Finally!

After many attempts I was finally able to upload some pictures. After all that waiting they don't seem very exciting, but my kids are always cute to look at!
I hope you all have a great New Year's Eve. We'll be putting the kids to bed on time and watching tv- exciting, huh?? Then it will be on to the task of un-decorating. Why is it that the Christmas tree looks festive and beautiful at the beginning of December but looks tacky and weird at the end of December??


That big grin is for a very prized gift!


Grant has so much fun with this thing. He puts the gumballs in the top and screams! We did find out that little cars and a slinky just get stuck in there instead of going around and coming out the bottom!


He's excited to start cutting down all those trees we have around here!


I'm sure glad we had this chainsaw because that wrapping paper was tough!


Huh? What do you say is going on today?

Christmas

Aargh- I want to post pictures from our Christmas, but Blogger won't let me upload any! Is it just me, or do you have problems uploading pictures? Oh well. I'll try again later.
Our Christmas was a lot of fun. Santa came and brought Grant a fun gumball machine toy, Scotty a car carrier semi truck and the Wall*E movie for the family. Grant loves putting the gumballs in the machine and Scotty even loves to play with it too! Scotty was really excited to get this big truck. He calls it a car hauler and would only ask Santa for that. He has been wanting one really bad ever since his cousin Ethan got one for his birthday, so we were glad that Santa was able to bring one for him. Miles and I gave Grant a toy that you put the balls on the top and them hammer them into the little maze and we gave Scotty a toy chainsaw. After he opened the chainsaw he used it to open the rest of the presents! Scotty had fun going to the store to buy Miles and me presents. He bought Daddy a new snow shovel and Mommy a new hair dryer- it was cute! And he bought Grant a Pooh Bear spinning top. I'm sure Grant was totally confused by the happenings of the day! He wouldn't touch any of the wrapping paper to help unwrap, but he really loved playing with the new toys.
It was a really fun day. We started off the day reading the story of Christ's birth and having family prayer. Scotty was excited to say the prayer and said that he is thankful for Jesus and for Christmas to celebrate his "earth"!

Santa Claus is coming to town!

I wanted to share a couple pictures of the kids with Santa. Scotty was excited to see Santa this year. The first time we saw him was at his little preschool party. (Which was outside and freezing cold!!) He ran right up to him, got on his lap and answered his questions- all without looking directly at his face! We put Grant on his lap and he started to cry but then got distracted by his cool beard. We saw him again at the TBP company party and both kids did the same thing. They're so cute! We are all excited for Christmas. We got our real tree and put it up. Scotty managed to hang about 10 ornaments on one branch! It's snowing like crazy outside right now and we made sugar cookies this morning, so it's really feeling like Christmas!


Here's Scotty with Santa at his preschool party.


Grant wanted to take the candy cane, but he was too bundled up to move his arms!


Here they are together at the TBP party- they look like they are bored!


Even though you can't tell by looking at the kids- we all had fun at the TBP party! Grant was tired by this point and Scotty had just gotten hit in the face with a basketball. But a fun time nevertheless!

Lawrence Elves

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Party! Party! Party!

We had Grant's party on Saturday and it was a lot of fun. He wasn't too sure what to think of all these people in his house, but he only cried if someone tried to take him and hold him. He loved his presents and even played with the toys and not the wrapping paper! When it was time for cake he looked around very seriously as we all sang to him and Scotty helped him blow out his candle. Then he started to touch his cake but he wasn't to excited about it! He kept trying to shake the stuff off of his hands and only put his hands in his mouth once or twice. He did try some cake if we fed him though. In the end he was the cleanest 1yr old after eating cake ever!!
On a side note- the party this time seemed much less chaotic and much quieter and we realized it was because we could have all the kids go downstairs! Three cheers for the finished basement!!
We love Grant so much. We were excited to have everyone here to celebrate him. His smile can always make you happy and his snuggles are the best!


Here is Miles and Scotty making the birthday cake. Scotty was very excited to help make Grant's cake.


We found the cutest, brightly colored decorations.


This is Grant's cake to eat all by himself!


We got him this cute first birthday hat and only after fighting with him for a few minutes he kept it on for the whole party!


Present time!


Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you....


He's trying to get Miles to clean his hand off!


Please stop making me touch and eat this cake!


There's his cute smile!


Here's his loot.


But after all these new fun toys, Daddy is still his favorite!

Grant's pictures!

Here they are- a little journey through Grant's first year (backwards, but oh well!). What a great year it was!

Happy Birthday Grant!

Today is Grant's first birthday! We can't believe how fast this year has gone by. He has been so much fun to have in our family. It has been fun watching Scotty become a big brother and grow into that role. Grant was a really good, sweet baby and, best of all, was cuddly! He will now crawl over for a snuggle and I love it!
I wanted to post some pictures from his first year, but Blogger is not cooperating! I'll try again later.
We made him some chocolate muffins today. We sang Happy Birthday and he smiled really big and was entranced by the candle. But he didn't care too much for the muffin. He squished it up and would eat some of it if I put it in his mouth but wouldn't really put any in his mouth by himself. We wonder what he'll do with his birthday cake at his party on Saturday!

Ultrasound

It's another boy!! We're excited. We actually talked ourselves into thinking it might be a girl, but those strong Lawrence boy genes won out again. Scotty has always been sure it's a girl and he really wanted it to be a girl too. When we told him it is a boy he said that he doesn't like boys, he only likes girls! Now on to our most dreaded task- choosing a name!

Where does the time go?

Grant will be 1 on Wednesday. I'm at the halfway point for this pregnancy. Yikes!!!
We, well Miles, spent the holiday weekend doing projects around the house. It's great to be getting this stuff done before this baby comes- unlike with Grant where we were in total chaos for months! Miles and his brother Nate put up a closet organizer in Grant's closet, which will also be the baby's closet. It's so nice and has added tons of storage space for us. Someday we'll do one in Scotty's closet too. Thanks Miles!!

Photo tag

Aimee tagged me to post the 4th picture in my 4th album on my computer, so here you go:



This is in May 2004. We drove up the Oregon Coast for our 4th anniversary trip. This is the yurt that we stayed in and loved. We wish we could have stayed in yurts the whole trip!
I tag everyone who reads this!

Funny things they say!

My Dad recently told me of this funny thing Scotty said while we were on our last trip to the cabin. He took Scotty into the bathroom and there was a line (for the men's room, weird!!) but there was a stall open so he took him in there. Scotty did his business and then Grandpa decided he should do his business too. All of a sudden Scotty yells out "Grandpa, you have to get it in the water!" Grandpa hears all of the waiting men outside the door chuckling. He left red faced but chuckling too!

Miles took Scotty to the grocery store one day and as they came into the produce section there was an older gentleman wearing a cowboy hat standing there. Scotty yells out "Look Daddy- there's a farmer!"

Recently I threw something away that Scotty had been playing with. I was brushing my teeth and Scotty came in holding up the things and says "Look at this. Who threw these away?" It was just like what an adult would say to a child when the adult already knew who the culprit was! I sheepishly raised my hand and made a mental note to do a better job of covering stuff up in the garbage!

Funny things we say

We've found that now that we are parents we say things we never would have said in any other situation. Tonight Scotty was helping Miles make dinner and I heard Miles saying "Don't put your feet on the cheese!" I've said "Don't use your food as a paintbrush." And quite often we say to Grant "No! Don't touch your poop!" Can you think of any other situation where these quotes would be applicable??

Quirks- or weirdness

My friend Cyndi tagged me a long time ago to list some weird things about myself, so I thought I'd finally do it. It's taken me this long to think of weird stuff- you know, because I'm so normal!

1. We don't rinse our dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, but for some reason I have to rinse out the baby bottles. I'm pretty sure if the dishwasher can get baked on food off of pots and pans it will do a fine job on formula in baby bottles! I can't help myself though.

2. I like to eat olives by themselves, but I don't like them in or on any other food.

3. I like to eat watermelon seeds. I really like it when there are a bunch left on the plate that I can eat all at once- they taste yummy and nutty. I don't really think that is weird, but Miles insists that it is!

4. I crack my knuckles, my back and my neck.

5. I'm shy. And I'm getting more and more shy the older I get. I especially don't like to call people on the phone, except family. Even for things like ordering food or questioning bills or other random things. I make Miles do most of those calls!

6. I don't like matching, folding up and putting away clean socks. I love summertime when we don't wear socks so I don't have to wash them.

7. I'm a particular sleeper. I can't sleep if the sheets or quilt are all messed up. I definitely can't sleep if there is monotonous noise going on- like snoring or loud breathing, ticking clocks, etc. If it's a constant noise, like a fan or the hum of the computer, then that is fine. I don't sleep very well on any other pillow than my own. I have to be covered by something- even if it's in the summer and really hot. I have trouble falling asleep at night and trouble waking up in the morning!

If you would like to share some quirks about yourself on your blog, please do! I know that I have some pretty quirky readers!

Trauma and drama

Today started out like a nice, normal day. But then I decided that today was the day the boys needed to get their flu shots. I called the pediatrician and they said they had a few flu mist doses left, so I made an appt for an hour later. I got there right on time and then sat down to wait. And then I waited some more. And waited some more. And waited even more. It got progressively warmer and warmer in the waiting room. Grant was climbing all over me. Scotty started arguing with a little girl over a book. And did I mention how warm it was in there??? Finally someone called me, so I went to the counter to have her tell me that I needed to fill out a vaccine questionnaire for each boy and tons of new patient papers for Grant and that they will be calling me in soon and I could just finish the paperwork in there. So I sat back down and was furiously writing trying to finish the papers before they called us. No such luck. They called us and so I had to juggle 3 jackets, the diaper bag, the dumb clipboard, pick up and carry Grant and then help Scotty take his shoes off to get on the scale. After all that was done they inform me that they are all out of the flu mist! So Scotty had to get the shot and he was not happy about it. He cried and then kept saying that it hurt even as we were leaving- not to go home but back to the waiting room to finish the dumb paperwork!! We finally left there an HOUR later. All the way home and at home Scotty is being a huge drama king about his leg hurting. I gave him some Motrin and some ice cream hoping one of them would help cheer him up quickly! Then I put Grant onto the kitchen counter to give him some Motrin. Then the bad mommy moment- I turned to the sink to rinse out the medicine squirter thing while keeping my eyes on him, until I turned for 3 seconds to pull it apart and turned back to see Grant falling off the counter backwards. I screamed and reached out breaking his fall so he didn't land very hard and I was able to catch his head when he fell backwards preventing a hard crack on the floor. He cried and cried on my shoulder for so long and I felt terrible! When he calmed down a little and lifted his head I saw a little blood on my shoulder. A quick inspection found two little teeth marks in his tongue. Waaaaahhhh!!!! Now I felt REALLY bad!! That hurts so much! I gave him some ice cream because that is what I would want to make my tongue feel better and it did a great job! After that he was happy, luckily, but Scotty was still walking around stiff legged complaining. Our saving grace there was that cousin Urban came over to play and Scotty then quickly forgot about his poor, sore leg.
After that trying morning I was resting during nap/rest time and Miles called to inform me that the car wouldn't start and he was stuck at a client's office in SLC. He finally found someone to give him a jump and he called to say he was on his way back to Tooele to get a new battery but he was really low on gas and couldn't stop for gas because he couldn't turn the car off! I told him to call if he ran out of gas and hoped for the best. Then he called and needed me to forward an email for him but the internet wasn't working and his cell phone battery was dying so we couldn't stay on the phone long enough to figure out the problem! Luckily he made it back to town and got the new battery. But all this made him late for his Scout campout so we were running around frantically packing his stuff, making his tin foil dinner and fixing the internet problem.
What a day. I'm glad things went smoothly for me tonight after Miles left. The boys are sleeping peacefully and I'm ready for some chocolate!

Escape artist

Grant's pants were a little too big and he kept crawling right out of them!

Ouch

Yesterday Scotty was in a sad mood so I decided to dance a little jig and cheer him up. It was only working a little until I accidently kicked the coffee table with my bare toe and hopped around yelling ouch- that got him to be happy!

Halloween Fun

Here are a few fun pictures from our Halloween. We're all still on a candy high! Actually, Scotty doesn't really eat that much candy. He loves Kit Kats and has eaten quite a few of those and he loves lollipops, but otherwise he doesn't seem to like much else. He likes to take a little bite of a few different candies and then leave the rest laying around for Mommy to discover and throw away. He has more fun playing with the candy- like pretending it is pancake batter and mixing it with the mixer! Mommy has shared some chocolate with Grant and he loved it!


Here's Frankenstein hanging out at the Transcript.


Carving pumpkins. Scotty had a good time this year, Grant was more interested in playing with the mixer and sink!


Even Monsters have to eat!


Scotty standing next to our inspiration- the "grabber forklift" at the Transcript.


Grandpa Scott and Scotty parking the forklift after moving some paper rolls around.


Watch out for Scotty!


Here is Scotty's awesome forklift costume all alone on Halloween night after Scotty didn't want to wear it trick-or-treating!


This is the house on our block that goes all out decorating with tons of stuff. He loved to look out his window at night to see it.


Our finished jack-o-lanterns.


Ready to go trick-or-treating.

Preschool parade

Thursday Scotty had a Halloween party at preschool and then they did a little costume parade. It was so cute. All those little kids in their cute little costumes walking around and around the driveway- adorable!! Scotty's costume this year is a forklift driver- a grabber forklift, as he calls it! Grant was Frankenstein and he was too cute!


Here's Scotty, Grant and their cousin Urban posing outside of preschool. The grabber parts of the forklift had fallen off by this point, but we were able to fix them for the next festivities.


So cute!!! Our little monster!


Here's Scotty walking around the loop.


Forklift man!


Waiting patiently for the parade to start.

Oops!

Apparantly I'm still a new, learning mother: leaving kids alone playing with these paintbrush things that have the paint in them that we have played with tons of times because the paint part is still securely sealed off is not a good idea because one of them (mine, of course) will figure out how to open the paint and spill paint on himself and our brand new carpet resulting in a big mess (which he tried to cover up), an angry husband/daddy and a contrite wife/mommy. But looking on the bright side: the other innocent bystander kid did alert an adult quickly of the mess and we still have Mel's carpet steam cleaner that is doing a pretty good job on the new carpet. Now the question is who should get the punishment- Mommy or Scotty??? I say both!

Baby #3

Due date for baby #3 is April 19. Scotty will have just turned 4 in March and Grant will be 16 months. We will be pretty busy here in the Lawrence household! But we are all very excited. Scotty was excited when we told him the news and we were happy about that. He says that the baby is a girl. He said that Grant was a boy, so maybe he's right again!
I was just looking back through newborn pictures of Scotty and Grant and getting all excited to have a tiny, snuggly newborn again! And we have pretty cute newborns, if I do say so myself!


Grant


Scotty

More fun at the cabin!

We spent another weekend at the cabin, but this time Miles didn't go with us. He stayed home to do Scout stuff and to handle all the problems in the nursery for me- thanks Miles! But Scotty, Grant, Grandpa Scott and I had a great time. Scotty and Grandpa went on a hike while Mommy and Grant napped. We went to Murphy Lake to throw rocks and pine cones. Grandpa and I watched the newest Indiana Jones movie- it was good! Scotty got to start Grandpa's truck every time we went somewhere. And we ate at the Cheeseburger Factory. Yummy!! Their burgers are so good. If you are ever in Alpine Wyoming you have to stop in and have a burger. While we were driving back to the cabin after eating there Grandpa asked if we saw the bacon on his burger and was commenting on how big and how much of it there was. Scotty speaks up from the backseat with this: "Did you see the cheese on my grilled cheese? There was a lot of cheese and it was really melty!" We laughed so hard! It was like he was a little adult. Thanks for a great weekend Grandpa Scott!

Bath time = splash time

Grant loves to splash in the tub. He splashes like a mad man. Scotty never really did splash too much. I can only remember a few times of splashing when he was a baby and we thought it was so cute. The first few times Grant splashed it was cute too, but now it's not so cute anymore! He gets splashing so much and drenches me and the bathroom. I've had to put the curtain inside the tub (which I don't like to do- gross!) and pull the curtain closed while he's sitting there splashing away so we don't have a flood on the bathroom floor. Then when it's time to wash him I have to hurry and grab his arms and wash quickly. He's ok with that part but then when he has to lay down to finish up he is not happy, so he'll start kicking his feet drenching me again! What's to be done though? Maybe I should invest in a rain coat!

Surprise!

Grant's on the move!

At 10 months Grant is finally starting to get himself around. He's not officially crawling yet, but he can move. He lays on his belly, pushes himself with his tip-toes and then lunges forward with his arms. Or else he drags himself along with his arms. It is so cute to watch! The other morning he was crying in his crib and when Miles went in to get him he was standing up leaning over the edge! Later that day after his nap he was crying again and when I went in he was doing that again. It scared me! So I had to lower his mattress this morning. It makes me sad. He's growing up so fast. I thought there would be two more notches to lower the mattress but there was only one, so he's now at the lowest- my baby is growing up! It's funny that he did that because he can't pull himself up anywhere else. He gets to his knees and then can't seem to use his legs to push himself the rest of the way up. But when it's a dangerous situation like teetering on the side of his crib, he has no problem!!

Peeping Tom

Last night Miles and I were downstairs watching tv when I heard a weird noise coming from outside the uncovered window next to us. I hesitantly looked out and saw a cat looking down at us from the top of the window well. I hate cats!! After a little while it ended up jumping down into the window well and was meowing at us! I went over and hit the window to try to scare it away but it just kept on meowing. It was freaky!! After a few minutes Miles went upstairs for a little while and the cat eventually laid down and made itself comfortable right outside the window. When Miles came back down it saw him, got up and started pacing and meowing again! Obviously it was taken with him. I wondered if it was trying to tell us something- like Lassie did! Miles got annoyed and went over to the window, opened it up a little bit and proceeded to bark at it! The surprising thing is, it worked! It jumped back up to the top of the window well, Miles barked at it again and it ran away never to be seen again. We really need to get window coverings for those basement windows. A cat is bad enough but I'm totally scared of the day when I glance over there and see a creepy face peering back at me!

Whew!

This morning I was getting Scotty's breakfast ready. He wanted scrambled eggs with cheese on top. So we sliced two pieces of cheese because he always wants to eat one of them right away. This morning he decided to put them together to make a sandwich, eat both slices and have none on top of his eggs. Ok- whatever makes him happy! When his eggs were ready he grabbed what was left of his cheese sandwich and stuffed it all in his mouth. I got him off of the counter and was hugging and kissing him as I put him in his booster when all of a sudden he started gagging! I asked him if he was going to throw up, he said yes so I put him down and shooed him toward the bathroom telling him to run to the bathroom really fast. I was starting to panic! I don't do well with throw up! He started to go, abruptly turned around and announced around a mouthful of cheese that he has too much cheese in his mouth. He walked over to the garbage can, spit the cheese out and then was just fine. My racing, panicky heart took a few minutes to settle down though! That was a close call. Miles did point out that I can always have him throw up in the disposal side of the sink and I will try to remember that if I ever have a puke emergency in the kitchen again!

Pancake Puffs

With the switch to digital tv we are picking up the qubo station. It has great kids shows and Scotty loves it. He especially loves this British show called Postman Pat- he calls it Postman Hat! But his favorite thing on qubo is a commercial for pancake puffs. It's this cast iron pan that you pour pancake batter into these holes, cook one side, flip them over and you end up with a ball shaped pancake puff. He gets so excited when the commercial comes on and lately has been saying that he really wants to have pancake puffs. The other evening he ran into Miles' office and announced to Miles that he needed to call now to order pancake puffs! Miles picked up the phone to call me upstairs to tell me about it and Scotty's eyes lit up and he asked if he was calling. This morning Scotty comes upstairs and tells me that pancake puffs are the perfect finger food for him (a quote from the commercial!) and that he really, really wants to get pancake puffs! I have to say that no commercials is definitely a plus for PBS!

Wordle

My sis-in-law put this site on her blog and it was fun to do so I thought I'd share it on mine.  You can enter your blog and it will arrange prominent words from it with the most common words being in a bigger font.  It's pretty fun to see and there are some funny words randomly put together! title="Wordle: Lawrence Sandwich"> src="http://wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/206782/Lawrence_Sandwich"
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