St George and a Garden and everything else in between!

Did you know I take a lot of pictures? All the time. Rarely does a day go by that I don't pull my camera out to capture some little moment and even then I feel like I am missing something by not having it constantly around my neck. Of course, since I typically have a baby around my neck, it would be tricky to have the camera too.

A quick little update before you look at picture! (or you skip the reading- your choice)

Jake

He started at a new job a few weeks ago and for the first week we got to go to St George. He worked and we mostly hung out in the hotel (well except one day we went and hung out with Aunt Jonna and her family :D ) but it was still really nice to have a slight change. But so far so good. He likes the work even though it is just him for right now. I guess I could tell you what he does huh? It is called AndSeven. It is a brand new start up company that hasn't even launched yet. He is finishing it all up in time for it to launch by the end of June I think. But it is an educational website that offers online classes about cooking or photography or arts and crafts or whatever else they get people to teach! Haha, I am sure it is much more planned than I know.

Me

Still nursing. Turns out I suck at producing milk. Hmm. Strange. But I'm taking all these supplements and pumping a ton and I have definitely noticed an increase so that is really exciting. Except one of the supplements, Brewers Yeast, is so nasty. I wanted to get the pills but they were out so I bought the powder and have been dissolving it in juice and oh geez, it tastes like barf. But if it'll help me reach my goal of at least 6 months of nursing, then I'll deal with it.

Mikey

He is potty training. We got this chart from Victoria Chart Company called the Ultimate Potty Training Chart and he loves it (but I'll devote an entire blog post to that later- look forward to it) Mikey is doing really well though. Yesterday he had three accidents in the first 2 hours but then was good for the rest of the day! Yay for Mikey.

Adam

He has finally got some of those pesky molars to break through so his nights have been way better. I think he is in the process of getting 5 new teeth right now. When he got the 8 he has they all more or less came in at the same time. I'm not sure why this kid can't take turns but whatever. This is probably better in the long run.

Natalie

She is figuring out life finally. Three months old! Still just little. Well actually she is pretty long but only 10.5 lbs. THis morning she took her first bath that she didn't scream bloody murder the whole time. I call that progress. And two nights ago she did 7 hours of sleep! Wahoo (You know what is awesome about formula? No getting engorged. Dang, that's uncomfortable) And then last night she did 6 hours. We are getting it, team!

Now some pictures! There are no rhyme or reason so the ones I picked other than I liked them

Okay this picture is so funny. It is especially funny from the front but I didn't think that would be appropriate to put on a blog. But I don't even know how he managed to get his diaper like this. Silly Adam.

Natalie! Isn't she beautiful? You can kind of see her pierced ears in this one. I love them.

I was cleaning the bathroom and Mikey wanted to help. So he washed the shower and honestly, he probably did a better job than I would've.

I cannot even begin to express how bummed I am that this picture is blurry. I love it so much.

This one is pretty good too though.

I know, I know. I have adorable children. ;) (also, a better example of the pierced ears I was talking about earlier)

Sometimes when my mom takes my oreo away, the world ends and I just have to throw myself on the ground and scream so everyone else is aware of the situation.

Adam always covers her with a blanket which is so funny because he has always hated them.

What we did while we were in St George

We went to the Brigham Young Winter house and a nice woman offered to take our picture. We don't have very many with all 5 of us. Also, can I just say that I think Jake is so handsome? I mean seriously.

What flower is this? Anyone? (serious question, I really want to know)

He has a bit of an attitude. I wonder where he got that from. :D

So we decided last minute on our way out of town that we were going to the BY house. Hence, the pjs. Plus, we are pj people.

I'm not sure what exactly is going on here.

This is my whole life. Everything about this picture is so real. The face. The big baby climbing on me. Me holding the little baby. This is truth people.

Checking out the orchard at the BY house. Mikey was sneaking up on something- cute.

They got cozy coupes and we had a drive in movie. It was obviously very lost on Adam, but make no mistake, he LOVED the popcorn.

Adam wanted underwear like Mikey so he is rocking the Flash over his diaper.

This is what happens when I saw Mikey look at me and smile. I think he is sick of the camera. But let's all take a moment to respect the hair.

I feel like such a daredevil taking picture of Natalie while she sleeps. haha

Our garden starters! We are so proud. We didn't think the peppers would sprout but they did! Here we have our red sweet peppers.

These are our tomatoes. Wish us luck, we've never really gardened before. Which is not really true because we had gardens growing up but still.

Okay these are our hot peppers that just sprouted TODAY! But you can't really see them. But they are there. Be proud of us.

Thanks for reading!

Easter Day!

I LOVE EASTER! I love the spiritual and secular reasons behind it. I love the easter bunny and finding the eggs and having big baskets full of all kinds of good things. I love learning about the Atonement, the Crucifixion, and Him coming again. I love that Mikey got to color a picture of Christ and the tomb last Sunday. (Today was stake conference- plus we had two sickos so church didn't happen today unfortunately-- not related to Easter but 6 months ago we made a goal to not miss church unless completely necessary- so like if your two year old is randomly throwing up for no apparent reason-- and we have only missed twice! In six months! Yay us!)

So today we had Jake's family over for Easter dinner followed by an egg hunt and fight. (Don't worry- I'll explain) For dinner we had chicken, stuffing, potatoes, rice, corn, more corn, peas, and rolls. For dessert we had... cake of some kind which I didn't eat because I don't really love cake but it looked good and Arroz Con Leche which was delightful. It is so fun to get together with family and eat good food. 

So after dinner, Jake and Gideon went and put eggs in the backyard and we started the kids, youngest to oldest and it was so cute. Here are some pictures and by some I mean plenty.

Our backyard. Hopefully, it will soon be green but the point here is look at all those eggs. And those are only about half of what Lina put together for it haha

The kids getting ready to go!

Natalie started and she got one egg. Aunty Abby was nice enough to take care of her so I could take pictures, while Jake helped Adam.

Adam didn't fully understand the point but he got a few eggs. We should've started out by showing them that the eggs are full of candy but then I think there is a good chance that Adam would've tackled the other kids.

Malie shook all the eggs before she picked them up which was cute. I am not entirely sure what she was looking for but she did great. She must of understood that the eggs were special

Mikey was hilarious. Once he started he went over to the fence and just walked up and down picking up every egg, kind of like a lawn mower haha. He had a completely full bucket.

Genie showing off her basket. 

You can't quite see just how happy he was to have two eggs. Yes, he has one in each hand and right after this picture he put both his hands up and laughed. Adorable.

Natalie with her one egg. It's hard to see- apparently she is protective.

See! His basket is packed!

I love this little chunker.

I'm not sure what was going on here but I am glad it is documented forever.

During the egg hunt there were hard boiled eggs and plastic eggs with candy in them. I think the Logan's were more excited about the hard boiled ones because they are what you use for the egg fights. So here's the explanation. Each person gets an egg and they do a sort of tournament, one out situation. You rock, paper, scissors to see who holds and who hits. You hold the egg so the tip is showing and then you hit the tips and if your egg cracks, you are out. And then the last man standing wins. Our competitors were Saili, Lina, Mikey, Adam, Malie, Genie, and Natalie. Jake is quite proud that Mikey won. Way to go little man.

Abby explaining the rules- this is a serious thing for these guys.

Gideon was so enthusiastic about the whole experience that he made Genie cry a few times. Excellent.

The kids didn't care so much about the fight. Much more exciting to look out the window.

Malie decided that she need more pictures taken. So I have a bunch of her like this.

The final fight- Adam vs Mikey

Mikey the victor!

Mikey's "prize" was a Batman piggy bank- adorable. Thanks Uncle Gid and Aunty Lina.

Easter was great this year. We didn't do baskets this year but we still got plenty of candy and the memories are worth more anyways!

Thanks for reading!

Project Month!

You are starting to read a long post. Good luck. :D

So at the end of February I was in a funk. In a bad way. All I did was sleep (if I was lucky), nurse Natalie, and try to keep Mikey and Adam from seriously injuring each other. I talked to Jake about it and we decided I needed a project! Well, cooking is typically my stress relief. It's a really good one for me because even if the food sucks, I have three boys that'll eat it haha

So, *drum roll* my project was to try 20 new recipes! And guess what world! I did it!

Here is my list of recipes that I tried with little notes about them. (I also included the links to the websites I found them on)

I didn't take pictures of them because I don't actually like to take food pictures. I am good photographer but food seems to be beyond my grasp- it doesn't work with you, ya know?

1. Stuffed Hamburgers- okay this one didn't have a recipe, but I found a website that talked about hamburger presses so I bought one. $6.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond

2. Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Bars from Tasty Kitchen

3. Honey Mustard Mozzarella Chicken from Pia Recipes. This one was amazing! We have already had it twice. Try it, love it.

4. Baked Cheese Balls from Never Trust a Skinny Cook. These were unsuccessful- I am not sure what I did wrong but I tried so it counts.

5. Zucchini Parmesan Crisps from Blackjack Bakehouse. These were also amazing. We ate them with that seafood sauce that I can't remember what it's called. It was good though haha. (update- Jake just told me it's cocktail sauce.)

6. French Onion Chicken Sandwiches from Nature Box. They were good too. We are fans of anything that has cheese.

7. Calzones- we found a link on pinterest but when I clicked on it it redirected to some insurance sales website so we just winged it. And it was delightful.

8. PF Chang's Mongolian Beef Copycat from Damn Delicious. This is one of the best food blogs ever.

9. Mushroom Asiago Chicken from The Midnight Baker. We couldn't find asiago cheese so we used parmesan but I can't imagine it could've been any better than it was.

10. Chicken Potstickers- I can't remember what site I found this recipe on but I do remember that I used it as a loose guide. It was delightful- chicken, garlic, ginger blended together. Mm.

11. Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken from Damn Delicious. It was okay, a little heavy on the vinegar in my opinion but maybe people like it that way?

12. Homemade tortillas- these I found in a old ward cookbook. It was a little rough but they tasted right. Just weren't pretty at all.

13. Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas from The Cookin' Chicks. These were lick your plate delicious. We put mushrooms in them too and oh man, I thought I died. One of the best things I've ever cooked in my opinion. I used the homemade tortillas in this recipes and it was delightful.

14. French Silk Pie from Baking with Blondie. I thought this tasted like Cadbury Eggs. Translation: awesome. (Mine wasn't as pretty as Mandy's, and I used a pretzel crust instead. It was good)

15. Doritos Crusted Chicken from Spend With Pennies. This one I could have done without. It was dry. But if I could've fixed that it probably would've been pretty good.

16. Mini Banana Cream Pies from Girl versus Dough. These were pretty good. Later in the month, I made them again but with chocolate pudding and strawberries instead of banana and that was also delightful. There is a world of possibilities with this recipe. Any pudding with any fruit and it'd work out. Try it- the sugar cookie crust is delicious.

17. Quick and Easy Moroccan Spiced Chicken from Rock Recipes. This was pretty good. Once again, a little dry but the flavor was fantastic. We didn't try the lemon couscous but I plan on it next time.

18. Fajitas from my mind. Haha. I just used the random produce we had in the fridge but I did use this recipe for seasoning. Well as a loose guide once again.

19. Quiche. So I read this book this one time and it kind of walked you through a quiche recipe. So I sort of used that and I sort of used this one from Budget Bytes. I added mushrooms and sausage though because we love mushrooms and put them in everything that doesn't seem weird and we don't believe in meals sans meat. :D

20. Tikka Masala  from Mattawa Mum. After Natalie was born, a friend brought us some tikka masala and it was excellent. But we love spicy food so we wanted to try it ourselves and make it spicier. It was equally delicious.

Well part way through the month, I realized how much better I felt doing these projects so I came up with a list of other ones that I could do around the house.

I started with this wreath because it was relatively simple and I had some of the stuff I needed- I did make a trip to Walmart but that's okay, I love that place.

Jake picked the color scheme and then I did the rest and I love it. It took 2 episodes of Sherlock, but it probably could've taken only one but I was fighting an uphill battle with Natalie wanting to eat ALL the time, and Adam wanting to help.

 Next, I decided to paint the living room. I went to Lowe's one day and went to the paint counter and rather impulsively picked this blue. And I love it! I painted the one wall by my stairs and then a small little wall on the other side of the room because I am kind of intense about symmetry. I have realized that I am not a big fan of just one accent wall. I at the very least, need the color to tie in on the opposite wall.. or opposite-ish wall. :D

I saw this board on pinterest and I could buy it for $45 or make it at home for free... well ish. I used scraps from previous projects. :D It's not quite as cute as the one on pinterest but it's sure worth the difference in price! I painted the batman symbol and then use my cricut for the vinyl letters. Not bad right? I am proud.

 I put the batman board up in the boy's room and finally finished their room. I touched up the stripes, and painted over the crayon marks which were everywhere, in case you were wondering. FYI- painting over the marks? Way better than washing the walls. :D I liked it so much that one part of the window sill was real dirty- I painted it. haha. Housekeeper award!

 Their room looks good right?

And here is the one I am most excited about. I am finally painting the guest room which will soon be Natalie's room when we have no guests! I did it purple and I found this tutorial for painting wall paper.

I love it! I am obviously not finished yet but seriously, it's awesome. It takes forever and a day but I think it'll be worth it. I am only going to do one wall and I will somehow figure out how to tie the purple in on the opposite wall. I have a few plans but who knows.

I have two other projects in the works.. well three I suppose. I am going to paint a stripe in the living room to connect the two blue walls, I am going to make a terra cotta pot planter, and I am going to sew suspenders for the little boys for Easter to match an adorable dress I found for Natalie. It was $5. And so cute. I cannot wait for Easter! I'll post pictures of those other projects if I ever finish them.

Thanks for reading!

Adventures in Potty Training

Oh man, this week Jake and I decided to try and potty train Mikey because we don't have to go to the church building on Sunday. He has shown such interest in it but the day that we are like YAY! POTTY TRAINING! He throws himself on the ground and says noooooo. Like it's the end of the world or something.
Before we "officially" started, we talked to Mikey about going pee and such. So I asked him if he knows why his diaper gets wet and he said yes water and pointed to himself. So then we took off his diaper and asked him where the water comes from and if he knows when it's coming and he said yes and so we told him when he feels the water coming to tell us or at least point (because he doesn't talk so well). So we are eating breakfast and he jumps off his chair and points to his chair which is spotted with "water" so I'm all like Oh jeez he's peeing so Jake jumps up and runs up stairs with him and he sits on the toilet... and nothing. A good start I think.
But on a positive note, I think he is one step closer to really understanding where the pee is coming from and all that jazz so that's good.
Wish us luck. Hopefully we won't fall asleep on the job haha

Now we can update on the rest of the kiddos
Adam- huge. Like really. We went to the doctor and he is in the 98th percentile for weight and 97th for height. 29 pounds and 32 inches tall I think. Way to go little buddy. He is still so happy and he never stops blabbering. All the time. I wonder if he is actually saying something or if he is just making noise, ya know?

Natalie- not huge. She isn't gaining weight well but she is growing length wise. Plus she is gaining, just not as fast as we would like. She is hitting the right amount of wet and messy diapers so my doc and another pediatrician think she's probably a lazy eater but just to make sure she actually can get enough I have to start pumping to make sure I've got some milk. Hopefully it'll all  work out and we won't have to move to formula because it's so expensive!

No pictures today- sorry. Next time!

Thanks for reading!

(PS next post, I'm going to talk about my goal month- aka March. Look forward to it!)