Baby Names

ok, so I know I have had several polls on baby girl names, but I think I finally have settled on a Keeper.
 What do you think about Mindy?   I know I never had the name in the Poll.  I had forgotten I like the name.  I remembered it when I ran into a lady at the pool that I had met over the summer.  As soon as I saw her and remembered her name being Mindy, I thought to myself, "oh! That's the name!"  I really like it and it has good association to it for me.  I've only known one Mindy until this past summer when I met the other one.  Both Mindy's are really nice and they both happen to be really pretty.  
So, I made another poll to help decide what the middle name should be.  Please tell me your ideas in your comments if you have other names you like better than what's in my poll.  :)
Thanks!

I HATE DOGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate dogs I hate dogs I hate dogs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hate our dog and can't wait for it to die!

First of all, I hate our neighbors dogs. They have a little yapper and a big dog with big deep bark. The two of them together have been barking for the past two hours. I was trying to take a nap (since i'm not getting much sleep at night nowadays) and I woke up to "yapp yapp BARK BARK yapp yapp BARK BARK!" grrrrrrrrrrrrr! I finally got so fed up with it I put my slippers on and coat and walked over to their house. Of course no body is home! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! It's like the dogs knew I was taking a nap and decided to start barking their stupid heads off right when I'm trying to get some rest.


Now, here is a list of ALL the reasons why I HATE DOGS, OURS INCLUDED!:
- THey are gross! They lick their butts and then want to lick your face.
-If we take our dog out with us, we're constantly yelling commands at it to "stay sat" or "get down" etc. and it ruins the "family outing", plus our stupid dog doesn't listen very well AT ALL!
-They shed. Our stupid dog sheds like crazy. One pass by her and you've got a blanket of dog hair on your pant leg! I absolutely hate that!
-They stink! I hate having our dog around our kids. They always come back in stinking like dog breath. Especially if it licks their face. I feel like I need to give them a shower every time they are around our stinkin dog. I'm like a bird. If I smell the scent of another creature(dog) on our kids, then I don't want to be close to them until they shower.
- Dogs are always in the way. I'm always having to step around or step over our stupid dog because she refuses to move and she likes to plop herself down right in the walk way!
-They cost money. I hate that we are paying to have an annoying pet stick around here and dirty up the place and be in our way all the time.
-They're always poking their nose where it shouldn't be....very annoying!
-I hate wearing shorts around our dog. I feel like I have to do this stupid dance just to get around her so she doesn't wipe her icky nose on my leg.
- sometimes I feel like Glen "pets" my hair like he pets his dogs tail. grrrrr! I really hate that!

Now to make it fair I will list the reasons why I might possibly like a dog.
- You can give them table scraps and avoid the guilt of throwing food away.
-If you're out camping, they can warn you of another animal that's coming.
( I hate camping with our dog though because you REALLY don't get any sleep since she barks at every little moving thing. It could be a leaf blowing in the wind or a squirrel going up the tree)

Anyway, I think there is more negative consequences to having a dog versus positive ones. oh, and just so you know, I wasn't always a dog hater. I actually had a dog when I was 12 that I really loved and enjoyed. Then we had to get rid of her because she had back problems and couldn't go up our stairs. And I have to admit I like small dogs WAY more than big dogs and would consider getting one small one once my kids are grown, but that's not for a loooooooong time down the road. And don't bother suggesting to get a cat. I hate cats too. The only time I would get a cat is if we had some acreage and it was an outdoor cat to catch mice.

I really do like animals...I just don't like living with them. How's that for a positive note. hahhahahhah

Making Jewelery

Friday night I went to the Stake Center to meet up with some friends to make jewelery. I didn't know I would enjoy this so much!
It was hard to get started looking at all the beads to choose from and then figuring out how to make a necklace with them. Once I had a theme, then it was fun to arrange the beads and re-arrange until I liked it (or until it was just getting too late :) ).
So here is my very first necklace I've made. I also made matching earings to go with it.

I really like the earings. The necklace isn't a style I usually wear. All the necklaces I have are small and dainty...nothing big and bold like this one. :) The others there that night encouraged me to take a step out of my comfort zone and try something new. :) ( I guess big and bold is "in" right now) I wonder where else in my life I need to "try something new". Now that I think of it... am I one of those Friends that people have that they all wish they could enter me into a make-over talk show thing like they have on Oprah from time to time? I remember back in Bremerton, one of my friends told me I needed to get rid of all my striped shirts cause that's all I wore. She finally got me to go out shopping and get some new "flattering" clothes . hahahh Then she also showed me a different way of putting on make up. I guess I got stuck in a rut fashion-wise and she was growing old of my style. ahhahahahhahh I have to say I'm grateful to her for pointing that out to me. hahahahhahh
i've never been one to really enjoy shopping. I don't like spending the money and I hate trying on clothes. I would much rather have someone who knows what looks good together to just go shopping for me and have the right sizes already picked out for me. No in and out of changing rooms, standing in lines or trying to make decisions I'm not qualified for.
well, I guess I got off on a tangeant. so, back to my original post. There's the jewelery I made and I'm excited to make some more. :)

My apron

A year ago, my friend Kaela posted about a cute apron she made. I liked it so much that I had her give me the info so I could order the pattern and make one for myself. I just love how it turned out! i'm actually wearing it right now as I type. I also made one for my sister Wendy's birthday. I used the cherry fabric with the black background and it turned out super cute too!
Thanks Kaela!!

I love my new nusery!

So surprise surprise, another great Craigs list deal and this time I mean DEAL! The people in Boise took really good care of this furniture. The crib can be made into a toddler bed which is perfect since we'll need two of those eventually.

I'm especially excited about the changing table/dresser. It feels good to be all ready with the baby clothes in the right place. ( I can't believe I have just 9 weeks left!)

The shelves on the wall and matching book shelves (which is in Ginger's room) came with the dresser and crib. All for only 65 dollars more than the cheapest dresser I could find brand new!
one funny thing about this deal was that the lady's name was Summer too. :)

Since I stripped Jack's crib of the carebear set, I was able to get this jungle animal themed one from a lady in Pendelton. She dropped it off at my house for half price. It matches the border in Jacks' room perfectly.

Little Jack

Here's my little Jack-Man. He seems older than a year to us when we think of where Ginger was at during this stage. i know most of it has to do with having Ginger's influence on him. She encourages him to chase her, play and he wants to keep up with her.

The other day he was trying to jump. It was soo cute! He could barely get his little feet off the ground.

Here he is sitting at the big kid table eating breakfast. (this was a weekend and Glen set them up. I never do this. I still prefer him in a high chair). It was fun to see him there though.

Jack loves this toy. My parents got him this little airplane toy for his birthday. I took a picture because he sat there for almost 20 minutes it seemed putting the shapes through their holes and taking them back out over and over and over again!

Jack is a daddy's boy. If Glens around when he gets hurt, he prefers Glen to hold him than me. He listens for when Glen comes in to wash his hands in the laundry room and goes quickly to the door knocking on it and saying "DA Da!". He'll panick and cry until Glen greets him and he'll panick and cry again when Glen leaves. He's such a little stinker. I think it's funny to watch Glen try to move about the house with JAck hanging on to his pant leg. For once I am the one that gets a break when the baby needs comforting. :)
Two new personality traits that we've noticed in Jack these past few weeks is that he likes to walk around with his hands behind his back. It's so cute. The other one is that he gets really mad when he gets hurt. He's so cute when he's upset, but very hard to comfort when he's wiggly and mad.

Ginger and the potty!

Ginger is a full-fledged "big girl" now. Even though it's taken a month and a half of washing out pooey "unders", Ginger now poohs on the potty and we are SO happy about that. She seems very pleased with herself as well. She has gone four straight days now with going #2 on the poddy, accident free! hopefully she won't regress when baby #3 comes along. (cross my fingers)

I had to take a picture of this. I often find cute little set-ups like this in her room or around the house. It's good to know she's taking good care of her babies. :) I just thought this was so adorable.

Here are some examples of ginger's moods. This was all in a matter of about a minute! hahahha

Brother and Sister. Jack has to play the baby role, the prince role, the pet dog role and the big boy role with Ginger. He does most of those without a fuss. As you can see he was pretty content this time playing the baby role for her. She wanted to rock a bye him and give him a bottle. I packed the bottles away so she had to settle with a sippy cup.

Gingerella

Ginger loves fairy tales! Especially Cinderella. She's always dancing around the house and looking for her prince. When it's time to put her shoes on, she tells me that her "glass slippers" are on. Everything is a "pretty dress" to her. It could be a rag, hand towel, one of my shirts, a blanket etc. She often re-inacts parts of stories. Over all, Ginger is very entertaining right now. :)

This is the look she often has...a dreamy thoughtful one. :)

work in progress

Don't mind the blog design...I'm in the middle of changing it up a bit.

Happy New Years!

For New Year's Eve we put our kids to bed at 8 like usual and then had friends come over for games.
It was pretty fun to just sit and play games without kids interupting...and amazingly we never heard a peep from them with all the popcorn popping, blender making strawberry drinks and loud conversation.

This picture was taken early on in the evening....8:30ish.

Here was are celebrating the new year....

and here we are exhausted from playing Hand & Foot and Quiddler from 8:30-1am. hahahahhahah

Christmas 2009

We had a really nice Christmas. We went to the in-laws christmas eve for snacks and singing and then spent the Christmas day at our house with just our little family.
Ginger loves the doctor set she got and immediately wanted to play doctor with Jack. Jack caught on right away to what was going grabbed his stocking and started walking off with it.

I adopted the Wells tradition and recipe for cinnamon rolls during the christmas season. They turned out the best this year!
Christmas morning I went into the office to get the camera and was so surprised and confused at what I found!  A piano!  It kind of looks like the one my parents have and I first thought that maybe they were here.  When I realized they weren't, I wondered how it got there.  I learned that my sneaky dad got Glen to be a part of this surprise.  My dad shipped the keyboard to the in-laws house and then my brother-in-law delivered to our house at night and then Glen assembled it all by himself. 
I haven't played in a year and to play again has been so fun!  ..especially  now that none of the keys stick and everything works right.  Thanks Dad!
We left rice Krispie treats out for Santa and my dad wrote a letter to the kids 'from Santa' for them to find in the morning. I thought Ginger would be so excited about this but she was more concerned about the treats that Santa didn't finish off. ahhahahahhah (next year dad, I think she'll be more into it.)

We had Christmas with Glen's side of the family earlier this week. We all made a tasty dish and it turned out to be a pretty good meal!
I had Kristis' name this year so I made her an apron. For Glen's parents, I made a book with their cruise pictures in it and a calendar with all the families birthday on it.