Crawling, matching and peanuts

Jason is officially a crawler. He's been right on the verge since before Christmas but just didn't quite have it together enough get moving. A couple of weeks ago he started moving backward and is now very skilled at moving forward. Perhaps the most entertaining part of this new skill is the frustration he is causing his older brother. For months we've been telling Jonathan that he can't take toys from Jason because one of these days Jason will be able to take toys from him and he won't like that. Well the time has come and let me tell you Jonathan is more than a little frustrated that Jason can come pester him. What goes around comes around!


His new mobility has also given him the opportunity to get himself in some sticky situations. The other day I was making dinner when Jonathan told me Jason was in trouble. I followed him into the living room and found Jason happily behind the couch. I don't think Jason was as concerned about his predicament as his brother was!

One nice part about the boys being little is that Jonathan thinks its really fun to dress in matching outfits. This morning he asked if they could were matching clothes and I was more than happy to oblige.


How cute are they in their matching Carhartts and plaid shirts! Believe me I'm going to enjoy this while it lasts.

And to the peanuts. Jonathan has a life threatening allergy to peanuts and to be safe we avoid all nuts. I've looked online for medic alert bracelets but they are all a little to fancy and expensive to give a 3-year-old. Then my mom found Medibands. They are rubber bracelets that come with the allergy or health information printed on. They have several pre-printed styles but you can also create your own with you child's medical info on it. Their prices are great and they give a volume discount. We ordered 5 figuring Jonathan might lose 1 or 2. They are located in Australia but thier shipping prices are great and the product only took a week to get here.


Jonathan was super excited when he saw that his new bracelets were here. I asked him what he would say to a friend who asked to wear his bracelet and he said "I'll say no because they tell people how to keep me safe." What a great kid!

With the recent peanut butter salmonella scare I can honestly say I've never been happier to be a peanut-free house! It has saved me a lot of stress.

Tackle It Tuesday - Wednesday Edition

So Tackle it Tuesday turned into Tackle it in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Dan had to turn in grades yesterday and of course had a day full of technology issues that meant he didn't get his work done during the day and had to go back after the kids were in bed. In addition Jason took an unexpected trip to the doctors office yesterday afternoon. He developed a rash and couldn't go back to daycare until they knew it wasn't contagious. Turns out he was having a reaction to the meds he was on for his ear infection. We've stopped the meds and hopefully the infection is gone!

Anyway all that to say that when Dan go home, around midnight, we decided that were were still going to get our room clean. It took us about an hour and getting up was hard this morning with so little sleep but it was totally worth it! Our room looks great!


Ok so there is still a pile of laundry on the floor but there was so much that needed to be washed that I've been doing laundry all day. That aside the room looks 100% better.


We need to wash our duvet cover and put it on but other than that the room is exactly the way we want it! It feels great.

Wordless Wednesday - Car Ride Boredom

Cause that's just how we roll!

Tackle It Tuesday

One thing Dan and I are tying to do this year is add a little more romance into our marriage. Last night as we made the bed a huge pile of laundry fell to the ground creating a huge mess. As we stared at it in disbelief that we now had to clean up this HUGE mess I looked at Dan and said "How are we supposed to have romance in our marriage if our bedroom isn't someplace we want to be. Shouldn't the master bedroom be an oasis?" Thus was born our Tackle it Tuesday. I have class all day so we are going to work together on this project this evening and hopefully I'll be able to post an update before midnight Pacific Time.

We are still working on our guest room/office/pit of despair and I hope to have pictures for next weeks Tackle it Tuesday.

Check out 5 Minutes for Mom for more Tackle It Tuesday's

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Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I am not so frustrated with an article I have to read for one of my classes that I did not consider running the article through the paper shredder and then running the shreddings over with my car. That would be complete overkill.

My classes this semester are not totally frustrating me with a complete lack of due dates and total open-endedness. That would imply that I need some sort of feeling of control and that putting due dates on my calendar brings me comfort.

I did not start working on my office/guestroom/pit of despair only to get totally overwhelmed and give up mid Saturday afternoon. This attempt did not make the problem worse and leave me even more frustrated and discouraged.

I did not smile a little and think "I told you so" when a now mobile Jason crawled over to his brother and stole a toy from him. Jonathan does not deserve this for all the times did not steal toys from Jason.

What didn't you do this week?

A Boy and His Tent

Remember all those tents we got for Christmas? Well one of them was a Batman camping tent complete with Batman ears. Since Jonathan was home sick on Thursday Dan decided to make the day a little special by getting out the Batman tent. Jonathan had a great day playing and reading in the tent. Then he asked if he could sleep in the tent that night. Since he had preschool the next day I told him he could sleep in his tent on Friday night since there is no school on Saturday. He agreed to this idea. Last night was the big night. We put lots of blankets on the bottom of tent so it would be a little softer than sleeping on the floor and tucked him in for the night. He fell asleep really fast and slept all night. An added bonus for mom and dad, when he woke up this morning rather than coming and getting us he got books and read in his tent until we got up. Jason slept in this morning and with Jonathan happy in his tent we got to sleep in too! If he keeps this up every Friday night will be tent night!


Isn't that just the coolest tent ever. It says its perfect for camping but with the mesh windows you'd have to go when it wasn't raining. Of course I don't really camp so it will probably remain an inside tent!


Look how comfortable he looks. Don't you wish you could look this comfortable? What a sweet kid!

Finally Friday

I'm so glad today is Friday. Why do short weeks always seem so long. I feel like this week has gone on forever. Maybe its the 2 trips to the doctor and 1 call to the on call doc at 11pm. Or maybe its the fact that I still haven't had my Monday class, our semester started on a Wednesday and this Monday was a holiday, so I'm anticipating that class or dreading it, I haven't decided yet. Whatever it is this week has just drawn on.

This weekend we are going to tackle that office/guestroom/pit of despair so look for pictures next week. I'm also working on an updated post about Jonathan's asthma that I'll post sometime next week. There are some other ideas that I have rattling around in my head that I plan on developing and posting about later too.

Much Love to y'all!

Second verse

same as the first... Jonathan threw up again so Dan is home for the day with a sick kiddo. I can't miss class this early in semester so he's calling in. I'll be home in the afternoon so perhaps I'll do some blogging.

love y'all!

Wordless Wednesday - Sour Candy

More Wordless Wednesday's

9 Months

Here is our baby bear at 9 months old. I had to take the picture while he was sleeping because he kept rolling over and crawling away when he was awake the stinker!

Sleeping with one knee up just like his mama! I do want to try again to get one with him awake, we'll see how well that works!

See Jason at 8 months.

Praise the Lord

Jason has an ear infection. I know y'all are thinking did I just read that right is she actually praising the Lord for an ear infection. Yeah you absolutely read that right. Perhaps a little background...

At his 6th month check-up in October our doctor noticed a little fluid in Jason's right ear. It wasn't infected so he said not to worry about it right now but come back in 3 weeks to see if it had cleared up. 3 weeks later we went back and the fluid was still there. So the doctor said come back before you leave for Christmas and we'll check again. So we went in right before we left on our vacation and the fluid was still there and still not infected. The doctor said that if it wasn't gone by his 9 month we might need to think about tubes to drain the fluid. He he half jokingly said we could also hope it gets infected so we can give him some antibiotics to treat it. He didn't want to give antibiotics unless it was infected because he didn't want to cause Jason to build up any resistances at this age. Well waiting until after Christmas meant our deductible would roll over and we would have to meet it before our insurance would help with tubes. So I started praying for the ear infection because $10 in meds is way less expensive than surgery. Well God heard my prayers and Jason is on a 10 day course of meds for an ear infection. Hopefully this will kick that fluid and take care of the problem. So other than an ear infection, which he hadn't complained about at all, Jason is a very healthy 9 month old boy.

And now for a picture of that healthy little boy.

What a joyful little boy. He brings so much happiness to our house. We are blessed!

Long Day

I'm so glad today was a day off from school. Last night Jonathan threw-up and since today was a day off from school Dan and I didn't have to decide who was going to miss school to stay home with him. Jonathan spent most of the day on the day on the couch watching movies while Jason crawled around creating all sorts of havoc and Dan and I cleaned up our house. It was a wonderful day home.

This afternoon Jason had his 9 month checkup. I can't believe he is 9 months old already. How time flies. I'll post his bear pictures tomorrow. He's 20 lbs 2 ounces and 28.5 inches long. I'll have to find Jonathan's stats to see how he compares but I know Jonathan was barely 20 lbs by his 1st birthday. Jason is definitely bigger. Jonathan goes in tomorrow to talk about his asthma. I'll post more about that later.

Back home

Our trip back to Portland as pretty uneventful with one exception. Our flight out of Anchorage was running late and we had a tight connection in Seattle. We knew we were running late and that we would have to run in Seattle. We landed at the far end of D Concourse and found out our flight was leaving out of the far end of C Concourse. Then over the loudspeaker we heard "This is the final boarding call for flight # to Portland." Oh crud! So we started running. Jonathan did ok for a while but he's 3 and doesn't have much endurance. At one point he just sat down on the floor and said "I'm out of energy. I'm not running anymore." So I sent Dan and Jason on ahead to let them know we were coming. They held the flight until Jonathan and I arrived and closed the boarding door as I stepped on the plane. That was a close connection!

We headed out early Sunday morning for Pullman, after a brief 12 hours in Portland. The drive home was very uneventful and we arrived back in Pullman with enough time to play a little at home before bed. At the end of the night the boys were all tucked in their beds and Dan and I set about to unpacking.


And so ends the story of our Christmas Vacation

Baking and Eating

One meal that my mom and I always make is cheese fondue. This was one of my favorite meals growing up and it remains one of my favorites now as an adult. When I was a kid I just liked dipping bread in hot cheese but now as an adult I appreciate the flavors of the cheeses and its interaction with the wine. It has taken a while but the flavors have finally grown on Dan and he too enjoys cheese fondue. We've done this with Jonathan before but this was the first time he was allowed to dip his own bread. He thought it was so cool.


Notice the cheese on his chin. He was very focused on dipping his bread just right and not letting the bread fall off into the cheese.


Look at that focus and concentration as he gently spins the bread to shake off excess cheese. He really did quite well with the cheese fondue and loved the taste. We did beef fondue (dip meat in hot oil to cook) the next night but he wasn't allowed to do his own dipping because hot oil was just too dangerous. I think he was a little upset that he couldn't do the beef fondue all by himself.


Enjoying the fruits of his labor. The container of salad dressing on his plate is the dressing he helped me make.

My mom and I love chocolate desserts. The last night I was at home we decided to make the Barefoot Contessa's Chocolate Brownie Tart. Jonathan has told me several times that he doesn't like chocolate but since we were baking in the kitchen he wanted to help. He dumped in the ingredients and worked the switch on the mixer. When we were all done he asked to lick the beater. I told him it was chocolate and he said that he would take a "No thank you bite."


Hmm, just one no thank you bite? That looks like more than one bite to me.

Nope he didn't like that at all. Since he was already in bed when the Tart came out of the oven we saved a piece for him to have for breakfast before we headed out to the airport. He ate it up and when he was done he looked at me and said "I think I like chocolate now." Ya think?

Please Pray

I've been following Angie's blog for months now. Tonight she posted about a little girl who desperately needs our prayers. She was born today at 40.5 weeks but is struggling to breathe. Please pray for Harper and her family.

Click on the button below to go straight to Kelly's blog.

Beautiful Alaska

I absolutely LOVE Alaska. I don't think I can express in words exactly how I feel about Alaska. I know that sounds strange but its true. I grew up there and I know that experience has had a profound effect on who I am today. Alaska is one of those places you either love or hate, there really is no in between. I have said many times that Alaska is a part of me and each time I visit I leave a little bit of myself there. I long to move back and have just about turned Dan to my side. We'll see what happens and what God has to say about that a little later, ya know when I'm closer to being done with school.

I thought I would share a little bit of what is so beautiful about Alaska with all of you who have never been there. I know at least one of my readers has been there because I went to high school with her, Hi Kacey.


You don't see this just anywhere. This picture was taken in a neighborhood in downtown Fairbanks. This moose was happily munching on some trees and was totally oblivious to our presence.


My husband took this picture of the Northern Lights. It was a bitter cold, clear night but the lights were beautiful. The picture really doesn't do the beauty justice.


Heading up to my parents house on the back roads. Absolutely beautiful!


Sunset at about 2:30 pm. Yes it gets dark early there and there is very little sunlight in the winter but that was how I grew up so it really doesn't bother me.


Downtown Fairbanks along the Chena River. Part of the river is thawed because it is down stream from the steam plant. I think it was about -35° that day.


Also downtown Fairbanks, taken the same day as the previous picture. I love the way the snow and ice is covering this tree.



Both of these photos are of Mt. McKinley. They were taken from the plane as we were flying out of Fairbanks.


Cook Inlet flying into Anchorage.


Cook Inlet iced over as we were flying out of Anchorage.

I'm headed back up to Alaska for about 3 weeks in July and August so I'll post some summer pictures of Alaska then. I've never been anyplace that is quite as beautiful as the Last Frontier.

New Years Eve

For as long as I can remember we have been going to the same place for New Years Eve. When we went to register me for kindergarten, way back in 1987, we met the Ferri's. They lived up the road from us and Anna and I were the same age and registered for the same kindergarten class. My mom and Judy hit it off immediately when they realized they had both attended the University of Tennessee and have been close friends ever since. Growing up we went to their house every New Years and Easter. There were 4 of us girls that were all the same age and three of the girls had little brothers that were the same age. (I'm the only child of the bunch) Us girls were great friends and I have wonderful memories of holidays spent with the Ferri's with great friends.

Since we were home for New Years it seemed natural to head up the road. We did fireworks before midnight since it was cold and getting colder, we watched the ball drop at midnight Alaska time, threw streamers at the Ferri's ceiling fan, blew our party horns, sang "Auld Lang Syne" and toasted with cheap champagne. Three of us girls were there and it was great to catch-up with some lifelong friends.


Jonathan watching the fireworks. Last year the noise scared him but this year he was very exctied to watch them.


Can you see his breath? Yeah it was cold, really cold, but he didn't complain at all. What a stud!


He absolutely loved doing the sparklers. He had a little trouble holding on at first because of his mittens but he figured it out.




Life long friends: me, Cheryl, and Anna. Karlan, the 4th girl, was out of town.


Jonathan blowing his party horn. Last year the loud noise scared him and he cried and cried. This year he was so excited to party with everyone. What a difference a year makes.


The aftermath of throwing streamers at the ceiling fan. I think Dan was the only one tall enough to hook any streamers on without standing on the couch. Jonathan stood on his tiptoes and tried toss his to the fan. He tried so hard, bless his little heart!

What was Jason doing while we were all partying it up? Why he was in the other room sleeping soundly on the couch. What an angel!

Bittersweet Beginnings

Today I start my last semester of classes before heading out to student teach for a year. I'm beyond excited to take my last 18 credits and get out into the field of teaching. I love being in the classroom, being around kids, and of course teaching. I want to student teach, get my certification, get a job, and get back to contributing to my family financially.

But this excitement is twinged with sadness. Last semester I made some fantastic friends. We had all our classes together, we were experiencing the same things, and spending almost every waking moment living life together. The depth of friendship is the kind that only comes from going though something together. I love these girls and our lone boy. I look forward to seeing them every day and they are the people I call (or text) when something funny or exciting happens. I know that our depth of friendship will only grow as we have most of our classes together again this semester. And that's what makes the impending end of this semester so hard. I know without a doubt that we will be friends forever but the thought of not seeing these great people every weekday makes me sad.

Y'all know who you are, know that I absolutely love you and I'm going to enjoy every moment with y'all this semester. Lets make some memories!

Wordless Wednesday - Bundled up

It was a little chilly :)

Making Salad Dressing

When I'm in Fairbanks my mom and I always spend a lot of time in the kitchen. We bake and try brand new recipes that neither one of us wants to try alone. Lets face it, it is always more fun to experiment with new recipes when there is someone else to help you and laugh with you when things go wrong. Not that it always goes wrong but Mom and I have had a few gigantic failures that ended with dinner out. Jonathan has started taking an interest in helping us in the kitchen. One night mom and I were working on dinner and he came in wanting to help. What we were making wasn't something he could safely help with so we pulled out a salad dressing recipe that would be pretty easy for him to work on with some help.

Here he is whisking together mayo and buttermilk. I never said this was a healthy salad
dressing, but it does taste very good. Growing up I always had homemade salad dressing and it has totally spoiled me. Nothing out of a bottle is very appealing to me.


Measuring out spices for the salad dressing. He thought the little rubber prep bowls were really cool. He enjoyed squeezing them and trying to turn them inside out, when they were empty.


Crushing spices with a mortar and pestle. This was my favorite part of making salad dressing with my mom. Take a look a that focused look.


All finished and ready to try it out on a slice of cucumber, his favorite vegetable.


Don't worry there was no double dipping involved. He looks like he is enjoying his cucumber and dressing.


A big thumbs up means it tastes great. It was a lot of fun and I'm excited to have him help out where he can in the kitchen.