team cowan at home

10. self portrait

2012-02-10T14:33:00.003-07:00

I must have taken at least 50 pictures for this challenge (embarrassing, I know). And maybe this is a weird one to decide on, but I feel like it's the perfect representation of me right now (coupons and all). I am so very happy. I don't know why we're so lucky, but I'm certainly grateful.

This is a print that my mom sent me that I have hanging by the back door. I love it. It's pretty accurate.

Happy Friday everyone!

9. front door

2012-02-09T18:55:00.003-07:00

Me and Maxwell 2008

Me and Maxwell 2012

8. sun

2012-02-08T17:43:00.002-07:00

Of course the day for the "sun" picture is grey and gloomy. Luckily, right before the sun went down behind the mountains it managed to peek out from behind the clouds for about 15 minutes. Who cares that it was raining just a little bit? Mama has to get a picture! Get outside boys!

Plus this picture is working double duty since the boys are showing off their new hoodies. One of my friends who has little boys knows how I don't get rid of any clothes around here because they can always be re-purposed into something else, so she passes things along to us. She gave us a big bag of clothes the other day and immediately Quinn pulled out this red hoodie that had a giant Elmo face on the front of it. He wore it around the house that day, but before he could get to it the next day I took it in my sewing room and covered up Elmo (sorry, but I'm pretty picky when it comes to character clothes). I brought it out when I was finished and before he could ask about Elmo I said, "Have you ever heard on Captain America???" After watching a few video clips he was THRILLED to have a Captain America hoodie. Then I grabbed the other hoodie from the bag (it said "DINOSAUR PATROL!" on it), and after looking up other superhero emblems I decided on The Flash. I was so excited with how it turned out, but in true Max form he refused to put it on and when I asked him why he said, "I hate it." Punk. But now, after a week, he's wearing it with a smile. That boy. He's a tricky one.

7. button

2012-02-07T19:11:00.001-07:00

Because no one really wanted to see a regular button....

6. dinner

2012-02-06T21:18:00.002-07:00

The boys' barely eaten dinner. And Ollie's baby sock monkey.

Chicken Divan and a big salad with mushrooms, avocado, red bell pepper, craisins, croutons, and feta. It was goooooood.

And please note that every time I make Chicken Divan I want to yell at myself, "You're better than this casserole!!" But dangit, sometimes I just can't resist. I suppose if I only open a can of cream of mushroom once every few months, it's not really doing that much harm. Except that I'll most likely be eating the leftovers for breakfast. And lunch. For the next few days....

5. 10am

2012-02-05T15:50:00.003-07:00

Just about to get the boys ready for church.

(No, Zach didn't wear a Red Sox jacket to church)

My thoughts: "Okay Max, how are you going to react to getting ready for church today? Is it going to be a fight? Should I get Quinn dressed first? Should we make it a race? Are you going to let me put your new tie on you, or are you going to shut down and tell me you hate it like everything else I make for you?" (he wore it! and there was only a smidge of a fight;)

I love seeing our boys dressed for church in their mismatched, second-hand duds. And I love not being pregnant anymore and getting myself dressed for church (hallelujah). I let the boys pick what color tights I wear on most Sundays. Today they picked purple. ;)

Oh, and so far, I love 11 o'clock church.

4. a stranger

2012-02-04T14:26:00.004-07:00

This one was tricky. At first I came at it from the creepy angle - taking a picture of a stranger without them realizing it. I took it in a hurry this morning while I was picking up our bountiful basket, and then when I got in the car and looked at the picture I realized it was totally unusable. The person had bent over right before I took it. It's one thing to take a picture of a stranger. It's a whole other thing to take a picture of a stranger with their bum in the air. Then the more I thought about it the more creepy I felt that I had taken a picture of someone I didn't know without them realizing it. Delete.

So later when I went to the grocery store I took my camera with me and decided to do it the old fashioned way (if there is an old fashioned way of taking a picture of a stranger) and just ask someone I didn't know if I could take their picture. It was a little unnerving. I wanted to find someone that looked friendly and wouldn't be bugged by the weird thing I was about to ask. I saw this guy and liked his tall boots with his pants tucked it, and didn't even give myself enough time to talk myself out of it. Luckily, he was willing, even though I'm sure he thought I was a total freak (ok, I guess I kind of am).

There. You can just call me The Sartorialist.

I bet there are going to be a ton of people from this town who come to me later and say, "You don't know so-and-so??" In fact, I bet Zach knows him.

As I was checking out I was tempted to chase another guy out the door because I had never seen someone dressed in quite so much camouflage. But he didn't seem as open to the idea as this guy did. Also, I was afraid you wouldn't be able to see him. HA!

(in case you have no idea why I'm taking a picture of a stranger, click here)

3. hands

2012-02-03T10:23:00.002-07:00

I'm in love.

2. words

2012-02-02T19:10:00.005-07:00

"Inside this shirt is one terrific yellow rocker."

I couldn't agree more.

1.

2012-02-01T14:43:00.006-07:00

February tends to be a tough month if you're a teacher. OR, in my case, if you're married to a teacher. I don't know what it is (although Zach has a number of theories). So I'm going to try to embrace February and jump on the "Photo A Day" bandwagon. I'm following my friend Jen's suggestion and using this outline from fat mum slim:

Let me know if you're going to play along. I'm excited to do a better job at keeping up with this old blog and pull out the camera every day. And you can be sure I'm going to take advantage of Picnik closing down (i.e. expect pictures that have been fiddled with).

So let's begin....

1. Your view today:

This picture hurts my brain.

I took this right after telling the boys to get ready to go to the library. Which means I said, "Ok, it's time to go! Please put your shoes on!" And then repeated that at least 15 times. And mostly likely tossed in a, "Alright, we'll see you later Max!" at some point. Which then led to a, "I don't like you anymore Mama!" Oh, I LOVE going places with kids.

I really don't enjoy leaving the house looking like this. Because then when you come home (after going through the above scenario once again at the library), it's like a big, messy punch in the face. "Oh yeah, the house is STILL a disaster! Weeeee!" Oh well. I usually make it a point clean most everything up before Zach comes home so he doesn't get the messy punch in the face (not that he cares, but it makes me feel like a good wife). I always think of the sign I've seen floating around Pinterest that says, "Please excuse the mess. We live here." It's so true. Maybe I need to do a follow-up picture tonight after the boys go to bed and the house is spotless..... We'll see...

Happy February everyone!

some links from our saturday

2012-01-28T13:52:00.007-07:00

Watching: The BBC's Sherlock. Amazing. Truly. This part makes us laugh no matter how many times we watch it:

Listening to this playlist for our Saturday:

saturday by katie cowan on Grooveshark

Reading Crossed by Ally Condie. It kind of has the same idea as The Hunger Games, only MUCH more mild (aka: boring in comparison). I read the first book, so I might as well see it through. It started off pretty good, but now it's getting a little cheesy. Blegh. Hopefully it won't last through the rest of it. I'm about halfway through.

Eating this. And it was pretty darn good. I didn't have a full cup of blueberries, so I added some frozen mixed berries. I think it made it even better than it would have been. In my personal opinion...

Working on the quilt like I talked about a few posts ago. And finding that one square a day is not NEARLY enough. I'm too excited to see the finished product and I know that one of these days I'm probably going to lock myself (and maybe Oliver...) in my sewing room and crank out a few dozen squares. Just kidding, that will never happen (unfortunately). Anyways, here's where I'm at:

Playing with all the premium features on Picnik (as you can see above. hearts!) now that they're closing down. Sad and SWEEEET.

Looking forward to polishing off the dark chocolate mini cheesecake that I bought for me and Zach yesterday (goodnight children!) and watching a little Project Runway Allstars. Yeah boy. We know how to have a good time. ;)

Laughing at this awesome picture of Ollie and Max:

I know I caught him mid-yawn, but I like imagining him yelling in protest.

Maybe to being swaddled? Or is he unhappy about the hilarious hat?

Also, Max? Holy huge cranium.

Also laughing at this picture I found from Christmas. I know before I said I didn't have any pictures of my parents when they were here for Christmas, but in fact, I have one:

Much like the previous picture, I know Dad is pulling the hood

away from Ollie's face and surely saying the sweetest things to him,

but all I see is Ollie getting the third degree from Poppy.

I gotta leave it at that now that Oliver is eating and I don't want to type with my left hand anymore.

Happy weekend!

fyi

2012-01-17T10:38:00.002-07:00

If you're a mom to boys, you may need to memorize this:

And that's pretty much all I've done today.

a few things that have been rolling around in my head lately

2012-01-16T13:03:00.006-07:00

I've been meaning to do a post here and there about these things, but who has time for that? Why not just cram them all in to one long, weird post?

*Zach and I have started a work-out routine that we do every weeknight to fulfill a resolution to be stronger, more fit and healthy. Every night after the boys go to bed (around 8) we do one 10 Minute Solutions: Target Toning work-out on Netflix, and then we do 4 dances on Just Dance 2. It's awesome. After 30 days we're going to reward ourselves with Just Dance 3. It's great because we're working together, laughing, dancing, and competing just a little bit. And toss in a little trash talk to motivate each other. It's been super fun. So far we've done it 10 nights in a row without missing a night.

*Another part of our resolution to be healthier is to stop eating once the boys go to bed. On weeknights. This is going well. Except that once the weekend hits we go a little crazy. Root Beer (for Zach), doughnuts (for me), Oreos, Popcorn.... I could do much better here. But I'm taking it easy on myself since I'm still coming down from the endless gorging that takes place over the holidays. I'm cutting it out in stages. I find that if I go cold turkey I usually feel like an addict going through withdrawls. And that always ends in me wondering how I managed to eat half a bag of chocolate chips without realizing it.... Gross.

*We watched this Ted Talk last night about trying something new for 30 days. It really struck a chord with me. I like the idea of months being more memorable rather than just passing. So for the next 30 days I'm going to sew at least one 9 in. X 9 in. quilt block. Maybe 2. I think it'll make making a quilt seem so much more manageable. Each block has 9 squares; 5 that are a patterned fabric, and four that are white, put together to form a plus sign. I'm really excited. And it's a great way to use up a lot of my scraps.

*In an attempt to eat less processed foods, I bought some raw milk. I'd never had it before, and didn't realize there was a place in town where it could be purchased. It's pretty good. The boys call it "the super yummy milk." It's pretty rich. I can also buy free range eggs from the same place, although they were all out when I went. I'm going to have to play around with our budget and groceries in order to find the money to buy more natural products. Which is hard because I'm not really buying a lot of crap or anything. So we'll see how that goes. It's a shame that you have to pay more to be healthier. What's up with that?

*For me, each day goes like this: Wake up, protect Oliver from his brothers. That's it. They love him so much. Too much. Yes, it's adorable. But it's a little unnerving as well. I've never had to share one of my babies quite so much. And they're not exactly gentle. The other day Ollie was laying in his little seat and Max was leaning over the top of him (which I've told the boys not to do a million times), and when he went to walk away he tripped and fell on top of Ollie. It was horrible. Oliver screamed. It was his first brother inflicted wound. He was ok, just a little squished and scared. But, the upside from the whole thing was that I learned that Quinn can actually feel empathy, which I didn't know up until that point. As soon as Ollie started screaming Quinn came running into the room and then burst into tears. Like, hysterical crying. He COULD NOT handle the fact that Ollie was in pain. As a parent, it was an awesome moment. I got to cuddle and comfort both boys at the same time. Although Max didn't care a bit about what he'd done. Oh well.

And now, a few tips from me that I've been thinking about lately:

*Use a q-tip to get boogers out of a baby's nose. You won't believe how well it works. Those suckers stick to the cotton and come out like..... Well, while the details may be exciting to me, I'll let you experience it for yourself. But trust me, it's awesome.

*Make your bed as soon as you get up in the morning. And try to keep your bedroom somewhat tidy. It'll make you feel better when you need to escape from the craziness that is your house now.

*Do something every day just to make you happy. Paint your nails. Work on a little project. Take a nap. Whatever does it for you. Just one thing. It'll make you feel less like a machine at the end of the day.

*Do something every day just to make your husband happy. While some people may think Dr. Laura is a little crazy, I LOVE her advice on making your marriage better. Get pretty before your husband comes home from work. Make him a good meal. Give him some love. Come on, men are pretty easy to please. It's worth it.

*Dress your kids in clothes that you absolutely adore. I've found that children's shenanigans are much less annoying when you think they look cute.

*Grind up orange peels (or any citrus peels) in your garbage disposal. It makes it smell yummy and cleans it. You can even freeze them and then put them in there to help get off any nasty food stuck to the blades. I get excited every time I peel an orange because I love dropping the peels in the disposal. And yes, it will make a horrible racket.

*Got this one from Pinterest - When hanging pictures, put a little dab of toothpaste on the back of the picture on the hanger. Hold the picture to the wall where you want it to go, press it, leaving a dot of toothpaste. Then put the nail through the dot of toothpaste. Genius.

*Remember that most of the really frustrating things that you deal with as a mom (or just a person in general) are temporary. Eventually the baby will sleep through the night. And he'll stop spitting up like crazy. The 3 year old won't pee his pants forever. I know it seems like it'll never end, but it will. This took me a long time to realize. I've noticed that a lot of the things that made me feel nuts when Quinn was a baby don't bother me now with Oliver. Because I know they'll end. Perspective is a beautiful thing.

That's all I've got for now. Except here's a couple of pictures to prove that the children are still alive and happy and cute. And know that I most likely said something about poop in order to get them to smile. Works every time.

Peace out.

paint makes everything better

2012-01-05T14:32:00.006-07:00

While my parents were here they gave us an extra special gift and offered to help us finish painting the kitchen. They love painting and fixing up houses, so they're always up for a project. And we all know we've got quite a few potential projects at our house. I'm so incredibly grateful for their willingness to get this done for us. Our kitchen actually looks finished now. I can't believe it.

In true Team Cowan form, the boys put on their painting clothes and helped.

Before I show you the finished product, I want you to see what it looked like when we moved in. And I'm going to warn you, these images might conjure up feelings of sadness, anger, desperation, loneliness, hopelessness, etc. Consider yourself warned. Here we go:

There are five layers of wallpaper hiding in this room. Not to mention the carpet that is casually lounging on top of a layer of linoleum that has a death grip on the wood underneath. Brace yourself for a glimpse of the ominous greenhouse....

Cue this.

Ok, you can stop crying now. Here we are today:

Amazing, right??!! Let there be light!!

My mom even took the fabric that I bought for curtains four years ago and sewed and hung it for us. We now have curtains in the kitchen!! Hooray!! Isn't is beautiful?? I'm in love with it. Let me say it again - I am in love with my kitchen.

We also replaced the light fixture with an extra one that we had. We were going to try spray painting the other one in a fun color, but after some trial and error it was deemed necessary that we not put the old one up again. Long story short: My parents and I tried and ended up making sparks fly three times, then Zach tried on his own and thought he'd burned the house down, and in the process ended up melting the wires of the old fixture... It wasn't pretty. We were happy to throw that thing away.

Still on the list for the kitchen: Butcher block counters, a new (preferably taller than me) fridge, white subway tile backsplash, a coat of poly on the floor, new baseboards, new sink.....

But at least it's pretty to look at now!! Hallelujah!!

A giant thank you to Mom, Dad, Zach, Quinn, and Max for making the kitchen beautiful while I sat around feeding Oliver and making him do this:

A blog post wherein I kick myself for not taking any pictures of my parents on Christmas. What's wrong with me?

2012-01-05T10:13:00.015-07:00

It's been far too long. I apologize. And I hate playing catch up. Especially after holidays. Oh well.

We had a fabulous Christmas. This is the first time we've been home for Christmas. The first year we were married we flew to Charlotte to have Christmas with my family. Every year after that we've been with Zach's family. This year my parents came out here to spend Christmas with us. It was great to be with them and great to be here. Since we've never really been here on Christmas, I've never taken the time to REALLY decorate. In fact, we had never even had a Christmas tree before. But I knew I couldn't get away with that this year with my dad coming. He would have a Christmas tree year round if he could get away with it. So in preparation to them coming, we did our best to deck the halls.

Our nativity, plus my favorite garland that we found in the basement when we moved in (there were all kinds of fantastic decorations down there). I have a goal to make a nativity this year that I like to look at and that is not breakable. ;)

Our Christmas card display. Zach was a little skeptical when I dragged that branch in from the back yard and asked him to hang it from the ceiling, but I think he came around once it all came together. I loved hanging up the cards as they arrived. And making glittery stars and shapes to hang from it as well. I even let the boys help. With glitter! Can you believe it? Mom of the year.

Our mantle. I love how it came together. My friend Launa has beautiful handwriting so I asked her to make this board for me. It's actually just the back of a white board that I painted white and she used a big sharpie for the words. Didn't she do a great job? I love it. Every time I nursed Oliver I would sit on the couch so I could take it all in. And I loved that the night my parents got here my dad made sure to light all the candles on the mantle. I knew he would appreciate the candles.

Here's the tree on Christmas Eve right before we went to bed. It's a little wonky (especially with that topper - Another find from the basement), but not bad for $3 at a yard sale. And there's nothing better than getting all the presents all wrapped up and pretty under the tree and imagining how excited the kids will be in the morning. Christmas with kids gets better every year.

Ollie being cute in his Christmas union suit. I know, you suddenly have the urge to kiss/squeeze/bite those cheeks. Welcome to my world.

On Christmas Eve, Zach was a saint to loaded all of us up and took us in to town for some last minute shopping. On Christmas Eve! At Wal-Mart! Who does that?? But we couldn't have my parents here and NOT shop on Christmas Eve. In my family, we LOVE the last minute shopping. Crowds. Christmas music playing in the stores. I know, we're sick. And then, for the cherry on top, we ate at a Chinese Buffet for our Christmas Eve feast!! Fa ra ra ra ra.... It was great.

What wasn't so great was Zach waking up the next morning throwing up... Yep. Food poisoning on Christmas. And did I tell you we were blessing Oliver in church that morning? Poor Zach (fortunately for the rest of us, Zach was the only one who ate the crab. That won't happen again). But he managed to pull himself together, get through the blessing and the rest of Sacrament meeting, and then even sit on the couch and smile while the boys opened presents. His parents came up for the blessing, so we were lucky enough to have both sets of grandparents with us while we finished off the presents. It was wonderful to visit with everyone and watch the boys go nuts over Christmas morning.

This is the only picture I took of Oliver on his blessing day. Snoozing away, tucked behind the tree to not be disturbed by the boys excitement of opening presents.

I didn't take many pictures because I've been trying to be more in the moments and less behind the camera, so this is the best one I got all morning. I was fiddling around with my different camera settings, and then just gave up. But this moment is pretty perfect. Quinn was dying laughing over Santa putting an orange in his stocking. I don't know why he thought that was so funny. I'm sure he'll get used to finding oranges in his stockings in a few years. Doesn't everyone get an orange in their stocking? Anyways, they were ecstatic. It was hilarious. About once an hour, all day long, you'd hear Quinn yell out, "I'm so happy to have all these new toys!!!" And I still hear it about once a day. Mission accomplished.

Here's the one family shot that we took on Christmas Eve. I find it pretty hilarious/typical.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

Oh, and if you didn't get a card from us, sorry. And here it is:

xoxo

direct side effects of having brothers

2011-12-12T22:21:00.008-07:00

Sorry Ollie. Get used to embarrassment.

And here's hoping you don't have any issues with personal space.

Of course, we know you'll be just fine. You can always just throw up in Quinn's mouth. Like you've done twice already. That's what he gets for being a close talker.

ollie's birth

2011-12-10T14:50:00.005-07:00

I finally wrote it all out. In spurts.

Here's Ollie's birth. Kind of. Through bullet points.

*This time around I was terrified to go into labor. Terrified. It was all I could think about. My stomach literally churned for a month straight. And no matter what I did, I couldn't get myself out of my head. It wasn't pretty. And the reason I was so sick about it was because I KNEW it was going to hurt, I KNEW there was no getting away from it, I KNEW I wasn't going to get an epidural, and I KNEW I was probably going to yell profanities because WHAT ELSE AM I GOING TO DO??? (note - I only swore once, but it was one word over and over and over again. And I didn't yell it. It was more like a growl.)

*I'm not going to go into all of my reasons for not getting an epidural because everyone has different feelings on the subject and I feel like it's a pretty personal decision. But my big reason that I kept reminding myself through all of my fear is that there are no complications due to natural childbirth. I know a lot of people who have had issues due to the epidural, and I think because of that, I'm a little more scared of the epidural than I am of the pain that comes with natural childbirth. But let me tell you, through the entire labor in the back of my mind I was thinking, "Epidural, epidural, epidural, epidural....." But I'm really grateful I was able to go without it again.

*My labor with Quinn was a full 24 hours. With Max it was 5 hours. I was expecting this one to be quick. I was HOPING this one would be quick. Nope. 13 hours. 13 exhausting hours from 10PM to 11AM. For once I would just like to go into labor during the day. Not start it at night and then labor through the entire night. That was one of the hardest things - I was so so tired. As was Zachary. I think he took AT LEAST 10 naps throughout the labor. And here's where I was the hero - I didn't even mind. In fact, I think it made me feel better to be able to watch him sleep. At one point I just decided I wasn't going to wake him up and let him sleep as long as he could. He slept for an hour. Aren't I such a nice wife?

To add to the "Zach Sleeping In Socially Unacceptable Places Collection"

*One of the things that was freaking me out going into it was knowing what kinds of sounds I was going to make. Because it's inevitable - at some point I'm going to be a little more animal and a little less human. With Quinn I made these horrendous moaning sounds that got louder and louder through the whole labor. With Max I straight-up screamed while pushing. With Oliver I kept pretty quiet till about the last hour and a half. Then all hell broke loose. My midwife had told me that I was to the point where I could have my water broken and then have a baby in my arms in 20 minutes. So I waited until I KNEW I was ready to be done and then went ahead and let her break my water. And then waited. And waited. And waited. NO BABY. So after about an hour I went to a whole different place. I was ANGRY. There's no other way to describe it. And there was nothing anyone could do for me, no position that would help me get through contractions. So when the sounds finally came out of me they weren't scared sounds or painful sounds. They were MAD sounds. Oh, I was so mad. I remember the moment when I decided I wasn't going to try to hold it in anymore. I took a long deep breath in that filled my entire body all the way down to my toes, and then let I it out with the deepest, meanest, angriest roar I could find.

*At that moment I was worried that I had lost control of myself and my labor, but Zach said he saw it as the complete opposite. He said that that roar was the moment when he knew I wasn't messing around anymore. I was owning this labor. I was in control. He said it was one of his favorite moments of the whole labor. Well, that one, and the time a few minutes later when I had a mint in my mouth, I was on my hands and knees, he was rubbing my back, and I got worried that with all this yelling I was going to inhale the mint and choke. So between yells I took the mint out of my mouth and looked around for a trash can. Then, my exact thought was, "Why am I trying to find a trash can???? Why am I trying to be polite?!?! I'm in LABOR!!! And I'm MAD!!!" And I threw the mint as hard as I could across the room and let out another rebel yell. I don't know how Zach didn't lose it at that point. I've never had any desire to film any of my labors, but I would love to have that moment on video. Classic. About an hour after Ollie was born Zach whispered in my ear, "Check it out. They've cleaned this entire room to where you can hardly tell a baby was just born in here. Except that mint is still on the floor!" We laughed and laughed.

*Through the entire labor my contractions never got closer than three minutes. A lot of the time they were as far as 10 minutes apart. It was nice to have such long breaks, but it was also exhausting. It felt like so much waiting. And when you're tired, hungry, and waiting to be twisted from the inside out, the waiting isn't exactly welcomed. There was a span in the middle of the labor that I was able to enjoy the time between contractions. I let Zach sleep and I wrote in my journal for a while. That must have been at about 7 am. I had been awake for 24 hours. I would write for a few minutes, try to keep writing as long into each contraction as I could, and then finally have to put the pen down, rest my head on the bed and breathe through the contraction until it passed. It was interesting to feel so quiet and alone and almost peaceful at that time.

Us enjoying popsicles after a few hours of laboring. Zach: Exhausted. Katie: Exhausted, but faking it a little better than Zach.

*I don't remember a whole lot about pushing this time around. It's all jumbled and mixed up in my memory. What I do remember, and I remember this with all three boys, is that there's a moment while pushing where I feel myself almost leave my body. The pain stops, everything goes a little cloudy and dizzy, and it seems like even though I know my eyes are closed, I can still see what's going on, but from a different angle. I know that sounds weird. I described it to my mom and she said, "I wonder if you died just a little bit." And I admit, that kind of freaked me out. I don't see myself as the kind of person to have an "out of body" experience. But I was reading C. Jane's birth story the other day and she described almost the same thing and talked about feeling like you have to die a little in order to bring new life into the world. I thought that was interesting. So maybe I did die just a little bit.

*I told Zach that the bravest moment through my entire labor was right at the very end, right before Ollie was born. I was pushing and I could feel his head literally right there. He was crowning and on his way out. I knew one more push and he would be here, and that was the moment that my midwife told me to stop pushing and wait for the next contraction. She told me that if I could wait and not push then I wouldn't tear. I tore with both Quinn and Max and knew that it would be a miracle to not tear. So I stopped pushing. And it took everything in my body and soul to keep myself from pushing that baby out. And remember how the contractions stayed fairly far apart?? Yeah. That was intense. No lie, this song was playing through my head the whole time. I'd heard of the ring of fire before, but hadn't felt it with Quinn or Max. Trust me, now I was feeling it. For a good three minutes. And it burns, burns, burns...

*BUT, I didn't tear. Oh my gosh, I didn't tear!!! If it was socially acceptable I would shout it from the rooftops (although, I suppose publishing it on the internet is pretty close to doing just that....). I'm sorry, it's just that I didn't realize how amazing it was until it happened (or rather, didn't happen) to me. The recovery afterwards is amazing! You can walk!! You can sit!! You can sneeze!! You can laugh!! You can pee!!! And it doesn't hurt!!! I didn't realize how much I should be hating the girls who didn't tear until I became one. Wow. Seriously. It's amazing. I felt almost totally normal within hours of him being born.

*Once he was finally born and my midwife put him on my chest all I could do was rub him all over his sweet little body, almost making sure he was real, and say, "I'm done!!! I'm done, I'm done, I'm done!! It's over! I can't believe it's over!! I did it!! Zach, it's over!! I'm so glad it's over!!" I felt selfish saying it then, and I feel selfish typing it now. For crying outloud, our baby was here now! But still, for the first minute or two, all I could do was cry and say was how happy I was that it was finally over. Then came the overwhelming joy of our sweet baby finally being here. And then he peed all over us.

Props to Zach for pulling out the camera within minutes of Ollie being born. This is the first "brand new baby" picture I've ever had. Thank you, Zachary.

*The major benefit of my labor lasting so long: My first meal after labor ended was lunch, NOT breakfast. I was so happy about that. I mean, I love bacon and eggs and all that. That's just not what I want to eat after giving birth. So this time I ordered a huge salad. That sounds lame, but dangit, that was the best salad I've ever had. Zach ordered a cheeseburger and it was good for my soul to watch him eat it and enjoy it so much. I think any woman who's had a baby will tell you that the two best things after having a baby are the first shower you take after, and the first meal. I start looking forward to those two things before I even go into labor.

*Once everything calmed down I started noticing that Zach wasn't feeling well at all. I mean, I knew he was tired, but this was out of the ordinary (which says a lot for a guy who can literally fall asleep anywhere, anytime). We got to our room and he pulled out the bed that they have there for the husbands, and crashed. He slept almost the entire time we were in the hospital. I thought it was funny that I was the one who had just had a baby, but he was clearly not doing well. He started fevering almost immeadiately. His throat was killing him. It was awful. And a little hilarious. I didn't mind him resting and I felt bad that he was so sick. But every time a nurse would come in and see him sleeping and me sitting up in bed with the baby they would sarcastically say, "Aw, did he have a rough night?? Was labor hard for him???" At one point they asked me what my pain level was and if I needed any ibuprofen and I said, "I'm fine, but could I get some for my husband?" They were nice enough to bring him some. And my midwife checked him over and said that there was a lot of strep going around, so she prescribed him some antibiotics. Poor guy.

Papa and Ollie napping in the hospital

Now Oliver has been here for 2 months. He is just the sweetest baby ever. I don't know if it's just the confidence that comes with having a third baby, or if he really is that good of a baby. He naps great, sleeps great at night, nursing has been a breeze compared to the other two boys, and he's always happy when he's awake. It's been so fun having him around. I laugh at myself because whenever I carry him I like to hold him out in front of me, you know, like you carry a kid that's got something gross all over them. But I do it because he's so cute and I just want to look at him. He's finally started smiling. I have to be careful not to talk to him too much in the middle of the night after nursing him because then he'll start grinning and I won't want to put him back to bed. It's a pleasant problem.

Sweet baby Oliver napping on Mama's lap

The boys are COO COO for him. I wake up each day with the goal of protecting Oliver from his brothers well meaning smothering of kisses and cuddles. We have lots of practice sessions of "How to be gentle". But I'm glad they love him. And I'm sure he's going to grow up knowing that his brothers adore him. That's a good thing.

Meeting the brothers

Team Cowan is so happy and lucky to have its newest member.

what life is like now

2011-11-16T23:28:00.003-07:00

I started trying to type up Oliver's birth story. I want to. I really do. It's just so dang hard to do. It's like blogging after vacation. I simply can't bring myself to do it. But I will. I promise I will.

This is why I can't ever have a real job. Because once something turns into a responsibility with somewhat of a deadline and an expectation, I avoid it at all cost. It's definitely a problem.

And since there's really not much else to talk about (other than how often I get pooped on, peed on, and spit up on...) here's what you're really after - an extreme excess of pictures. These pictures make me so happy I can hardly stand it. I love it when I can capture the boys personalities so perfectly in pictures. And these are pretty perfect. You're welcome.

on repeat

2011-11-04T11:32:00.007-06:00

You know me, I love a good youtube video. Here's a list of our recent favorites. Enjoy:

The boys and I have watched over and over again. I love when they laugh just as hard at something as I do. I. Love. Ellen.

This is a song that Zach plays every day when he gets home from work. Love, love, love it. I'm sure I've said it before, but I love songs with clapping and stomping. Truly. Turn it up.

My sister Erin shared this with us a few weeks ago and we've watched it almost every day since. And just know, it's funnier the second time. And then the third, and the fourth...

It's become a problem because we're reminded of it way too much in our every day conversations. I have a hard time not giggling every time I say "Exactly." We were even quoting it while I was in labor. Every time someone asked, "How are you feeling?" I couldn't help but say, "Mainly, at this point, I'm running on adrenaline." Oliver even makes a little coo/wimper sound every once in a while that makes me think, "It's so cold!" Obsessed, I know.

And since it's Sunday... Zach and I have watched this a few times since we first saw it a few weeks ago. It gives me chills every time. As if we didn't already think he was awesome - this video makes us so happy:

And just for good measure, here's our Ollie wide awake - he's getting cuter every day:

Happy Sunday everyone.

benefits of being the favorite

2011-11-03T14:24:00.007-06:00

(I was going to put this at the end, but I figured I should say it now before I get any nasty phone calls from siblings - Just kidding about the title. We all know Ben's the favorite.)

My mom came and stayed with us for two weeks after Oliver was born. She's done this with each of my babies. Yes, it's ok for you to hate me a little bit for this. I'm very lucky.

While she was here she had quite the to-do list and she was knocking things off of it like they were nothing. Things that we've been meaning to do for a looooong time. Yes, we had projects here awaiting her arrival. And I think (so she tells me) that she was pretty excited about it. I don't know if I could list everything she did without missing something. The changes she made in our house are epic. It feels like a new house. And she did all this in addition to keeping up with the dishes, laundry, chasing the boys, and making us all feel totally spoiled.

Here are pictures (since my sisters have been hounding me for them) of some of the big things she did for us:

Painted the back door. And then went ahead and painted the back wall and trim (minus the crown molding) so that when I look at that back wall from the living room is appears as though the whole kitchen is finished. HALLELUJAH!

All the paint is Behr brand paint (after having enough run-ins with different brands, we have vowed to take my parents advice and only use Behr from here on out). The door color is called "Caribe" and the wall is called "Dolphin Fin". The white is a color match from our hardware store. I cannot wait to paint the rest of the kitchen. That wall looks so fresh and pretty it's all I can do to keep myself from just sitting and staring at it.

She also put together this set of hooks that I've had since Easter:

I love it so much. It's perfect. And it's awesome having a place to keep the boys coats and shoes (although I wouldn't necessarily hang the shoes like Quinn did. Funny guy). The prints in the frame above the hooks (and the one by the back door) are by Brian Andreas. He's one of mine and Zach's favorite artists.

And lastly, she hung this painting for us (I'm noticing now how weird I lined up this picture. it's making my eyes hurt. but I'm pretty sure I had a kid pulling on my leg while I was taking this, so it could've been worse):

This is a painting that hung in my mom's house when she was little, and then hung in our house most of my life. It was painted for my grandpa by a blind woman in his congragation (he was a Lutheran minister). It's hard to explain the whole painting without being about to point it out, but it's a profile of Christs face in the middle, and him on the cross in the top left, a white dove in the middle, a woman kneeling on the bottom to the left, and a man praying on the bottom right. I'm sure there's more to it, but we'll probably never know. I've always loved it. Mom said it was up for grabs a few years ago and I knew I wanted it, but figured we'd never be able to get it out here. But Mom got brave one day and took it off of it's frame, rolled it up, and sent it with my sister Juli when she came out here about a year ago. It's been sitting, still rolled up, in my sewing room ever since. But Mom put it all back together for us and hung it up. I don't think I can explain how happy it makes me feel to have something in our home that's been in my family for so long, that I grew up looking at, and that now our boys will grow up looking at.

Here's a picture of that whole wall - I think it's so pretty all put together now (oh, and Quinn being a big nerd):

Like I said, I wish I could list everything else Mom did while she was here, but I know I'd forget so much of it. I'll have to ask her if she still has her list that she made that we were working through. All I know is the house looks awesome, and I don't feel like I have quite so much hanging over my head anymore. Thank you, Mom!! And we'll have another list for you and Dad when you come out at Christmas! ;)

(Kidding!)

(Kind of...)

why am I not sleeping?

2011-11-01T19:30:00.005-06:00

Don't confuse my lack of blogging with me being too busy. I definitely have the time. What I don't have is the brain capacity to come up with something to say other than, "My kids are really cute," or, "I can't believe how hard it is to get three kids out the door," or, "I'm really tired...."

So.... don't be upset if I just blog in pictures for a while. Just know that things here are going very well. We're all very happy. Just a little sleepy.

And here's proof that Max gained at least 30 pounds while we were at the hospital. And mainly just in his head.

But, like I said - my kids are really cute:

And now I'm going to bed. But don't worry - I'll be up in about 2 1/2 hours. And then again in about 3. And then it will be morning!

let it shine

2011-10-23T14:11:00.005-06:00

Here's what we're listening to today. And what we listen to every Sunday. But I'm thinking it's so wonderful it should be more than just Sunday music.

golden slumbers

2011-10-16T10:41:00.004-06:00

Back in April I blogged about names and all the silly requirements I felt like we needed to follow in picking out a name for this baby. Oliver was Quinn's pick and he's been insistent on it ever since we found out we were having a boy. We've liked the name Oliver for a while now (it was nearly Max's name), so we decided to go with it. We hadn't decided for sure until it came time to fill out the birth certificate, but we figured, if Quinn was so certain, then that must be his name. Plus it was hard not to name him that after the boys came to meet him in the hospital and Quinn walked in and said, "Awwww!! He's sooo small!! He's soooo cute!!! His name is Oliver!!"

And since the boy needed a song, we went with Golden for the middle name (awesome song here - a regular in my song rotation for the boys before bed). We'd heard it before as a name and always thought it was sweet. We considered it for a boy or a girl, but I felt like naming a girl Golden would be almost like naming her Glitter or Fancy or something unfortunate like that...

We go back and forth between referring to him as Oliver, Ollie, Ollie G and Golden. I always try to be careful about thinking through names and trying out all possible nicknames. Because you know kids are going to come up with something to call them other than their name. My sister had a friend that felt it was wrong for our brother to go through his life with the initials B.S., so he started calling him "Bird Seed". We shortened it after a while and just referred to him as "Bird". It stuck for years. Nicknames are important. For this reason I wish we had talked about our name list with some of Zach's seminary students so that they could have given us a heads up on possible nicknames. And then maybe we would have at least considered whether we wanted to give our son a name that so much resembled the name of a rather popular italian resturant. Oh well. He is a rather tasty little breadstick.

Hope you don't mind an overload of baby pictures and gushing about our new little nugget. Because he's rather wonderful and we're all a little in love with him.

Q & O

2011-10-16T10:18:00.001-06:00

There are no words...

our new boy

2011-10-11T20:49:00.003-06:00

Oliver Golden Cowan
Born 10/10/11 at 11:33 am
5 lbs, 15 oz
All is well.

sike

2011-10-07T13:44:00.002-06:00

Earlier today I asked the boys to clean up everything that was on the orange rug so that I could vacuum. I was SO IMPRESSED when I looked over there a couple of minutes later to find that they had ACTUALLY DONE IT!! Totally shocked. I said "Holy cow boys!! You're amazing!!" And Quinn said, "Yep, we are."

Then I got a closer look:

Yeah, nevermind....

But at least I could vacuum!! We're making progress!

Unfortunately the vacuuming didn't put me into labor like I was hoping it would.... Nor did the laundry, doing the dishes, cleaning my sewing room.... And to think I could have just been laying in bed.

p.s. big pictures! how fun is that?!

nope, still no baby. but here's a funny story about zachary.

2011-10-04T17:49:00.007-06:00

So I'm making homemade macaroni and cheese, and I realize that we're out of milk. I considered mixing up some powdered milk (since I'm a good Mormon girl and have a large supply of powdered milk in my basement), but knew that I'd probably want a bowl of Chocolate Cheerio's around midnight tonight (since I'm pregnant and Chocolate Cheerio's are one of the many ways God tells me he loves me), and for that, powdered milk for sure wouldn't cut it . So I knew I had to go to the store right away (our grocery store closes at 7:00. yep, our town is that small). So I told Zach that I had noodles boiling on the stove and that I was running to the store. As I walked out the door I said, "Just don't forget that the noodles are boiling." No, actually as I walked out the door I said, "BRB!" Which is funny because we don't have cell phones and thus don't text. To which he replied with another set of letters that only a small handful of people would understand and I'm not going to explain because it was slightly inappropriate. Which we're allowed to be since we're married (Zach would like me to note here - to any students that may have read this - however inappropriate you may be imagining it to be, it was in no way THAT inappropriate). Anyways, so when I left he was sitting on a stool beside the stove, keeping watch of the noodles and reading a book.
Meanwhile I go to the store and realize that there are a couple more things that I want to pick up (is it ever really just milk??), so it takes a little longer. On top of that I run by a friend's house to drop a couple of things off and to steal her newspapers (coupons, baby). So I end up being gone about 20 minutes.
As I get out of the car at home I think, "Hm, it smells like noodles all the way out here... surely he took them off the stove and drained them...." I walk in the house and there he is, sitting right beside the stove, with the water still boiling. I smiled at him and stirred the noodles, seeing immeadiately that they were far puffier than they were supposed to be, and that half of them were stuck to the bottom of the pan. I just kind of laughed and said, "You did a great job watching the noodles. I love you." And right then it dawned on him that he was supposed to do more than simply watch them. He just said, "Wow," shocked at his own absent mindedness. I said, "Did you stir them or anything?" "Nope. Just sat here." Awesome. I drained it and we laughed about how over-cooked and mushy it was.
Oh well. Start over. Not a big deal.
I had to record this because it is so Classic Zach. He is the absent minded professor. While we were laughing about this he told me that today around 3rd period he realized he had to pee, but just went on with teaching. Then when school was over (4 periods later??) he thought, "Dang, I really need to pee!" And realized that he'd failed to go when he thought of it HOURS before. Then yesterday he gave blood at a blood drive and was wondering why he felt so light-headed the rest of the day. Oh, I don't know, maybe because he forgot to eat lunch?? Yeah, that'll probably do it. And that was the third day in a row that he'd forgotten to eat lunch. He's obviously never been pregnant before.
So I guess the only point of this story is to poke fun at Zach, but also to say, Dangit, I love my husband. I do. I love him.

And I know this is an awful picture that doesn't have anything to do with the story, but it makes me laugh. I'm probably about 6 months pregnant with Max here. Zach had just gotten over a horrible case of shingles (I know, what is he, 75?), and inadvertanly gave me chicken pox because of it. Yep, I caught chicken pox from my husband while I was pregnant. As you can see I'm covered in calamine lotion and looking ROUGH. But we took this picture and after looking at it we laughed and laughed at the face Zach was making. And then tried for about 20 minutes to get him to duplicate it. In fact he just walked in and saw the picture and then ran to the bathroom to try to make the face again. It's impossible. Once in a lifetime. So glad we caught it on camera. Even better that I'm covered in spots. This one will go down in Team Cowan history.

playlist

2011-09-30T08:52:00.004-06:00

I've been working on a playlist to take to the hospital with us.

With Quinn we didn't think to take any music with us. And with Max I knew exactly what I wanted to take and then couldn't find it when we were rushing out the door. I was pretty bummed.

I'm curious to see what it'll be like to listen to music that I love while giving birth. There are a few of these songs that make me cry when I imagine a baby being born to them. I need to visualize more sweet, happy things like that.

I was nervous about the style of some of them and that it would be a little too.... not calming for my midwife. But yesterday she assured me that she's delivered to Metallica before (not that I would ever listen to Metallica.... ever), so I don't need to worry about anything I want to listen to. Awesome.

Here are a few of my picks:

waiting

2011-09-29T12:51:00.007-06:00

I took some pictures of me and my big belly last night. I had to do it by myself because whenever Zach takes pictures of me I tend to gain 20 pounds. And an ugly face. So I don't let him take pictures of me anymore. And as much as I feel like a huge nerd whenever I take and post pictures of myself, I knew I needed to do it. My family keeps asking to see proof of my hugeness. And who doesn't love a good belly shot? Plus, it's always fun to play with pictures on picnik.

So here's me at midnight last night, trying to decide whether to go to bed (if I'm about to burst, I should sleep as much as possible) or clean the house (if I'm about to burst I want to have a clean house). And yes, I am also pregnant in my face and arms. And my ankles being cropped out of the picture was totally intentional.

I've got two weeks left. Anyone want to guess how long I'll last? Things to consider:

-I've already packed up my make-up, shampoo and hair stuff for the hospital.

-the baby's area in our room is ready with all the clothes and blankets folded and put away.

-the porta-crib is set up.

-all of the laundry in the house is clean.

-On Monday I stayed up till 3 am sewing a quilt for the little nugget.

-yesterday I wiped off the tops of all of our door frames.

-and today I sorted all of our tupperware containers, simply for the fun of it.

Nesting is a beautiful thing.

for the car

2011-09-22T21:54:00.013-06:00

While we were in Charlotte we took a few trips to my sister Juli's house to swim in her pool and visit. Juli lives about 30 minutes from my parents, so we were always trying to come up with something fun to do to keep the kids happy in the car (that whole, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" thing is not a joke. I think our boys like to see how many times they can say it before taking a breath). This is one of the games we came up with.

I would take a picture of Zach making a ridiculously hilarious face:

I'd show the picture to the kids (Quinn, Max and their cousin Elle), and they would laugh hysterically, and then I'd take a picture of them trying to duplicate it:

(seriously proud moment here. I didn't know Max had it in him.)

Round 2:

Results:

It was a great way to pass the time. But since we were dealing with a 5 year old, a 4 year old and a 3 year old, the thrill didn't last very long. In that case, I would suggest this:

Hope that helps for your next long car ride.

my three sons

2011-09-13T10:59:00.004-06:00

One month to go.

Starting to freak out a little bit.

Knowing exactly what to expect in terms of natural labor does not make the idea of it any easier. My mantra? "I can do anything for a little while. It won't last forever. And once it's over, it's over. I can do anything for a little while."

The idea of Zach being there this time makes it MUCH more bearable. Have I ever told you that he only made it to the last 30 minutes of my labor with Max? He burst into the room on my first push. I'll have to share that story sometime. It's a good one.

I'm starting to feel like a whale any time I try to stand up. I'm in full waddle mode. I feel sorry for Zach and what it must feel like for him to watch me. I wonder if he's ever tempted to say, "Are you sure you need that many Oreo's?" He does sing this to me every once in a while. And I kind of love it.

I've narrowed my jeans selection down to one pair. Even looking at the others is pointless.

If you're sitting on the ground and I'm standing beside you, you can most likely see my belly poking out under my shirt. Sorry 'bout that.

When is it too soon to pull out all the baby clothes and wash them? Set up the crib? Stop cooking any form of dinner? Declare self imposed bed-rest? Or even better, start my days with a 4-wheeler ride in the mountaints, then after lunch visit the high school to scale the bleachers, and once the boys are in bed.... lots of other things that bring on labor....

Actually I can't do any of that (not true, I can do some of that...) until Sept. 25th. Zach's brother will be getting married on the 24th, and our Primary program in sacrament meeting is the day after. I just have to make it to those two things. After that, Project: Get-This-Baby-Out-Of-Me will be in full swing.

I love that boy

2011-09-12T14:47:00.003-06:00

1st day of preschool:

it was all yellow

2011-09-12T11:07:00.004-06:00

Just so you know, I've been without a computer these last two weeks. And yes, I did feel like an addict almost the entire time. Especially when we got the computer back after a week and a half, I got it all set up, and then the entire thing froze and wouldn't turn back on. And I called Zach and cried like a baby for 15 minutes.

Wait, did I just admit to that?

Anyways, this is what you've all been waiting for - Here it is in yellow:

And here it is with the flowers:

I don't have the whole thing finished yet. It's awfully hard to paint the kitchen floor when you kind of need to walk on it every day. Every night I say, "Tonight I'm going to finish the flowers!" And then we put the boys to bed and I sit down and try to move as little as possible until we go to bed. Maybe tonight will be the night...

I think it needs a little more added to it. Something in the open spaces. We'll see. I'm just glad it's turning out how I imagined it. And even more glad that Zach likes it. He's such a good boy. The other day he walked into the kitchen and said, "I'm walking on pure art! YOUR ART! ON THE FLOOR!" What a guy.

Anyways, that's all I have time for right now. More updates to come. Later gators....

tuesday confessional

2011-08-30T10:14:00.002-06:00

I've been considering a confession-type post for a little while now. And then today my friend Hailey did one. I thought that was funny. So now I'm going to follow suit. Here are my confessions:

-I feel much more justified in being lazy if it's gloomy and rainy outside. Which is why I've been hoping for more gloomy and rainy days lately.

-I've been noticing for a while now that my eyebrows seem to be disappearing. Thinning out, getting more and more blonde. So a few weeks ago I bought a brow pencil and have been drawing my eyebrows on since then. So far no one has told me I look like Groucho Marx, so I guess I'm doing it right. And even though I think I look better with more defined eyebrows, I still feel weird every time I do it.

-We have a rule in our house that if you disobey, you go in time-out. And if you whine and complain while you're in time-out, then you won't get to come out until you're quiet for a good amount of time. I really, really, really don't understand why Quinn, who is 5, can't sit in there quietly, but instead sits in there whining and screaming that he wants to come out. Which means that instead of staying in there for 2 minutes, he usually has to stay in there for at least 10 minutes and by the time he comes out he can't even remember why he had to go in there in the first place. This annoys me more than anything else in the entire world.

-Not only did I just paint our kitchen floor yellow; I'm also about to paint flowers in a deeper shade of yellow all over it. I think that if there was some variation in color on the floor then it wouldn't look as dirty as quick. Which means I don't have to scrub it as often....

-I could listen to Russell Brand read the phone book.

-I've decided that I deserve some sort of treat at the end of every day, simply for surviving and keeping the children alive and mostly happy. Last night it was a cold chocolate milk and it was soooooo good. I don't know what it will be tonight but I'm already looking forward to it.

-I'm also really looking forward to Survivor and The Office coming back on. Does looking forward to tv shows ever make you feel lame?

I'm sure I could keep going, but Quinn is standing beside me yelling "IT'S TIME TO GO NOOOWWWW!!" So I guess we need to go.... Catch ya later....

this and that

2011-08-29T11:20:00.005-06:00

Whew. Is it normal to start nesting a month and a half before your baby is even due?? Because it seems I've gone into overdrive with this kitchen stuff. And a big reason is because I know that once the kitchen is finished we can maybe move on to a few other projects... Painting our bedroom? Painting the guest bedroom?? Finally finishing the boys room (we painted it in January but still need to put up some trim)??? And all this by October? Probably not. But while I've got the energy I should keep doing whatever I can (For today - laundry, dishes, dinner, bread to replace the 4 loaves I burnt yesterday... yet here I sit...). So, while I'm not sharing any pictures yet, know that the floor has been primed, painted, and painted again. All done by me while Zach was at work. Wait, not true, I had help. And (I lied) here's one picture:

I didn't let them help anymore after that since I went to get the camera and when I came back Max was walking in circles with a roller full of paint. But Zach's big into letting the boys help if they express the desire. He's better at it than I am. He always reminds me, "We're not just _______ (fill in with whatever we're doing at the time: painting the floor, remodeling a kitchen...), we're raising boys." And he's right. Most of the time they want to help and it only takes a minute to figure out a way to help them feel involved. And really, they're usually bored within a minute or two and then you can get back to work. But it's not always easy to remember that in the moment.

Anyways, there's a not so updated update on the kitchen. More exciting things to come.

*****

On a totally unrelated note, these are a few things I've been thinking about recently:

A Cup of Joe talks about How To Talk To Little Girls. Fascinating.

The article that inspired her, and me, to try harder at coming up with better things to talk about. I talked about this with my sister and she posed an interesting question: Is it because of the way that we talk to little girls that makes them love dressing up and looking pretty? Or do they just come that way? Think about it the next time you talk to a little girl. You'll be surprised at how hard it is to not say, "Wow! What a pretty dress!" or "I love your shoes!" I work in Primary at church so every Sunday I'm practicing coming up with better things to talk about with the little girls.

An article I read today about young girls and the way they dress. Scary.

That last one makes me glad that, at this point, Team Cowan is only producing boys. But then it makes me worry for my boys as well. It's hard to teach them to avoid pornography (do people realize how damaging it is?) when it's pretty much walking around everywhere we go. And it's only getting worse. And it's so surprising to me to see such young girls in such inappropriate clothing because that means that the parents are buying it for them and letting them wear it! I assume that the last way a parent would want their daughter to appear is sexual, but maybe that's not the case anymore. Yikes. I know that even as a teenager my parents had a lot of say in what I was allowed to wear. And while, at the time, I hated it and fought it, I get it now. And I appreciate it. But I'm surprised that there don't seem to be many parents who enforce those types of rules anymore.

Why not? What are your thoughts? Am I extreme? Am I naive to think that parents have any say in what girls wear? Do you think that we can change the way girls see themselves?

carpet free

2011-08-21T19:18:00.007-06:00

So, to explain my tardiness, do you remember this? And this? Well, we decided it was time. Carpet in a kitchen is.... possibly worse than carpet in a bathroom. Maybe. I've lived with both, and while the bathroom is awful (just imagine around the toilet...... the horror....), I think I spill things a lot more often in the kitchen. Eggs, chicken broth, bacon grease, milk.... Disgusting. We've been hesitant about it because we have plans to eventually change the layout of the kitchen, so if we tiled the floor it would really just be a huge hassle down the road. We talked about putting down linoleum temporarily, but Zach wasn't wild about that idea (why pay money for something temporary? He's so sensible). Anyways, one day I decided to just start ripping up the carpet to see what was under it. Surprise, surprise - In a room with five layers of wallpaper, OF COURSE there would be old linoleum under the carpet! Why not?? But then upon further ripping I found hard wood underneath the linoleum. (!!!!) But, it looked pretty rough. And I assumed (correctly) that it was covered in all kinds of nasty old adhesives and who knows what else (well, now we know what else - tar paper... ugh). And after researching a bit I learned that there was also a possibility that it was full of asbestos . So I found a place that I could send a sample to and have it tested. Amazingly, it came back asbestos free. And like any hasty couple that is thinking about all the times their kids and dog have most likely peed on the carpet without us realizing it, we started pulling it up immeadiately. It was tough going into it with no idea what we would find underneath. Plus having no idea how to get all the gunk off of the wood. I spent hours Googling, "removing linoleum from hard wood," and, "removing tar paper from wood," and, "why do old people cover everything in carpet?" Anyways, here's where we started:

You can see that the carpet is pulled up with the linoleum underneath and the black tar paper under that. Here's a close-up of the tar paper:

Fun!! After a couple of hours of trying different techniques (warm water, water and vinegar, a number of different cleaners I had in the cupboards...), we tried something we had read online that said to lay towels over the top of it and pour boiling water on top of the towels, let it sit for a few hours and then scrape the paper off. It was yucky and stinky, but it worked!! The paper came up pretty easily. Unfortunately it left behind a thick, sticky adhesive that made me want to crawl into bed and never come out again. It seemed like something that would never come off. But after trying a bunch of different things again we finally figured out what to do. And it's not easy. In this picture Zach is pulling the wet towel off of the tar paper and is about to scrape it all up. The brown goopy looking stuff between the towel and the trash can is the adhesive. And, by the way, how scary is that trash can?? Zach calls it the "Vomit Can". It's pretty sick:

So to get the adhesive off we would spray it down with warm, soapy water and then, using a scotch pad, scrub the heck out of it. It would get all foamy and thick and again, you would think, "Oh my gosh, this is never coming off. We have made a huge mistake." But then you wipe all the suds off with a wash cloth, rinse it off, and spray and scrub it all again. Amazingly it all came off pretty well once we figured out the right technique. But the adhesive/soapy suds mixture was a nightmare. I wish I had a picture of it. Here's the first section we cleaned off:

At that point we were feeling pretty optimistic about the whole thing. We'd figured out what we needed to do and knew it would go pretty quick through the rest of the kitchen. We decided we would move our work to the back of the kitchen so that we wouldn't be blocking the area where we walk the most just yet. So the next day we went to pull up the carpet in the back corner of the kitchen and it DIDN'T MOVE. Poor Zach was killing himself trying to get that stuff up. It was not behaving like it had in the front of the kitchen. And what was even worse, once we got the carpet up, the linoleum was HORRIBLE. Before it had pulled up fairly easily in big strips leaving behind the tar paper. Now it had to be chiseled up in little one inch pieces and even then it was just the very top of it. It was so bad. I don't even want to think about it really. Just know that it took a really terrible long time and that Zach is amazing. He worked so hard. And I tried to help, but it isn't exactly easy work with the equivolent of a basketball under your shirt, blocking your lungs, digging into your bladder... wah wah wah.... He would get the big stuff up and then I was the scrubber/scraper once we got down to mainly wood and adhesive. We worked in 4X4 foot sections to get it all up. What took us about two hours of work the first time was now taking us DAYS. Not fun. We felt super discouraged. Here's the back of the kitchen after working on it for about a week:

Luckily, the closer we got to higher traffic areas, the easier it was to pull everything up. Things started looking up. We started laughing again. We didn't cry ourselves to sleep anymore. And now, after about two weeks (wow, it seems like it was a lot longer than that), there is no longer any trace of carpet in our kitchen. Everything has been chiseled and scraped and scrubbed off of the wood and it's not a construction zone anymore. Here's where we are right now:

I put the rug down to protect the raw wood from splashes from the sink.

Plus it makes me happy. Even though Zach hates it.

We also removed a shelf from under that counter top just for fun.

We've done a little bit of sanding. At this point the plan is to lightly sand it and then paint it. Possibly a golden yellow. We're hoping to have that done by next weekend. NEXT WEEKEND!

There's still a ton that needs to be done in the kitchen in order for it to look more complete. Lots of painting that still needs to be done. New baseboards. New hardware. I could go on and on. But having the carpet gone? That's huge. Epic. I am a new woman. I might go throw an egg on the floor just for fun.

to-do

2011-08-13T10:39:00.005-06:00

I had a post ready that would explain my tardiness, but Blogger won't let me upload any pictures. Punks.

So here's what I'm going to suggest you do:

First, go to Pandora and create a Neil Diamond station. Now slap yourself in the face for not doing it years ago.

Then create a station based on the song "Then He Kissed Me" by The Crystals. And at the start of almost every song that plays you can yell out, "What movie?!!" Possible answers: Back To The Future, Adventures In Babysitting (obviously), Dirty Dancing, The Sandlot. Fun!!

Then, if you've got the urge to feel what it's like to be in my parents living room on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon in the summertime of my youth, go ahead and create a John Philip Sousa station. I'm warning you - It's peppy. I haven't attempted house cleaning to this yet because every time I turn it on Quinn comes to me and says, "Mom, it's too loud." But I bet it would be great cleaning music.

Now if you want something really peppy that'll make you feel all happy and warm inside, go listen to this. A few days after we came home from N.C. Zach sat down to the computer and asked, "What's that song your dad always plays??" I knew what he was talking about right away but couldn't remember which movie it was from. It took a minute to track it down, and as soon as it started Zach yelled "THAT'S IT!!!" Makes me happy.

Now for some go old 80's nostalgia, create a station based on "If You Leave" by OMD. Also a good one for playing "Name That Movie". It's awesome. But I don't think Zach's as much of a fan as I am.

So as a nod to Zachary, I would suggest creating a Blind Pilot station (it gets played a lot in this house), and a station based on The Avett Brothers (love those good old North Carolina boys). Mmmmm.....

It shouldn't be hard for you to do all of this and enjoy a wide variety of fantastic music. But since Quinn is the boss in this house, this is what we've been forced to listen to on repeat all day:

Not ideal, but it could be much, much worse.

back home

2011-07-29T23:27:00.002-06:00

Just home from 2 weeks in NC. It was fabulous. Will blog once I don't feel like this anymore:

we interrupt this blog with summer

2011-07-03T22:47:00.003-06:00

We're having too much fun to post.
Here are a couple of things to hold you over till I get my desire to blog back:

Max seems to have contracted Zach's sleep disorder of falling asleep at odd times and in odd places. Either that, or summertime is just absolutely exhausting to him. Max hasn't been napping regularly for a while now (makes for much easier bedtimes), but lately he's been zonking out whenever he gets the chance. In the car, on bike rides, on the couch... Luckily he still goes to bed without a fight. Plus, he looks really cute when he sleeps:

This picture of Quinn made Zach and I laugh and laugh. This is such a Quinn face. I see it a million times a day. Usually it's when he thinks something is funny or weird and is accompanied by a, "Huh??" (imagine the Home Improvement/Tim Allen grunt). I don't care who you are, this kid is beautiful:

And just in case you're wondering how fat I am (at just over 6 months pregnant), here's a picture that Max took of me and Quinn a couple of days ago. It's getting harder and harder to move move around without the occasional groan or grunt (that's right, I used the word "grunt" twice in one post). Also, Max could learn a thing or two about lining up a picture:

I need to keep a notebook with ideas of what to post about. I think about it throughout the day, and then when I sit down to write I can't remember a thing. Kind of like how I didn't remember to add the sugar to our banana bread a few days ago (sorry Zach) (also, if you're going to tell me how gross it is every time you eat a piece, STOP EATING IT).

I've had an idea in my head for a post for a couple of weeks now, but I fear that it could be... a bad idea. I've been thinking recently about how people tend to have a few things that they feel strongly about. And I have a few. But I try not to voice them too much because I know that a lot of people feel differently than I do on a lot of subjects. I would hate to hurt feelings or turn this happy little place into something... heavy. You know what I mean? Any thoughts on the subject? And what do you feel passionately about??

Also, isn't summer the best thing ever?????

mr. mister

2011-06-20T21:15:00.001-06:00

There's not much I can say about this other than it's awesome and you should make one. We call it the Bike Wash. Or Kid Wash. Or the Mister (which is a little confusing, but funny). Instructions found here.

Seriously, make one. Especially you N.C. people. Your kids will love it. And so will you. My favorite things about it:
1. It'll keep my boys busy for at least 45 minutes. And a lot of times they want to turn it on a few times a day. This is amazing since they're usually entertained by an activity for about 3 minutes before they want nothing to do with it again for the rest of the day.
2. It's just shooting out a light mist of water (3 on each side and 4 across the top), so you don't get soaked right away, and it also conserves water. I hardly have to turn my hose on at all to get it to work.
3. It came together pretty quickly and the instructions were super easy to follow. I was able to find everything at our local hardware store.
4. I can run through it fully clothed (should I feel the need or per the boys persistent begging) and I hardly get wet. Just super refreshed.

Max thinks you should make one.
It could be the highlight of your summer.
(I hope not. I hope you've got bigger summer plans than that...)

mmm..... food....

2011-06-16T22:04:00.005-06:00

So.......... I really like food.
When I was pregnant with Quinn I tried to eat as healthy as I could. I didn't eat much fast food. Lots of good fruits and vegetables. I took it pretty easy.
I didn't do as good while pregnant with Max, but since I was trying to teach Quinn to appreciate healthy foods (to an excessive/obsessive/unhealthy degree) I was still fairly healthy.
But now this time around....
My justification for pretty much anything is, "Whatever, I DESERVE this!"
And holy cannoli, I've made some pretty darn good food lately.
So if you're in the mood to eat something totally unhealthy that will bring tears of joy to your eyes, here are a few of the latest recipes that this pregnant lady/food lover has fallen in love with:

Lemon-Blueberry Yogurt Cake via smitten kitchen

So yummy. Not crazy sweet. Super dense and moist. Great way to eat blueberries. And in the recipe I just used basic versions of what it called for - Large eggs instead of extra large, lowfat yogurt instead of whole. Mmm..... make some and share with your neighbors.

Chicken Gyros via Annie's Eats

I have a rule that I buy a gyro anytime I get the chance. Fairs, roadside stands... I'm not picky. I love gyros. So when I found a recipe online I knew I had to try it. I was skeptical about using chicken instead of lamb, but since I didn't have any lamb (although, in this town, I'm sure I could have gotten my hands on some pretty easy...) I figured I'd give it a try. And hooo boy, it worked. In fact, I just ate it about ten minutes ago. The sauce is awesome. The chicken wasn't a problem. Dangit, it was good. And I'm a new woman.

Creamy Dijon Chicken via Simply Delicious

This was VERY good. Pretty rich. Resurant quality (that's one of the best compliments that Zach can give me at the dinner table). I used onions instead of leeks. Because yes, in this town I could easily find lamb, but certainly not leeks.

Brownies via Buns In My Oven (not the most appetizing title for a food blog...)

This is what I'm chasing down that gyro with. I made these a few weeks ago and they totally rocked my world. Zach said that they were just "ok", but then I explained to him that since he's not a woman he can't accurately judge chocolate. These are fudgy and dense and rich and thick... I don't think I'll ever use a boxed mix again. Make them.

There are a few more things I've made lately, but this is a good enough list for now.

FYI: I found all of these recipes through Pinterest. Check it out. Let me know if you want an invite. It's.... addictive. And awesome. And while it's not just recipes and food, I've made 11 recipes from there just in the last two months...

Mmmm..... I love food....

p.s. After reading through all of that I feel like I need to add in that we do eat quite a few fruits and vegetables and whole grains every day. And you've seen pictures of my scrawny kids and husband. We're not total gluttons...

tater tots

2011-06-16T16:59:00.005-06:00

There's nothing better than walking into the living room and finding this:

No, wait a minute....

There is something better....

Walking into the living room and finding this:

My name is Katie and I let my kids watch tv.

And I like it.

what a guy

2011-06-11T12:29:00.005-06:00

This video was taken about five minutes after the training wheels came off.

Team Cowan is having a lovely Saturday.

is this heaven?

2011-06-04T15:54:00.008-06:00

The other day a lady that I don't know asked me if I knew if I was having a boy or a girl (while watching my boys wrestle each other on the ground). When I told her it was another boy her eyes got really big and she got kind of a yucky look on her face and said, "Are you going to have any more after that???" I kinda laughed and said, "I don't know, maybe. Probably. We're just taking them one at a time (thank goodness)." At that she just shook her head and said, "You're crazy! You're really crazy!!"

I understand what she's saying. I really do. And sometimes I feel crazy. But a good majority of the time, I just feel lucky. Really lucky. Because I have the coolest kids ever.

Like, when I say something to Max and he replies by throwing his hands up and saying, "Mama!? Are you tidding me?!?"

Or when Quinn makes a really impossible suggestion, like, "I know, how about we make a cake and then we could make cupcakes and then we could make cookies and then we could make popcorn and then we could eat it all!!" (Okay, so that's not totally impossible.... or even very unlikely in this house) But then in order to make it more convincing he says, "That could be a GREAT idea!!!"

Or last night when we were talking to one of Zach's old students (him on the sidewalk, us in our car) and the kid tried to put a giant picnic umbrella in our car, Quinn said, "You're a nerd!! You tried to put an umbrella in our car! You're a big nerd!!" How cool is that? Our 4 year old called a 19 year old a NERD!

So I guess what I'm saying is, I like our kind of crazy. And I think we'd be crazy to stop making these really awesome people.

*******
On a somewhat unrelated note, I heard this song today and even though I've posted it on here before, I have to share it again. Because it moves me. It's amazing. And while I like the unaccoustic version a little better (found here), I really love watching them sing. Especially the one in the v-neck with the face like a girl at 58 seconds. Don't you just want to invite them over to sit on your couch and sing to you??? I do. Enjoy:

+1

2011-05-31T10:30:00.008-06:00

Can Team Cowan handle one more knucklehead?

I think, yes.

Especially if they grow up to look like this fine specimen:

Yep, it's true. Harriet is out and Quinn isn't even upset about it (and neither am I ;). So now it's back to the drawing board for a name. So far we haven't had any help from Quinn or Max. Except that yesterday Zach and I made a big long list of names that we both liked and then read them to the boys and had them repeat all the names back to us. That didn't help since each name sounded so cute I wanted to cry.

At least I can start sewing now. :)

p.s. Was that vague? It's a boy.

knowing's half the battle

2011-05-27T13:46:00.002-06:00

In two and a half hours we're going to find out whether we're adding another boy to the family, or if this is indeed a little Harriet. ;)

I'm really excited.

Mainly because then I can REALLY start sewing. Is that messed up priorities??

Too bad my sewing won't be that awesome since instead of buying a new sewing machine, we have to buy a minivan.

Eh, oh well.

Also, Zach informed me that the carnival is in the town where we have to go for the ultrasound.

Don't you love the shift in things that excite you when you become a parent? Like, where the excitement of Christmas morning kind of tapers off for a little while when you get older, once you have kids it comes back FULL FORCE.

That's how I feel about taking the boys to this carnival. Like Christmas morning. They're going to FLIP. OUT. I haven't told them about it yet and I can hardly keep it a secret.

But they're already crazy excited about going to the hospital and seeing the baby on the ultrasound. In fact just a few minutes ago Max yelled at me, "But Mama!! We haf to go to da hop-i-tal NOW!!"

I guess all I'm saying here is: We're having a great day.

love, Team Cowan

p.s. it's also the last day of school. HELLO SUMMER!

I know!

2011-05-24T14:24:00.003-06:00

I've been very neglectful of this little space lately and I'm sorry. And while I'd love to use the excellent excuse of, "I'm pregnant and sick and tired! Give me a break!" I actually feel totally normal and really kind of great. So sorry for not having a good reason other than not really having much to write about. And I haven't gotten the camera out much lately either. I've been a bad, bad blogger. But I'm sure things will shape up soon. Perhaps.

Till then, here's a picture to add to the collection of Zachary Sleeping in Random and Socially Unacceptable Places:

This was taken at Quinn's singing concert where the children would be singing almost unnoticably at one point and then suddenly burst out into an ear splitting, "ONE!! TWO!! FREE STRIKES YOU'RE OUT!!..." I don't know how he does it. And note that while he slept through most of the other performances, he was wide awake for Quinn's.

For more chances to marvel at my husbands amazing talent, see here and here.

Now I'm going to go wrangle up my children that have escaped outside since I've been typing this. Both are barefoot, and the littler one is wearing just a lime green diaper. That's probably due (or more like past due) for a change.

A bad blogger AND a bad mother...

hands down

2011-05-13T20:03:00.002-06:00

Most frustrating,annoying and all too often occuring senario in the world:

We all sit down to dinner together. Mama and Papa have baked chicken with bbq sauce and a spinach salad with strawberries, cucumbers, mushrooms and homemade dressing. The boys have homemade chicken nuggets, cucumbers with dip and strawberries. Max has a great time stacking all of his food into towers, eating a little here and there. Quinn eats all of his strawberries.

Quinn: "I want more strawberries."

Mama: "You can have more strawberries once you eat your cucumbers."

Quinn: "I don't want my cucumbers. I just want strawberries."

Mama: "I would love to get you some more strawberries as soon as you eat your cucumbers."

He complains some more, whines, and then is quiet for a bit. Then...

Quinn: "I don't want to eat this. I'm going to go play with my cars."

Mama: "Quinn, if you don't eat this then you will be going to bed with a hungry belly and that would be very sad. I'm not making you anything else to eat. Do you understand?"

Quinn: "Yeah, I don't want to eat. I'm done."

Mama: "Quinn, when the long hand on the clock gets to the 10 we're going to go read stories and go to bed. If you don't eat anything by then you'll be going to bed without food. Do you understand??"

Quinn: "Yeah, I don't want it."

Mama: "Quinn, Papa is going to eat your food, is that ok with you? I'm not going to make you anything else, ok??"

Quinn: "Papa can eat my food. I don't want anything. I just want to play."

Mama and Papa have a lovely time chatting and finishing dinner while Quinn and Max play with cars on the other side of the room. 10 minutes pass.

Mama: "Ok boys! The clock is on the 10, that means it's time to go read books! Let's go pick out which books you want Papa to read!!"

Quinn: "Can I have somethin'?"

Mama: "Quinn, remember when we told you that you needed to eat your food or else you would go to bed with a hungry belly? Remember when you said you didn't want anything? Remember when you said that Papa could eat your food?"

Quinn: "But I need somethin' to eat! I'm hungry!! I'M HUNGRY!!! I WANT SOME DINNER!!! I DIDN'T GET ANY DINNER!!!!"

Mama considers whether or not she could punch her fist through the wall.

The end.

Except not really because as I walked out of his room:

Quinn: "Can I have somethin'?"

Mama: "Nope. Love you. Goodnight!"

Quinn: "MAMA!!!! MAAAMMAAAAAA!!!!"

etc. etc........

Let the games begin.

spring tops 2011

2011-05-10T17:54:00.003-06:00

So here I am, entering contests again. Last year I entered Made By Rae's Spring Top sewing challenge, and actually got one of my shirts into the finals. It was super fun, but a little crazy too. The battle for votes was a little nuts, and in the end I got booted out. But I sewed a bunch of shirts for myself that I still wear now (some of them), so that's a plus.
I wasn't going to enter this year and instead just see what everyone else came up with, but when they extended the deadline by one day I thought, "I could sew a couple of shirts in a day...." So, yeah... That's what I've been up to the past two days.

These are my tops. I may do a big post about them on my sewing blog (I have a sewing blog??), but for now you can just look at them and tell me how pretty they are. Or how pretty I am from the neck to the hips (ooh la la!).

And sorry that you can't see my baby bump at all. Between me and my friends Launa and Kelsie, we decided that I'm not yet fat enough to be calling these "maternity tops", so I'm sucking it in. A lot.

I'll keep you posted on the status of the shirts in the contest and if these get any nods, rest assured that I'll be back here vying for your votes. To see my competition, click here. Cheers!

for lack of better ideas...

2011-05-05T11:21:00.009-06:00

I just wrote a whole post about Max burning his hand on the stove top. Then I decided that all the blistery, oozing details were a little too gross.

Instead, here's a picture of it the day after it happened:

Aren't you so ready for me to stop being pregnant/sick yet? Yeah, me too.

Well, not the pregnant part. Just the sick part.

the good, the bad, and the ugly

2011-04-28T11:16:00.011-06:00

Recent good decisions:

*Visiting my brother and his family over Easter. It was nearly perfect. If Max had slept there like he does at home, it would have been perfect. The little nerd.

*Putting white curtains up in my bedroom (after Max pulled down the dark red ones with the curtain rod coming down on his head, causing him to fall out of the window and onto the bed on top of me. I would have felt bad for him if it hadn't been so hilarious). It's suddenly so light and airy in there, all I can think about is how excited I am to paint the whole room bright white.

*Bunk beds. For the boys - not me and Zach. They love them and have slept (for the most part) like champs.

*Eating Oreo's with milk and watching Salt with Zach last night. What an exhausting movie! I'm sure adrenaline alone worked off a few of those Oreo's. Not really.

*Selling a few things on ebay and making $30. Sweeeet.

Recent not-so-good decisions:

*Being impatient and choosing "Buy it now" instead of bidding and spending way too much on a pair of Keen sandals for Quinn that ended up not fitting. Ugh.

*Getting behind on laundry and the organizing of my closet. I feel like I'll never catch up at this point. I may have to play the, "Sorry Zach, I'm pregnant and scatterbrained and I need your help to put the house back together and then I promise I'll keep up with it from now on" card. He's so much better at it than I am.

Excited about:

*Being 4 months pregnant today. ALMOST halfway there.

*Summer. Always.

*My sister-in-law giving me a ton of maternity pants, shirts, and skirts (including one from my other sister-in-law that I've borrowed for both previous pregnancies and makes me so happy that I may have cried a little bit when I saw it). Many thanks to Mandi and Taya for helping me not feel so fat anymore.

*Sleeping! Sleep and I have overcome our differences and we are, once again, so happy together.

Making:

*Pretty throw pillows for the couches. Pictures to come. Maybe.

*Home improvement plans - big and small. Replacing the TV that we bought for $100 8 years ago? Yes please. Finishing the boy's room? Soon!! Tearing up the CARPET in the kitchen?? I'm still trying to convince Zach on that one...

*Food again. I can finally cook food again. And eat it. This was the first meal I had made in a long time and I (once again) cried a little bit while eating:

Loving:

*That both of my boys came to me today asking me to paint their toe nails.

*This picture of Quinn with a very pregnant cat:

*Zach, as always, falling asleep anywhere. This time, at my brother's mother-in-law's house, in the basement, on the floor, with his head under the bed. It is a gift:

*A fun new way of travelling around Ikea:

*AND a fun new game to play at Ikea - Where's Quinner?

That's all I've got for you. I'll try to stay more updated, but I can't make any promises. It takes a lot of time and effort to do nothing all day long. And we're working hard (I mean, I'm working hard) to do just that. So, you know. See ya around.

little letters

2011-04-15T11:27:00.006-06:00

Dear Cold/Flu/Pregnancy,
You kicked my butt this week. And way to switch it up and confuse me: Deathly ill and in bed all day Monday, burst of energy and feeling productive on Tuesday, back in bed on Wednesday, feeling absolutely fantastic on Thursday, and now totally gross again on Friday. I think you're rude.

Dear Sewing Machine,
I miss you. But I also want to replace you. Sorry. Not really.

Dear Dude on KSL.com,

You posted the exact bunk beds we've been looking at for $100 bucks last night ($250 less than what we were about to pay for new). I really hope that the lady you thought might show up, doesn't. And if she doesn't, I really hope you keep your word and save them for us. I'll call you at 4.

Dear Sunshine,

You look divine. I wish I could be outside enjoying you. Instead I'm inside, wrapped in a blanket, feeling icky and about to watch America's Next Top Model and fold three loads of laundry.

Dear Laughing Cow Cheese and Wheat Thins,

You complete me.

Dear Max,

I'm so proud of you for sleeping like a champ your first night in a "big boy bed" last night. You never got out once. Way to go. Also, I'm sorry our version of a "big boy bed" is really just your crib mattress on the floor in the corner of the room. Thank you for thinking that even that was the greatest thing ever.

Dear Quinn,

You make huge messes. But you say funny things, so I guess I'm ok with it. And I love you a whole lot. My only request: Please stop yelling at me.

Dear Me,

Being pregnant is hard. It won't last for ever. Soon you'll feel great and have muscle tone in your arms and legs again. And you'll sleep again. I promise, you will sleep again.

Dear Zachary,

You are my hero. I love you more than Laughing Cow Cheese and Wheat Thins.

Dear Baby Cowan,

I kind of think you're a girl. But if you're a boy, I'm REALLY sorry. Blame it on your brothers. They're pretty insistent that you're a girl.

Dear Juli (and everyone else),

These are my new shoes. I love them. And I love endless.com.

Dear Team Sigg, I loved you being here. Come more. This was one of my favorite parts:

Dear Friday,

I hope to be able to better enjoy you as the day goes on. I'm trying. I really am.

a pregnant list

2011-04-07T10:19:00.008-06:00

fyi: if you read this entire monster, then I'll know you really love me. or are really bored. in which case, I know how you feel. because I just wrote this.

1. Yes, I am indeed pregnant. Sorry, I guess that last post was a little confusing for a few people. ;) I'm due Oct. 13th. It'll be a few more weeks before we find out the gender, but the Chinese calendar says it's a girl (yikes).

2. I don't usually get "morning sickness" when I'm pregnant. I've never thrown up due to pregnancy (twice due to the flu while pregnant, and once on a plane during the landing while pregnant... yes, it was embarrassing, but I felt great afterwards). I don't know if I had a flu at the beginning of this one, or if it was baby induced, but I was SICK. So sick that when one of my friends called and asked if she could bring us dinner, I burst into sloppy, sobbing tears (sorry Heather. And thank you!). I was pretty pathetic. Still no throwing up, but lots of sitting in front of the toilet hoping to throw up. And lots and LOTS of child ignoring.

3. The worst side effect to my pregnancies is the inability to sleep. Seriously, it's killing me. And it's not because I'm uncomfortable or sick or because I've napped all day.... I have simply lost the ability to sleep. Here's a breakdown of a typical night's sleep:
-Go pee at least twice while getting ready for bed. Get in bed between 10:30 and 11:30.
-Zach falls asleep immeadiately. I lay awake for at least a half an hour, get up to pee (again), and then go to sleep.
-If no boys wake up crying, I MIGHT sleep till maybe 2 or 3 (but usually, they wake up crying for something..... don't get me started on that one....).
-Then I lay awake. Probably get up and pee. Get something to eat. Lay awake some more.
-Want to cry when Zach's alarm goes off at 5:30 and I realize I've been awake for hours. Get up and pee, and try to go back to sleep.
-Fall asleep around the time that Zach leaves for work, maybe before. That's at about 7.
-Wake up when the boys start making noises - usually between 8:30 and 9 (and yes, THANK GOODNESS they've been late sleepers lately).
-Spend the rest of the day feeling like a zombie and apologizing to my children for not being a very fun mom.

4. I've tried taking half a Unisom before bed to help me sleep, but it doesn't really help much. It makes it easier to fall back to sleep in the night, but it makes it REALLY hard to wake up in the morning. Maybe if I went to bed at 8. But that's just not going to happen. Actually, after last night, I could probably be in bed by 8 tonight. I feel like my brain has been replaced by a fishbowl.

5. Names. I LOVE thinking about baby names. And for this one I have some serious specifications. Here's the deal - In our little family of four we've used every letter of the alphabet in our names except for B, D, P, and V. Crazy, right? So I think it would be fun to use those (and I think we'll have at least one more kid after this one, so we don't have to use all four letters on this baby). Also, Quinn and Max both have songs that go with their names. Here's Quinn's (It was written by Bob Dylan, but his version doesn't seem to be on youtube. boo.). And here's Max's. And yes, it's also where we got our dog's name from (Edison). According to my brother Christian, Quinn The Eskimo is referring to a cocaine dealer. And Maxwell... well it's pretty clear from the song. He liked to kill people with hammers. So you can see that we don't really care what the song is about... We have a list of names that meet all the requirements, but we're still taking suggestions. And we'll most likely have to meet the little nugget before we settle on a name.

6. When I was pregnant with Max we had narrowed it down to three names that we loved: Jude, Julian and Oliver. The moment he was born I knew that none of those names were HIS name. After a day of tossing around names I said, "I kinda like Max??" And Zach said, "Huh, that's kind of cool. How about Maxwell?" (Zach loves Neal A. Maxwell. When Max was born he was posterior, AKA: face-up. Once he came out our midwife said, "Ah, a star gazer!" which I thought was so sweet (even though it hurt like....). Zach thought it was fitting to name our little star gazer after one who "looks to the Heavens". That man, he's got such a way with words....). Anyways, Max seemed to fit right away. This is one of my favorite pictures from the hospital:

7. We picked the name Quinn pretty early before he was born. Zach's little brother had a friend named Quinn and we just thought it sounded cool. But I had a hard time going through the whole pregnancy KNOWING his name would be Quinn. I thought that took some of the fun out of the name. And I even had another name that I seriously considered right up to the point where I was filling out his birth certificate. I kept saying, "But Zach, what if Quinn isn't his name??" And Zach said, "Trust me Katie, it's his name." And thank goodness Zach stuck to his guns. The other name was "Jonas". Talk about a dodged bullet.

8. Still, I love the name Jonas. And this is a good enough reason. Dangit, I love it. And if it weren't for Brangelina, I would probably seriously consider the name Shiloh. I think Zach has ruled out the name Lady. I don't really blame him. But seriously, it could be cute. I'm not going to give away the names we're serious about. I like the surprise.

9. We like to pick out a "womb name" to refer to the baby before it's born. We called Quinn "Boots" before he was born, and both of our families tried to convince us to name him Boots. Throughout the whole pregnancy we could hardly imagine calling him anything else. Luckily, once he was born it didn't even cross our minds. It's not even one of his nicknames. Max's womb name was "Kubbie" and was picked out by one of Zach's seminary students. He handed out little pieces of paper to all of his students and asked them to write down a boy womb name and a girl womb name. There were some hilarious suggestions, but we liked Kubbie the best. And it stuck a little bit longer than Boots did. We used it as a nickname for a little while after he was born but it eventually faded away.

10. We've been asking Quinn what he thinks we should name the baby (which he insists is a girl). He didn't say anything for a long time. Just vetoed any names we suggested. But the other day he told me that we should name the baby "Harriett". And he's not budging. Max is even in on it and they both refer to my belly as Harriett. Baby Harriett. What do you think? Know any Harriett songs? ;)

gotcha

2011-04-01T00:00:00.001-06:00

Just thought I'd let everyone know....

I'm totally NOT pregnant.

April Fools! :)

this is how I feel today

2011-03-31T15:18:00.001-06:00

And even though I know it'll probably snow (a few more times) before spring is here for good, I'm still celebrating. In fact, I may even have a sunburn. BEST. NEWS. EVER.

awkward

2011-03-23T10:11:00.008-06:00

We remodeled our living room. It looks great. Very functional. There's a place for everything and everything is in it's place. Just like I've always wanted.

It's probably a little tacky, but we haven't taken off any price tags yet. And for the life of us, we can't seem to get that darn TV to work... Oh well.

Although it was really weird the other night - We were all sitting here, enjoying our new living room, when this couple came out of no where, barged into our living room and without even a "hey, howya doin'," started taking measurements of our entertainment center! Then they just walked out as if it was totally normal! I swear. Some people just don't have a clue. Rude much??

Is it just us, or has this ever happened to anyone else?

chump

2011-03-21T10:56:00.005-06:00

So, I posted a video of my brother on the day before his birthday.
Did I acknowledge that it was going to be his birthday the next day? No.
Did I say how awesome it is that, not only does he have an amazing voice, but he can also transform it to sound just like Neil Diamond? No.
Did I mention how cool it is that he brought a microphone to the beach simply so that he could plug it into a cd player and sing?? No.
And last, but not least, did I even call him on his birthday?? No!!

(fyi - I'm the worst at remembering and acknowledging birthdays. I totally forgot Max's first birthday. luckily, he won't remember)

Anyways, I felt bad that I posted that video and mentioned everyone in the video BESIDES the awesome singer on the day before his birthday. Bad form.
So I'm going to attempt to make up for it by posting a video of a video - yes, that is my living room you can see in the reflection (ew, and me for a couple of seconds. creepy).
This is 8 years ago at the "after party" of mine and Zach's wedding reception. We brought out the karaoke machine just for the close family and friends.
I don't know for sure, but I think this is where Ben's karaoke kick began. He sang a few songs that night, but my favorite is when he and I collaborated on a little Coolio.
Don't be jealous. Our lyrics are bottomless....

ben and kat and coolio from katie cowan on Vimeo.

Happy birthday brother. Taya - Let Ben know I didn't forget him entirely. I assume he's not a reader of my blog since I don't write about submarines.

it's friday

2011-03-18T09:32:00.010-06:00

Update on that last post - We left the house when there were just a couple of minutes left in the game and BYU was up 10 points. When we got to the party there were only 3 people there. Two of them were the bishop and his wife. And they had the game pulled up on their laptop. Once the game ended everyone else came. We had 12 people in all and we had a great time playing badminton. Best part - Zach stinks at badminton. And I don't. I didn't know either of those things before last night.

The cake - after trying to give away as much as possible. "Thanks for babysitting! Can I pay you in cake?"

I've been wanting to make a cake like this for a while. I don't know if it was worth it (it took 4 hours!). But at least I can say I did it now. And should I ever want to make one again, I know what to do and what to change. For instance, if a cake is green, it should probably taste green. I think it could have used a little bit of a lemony-lime type flavor. That would have been nice.

And now it's not even 10:30 in the morning and me and the boys have each had a piece. Gross. But that's what Fridays are for, right? No, it's just gross.

And now, something to make you smile through the weekend. A video that I watch all the time that reminds me that summertime is just a little ways away. This is my family:

(favorite parts: having to wipe the fog off the lens because of the humidity, Taya getting goosed, Mom suggesting that Ben should be the next American Idol, and Christian's feet through the whole movie (he's on the guitar). and sorry for the kiddos running around in their underwear - we were at the beach!)

Untitled from katie cowan on Vimeo.

crunch time

2011-03-17T18:57:00.004-06:00

Can I write a random list in 15 minutes? Let's see.

1. We have a "grown-ups only" ward party starting right now. I'm not there because it's March Madness and there's a game on that will be over in a little while and this is the only time of year that Zach's allowed to be ridiculous. He went to a friend's house to finish the game. All I can say is, at least he took the boys with him. Because when I asked him what he thought of the steak I made him for dinner he said, "It's not bad."

2. It's once a year. For a few weeks. And like my motto for natural childbirth, "You can do anything for a day (or a few weeks). You could sit here with your leg cut off for a day (or a few weeks)." Ok, probably not for a few weeks. I'm just saying - This too shall pass.

3. I made a green cake today. I'll show you tomorrow.

4. I tried out couponing for the first time yesterday. Like, big time couponing. I checked ads, made a very thorough list... It took a while just to get ready to leave the house. I went to Wal-Mart because they will price-match anywhere. And guess what? I didn't even have to show them the ads. I just wrote on sticky notes how much stuff was someplace else, and they totally took my word for it. It was actually a little scary how easy that part was. Unfortunately the scanner wouldn't accept all my coupons. But I still saved quite a bit. $9.50 just from coupons alone (for things like cereal, make-up, shampoo...) and at least ten more dollars from the price matching. So that's pretty handy. I guess I'll keep it up. But next time, I'm not taking the rugrats with me.

5. It snowed today. Blegh.

6. I stumbled onto a blog through another blog the other day, and after reading for a minute, I realized she lives in my home town. And after reading a little more, I realized she was in the same ward as my parents and brother. And after chatting with her through comments, found out that she and her husband have dinner with my brother and his wife weekly. And my brother is their home teacher. Crazy, right? She's cute, check her out.

7. The husband is home. We can go now. Not bad for 15 minutes, aye? Later gatorz.

what we're watching on repeat today

2011-03-16T12:46:00.002-06:00

And it has nothing to do with botflies.

dapper dan(s)

2011-03-14T09:57:00.006-06:00

I bought a suit for Max for $4 at DI on Saturday. Machine washable and everything. He loved it once we told him he had a suit just like Papa's. He wore it on Sunday and everyone who saw him laughed. It was great, except I felt a little bad when Quinn said, "Everybody's laughing at you Max!" Oh well, he doesn't know. And I think it's the right of a parent to dress their children in ridiculous/adorable/hilarious clothes for as long as they will let you.

I had a hard time getting them to smile for this picture (since I made them stop digging in the dirt for a minute) but once I said, "You look like little *BOTFLIES!" they both cracked up.

And here's Mad Max 5 minutes later when I told him we needed to go inside and change out of his suit and into some play clothes (so he could get back to dirt digging). This is the face that will haunt my dreams:

(click it for a better view)

*Don't know what a botfly is? You probably don't want to. But if you're not squeemish, here's a little info about them (this is the human botfly variety - scroll down to read about them). And if you're down right curious/strong-stomached/kind-of-a-sicko, there's a whole slew of videos on youtube of them being removed (I'm talking to you, Juli). There's one I'd recommend, but I'm not going to link to it on here because I would probably lose some followers. If you're desparate to see it, email me. It's the grossest thing I've ever seen. Even worse? Quinn saw the last half of the video (after the larva has been removed), and then asked to show it to Papa when he got home from work. He wasn't quite ready for the first half (while it's being removed) and nearly threw up. Really. That's my bad mothering moment of the week. But he's fine now and he and Max run around all day calling each other botflies now. Which is every parent's dream.

last week

2011-03-08T10:48:00.006-07:00

The boys did a whole lot of this:

I miss the random sleeping in even more random places and the 7pm bedtimes.

I do not miss the towels draped over every inch of the living room, the rotating barf bowls, and the endless loads of laundry.

Looking forward to getting back to normal. Whatever that is.....

this moment

2011-03-04T09:41:00.001-07:00

Inspired by SouleMama.

out of the office

2011-03-01T12:23:00.002-07:00

We will return to our regular blogging schedule once we quit tossing our cookies around here.

Till then, a beautiful remake of a beautiful song. And I love the video. Doesn't it remind you of motherhood? ;)

P.S. Speaking of motherhood, Happy Birthday to my wonderful mother. I didn't do anything fun for her this year (I'm a bad seed) but here's what we did last year. Maybe it's good enough to carry over?

this moment

2011-02-25T10:37:00.008-07:00

Inspired by SouleMama

8 years

2011-02-22T11:45:00.003-07:00

Sunday was our 8 year anniversary. It was a good day. Actually, it was a good few days. Zach's parents came on Friday and picked up the boys and took them home with them while Zach and I went up north to eat at Rodizio Grill (they bring you a different kind of meat on a huge skewer every two minutes!! I was stuffed after 15 minutes. And I haven't felt the same since.... It was really fun and super yummy, but we probably won't eat there again)(oh, and the grilled pineapple was for sure my favorite). Then we walked around Ikea, got some ice cream and headed home. Sleeping in the next morning was amazing, although I couldn't sleep without turning our extra sound machine on. I'm so used to hearing the boys ocean waves all night that now I can't sleep without it. What a mom. Then we headed to Zach's parents and spent the weekend there. And gorged ourselves on more delicious food. We have little self control when it comes to food.

************

When Zach and I met I was 18 and he was 21. He had been home from his mission for 7 months and had come to N.C. to sell pest control for the summer. I had just sent my "boyfriend" on his mission about a week earlier. Zach and I met in early June at the church one night where all the guys were playing basketball. I had just gone on a date with another guy (yeah, my mourning period for the boyfriend was a little short...) and we went there afterwards so he could play ball and I could visit with the other girlfriends. Zach walked in and came over to where I was and introduced himself as Zachary, and (since he already knew my name) insisted that we had met before. Which was a lie. After arguing over it a bit he told me that he had actually memorized everyone's names out on the bulletin board in the foyer. Which is also a lie - He had actually memorized the names of the girls that he thought were cute. What a guy. We chatted a few other times at church on Sundays, and at one point he told me that he loved the south because he didn't have any boogers and his elbows were super soft (he even made me feel his elbows to prove it). Now how could I not be interested?? The thing that really sealed the deal though was when I went to a dance there at the single's ward and saw him dancing. With no one in particular. All over the room. See, there are some guys that dance because they think they look good, and some that dance in order to be close to the ladies. Zach was dancing because he loves to dance. At one point during the dance I grabbed my friend Kevin and said, "You see that guy over there? Zach? The one that just did a toe touch? I'm gonna get me some of that."

Zach and I went on our first date a few days after that. It was such a fun date and he was so different from other guys I'd gone out with. He was kind to everyone that we interacted with. He talked to strangers and made them laugh. He had no inhibitions. He was silly. He wasn't trying to impress me. He was being totally himself. And I was hooked.

After two weeks we had said "I love you," and my whole family was telling me how stupid I would be if I didn't marry him. He would knock on doors all day long and then hurry to my house as soon as he could. Despite being together nearly every day I still worried that he would go back to Utah and we would never talk again and it would be summed up as a "summer fling". Thankfully that wasn't the case. He went home in August and we talked every day. Almost constantly. He bought a little earphone thing for his phone (before everyone had them) so he could talk to me and work (mix paint) at the same time. I went out to Utah at the beginning of September and met his family. The day I got there we stayed up super late talking about everything and at one point I said, "Why don't you just propose right now?" And he did. He came back out to N.C. a few weeks after that to give me the ring and really propose. We were married 5 months later.

There's never been a point in our dating and marriage that I've felt anything but lucky to have Zach. He's still everything that he was on that first date. One of the things I admire about him is his sense of perspective. It's not often that he makes decisions based on the "right now". He considers the future constantly. This is a good thing since I sometimes have the perspective of a 4 year old.

Now don't get me wrong - we're not perfect. When we first got married I thought we were totally alike. And in a lot of ways we are. But in many, many MORE ways we're completely different. That was difficult for a while. But we've figured out that we can be different and do our own things, but when we're together we choose to do the things that we both enjoy. We often don't agree about things, but have decided that in a lot of cases it's better to be united than to be right. We argue, we bug each other, we give each other the silent treatment.... but we try really hard not to say things that are hurtful and mean. It's funny because I thought that after being married for a few years we would have each other totally figured out and it would be smooth sailing from there. But that's not the case. We're both constantly changing and evolving and there's always something we have to stop and figure out. And that's ok. It's ok for things to be hard sometimes because we were made to be able to do hard things. We get through them and come out stronger on the other side.

And I love that man. Even though he brought me out here where I live with an excess of boogers and dry elbows. I've always said, It doesn't matter where we go, as long as we're together.

And... I think I've filled my quota for lovey dovey, cheesiness, and definitely for post length (for the rest of the year). Geez. And all I really wanted to do was show off that cute picture at the top.

Anyways, Happy Anniversay Zachary. Even though you won't read this unless I tell you to. ;)

we have a winner!

2011-02-15T09:07:00.003-07:00

First, let me just tell you all thank you for entering my giveaway and following and making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. You sure know how to make a girl feel special.

Next - I picked the winner through Random. org after midnight on Sunday night, and before clicking "generate" I seriously felt like I was going to throw up and pee my pants and cry all at the same time (which, if I did throw up AND pee my pants at the same time, I probably would cry. wouldn't you?). I wish I could give something to everyone. I enter giveaways and EVERY TIME I think, "THIS will be the one that I win. It's going to be ME this time!!" And then it never is.... So for all you losers out there - just know that I know how you're going to feel in about 20 seconds. Sorry. It's a bummer. It really is.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, how about I move to the fun part and make someone's day? (Not saying that winning my little giveaway and getting the scarf is grounds for having your day "made" or anything. but it could help).

And I know the winner is going to be excited because here's what she said:

"Sweet! I'm entering...I love contests, even though I never win!"
The winner is Bree!!

Congrats missy! I'll get it to you in the next couple of days! It'll be easy since you most likely live within 5 minutes from me.... Gotta love a small town!

Seeing someone win that is a self proclaimed "loser" (in the non-winning sense or course) makes me feel like there's hope in the world for all of us losers. "So you're saying there's a chance!" (movie trivia. dang, I'm on one lately)

This was fun. I may have to do it again. But first, I think one of you should have a giveaway and let me win. Let me tell you - I would be the best winner ever. Seriously.

K, I'm gonna go fold a crazy amount of laundry and think about how happy I am right now. Hope you all have a great Tuesday. And again, congrats Bree!

(parentheses)

2011-02-14T12:31:00.005-07:00

We don't do much for Valentine's Day around here. With our anniversary so close to it, it makes sense to skip it. Although Zach is very mindful of the fickle nature of women (or just me), and makes sure to ask me every year if we're doing anything for Valentine's Day. He's smart.

So here's my nod to this Day For Lovers - A playlist of (love)songs from some of our favorite movies. My sister Juli helped me (Erin - I tried calling! You didn't answer. I can't imagine why you would possibly be busy...) (Erin has 6 kids) (And she's hot) (Juli's hot too) (And so's Zach. I thought I should throw that in there since it's Valentine's Day and not Brag About Your Sisters Day).

Enjoy (as if you weren't already). (p.s. I won't tell you what movies and we'll see if you can guess. Juli - give someone a chance for at least a day or two)

And one more that I couldn't find on grooveshark:
The Very Thought Of You - Billy Holiday

Happy Monday everyone! I'm looking forward to seeing if you can guess the movies.

p.s. Giveaway winner will be announced soon!!! Tonight? Tomorrow?? Probably tomorrow. :)

pssst...

2011-02-12T14:39:00.002-07:00

Tomorrow is the last day to enter my AMAZING giveaway. That was fast. Did you think that was fast?? I thought that was fast. (movie trivia)

So if you want a shot, head back to that post and leave me a comment. Or become a follower. Or leave me a comment letting me know you're already a follower.... I know, it was confusing when I explained all that the first time. So here's what I did, assuming everyone who commented and was already a follower, or became a follower wanted two entries: Entry/comment #1 was from Breeanna. Breeanna also became a follower, so that act is entry #2. Larin's comment was entry #3, and becoming a follower is entry #4. I have it all written down on a little cheat sheet so I know who is who.

There are a couple of you who became followers but didn't comment. I didn't count that as an entry at all and just assumed you didn't want my stinking scarf (that's just a figure of speech. it is in no way stinky. i promise). So if any of you wanted a chance at the giveaway go back and leave a comment.

I'll be clearer on everything next time.

NEXT TIME??? There's going to be a NEXT TIME???!!!!

Yeah, I don't know. We'll see.

Anyways, consider yourself reminded. Of how awesome you all are. And of the giveaway.

10 things

2011-02-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

Today seems like a good day for a random list of things. Don't you think?

1. Today I'm going to do the laundry. I have two full loads to do. And I'm doing the white load first. Usually I do the white loads last because I really enjoy folding the colored loads and looking at our boys cute little clothes. But then I end up leaving the white load in the drier for days and restarting it over and over again to get the wrinkles out of Zach's shirts. And then I forget to take them out... again.... A vicious cycle, it is. So I'm switching it around, hoping I'll get the whites done quick so I can get to the fun/cute colored ones. P.S. Talking about "whites" and "coloreds" is making me feel weird.

2. Also about laundry - I use three different kinds of laundry detergent for all of our different kinds of laundry. Regular detergent for the whites (there it is again), the homemade detergent for the coloreds (racist!), and Charlie's Soap for Max's cloth diapers. This seems excessive to me. But I've come to the conclusion that despite it's excessiveness, it is necessary. And I'm ok with it.

3. I love cheese. I really, really do. Latest cheesy love: Laughing Cow's Creamy Swiss. Yesterday I had two wedges with some Wheat Thins and it was..... dreamy. Our boys love cheese too. The other day I made them noodles sprinkled with feta. They devoured it and asked for more (which never happens). I didn't think feta was a cheese that kids would be interested in, but my boys love it. Cute little weirdos.

4. I have strong feelings about socks and here they are: I don't know of any situation in my life where it would be necessary for me to wear plain white socks. Which is why I refuse to own plain white socks. Our boys have white socks, but only because I bought them with the intention of tie dying them and.... never got to it.... And it BOTHERS ME when I have to put those white socks on them. I've been building their supply of colorful socks and it brings me great joy. I could go into greater detail about this (and I have to a few close friends - amazingly they still love me), but it makes me sound like a huge meany, and I try to avoid doing that, so I'm just going to stop now.

5. I have a "favorites" list set up for Zach on etsy so that on any given occasion he can pick out something that he knows I'll love. Granted, (bless his heart) he's only done this once (he leaves gift buying to the last minute, which doesn't work if you're also going to have to factor in shipping). Nevertheless, I love that man. And we'll celebrate 8 years of marriage coming up on February 20th. We've looked over my favorites together, but I don't know what his plans are. One thing I do know - Wherever we are on our anniversary, we will be eating some really good food. Which I will not be cooking. Or cleaning up. And that is a gift in itself.

6. Also, let me just put it out there - When it comes me and Zach, he's a sucker, and I'm the lucky one. And he would want me to add this: I don't usually clean up dinner; he does. So the part about cleaning up in #5 doesn't exactly apply to me.

7. Yesterday I gave our boys haircuts. This is usually Zach's job. He uses the clippers. But I wanted to see what I could do with scissors. I practiced on Quinn first. He cried and complained most of the time. And it didn't turn out well at all (imagine uneven chunks of chopped hair all over his head. no, I didn't take a picture). I ended up having to even it all out with the clippers. For Max I just chopped off his mullet. It wasn't bad, but by the end of the day it was bothering me, so I braved the scissors yet again. And I don't think it's half bad. I figured out how to layer it without it looking chopped. I have to say - both boys are much cuter today than they were yesterday. ;)

8. I've got 23 entries for my giveaway so far. Do I even need to tell you how happy this makes me? I love how you all humor me. You're the best. And I would say to spread the word, but I never do that if I enter a giveaway that I really want to win. Are you kidding me? Purposefully lower my chances to win? Yeah right. So I don't blame you.

9. I interviewed Quinn the other day and recorded it. It's pretty cute. After I was finished I let him interview me, and I thought he would ask me all the same questions, but he came up with a few of his own. My favorites: "Do you like peanut butter?" and "Where is your favorite place to sleep?"

10. Yesterday I was getting ready to use the bathroom when Quinn ran in and said, "I gotta pee!!" I said, "Well you better hurry up, 'cause I gotta go too." He thought about that for a minute and then said, "You wanna play swords??" Don't you love the things that our husbands teach our kids?

Happy Thursday! Time to change over the laundry. Woohoo for those coloreds! :)

here's the part where I embarrass myself. (giveaway closed)

2011-02-08T13:44:00.015-07:00

So, I'm going to do a giveaway! And every part of that sentence terrifies me a little bit. This could play out a number of ways:

1. You could all laugh at me and say, "Who do you think you are? Oprah??"

2. You could all laugh at me and say, "What made you think anyone would want something you made??

3. My husband could laugh at me.

4. You could all laugh at me and say, "That's ugly. And so are you. And so are your kids." (just kidding. that last part would never happen)

5. You could all enter, and then someone would win, and I would forget or be lazy and never send it to them and it would get really awkward and I would probably never blog or talk to that person ever again. Yikes!

6.You could all enter, and then someone would win, and I would send it to them, and we'd all go about our lives as if nothing ever happened (except for the person who won. their life would never be the same. in a good way).

I like to consider all the possibilities before jumping into anything.

So here's the deal. My lovely friend (and fashion guru) Launa was wearing a scarf the other day that I loved. When she took it off and showed it to me she said it was an "eternity scarf," a fancy way of saying that it was a big strip of fabric sewn into a circle that you loop around your neck. Genius. As she held it up I did that thing like robots do when they're figuring something out and you see everything like they see them: measurements, weight of fabric, possible variations... And then I remembered that I wasn't a robot....

Anyways, so I made one. And I have enough fabric to make another one. And so I'd like to give one away. And what better way to do that than by shamelessly getting people to admit that, 1) They like me, they really like me! And, 2) Follow me. Yowzers, that last one sounds serious....

And you may or may not know this, but I have serious issues with taking pictures of myself. It's painful. It's embarrassing. I feel like a big, huge dweeb. So I had to make this as fun for me as possible. And sunglasses seemed to do the trick. So here's the scarf and the many ways you could fashion it around that pretty little neck of yours:

Looped twice and laid back, yo (this is how I wear it):

Looped three times and worn as a disguise, (sneaky sneaky)

or to keep your neck (and face) warm if it's super cold outside (this picture makes me laugh):

Simply hung around your neck all lazy-like (but I wouldn't recommend making that face. if you've ever seen the movie Empire Records, I was harnessing my inner Warren. and I would have taken a better picture where the scarf looked a little nicer, but I was really paranoid that maybe my neighbor could see me, so I was trying to hurry. ):

But no matter how you wear it, it'll be hard not to look like this:

'Cuz that's how it'll make you feel. Like a champ.

So here's how you get two, (2), TWO! entries:

1. Leave a comment on this post. Any comment. And come on, don't be shy. We're all friends here.

2. Be or become a follower to my silly little blog. (I'm adding that part simply because it makes me super happy when I get new followers. that's the part where my husband laughs at me)

Leave one comment per entry like this:

comment #1. You're a big nerd, but I want that scarf.

comment #2. I'm a follower but only because you made me do it.

See? Easy peasy.

Oh, and the scarf is made out of the fabric that I got from Mood while I was in NYC. :) It's nothing too fancy, just a super thin, soft cotton. I love it. And really, I wear it almost every day.

So go enter. Giveaway ends on Sunday night (Feb. 13th) at midnight (or would that be considered Monday morning?? You know what I mean). Winner will be picked via Random.org and announced on Monday... Or Tuesday... And if I'm feeling super generous the winner may get a few more goodies in their package. :)

And for good measure, one more picture. With me being normal. Just so you know that wearing the scarf won't automatically make you act like an idiot. But what's with the hands on my hips??

My name is Katie and knowing that there's no one else on the other side of the camera makes me feel like a nerd.

possibly the saddest video you've ever seen

2011-02-08T10:02:00.004-07:00

A little background:

Max is on the phone with my mom.

She makes a suggestion of something for him to do.

You can see the exact moment when he decides that it's a great idea.

He agrees to do it (cutest "um, yeah!" ever).

Stands up.

At this point I think he's done talking to Nanny and now going to start playing with me, which I don't want him to do. I'm hoping to capture more of his sweet voice on video.

So I push him away.

Now, the video:

After he started crying he didn't want to talk anymore, so I took the phone back.

My mom said, "Why did he start crying???"

I said, "Because he tried to lay down on my face!! So I pushed him back onto my lap!"

And she said, "Oh.... I told him to give you a hug....."

And there's my mean mothering moment of the day.

I don't know how many times I've watched this video, but it makes me laugh every time. And then I feel like a jerk. And then I watch it again.

[guilty] pleasures

2011-02-04T10:48:00.007-07:00

I got a blog award from my friend Hailey (there's a funny story behind our relationship, but that's for another day), and as part of it I have to share four of my guilty pleasures. Geez, how am I ever going to come up with FOUR? No wait, what I mean is, how am I ever going to narrow it down to just FOUR?? (that picture is making me hungry) Let's get started.

Current guilty pleasures:

1) Playing Wii Frisbee Golf in the middle of the day (or the middle of the night) all by myself. It's by far my favorite game on Wii Resorts. And I even got Zach in on it. We've stopped watching shows on Netflix (we haven't even sent Despicable Me back yet!! We've had it for weeks!) and instead we compete against each other in Frisbee Golf every night. And here's the guilty pleasure part - Last night we went to the temple and then hung out with our friends and didn't get home till 10:30, put the boys in bed, cleaned up the house, and Zach went to bed at 11:30.... and I stayed up by myself and played two rounds. It was awesome. Awesome.

2) Trips to DI. I've actually been holding back big time, avoiding going into town at all (it's in the town 20 minutes from here), because I know I'll find a whole load of things that I'm sure I "need". It's hard because last time I was there I found a pair of pants from Delia's that fit perfectly, a cardigan I wear all the time, and a vintage pencil skirt that I wear every chance I get. So I'm still on that high, assuming that next time I go I'll find a ton more things that I love. I think about going every day. But I'm not letting myself. I'm waiting till we get our tax return, and then leaving the boys with a babysitter while I spend a few hours blissfully sifting through other peoples unwanted junk. I can hardly wait.

3) Letting the boys tear the house apart and eat cups of dry cereal while I lounge in bed reading. I just finished the book Matched and loved it. Now I'm heading into The Poisonwood Bible, and thankfully it's taking me some time to get into it. Still, I've got some serious vacumming to catch up on.

4) This dang screen. I tell myself every morning that "today is going to be a good day!! I'm going to be productive! I'm going to spend less time in front of the computer and MORE time playing and cooking and cleaning and sewing and everything else!!" But I will be the first to admit - I'm a slave to the computer. It is a pleasure that I for sure feel guilty about.

Sooo...... I have to admit that that wasn't quite as fun as I imagined it being..... Especially that last one. Now I just feel lazy..... and a little neglectful. BUT, I don't do those things every day. In fact, I haven't been to DI since BEFORE Christmas. And I haven't read for a couple of days. And (AND!) I washed diapers yesterday, and hung them to dry late last night, so today is automatically productive. K, I feel better now. But I'm seriously going to go clean the heck out of this house now (with a little help from my Neil Diamond station on Pandora. I highly recommend it). K, I'm outta here.

p.s. I'm supposed to share the award with 6 other bloggers, but I'm not feeling that generous today (in fact, I'm going to make 3 loaves of bread today, and I'm not going to take any of them to any of my friends), so I'm just going let you all know that I'll be looking forward to your guilty pleasures lists either on your blogs, or in the comments section. Do it.

p.s.s. Another assignment for you - Tell me how you'd feel about me doing a giveaway that included something that I made that you could wear? (dangit, maybe I am feeling a little generous....)

genius.

2011-02-01T21:04:00.004-07:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Gordita Supreme Court

http://www.colbertnation.com/

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

Video Archive

This is amazing. And hilarious. And disgusting. And disturbing. And yet still made me crave a big, nasty Burrito Supreme. And maybe a Meximelt. Dangit.

(Mmmmm, and a Mexican Pizza....)

a dose of crazy

2011-01-26T12:01:00.004-07:00

My sister and I were talking the other day about crazy thoughts that go through our heads sometimes. I know everybody's got some. And every once in a while you voice them to someone and they just stare at you, and then you go through the whole "crickets chirping" senario in the back of your mind... I got that once when I told my friends I felt totally capable of killing someone with my bare hands IF the need arose....

Anyways, Juli said she could dedicate an entire blog just to writing about her crazy thoughts (no one doubts that, Juli). But she's not going to do that, so I'm stealing her idea just for this post. Here's a little more crazy (my crazy, not Juli's..... Although that would be funny...):

*Do you ever feel bad for the bruised apples that no one ever picks at the grocery store? Juli brought up this idea. And it's true, I do feel bad for them. But I imagine them getting all excited, anticipating getting picked up, only to find that the shiny, unblemished guy next to them got picked instead. Do you think they feel empty? Useless? Like their one purpose in life will never be fulfilled? Sad, right? And maybe not normal to imagine that apples have feelings...

*Do you ever get the feeling like your being followed? Watched? About to be kidnapped? So then you go through the whole scenario in you head of what you'll do when they make their move to grab you: Gouge their eyes out. Bite until your teeth touch. Will yourself to throw up. Permantly maim them. Things like that. It's good to be prepared, just in case.

*I have issues with leaving carts out in the grocery store parking lot, and I always feel like I've done something good in the world when I put my cart away. And if I'm ever tempted to leave my cart out I always think, what if the person that's in charge of gathering all the carts is having a really bad day? And what if they think, "If one more STUPID MOM leaves their cart in the middle of this parking lot I'm going to BLOW THIS PLACE TO SMITHEREENS!!" See? How could I possibly leave my cart out after thinking something like that??

*I always obsess over booking plane tickets and picking my seats and all that because I always think, what if the plane goes down, and what if I happen to pick the seat (or seats if I'm travelling with Zach and the boys) that is in the perfect spot and I (or we) happen to survive the crash and they all say, "If she had picked anyplace else to sit she would have been a goner...."

*Another thing I obsess over lately is money. And how little of it we have and how MUCH of it other people have (like those SUPER rich people that seem to make money just by blinking). I imagine them paying off our house with a simple wave of their checkbook and changing our lives forever (not that money can buy our happiness, I'm just saying - it would be amazing). I hope there are really people that do huge random acts of life-changing kindness like that for others. And I like to think that I would be that kind of rich person. That's probably not a crazy thought.

*I really like wearing skirts casually, but I only do it either in the summer time, or if I'm pregnant. Any other time and I feel too fancy. Black also makes me feel too fancy. Red does too. I don't even own black church shoes. And yet I wear shiny, metallic silver flats nearly every Sunday and don't feel overly dressed up.

*I don't like making sandwiches for the boys for breakfast because it doesn't seem breakfast-y enough. YET, I've been known to eat spaghetti, pizza, chicken divan, and really any other leftovers for breakfast. I much prefer those things over typical breakfast foods. And that doesn't seem weird to me at all.

K, that's all I can think of right now. But I'd love to hear some of your crazy thoughts. You know you've got some. We won't laugh.

somewhere in my youth or childhood...

2011-01-19T12:40:00.004-07:00

I'm sick, Max is sick, and now Quinn is sick (and I'm guessing that Zach is beginning to feel it too, although he won't admit to it).

Just yesterday I was lamenting on facebook about how I wished Quinn was just a little bit sicker so that he would want to take a nap. They're both sleeping now (at 12:50 in the afternoon), and I'm only feeling a little bit guilty for wishing sickness on my child.

Now I'm going to go blow my nose and then climb back in bed with them. And start wishing for health.

p.s. Quinn refers to Gatorade as "gaterater," and Max just calls it "awigator" (for those not fluent in baby talk, that translates as "alligator").

what we're up to

2011-01-15T10:16:00.004-07:00

Reading (blog): this post that totally spoke to me (found via design mom). I feel grateful to have friends that I can call in those "emergencies" when you just need someone else to help you get through your day. And I feel even more grateful when I've been able to be the friend.

Reading (book): Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. To tell you the truth, I don't know whether I like it or not. It's interesting. It's weird. It's been a fairly quick read. But I'm not entirely moved by it or anything.

Watching: Despicable Me. Genius. Hilarious. Perfection. We've watched it over and over again. It's nice when you find a movie that both you and your little ones can laugh at together. This is definitely one of them.

Also watching: Heartbreaker. We loved it. Funny, romantic, great dialogue... It's french with subtitles. It says it's not rated, but I read a lot about it before we watched it to make sure there was nothing too bad. I'd say it was about the equivolent of a PG-13. (And now that I think about it, there are a few lines (like in every PG-13 movie) that you think, "Sick! Why did they even have to add that part???" Just a fair warning to anyone who watches it.)

Listening to: The Rumour Said Fire. They're Zach's latest discovery. Love harmonizing men with high voices. (I've recently concluded that I tend to like all music that includes men with high voices, harmonizing, accoustic guitar, tambourines and clapping. I'll have to do another post on this later)

Doing: Heading to Home Depot to pick out some paint for the boys' room! Pictures to follow?

Happy Saturday everyone!

And happy birthday Mandi! :)

on growing up

2011-01-11T15:20:00.005-07:00

I was totally unprepared for the emotions that came two Sundays ago when Quinn flashed me this:

That makes it official. He's growing up.

I watched this today and bawled my eyes out. It's one of those "I am a Mormon" clips (don't you love those?). It's sad, and also so, so sweet. The little boy reminds me of our little knucklehead. I love how his mom talks about him and describes him. There's nothing like a mother's love.

I'm working on better cherishing Quinn and how unique he is. He's his own kid. He's funny. He's creative. He's curious. He's tender. He's happy. He's beautiful (although I may be a little biased on that one).

I get frusterated with him sometimes because he doesn't do things like other kids (sit, for example...). But I'm trying really hard to embrace that about him. I want to appreciate that he's different. Because different is awesome. I need to better appreciate the fact that he's too excited about life to sit still. In fact, I could learn a few things from him.

considering

2011-01-06T16:27:00.004-07:00

I've been noticing that as I go throughout my day, trying to get things done amidst the mild chaos that is life with two little boys, I find myself measuring my tasks as either successes or failures. And, I'm sure, a million in betweens of, "I mostly got that done." Or, "Because of circumstances, that particular task became impossible, and that's ok."

I try to be realistic in my expectations of myself, so as to not set myself up for disappointment. There is nothing worse than being disappointed in yourself.

And I feel like at the end of my days I look back, and most days, feel that I could have done much, much better.

A nicer mom. A more appreciative wife. More diligent in my calling at church. A better neighbor. A more thoughtful friend.

It's tough! And the thing that always comes to mind is, "Simplify!!!" Isn't that a beautiful word?? That's the reason I didn't really do neighbor gifts this year. It's the reason I gave away my 50 free Shuttyfly cards. It's the reason I've given up the tv battle (Boys, do you want to watch tv all day long?? No problem!). And it's the reason why most people on my Christmas list this year got Astronaut Ice Cream....

What I need to do is change my idea of a success. It's different for everyone. And different for me at different times in my life. Heck, it's different for me at different times of the month (obviously).

So here is my current, this week, this day, idea of success. For me.

*Having at least a good idea of what we're having for dinner before Zach walks in the door = Success

*Making the bed before actually going to bed = Success

*Washing, drying, folding and putting away laundry all in one day = Major Success (I did this today. It was awesome)

*Reading scriptures, praying and having a minute of alone time before the boys wake up = Major Success (and very rare)

*Making the boys (and myself) a decent breakfast, lunch and dinner = Success

*Doing some chores that make the house appear cleaner than it was when Zach left in the morning = Success

*Being able to consider myself a nice mom at the end of the day = Success

*Having some good quality time with Zach after the boys go to bed = Success

Speaking of, that's what I'm going to do right now.

What do you consider a success?

this and that

2011-01-05T09:23:00.008-07:00

Christmas was wonderful. The boys were so excited about Christmas with everything leading up to it, I'm already looking forward to next year. Christmas with kids is the best.

We had a little Christmas with just us on the morning of the 23rd, and then headed to Zach's parent's house for the rest of the holiday. We had so much fun there that we ended up staying till the 2nd! And upon our leaving I'm sure they locked the door and slept for a week straight.

Is it just me, or is vacationing loads easier when you're not trying to make kids nap?? We found that Max would zonk out if we were in the car for more than 3 minutes, but then wake up happy and ready to play, and then pass out immeadiately when we layed him in his crib at night. And Quinn usually plays hard enough that bedtime isn't a problem ever (knock on wood). Yes, life is easier if you play with kids so much that there is no other option but to sleep at bedtime. Amazing.

Zach, on the other hand....

I know there are at least two other cameras with more pictures of Zach sleeping in different places on this trip. The man has a gift, and he's not hiding it under a bushel. And I guess, like father like son:

Awwww........

Anyways, since I'm not one for a big recap post, let's move on to 2011. These are my semi/somewhat/do-the-best-I-can-in-2011 resolutions:

Play more

Sit less

Write more

Read less (blogs)

Enjoy being myself more

Stress less

Start a gratitude journal

Go to bed when Zachary goes to bed

Budget (yeah, yeah....)

Those are easy enough, right? Though I have to admit, it feels kind of silly to make new year's resolutions or goals, because I feel like I'm making them constantly. Daily. Making, and often times, breaking....

Happy New Year!

reason #5,632

2010-12-19T15:28:00.005-07:00

Zach posing for me

I've said it before, and now I'll say it again: I love my husband.

He just walked out the door to go home teaching, but before he left Max saw him put his coat on and said, "No Papa, you can't go!" (but it sounded more like, "No Papa, you tan't dow!")

So Zach got down and hugged Max and they talked for a minute.

Max offered Zach his Lightning McQueen car and Zach said, "You want me to take Lightning with me?" and Max pathetically said, "yeah."

And then Max (in his adorable little pouty voice) said, "You tate me wiff you too."

I wish I could freeze that moment of the two of them looking at each other, Zach totally melting at Max's little request.

He thought about it for a moment and then said, "Ok buddy. Let's go," grabbed Max's shoes and left.

As they walked out the door Max looked over Zach's shoulder and said "Bye Mama!! Bye Pwinn!! I dow wiff Papa!!" I don't know if I've seen him that happy in a long time.

And I'm sure the feeling was mutual.

I love that man.

the christmas story

2010-12-17T23:20:00.003-07:00

I couldn't stop smiling as I watched this.

first seen here.

so far

2010-12-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

The boys and I have been counting down (or rather, up) the days till Christmas with these advent envelopes that I made (it was really hard - I cut long envelopes in half and punched a hole in the top for the ribbon...). In each one is a little treat for each of them and some kind of activity for us to do. For some of the activities we've made Christmas cookies for friends (and us), hung lights with Papa, and colored pictures and sent them to grandparents. Although I think their favorite are the ones that say, "Drink cocoa and watch a Christmas movie!"

We have a little system where they stand on the rug and wait while I go get that days envelope (they can't know where they are or else it'd all be over in one day. Such boys), then we sing Jingle Bells, take a picture, and open it up. They've been super excited about the whole thing, even though some of the envelopes just have a handful of chocolate chips in them for the treat (What?? I didn't want to go out and buy treats, so I had to make do with what we had). Although I scored a ton of Hershey Kisses at the Relief Society Christmas party the other night that they had leftover from the center pieces. As my Grandpa would say, The Lord will provide. :) They'll think they've hit the jackpot when we get to those envelopes.

I'm loving the pictures we've taken everyday (except for day #2 - it's a must that I take the picture in the morning). I think I'll probably use the pictures somehow in next year's advent adventures.

desparate times

2010-12-09T10:40:00.002-07:00

The things a mother will allow for the sake of happy children.

weirdest post ever

2010-12-08T11:02:00.008-07:00

Zach bought me a People Magazine on Monday to show me that he loved me and was thinking about me. I still don't quite know what to think of that. But this is his train of thought:

Every year at the beach we have a white elephant type gift exchange for the grown-ups, and every year the hot item is a trashy celebrity magazine (People, Us Weekly, Life & Style...). There's just something about sitting on the beach and reading about who's breaking up with who or who's thighs look worse than your own. It's tradition.

I used to be obsessed with those magazines, but the past few years I've decided that almost everything they publish is either totally made up or doctored beyond recognition. I think it was when they put a picture on the cover of "Brangelina" walking on the beach together with one of her kids (before he and Jen split), but then later clarified that it was, in fact, two completely different pictures on two completely different beaches that they had photoshopped together. Come on people.

Anyways, so I don't really read those magazines anymore (except at the beach, of course), so it made me laugh that that's what he got to show me he loved me (sidenote - I was in a crummy mood when he left the house, hence his urge to buy me something to cheer me up. Yes, sometimes my happiness can be purchased). But still, since it was here, I read it cover to cover yesterday afternoon. Of course, with pauses here and there to break up fights, clean up ridiculous messes, bang my head against the wall.....

I'm getting somewhere with all of this.

So this is one useful bit of information that totally blew my mind while reading it yesterday - The guy that plays Griphook the goblin AND Professor Flitwick in the Harry Potter movies, AND that creepy Leprechaun, AND Wicket the Ewok from Return Of The Jedi....

... is ALSO....

WILLOW!!

Crazy, right????????

Also, he was 17 when he played Willow. But this might not be interesing to anyone else besides members of my family. We kind of love the movie. Totally Val Kilmer's best role. But that's just in my opinion.

I told you I've been having a hard time coming up with things to write about.

(post edit)

I meant to add this part, and then I forgot, and then Mary kindly reminded me - He ALSO plays Marvin the depressed robot in Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy! Although the voice is Alan Rickman, AKA: Professor Snape, AKA: Sheriff of Nottingham!

Wow, I bet you know a lot more today than you did yesterday thanks to this very informative post. You're welcome.

ten things

2010-12-07T22:21:00.006-07:00

The picture has nothing to do with the post.

I've just always loved this one of baby Quinn trying to eat my nose.

1. I'm stealing this post idea from miss Maryposa because she's a genius and has lots of good ideas in that pretty head of hers.

2. Speaking of Mary and her pretty head, you can go here and see a picture of her sweet face, taken with her shiny new camera. Her camera that YOU bought for her. So when you ask yourself, "Have I done any good in the world today?" you can say, "You bet your sweet bippy!!"

3. Bippy means bum. Rear end. Booty. I looked it up.

4. I find it really difficult to find things to blog about lately. This is the third post I've started this week. I'm hoping I'll actually finish this one. Is there anything in particular that you want to hear about? Questions? Comments? Complaints? Piping up about things can pay off sometimes. I had this friend when I was younger that called the number on a box of graham crackers to let them know that they had spelled a word wrong, and they sent him a t-shirt as a thank you. Cool huh? Now, I'm not likely to send you a t-shirt if you correct me on something, but you just never know.

5. The other day I patched the knee of a pair of my jeans using gold metallic thread. Now I feel a little like Michael Jackson whenever I wear them.

6. I wear these jeans a lot lately since my FAVORITE jeans that I ususally wear ripped in a most unfortunate place when I was putting them on the other day. Talk about depressing. Luckily I had bought a pair of brown corduroys from the DI just days before and they're quickly becoming my new favorites.

7. Talking about clothes is making me feel shallow. Change the subject...

8. I read cjane's post the other day and it's really made me think about womanhood. She talks about, "the spiritual woman, the woman of divine origins and eternal destiny," and something inside of me perks up. I want to be that woman. So I'm working on it. And I'm hoping that as I do - as I come to a greater realization of the truth that I am a daughter of God and I have infinite worth- life will be a whole lot happier around here.

9. This year Zach and I are buying gifts for each other with the rules of: Something To Read, Something To Listen To, and Something To Wear. However, he already bought the Something To Listen To AND the Something To Read for himself, and then told me I was off the hook. I don't know if I should be glad, or if I should be offended that he doesn't want me picking out his Christmas presents. But I guess I can't be too offended since (in church on Sunday....) I made him a list of acceptable stocking stuffer ideas. I haven't given it to him yet. I doubt it will go over well. But, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

10. After all, I'm worth it.

a quick post before I turn on caillou - per the boys insistant pleadings

2010-11-30T10:32:00.006-07:00

Sooooo....... Thanksgiving was awesome - as expected. We went back to Cedar and had a fabulous time playing with everyone and eating nearly constantly. I even braved Wal-Mart at midnight with Zach's cousin Brian for the Black Friday madness. Zach wasn't up for it. ;) And seriously, he would have hated every second of it. It was CA-RAZY. Shoulder to shoulder. Sadly, we only saw one display of adult to adult anger - from a lady who ran into another lady with her cart. You would think it was the lady who got hit that would be mad, but apparently it was her fault for walking too slow.

Oh, and I have to say something... To all the parents who had their young, pajama clad, crying, dozing children with them, and then yelled at them for crying the whole time - Leave your kids in bed next time. That way I can spend more time shopping and less time judging you.

End rant.

So now I'm in full fledged Christmas mode. I have a quilt nearly finished for the Max man. I know, a 2 year old will not be excited to open a quilt for Christmas. But I made a quilt for Quinn for Christmas when he was 2, so why not make it (yet another) tradition?? Also, I learned that quilting on my lap late at night while watching Say Yes To The Dress (or anything, for that matter. p.s. Netflx - I love you) is a bad idea. I had to remove a whole row of stitches last night. Oh well. Lesson learned. I'll share pictures once it's finished.

Wondering whether we should try for a real, legitimate Christmas tree this year... Or do I pull out the red tomato cage for another go?? It already has lights on it.....

Also, do yourself a favor and make a Pandora station titled "Happy Christmas - War is Over (John Lennon)." But only if you're into countless remakes of that John Lennon classic, Paul McCartney's Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime, and, my personal favorite, Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas (seriously, how cool is Sting at 1:10?? And when I hear Bono at 1:23 I get chills..... but that's just me....).

K, that's all for now. Time for Caillou..... blegh......

it's tradition

2010-11-23T14:47:00.002-07:00

I know I've posted it before, but why not make it a tradition??
Team Cowan's favorite Christmas song:

Love those maracas. ;)

this is the year

2010-11-19T09:31:00.006-07:00

In our (almost) 8 years of marriage, Zach and I have sent out Christmas cards once. And they were pretty lame. I don't think Zach was even looking at the camera in the picture. Because he was typing a paper when I took the picture. And I was, as always, overly happy in picture. It was funny, but pretty sad in terms of Christmas cards. But this year I'm determined. And after learning that Shutterfly is offering bloggers 50 free Christmas or holiday cards, (sweeeeeeet) I really have no reason not to!

They have TONS of Christmas cards to choose from (I don't know how I'm going to pick one....). In looking through all of them I surprised myself in liking the more simple ones the most:

this one:

and this one:

Another popular gift idea is their photo calendars, which I'm seriously considering this year. I like that they have tons of different styles to choose from so you can make it as simple or as busy as you want. And I really like that you can put birthdays and anniversaries on it as well. In fact, maybe I should make one for myself.......

Anyways, just spreadin' the good news, giving you guys some gift ideas, and looking forward to actual, real Christmas cards this year! And hopefully I can get a picture where Zach is actually looking at the camera this time.

two questions

2010-11-17T11:58:00.004-07:00

1st question: Why?

2nd question: Am I going to have to clean this up?

I'm finding that those two questions pretty much sum up my days right now.

at least stick around for the recipe at the end.

2010-11-16T11:19:00.007-07:00

I have 25 people that I absolutely have to come up with Christmas presents for this year. Zach has 1: Me. Is that the case in all marriages?

I have come to the conclusion that making my bed first thing in the morning makes me feel as though I'm starting the day with one victory under my belt.

I don't wear belts.

Quinn and Max are coming in to the stage where they play with each other constantly. And by play, I mean fight.

I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but I've been playing Christmas music for a week now. I've found that it keeps me in the mindset of coming up with presents for 25 people. That, and I really like Christmas music.

The other day I let Quinn make his own sandwich. He made a mustard and peanut butter sandwich. And he ate the whole thing.

I'm so tempted to cut out Max's naps completely with how nice it is to put him to bed at or before 8 and have him zonk out immeadiately. Hmm......

Quinn is making up a song right now while he runs around the house. It goes like this: "I got a new magic car!! It's black and it's shiny!! And I got real toys!! And I got this fridge! And I got food in it!!! And this is our house! House!!! HOOOOUUUUUUSSSSSE!!!!!" I think he's onto something.

I upgraded my Picnik account just for the month so that I could work on some pictures for Christmas presents (see? it's all I can think about) and started playing around with some of the
premium features. It's nice to have a good idea of what goes on before a picture ends up in a magazine. And now I'm wondering, is it possible to feel jealous towards myself? Or rather, a fake version of myself:

(Click to enlarge)

Yikes.

And here's a brownie recipe I made Sunday night that was AMAZING. Make them and be happy you did. And don't feel bad when you eat them all within a few hours (with a little help). It's not like it's something you'd do every day or anything.

1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 8 inch square pan with oil and then line with parchment paper. Leave edges of paper hanging over the edge so you can lift out the cooled brownies (EASY!).
2. In a large saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar, eggs, and 1 teaspoon vanilla.
3. Stir in 1/3 cup cocoa, 1/2 cup flour, salt, and baking powder (Don't over mix or they'll get cakey!).
4. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared pan.
5. Bake in preheated oven 30 -35 minutes. Do not overcook.

and so it begins

2010-11-10T11:06:00.004-07:00

I was here

2010-11-08T16:28:00.013-07:00

On Thursday at 6:30pm I pulled out of the driveway (with tears streaming down my face like any good wife and mother) and drove two hours to stay with some friends (don't you love it when you see friends you haven't seen in years and it's as though nothing has changed?? it was awesome seeing them). Went to sleep at 12:30am with the light on. And my clothes. Woke up at 4:30am, snatched a muffin from their freezer and then drove 30 minutes to the airport. Parked in the economy parking lot, got on a shuttle and rode to the airport. I enjoyed getting my tickets printed, waiting in line, going through security and mozying to my gate totally kid free. Got a sandwich and ate it while watching CNN talk about an "underwear bomber" (heh heh heh). Then I got on the plane and started the flying part of my journey. For 11 hours. But it was amazing. I read a book, listened to my ipod that Zach had loaded for me with all of our favorite songs, crocheted some washcloths and took some pictures out the windows:

Washington D.C. Temple from the plane

Fun side story: While getting on the plane in D.C. a man came up to the man standing behind me and asked if he could take his picture. After the other guy walked away I turned to the man behind me and joked that he hadn't asked to take MY picture, which we laughed about. But I felt bad that I had no idea who this man was. Everyone on the plane knew who he was and I felt like I was walking through a small town as we walked through the plane and everyone was saying "Hi Mr. -----!! Congratulations!" I couldn't make out the name they were saying, but I didn't recognize him at all. Finally I turned around and said, "Now I'm feeling bad that I don't know who you are." So he asked where I was from and when I said, Utah, he said, "That's why. I'm the Senator of New York." Uh..... sheepish much?? I had one of these moments (0:30), but thankfully not outloud.

Anyway, flying by myself was amazing. It was a vacation in itself (that is, on the way there. on the way home? not so much...). So I landed, was picked up by my three, beautiful traveling partners and was whisked away to this amazing place:

NEW YORK CITY!!!

Me and Mom

Erin, Juli and Me

There are not enough words to describe the giddiness between me, my sisters and my mom as we arrived in the city. Lots and lots of laughing. Laughing at the fact that we were all together. Laughing that we were in NEW YORK CITY. Laughing that we had left 12 children motherless for the weekend. The entire time I kept thinking, "Dangit, I'm out really late. I should probably head home." What a mom.

I have to apologize though - We were all so excited to be there and to be together that we didn't take many good pictures. But that's good. We were too busy enjoying ourselves to document things. That's the sign of a good time. :)

Juli, begging for free kettle corn in Bryant Park.

Juli has a friend that lives in New Jersey that came over to show us around that first night. She took us to this amazing resturant in Korea Town and ordered this meal for us. It was one of the best meals of my entire life. I could have eaten all night.

Erin and Juli trying to look like New Yorkers. Nice, ladies.

We rode the subway a ton, but never quite got the hang of it. I think it would take a few more days to feel confident that the train we had gotten on would actually take us where we intended on going. But it was so much fun and the people watching was fantastic.

The reason we went to New York was because our cousin Tara is getting married (on New Year's in the Bahamas.... ) and was having a bridal shower. She had no idea we were coming and cried like a baby when she saw us. And then we all started crying too. It was awesome. I hadn't seen Tara since she surprised me at me and Zach's wedding almost 8 years ago! It was so good to see her. And the bridal shower was incredible. Persian food (TONS of it. YUM.), a belly dancer, and more cousins we hadn't seen in forever to visit with. So much fun.

Us with Tara. She's absolutely stunning.

Us with our Uncle Noshin, Tara's father. I hadn't seen him since I was probably 10.

Us with our cousin Eric and his new wife Paula. They were so fun to talk to.

The other thing that was a must on my list of things to do in NYC:

Mood.

I'm a Project Runway nerd, so I HAD to visit Mood. It's a 40,000 square foot fabric store with every type of fabric imaginable. It was totally overwhelming, but so amazing to see in person. Erin bought me some yardage that I picked out (as payment for giving her a massage the night before) so I'll hopefully make something out of that soon.

And that's about it! Well, not really. That's a small snipit of all the fun we had. But everything else is just a bunch of inside jokes and giggling. It ended too soon. But I'm hoping that we'll start a new tradition of a girl's trip every once in a while. Every other year maybe?? And next time Mandi and Taya (our brother's wives) need to come too!!

Thank you for this amazing trip ladies!!!! I still can't believe we did it!

all my bags are packed. I'm ready to go.

2010-11-04T12:15:00.004-06:00

I'm nervous out of my wits. I'm travelling all by myself for the first time in 8 years. But imagine this: Sitting on a plane for hours and hours with nothing to do but read to my heart's content. Maybe even sleep without worrying about someone sneaking away and running up and down the aisles. Layovers without little ones to take to the bathroom.... Trust me, I'll miss them terribly. But this is going to be amazing. Check back in a few days to see where I went! I bet you can't guess...... :) (nope, not nc)

let's be honest

2010-11-01T17:30:00.005-06:00

How much of your kid's candy did you eat this weekend?

On Sunday after church I snuggled in our bed with a Butterfinger, a Mr. Goodbar and a mini bag of Peanut M&Ms.

I've done a little better today. I've only eaten it WITH them. Not hiding in my bed by myself.

halloween by team cowan

2010-11-01T13:22:00.011-06:00

For weeks Quinn has been telling us that he wanted to be a ghost for Halloween. And I've been stressing over how to make him a ghost costume that he could walk in and that wouldn't make him look like a member of the Klan. Then we had one of his friends over and we asked him what he was going to be for Halloween. He said, "A BIG SCARY SPIDER!" Of course. So then I asked Quinn what he wanted to be, expecting either the regular "A ghost!" or, the predictable, "A BIG SCARY SPIDER." But no, instead he said (and imagine the most sickeningly cute little voice) "I want to be a cute little pumpkin like Lumpkin!" See Lumpkin:

Gross. I REALLY didn't want to make a "cute" pumpkin costume for my 4 year old. But he kept persisting on this Lumpkin thing. So at the last minute (actually, the day before our ward Halloween party) I told him we were all going to dress up together and he was going to be a robot named "THE TIN MAN". Then I showed him some clips from The Wizard of Oz and he was totally sold. So he was the Tin Man, Max was The Cowardly Lion, Zach was The Scarecrow, and I was Dorothy. And no, I didn't get any pictures of all of us together. Haven't I told you? Zach hates taking pictures. Hates it. And I hate asking him to and then always remembering every time I look at the picture, that moments before the picture was taken he was probably rolling his eyes at me. (End tangent...)

Anyways, here's the boys as we were pulling out of the driveway:

Here's Max fulfilling his roll as The COWARDLY Lion. He bawled for about 5 minutes after we put the costume on him. Also, a shot of the Katie version of "ruby slippers":

And here's me after the party. We can thank Quinn for this excellent picture. Yes, I sewed the "dress" (more like a glorified apron), and no, it wasn't flattering at all:

Now skipping ahead to Saturday night. I wasn't feeling up to doing the whole Wizard of Oz thing again (remember - not flattering. Also, I had taken Zach's scarescrow shirt and made it my own, see here), so we all just kind of did our own thing. Quinn still wanted to be The Tin Man and truly embraced it. For Max we put on his bat costume that was given to us. Seriously, cutest bat ever. Here they are at the third door we went to, but first that openned. It was sad for a few minutes there when we went to two houses and got NOTHING! Max was probably confused at this point as to what exactly we were doing:

Zach went as a teenager. I spent the whole morning turning a pair of his old jeans into skinny jeans. They were nearly impossible to walk in, and yet he still wore them all day long. He kept telling me all day that aside from not being able to lift his knees hardly at all, he really didn't mind them all that much. So what do you think, should I get Zach some skinny jeans for Christmas?? Do you think he would be the only seminary teacher in history to wear skinny jeans? Oh, I also painted his fingernails grey. I didn't put eyeliner on him because then he would think I had ulterior motives in dressing him up. We all know how I've got a weak spot for guys in eyeliner. At this point I'm wishing I had.

I went back and forth all day over what I was going to be. Right before it was time to head out trick or treating I went into the bathroom with all of our facepaint (we've got quite the collection you know) telling Zach I was going to turn myself into a man and then dress as a woman, thus going as a woman dressed like a man dressed like a woman. I think he found that funny. So he was entirely confused when I came out like this:

What? I felt like putting a glittery butterfly on my face. Isn't that funny?? I'm funny. Don't you think that's funny?? Ugh, nobody gets me. I liked it. And Zach appreciated it after a few minutes. I think he liked the fact that other people were confused when they saw me dressed totally normal with a giant butterfly on my face:

After about an hour of trick or treating the boys were asking to go back home. Perfect. We were back home by 7:00 where we chilled out for a bit and ate some candy. Max really knows how to kick back and relax:

We had the boys in bed by 8:30, just in time for Zach and I to feast on this:

Mmmmmm...... I love Halloween.
And I'm glad the candy is almost gone.

be calm.

2010-10-23T19:14:00.003-06:00

Zach came home late from work the other day and as soon as he walked in the door he said, "I have a good reason!!! Just wait for it!! You'll be glad!! Just wait!......" And went straight to the computer and pulled up this song for me. As soon as I heard it I smiled and looked up and said, "The Format got back together." (The Format is a band my sweet friend Mary (you know her. we're buying her a camera) introduced us to - figuratively and literally - that I've been in love with for the past 6 years) No, they didn't get back together. But the singer started a new band. And this first song is CRAZY AMAZING. As Mary said, it's best listened to with headphones and you can't help but dance. But I don't know how to dance to this song!! I just have the intense urge to march! Anyways, it's beautiful and it's what we're listening to today:

2:56 gives me chills.

Also - This band has been together ever since The Format broke up. But nobody told me. Thanks a lot WORLD.

But, better late than never.

catching up

2010-10-22T10:57:00.009-06:00

I find it hard to come up with interesting things to write about when all I do is change poopy diapers, tell little boys to stop beating each other up, and bake. That's why it's so quiet around here. But there are a few recent developments. Kind of.

1. I got a haircut and some highlights. It was getting to the point where I either had to rock a mullet or put it in tiny little pony tails. Always a good indicator that it's time. Here's the new do:

I don't know what's going on with my shirt there, but it makes me laugh. It's like it's hinting that there's something there that's really not. Heh heh heh....

2. Since we're a little obsessed with Antione Dodson, and I know others are too, and I felt silly after smiling for the camera all by myself, I decided to do a photoshoot inspired by Antione and his sister. Enjoy:

You know you love it. And you KNOW Zach thought I was the coolest wife in the world after I showed him the pictures (yeah, not really).

3. The computer hutch that I bought a year and a half ago for $30 that reeked of cigarette smoke is finally painted and in the house! Right after we bought it we thought we could just leave it in the garage to air out and that that would take care of the smell.

Nope.

So then we painted it with Kilz thinking that would get rid of it.

Still stinky.

So we left it in the garage until just a few weeks ago when we brought it onto the back porch.

And guess what.... It still stunk!!

But we forged ahead and painted it anyway hoping for the best. And it worked! No more smoke! Hooray! So here's the before:

Really pretty but unfortunately smelly.

Here's the after:

It's quite a bit darker than the picture shows. More of an old turquiose. We kept the doors off since they would just get in the way and, quite honestly, would probably never be closed. We still have a wire problem but that will be remedied soon. And the former computer desk we just moved to the side so Zach has a place to prep lessons and work on homework (he's getting his masters...... so in a few years I can start referring to him as "Master Cowan"). Here's the new set up:

We quite like it. :)

4. Max has been having some issues with his bowels. He doesn't like pooping. At all. And I think all his fighting it has finally caught up with him and he's now a stinky tooting/pooping monster. Poor kid. The other day he let out a toot (yeah, that's what we call it in our house since I was raised to NEVER say "the f word" and I fully intend on letting my mother believe that I'm raising my kids the same way..........) that was so long and so loud that Quinn jumped up, covered his ears, and said "Mama!! What was that?!?!" Then we all had a good laugh. But this is what Max did after:

Tooting can be exhausting. He layed there for about 5 minutes.

The day before he had such a hard time (filled his diaper three times in 2 hours - for Max that's the equivolent of Hell) that he zonked out on the bed with Zach after Zach came home from playing basketball at 5:00:

This is totally out of the ordinary since Max had already had a nap and hasn't randomly fallen asleep for probably a year and a half. Always in his bed at either nap time or bed time. I guess pooping can really take it out of you (heh heh heh....).

So, aren't you glad to know our son's pooping habits? I told you it's hard to come up with things to write about. In not too long I need to do a post about all the delicious things I've been cooking (was it weird that I mentioned that so soon after talking about poop?). I can't even remember the last time we ate out - That's how diligent I've been in the kitchen.

Oh, AND somebody paid me to fix the hem of their pants. So I guess you can now call me a professional seamstress. Awwww yeah.

Now you're all caught up.

just glad it wasn't his little brother's head.

2010-10-18T15:27:00.002-06:00

not again...

2010-10-14T13:47:00.005-06:00

Come over here to see my latest pipe dream. And these ladies.