Spring

I'm a little behind because we filled up our picture storage on this blog---but it looks like it's fixed now! So here are some of our spring happenings.

Here we are planting our garden in March.

We went on a visit to Delta to see my brother's play. Tucker got to see Jane's duck while we were there.

I finished Tucker's Suitcase chair :) See the how-to HERE.

Here's Tucker and Lily sitting on the suitcase chair.

Tucker loves playing cars in the dirt.

Busting out the Slip-N-Slide!

Playing with some play-dough!

Tucker and Lily got to go to the kite festival. They rode Lily's Daddy's bus to the park.

And ran into their friend Livy when they got there.

Then they danced to the live band.

And watched the fireworks.

Stay tuned for Easter fun!

Pictures up

These are from November, but I was checking to see if the pictures were working--they did!

Update!

I tried to post some pictures and found out that I have officially overloaded my picture space on our blog. I didn't even know that was possible. I will have to purchase more space to be able to post more pictures! Hopefully we'll have some more pictures soon! Stay tuned...

Random Tucker Facts

Here are some things about Tucker:

• He fakes "owies" to try to get us to take him out of his crib. The other night Gary went and got him and put him in our bed (which never happens) because he kept crying "owie, owie!". Once he got onto our bed, he helped himself off the bed and started running down the hall. We were like, "What is this kid doing at 4 in the morning running around the house?!" Then we see the light from the fridge turn on as he opened it. I had given him some Koolaid the day before and he remembered that his sippy cup was in the fridge and he wanted some. Then he smacked his lips in satisfaction after his drink and let us put him back to bed.
• He often drinks water from puddles like a doggy after it rains (We have yet to convince him that he is not a dog like Jemima)
• He is OBSESSED with his little Buzz and Woody figurines. Gary even pretends to eat them and sneeze them back up and Tucker thinks it is amazing and hilarious. It's gotten a little out of hand though. Especially in church yesterday when he was frantically screaming bloody murder during sacrament meeting when he didn't see where they went when he dropped them. "WOO-IE! WOO-IE! BUHS! BUHS!" Oh boy.
• He LOVES water. His face in it whenever possible. He is not scared of it at all!
• He is starting to not go down for his naps so well. I am having a hard time keeping up with this boy's energy!
• When I was reading his scriptures to him the other day, we were on the page about the Stripling Young Warriors and it shows a picture of a little boy hugging his mom (to show that "their mother's taught them") and he looked at me after he saw the picture and then gave me a big hug as if to say , "Look! That's like us!" It was just heartwarming. 

Those are just a few things :)

Buzz & Woody or Airplanes?

So I may need your help deciding. We want to redo Tucker's room for his 2nd birthday in May.

I was originally thinking airplanes, because he likes them...and I can think of TONS of fun ideas to make stuff for the room etc. Gary was even going to make an airplane bed for him similar to this one.

Here's the custom fabric I designed for his new blanky.






And I have an old dark blue suitcase that I was going to make into a little reading chair for his room like this one. I even have the legs screwed on already and was going to use airplane fabric to cover the cushions. I totally had the idea all in my head, then found out that I was not the first to think of this when I Google searched it and saw this one at Recreate.

I even have some fun Styrofoam model airplanes I found at the dollar store that I was going to paint to match and hang in his room.

But now, I think I may be choosing airplanes because I have so many ideas and not because Tucker would absolutely love it. Don't take me wrong, he would for sure like it---but not as much as a Buzz and Woody room. I can just imagine him hyperventilating (in a good way) if we unveil a Buzz and Woody Room!

He has two figurines that I got at the dollar store of Buzz and Woody. He seriously takes them EVERYWHERE. As Grandma Haroldsen puts it, "he will not have a problem losing his cell phone when he is older." If I don't see him with them, I'll ask him where Buzz and Woody are. He always seems to know exactly where they are. One time he even opened the fridge and pulled them out like, "See Mom, I put them right here in the fridge."

He is obsessed with all of the movies and has his very own favorite parts of the movies.

If we see anything at the store that has Buzz and Woody, he goes crazy, "Buhs! Wu-eey!"

So I'm debating which theme to choose! I was thinking if we do go with Buzz and Woody, we could make him a tent to cover his bed that looks like a Buzz Spaceship.

 And could use Buzz and Woody fabric for his blanket,

and glow in the dark stars for his ceiling.

What do you all think? What should we go with? Any suggestions or ideas for either theme?

Flood!

The first week of March was CRAZY.

Monday: I had just gone to the gym, came back, went to turn on Toy Story for Tucker so he could watch that while I took a shower when I noticed some sloshiness around my feet as I was just about to head back up the stairs. Oh boy. Not good. Called Gary. Gary came home to check out the mess. We moved all the stuff out of the way of the flood. It was a slow leak and we could not for the life of us figure out where it was coming from. So we took a hammer to our sheet rock, so we could see behind the wall if there was any source of water. Cause if all we had to repair was sheet rock, that would be an easier fix than calling our insurance and paying a $500 deductible. But to our wall's sacrifice, we found nothing.

It had rained over the weekend, so we thought maybe it was from that. We turned our water on and off, checking to see if it made anything stop or go. Finally at a loss of what to do, we call the insurance company. They sent out another company to clean out all the water and dry things up. This guy can only really tell me where our floor is wet--he was not there to tell us where it is coming from although he tried to figure it out. Then he says, "Most insurance companies don't cover it if it is an outside source of water coming in." Great (sarcasm). Because that is what it was looking like at this point. I tried to call the claims adjustor and no answer, but we were basically planning on canceling the claim. So how much are we going to have to pay this guy if we cancel our claim? $160 just for coming. Then about $500 to dry everything up. Well, we weren't going to pay $500 for something that we could do by renting big industrial fans for $20 a day each. So then we had to pay a cancelation fee of $60 so the guy would leave.

Darrell came by to check things out, and we all decided that it didn't look like it was getting worse. After we pulled up our carpets and rented stuff to dry out the place, Gary said he'd turn the water back on so I could finally shower. So we turned the water back on and then we saw the leak since the carpet is up. Yup. No shower for me yet at this point.

Finally after cutting some (more) sheet rock, Darrell found where the leak was coming from. He and Gary went outside and dug a huge hole in front of our house. A big, deep, hole.

They found the leaky pipe and fix it. But there is another leak! It's like 9:30 or 10:00 by now and no more time or light to fix it. So were without water till the next day. Tucker was already in bed, and Gina and Darrell said we could shower at their house, but we'd have to take shifts since Tucker was already asleep.

Basically I had given up on taking a shower, when Gary all of a sudden asked when our gym closed. Our gym is not even 5 minutes away. It was 10:30 and the gym closed at 11:00. So Gary went first and then I was off  like a homeless girl sneaking into the gym for a shower.

The next evening we got everything fixed! Here's Tucker and Gary filling in the hole.

Hooray for water that I never realized how much I loved!

That weekend we got all the sheetrock fixed and painted, new padding put in and the carpet re-stretched, and most important of all, we don't look like we belong in an episode of hoarders anymore!

And who knew that Tucker knew how to drill screws into our wall?! He seriously did this by himself. He would put the screw on the drill and stick it to the wall and push the button. I kind of just let him because I wondered if he could. Yup. He can. Gotta hide the tools.

Apparently he was watching his daddy very closely as he was fixing the sheetrock. 

I gave Tucker a clean roller to "help" paint.

Episode of Hoarders?

This was our home last week. Ready to nominate us for an episode of Hoarders?

 

Stay tuned for our next post about why...

Tucker Teeth & Other Happenings

Here's Tucker with his homemade slide that he made all by himself. 

This little guy is a sucker for anything he can climb on.

He actually had a nasty accident on this one a few weeks ago. It was a Sunday and Gary and I were scheduled to speak in church. We were all dressed and ready to go to church, and we were scrambling to get our talks printed. Not much luck with that--the printer was out of ink. We had about 5 minutes before we needed to leave. Earlier I had tried to get a hold of someone to see if they would watch Tucker in the congregation while Gary and I were on the stand, but didn't get a hold of her. Well she called back, and while I was talking to Sasha, and I heard a loud crash, and then Tucker started crying. He had snuck out the doggy-door and we're assuming he tried to make this slide again and it slipped. He knocked his face right on the corner of the red box (that's where the blood was). I grabbed him and had his faces by my shoulder, and I didn't realize he was bleeding when Gary came in. Gary's was like, "He's bleeding all over!" We had blood all over my clothes, Gary's and Tucker's. I called the Sasha back real fast so she could tell someone that we might not make it--there was no way we were going to get a hold of anyone else that close to our meeting starting--they were probably all sitting down ready for church to start. Well, Tucker was pretty hysterical and we couldn't tell where he was cut because there was blood everywhere. A neighbor that heard the news came over to help out. Finally Tucker calmed down and we changed our clothes and rushed to church, just as the Sacrament was ending. Yup, we were up next. Everyone looked relieved when we scrambled up to the stand with Tucker. He started being fussy again, so our neighbor came and got him again. After the meeting we saw that he fell asleep on her shoulder and drooled blood all over her dress. Oops. So that was quite the ordeal. Then about a week later, Tucker bumped his teeth on a toy and they started bleeding again. We decided that we had better go to the dentist because his tooth was really loose.  Now he is on a soft food diet for a month--it's hard because he's a picky eater as it is! We are just hoping that it doesn't turn gray and fall out!

Here is one of the many times Tucker has snuck out threw the doggy-door.

Here is Tucker and Daddy playing with his "Yi yoh" puzzle. It's an Old Mcdonald puzzle that makes noises when he puts the pieces in. He loves it!

One day we went to Creative Minds where Tucker enjoyed playing with Lily and Sophie and a few other friends.

Filling up the car with gas

 Finding dinosaur tracks

 Sophie riding on the horsey--Ashley says that since Sophie went to Creative Minds, she prays to feed the horsey every night. Cute :)

 Being pirates!

 Driving the car

 Building something

 Getting a drink all by himself

 Being a cashier

 Playing house

 In the workshop

We all had fun, and when it was time to go, all the kids kept saying "Noooooo!" We'll have to take them back sometime.