housewife swag and UT powder

i am in the business of preventing my laziness overtake my wifely cooking duties.  you can say we're still recovering from my parents' stay.  i don't feel like cooking and planning meals.  i secretly wish my mom was still here to cook AMAZING meals for us.  but i am the actual queen of this castle and i need to get my booty in gear and into the kitchen.  so in order to prevent my family's starvation/gross need for crappy fast food i finally got into crockpot freezer meal planning/cookin and i feel sheepish for not doing this earlier.  it used to intimidate me, having to buy what seemed like a million groceries and spending countless hours in the kitchen sweating and cutting veggies.  but i now view it as working really hard one day getting all the meals into bags then spending the next few weeks being totally lazy, well at least, not having to think about what to make for dinner.
and i even price matched on these groceries at walmart.  it was my very first time price matching and i was sweating the entire time at the cash register.  i thought that they would be really anal as to what the ads said or where the ads came from or even the dates on the ads but shoo, the dude never even looked at them.  savin a dolla makes me holla!

i did like having brett at home to wrangle everton while i sorted and shoved food into bags.  he's also the main onion chopper in this house.  i think cutting onions are the devil's work.  they freak my eyes out so bad.

in other news, tooele just got snow infested.

and i just had to take everton out to play in said snow so he's not driving me crazy bouncing off the walls being cooped up in the house.

but he loved being out and about.  thankfully he didn't eat the snow because it most likely came from the disgusting smog air that's been enveloping salt lake valley.

also, with everton being in nursery, i get tickled when the nursery leader gives me everton's latest creation, whether it be a coloring page with a few lines of crayon or this sweet ditty...

cheer up everton, you're in nursery, not prison.

face full o' frosting

my cousin kim invited us to her son landon's 2nd birthday party up in idaho and we thought it was a perfect opportunity to go back to the state chock full of our college memories and of course to celebrate landon's birthday.  it was also a good excuse to see our besties steve and gwen.

everton and i with kim and landon!  the boys were busy stuffing their face with frosting.

love my cuz.

our fam bams.

when everton first got his savory and sugary cupcake he plopped himself on a chair and chowed down.  that's pretty much the moment he was looking forward to since we got to the party.  we're so glad we came and partied with landon and were able to hang out with the filipino fam from idaho.

then whenever we go to idaho we HAVE to hang out with steve and gwen.  and they were graceful enough to let us stay with them for the 3 day weekend.  and we got to meet their newest addition, baby zeke!  he made me so baby hungry.  he's about 7 months and is possibly the most chill baby ever.

and i was so surprised at how much everton wanted to take care of zeke.  he tried holding him (with me actually holding zeke,) and would give him his bottle.  it just touched my heart feeling that maybe everton does need a little sib and that he could help out with him.  and then everton proceeded to throw a phone at zeke's face.  well, with everton's face in that last pic i think our next kid needs to sleep with one eye open with everton around.

as much as i griped and complained about living in idaho, it will always have a special place in my heart.  i mean, that's where i had some of the best times in college (at least for an LDS girl who doesn't drink,) it's where i met and was proposed to by my husband, and let's be real, it's where we made everton!  we also made some of the greatest friends we could have in this life.

now we're back in tooele.  brett goes to work while everton and i are cooped up in the house.  with the super dry weather and the heater constantly on, brett and i have been getting bloody noses like crazy.  we really need a humidifier...

oh, and scary story of the day-everton sharted himself and i went on to clean his booty.  scary enough huh?  the deed was done and i threw away the diaper.  then while lunch was cooking, everton and i were hangin out on the couch and i glanced to the floor and there i saw it.  a boulder sized turd sitting on one of the puzzle boards.  i was and am still mortified.  it bewildered me, did everton undo his pjs and diaper and drop one in the living room?  did a dog break in?  false to both.  i realized that the fecal matter must've fallen out of the diaper while i was cleaning everton.  ehhhhhh it still makes me cringe thinking that everton could've been playing with it or doing who knows what to it...

*shudders*

also, HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my awesome sis kyla!

she's going to be popping out a baby boy in june!!  it'll be excellent, another kid for everton to wrassle.

energetic everton

hey get down from there!

don't touch that!

what are you doing??

don't put that there!

put that back!

let go of my hair!

don't put that in your mouth!

stop throwing things!

these are the phrases i often use on a daily basis.  my everton used to be what i thought was the perfect child, that is, till he learned the true power of what his arms and legs can do.  every piece of furniture is a mountain he must conquer.  every small object must pass the test as to how high and how far it can be thrown.  and eating?  maybe everton used to be an excellent eater, blissfully unaware that the green bean or carrot is a superior form of nutrition.  but now, he'll take a lick and then give me a look of, "what in the h-e-double hockey sticks are you trying to feed me woman?"

today was especially a tough day.  my parents have gone back to wv so i don't have the luxury of handing off a wild everton to my mom or dad to coddle while i go sit in a corner rocking back and forth.  i was not expecting the terrible twos until he was actually two!  i have moments thinking, "how the crunk am i supposed to have more kids when i can BARELY handle ONE??"  or i ponder, "how in the world do people have more than one kid??"  OF COURSE we plan on having more and i get too dramatic when talking to brett feeling that there's no way i can have another one when everton still doesn't talk!!  i have my "i suck as a mom moments."  i need to stop watching as much tv as i do and play more with everton.  i read a lot with everton, well maybe it's not enough.  if i read more, then maybe he'll say more words...blah blah blah.  it's hard not comparing kids with my friends or random people i see at the store.  i try to love everton as much as i can and tell him that i love him just as much too.  i try to feed him at least somewhat healthy as i can because i honestly don't want to contribute a child to the nation's obesity epidemic.  i try to discipline him as i can for his age, but let's face it, when i'm trying to put him in time out or let him know that what he just did isn't very nice, he looks at me with those big brown eyes with a slight smile on his face and my heart melts and i have to hide my face in my hoodie so he doesn't see me crack.

darn that kid.

so anyways, my cousin's wife rachel just shared this article on facebook.  and holy crap it was meant just for me, i know it. it's called,

  'why you're never failing as a mother.'
this was my fav part, "You are in the trenches when you have a baby. To the untrained eye it seems pretty straightforward and easy -- you feed them, you bathe them, you pick them up when they cry -- but it's more than that. It's perpetual motion with a generous layer of guilt and self-doubt spread on top, and that takes its toll."

amen to that.  there are a million.5 things i didn't know going into motherhood and i know for sure there's a million more things i'll learn as i go on.  everton is my treasure and i keep telling myself that there's no perfect time to have another kid.  i'll never be a perfect mom and i'm trying to keep that in mind.  as the author eloquently put it, 

"We live in a time when we can Google everything, share ideas and expose our children to amazing opportunities, but anyone that implies that they have it figured out is either drunk or lying (or both), so don't be too hard on yourself."

all i can do is my best, even if that means letting everton make a pigsty out of the living room or slipping him some ice cream because he looks really cute enjoying it. 

 now i gotta go clean the pink crayon chunks from everton's teeth.

cheers to a new year

happy new years everyone!

what an amazing year its been.

and its been a year of firsts and adventures.

everton got to that point where we could go out and do fun things with him.

brett started his new job with the church.

everton turned 1 this year

and he started walking soon after.
he said his first word and that is still his only word.

everton had his first ER visit.

my best friend charlene got married.

i finished my first year of teaching primary and will continue to teach this year.  i'm pretty proud of that accomplishment and i don't think the kids turned out too corrupted.

and what an amazing year its been for movies.  i mean, the hunger games, the avengers, the dark knight rises, skyfall, and the hobbit!!  and what can get better than that??
next year's movies that's what: iron man 3, thor 2, the wolverine, man of steel, OZ, star trek 2, the hunger games 2, the hobbit 2...seriously so many sequels.

so before we really start this new year, i wanted to share some happenings that happened after Christmas.

we've been watching my lord of the rings extended edition set.

everton's uncle travis took him and his cuz hazel out to play in the snow.

everton just marveled at the snow while hazel ate it.

feeling the need for a little getaway, brett and i scurried off to slc for a staycation while my parents gleefully watched everton.  brett and i ate dinner at a fancy shmancy restaurant where he won a $100 gift card to.  it was nice to get meals that we otherwise would in no way pay for from our own pockets but we still had to pay the tip which you could imagine what 20% of a $100 dinner bill would be.  then we stayed in a really cute hotel downtown and it was a perfect night.

then we spent the eve before the new year with our lifelong friends, the decatos.  the whole fam came over and charlene and adam unexpectedly came by too!

my best friends, sparkling cider, a kiss from my lover, my family, and my everton helped end a stunning year.