorite resteraunts:
I can't name 8 - I do like to eat out, so that I don't have to cook or clean up - but Honestly, we try NOT to eat out, it's not in the budget. So I try not to think about it too much.

8 things on my wishlist:
1. a healthy pregnancy and baby
2. for my family to be happy
3. a rocker for rocking my baby, and Thomas too
4. a new(er) smaller digital camera
5. a house :)
6. Tyson to get promoted
7. a second car?
8. to get Thomas into a preschool that he would LOVE and flourish in

4+4=8 Pick the 4th photo from the fourth folder in your My Pictures:
this is a picture of me and Thomas playing a game called "Lucky Ducks" on the computer - from Nov 2007



8 people to tag:
how about all you realtives that haven't updated your blogs in a while??? I bet there are at least 8 of you LOL

Thomas helps put the laundry in the dryer

Thomas likes to see in the washer

Awww, cute!

Since we are having a second boy, we are lucky to not have to buy too many new things for this one. But today at Walmart I had to stop and browse the baby asile for a minute and Thomas helped me pick out these 2 little outfits for Grayson. One is a premie size and the other is newborn size - so I think these will be the outfits I will take with me to the hospital for coming home outfits.

At the house, I have two tote bins one has 0-3 month clothes and the other has the 3-6 month clothes - Thomas likes to make me open them up every once in a while, to check out Graysons digs. It's kinda like he is already bonding with his baby brother. :)

Bitter sweet......

We went to our Credit Union today and had a nice long chat with the loan officer about mortgages. We have done this before - some time last year, when we started thinking about buying a house. We decided then, that we needed to have much more saved, and so have been been working diligently at that down payment all this last year.
The plan was to start looking after the baby arrives, which is late Jan early Feb. - So I shouldn't have even been tempting myself by looking at the listings online.

Anyway - we are close - and we should be able to be right where we want to be by Feb of this coming year. I was going to say that I am going to stop looking at the listings online until then this time, but I still like to look, so that I know how long a house has been on the market.
The biggest trouble is the way the rates are changing - had we been in a position to buy just a month ago, we could have snagged those low rates around 5% - and could have easily afforded those monthly payments. But the big jump to almost 7-8%, makes the payments nearly $200 more, and we aren't sure we are comfortable with loosing that extra every month.

Maybe this house we like will sit for a while (not likely, but I can hope, right?)
Things that are bad about this house were: it's old - built in 1913 - had some upgrades here and there, but I imagine there is still old wiring and old plumbing. The worst part about the house was the bedrooms. The "master" was tiny and had no closet. The 2 other bedrooms were upstairs - and you had to walk thru the first room to get to the second room. There is no heat in the upstairs bedrooms. Bright colorful shag carpet, wallpaper, wood paneling and missing stair rails are the other things that may scare others away.

But - when all is said and done, I am feeling very good (calm and relieved) that we are not going to be buying a house right now. It was already vacant, so I am sure it wouldn't have taken long to close on it - and I am just too pregnant right now to want to deal with house projects, moving, and suddenly paying so much money on a mortgage that I would be constantly wondering if we could afford diapers each week.

Like I was saying yesterday, at least it's a good learning experience.
Someday, when the time is right, I know that just the right house will be out there waiting for us to buy it.

can't hurt to look, right?

We aren't supposed to be house hunting yet - not yet - we wanted about 4 more months to save - but I came across a house online, and HAD to go see it.
So we went and looked at a house today, and both Tyson and I really like pretty much everything about it.

We aren't so sure that we can afford it with the sudden change in interest rates, but tomorrow we are going to the bank to find out.

Home buying is so stressful.

Even if we don't buy this house at this time, it's still "interesting" practice. You have to absorb so much information about the house as you walk thru it. Not just the good, but also the bad, not just the inside, but also the outside - and not just the yard, but the whole neighborhood - and the schools.

Then the "designer" in me, starts to remodel and decorate in my head. This can be both good and bad. On the good side, it helps me see past the cosmetic negatives in a house (like the wallpaper, and the brilliently bright shag carpet). On the bad side, I can get carried away with what is necessary and what could be left as is - at least for a while (like the brown fridge, or the outdated flourescent light).

So anyway, that has been all consuming in my little brain today.
I am both totally freaked out and looking forward to going to the bank tomorrow to see where we actually stand on being prepared/ready for this whole HOME BUYING experience. Wish us luck :)

my new motto

I am starting to put this new motto to use in the hopes that it can help motivate us to continue to save money everywhere we can, so that we can reach our goal to have a house downpayment early next year. We don't think we want to stay in this little 2 bedroom apartment for too long after the baby arrives. And both Tyson and I are excited to be home owners.

So today was the first time that this new motto of mine, has kinda made me stop and really think.

This weekend, our full length mirror fell down and broke into pieces.
On Sunday when I went to see how the outfit I had thrown together looked, I realized, I no longer had a mirror to see myself with, and went off hoping that it was good enough (being pregnant in this situation makes it even more worrisome for me, cuz my body changes every week, so I actually have no idea how I really look).

Anyway, today was our shopping day of the week. I had my handy shopping list in hand, and actually had to ponder for a while whether I needed to add "new full length mirror" to the list.
After reviewing my motto, I decided that I would have to apply the "do without" part to this situation. To some it may seem ridiculous - it would only cost about $10 to replace the mirror - but to me, it is the principle of the matter. I am trying to teach myself the discipline I would need if we were in a REAL recession/depression, and could only buy what we NEED.

Living without this mirror is going to be a constant reminder to me, that there are things that I can do without, and I will still be able to get by and be happy.

Our FHE pics...

FHE

We have started having regular Family Home Evening. With Thomas's personality, I knew that we would have to be consistant with him, and so far it is working out pretty great!!!

We sing a song (or several depending on his demands, LOL)
His favorites right now are the "Choose the Right" songs we taught him a few weeks ago with the choose the right lesson, and "Book of Mormon Stories" - he likes Samuel the Lamanite.
Then we pray - for some reason he has been throwing a fit about this, so it takes us a good 5 minutes or so to calm him down, and get him quiet enough to say a quick prayer. This has been improving, but still not good yet.
Then we read a verse from our Book of Mormon about whatever the lesson is - Tyson and I trade off teaching each week.
And then we color a picture of what the lesson was about, and we hang them on the fridge. Thomas LOVES taking last weeks pictures down, and putting up the new ones for the week. I LOVE that all thru the week, he will go to the pictures on the fridge and tell me about the lesson. Really melts my heart.

10 Things About Thomas

I finally decided what to write about
these are things evryone should know about our little "center of attention"

1. Thomas LOVES Lightning McQueen. He can quote the movie. He has so many different Cars toys, and clothes, and even his shoes have to be Lightning.

2. Thomas is a picky eater. Here at home he will only eat:
French Toast (we call it "Sticky Toasty Bread")
Turkey Sandwich
Hot Dog
Blueberries (and blueberry pancakes)
Totinos 3 cheese pizza (no other kind will do)with some pineapple on the side
and he'll eat some fruit like strawberries, once in a while an apple slice or 2, and of course Bananas.

Now when we have gone other places, he will sometimes be curious enough to try new things. He tried a hamburger at Burger King once. He tried Lazana at Grandma Loris. He eats pork chops without even hesitating at Grandma Andersons. He tried my dutchoven potatoes and eggs when we were camping. And he tried strawberry yogurt with Granpa Anderson. But here at home, it's always the same thing... which leads us to #3....

3. He is very particular about doing things the same way all the time. He is sort of outgrowing this, but it's still very prevelant - for instance, when you put on his shoes and socks, he has to be able to hold his socks and shoes first, then you put the first sock on the left foot, then the second sock on the right foot. Then you can put the first shoe on the left, then the second on the right. If you do not do it right - he wil throw a fit.
He used to make me play a flashcard game, where I had to sit in a certain spot on the couch, and say the same things over and over as we looked at the cards.
I am hoping that by the time we move to a new place, that he will be "mature" enough to be ok with that kind of a big change.

4. He Loves going upstairs to visit with Grandma and Grandpa Hansen every day. He loves that she has an icemaker in her fridge, and chomps on ice all the time. He loves that Grandma spoils him, and lets him do whatever he wants. His favorite thing right now is to play in grandpa's room with his hangers and the globe and the computer that are in there.

5. He is a very smart kid. He knows his colors, shapes, alphabet, numbers, and has started to attempt to read things, and loves to write his name - so far he can only write the T on his own, and then says he needs help with the rest.

6. Thomas is left handed. I am finding this is making it more difficult to teach him how to write :(

7. Thomas decided that potty training just wasn't for him. I laugh about this, so that I don't break down and cry. He was doing so well, but has reverted, and I finally have just had to back off and let him wear pullups again, and let him decide if he wants to potty that day, or not. He will still use the potty sometimes (especially anywhere but here at home - he loves going in grandmas bathroom, and at Walmart and other stores).

8. Thomas likes to sing. His favorite song is "life is a Highway" by Rascall Flatts - because it's a "Lightning" song (from the movie Cars).

9. He also likes watching Backyardigans (cuz they sing), and he still even likes to watch "trains" (Thomas and Friends) every now and again.

and 10. he is excited to be a big brother. He likes to tell me about the things he wants to teach Grayson. We went canoing this year, and he says that next year he is going to teach Grayson how to paddle the canoe. He has also said he will teach him how to play basketball, and how to be nice to the animals (Thomas has to be nice to the cats and dog at Grandpa's). It's so cute that he is making these connections. I just hope that after baby Grayson gets here, that the enthusiasm will stay, and the jealousy will not move in.

I know, I know .........

............. I need to update.

I just can't think of much of anything to tell about.
Since I quit my job, and stay home everyday now, and Tyson is now working 6 to 7 days a week, there just isn't much to tell.