MMSM- 10 things I can't live without

My friend Shannon has a weekly blog carnival that I occasionally participate in. This week's is on 10 things (not people or ideas etc) that I can't live without. This is my list in no particular order:

1. a car. I really don't care what kind of car I have as long as it's in good condition. - I liked my 2-door scion TC but it had to go when I found out I was pregnant b/c I couldn't picture pushing the seats forward to lift the heavy car seat out of the back seat. I have a Toyota Camry now. We're going to get a mini-van when this next one comes b/c I will still be babysitting my friend's baby and she's expecting another baby a month before I am. Then I'll need a minimum of 4 back seats for car seats. We will be getting a Toyota mini van of some kind b/c Andre sells them and has always gotten us the "insider's deal," or at least that's what he tells us:)

2. Eye liner and mascara - the tips of my eye lashes are blonde and I don't have time for all that other make up. I always apply in the car - even on the way to a nice dinner or wedding.

3. Sleep. Even when I'm not pregnant I treasure my sleep.

4. my cell phone. We don't have a house phone and I never want one. It's so convenient and portable and simple and necessary. Let me know when they come out with waterproof ones though b/c Dylan threw my last one in the pool and I had to borrow my friend's for a couple of weeks.

5. Sunshine. I live in the sunshine state and love it. I'd be happy anywhere else as long as there's sunshine and water I can play in (for free like the beach, lake, or close pool)

6. email. It's more convenient to email than to call people with important information. I can just look back in old emails to refresh my memory.

7. my camera. I have a waterproof one now and it's such a great invention. If I break a camera I freak out and Steven goes and gets me a new one so fast. Now I have a back-up. I've thought about giving it to someone w/o a digital camera before but have been so glad that I'm not charitable w/ it when I've needed it as a back up. I'm selfish w/ it, but I do think I use it more than someone who hasn't splurged and gotten one yet. It's a necessity!

8. hygiene stuff like a toothbrush, shampoo AND CONDITIONER, and soap.

9. photos and the ability to edit them on my computer. I don't have a good memory so I would be lost w/o pictures. I also don't keep a journal as well as I should so pictures help me.

10. Dylan's blankets. Dylan may be too old for his blankets and thumb, but life is miserable w/o a blanket. He calms himself down if I hand him a blanket.

We miss our Abbey

This isn't the best picture. I should at least take out Dylan's red eyes, but I'm feeling lazy.

Dylan loved having Lacey and Abbey stay with us. Dylan can say "da da" for his daddy and "Ee-uh" for Malia, but he doesn't even vocalize anything for me yet. When Abbey was here, he picked up her name right away. Sometimes he would say "Aaaa-BEE," but more often he would chant "bee-ah, Bee-ah, Bee-ah, Bee-yah." (which sounded like Abbey Abbey Abbey ah)

It was so sad when she left. They didn't really get to say good bye b/c Dylan was sleeping in his carseat when we dropped them off at the airport. When we got back home he went to his room where she had been staying and asked for her. It broke my heart to have to tell her that Abbey went bye bye.

Abbey isn't even a year old yet, so she took naps when Dylan was awake. We have a video monitor that we showed him so he could see that she was sleeping and could play later. He seemed to understand and would just stare at the image trying to make out his little friend. One of his favorite things was when she would push him on his little hummer so when he climbed on it the other day and patted the back, he called her name. His big brown eyes didn't seem to understand when I told him that Abbey wasn't here. He just stared at me.

Tenderness

I have a journal that I got for Dylan when I was pregnant and knew I was having a boy. I love the picture on the front from the Willow Tree collection - it's called "Tenderness." I've kept a journal for him but since I've been blogging it's hard for me to write the same stories twice so I neglect one or the other.

Anyway, I wanted to wait 'til Dylan was bigger to take a picture and look what Lacey did for us!

Beach Bums

Malia, Dylan, and Abbey

This should be a post card. Don't you just love that they actually sat there?! We had to get them nude to get some sand off of them before buckling all three in my back seat.

Happy Birthday to Me!

27 isn't any special age to turn and I didn't have anything special planned this year for my special day. It was on a Saturday which is probably the best day to have a birthday, but I had a CPR class at work all morning. Steven told me that Andre had scheduled a walk through w/ a realtor that day and we had both been cleaning and painting and getting new carpet and packing clutter away etc in preparation. I got sick possibly from the paint fumes then felt especially sick on Saturday morning. I was really late to the CPR class b/c I was still cleaning some clutter and I was feeling so sick that I was dreading going. I had to drag poor Dylan along to the class and we just sat there trying to keep our heads up the whole morning.

My boss was nice to get me a cake but I was not in any mood to eat it. Dylan and I shared some bites of a slice. We were supposed to go to a birthday lunch but I cancelled b/c I was so worn out. I went home to sleep. I was dissapointed to find out that the realtor hadn't come yet but Steven said I still had time for a nap. I crashed and didn't answer my phone when a couple people called. I was rudely awakened by loud banging on the door. I knew that meant that the first knocks had been normal ones but the knocker was persistant. Figuring it was the realtor, I wiped the sleep out of my eyes the best I could and pulled my jeans back on. The knocking repeated even louder. I then saw Steven's grin peeking in a window then he tried to hide behind the wall out there. I knew he was planning some suprise so I cautiously walked to the door. I opened it to see Lacey and Abbey! I couldn't believe it! Where did they come from? What were they doing here? Did they come for me? Steven knew about it? They came on the same day that we were showing our house! I was so suprised and excited.

I don't know how much I actually blog about Lacey but I talk about her all the time. I had been calling her lots this past week about trying to take certain pictures that I just wasn't happy with. I must have said at least 20 times "if only Lacey were here."
-Best present ever.

For my birthday present, Steven asked Lacey to come 2 months ago. He wanted her to arive on my actual birthday. He flew her in and didn't leave any hints around. He totally lied about the realtor comming - he just wanted to finnish our house projects before she came. He had been getting up at 5:30am to get to work then he'd come home after 7pm and would go right to work texturing the walls etc 'til he crashed. He has been such a good worker - like always. I forgive him for the big fat stressful lie.

So we've been having a lot of fun. Lacey's present to me is to do a family photo shoot. My mom cooked me a delicious meal (ruben casserole, corn on the cob, chicken pasta good stuff, and strawbetty shortcake) then babysat Abbey so we could go take beach pictures.

I also had friends come over and bring me cake and blue bell ice cream on my birthday after I started feeling a tiny better b/c I finally ate something and took tylenol.

To see what I've been up to, check out Lacey's blog. She's been so busy when I've been napping (I'm still not all better and am still tired from being pregnant).

Happy Birthday to Me!

Road Trip

We went on a road trip to and from Navoo. On the way back, hung out in Hannibal and we fed some huge fishies who splashed Dylan on that hot afternoon. We also went in the Mark Twain Caves. They were really cool. They were cool as in cold too. I'm glad I packed a jacket for Dylan. Check out this video: feeding big fishies



Add to My Profile Hiking over to the cave entrance Listening to our spelunking guide
Good size for Dylan, not for tall people though

Independence Day

I had just gotten back from the family reunion then worked every day that week except for Wednesday - the 4th of July. I was still feeling yucky and so tired and overwhelmed b/c I hadn't unpacked yet and had gifts to buy etc. I wanted to go to the beach to get some fun pictures of the holiday w/ the Crews b/c it's Darren's favorite holiday BUT I stayed in. I cleaned up some and unpacked then took my sweet baby over to Malia's grandparent's house. They were so excited to spend the day w/ them that they didn't even want the babies to nap. Dylan did, but I'm not sure if Malia ever did.
Anyway, it was a rainy afternoon, so I left Dylan over there to play. Steven ironically wore his "World's Greatest Dad" Tshirt even though we abandoned our child for the holiday. We had fun at Andre's b/c his huge covered deck and tiki bar were leak proof! We had a party w/ about 50 people. More didn't go b/c of the bad weather.

See Dylan in the pool w/ Luiz?

I got Dylan after the storms passed so he could go for a swim and see sparklers. He wanted to touch it. After it stopped sparking, he reached out to grab the burnt metal stick. Now I really was the world's worst mother. He cried and I know it must have hurt so bad. It didn't leave any mark at all - luckily! Baby skin is forgiving I guess. I had him hold some ice for a while.
I'm so sorry, baby:( I said yes, the sparkler is still HOT

Florida Lifestyle

Florida is great. I had a really yucky crab cake* at lunch and wanted to taste a good one so bad! After work, we met Andre and Darren out to watch them play beach volleyball then eat dinner. Steven commented on what a good life I have if I can order crab cakes twice in one day to make up for the discusting excuse for the thing I ate at lunch.

*Let me just make a note that for some reason I have been tempted with sushi a couple of times since being pregnant and have been wanting seafood all the time. I like seafood regularly, but I'm supposed to be really picky w/ what kinds of fish I eat b/c of the mercury content. I heard that crab is OK, so that's what I want! I'm too poor for king crab legs at the Salt Rock Grill, so crab cakes were my craving of the day.

Look how lucky Dylan is - eating a tomato with the sun setting behind him. And, flossing his teeth afterwards of course - a momma's boy:)

Swimming

We haven't been in Uncle Andre's pool that much lately. Not sure why. His pool was 93 degrees or something yesterday! It was so warm. We had Andre and Darren to help video some swimming lesson. He's not wearing his swimsuit in the video. Oh well. He is signing "again" by pointing to his left palm. swimming "again"

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Andre put in a surround sound system in his backyard oasis, so Dylan was being funny doing some silly dances for us:

boring post on Dylan

Again, this should be a journal entry, but who wants to look at my bad handwriting.

Dylan has been such a good toddler. For a while I was worried that he would start learning how to push my buttons and I wouldn't know how to dicipline him. Honestly when he did something "bad" I would hit his hand (not that hard, but w/ an upset look on my face). I knew better than to just say "no" and I think I'm good at re-directing his attention instead. (Like giving me a high five instead of hitting something/one.) Well I realized how stupid it was to hit him for hitting. What a double standard. My dad said he would hold our hands firmly until he reasoned with us and we agreed to control our hands. Why not try that?

So now if he spits out his food on the carpet etc. I hold his hands (not that firmly) and have him look in my eyes (which my mom had us do) and I tell him that he should keep his food IN his mouth. (If I mention his "bad" action, that's what he'll remember my dad says.) It is the saddest thing. He knows how dissapointed I am and makes the cutest saddest frowny face. He looks like he is going to cry. I keep my stern poker face (although I just want to kiss him and tell him it's ok) and have him pick up the food and put it in the bowl. He reluctantly does - (and this specific time tears did come). He was so sad that he did something wrong. Once the mess was cleaned up, I smiled and thanked him and asked if he wanted a hug. He came over and rested his sweet head on my shoulder and we made up. He forgot that I was "the mean mom" (and possibly that it's bad to spit food out - we'll see).

I have books on how to deal w/ toddlers but I'm not a reader. I asked my Uncle George how to dicipline Dylan. (I think he likes giving gentle advice.) His advice was to never let Dylan's feet touch the floor at church. The example was that if/when I have to take Dylan out b/c he's being disruptive, don't let him run around and have fun. Hold him so it's more fun to go back to the meeting if he's reverent. I don't let him down on the floor in front of me in church either now. We don't have pews, so he could easily slip out of arm's reach if he thought about it. Today I was so pleased with him at church. He folded his arms for each of the prayers and even waited pretty close to the "amen" before unfolding them. He understood when I said "all done" even though he wanted "moe moe moe moe" than just one piece of sacrament bread. He discretely pointed out all of the people who looked like they were sleeping in church. (He uses sign language after he rudely points right at them and it's amusing to me.) He sat on my lap and cuddled and looked at the speakers when I told him they were talking to him. He said please and signed thank you when the other Dylan's mom shared goldfish w/ him from the row behind us. Oddly he didn't put up too much of a fuss wanting to go play w/ him except for once. I did take him out but didn't let his feet touch the floor! I gave him a baby lecture (my dad's way of diciplining) and he was so sweet after that. I know that church is nap time, so I'm a little more tollerant when he's running around me when I'm teaching the next two lessons. He always falls asleep on the way home.

I feel blessed to have a well behaved baby now, but I just know it's the calm before the storm. Dylan was such a crybaby at first. Everyone at church would be genuinely amazed when they'd see him being quiet. He was sooooo vocal for his blessing. I've gotten lots of words of wisdom from lots of people at church on how to calm the screamer. I'm enjoying this while it lasts and just know that the baby in my tummy isn't going to be as well behaved. He/she already gives me trouble making me feel sick. (That's getting better I think now.) I don't think Dylan's reverent b/c of parenting skills - well partly b/c he doesn't want to make me sad at him - but I see how kids have their own personalities dispite parents. Siblings can be opposites. All we can do is love them and show them "the right way to live and be happy:)"

More good Dylan examples:

Two nights ago we went to a Devil Rays game. We had seats in the party section w/ Steven's work friends. Squirmy Dylan decided he had enough so we went down to visit the Szasz kids. They have great seats - front row behind home plate. Dylan was excited and thrilled to be there. The Szasz's dad said that Dylan is too young to have such a caviar taste. He was leaning over the railing watching to see where the ball landed. When we would stand up and cheer, Dylan loved it. He raised his hands up and stretched and clapped w/ us. When we all sat down, he did the sign for "again." He liked the excitement. His laugh is so cute. It was amazing how much more fun he had on the laps of those kids than up high on my and Steven's laps.
The 2nd picture is really blurry, but Dylan was bouncing from side to side and clapping. See Dylan and Jake in the last picture - staring at the field? He made himself right at home there.
When we were in Navoo, we got to see two of my cousins perform in the BYU ballroom dance show. They were amazing. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to watch the performance, but Dylan was stretching for a better view. We had great seats there - 2nd row, so maybe that's why. He was intently watching all of the acts, the fast ones w/ my cousins and even the slow ones.
Dylan has also seen like 4 movies in the theater. The funny thing is that he's not too into sitting and watching TV. He is quick to point out dog food comercials b/c he recognizes the dogs and sometimes he'll start dancing to a comercial, but that's about it. Both he and Malia want the TV on though. He will go over and turn it on, but won't look at the screen after he makes sure it turned on. This is when we took my dad to the movies for his birthday.

Gille Family Reunion

Here's a group shot. We're missing the two BYU Ballroom dancing cousins and about half of the family didn't make it at all. 2 Aunts and their whole families were really missed. None of the cousins' husbands went either. A couple cousins didn't make it, so this is only like half of our Gille Family. It was so fun to hang out with, talk to, and play with my fun family. To view more of this vacation from Lacey's point of view, check out her post. It's more detailed:)

Carthage Jail

The prophet Joseph Smith was martyred at this jail. I had been when I was a kid and had remembered the feeling of how badly the prophet had been hated and treated.

Most places that I visit as a kid then visit again as an adult seem so much smaller than I remembered. The jail was actually bigger than I had remembered. I must have had that cramped feeling back then that I still felt this time.

This is a picture with no flash of me and Martin in the dungon of the Jail.

This is outside the jail. The building in the back is the jail. This is Joseph, Hyrum, and Dylan holding the Book of Mormon.

Navoo Temple

Dylan likes to fold his hands like this when it's time to pray. It's so sweet. Dylan is pointing out and signing "airplane"

I posted a couple of pictures from our family reunion. I dumped the 1st half of my pictures on my dad's computer so my camera would have room for more. I don't have those, so I'll post from the 2nd half of our trip.

On Sunday, some of us went to church. They have a separate meeting just for missionaries and visitors. Navoo is a church history landmark, so I bet they get overwhelmed with church members going to the regular family services each Sunday. The visitors service was only a sacrament meeting. It was a fast and testimony meeting that day, like it was world wide.

We were all dressed up so we took pictures in front of the way cool Navoo temple.

The history of this town is kind of sad. The members of the church left quickly the same year that they had finally finnished building the temple - 1846. They were not able to take their belingings and left so much behind. They had a TON of faith. The temple was destroyed.

Miraculously, the temple was rebuilt to be as close of a replica of the original as possible in 2002. At least 18 family members got to serve in the temple on Saturday. It was the 1st time I had been in a temple with my mom, Matt, Mart, Kat, and even JT. Now I've been in 3 temples.

Rain Boots

Danielle got these for Dylan. I was so excited that it had rained all day. We went right outside her house so Dylan could play in the puddles. He loved his new yellow shoes.
I had to chase him down the street. I think it's funny that he stayed in the long puddle as he stared at his bright yellow boots.
He got to wear them to the grocery store where we got ingredients to make lasagnia from scratch. The young women at church made dinner for the missionaries in our branch the next day for one of our activities.

Liam and Dylan in their matching rain boots
Steven and Dylan played the old game of "guess what hand it's in." Notice Dylan wanted to wear his rain boots with his PJs.

Pool party at Dr. Brayer's

Dr. Brayer had a going away party b/c we're loosing two girls. She has a brand new house w/ a pool so it was a fun pool party w/ lots of yummy food and fun1 year olds Kyle, Zack, and Dylan. Han, Dr. Brayer, and I were all pregnant at the same time at work. Now I'm the only one.

Tiff, Dylan, Zack, Dr. Brayer

Dr. Brayer w/ all the office kids

Bring your kids to work day

We were in the process of hiring a new Dental Hygienist at work and scheduled patients for a half-day but didn't have a hygienist. I said that I could work IF I brought Dylan and Malia to work w/ me. They have a play room b/c the dentist usually brings her 1year old in. She and I are usually both off on Wednesdays, so I replaced that baby with two. They had a lot of fun and even fell asleep before I was done cleaning up. I left for lunch while the napped then wished they wanted another nap when we went home b/c I needed a nap!

Taylor Twins

Marcie had her cute baby boys and I've only seen them twice. They're teeny and cute. I want to take more pictures of them, but I don't want to take Dylan over again. Aren't little Matthew and Daniel so cute? Kirsten is a great help as a big sister.

Neighborhood Cat

My brother, Jonathan, is a pet lover. He befriends neighborhood cats, dogs, and lizzards. Maybe Dylan will be like him. This poor cat was tollerating Dylan really well. It was dark outside so my camera didn't focus well.