Learning new tricks

This poor kid is going to have soo many pictures to look at of himself when he is older.  You can never take too many pictures of your kids I think, I don't have too many from when I was a little baby, and I kinda wish my parents had blogged about me too.  So I hope Tristan will enjoy reading about himself one day, because he is a dang cute little baby.  

His most recent achievements have been: pulling out the plug covers, climbing up on all our furniture (then trying to head dive off it), using his six! front teeth to munch on snacks, walking holding our hand  in the store (he gets so mad if we don't let him walk with us, even though he still can't walk by himself!), licking the bottoms of his shoes (yuck!), throwing his snacks off the tray one by one, bouncing his blue ball to us and playing roll the ball, turning the TV on and off with the remote, and making the TV swivel back and forth (Nick is going to have a heart attack about it one of theses days).  He still likes to pull the frilly shirt over his face and giggle, and he dances to anything that sounds like music (even Nick slapping his legs and the dishwasher running).  We also bought him a toy police car which he drives around pushing the buttons to make the siren work.  It's dang adorable.  

And then there's the monkey.  We aren't even sure when we got that monkey, but I'm pretty sure it was a gift from Nick's mom randomly for a birthday or something.  I found it like six months ago in a box, and thought, hey, I bet Tristan would like to hold it.  And he did, and to suck on it, and chew on it, and take it everywhere and "dip" it in almost everything.  He will not go to sleep without it.  Funny how kids attach themselves to things like that.  I was going through some of my old boxes just to sort through and organize things, and I found my old baby blanket.  It's basically a rag now, tattered and falling apart, but I loved that thing so much and dragged it everywhere.  So I get what he's feeling.  I also went through my box of toys, all the ones I'd loved and kept from my childhood and found a bunch of things for Tristan to play with.  Like some hotwheels cars, dinosaurs, old McDonald's toys, and Anikan doll, my slinky dog, a Hercules action figure, and lots lots more.  He loves all of it, and has been tossing the cars into his spinning racetrack.  

Its fun, Tristan getting older.  He thinks he can talk, and has soooo much to say (of course, nothing of it makes any sense, but it's cute).  He tries to feed us his snacks, and he likes to pat me on the cheeks.  He also gets up in your face and cocks his head to the side and just giggles like mad.  I love how interactive  he is becoming, it makes life so much more fun and exciting.  I love it when he learns something new, because its just so exciting for him.  Ah, being a mommy is the best.

Trying to plug in the fan

Climbing the back of the chair

Ok, it doesn't really go anywhere, I'll just sit here

Sound asleep

With his silly monkey….he adores that smelly thing!

Happy almost 4th of July!

outfit from Great-Grandma

(table-runner-cape courtesy of daddy)

I learned something new!

I learned something new, something new today!  I learned it upside down, and inside out, I learned all about roasting chicken!

(In case that was lost on you….Sid the Science Kid…..Tristan's new favorite)

Nick and I invited Will and Emily for dinner tonight, and while we were perusing the grocery store yesterday looking for ideas, we decided to try our hands at roasting a WHOLE chicken.  I mean, how hard could it be?

I stuffed it full of celery, onions, and carrots and coated the top in garlic powder, parsley, basil and marjoram.  Then I put it in the dutch oven, added a few cups of water and let it bake for 3 hours.  Meanwhile, Nick said he loved the rolls Becky made for family dinner last week and said I should make them.  Unfortunately, her recipe used a bread machine and potato flakes.  I had to improvise.  So, I decided, I had made gnocci a few weeks ago, and those are potato dumplings.  I could use that as a base and turn it into a bread.  So I boiled and mashed 3 potatoes with butter.  Then I mixed a cup of water with 4 tbsp of honey and 1 tbsp of yeast.  Then I mixed an egg into the potatoes, added the yeast water, and kneaded in 3-4 cups of flour.  Let that rise for half an hour, made little rolls, added them to the pan, let them rise another hour or so, and they baked up fantabulously.

I am so proud of myself.  Will and Emily brought potatoes and corn, and Tristan loved the potatoes.  He got mad when Nick wasn't feeding him fast enough.  He also munched down a bunch of chicken, rolls and celery.  Go figure, we just need to make elaborate from scratch meals to get him to eat!  For desert, I made brownies from scratch too…..I was on a roll today!  We went to the park, played for awhile, swung, tossed a football and arobe, before coming home, enjoying desert and going nuts playing Parcheesi….which Emily won.  I was so close and then Will sabotaged me!  Oh well, I'll get them all next time!

Nap Time is Sanity Time

Remember the days when 'nap' was a dirty word?  When you would loath your parents for even mentioning it?  And instead of taking advantage of the hour or two hour time slot in the day when you could catch up on sleep, you would sneekily and quietly play with your toys?

Well, now I understand.  Nap times and early bedtimes are not for the benefit of the child, but the sanity of the parents!  There are so many days when I tell myself, just two more hours till nap time, and then you can relax.  Or, just an hour till bedtime and then you can cook your dinner!   It's like the work week when you are wishing for the weened, only in mommydom there is no weekend…..so you work with what you've got.

And then those days when your little guy refuses to nap, and just screams and screams from his crib, you pull your hair out and have a melt down.  Then, patiently wait for the earlier bedtime, because hey, he's got to be tired now, right???

A better Dance Movie

More sculpting

My latest clay projects have been the Bushbaby from my favorite childhood book "Bushbaby", and Appa from Avatar.  I also made a musk ox for my dad for father's day, but forgot to get a picture of it before I gave it to him.  It was pretty cool, I made each of the individual hairs by rolling long strands of clay and attaching them all over it's body.  And last, I also made a Dazzle the Dinosaur, from the book my brother Josh bought me when I was a kid.  He turned out ok.....haha, still working on perfecting the way I sculpt legs.  Next I'm going to try making Spyro, or an elephant.

Funny Stuff

Getting a little silly baby!

Tristan loves to crawl through his little tunnel.  But he loves it best when we put his pillow in it.  He will throw himself onto that silly pillow over and over again, giggling his butt off.  I have no idea why, but it is dang cute.  He also likes to "bear crawl" and look at you upside down.  Crazy baby!

He has discovered Sid The Science Kid, and loves to dance along to the songs.

And he found one of my headbands, and likes to put it on just like mommy....hahaha

Happy Father's Day!

To all my fathers out there, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

This was the first father's day I've gotten to spend with my dad in oh……6 or 7 years?  We went up to my brother's in Tooele and had a nice dinner and played games until it got late.  Tristan actually handled it pretty well, he spent most of his tim playing with Papa and stealing his pen and phone.  I think Quelf was a little too silly for my dad, and he happily watched Tristan, while the rest of us made fools of ourselves, haha. Thankfully he fell asleep on the ride home, or it would have been torture!

At church, the bishop asked me to come up and share something about fathers.  He announced it just as I was walking back into the theater after walking Tristan around for awhile, so I immediately got to just go up to the stage.  The thing I shared was that all of those young men need to look forward to the day when they will be fathers.  And to prepare themselves for the responsibility, and to find joy in the experience.  I shared about how Nick had been so excited when Tristan was born, and how he told me it was wonderful we had a son.  I also said I had three very wonderful fathers, who were great examples of love and kindness in my life.

I have an amazing dad.  He's always been there for me no matter what.  And I can go to him with anything and he will listen.  When I left for college, he called me almost every Wednesday just to chat.  I looked forward to those calls every week.  He didn't stop when I got married and had Tristan either.  It's nice to know he takes such a keen interest in me, my family, my hobbies, my feelings.  I know a lot of people don't have great relationships with their fathers, but I am proud to say I do.

And I have two wonderful fathers-in-law: Nick's dad, and his mom's husband Roger.  Both are wonderful and kind men.  And I am very glad to have been so blessed to have them in my life.  What a lucky girl I am!  How many people can say they have three amazing daddies?  I can!

So to my wonderful fathers, and my wonderful husband, thank you all for being terrific daddies, and I love you soo much!

Weekend fun

Nick fishing on the Provo River

Watching daddy cast

Beautiful river at sunset

Swinging at the park

Father's day bedhead!

Looks a little Elvis-y, huh?

Crawling around the Wilk

And this is how he rides in the car.....

What's going on

Every so often I get motivated to cook something new, so a few days ago I tried my hand at hush puppies.  Apparently they were tasty, because Nick ate every last one.  Then yesterday I made Italian sausage soup, and the best part was the from scratch gnocci.  How fabulous is that?  I have never made them before, but they turned out perfect.  I was so proud of myself.  I have been thinking about trying this recipe I found for cream cheese brownies, but after a day with the monster, I am lacking motivation.

Tristan has great days, and horrible days.  He's not an in between kind of kid.  Either he is an perfect little darling, or a little demon.  Today I made him mac'n'cheese.  But he refused to eat it because I put some bits of hot dog in it.  Then because he was so mad about that, he wouldn't eat apple sause or drink his bottle.  I get so frustrated trying to feed him because he is just so rotten about it.  He smacks your hand, or throws his face into the spoon, or spits it back at you.  I mean, what the heck?  Don't babies like to eat?  It's like Tristan would rather starve!  And what kid doesn't like hot dogs and cheese, I mean, come on, get real!

Ah well, at least he loves bread.  He will eat slice after slice and be perfectly content.  And he likes juice, so at least he's getting some calories in, right?  He's still not walking, too scared.  But he's a maniac crawler.  He's getting into everything still, so we have to barricade him away from all the breakables, which offends him terribly.  Then the dishwasher repairman asked when we were giving him a brother, and I thought to myself, yeah right buddy!  You think I want to torment myself with Tristan number 2?  Talk to me in 10 years!

I need some chocolate.  

Not brave enough to step away

I want to play!

Here, let me help you

And I'm the cutest hehe

Tristanzilla

Tristan, I don't know if this is possible, seems to be getting more intelligent and more unintelligent at the same time.  Why is it that baies just don't learn from their mistakes?  Today....he's walking around our computer desk, it's his favorite thing to do.  But he gets distracted, loses his balance, and falls face first right into the side.  He'll scream, and cry and be completely inconsolable until he gets up and walks right back over to it and does it again.  He has balance problems because his neck has been tilting again since the botox wore off, and we think that might also be starting to affect his vision.  Back to Primary's for more botox in September!

People are going to think I beat my child because he has bruises all over his forehead!  I try to keep him as protected as possible, but he's just getting too smart for my protective measures.  He can open doors now, crawl under the bed, get into cupboards, push the chairs around the kitchen, turn on the burners, play patty fingers in the trash can.....blah!  And yesterday he took all of my books off the shelf and tried ripping the pages out of the Hunger Games and Tennis Shoes......

Today, I gave him a play bath.  He had a real bath yesterday, but was so upset when I took him out, I promised he could play later.  So I filled the tub, gave him a bunch of toys and let him at it.  He happily giggled, and splashed, and crawled around making a huge wet mess everywhere.  Then, when I was ready to get him out, so he didn't smell like yucky bath water, I started washing him up. Then when I went to rinse him off, he flipped out, threw himself backward and slipped face first into the water.  Of course, he sucked it in.  Which made me panic, and I pulled him out, sopping wet and had to hang him upside down and smack all the water out of his nose and mouth.  And wouldn't you know it, I tried to towel him off because I figured he wouldn't want anywhere near the bath, and he tried climbing right back in!  So there I am, dripping, and Tristan whining to get back in the tub.  Of course I put him back in and let him play for another 15 minutes before taking him out.

Babies are just too clever for their own good, and it seems like no matter what I do, Tristan is mutilating himself in one way or another.  I found him with one of his toy blocks the other day, poking himself repeatedly in the eye with the pointed end.  He also likes to scoot up next to the wall and bang the back of his head against it as hard as he can.  I mean, what the heck???  And he loves to eat "treats" off the floor.

Well, one cute thing he has started doing is this little head shaking bouncy dance.  Whenever he hears music, even if it is a ringtone, he'll start dancing.  And he will join in clapping if he ever hears cheering or applause.  He knows how to point to things, and if he wants help with something, he hands it to you.  Or he'll hold out his hand to you if he wants help.  He also loves to hit, especially in the face.  You'll be sitting there hunky dory, and along comes Tristan, and SMACK!  You've just got Tristan-pounded in the nose.  Yeah, that one isn't our favorite, and we have no idea how to get him to stop, because he just laughs and thinks it's funny!

Oh this is funny as well.  We went to a BBQ the other day, and let Tristan down onto the grass.  He started to put his hands down to crawl, felt the grass, and flipped out.  He started screaming, turning in every direction to feel around, but every time he touched the grass he would scream and cry.  It was tooo funny.  We also had to jog home pushing the stroller backwards the other day because he was scared of the wind.  He screamed and screamed and screamed until we turned him around and pushed him by the cup holder tray thing.....for about a mile and a half.......

Any helpful hints or suggestions on how to deal with a crazy baby??

Looking studly in his new jogging stroller

I'm not trying to push down the barricade mommy....

I don't like the grass!

But I love this push-car!

Puppy Dogs

I have decided, when I become rich and own a house, I am going to buy two doggies.  And I am going to breed them and breed them and breed them to make my own new breed of doggie!  And it will be the best doggie breed ever invented because I am so smart.  

American Eskimo

Ibizan Hound

I'll call it the Ibizko!  Or the Eskizan.  Or the Zanimo……Hmm, need to work on that name I guess…...

Another year older

A few days late, but Happy Birthday to Nick!

Hmm, 25.  That means in 5 more years, we will be 30......and then 40......and then 50.......oh my gosh!!!!!

I found myself looking in the mirror the other day to see if I noticed any wrinkles.  Pathetic, right?  The truth is, I think Nick and I look fairly young still.  We watch shows like America's got talent, and So You Think You Can Dance and are like, wha?? when someone pops up younger than us that looks 35.  I guess having baby faces will be good when we actually start caring about how old we are.

So for Nick's birthday, we had Will and Emily over to eat cake.  And it was a fabulous cake.  Of course, because I made it!  Ok, I cheated.  I used a box mix.  But hey, you can't go wrong with a box mix!  I did however make the peanut butter filling from scratch, and that turned out great, so kudos to me.  I got Nick a box of legos, because I felt bad for him perpetually redesigning the lego car I bought him almost 2 years ago.  So another set should keep him better occupied.  And I was going to get a nice card for Will, but Nick picked it out instead.  It was a pretty princess kitten card.  *shakes head*

Haha, but it was fun.  And today we got him some sushi, which is like his worst food addiction.  We thought it was healthy until Biggest Looser pointed out it's worse than eating 5 loves of bread at once.  Yikes!  Good thing we have fast metabolisms as well, right???

Teething Fairy

When the teething fairy comes, there is no telling how often she will visit or how long she will stay.  She seems to have been a perpetual house guest of ours for the last six months.  Growing our poor baby's teeth out of sequence.  He had 3 teeth on the left side of his mouth before he started growing on the right side.....weird huh?  His second top tooth just poked through yesterday, and he was not happy about it.  Teething babies don't sleep, they don't eat, and in Tristan's case.....they get mean.  He crawls up to us with plastic toy in hand and just pummels us in the face!  Real sweet, right?

But, he can't really tell us what's going on, so I guess violence is the next best answer.  On the bright side, he self bottle feeds sometimes, and at his cousin's baptism yesterday, he stole a lamb stuffie from Aunt Becky....the little stinker!  She probably didn't want it back after he started sucking on it and drooling left over squash on it anyhow... haha.  And he's gotten super picky about his face.  He will get crud all over it when he's eating, but not let me clean it off.  He will scream bloody murder if I get the cloth anywhere near his face.  Guess bath time is going to become a daily ritual for this one.  He's got blackened feet from crawling everywhere.  What does that say about my carpets???  Time for a deep scrub!

First steps

A couple days ago, Will and Emily came over to visit, and Emily was playing with Tristan.  For whatever reason, he decided he wanted to get up and walk to her!  It was amazing, he took at least 6 steps on his own.  Then yesterday, we tried it again, and he was doing great!  I mean, he can only take a few steps before he falls over, and he hates to stand by himself, but he's getting better.  I bet within a few weeks he'll get it down.  I think he's having trouble because he is starting to tilt a little bit again.  The botox only lasts for a few months, and he hasn't built up enough strength yet to combat it.  So we'll see how it goes, but for now, he is doing fabulously.  He crawls super fast and I have to run to catch him half of the time, which of course he loves.

And, yeay!  He is eating again.  I got him to eat a whole bowl of mac'n'cheese today, so I was very proud.  It's definitely his teeth I think, and they are growing in super weird.  He has one of his top teeth and then the one next to it, and one more after that.  So he's got most of the teeth on the left side of his mouth, haha it looks pretty silly.  Hopefully the rest of them will catch up soon, and hopefully he will stay happy when they do!!!

Pushing the chairs around at church

Now using them as tunnels

Baby bedhead!

 Walking along the bed

Uh yeah....just filled his pants

Good morning sleepy head!

Ahh, yep, I'm stylin'

I promise I will let go eventually!

Are we there yet??