Too Trusting

I admire how much trust Jared has in Chris and me but sometimes it's a little too much. I don't know how many times Chris has just barely caught Jared when leaping through the air and how many times Chris was just luckily holding his hands in the right place to catch a falling Jared without looking to catch him.

Well today Jared's luck ran out. He was standing on a chair in the kitchen by the counter while I was getting things ready to do dishes. As I turned to go grab something off the table Jared exclaimed, "Hold you mommy!" As soon as I heard him I turned around but he had already leapt and belly flopped onto the floor. I quickly scooped him up not noticing any harm but as I held him he kept grabbing his hand. As I surveyed his hand I noticed it was swelling up. He wouldn't move his hand for awhile when I asked him to but eventually would. So I don't think any harm is done ( I probably made you all believe there was going to be a broken bone or something the way I wrote about it, but no he's fine.) So yes there are so many attributes of Jared's (children) I would like to emulate but sometimes they do things TOO well:)

Look What I Can Do!

I thought it would be fun to capture some of the things Jared could do at age two. It's alway fun to look back when older so hopefully he'll enjoy this.

And Two Years Later...

Super long post for Super good reason. Jared's officially two!!! Wow how the time flys! Last year for Jared's birthday I wanted to decorate a cake and have him dig in. But... I didn't realize how close his birthday was and it crept up on me and I didn't have time. I even forgot candles for his one-year-old birthday!!! We ended up putting a scented candle in the center of the cake.

This year I was prepared thanks to some ideas I got from the magazine Family Fun (love the magazine and recommend it!) I started making some of the items earlier this week and put them away for Saturday. The first cake I made didn't work out. Chris tried taking it out of the pan and lets just say I didn't think frosting could get that mess back together! Jared enjoyed the batter though:)Our second cake turned out lots better. Some cake still stuck to the pan but frosting did the trick this time:) After finishing the cake Chris said I'd better not continue doing this when they get older cause then they'd expect it. He didn't know if it was worth the time. I must admit it took a whole lot longer to do than anticipated but I totally think it's worth the time especially for a birthday! And Jared loved it so the payday was worth it even more.
Jared loved all his presents, some a little more than others. His absolute favorite was the Thomas the Train set; thanks Grammy M. Chris and I got him a big Tonka dump truck that he had loved playing with up at the cabin with his cousin Katie but he wasn't as excited to play with it considering the other competition.
Jared has loved trains for awhile now. He loves to watch a particular video on youtube. It is the most boring, long video you'll ever watch but I am embedding it to this post because this post is about Jared:

Now to cap off this Jared post I'll include a few Jared moments:

I am consistently telling Jared to look at me whether it be because he's in trouble, to explain something to him, or just to see his cute face. The other day in the tub he lined all his "rubber ducky" friends along the side of the tub, turned them facing the wall and said, "Look at me!" and proceeded to turn them around to look at him.

One day I needed something in Jared's room so I left Spencer in his bouncer and Jared was playing. While back in Jared's room I could hear Jared laughing. Often Jared laughs when Spencer sneezes or gets the hiccups. It made me feel so happy thinking they were already getting to be buds and bonding. As I walked out my warm fuzzys soon disappeared. Jared was bouncing Spencer in his bouncer and Spencer's head was bouncing about 3-5 inches off the cover with every bounce.

I've started bathing Jared and Spencer at the same time because Jared loves to help and often gets wet enough to have his own bath. Now the only problem is Jared wants to get in Spencer's bath. After I take Spencer out I let Jared play for awhile. He loves it!

Jared is starting to get over this recent fear of the toaster but it's taken time. Jared loves toast and one time he wanted to watch it "cook". We got a chair by the counter and let him watch. The toaster beeps and then pops out. Well Jared does not like the "PoP". The first time he jumped into my arms. The next few times Jared would hear the beep and then grab Chris or me before the toast could pop up. Now he's getting to where he can stand by himself without our assistance but those first few times were quite comical. Also along the same lines I was using the blender this week and Jared thought it was cool. He moved a chair over and tried to hit some buttons. It took him several tries to succeed at pushing a button hard enough and when he did it half surprised and scared him and again we had a jumping, scared Jared.

We've been trying to teach Jared to say excuse me when he burps or toots. He's been doing pretty good with burping but I don't think he gets the tooting. But one day when going to the bathroom #2 he said, "Excuse me" while grunting. I didn't hear a toot but I thought it was cute:)

This next side note doesn't deal much with Jared but I want to record it while I'm thinking about it. Chris watched the two boys while I went visiting teaching and when I got home he said, "I don't know how you watch both of them at the same time. It's hard!" It feels good to be appreciated. And not as encouraging but very honestly he told me this morning that he knew when the boys were being difficult according to the condition of our home. When he got back from his meeting this morning the butter and syrup were still on the table and I looked the same as I did when he left:)

Do My Boys Look Alike?

I've had lots of people tell me Spencer looks just like Jared except dark hair. From the very first time I held Spencer I thought he looked different. I knew they looked similar because they both look like Meservys but I thought they looked pretty different. I was surprised at how different they looked in their hospital picture. Now there have been times where they looked very very similar and Spencer reminded me of Jared. I got the hospital pictures for Spencer that we ordered and put Jared's and Spencer's pictures side by side. So what do you think?I'll try to pot some other pictures later to compare the two. Some of the pictures they look really close in resemblance. Not a surprise.

BYU vs U of U

What a game. I wanted Chris to blog about this experience but with finals coming he doesn't have tons of time. Maybe he'll make inserts into this post later.
I must say the game was pretty frustrating for the first part of it. We'd get so close to scoring and nothing would happen. Jared liked the first little bit but after the first half he was beat. He took a nap through half time and part of the third quarter and after that he had his eyes closed off and on. Poor little guy was beat after the Thanksgiving holiday. He stayed up late all through that week and had shorter naps and still got up at his usual time.

Anyways, back to the game... I about died when it was 4th down and 18 yards. I knew we could still pull it off but I was nervous. I thought it was over soon after the ball was snapped. It looked like there was this swarm around Max Hall and I thought he'd be sacked for sure but then he emerged from the pack and was able to get the first down. Way exciting!

After the game ended Chris and Jared rushed the field. (by the way Spencer was with my friend Heather, he didn't go) Chris had to climb a rail and couldn't do it holding Jared so a girl was nice enough to hold him while Chris jumped down. Jared didn't like that very much so Chris did it really fast. I was never able to see them on the field but they had a good time.
And the Cougars are the Mountain West All Right Champions!!! We'll probably go to the Las Vegas Bowl. We're trying to figure out how to get tickets once they're released to BYU. I wanted to go for Chris's birthday. We'll see if we get lucky!

Happy Thanksgiving

So I know this is totally late but I still want to have record of our Thanksgiving holiday. Blogging has been difficult to do with two kids. Chris gets home later now with finals coming and so we have "family time". After Jared goes to bed that's about when Spencer starts his fussy time and by the time he's down I want to go down for the night as well.

Anyways... on to Thanksgiving:

So we headed to Idaho and I was the lucky one to start the drive. About 5-10 miles before Thanksgiving Point exit I hit something, what I don't know. But after a few minutes we heard something funny and pulled over. We had a flat!

Since we were going out of town we had packed a lot so we had to take almost everything out of the trunk to get to our spare. It took us awhile to get the tire changed but luckily the boys slept through it.

Once in Idaho we spent the first part with Meservy's. Grammy M found lots of fun toys for Jared while unpaking some boxes. His favorite was the magnetic train with wooden tracks. He also liked the many cars and continually lined them up on the window sill.

This trip was a first for Great-Great Gram and Uncle Ty to meet Spencer. Jared was kind of hesitant around Ty, I think it was the beard. We asked him to kis him and he made the beginning motions but stopped and just stared at his beard.

Jared also loved the jet tub at Meservy's as you can see from the photos:

For Thanksgiving we went to Cub River Ranch in Preston Idaho and stayed at the Guest Ranch/Cabin with my family. It was lots of fun and every single person from my family, including inlaws and grandkids were there. Jared thoroughly enjoyed his cousins and gained an even closer bond with his cousin Katie. The other cousins loved Jared as well. They don't get to see him very often so they loved making him laugh. Below are a few pictures of the experience:

We Slept

We Played, Old and Young

And we Ate!

Life of an Almost Two-Year-Old

So Jared has had a few funny moments as of recent and I thought I'd share them with you...

When I put Spencer down for his naps I often swaddle him in his blanket. One day Jared wanted me to do the same to him so I did. I'll let the next two videos explain how he liked it!

One day I was out in our living room, I think feeding Spencer, when I heard Jared crying from in his room. I kept calling for him to come to me and tell me what was wrong but he wouldn't come. To be honest I was starting to get a little bothered that he wouldn't come and talk to me. I gave it a few minutes and after he wouldn't come out I went into his room to see what the problem was because his cry was not subsiding. When I went in the room Jared was in Spencer's swing and it was going the highest I'd ever seen it go with Jared squatting in the seat hanging on for dear life! I don't know how he got it going so high because it wasn't even turned on but it was kind of comical, but at the same time I counted my blessings that he didn't get hurt. Hence Jared has not tried to get in the swing since this event:)

Jared often likes to talk to Spencer. Some of his favorite phrases... while holding Spencer's face "Look at me!" "Wake up Spencer!" "What you doin?" Jared really is a great big brother. He is great with helping to get diapers and throwing them away for me and he also likes to help burp Spencer.

The last story deals with Jared and the microwave... He'd pushed a chair to the counter and was playing with the buttons. I was aware that he was there but I wasn't aware that he'd put something in it; a little toy car. I was close by when he managed to start the microwave. I ran over to turn it off but before I got there some sparks started shooting inside. My reaction plus the sparks really startled Jared and he about jumped into my arms with a soft cry, "That scared me, that scared me." So really two good things came out of this: we still have a functioning microwave while teaching Jared not to put things in the microwave and to not start it without mom or dad to help.

Cheesecake???

Have you ever wondered why things have the name they do?? Well I have. While waiting in line to ride the bat with Baillie, Jordan, and my cousin Jessica, I had an apostrophe (name the movie). Why is it Cheesecake?? It has no frosting. It is not spongy like a cake. It seems like a pie. You put toppings on it. There is crust. It just seems to be a pie to me. In Mexico, it was called a pay de queso (even if you don't speak Spanish, I think you can translate it). Therefore, I believe the name should be changed to CHEESE PIE (I like the 2 word approach but one word would be acceptable). My brother, Jordan, has yet to see the light. He still doubts my cause, but I feel the cause is just and I can do something (name the quote slightly adjusted). Just imagine telling the waitress, "I'll have the cherry cheese pie." Doesn't that just roll off the tongue. Maybe I am mistaken. If anyone can inform me on why it is called a cake, I would love to here it until then FREE the CHEESE PIE!!!


(Some may wonder why am I posting this and if you had ever been through business associations class you would know why.)

Grandma's 90th Birthday

Saturday we went up to Brigham City to eat at Maddox to celebrate my dad's mother's 90th birthday. It's really cool to the legacy she has and the impact and influence she's had on so many people. It made me realize I will affect many for the good or bad so my choices today are definitely important!It was fun to see lots of family especially my sisters. So everyone of my siblings were there except for my brother who was helping his wife's grandma move. There was a nice program where tributes were given to my grandma and we spent the rest of the time catching up with one another. Luckily Chris had Moe, my sister's husband, there to talk with because he hates (strongly dislikes) the conversations I have with my sisters. Yesterdays consisted of my younger sister's dating life and then the four girls who've had kids talking about our labors. I don't know what's wrong with Chris but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and spent much of the time laughing:)
I also was able to see my cousin Christy who I grew up going to school with. I don't get to see her much anymore so it was fun chatting a bit.
These next pictures are of my cousin Allison and her boys with me and my boys. We had Jared and Drew in December of '05 and she had Mason in September and then I had Spencer in October. We'll have to let each other know when we're ready for the next one ;)
All in all it was a fun outing. The only bad thing is we were disappointed in the food. It was after all Maddox but the quality and size portions were lacking drastically. Although I must say I did like the seasoning on the vegetables they served. Here's a few photos of those in attendance, not great pictures due to the surrounding windows but nonetheless here they are:

Life on Our Own

Thanks to my mom and Cherie I've had help adjusting to being a mother to two. But that all came to an end this past Thursday when Grammy Meservy left. Like my mom, Cherie kept my house clean and kept us fed and entertained Jared by taking him out on many excursions. Like I told her when she left, I'm not always the easiest person to deal with but I appreciate her love and patience with me and even more I appreciate the love she has for my two boys! Thank you so much Cherie, I really am lucky to have you as my mother-in-law!
I was pretty optimistic about beginning life as a foursome but reality strikes fast. Jared has never been mean or aggressive towards Spencer but I am definitely learning he wants more attention which can be hard at times especially when feeding the baby. And Spencer is a little fussy especially in the evenings. Jared was such a good baby that I'm learning what a more typical baby is like. Not that Spencer isn't good it's just that he cries where Jared only did when hungry, tired, and needed a change of diaper. There have been overwhelming and frustrating times but the pay days are there and worth every hardship. Jared a few times when I sing him songs before bed, has put his arms around my neck while he is laying down and just held me while we sing the song together. Moments like this make being a mom worth it. I love it and I'm excited for each day I'm blessed with these sweet little boys:)