Barrett Jack Thesing

Today Bear and I were looking through his most recent scrapbook, I finally got the book to put his pages in. Anyway, and I always ask them who is in the pictures with them, that way they remember who friends and family are. As we are going through he points to himself and says, "Barrett Jack Thesing" it was the cutest thing. And when I would not ask he would turn the page back and say wait Mom, that's Barrett Jack Thesing. It was too much fun, and the way he says his whole name is just too precious.

Yummy!??

Leave it to the creative people at Saturday Night Live to come up with a new alternative to cloth and disposable diapers. Most of you know we use cloth diapers or a variation of cloth, flushables, so this new diaper option might be right up our alley. Enjoy!

Mug Shots

Here are the mug shots of the kids, I thought it was pretty funny, so I had to share. If only I had numbers as well. Cooper doesn't need any though, he's just cute.

Four years of hard work gone

I was going to make cookies with the kids today but instead, we had the joy of going to the hair salon, so that Isabelle could get her hair cut again. This is after she decided to cut her hair all by herself to go with her costume. In all the time that they were playing I did not actually look at my kid to see if anything was different, only when I came up stairs and noticed that there was hair on the floor did I take a look and notice that it had been cut. I asked who did and Isabelle has the biggest smile on her face and says me. Of course this happens to be the day she goes to dance, so I could not leave her like that. I had to get it fixed. Since I was so upset that she cut her hair that I had been growing for four long years, I did not plan very well. We had to come back before dance to eat lunch then leave right away to go to dance. Of course since both kids were wide awake at 4:45am this morning they feel asleep in the car on the way to the hair salon. This is when a parent thinks to themselves wouldn’t it be nice to be able to leave the sleeping kid that still has hair in the car to sleep, but no you can’t do that. At least it turns out, she did not make a horrible mess of her hair by cutting it to close to the scalp, where it had to be grown out first. It actually looks pretty cute! Except for the fact that it took four long years to grow it out to where it was and now it will probably take at least that many to get it back to where it was.

But she is so proud of what she did and had no remorse what so ever. If only she understood. I know it could be worse.

Nursing another child

As I sit here reading a story about Salma Hayek nursing a sick infant in Sierra Leone, I am surprised to find that my body decides to react as well by having a let down. Not to gross anyone out but it just happens periodically throughout the day at odd times when Cooper is not nursing. Who is to say why? I am moved by her generosity and willingness to nurse a child she has just met and help show the women in Sierra Leone that it is ok to continue nursing your child. Hopefully her actions will help change the stigma that men and women can not have sexual relations while the mother is nursing, and more mothers will continue to nurse for longer periods of time. In the clip the medical professionals talk about wanting the mothers to nurse for at least two years, to help decrease infant mortality rates and malnutrition. Why would a mother not want to help her child to live if she could do so? I could not imagine stopping nursing if it was the best thing for my child, and would help to keep my child alive. If it came down to helping save the life of another child I would nurse that child in order to give him or her the best chance at life. With that said I hope that more people choose to nurse their children, to give them the best start in life possible by what is natural.

Creative or Dangerous

Why should you play on your jungle gym in the way that it was built? Why not create a new game or add elements to it, so that it is more exciting? I think that these are just some of the thoughts that go through my children’s heads throughout the day. At least for us they must have been thinking this when I checked on them playing outside only to find that they had wrapped the hose around the top of their play structure and then were sliding down the fireman’s pole and “hanging” by the hose towards the bottom. I was worried at first that they would wrap the hose around their necks but no they knew what they were doing the entire time. The first time I saw Bear go down I did not realize he was doing it on purpose until he was done. I’m sure I’m a horrible mother for letting them hang by a hose but they did come up with this game all on their own. Creative or dangerous you decide?

What are you reading?

I decided that since I read a lot, I know even with three kids, that I would try (key word try) to do a monthly book review of one of the books I’ve read that month. I’m not sure how I will approach them, if I’ll just tell a little bit about the book or give stuff away in the process of giving my opinion. Hopefully it will be good but if not let me know and I’ll change to something else or keep things the way that they have been, just updates and random thoughts in the world of Allison. Here goes my first review:

Late last year I had asked my friends who read, what they were reading and if they had any books to recommend. My friend Katie in Utah sent me a few of the books listed on her to-read list. My most recent selection from her list was The Next Thing on My List, by Jill Smolinski. The author leads us through an easy tale about a woman who is completing a strangers list of things to do. She is completing this list for a stranger because the women who wrote the list is dead. She died in a car accident while, June the main character was driving. June felt as though her death was her fault when the fault lies with someone else. June is compelled to finish the list of twenty items before the previous women’s twenty-fifth birthday. With only two items completed by the list maker, June has her work cut out for her and she is not really known for finishing a task or staying on target, but spurred by the love of the woman’s family and her willingness to complete something June trudges on.

I think I’ll leave it at that since this book was a very quick and easy read; I had a very lazy Saturday after Cooper arrived and enjoyed reading the book then. The story flows very well and you are drawn immediately into June’s life and root for her during the entire story to complete the list. The story moves quickly and you never tire of the characters or the writing. Smolinski has done a great job of engaging the reader to make you feel that you want more, but not too much at the same time. I recommend this book for the uplifting spirit it embodies and hope that it might bring you, to write your own list and accomplish those tasks.

If you want to see other books I've read or check out my reading list please feel free to visit Good Reads.