Sphinx

Time to brag just a little bit about our oldest son! He had an assignment for school to do an Egypt project. The kids could choose what they wanted to do it on. He chose the Sphinx. He had to do a model, a paper and a presentation. This is probably the most involved project he has ever done. I have to say, it was awesome! Even his teacher and other staff members at his school were amazed. Just so you know, Eric did his own research. He looked at pictures on the web and drew them free-hand on paper to decide how he wanted his sphinx to look. I took him to the craft store and we found some great Crayola molding clay that would harden on its own, and some paint to finish the details. Eric was a little nervous about starting, but I just told him to jump right in. Okay, this is coming from a very un-artistic person. I knew he could draw pretty well, but could he sculpt? Oh yeah! When Kendall got home he was really impressed with Eric's progress. He helped Eric with a bit of the detailing, but Eric did most himself and had so much fun too! He did all the painting himself too!
Way to Go Eric! We love you and are so proud of you!
(Please stay tuned for other exciting blogs about Eric and our other amazing boys!)

Mud bath!

Today I took the little boys with me to Eric's soccer game. Kendall had to work, so I was trying to be supportive and actually watch some of the game rather than just drop Eric off and pick him up at the end. Since, my 2 little guys typically run in opposite directions and I'm getting fatter by the day, I didn't think this would be the most fun idea. Well, Eli found a mud puddle. I guess this was a good thing, because he stayed in one spot for 1/2 hour. However, the clothes and the kid were completly muddified! He rode home naked!

It's July, so I'll add a post!

Okay, let's not be too shocked. I have been a little preoccupied lately. Busy? Not really, just stressed and obsessing about certain things.

#1 We are expecting a new baby! This isn't news to many of you by now, but it is something that's been occupying much of my conciousness. I'm about 12 weeks along at this point. Here's the ultrasound pic from last week. The really exciting part is that the doc said I was further along than we had thought! Wahoo! He bumped up the due date by 11 days to Feb 2nd! That is definately good news. However, we all know that I'll never go that far. This kid will be born sometime in January.

#2 We took a trip to Yellowstone and Utah and back through Idaho to home. We camped and froze, but still had fun. We visited friends and family in Utah and got sunburned and had some more fun. Regretable I have misplaced (on my dad's computer) all of my vacation pictures. I'll get them back someday, but for now you all will miss out on seeing the really huge bison that we saw next to our car!

#3 I've been sewing! This is monumental for sure. I told Ana I would make her a Mei Tai (asian style baby carrier) for her baby. Well, the baby was born and I hadn't even started the project. I had the fabric, but I was a bit intimidated as I had never made one before. And, of course, it has to be perfect! Since I'm cheap, I will not "buy" a pattern. I looked up pattern instuctions on the web and found a few that I worked from. Now, if you know me, you also know that I am not so good at vague instructions. I need specific details, a very outlined pattern. These different sets of instructions had different methods and styles and ways of finishing off the carrier. I spent a lot (a very lot) of time trying to wrap my head around this project. Of course it shouldnt' be this difficult, but for me it is. The end result is that I finished it today and delivered it to Ana. Isabella is now 4 weeks old (tomorrow) and just about big enough to start riding around in this cool thing, so I guess I didn't do too badly. I'm just thrilled with how it turned out and I can't wait to make another one for me. Yes, I already have one, but I need one for home and one for the car, duh!

Thanks to Eli for loaning me his bear, albeit reluctantly, so I could model the Mei Tai!

Just a couple of shots from today. When Kendall works in the evening I often take the boys out to a park to play and burn off some of that last energy of the day. They were being way too cute. Eli was doing his usual of searching out for bugs, then screaming when he found them. Noah is ultra confident on these play structures, he climbs all the ladders and everything. He was hanging from the bar today and swinging and saying "Weeeeeeee!" These are the moments that help me get through the screaming fits and tantrums from 2 little kids!

Haircuts today...Honey, forgive me!

So our warm weather has finally arrived and Eric
has gotten to the point where he was just sure he would die of heat from his hair! I'm a big fan of short hair on him, but he likes to keep it kind of floppy. Today he said he wanted a buzz cut. So, I took him in.

Before:

After:

He said he felt lighter and he was so excited to be able to feel his scalp!

So we got home and I started thinking about how much easier it would be to take care of Eli if we took the clippers to his hair too. Here's the result
Before: (This pic was a couple of weeks ago, but the just recent post also shows how long and thick his hair was.)

After:

Wow! What a difference? Is it just me or can you actually SEE Eli now? Man he's gorgeous!

The rest are just a few shots of the kids today. Yeah, they're usually all over each other, or all over me!

Eric and I went to drive the Bumper Boats today. It's a bit of a rip off, 7 bucks per person for about 10 minutes, but hey, we had a good time. Then we went inside and each one a game of air hocky, played some dancing game and really blew it at Guitar Hero. After that we did a little shopping and got his hair cut. It was some needed me and him hanging out time. I love you Eric!

Just the boys...

We had chocolate cake today. That will explain all of the messy mouths. But is there anything cuter than this look? I keep getting the feeling that my baby isn't a baby anymore. He is talking like crazy and his personality is developing so fast. He does something new every day! In fact, He climbed out of his crib today for the first time. He did it so effortlessly, it looked like he'd been doing that for months! What ever shall I do? I'm not ready to train him to stay in a regular bed! Uggggg!


A little bit of a forced smile on Eric, but you get the picture. He's an awesome kid and he's growing up so fast.


Typical Eli, I'm not really sure what else to say here. We were all really tired by the end of the day today!

Just a little dazed and confused, either that or trying to hypnotize Eli. Yeah, that could be it.

This was a happy scream, really it was! No one can say our kids aren't enthusiastic!

Grandpa Stark with Eli. In fact, Eli has taken to calling him Grandpa Stark all day every day! They've been doing some intense grandpa/grandson bonding.

Kendall loving life!

This is how much I love my husband! He tells me not quite a year ago that he wants to take this trip to Peru with his nursing program. I think it's a cool "idea" and act very supportive. Fastforward to now. He is there. He is loving it. He is helping people and using his Spanish skills, eating good and different and interesting food, etc. The only down side is that I couldn't go with him! Someday I tell you! We will go do stuff like this together! He sent a couple of pics, apparently he has taken hundreds already.

I guess this is a BABY Anaconda! I didn't realize this about my hubby, that he would be so comfortable holding a snake! :O)


Pushing a bus that broke down. Why does this story not surprise me?


I'm super glad he's having this adventure and such wonderful experiences. He said he found the church building not far from where he's staying. He went to all 3 hours there today and had a wonderful spiritual experience. I can't wait to hear more about it!
I love you Kendall!

In the last week with the Batsons...

Nikki was here for a long weekend so she could go to Kenzie's (Liz's oldest) baptism. We managed to get one night of just girls, yay! It was super exciting: dinner, talking, driving, talking, bra shopping at Khol's, more driving and sitting and talking. Funny how that can be exactly what 3 moms need! I didn't get home til 2am and I still felt revived and refreshed the next day! And, yes, we did buy matching bags! Well, it was a good sale and we all really liked it? What can we say?

Just a couple of shots from Eric's latest soccer game. We had to go to Lakeside, which is like 15 miles away! It's this tiny town and it's super pretty out there. The other team tried, but Eric's team won 5-0 and Eric scored his first goal of the season! Go Eric!

On Tuesday, the Shupps invited us and 2 other families over for a Cinco de Mayo party, pinata included! There were 16 kids between the 4 families and they all had a blast. Eli loved the pinata and went completely nuts when it broke. I've never seen him so crazy about colecting candy...oh wait, that's normal for him!

Noah got his stab at the pinata too, not that he did much damage.

Well, we finally did it. We trimmed Noah's hair! He's nearly 21 months old and he had his first hair cut! It was getting really out of control, but I was so worried about losing his curls. It turns out that even trimmed more than an inch, he still has plenty of curl left, yay! I'm not the best at cutting kids' hair, but I think it turned out okay. He just looks so different to me.

Eli surprised me a bit by really loving this corn on the cob! I'm not sure he got it all but he ate all around and kept saying he loved it and that it was really really really good! Whew! One more healthful thing he'll eat! Yay!

Noah, ready for prayer!

Too adorable for words!

Here are a few random photos of the boys from the last few weeks.


Mommy and Eli. He's the adorable one. I have to relish and savor these moments. He doesn't like to stay still much.


One of his happy places is the bath. He would hang out in there all day if I let him!


A rare moment: All 3 boys sitting together eating. There was no fighting, yelling, pushing or anything. Just sitting and eating and smiling. Wow!

Yeah, it's still really difficult to get one photo with all of them looking and smiling and not eating at the same time!

I love this kid! His smile is so contageous and just like his daddy's! Good thing I finally finshed his ducky towel. Sometimes it's the only way to get him out of the tub!

Happy Birthday Ana!

Briett, Ana, Sharon
Happy birthday to you, my dear friend! I am so grateful to have you in my life and I think you're just an amazing woman! I can't wait to spoil and adore your baby girl in a few months!

I'll start with this one...

We are blessed with a couple of very early risers! Eli thinks it's perfectly fine to wake up at 5am. It doesn't matter that there's no light outside or anything. He's off and running before anyone else. He's so kind to burst into our room to tell us to get up. If only I was quick enough to catch him so he wouldn't return to his room to flip on the light and start jumping in Noah's crib!

A few weeks ago Eli changed his M.O. Instead of barging into our room, he decided to explore the kitchen. Of course this isn't exactly a new idea either. I've been pulling him off the counters for months. The difference about this particular morning was that my lock on the fridge had broken a day or so before. Let me rephrase...Eli had broken the fridge lock. Well, he just wouldn't be himself if he didn't try to disarm, distroy, or take apart anything and everything he comes in contact with. So the fridge was lock-less for a couple of days. Big deal. What could happen?

I was sleeping and hoping during my sleep that this would be a day that Eli would finally sleep until at least 6:30 or 7am. Something prompted Kendall to get up and see what Eli was up to. I heard no yelling or scolding or anything. He just walked back to our room and said, "Honey, you have to come and look at this." Have you ever been so upset that you just couldn't say anything at all? No words would come, from either of us. This is what we saw:

Sometime around 5:30am, my wonderful 3 year old decided to "paint" in his room. He very quietly went to the UNLOCKED fridge and helped himself to beautiful paints: chocolate brown, carmel tan and mustard yellow (aka. hershey's syrup, carmel syrup, and honey mustard dressing). He decided it would be great fun to open these delicious paints and decorate his room, starting with the carpet. The crib, including the bedding, were not to be ignored!

Well, he knew he was in trouble, you can kind of see that in this last picture. We didn't know what to to...try to soak the stuff out? We're not equipped to deal with this! Within the hour we called a friend in our ward who has his own carpet cleaning business. We knew someone in the family would be up (they have a seminary student), and we lucked out that he was availble that morning. He came to our apartment and kind of shook his head like we had. He worked on it and, in my opinion, worked a near miracle! Sadly, he informed me that mustard is not just something that stains, it is a dye! Well, there is no evidence of the chocolate or carmel, but there is a slight yellow tint in the middle of the carpet. It's not bright, but it is noticible. I'm pretty sure we've lost our deposit on this apartment, but at least it's not really aweful looking.

I did buy a new fridge lock. Eli figured it out in about 20 minutes! Lucky for me, I think he figured it out accidently and seems to be unable to get in the fridge now. Whew! We might be incident free for a few days!