In Stitches!!

So I've gotten some complaints about not posting for a while and was called a slacker(Thanks Greg), so I figured I better get in here and update ya'll on the happenings of the last month. I think the biggest thing that stands out in my mind is that we experienced our first ER trip with Jackson. He was playing in his bedroom with the ottoman that goes with my rocking chair and he had it upside down. Now, no one understands the facination 2 year old have with things flipped upside down, but for some reason, it's fun to play with thing like that, and we are assuming that is exactly what Jackson was doing. We were actually in the living room at the time because *insert gasp* we don't follow him around everywhere he goes to make sure that he's being absolutly as safe and unendagered as possible. That and because he's 2 and even if we tell him not to play with something a million times, he's still going to play with it until he gets hurt and learns not to play with it anymore, which, because he tends to be like me, happens almost often enough to stick. Almost. We're still working on the sticking part. Anyways, so we're assuming he somehow fell on the underside of my ottoman(still trying to figure out exactly where) and ended up with a small gash above his left eye. 1 hour and 3 stitches later, he'd already forgotten about it and I'm pretty sure he was back to playing with the upside-down ottoman the next day. Like I said, the sticking part is yet to come, but I try to remind him of is owie whenever I find him playing with it. Of course as you can see from the pictures (sorry if they are too graphic, but it really could have been worse!!), he was totally hamming it up when we were trying to get a good shot of it. I had to distract him with music and pictures on my phone to get him to even sit still for it.

The next bit of news is that Mr Owen Michael is now officially crawling!!! He finally picked it up a couple weeks ago and is now completely unstoppable. The day after he figured out the crawling, he figured out how to pull himself up on things and is starting to walk along the furniture now. As you can see, he is clearly thrilled to be completely mobile. I can't belive how big he's getting! Can you believe he's already 9 months old?! Man time flies fast. I weighed both boys the other day to see how big of a weight difference there is, and let me tell you, there isn't much. Stick Man Jackson weighs in at a scrawny 29lbs and my Mr Chubbs is already 23lbs! That's only a 6lb difference! It's a wonder I'm not skinnier and more buff from having to haul him around everywhere. I took them both to get the H1N1 vaccines today and forgot the stroller, only to miss it intensly when I thought my arm was going to fall off just walking from the car to the clinic. It was completely ridiculous, but I find myself making that same mistake alot because I forget how truely heavy he really is. Never Again. PS I couldn't not post this adorable blackmail picture :) I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!!

Next on my list of things to report on would probably be Thanksgiving. I was actually really looking forward to Thanksgiving, besides being really sad that I wasn't going to be able to be at the family reunion going on at my parent's house. I was going to try and leave on Black Friday so I could at least say Hi to everyone before they went back home, but I didn't have a good feeling about going by myself with the boys and there wasn't any way Jeff could go with me, so we opted to stay home instead. No big deal and I was happy to spend time with Jeff's side of the family, but the day didn't go quite like I hoped it would. My mother in law's family gets together every Thanksgiving and has a huge dinner and such at the Stake Center and everyone is supposed to contribute something. I wasn't told what we were going to be contributing until late afternoon/evening the day before Thanksgiving. You'd think it would be something small like a pie or a salad. Nope. Jeff signed me up to make mashed potatoes. 10lbs of mashed potatoes. Now I hadn't been having a great week anyways thanks to my new birth control, so I was already an emotional wreck, but tacked onto that was the stress of having to first clean my horribly messy kitchen and then peel, cook and mash 10lbs of potatoes, get them to the chuch by 1pm so they would still be at least warm when people started eating and take care of 2 little people who tend to throw fits if mommy isn't paying attention to them every minute of every hour. Unfortunatly, I forgot to peel the potatoes, so while I was cooking up the second batch (I don't yet have a pressure cooker big enough to do up that many potatoes and I'm not a fan of boiling them), I had to individually peel every slice of hot potato before I put it in the bowl to mash them and being as clumsy as I am when I'm a little stressed out, I dropped several peices on my newly mopped floor(thank goodness I decided to mop!). Ugh. Finally I finished all the potatoes and somehow in the middle of it all got Owen to sleep (I think I took a break while the first batch was cooking) and went to get Jackson ready to go. As I was climbing over the gate separating the kitchen from the living room, I realised that my 2 year old and decided that he wanted to play a game, but not just any game, it was several decks of playing cards, yahzee and some other card games all over my living room floor. I couldn't take it and broke down right then and there. At that point, I didn't care anymore about getting the potaotes to the church on time(because it was already 1pm) and all I wanted to do was just curl up in a ball and cry, so I did. I went to my bedroom, layed down on my bed, screamed into my pillow and then beat up my bed to keep from beating my child and sobbed for a few minutes. After I'd composed myself a bit, I went to try and clean up the mess and discovered that he'd only made it bigger. Around this time Jeff called me from work (Oh, I forgot to mention, Jeff worked all morning on Thanksgiving Day, how's that for a cake topper?) More crying, more composing, the mess got cleaned up and I went to the bathroom to clean myself up a bit before we left. When I came back into the living room, there was yet another mess for me to clean up, so this meant more crying, more composing and by this time I didn't feel like going anywhere or doing anything with anyone, but I felt obligated to go because I had a huge bowl of mashed potatoes that I had spent much time making. As we were leaving, I see Jeff coming home, so I turned around and went to pick him up so we wouldn't have to deal with 2 cars and realized that I had forgotten we were also going to make some homemade eggnog(once you've had it you'll never buy the crap at the store again!!) to share with everyone. Jeff was sweet enough to gather all the things we needed for that and even offered to give me the rest of the day off, unless Owen needed the boob. A good thought in theory, but as most men are around friends and family, it didn't really work out that way, but thankfully there were plenty of other people who had heard about my day (and seen my tear streaked face) and were willing to lend me a helping hand when I needed one. When we got to the church and after I had made myself as blotch-free as possible (having the blotchy-faced genes doesn't help one bit), I went to put out the mashed potatoes I had made and found 3 more huge bowls that others had brought. I think by the end of the party, only 3 scoops had been taken from my bowl, I had one and Jeff had 2 and the bowl is now in my fridge, small amounts being served with just about every meal, but I think it will go bad before we are able to finish it. How sad is that, all that work for nothing. All in all, it was not a day full of Thanksgiving for me, but once I was able to get over the need to start crying every 5 minutes, I was able to at least enjoy spending time with family members we don't get to see often. Jackson had a blast running around like a crazy person with newfound freedom and people his own height and age and was completely worn out by the end of the day, much to my relief. Owen too discovered someone his size and decided that she was a fun toy and I think she felt the same about him. Aren't they so cute together? That's my neice Ciara and she's almost 1. I'm hopeful that next year will be much better, but with my record the last few years, I'm not counting on it. Hope you all at least had a good holiday!