The Quirks of a Genius

Corbin is a genius. This is old news, ask anyone. I'm not just a proud mother trying to convince people of something that isn't true, he really is the smartest kid ever. He could point out and say every letter of the alphabet, count to 10 and carry on a coherent conversation before the age of two. He has been easily navigating the Internet for close to two years now, and can even get onto youtube to find his favorite curious George videos. It will only be a matter of time before he is hacking into the CIA to find out all the governments secrets, probably by the time he is 5! All this is kind of beside the point, people say, every genius comes with quirks, and Corbin is no exception. Here is a list of some of them.

1. Corbin has a "No Pictures Policy". This policy consists of him refusing to wear ANYTHING that has pictures on it, including: Shirts, underwear, coats, and jackets. And pretty much anything counts as a picture: stripes, numbers, logos, anything, no matter how big or small it is. This policy is impossible for him to enforce due to the fact that he only has one pair of underwear without pictures, and like 4 shirts (and I refuse to give in and wash them everyday!) He doesn't have a jacket without pictures, so when I try to get him to wear one, he freaks out and insists on his coat, even when its like 65 degrees outside.

2. He is obsessed with time. He has been able to read a clock for a while now, but he still always asks what time it is, even if I told him 2 minutes earlier. If he's not asking me what time it is, he's telling me what time it is. He also wants to know what time everything will happen. "What time will we eat lunch?", "What time will daddy come home?" Even things that are unpredictable, for example, "What time will Dexy wake up from his nap?", or "What time will it stop raining?" It's cute, but irritating.

3. Corbin hates when timers or alarms go off. If he is in the kitchen and I put something in the microwave, he instantly takes off running and won't come back until after it beeps because he doesn't want to hear it. His Grandma Marde has a couple of clocks at her house that chime every hour, so whenever they are about to go off he will run out until after they have stopped. He also has an alarm clock in his room (to encourage his weird fascination with time I guess) which he wants to set for 7:30 every morning, but can't because he doesn't actually want to hear it when it goes off.

4. He is also obsessed with gardening. It's actually kind of cute. Ever since he saw a couple episodes of curious George that involved vegetable gardens, he has wanted one. We planted some carrot seeds a couple of weeks ago and he goes outside everyday to water them and rake the dirt. He is a little confused about them not growing overnight, but is really looking forward to picking them when they do. It's going to be a challenge to keep him from pulling them before they're ready.

Anyway, I am hoping he grows out of most of these things before it gets too OCD, except the gardening. Maybe he will start pulling weeds soon!

Beauty, eh?

When Scott and I got married, his sister, Heidi gave us her table. That table has served us well for almost 6 years, but it's getting pretty beat up. One of the chairs broke a few months ago, so it is duct taped together, and there are dings, dents and stains all over the place. So we decided that maybe its time for a new one. After ordering online and waiting almost 3 weeks for it to arrive, we finally got our new table. Actually tables, we needed one with 6 chairs. We found this table with 4 chairs for SUPER cheap, but we would need to buy 2 extra chairs. Buying individual chairs was unbelievably expensive. It cost just 40 dollars less to buy one table set with two additional chairs than it cost to just buy two sets of tables with 4 chairs each, so we paid the 40 extra and bought two sets! We have no idea what we are going to do with the extra table, especially since they are a lot bigger than we expected, but if anyone wants to come for thanksgiving this year, I think we can swing it!

The tables are counter height, so hopefully the boys don't fall! As I mentioned, since we ordered them online they are a lot bigger than we thought (the pics show it WITHOUT the leaf), and we weren't sure the color would match. It doesn't, it's a little darker than we thought, but it still looks okay. I guess that's the price you pay for online convenience. Doesn't Scott look little sitting there!


And just for fun, in the inspirational words of the Reel Big Fish, "Scott's a dork!"

Oxygen Baby

A normal person's blood oxygen level is approximately 98-100%. Since Ivy is a "mixer" (meaning her oxygenated and de-oxygenated blood mixes together), her blood oxygen level is usually between 75 and 85%. Over the past several weeks her levels have been slowly declining (which is normal with her condition). About two weeks ago they dropped quite a bit, and then dropped even more this week. She is now between 62 and 68%, which isn't good. Since her surgery has not yet been scheduled, her cardiologist decided to put her on oxygen to see if that will help get her levels back up (and keep them up). So here she is with her little nose cannula. She's still beautiful, but I feel bad for her because it's never fun have stuff up your nose. She brings back memories of my little niece Ryan when she was on oxygen years ago.


We are wishing little Ives luck to get the oxygen she needs to be able to last a while longer until her surgery, which sounds like it is getting close. I can't wait until we don't have play this waiting game anymore. Her MRI is on May 5th so hopefully then we will have a better idea of a surgery date, we're crossing our fingers for June.

Death to the Easter Bunny!

Not just the Easter Bunny, but Santa Claus, Cupid, St. Patrick, Uncle Sam, Pilgrims, turkeys, and The Great Pumpkin are all on my list of diet sabotagers to "off". Okay, those last few are a bit of a stretch, but you get the idea. Death to every holiday or excuse out there that give me reason to eat poorly or over-eat all together, completely destroying my diet and making me fatter! I hate you all!!

I have made a decision, now is probably the longest stretch of time I have to get back on track before another holiday comes along and ruins everything. I need to get my bootie in gear! I hereby say goodbye to chocolate eggs, chocolate hearts, chocolate santas, chocolate monsters and everything that goes along with them! Bye, bye, cookies, candy, ice cream, and cake, I love you all, I will miss you!

Most of all Goodbye Fat Pants! Although you will need to stick around for a while, I look forward to the day when I get to burn you in the backyard. I will not miss you, and will rejoice when you no longer exist. Enjoy your time now fat pants, your days are numbered!

And finally to all of you people who say that I'm not fat or I look fine, knock it off! Tell the truth! Tell me I'm a fatty boom-ba-latty! I need it, I know it, and dang it, I expect it! It's what I need to get my butt out of those fat pants and into some not necessarily skinny pants, but some less fat ones!

My days of a healthier me start now........help me stay motivated, if I don't do it now I never will and it will only get worse! Wish me luck!

Easter Blessings

So this weekend was THE weekend for us. We had a lot of people come to Boise and stay with us for Ivy's blessing on Easter Sunday. We had tons of fun and it was so good to see everybody. Of course, Ivy looked beautiful in her easter/blessing dress, and loved being the center of attention. Scott gave her an amazing blessing (did you have any doubt, he always gives great blessings) and then we had a fun brunch at our community clubhouse. We can't wait to do it again. Well, actually we can, we aren't going to be having any more babies any time soon!

Besides Ivy's blessing we also did average Easter stuff, like coloring eggs,

Playing in our new Curious George jammies (thanks Heidi, they love them),

Playing on jumping stilts,

And putting bubbles in Russell and Collettes fountain,

You know, all very boring stuff!

Random Cuteness

My kids are so stinkin cute! They do and say the funniest things sometimes.

Here is a story I thought was funny.
Yesterday I had to go to the bank so I dragged the kids along. Right next to the bank there is a maytag store that has a life-sized lady on the sign that is motorized to look like she is washing clothes in an old fashioned tub. I guess Corbin has never noticed her before, but he did yesterday. He was very concerned for her safety, he kept asking how she got up there, and how would she get down. I tried to explain that she wasn't real, but he wasn't buying it! "She's moving!" he said (he's like yeah right mom, I know a real person when I see one.) trying to make him understand I said, "I know bud, but she's kinda like a statue." He answered back with "I saw a statue on Elmo (sesame street) that kicked a ball, statues are real." I immediately knew what he was referring to, and I had no answer for that. (the statue he saw was a person dressed like a statue that kicked a ball). I couldn't think of another way to explain it to him (I don't think he would have believed me anyway), so I just said, I'm sure there is a ladder for her to climb down, she'll be fine."

and now some pics

Such good big brothers. They both love their baby sister.

Here are a couple of cute Ivy pictures.
Ivy is curious.....Is this bow too big?!

The only way I can get her to take some tummy time is on the boppy pillow!

Isn't she just the cutest?!

Ivy is enjoying conference. Her favorite speaker is Elder Uchtdorf.

Here are a couple of Dexter's birthday celebrations.

And finally here is Corbin with Mr. Potato Head "Silly" as he calls him. He was so proud of his work.

Just 6 days left

Til my blog changes to private! If you haven't already given me your email address and still want to read my blog after next wednesday, you better get your booty in gear and give me your email for the invite! Thank you!

8 Things Tag

Sorry it took so long pam, I forgot!
8 Favorite Tv Shows
1.Lost
2.The New Adventures of Old Christine
3.How I Met Your Mother
4.The Big Bang Theory
5.Two and a half Men
6.Mythbusters
7.American Justice
8.House Hunters

8 Things I did Yesterday
1.Showered
2.cleaned the downstairs of the house
3.Read some of grandma jensen's book
4.gave the baby a bath
5.took the boys out for ice-cream
6.put dexter in time-out for the first time
7.a couple loads of laundry
8.spent time with the computer

8 Things I am Looking Forward To
1.Bear Lake this summer
2.Las Vegas this summer
3.losing weight (not saying its gonna happen)
4.finishing grandma jensen's book
5.Ivy's blessing
6.Dexter's nap time
7.Ivy's surgery (anticipating, not looking forward to)
8.SUMMER!

8 Favorite Restaurants
1.Olive Garden
2.Applebee's
3.chili's
4.Training Table
5.Cafe Rio
6.Costa Vida
7.Cheesecake Factory
8.Iceburg's (does that count?)

8 Things on my wishlist
1.No more nurses analyzing my abilities as a mother
2.Laser eye surgery
3.being skinny
4.Ivy to be 100% healthy
5.New kitchen table
6.building our patio
7.getting a piano
8.Painting all the rooms in the house

8 People I tag
1.Janelle Day
2.Heather Cameron
3.MAXINE THOMPSON (you better do it max, it doesn't require any computer savyness)
4.Lisa Bollwinkel (Come on Lisa, I'm counting on you)
5.Amber Rock
6.Amber Kraus
7.Nicole Fenn
8.Anngee Floyd