I better set the story straight before it gets lost in translation

Franklin fell off our bed while playing and goofing off.  He cut his head on my elliptical and it bled pretty good for a few minutes.  He was hysterical, and he had every right to be.  We got him to calm down by playing some Wii, so we were able to asses that it was wide enough that we should take him to the ER.  The only way to could brake his need to play Wii is we brought Monsters vs. Aliens (a new-to-our-collection film that he's now obsessed with) on the portable dvd player.  If you don't have one, and you have small children, get one.  You never know when you'll need it for an unusual situation.

I hate waiting, not a fun game when its already after 9:00 that you get to the hospital.  We weren't home till 11:30.  Franklin was so tired, and emotional.  They put 2 staples in his head (sounds odd) and he didn't need a hair cut, thank goodness.  The bandage was to hold the anesthetic to the wound so they could put the staples in.  Upon leaving they told me that we have to wake him every 2 hours just to make sure he's not unconscious. 

We had him sleep in our room, and that booger hogged the whole bed.  We went to sleep after 12:30, and woke up for the day before 6.  The elliptical is on its way to storage till we can put it in a secure place, and Franklin acts as if nothing is different.  Oddly enough he's less emotional today than he has been all week; go figure.  He's also back to bossing Lisette and driving my nuts with it, but I am enjoying the less emotional about everything part.  The staples can come out Thursday.  Now we just need a doctor to take them out so we don't have to go back to the ER.

When did that happen?!

(WARNING: since it’s been a month since my last post, this one is going to be long. Now you can’t say I didn’t warn you.)

We’ve had so much fun this last month, and there was so much going on! Stephen has definitely been busier than ever. We’ve been experiencing 100 degree heat and higher and summer has only just begun. On top of that his company is now down to 2 technicians instead of 4. One guy has a bad back, and too many injuries have caused him to finally stop doing this line of work. The other guy was let go suddenly, so that day was very interesting for Stephen and the other remaining employee who has only just begun taking calls on his own 3 months ago. So they’ve got Stephen and a newbie. All I can say is over-time, and it makes me believe I can learn to be more patient about his job.

One of my old roommates got married at the start of this month and we were invited to the sealing!! It was so great to be there, and my mom overnight babysat for us which made it all worry-free, kid-free for us. It also made me realize I need to do that more often, having overnight sitters. Natalie is so beautiful, and her dress!! You just have to see the pictures, she’s just so stunning, words can’t describe! I ran into her mom after, while she was waiting for Natalie to come back to the bride’s room. She thanked me for coming and I told her that I owe Natalie; after all she was my only roommate who was cheering me on from the start to go for Stephen.

I also have reached 100 sales with my on-line store, and it’s only been picking up faster since. I’ve recently added more styles to my inventory, and in celebration of reaching 100 sales I am giving away a “Bright Blue Tie” that I personally love. The way to win it is fan me on my facebook fan page and comment on my picture of the tie. On Friday at midnight I won’t be taking anymore entries and will announce a winner on Saturday (this is for any of you who may read this and haven’t been on my facebook page and want to enter). We’ve also changed things around a little at home to make my work station more organized and easier to see what I have made and ready to go.

Franklin has been so funny. Just on Monday I heard him say “Oh Man” and I couldn’t help but giggle. He’s definitely been paying attention to things we say, though he hasn’t been repeating it; yet. I’ve begun the whole “if you’re a good boy, and obedient, then you get a treat”. An almost sound like I’m training a dog, but since I started it there has been far less whining, and that was my goal. I have to keep snacks with me at all times now so I can stop the whining before it gets out of hand. Trips to the store, getting into his seat, opening his scriptures, putting a game or toy away, etc. has been far more pleasant. Threats just weren’t working anymore, and now I know that I can make a positive situation work with rewards.

Lisette is miss attitude already. What am I going to do when she reaches the phase that Franklin is at?! (Rhetorical question) At least she’s been letting us put her to bed when Franklin goes to bed, no more of this 10 p.m. or later nonsense. She definitely loves her brother to the point that she’s annoying him already. Because of that annoyance he’s been having episodes of not being very nice to her. She’s also very quick. Sometimes I just can’t keep up with her. I get distracted by Franklin or the cats doing something they shouldn’t and all of a sudden she’s practically falling into the bath tub (empty of course) reaching for the knobs, under a bed, in a closet, or if I left the gate down, on her way to the cat box.

She still stares down people she doesn’t know but she can sure smile, laugh, and play it all up around people she’s close and comfortable with. She’s a ham too, she knows when people are watching her, thinking she’s cute, and plays it up; little miss center of attention, what kind of monster are we creating?!

Lisette also LOVES the water. It’s another one of those bravery things. I’ve got to start her on swimming lessons as soon as humanly possible for her. Franklin I need to because he’s afraid of not having something under his feet, so he sat on the steps the whole time, but still in the water. Lisette was too funny, I’ll need to keep the camera close by next time, but she was leaning back in her floater thing, and kicking her feet so she started to travel. She thought it was so great! That’s my girl! She doesn’t like the feel of grass on her knees though, changing subjects.

My baby is 1!! However, unlike most parents, I was ready for her to be 1, and move to the next stage; walking! She's a brave little girl, oh my goodness. She loves to jump, and almost achieves air. Mostly she jumps on her bed while holding onto the rail, or similar situations. She still has yet to completely let go of things to stand on her own, but you can tell that she wants it very much. She's also starting to cut teeth again. Finally!! Back to her big day…

To tell the truth we had to big days if that makes sense. We had a party with the Reed’s in Sierra Vista the weekend before her birthday, and one the day before her birthday with the Quinn’s. Sierra Vista was busy, but so much fun. That Saturday morning we went to a little ranch with Heidi, Sam and their kids, of someone Sam works with. They have alpacas, goats, horses, chickens, dogs, and donkeys. Franklin really enjoyed himself there!! Oh boy did he throw a fit when it was time to go. That night we had a little picnic on my parents’ porch since it was too windy to go to the park. Lisette got a wagon for her birthday, and because Reyn (7 months older than Franklin) and Tanyth (6 weeks older than Lisette), Heidi and Sam’s kids, have one too, we all went for a walk after the party to take the kids for a ride. They loved it!! Franklin and Reyn rode in the green one while Tanyth and Lisette rode in her red one.

Then for the Quinn party we went to the local park to do a joint birthday party for Lisette and Bridger (Travis and Jamie’s little boy that is 2 days older than her). So much fun! I was allowed to make the cakes and I tell you it was an ALL day event. I used 8 cake mix boxes!! What was I thinking?! Well, it was worth it when I saw some people’s reactions to my fancier cakes. After all I do like to entertain and cook/bake. We stayed till it was getting a little too dark to stay any longer, but it was so much fun. Stephen could only be there for an hour and a half before he had to get back to work (on-call that week) but some friends came to our place afterward and we had an after party, I guess, till Stephen got home.

Whoa, this is a novel so I better end my stories here. Just know that it’s been an exciting month, and we’ve been so busy, and very happy. Enjoy the slide show!!!!

What a gal

So Lisette has taught me a few things, lately. She's amazingly good at taking things easily; go figure for an almost-one year old. However I must add that its not always true. She's still such a girl and can take her dramatics over the top sometimes. She’s a little bit of a daredevil and I love it. She likes slides, swings, being thrown around and she’s trying to stand up on her own (can definitely pull herself up but now she’s trying to let go of things) and I think she’s wanting to walk already. I’m ready for that. But what I’m talking about is the other day I was in my room and heard Lisette getting mad; not crying, just grunting. I come into the living room to see Franklin laying on top of her. Too funny. He thinks he’s doing the same thing we do, hovering over her to give her raspberries and tickling. I wonder what’s next; Body slamming?

Franklin is helpful sometimes, but I have to remember he’s also a 2 year old. He’s still a charmer, and wins people over. Everyone enjoys his language and I’m glad they do; doesn’t mean I have to. I’m working on my patience as I’m trying to get him to say things that I understand. I know he understands everything I tell him, so at least I have that in my favor. I’ve been wondering if the reason he still speaks his language is because everyone encourages him to. He also can finally pick what show he wants to watch, and we've got enough of a variety. He loves "Toys" (Toy Story 1 and 2, he likes 2 because there is red on the disc) and calls Woody "boody". Too funny, but hey, at least thats one we can all understand.

Stephen and I are coming with plans for our place. I’ve been talking about finding somewhere else to live but honestly we’re both tired of moving, and we’re free to do things to this place. Our sprouts are getting bigger, and so are the sunflower sprouts. We’re going to grow a garden and I’m really looking forward to that. I never once thought I’d grow anything, especially a garden.

We have a kiddie pool (thank you Grandma Reed) and a sand box (thank you Grandma Quinn) for the kids and they are both having fun. We’ve put the end of a slide into the pool, and Lisette loves it, so does Franklin. We’d do more out there if the wind would just go away. For all of you with kiddos, bring their swimmies and sandals to let the kids go out back and have fun. Jessica Tilton came over on Saturday with her boys. Though Dallin slept the whole time, and Corey and Bryson didn’t really want to play outside, they did want to help Stephen shovel out all the mulch that Grandpa Reed brought over for our garden. Thanks boys, I didn’t have to do it and Stephen had tons of help!

Stephen has been very busy with work. When we moved down here they said that it was the slow season, and yet he still worked a full 8 hour day. Now he’s making, at the very least, 2 ½ hour overtime daily. Yep, I’m finally able to sacrifice Stephen for work; they are definitely making it worth it for me, or for him, which ever. We’re not even into the hottest part of the year yet, just a few months away still. The residential calls are starting to build up, and now he is back into his realm.

As for me, Stephen has been encouraging me to build up my inventory. I go through spurts of struggling with loss of patience/interest? The ties have been my vice. We’ll see, once I finish the first 24 I’ve been trying to get done for 2 weeks now, maybe longer. I will conquer! We’ve been trying to get some ready for sale in a local shop, the one I mentioned weeks ago, but we discovered that we don’t have enough snaps and clips to supply both the local store and my shop. We hope to have the resolved very soon, and never to get too close to being out ever again!

What a busy Spring

Unfortunately we have all become sick over the past few weeks. I’m finally getting over a sinus infection, and both the kids are back to good health. Lucky Stephen wasn't even phased by his momentary turn of being sick. Things are heating up, but that’s nothing new about Arizona, or even interesting. That does mean that business is picking up for Stephen. My business is picking up as well. 82 sales in the last 6 months of actually selling (the last 20 in the past couple of weeks alone). Sheila will be opening a space in her home to sell her jammies (culottes) and my pacifashions. She also has gotten us a spot in a shop in Pima. I’m super excited to see what that holds in store for my product!! Thank you Sheila!

Franklin slowly prefers English over Franklinese. I’m very happy about that since we are struggling with communication. He’s very sweet, and somewhat patient. He’s also extremely eager; finally!! I haven’t pushed him to learn everything since he didn’t have patience, or interest. Now it’s a steady flow of information, and he’s soaking it all in. He’s so much fun, but he’s Franklin, he’s always been so great!

Lisette is dead-body crawling, at least that’s what I’m calling it, in correspondence with her whole “rigor” thing. She uses her toes and her arms and propels herself forward; it’s very funny to watch. I honestly was beginning to think she’d skip this stage, she’s been so proud of her rolling abilities. Her other new trick is putting herself in the sitting position. Don’t worry if you thought she could do it all along, just about everyone else did too. After all she is 10 months old. I can’t tell you how elated I am that she can FINALLY sit herself up. No more yelling and crying at me to put her in a more comfortable position. I just about cried when I saw her do it the first time I was so very happy. Stephen likes to tease her with the laser. There is a video I am uploading of this very thing, and why not get some laughs about her new tricks!

This will probably be useless information to most of you, but I am very thrilled about this; we have discovered what breed of cat Rizzo is. Now I never really needed to know, or care much about cat breeds. Granted I grew up with Persians, the very beautiful, “Fancy Feast” type Persian (no squished faces) and I cared very much about that breed. Now that is a beautiful breed of cat. However Rizzo is a VERY odd cat. He doesn’t entirely act like a cat, nor does he have much of the same temperament of our fat lazy Osgood. Thanks to Animal Planets series Cats 101 we have discovered that Rizzo is an Egyptian Mau (Mau actually means cat in Egyptian). It truly is an amazing breed, and very beautiful, too bad they are so rare. Rizzo is definitely the perfect cat for me, I wish all cat lovers could have a cat like him. It’s almost a shame that we had him fixed; almost, but not quite.

We are also making an attempt at growing flowers. We have two beds of watered seeds, at the current time, in front, and we planted a long row of sunflower seeds along the century-old wood fence along the road. It’ll look awesome, if we actually can get it all to grow. Let’s hope.

Ok, Easter! On Saturday we went out to Cedar Hills and had fun with the Quinn clan. Nearly everyone was there, and though our family didn’t camp out (due to illnesses) we stayed for several hours that morning. I also forgot that the Arizona sun burns me very quickly. I got used to being in Utah and hardly ever got sunburn. It was worth it. Franklin LOVED being out there with his cousins, Aunts, Uncles, and Grandparents. He learned about playing in the dirt from Brooklyn, and Caylee (yes, the girls had to show him) who are his age. His uncle Danny helped him color an egg, which he loved. Later, after lunch, we went for a drive in Brent’s awesome 4-wheeler. Franklin could sit between us. I didn’t think we had been gone that long, but Franklin started to fall asleep. We headed home after that to let the kids sleep.

My parents joined us Saturday night for the festivities the next morning. Franklin got to be 100% center of attention between conference sessions as he did the egg hunt. There are some videos of that as well; one is long, I must warn you, but it was just cute to hear Franklin say egg a million times. When his basket was getting too full he’d put his eggs in Lisette’s. I wish she was old enough to appreciate that since I really don’t see that happening ever again in the coming years. However, Franklin does always surprise us. After a very filling, and delicious ham dinner, my dad returned to Sierra Vista, and my mom stayed behind to hang out with me for the rest of the day. I had to go to Sierra Vista the next morning anyway to finally get Franklin’s birth certificate, so my mom rode with me, and Franklin loved having her there.

Enjoy the video below of Lisette's version of crawling!