The Book

Friday is my shopping day. That makes me sound like a 1950's housewife. Let me explain.

Last year Bryan and I were analyzing some of our spending habits in an effort to trim around the edges. After reading articles about personal and family finance, we decided to implement a few things. One of these was shopping only one day a week. I realized that most of our incidental and unnecessary purchases came from trips where we meant to buy one thing. And so, Friday was chosen as the day to hand over our (okay, Bryan's) hard earned cash.

That means that Thursday is my shopping list day. I've become quite the peruser of the weekly grocery ads. I look at what's on sale, what we have in the pantry and the fridge, talk to Bryan, make a menu for the upcoming week and compile my list. My lists are thorough because I only buy the things on my list and I have a self-imposed rule that I can't add anything new to the list once I'm in the store. (Why can't I think of a different word for list? The writer in me is writhing from the sheer repitition of that word.) Now you're probably asking yourself why I'm going into such detail about how I make my shopping list. Well, the list is only half of the awesome frugal-wizardry.

I write my list in a small notebook. Once at the store I write down the price of everything I have on my list. Yup, I keep a price book. It makes my shopping trips longer (and I always take both boys with me when I shop, so speed is a top goal) but it's worth it. I've been keeping the book for six months now. I write down the overall price and the unit price (ie. ounce, pound, item). What's cool about it is I can tell how often we buy certain items (because I date all the shopping lists) and when a sale is a bargain or not. It's swell. I highly recommend it.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some shopping to do.

Lysdexia

Dyslexia runs in my family. That is the first thing I thought when Peter showed me his refrigerator-magnet name. The second thought I had was, wait, he's three, and he basically just spelled his name.

I think I'll withhold worrying about a dyslexia diagnosis until after he can, you know, read.

Cooper, Now With Crawling Action!

P.S. Watch the whole 52 seconds. And watch it with the sound on.

All Boy

At church on Sunday two different women referred to Cooper as "she". (You would think that the pants, tie, and train sweater would have been a giveaway.) So for Family Home Evening last night we talked about the importance of grooming and gave the boys haircuts. Practical, eh? The first few pictures are to show just how long Cooper's hair was, and you can kind of see Peter's shaggy hair in the background. Peter didn't have his first haircut until he was fourteen months old, and then it was just to clean up the back and the sides. Cooper, however, never lost the hair he was born with, so it's much longer than big brother's was at this age.

Cooper was a very good sport. He only freaked out right at the end, so we were pretty much done anyway. A friend taught me how to cut Peter's hair when he was little, but I didn't want to get close to our very squirmy Cooper's head with anything sharp and shiny. And so I forayed into the world of clippers. Overall, it was successful. Not perfect by any means, but not bad for my first go.

He totally looks like a boy. I mean, he did before too (when I told Bryan that Cooper had been mistaken for a girl he said "He'd be a pretty ugly girl. He's a really cute boy, but not a girl.") I would include a picture of Peter's haircut but we had a, uh, sideburn incident. Meaning that he doesn't have them anymore. Oh well, they'll grow back, right?

Someone to Emulate

I had the opportunity to attend the funeral of my Great-Uncle Homer on Saturday. He passed away last Wednesday, just a few months shy of his ninety-eighth birthday. My Grandma said he and my Grandpa (his brother-in-law) must be having a wonderful time together. One of the things that I learned at the funeral is that he had sayings written and posted all over his house so that he would remember to live by them. A handful of them were printed in the program. I'd like to remember them, so I'm recording them here.

• Your life is a manifestation of what you think of Christ.
• Keep working for the Lord; the pay isn't much in dollars, but the retirement is out of this world!
• How will I feel tomorrow about today's decisions?
• Stay focused on the Savior.
• "The truest mark of your success in life will be the quality of your marriage. The choice of a companion will be the most important of all the choices you will make in your life." -President Gordon B. Hinckley
• "The day obedience became a quest and not an irritation I began to have power."-President Ezra Taft Benson
  
• Pride would tell us who is right. Humility would tell us what is right.
• God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.- 2 Timothy 1:7-8
• Create Happiness

The last one is my favorite. I'm a naturally optimistic person and I love the idea of creating happiness.

The thing that is most inspiring to me is that Uncle Homer never stopped trying to improve. At almost ninety-eight he was still striving to be better. I want to follow his example.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

Peter has been our alarm clock lately. He'll wake up, run into our room, climb into bed on Bryan's side, and snuggle. It's really sweet most of the time. Sometimes, however, he'll wake up at one in the morning and come in to snuggle. I usually don't find out that he's joined us until Cooper wakes up to nurse later in the morning. We've decided that the next bed we get should be a King, because we need one that can fit all four of us.

The night that Bryan had his dental work done he couldn't sleep. He'd been partially asleep all day so his body wouldn't cooperate when it came time for all diurnal creatures to slumber. He stayed in the living room in our big comfy chair and waited for drowsiness. I went to sleep. I vaguely remember Peter coming in because of a bad dream. Then sometime later (I don't know when because the clock in our room got unplugged) Cooper woke up to nurse. Knowing that Bryan was occupying my nursing chair I just fed Cooper in my bed. And then I fell asleep. I woke up with Peter snuggled right up to one side of me and Cooper snuggled on the other. Both boys sweat profusely while they sleep, so I woke up sore from not moving for hours and soaking wet from their hyper-active sweat glands on either side of me.

This is the exchange that took place during breakfast:

Me: (to Bryan) I slept between two very sweaty little boys last night.
Peter: Oh? Who were they?

All Day at the Dentist?*

The last two days have been weird. Weirder for Bryan than for me, but still not totally normal.

Bryan has extremely thin enamel on his teeth, which means that he's gotten loads of fillings over the last twenty years. (I really don't know when he got his first filling, I'm just guestimating. No, that's not really a word.) And unfortunately, all of those fillings need to be replaced. He met with someone from our dentist's office who wrote out a plan for this major dental-project. They divided his mouth into quadrants. In December he had the first quadrant replaced. Yesterday they did the second quadrant.

In order to get everything done in one fell swoop he needed to be in the dentist's chair from eight in the morning until just after two in the afternoon. Yup, more than six hours of dental work. I like the dentist, but that's even hard for me to handle. Anyway, our dentist does the sedation thing. That means you take some medication the night before and the morning of and then for the rest of the day you're in a foggy, half-awake half-asleep, Twilight-Zone kind of place. Bryan was not allowed to drive a car for twenty-four hours after the procedure. He also wasn't allowed to hold or care for children.

That meant that I was on all day yesterday, caring for all three of the men at my house. After coming home and sleeping for three hours I thought that most of the medication had worn off. Nope. I asked him today about some things we discussed in the evening after the boys went to bed and he had no idea what I was talking about. He basically lost yesterday. It's just gone. Which I think would be kind of scary. And he's been in a fog most of today.

But his teeth sure look pretty.

*Name the movie!

Truce

I'm about to write something that will shock two people. My mom will be delighted and my brother Ian will be disgusted. Are you ready?

I cooked lentils for dinner.

I think this means that I'm officially a grown-up. And you know what, it was good. Peter was reluctant to try it, but once he had a bite he smiled and said, "Oh, that's good."

How have I been able to push past my extreme and deep-seated loathing for all things lentil? It's pretty simple actually. I really don't like spending money and lentils are cheap. I wish I could say that my impetus was something more noble like wanting to feed my family this nutritional powerhouse, but no, it's because they don't cost much.

Also, I've been trying to gather good information on food storage (what kind of food stores well, how much food we need for each person in our family for three months and for a year, any suggestions would be swell) and lentils pop up fairly often on the lists of suggested foods. We've been building our food storage for a little while now (nothing spectacular, mostly rice, beans, and flour) (I know it should probably be wheat, and I even know how to use wheat, we're just not quite to that level of food storage awesomeness yet) and I've been looking to branch out a little.

Lentils, I declare a truce. I will no longer loathe you if you can continue to not taste gross. Deal?

He Can't Crawl...

...but he can wedge himself underneath his brother's bed...


...on his stomach and his back.




Maybe he was just looking for a comfortable place to read?

V is for Valentine

Bryan and I decided that for the month of February we're only going to buy groceries. That means no spending money on Valentine's Day. Not to worry, we're resourceful and found ways to do something nice for each other, without spending a dime.

Peter and I made Bryan's favorite cookies for him. I realized that in seven and a half years of marriage I had never made my husband's favorite cookies. That's kind of sad actually... Nevertheless, I have rectified that situation, which means that Saturday night Bryan munched on homemade Snickerdoodles, hot from the oven. He seemed to think that was an acceptable gift.

My gift was wonderful. After the boys went to sleep Bryan and I snuggled on our over-sized chair and watched a movie of my choice. Here's the big part: there were no computers present! This is a major thing. Usually one or both of us is working on the computer in the evening, even while we're watching TV or a movie. It was swell. And what did we watch? This:


I got it for Christmas in this set and it's the first time we've watched it. I can't decide which was better, that the computer wasn't on or that we both liked the movie so much. Yeah, my husband enjoys watching musicals with me. I'm a lucky girl.

Anyway, I'd say that our poor man's Valentine's Day was a success. We may have to do this again next year.