Grapefruit, Pickles... Yum!

Lately I've been eating grapefruit almost daily. Jared thinks it looks so cool and one day wanted to try a bite. He took the full spoonful and made a face but swallowed (I fully expected it to come right back out). He then replied, "I don't like it, I'll like it when I'm older." Fair enough. I told him I didn't like it as much when I was little either.

But a few days later he wanted to try it again (I guess it looks too cool to not like;). He tried it and wasn't too sure but asked for more. I had only taken a few bites before this. Spencer by this time was also interested and between feeding a bite to each one every other style I didn't get any more of the grapefruit. And... I usually eat just half a grapefruit but they finished the halve I started and finished the other half as well. I guess he decided he was old enough:)

Another food that both boys love is pickles. I'd bought a smaller jar of pickles and Jared and I finished it in one day. The next week I bought another one and Spencer helped in devouring the pickled cucumbers. I have now resorted to a Costco size jar of pickles so we can have as many as we please. Although the ones I got at Costco are more spicy so we don't eat them as fast.

Spencer now will go to the fridge open it and point to the pickles until I come and get the jar out. When I finally do he starts moving his feet so fast like a run or dance until I get a pickle out to give him. He really loves those things. (On a side note Spencer has learned to open the fridge and toilet this last month, Dang it!)

Say Oprah and They Will Come!

At the beginning of December Chris called from work informing me that day was the day to get Oprah tickets for January. He gave me the number and said I had an hour left to try. Yeah right, with only an hour left this would be impossible. But since he went through the effort to let me know I decided I'd at least try. After about 10-15 mins of ringing, busy, hang-up and ringing again I got through and now had access to four tickets! I decided to go with the end of the month giving anyone more of a chance to get out here. All five wanted to come but due to conflicts, three of my sisters couldn't make it, but Heidi and Camille did!

(many of the photos seen below are taken from Camille's camera)

(Camille in agreeance to yummy pizza:)

They flew in on the 29th the day before the showing. That night we had my favorite pizza from Unos, four cheese and pesto, and then headed off to the Children's Museum (free night).

Jared and Camille

Heidi and Spencer

Heidi and I being silly then normal below Man that man was attractive!

Camille in little archaeologist clothes and in action below Below Camille was trying to get her head out of the head from a previous picture and I snapped an extra shot and got an even better expression.

By the time we got home we were exhausted and ready to go to bed since we had to leave my house by 6:20ish to get to Oprah's studio on time.

The day of the showing happened to be the coldest days they were here. Camille wore boots but these weren't warm boots. In fact she wore no socks at all! CRAZY!!!! Plus she had no gloves and we didn't wear hats because we didn't want to mess up our hair, of course:). We didn't have to wait too long for the bus since we were able to track it but we waited long enough. Once off the bus we ran to the studio (partly cause we were later than we wanted and because you're warmer when running). At the studio we met up with my friend Beth who gladly filled our 4th spot.

Beth and me

me, Heidi, Camille

We had to be there at 7:00 and it was to last till 11:00. That means a lot of sitting and waiting. While you're waiting there's lots of posters and clips of past shows. Of course these are the big give away shows so you get a little excited, what if....:) We finally make it into the studio where you wait some more while they fill time. During this time we got a gift... an Oprah pen found under our seats. Unfortunately we didn't have the lucky pens with an additional gift.

FINALLY Oprah comes out on stage with Lisa Ling and here's the gist of the show. It was a follow up show of stories Lisa had done in the past. The first was of heroine addicts. One a family of 5 where everyone was addicted except for the toddler and the other story of a pregnant teen. The family was currently receiving treatment and so far was a success story. The girl ended up having a healthy baby who she gave up for adoption but since has relapsed and is in prison.

The next story was on the FLDS church in Texas where all the children were taken away. She went back and "for the first time" talked to the children that were involved. So I guess that was a little interesting when she talked to the kids but besides that, not too interesting. I've heard so much on this topic that it would've been nice to hear something different.

So we left... disappointed, but hey! We saw Oprah right?! I'll have to try again next season and hopefully I'll get a fun show. Who cares about gifts, I just want to it to be more interesting!



Our wait for the bus on the way home was very long. We didn't have Internet access so we had no idea how long we'd have to wait. I didn't time it but it was too long. We were all cold and poor Heidi's nose was too many shades too red.


Once at home we were hungry had pizza leftovers and picked up the kids to take them to Jared's Basketball.



That evening we started Pride and Prejudice. The long one. Camille has that movie memorized! We were only able to stay up for an hour of it before we zonked. The next day we had things planned but decided to just enjoy sitting and watching the movie. It felt especially good for Heidi to just sit (she's used to running after 6 kids, who dearly missed her while she was gone).


That night we headed off to a ballet of Cinderella. It was fun but we decided we'd definitely like the nutcracker more. My favorite Characters were the step sisters. I thought they had some fun dances.

Camille, Me, Heidi

Heidi by the sign with her son's name

As for the rest of the time I just thoroughly enjoyed laughing, talking, and crying with my sisters. We missed the other three and wish they could've been there. I'm so grateful for my sisters, they really are some of my best friends!

Camille and me

Spencer Update

Spencer's been 15 months for awhile and is now closer to his 16 month marker but here are roughly his stats from his well baby check-up:

Height: 32 in 95% (Yeah!!!!!)

Weight: 25ish lbs 75%

Head: 90%

I was surprised his weight wasn't in a higher percentile. That kid is a tank!!! You pick him up and he is dense. I tell you my boys are my workout! As for everything else he looked healthy as could be. The only thing of any concern was his speech. The doctor asked if he could say 3-6 words. I really had to think. I was finally able to think of some and asked if he was ok. She said yes he's just on the lower end and they'll check again at his 18 month check up.

The words I was able to come up with: head, duck, woof, milk, all done (signing), mama, dada, hot

Since the check up he has added the following words: juice, outside, thank you, uh-oh, hug (mind you these words are baby words, only if you're around him a lot would you recognize what he was saying)

I may be missing some but those are the main ones. The minimum he needs to be able to say by 18 months is 10 words so we should be covered. The doctor didn't seem worried at all but it started me working harder that's for sure. I know I don't work or spend as much time in repitition with Spencer as I did with Jared but the more I think about it a lot of it is due to different personalities. Jared would let me read for an hour to him if I would. I would fall asleep reading books to him and just close my eyes through the whole book while he turned pages. I had so many books memorized with that kid and many of them were longer children books. Spencer on the other hand I feel lucky if I get through a book with him. Nevertheless I have been trying harder to repeat simple words that I think he can get through pointing or whatever.

Spencer is a sweet little guy and also very vicious. He loves to get reactions so he likes to pull hair, bites, pinch or whatever. It's so hard not to react to because he HURTS! And the hardest part is after he does it and you react he laughs so he's too darn cute. When I do get after him with a stern voice it often breaks his heart and he cries. Jared then gets defensive and tells me to be nice to Spence. Spencer loves Jared and Jared loves Spencer. Jared just has a hard time sharing his things. But my favorite is when they slip away downstairs on their own and start playing. I often go sit on the stairs watching their play. Heartwarmer for sure. I love those boys!

Jared Update

Jared has had a lot of firsts that came with the new year. First off he became a SUNBEAM!!! I admit I was really scarred for this new step. He's a young sunbeam, just turning three in December. He loved nursery and the boys in there and he was entering this new class with 5 other girls, no boys. But he did great!!! He loved it and calls it his class. His first time walking into the primary room he walked right in and we stayed at the door in shock and then left. Since then it hasn't been as easy but still good. There's only been two times where he's wanted us to stay and today they had to get me out of Sunday School because he started crying when they told him he couldn't pray because it was singing time.

Other firsts is he's started a rec type league of soccer and basketball. There are no teams at this young of age, 3-5, but they meet once a week for 45 mins and practice new drills and play mini games. Jared has significantly improved since the beginning and loves it! He's running constantly and tries hard to do what is explained. He needs LOTS of practice and he doesn't mind.

His last first may be questionable for appropriateness but funny. Boys are very curious about themselves and I am continually nagging Jared to not touch his private area. Well one bath time he was at it again so I told him the same thing to which he responded, "But mom, I'm trying to find my balls." So innocent and serious. How do you not laugh? Chris was home so I had him come in to the bathroom to which he said the same thing as I did and Jared responded the same way. We had a good laugh. When did he learn that?! I've never told him and I don't know where he would have heard it. I really think he just discovered it and what better name to call it then "balls". I didn't correct him with the proper name maybe when he's older I'll bring in the heavy words!

Christmas 2008

I'm all about saving money and I really thought $300 was a big enough saving to go ahead with a layover in Minneapolis. WRONG! What a day to travel, snowy. We started early Saturday morning with our travels and after delays and waiting we finally made it to Minneapolis around 8:00 PM and missed our connecting flight. After talking to attendants and realizing we weren't guaranteed arrival until Monday we headed out for our hotel. We eventually made it at 10:30, Spencer fell asleep on the shuttle and when we got to our room Jared asked if he could take a nap.

There were four flights going to Salt Lake on Sunday they were just full so we couldn't get on them but we could try stand by if we wanted. I wanted to get to Salt Lake as soon as possible to spend time with my parents while they had time off (the weekend) but was seriously debating getting a good nights rest and enjoying our little stay.

I wasn't able to debate for long because the boys got up at 5:30 and we caught the 6:00 shuttle to attempt the first flight of the day (8:00). There were three standbys left and we got them (two of which were in 1st class). We got into Salt Lake in time to go to church with my parents. We then opened some presents and headed off early Monday morning.
The trip to Idaho was about as good as our trip to Utah from Chicago. In what should take less than 4 hours took around 9 hours. We barely missed the open road before they closed it (like 10-15 cars in front of us). We waited for 2 1/2 hours before we realized they weren't going to open the roads anytime soon. We should have turned around so much sooner but oh well we made it at least in one day (luckily the boys were good and slept once we turned around.)

Malita my cousin who came with us and was a trooper for sure!While in Idaho we were able to meet up with Chris' best friend from high school and his wife who I definitely consider my friend. Below is the only picture I got. We really miss them! And since this post is so overdue and the main story was our travel I'll post a few more pictures to tell a little more of our wonderful stay with family:)

Christmas Morning

The whole Meservy clan (left to right starting in back row: Mal, Brandon, Ashley, Andy, Ty, Jim, Chris, Me, Spencer, Jordan, Cherie, Jared, Baillie)

A game we played where Cherie had to do sit ups and Jared joined in support.

Katie and Jared

Sisters night with 4 of the 6 (Valerie, Jeanine, Me, and Heidi)

Back in Salt Lake enjoying Temple Square. (Jared and Naomi)

Mom, Chris, Me, Angela, Jared, Naomi, Kenya, and Micah in the stroller

Jared and Trent my brother who had fun doing different hairstyles with Jared's hair.

We were able to see everyone of our siblings, mine in spurts throughout but more than I expected before we left. Our trip back was a little better than the way out but that's about it. We almost missed our connecting flight which boarded on time but then we waited for 2 hours before it actually left. But all the wait it was worth the vacation and family we'll just go direct next time during the winter.

Boys Will be Boys...

March 10, 2009