Photos from July

Okay, so this whole post is going to be a little backwards in the timeline, but oh well. I have finally downloaded the pictures from the past month or so, so here are the highlights:

This is a picture of Josh's new sleeping accomidations. I actually just meant to take a picture of the bed, but Josh came running in and plopped himself down for the photo shoot. He is such a ham. But yeah, he no longer sleeps in his crib, he sleeps in his boat bed. True it takes him several hours to fall asleep rather than a few minutes now, but hopefully he will get used to it soon.

Josh's friend, Tommy, is in a lot of these pictures because whenever he comes over, that is when Josh is his funniest. And so for some reason, I always find reasons to pull the camera out when they are together. In these next two, I was trying to get them to smile, but both of them were completely serious, it was so funny. They wanted to put their faces right up in the camera and just stare. Crazy kids.

Josh actually took this picture, his Aunt Cassie taught him how to push the button and he has come to love it.

In the middle of July, my little (okay not so little anymore) brothers came to visit. We went to the drive-in (Chanson brought his friend), and it was a lot of fun. I miss them already.

We went on a little hike with them too, and this is the only picture I took from the whole thing. :)

Josh loves to be outside, especially when it is raining. We were out on our porch, and the railings get his little hands all black. So that mixed with the rain and he kept trying to get the water off his face, it turned his whole face a gray color. I was laughing so hard, but he wasn't very happy with me delaying getting him dry once we got inside. :)

Some more of Josh and Tommy in Josh's new tent. They loved this thing!

More photos of the brothers. They are so handsome and old! Both of them are taller than me now (although, that isn't really hard to do).

We call Josh "Puggles" sometimes and Chanson says we stole his nickname since that is what we called him when he was a kid. So, this is a picture of the two puggles. And yes, Josh is in a box.

Our friend, Dr. Mosser always goes all out for Tyson and my birthday. She is so cute. This year she got us the best cake I have ever eaten in my whole life. It was part white and part chocolate with rasperry filling and fudge frosting. Talk about amazing!

I love July because the first week is a sweet party for our family. Not only do Tyson and I both have our birthdays, but it is also our anniversary. This year we really splurged and stayed overnight at a hotel. I brought sparkling grape juice, we went and saw a Shakespeare play, and we ate the yummiest food. Not to mention it was the first and only night I have spent away from Josh. It was kind of hard for me, but at the same time, sooo nice. Thanks Bunk and Chris!

I love my Hunny Bunches!

This is Josh's cute outfit from Tyson's Aunt Judy. He loves it because it has dogs on it.

This is what happens when you give a kid a donut to eat all by themselves. Tyson and I are serious suckers for the clearance pastries at Walmart. And our poor child is going to have all of our bad, but very yummy, habits.

We like to take Josh to Boxerwood, and there is tons of fun stuff there. These are pictures from when Logan and Tommy met us there. Josh kept trying to put his fingers in the pond and the fish were trying to eat them, so Logan kept saving Josh for us.

Josh and Tommy, having way too much fun together. Tommy taught Josh the value of sticks and how much fun they are. This is them, chilling in the hammock together.

Do you ever miss - yourself?

So I am usually a relatively calm individual, well kind of. But this past week I have been super freakishly emotional. I know I am pregnant and all, so this is normal, but wow, there is a lot of hormones in me apparently. So last night, as Tyson starts snoring (kind of), and I am laying there, I can't stop thinking. I start thinking about my parents and how much I miss them, how I want my kids to know them. I start to wonder why I am so protective of them and why I am so clannish. Then I start wondering what I was like before, when I still lived at home. Am I still the same person? I mean, I used to be fun and I laughed a lot and I was crazy. Then I started thinking about how I was when Tyson and I were dating and I realized how much I have changed. The poor guy must feel like he is married to a completely different person now. That is when I started crying, that isn't unusual, just so you know. Then I kept crying and wondering what has become of me? I have become so obsessed with being a mom, I worry that I have lost my identity completely. That is when Tyson woke up and realized I was crying, so he wraps his arms around me and asks me whats wrong. So then I start telling him what I was thinking, and then I started telling him things that I was worried about that I didn't even realize I was worried about. Then I realized the baby is due in 8 weeks, and that is when I started basically freaking out. Tyson was trying to calm me down and trying not to laugh, which made me want to laugh, but then I was crying and laughing and it came out like hysterical screaming. Sometimes, I really feel bad for my husband, he must worry about my sanity levels a lot.

Anyways, I finally calmed down after a few minutes of that. I have the best husband ever. But seriously, it is weird sometimes when I realize how much I have changed since I became a mom. I guess I just get nervous that I will become even more "no fun" when the next one comes. But at the same time, everything is way better in the morning when you have some sleep to calm you down. But can I just tell you that I love Tyson so much? I do, I don't think I could have dreamed up a better best friend.

So...a few funny stories

Let me tell you a story. It is about a young mom who has been attacked by, well, let me just tell you. So yesterday, she decided to take a walk with her young son down to the library. So on their way there it was bright and sunny, pretty warm and humid, but that was normal for August. So they make it to the library, stop for a little while at the park, then start heading back home. On the way there, it starts getting REALLY humid and the nats attack this poor mother like crazy. She is seven months pregnant so the heat really doesn't agree with her and well, who likes nats? So she says a little silent prayer that it will just rain or something. Well, out of no where, it starts getting really cloudy. Then she hears this noise that sounds like a running stream, it gets stronger and it sounds like there is a river coming down the road. This little mom looks up, and suddenly they get pelted with rain drops. It continues to get heavier and heavier and within a minute the poor mom and toddler are completely soaked to the bone. (except the underneath portion of her belly which remained dry throughout) They hurry to the closest place, her sister's work, which took about 5 minutes walking in the pouring rain. The poor toddler was in shock and trembling from the cold shower. But what else could that poor mother do? All the cars driving by must have thought, "how selfish and sad, that mom making her child get wet like that." But, it was completely an accident. She couldn't help but laugh, and she laughed harder when her sister saw her when they entered her store like two nearly drowned rats. However, shortly thereafter they made it safely home and got dry.

The next day though, the mom was perched on the couch, relaxing a little before her day really began. She watched her toddler playing in the cupboard with cans and other things. She noticed him holding a bottle of chocolate syrup but thought nothing of it, because kids can't get those open right? So she started drifting off, when she happen to glance over and notice a large murky puddle on the carpet. Her first reaction was, "there has to be a delete button, an undo button. What am I going to do? WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?" She raced over to her little boy holding the empty chocolate bottle, his little hands and feet covered in the sticky mess. She set him aside and ran for the paper towels. It slowly got less and less chocolate covered and after a google search on how to get chocolate stains out, the carpet grew to a relatively normal color. The sweet little boy sat nearby, happy but a little fearful of his moms frantic scrubbing. He couldn't possible understand why she didn't like his dark brown gooey mess that tasted so good. He tried to help a few times by smacking his mom on the head with a spatula he found in the dishwasher. (Don't ask me how he thought that would be helpful, but he had such a "i'm helping" look on his face) So now, thanks to our wonderful neighbors, we have a childproof cover on the pantry door, so no more chocolate syrup for this little toddler...at least not until he is older.

So moral of the story, unless you want to get soaked, down pray for rain, and keep your children away from chocolate syrup. Either that or just laugh at what happens to you, it makes living with the crazy times so much more fun.

Another blog, about Josh :)

Okay, I know, this is a lot of blogging in one day. But I have a lot of different thoughts in my head. :) This one is just a funny story. So I am sitting here typing on the computer earlier and I look up to see that Josh has completely unloaded the dishwasher of all the dirty dishes that are in it. (Obviously, I kind of space out when I am typing). All the dirty silverware is in the silverware drawer, and the floor and countertops where Josh can reach are littered with the other dirty dishes. He has opened the pantry and pulled out some cans of spam and cream of chicken soup, and had found the can opener and was trying to open the cans. True, the kitchen was a complete disaster and setting it all back in order not only took some time, but confused Josh to no end. He couldn't understand why I would ruin all his hard work. But it was so cute to see how much he watches Tyson and I. He tries so hard to be a good helper, even though most of the time it turns out to kind of be the opposite. But how could I mind? It is so precious to see him learning, I just can't believe he is so big. I keep telling him he is my favorite little baby boy and I realized I probably shouldn't say that much longer, being that there is another baby boy coming in two months. It is so weird to think of Josh no longer as a baby, even though I see him everyday. But anyways, I am done with all my blogging. Josh has now poured mass amounts of water on the kitchen floor trying to transfer it from different pots and is mixing what is left with a spoon (from the dirty dishwasher). I wonder what he thinks he is making. :)

The Future is Brighter

So I have been thinking a lot about my last post about how "little faith" I have. Tyson was talking to me yesterday and he reminded me about my favorite quote from Conference, which is from President Monson: "The future is as bright as your faith."

I have been reading in my personal study, trying for the first time in my life to read the Old Testament. It has been interesting to say the very least. Sometimes all the different ways to sacrifice an animal and all the details that go into creating a tent/tabernacle seem slightly boring and redundant to me. But then there are the moments with all the children of Israel that Moses is leading and how quickly they forget who they are following and how blessed they are to be saved from Egypt. How often they want to go back to Egypt and be slaves again and I can't help thinking, "what are they thinking?" But then I realize that really is how I probably sound. How quickly I forget who is leading me and where my destination is. Then with Tyson I have been reading about Alma and the sons of Mosiah and how much of a difference they made by striving to always do what the Lord wanted them to. Their work saved thousands of souls and reunited people that had been hating each other for centuries.

I don't know, I guess it has been interesting to see the difference between people that the Lord has blessed, who do the bare minimum and then the people who do all they can. Not that the children of Israel were bad or anything, but how different the world could have been if they were better. How different the world would be if I did better.

I know it may seem dumb that I write this basically for the whole world to see. I don't know why I do, maybe because I feel it is more challenging. This isn't something just scribbled in a journal that I might never see again, this is something that I write to the general public and have to live up to. And I don't know, I guess it is one of the few ways I know how to share my testimony with others. So we still don't know what we are going to do about our car, and other things, but I am trying to have more faith. I trust that the Lord will help us, He has never abandoned me before and I know He never will. If there is one thing I know, it is that the Lord loves each of us. There are lots of things I have doubted, but never that.

Happy Birthday Avid Blogger Fan!

Mom Cooper, Happy Birthday! I hope today is a great day for you and that you know how much we all love you! Sorry I stole your son, grandson(s) and now your daughter away from you. I guess you will just have to move out here. :) Thanks for being my biggest blog fan and I love you lots! Josh and Tyson say they love you lots too!