At this very moment

Will is sleeping in his swing (thank heavens). He's been super cranky for three days now with his two bottom teeth coming in.

Ruth is giggling in the living room because she's playing with the dog.

And I am sitting at the desk in my pajamas because Shirlaine and I went on a walk with the kids and the dog this morning, so I showered and was too tired to try and look good today.

Last night I went to play volleyball at the stake center and had a blast, it was a stake wide relief society thing...5 of the 6 people who showed up were from my ward. I'm going to make that a weekly thing because it was SO fun to play volleyball again, to be away from the kiddos for a while and to laugh with other women. The big joke last night was that we sounded more like we were having babies than playing volleyball with all the grunting...and one of the girls kept saying, "Here she comes, here she comes" when someone was about to spike the ball.

And lastly, I am back down to pre-vacation weight, which is 185, hooray!!! I'm back on track and feeling super motivated to continue the exercise and good eating.

This Boy and This Girl

This boy has a tooth! It's coming through on the bottom, his bottom right. Today was also his first "real" food meal. He didn't make too much of a mess and figured out how to work his tongue pretty quickly. He is just adorable and we love him. He's also working on rolling over every day now and is pretty good at that too.


This girl took a while to be interested in speaking English, but her vocabulary has exploded the past few weeks. She now has over 100 individual words she says, the most impressive among them being helicopter and elephant. She also uses phrases like, "There we go," "I'll be back," and "Where are you?" and a few others. She has also mastered sulking and screaming. One of the funniest things she does is tell inanimate objects to "stop it!" Case in point, the other day her straw was not cooperating with her and she told it several times to "STOP IT!"

What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas

So, I guess I'm breaking that rule! Brad had to go to Vegas for a work conference, so the kids and I drove down with him so we could have a little family vacation when he wasn't in classes.

The first thing we did as soon as we rolled into town was go to Ceasar's Palace to eat at Bobby Flay's restaurant, the Mesa Grill.


It definitely lived up to our expectations and set the mood for the rest of our trip. We ate our favorite thing of the entire trip there, it was called queso fundido. But what made this appetizer better than the queso fundido we ate at the Border Grill in our hotel was that it was melted GOAT CHEESE with peppers...oh heavens it was amazing. The other fundido we had was melted mexican cheeses with sausage and other things in it, also good, but not as good.

Monday we went to the zoo. Ruth loved looking into the fish pond, but especially loved all the birds they had. Several peacocks roamed the grounds along with a couple chickens. Then they had an emu, two ostriches, tons of macaws and parrots and a raven. When we were leaving the zoo, we said "bye" to the birds, and one of the macaws said "bye" back to us!

The other great part about this zoo is their chimp named Terry. He came right out of his bed when we walked up and sat right next to the window so we could see him. He kept thumping the window with his knuckles. It was really amazing to watch him move and see how human-like he really was.

Brad's company paid for us to stay at Mandalay Bay, which has an AMAZING pool/beach complex. The kids and I went swimming/splashing every day. I just kept Will in the Bjorn and held Ruth's hand or let her splash around by herself.

The first day took some getting used to the water, but once she was comfortable with her surroundings we spent hours out there.

The other thing we did was walk the strip. Here we are in the New York, New York hotel in front of a jelly bean replica of the Statue of Liberty!

And here we are in front of the Bellagio watching a really great water show.

The main experience Brad and I had in Las Vegas was the food. We love food. We watch the Food Network religiously. So being in Vegas was a great opportunity to go to some restaurants of chefs we've been watching on TV. Other than the Mesa Grill we went to Lupo which is one of Wolfgang Puck's restaurants. It was INCREDIBLE. We had clams for the first time and became totally addicted. Then Brad had the green lasagna made with fresh pasta, which neither of us had had before. And I had a lamb sirloin steak with white beans, YOWZA. We also went to the 4 Kegs which was a place recommended on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. We felt really lucky to be able to eat such amazing food, even if it cost us an arm and a leg, it was worth it! We were also really lucky that the kids were angels when we were at these nice restaurants!

The only down side to this vacation was that all this indulgent eating of cheesey, rich, meals and chocolatey desserts meant I gained weight, I'm back to 190. I was pretty upset about that for a while. But since there's nothing I can do about having gained the weight back, I just have to get over it and start up my routine again. I just have to get re-motivated to exercise and eat smaller portions again (which I'm finding to be difficult after going on vacation and having no inhibitions about spending money or counting calories!).

Oh, I forgot to mention the other negative thing that happened. When we were heading back to our hotel from the zoo we got pulled over by a cop. We got a ticket for not having our plates properly registered, oops! We were told that if someone else pulled us over for this same offense that we could get arrested! That meant that all the things I had planned for us to do, like go to the children's museum, go to SkyZone, see the Temple, among a few others would not be happening because we didn't want to risk jail time! Luckily we made it home and to the DMV without incident and were able to entertain ourselves with the awesome pool and restaurants in our hotel.

William is 4 Months

William had his check up today. He weighs 14 pounds 14 ounces and is 25 1/4 inches long, which are both in the 50th percentiles. His head remains in the 5th percentile. The doctor said that other than having slightly sensitive skin that he is perfect, her words!

At 4 months William is healthy and happy. He LOVES to stand up and suck on his binki. He has started cooing a lot which is adorable. And he has also started paying close attention to Ruth. He laughs really hard when she gives him attention. Ruth is also really sweet with him, and walks by him and gives him kisses without me prompting her to do so. He smiles a lot and has started drooling a ton. We think he's working on some teeth, but none have shown up yet. He's a sweet boy, mild tempered and only cranky when he's hungry or has just gotten his immunizations. He's gotten over his growing spurt (where he was feeding every 2-3 hours, including during the night) and has started napping again, as well as only waking up at midnight and 6 to eat.

I know everyone says this about their children, but I really can't imagine life without our William Knight. He has taught all of us things about ourselves and has brightened our world. We love you Will.

OxyClean Saved My Marriage or Ruth Doesn't Need Stitches!

We sat down to paint our toes. We put the old brown towel on the living room carpet like we always do. Ruth picked to paint her toes orange, so we painted hers and mine orange. Then as I began painting my fingers, Ruth grabbed the pink bottle of nail polish, broke the top off and shook it all over herself and the carpet. My poor, poor carpet. My first thought was, "Brad is going to KILL me! He already hates the smell of nail polish and he'll be so annoyed that I was doing this in the living room!"

Happily I dealt with this situation really well, didn't yell at her and cared more about her being okay than the fact that my carpet was ruined. I ran her to the bathroom and realized that in the process of breaking the bottle open she sliced her thumb open too. I was worried she was going to need stitches because by the time I realized this her hands and arms were covered in blood. Luckily, after a few minutes of pressure the bleeding stopped. Unfortunately she was still covered in nail polish...that would have to wait until I dealt with the carpet.



My computer wasn't on yet, so I turned it on. While I was waiting for it to load I grabbed my nail polish remover and poured the entire bottle on the spot and started scrubbing. I needed more so I called Shirlaine who brought some over. This is a picture Ruth took while I was talking to Shirlaine.


The internet was up and Shirlaine left, so I looked up what other people had done. Someone suggested vinegar. I tried that, and it did nothing. Someone else...actually quite a few people...suggested Windex. Tried that-nothing happened. I called Judy McCurdy (our realtor who is also in our ward) and she said she'd bring over some carpet cleaner that works wonders. She didn't get to our house for about an hour, so before then I read that someone had used OxyClean. The previous owner of our house had left a huge box of the stuff so I ran to the basement and grabbed the box. I mixed a quarter cup of it with a cup of hot water, mixed it up, and poured it all over the stain.

Relief! It was finally working, the stain was really going away and I had to look for it to be able to continue the cleaning. Judy got to our house and her cleaning product did the final trick and took the last tint of pink out of the carpet.

When Brad got home and I told him the story he walked around the living room looking for the stain. He even lifted up one of the chairs to see if it was under there!

Mostly Ruth

Ruth has a new thing: these pink boots.

She loves them because she can get them on and off without help, they're bright pink, and stomping around the house is way more fun.

The above picture depicts her entire wardrobe one evening. She had a bad rash on her bum so we were airing it out. Happily she went potty on the toilet and had no accidents for the 3 or 4 hours that she was diaper free!

Ruth and Boudicca = usually friends:

Yes, that's salad in her bowl! And yes, she asked for it...and yes, she wanted seconds!

Oh, and much to my dismay, she can now open doors :(

Will has gotten really good at jumping in his chair, he loves that thing!

Ruth Gets a Haircut or Can You See the Dog?

Updates

I lost 2 more pounds, beating my goal to weigh 185 by October 7th!

Ruth taught herself how to jump and now says "Cool!"

Will weighs more than 15 pounds, can sleep anywhere and giggles when he's tickled on his ribs

And I nearly burned the house down by making zucchini bread. I was trying to memorialize our trip to Craters of the Moon and in the process I created this:

Which looks a lot like this: (actually hardened lava from Craters of the Moon)


I wanted to carmelize cinnamon sugar on the top of the bread, but the top rack was too close to the broiler, so after setting the one minute timer, I opened the oven and flames came shooting out at me. Literally, flames were flying out of the oven. So we cut the top off the bread and ate the rest, which was really good.

William's Blessing

Today William was blessed by Brad at church. Asa and Paula were here to attend. Lots of other family members from both sides wanted to be here but were unable to get here. He wore the outfit that Brad was blessed in when he was a baby.

Above is Asa, Brad and Will; 3 generations of Laws men. The next pictures are cute ones of the kids. Will is so patient with Ruth.

We were in a rush to get to church on time, so Ruth had to eat her banana while I did her hair.

"The North Idaho" Vacation: Day 7

Today we finally made it home! On our way we saw a Nez Perce national historic site as well as a Sacajewea site.



We also stopped and walked around Craters of the Moon, which we're excited to go back to one day.





We had so much fun and are so grateful that Paula and Asa took us along on their 34th anniversary trip, we love you!

"The North Idaho" Vacation: Day 6

Today was clear again, which meant I could go do the activities at the lodge I had been anticipating.


They didn't open until 11am so we bummed around the lodge and playground until that time.





Then I jumped on the bungee trampoline and climbed the rock wall.


When I was done climbing, I didn't know how to get back down, so I just let go of the wall. Obviously I was hooked to the harness so I didn't fall very fast, but Ruth was watching and started shouting because she was worried about me.



As soon as I was done with that we got back in the car and started on our way home. We drove through Montana and ended in Hamilton. Here we at at the "Coffee Cup" which had great home-made food.