Big Boy Bed!!!

So y'all have seen Eddie's room, right? It's tiny! It's like 5x8 or something. But this kid has a lot of clothes and toys and his stuff is always everywhere- ah!!

So then I had the genius idea of getting him a loft bed (because clearly at nearly 3 he can't stay in a pack and play anymore, and his twin size bed wouldn't even fit in the room!) so his toys could be stored under his bed to maximize the small space. BUT. Loft beds ONLY come in twin size and up- they don't come in toddler/crib size. Believe me I searched the internet for days trying to find a place to buy one. And actually, I did. It was $650.00! But, they also sold the plans for the loft bed for $20- so I purchased them and they emailed me the plans right away.  Here we go!!

Here's my wood I got from Home Depot for like $100. It's currently hiding in plain sight- Eddie had a great time using the lumber as an unstable balance beam. ;P 

Then I opened up the plans doc- here's the goal!

And here's my saw horse, (haha it's a piano bench!)

And here's all my wood once it was cut to all the various sizes.

Peace out yo, that was easy! ;)

A special thank you to the power tools.

One side of the bed is finished now- it was a lot of work! But the second side went much more quickly.

I  completed the bed ALL. BY. MY. SELF! A fact I'm super proud of. But actually, Seth pre-drilled some of the slats once he got home so he could take part. So almost all by myself. ;)

There was so much sawdust in my living room to clean up! Stinks not having a garage in winter time- it was like 30 degrees- no way I was cutting wood for an hour outside!!

And here's the finished product!!

Complete with his toys underneath! 

Only thing missing is the baby to put in it! Eddie's in Phoenix right now, but he knew we were making this for him before he left, so I know he'll be excited when he comes back. It was kinda funny- I kept telling him the lumber was for his big boy bed, and he said, "Daddy's going make me big boy bed!" And I kept telling him, "No, Mommy's going to make your big boy bed!" He still kept saying Daddy was going to do it. Oh well, it was cute. He gets the "boy" stuff- Seth is always pulling out his toolbox and fixing stuff around the house which is so nice!! Seriously- he does all those little fixes that I just don't want to even think about!

But anyway, now Eddie's room doesn't have to always be a complete mess with no place to put anything, and he has a real bed again! Yeah for weekend warrior-ing- on a Monday!

"O ye of little Star Wars knowledge," Seth's Star Wars quotation #4

A few days ago, I spouted a postulation regarding some Star Wars occurrence or other. And Seth said, "O ye of little Star Wars knowledge," and proceeded to tell me how I was incorrect. I can't remember for the life of me what we were talking about, but I DO remember that I turned out to be right! LOL, I do have Star Wars knowledge!

I saw this Darth Vadar helmet a few days ago in Costco and texted Seth a picture of it and told him I was getting it for Eddie for Christmas. He was so excited! He thought he was going to get to play with it too. But I was only joking, hee hee. ;)

Saturday fun: going on a trail with Seth and Willow and going to the kangaroo zoo

We hiked up a trail with Willow this morning. We actually hiked up one trailhead and came down another, but it was good fun because we knew where we were most of the time.

                                        

Then we took Eddie to a place called Kangaroo Zoo. It was super fun and we were free to get in and Eddie was only $5. He had a blast once he felt comfortable climbing up the ladders.

                                        

                                        

                                        

Then we came back, had lunch, and then had nap time. All in all, a great Saturday! 

Treehouse Museum and Other Fun Things Like Gingerbread Men and Willow

Eddie and my mom and I went to Costco without a list. The first rule of thumb for shopping is to have a list. So why did we do this? Because. Costco has deals on some stuff and other stuff is way overpriced. So if you just go there planning on being inspired, you'll only buy the stuff that's a good price, instead of feeling committed to getting everything on your list, which may be a better price at a normal grocery store.

One awesome thing we found was a set of four gingerbread men, already baked, complete with icing and decorative candy for $9. Score!  Eddie had a great time doing eating his.

We also went to an awesome literacy/fun house here called the Treehouse Museum. Kids are $3 and adults are $1 on Mondays!  We stayed for 2 1/2 hours and still didn't do half of the activities there because Eddie played with trains for about 2 of those hours.

The level of delicacy and concentration he had while playing trains was really neat. He would very carefully put each car on the track and connect it to the car in front of it. He was also very nice to the numerous other children who stole the cars he was playing with. ;)

He also played with the Little People School...

...Sat in a fire engine...

...put velcro shapes on the wall...

...made awesome music...

(^This is WAY too much fun!)

...and stood on a train!

(^ He would NOT hold still!)

 All in all, this week was pretty awesome! Only two things could make it better. You know the first one, and the second one would be if we had a little cousin to share it with (calling Scarlett and William!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Assorted Photos

I'm a little blog happy, can you tell?  Here are some photos that I took recently. P.S. someday I'll have a decent camera phone. For now, I'll take what I can get!

Today I met with a bestie from my U days, Christina Coonradt. She and her hubs live in Park City, and we met in Bountiful for brunch. The cutie in the pink coat is her daughter Cate, and the other cutie is a little 'un she watches in the mornings sometimes, Svea (its Swedish!) 

Eddie had a poopy diaper before nap. I changed it. An hour into nap he was still up (meaning another one). I changed that. An hour later, he was still up, with yet another poopy diaper. So obviously, nap time didn't happen.  What did happen was that Eddie took all his clothes out of his laundry basket, took off his clothes, and put some pajama bottoms on inside-out. So fun!

 This is Willow. Case you two haven't met yet.

He was cold.

Halloween! Eddie was a dragon. Like he would ever be anything else.

 Didn't want to sit for photos- wanted to get right to the candy-grabbin'!

Professional candy-forager in action!

                                          

Various other assorted videos I'm not sure I ever uploaded...

The sand is the (current) funnest place to play in the summer.

Seth and Eddie jumping on the trampoline. First comes friends, then comes Daddy, then comes a brudder in a baby carriage. Wait, what? Sigh, someday. 

At the Discovery Kids thingy downtown. Water is so much fun!

Wait, I have to bring my toddler to church?

Eddie loves LOVES going to Nursery at church on Sundays. The really hard, dumb, impossible, neat thing about our block time is that we have it all in reverse order!!  So normally, I get to bring a fresh, 9 am version of Eddie to Sacrament meeting, by the end of which he's really squirming, and then gets the relief of playing in Nursery for 2 hours.  But instead, we liberate the toddler for 2 hours to run around, eat snacks, color, and dance and literally run around the room, and then have to bring a wound-up, 11 am version of Eddie to an hour and ten minutes of sitting still, which recently got even worse since we got off daylight savings here in Utah, and now what was 11 am is 12 pm for him, even closer to lunch time, and we have an even squirmier toddler to keep still during Sacrament meeting.

Bring snacks, you say? Done.  But then lunch time is hard because he's already full and doesn't sit still so I can eat. But we do it because it helps.  And the poor kids sitting on the pew with us get the benefit of it as well, to the chagrin of their parents.

Bring books you say? Doesn't work. He only likes them if you read them, and he likes to loudly exclaim his delight over the pictures even if he can enjoy them without words.

Bring toys, you say? No way. Toys are way too fun to drop on the ground and then have to crawl under the pews to search for. Cars are especially fun to make zoom up three pews.

Bring stuff to color, you say? Nope. Crayons roll even farther than cars. And  paper gets ripped up into minuscule little bits WAY too easily.

By now, you might be thinking, "How is all this stuff happening? Aren't you watching him?" And the answer is, well no, I'm trying to watch the speaker. Why am I even there if I'm going to watch Eddie the whole time? We might as well just go back to the Nursery room and eat goldfish.  But obviously we don't do that and just keep trying. Thus, the above scenario.

About four times during Sacrament meeting, Eddie receives a time-out, consisting of Seth taking Eddie out into the hall. We try to make this as un-fun as possible, wherein Eddie gets restrained onto Seth's lap, to make it less fun than getting to be free to sit, stand, play in or walk around the limited space in our pew.  Seth usually does it, because if I do it's too much fun for Eddie and he just hugs me and likes the close up attention. Does this time-out thing work, you ask? Not yet, at least he usually does the same thing again shortly thereafter.  But when he starts getting loud about something during Sacrament meeting, at least we take him out so he doesn't disturb other people.

How do other kids sit still during church? I have absolutely no idea. Other toddlers are sitting still, cuddling up on their mommy's or daddy's lap, looking the picture of two-year-old cuteness. Maybe it's because most of the toddlers in our ward are girls? Maybe they're drugged? Maybe they don't get the 12 hours of sleep per night Eddie does (on top of his 2.5 hour nap) and are just tired? I don't know. I welcome any and all suggestions in the comments section.

BUT! Hope is on the horizon because I remembered what my favorite thing to do as a kid in church was....drum roll please..................play with a...............QUIET BOOK! Yay!

And obviously, it has to be cool. And can't be any less than a Star Wars quiet book! Check it out! I'm totally making this!

http://nerdapproved.com/approved-products/diy-star-wars-quiet-book-for-kids/#!n2xjk

"Wait, go back to the Storm Trooper face!" Seth's Star Wars quotation #3

Seth and Eddie and I were browsing in Netflix for Daniel Tiger for Eddie to watch.  We were on the kids version of Netflix (it was Eddie's profile) and this version has mainly large photos of the characters you can watch. You click on the character, and a menu pops out with everything on Netflix with that character in it.  As we were browsing, at the bottom of the page, a helmet resembling a Storm Trooper's quickly flashed by. And predictably, Seth said, "Wait, go back to the Storm Trooper face!" Totally knew that was coming. Love my hubs!

"I love all things Storm Trooper" Seth Star Wars quotation #2

Seth and I were watching the movie Pacific Rim. In one scene, the Gypsy Danger (ginormous robot thingy operated by a human within) crashes onto the sand.

and out crawls the main character in white body armor. Seth says, "I love his armor!" And I said, that's just because he looks like a Storm Trooper." And he said, "Well, I love all things Storm Trooper." ;)

"Who doesn't love Star Wars?" Seth's Star Wars quotation #1

So Seth and I were in the kitchen and I mention something about loving nerdy boys (unequivocally, him). He asked me why, and I said, "Well, because nerds are just so cool. They're like the only people who like all the same things I like."  (I'm fully aware I'm one of the biggest nerds out there.) And he said, "What kind of things?" And I said, "Well, they like Sci-fi books, and Star Wars." And he said, "Wait, who doesn't love Star Wars?" Spoken like a true nerd. Love ya, Schmoopsie Poo!

^Nerdiest photo I could find

Welcome to my new blog!!

It's time for a new blog, obviously. A new husband, a new chapter, a new house, a new dog, a new life. Only thing missing?  A new....._ _ _ _. Fill in your own blank there and 100 points if you comment and tell me what you think that would be!! And no, it's not an announcement. I did say it was missing, LOL.

Life in the ghetts is--interesting. I have met a few super nice people. They do a double-take when you say hello, and the ones you try to avoid talking to are thankfully, afraid of the dog.

The other day I went rollerblading (with Seth's rollerblades ;P) downtown, with Eddie in the jogging stroller, and we came across this awesome new park!  There were guys on hydraulic ladders putting Christmas lights in the trees.

^Nice little field

Then the next day, we went hiking up one of the many Ogden canyons, Willow careening through the forest like a deer, and Eddie in the jogger. 

^So cuuuuuute!

 ^ Creepy, eh?

^ I love leaves!

^ At the top of Mt. Ogden

And, here are a few more pics that are just cute.

^ Playing with the tape measure was totally irresistable!

^ This was oddly fascinating to him! It was kinda funny, because when Seth would pick up the trash can, it looked like the bottom half of Eddie's body had disappeared, because there seemed to be no way all of it could fit inside it.

^ Shut the front door, that dog is cute.

^ Don't be fooled- she's absolutely ferocious.

Well, that's all for now. Stay tuned...I'm 78.3% sure I'll post regularly. 

Bye!!!

(Okay wait, just for grins, this is one of my new fave pics...)

Oh, and this one...cause Seth looks so cute- how could I not? Seriously.

And this one, obviously, because I'm a girl.

Okay, now bye for reals!