"Don't You Just Love Las Vegas in the Spring?"

Well aside from the wind Vegas has reached the wonderfully pleasant time of year (right before it consigns us all inside). So we are loving being outside as much as we can. Trustin put in grass about two weeks ago and it is heavenly! While we still have to remove shoes, clothes (If you are Zeke), and extraneous accessories before re-entering the house (the yard is still a lot of dirt) it is so great to have a way to play besides digging. Zeke has never said he wants to go outside he always says "Dig". Dig and Backyard are synonymous around here, but maybe not for long.

So here is our grass! Don't you just want to roll around in it? I do.

And last week Trustin found this sweet swing that a neighbor had set on the curb for the garbage truck. Zeke is a fan. He doesn't like to just swing on it though. The word associated with the swing is "big" as in "big push" He wants to swing big wide fast circles and if the ride starts getting too mellow he says urgently "BIG."

This is our jerryrigged garden death-prevention system. Again installed by the Trustin handyman.

These next few photos are from a hike Zeke and I went on today with a bunch of friends from the ward.
Zeke is quite the hiker. He rode in this backpack thing for a lot of the time which was certainly faster but I'm not certain it was entirely safe. It makes him sit so high up my back that I was completely top-heavy, (on top of being "middle heavy"), which made me feel rather un balanced as we walked along rock strewn, skinny footpaths lined with pointy rocks, drops offs, and cacti. I was literally praying "Please don't let us fall, please don't let us fall". Prayer answered!

Why am I holding that hat there? Ashlynn is looking pretty cute, and pretty big these days. (Wahoo, only three more months!)

Zeke did do quite a bit of the hike on his own. He was very into it. He didn't want me to lift him over difficult parts but would do them all by himself (with a lot of grunting and sound effects).

We made it to the waterfall at the end and a strange thing happened. Zeke did not want to get wet or even splashed.

You can't totally tell what this picture is but I will tell you. He found this dead tree with the uprooted funky looking roots.

Me "Oh, did you find a tree?"

Zeke "No, ROAR!"

Me "A monster?"

Zeke "Ya, ROAR"

Silly mom thinking that monster was a tree.

Basketball

Zeke loves to play basketball! He was playing with Trustin the other afternoon (using golfball sized wiffle balls) and he decided to make it a little easier. He found a little chair, and put it right under the basket. Slam dunk every time!

Just like Mom and Dad

Zeke was such a big helper getting ready for church yesterday. He watches Mom and Dad get ready so he knows just what to do.

The first step is to find Daddy's gel and go to town.

When you have as much hair as Zeke, it might take a few scoopfuls of gel.

And shoes are a must for church.

Mommy's will do nicely!

Medicated Maniacs Make Miserable Mothers

So I was going to do a quick catch up blog but I realized that we have practically zero new pictures. Trustin's new phone has a decent camera, which is nice except that I never remember to download the pictures off it. So our catch up post will have to wait. I will say for those who I haven't spoken to, our baby girl has a name! Ashlynn Kaydean Anderson (A.K.A. our daughter, or as Trustin and Grandpa like to say AK47). We are naming her after her two grandpas who we love and admire so much. For today I decided to share the joy of "The Bradley Method." So I have decided that I would like to try natural childbirth with Ashlynn. I am telling myself that the plan is to try natural but to not be disappointed if I don't succeed (but we'll see how that goes). With Zeke I thought that maybe we would try natural but I naively went into it without any preparation whatsoever. I had a friend who said it is super easy I believe her description was "It is just like a really really hard workout, but the secret is just relax." I like working out and relaxing that sounds pretty easy. Apparently I wasn't used to "working out" my uterus in the hardest work out ever, and relaxing on cue....not so easy. So we want to prepare a bit better this time. We don't like any of the methods out there. We decided to go with The Bradley Method because I like the idea of "husband coached childbirth" and having Trustin totally helping me along the way. However, reading this book is totally hilarious and you definately can't class us among the avid Bradley promoters. We are taking what we like and laughing at the rest. The title of this post "Medicated Maniacs Make Miserable Mothers" is practically a quote from the book and I'm pretty sure this is the overall message. It is so ANTI medicine and never mentions medicated childbirth without included words like "maniac" "zombie" or "miserable." According to the Bradley Method "Bradley mothers" are laughing and walking and joking and loving their baby while medicated maniacs are resentful, tired, poor mothers. Hmm... Here are a couple of my favorite lines

• "Women have babies; that's their job" (Hmm Mr. Bradley, I guess you can get away with that because you practiced in the 20s)


• "The placenta is a magical organ" "What's the main physical difference between these animals(cats, dogs, horses, and cows) and your wife? Somebody taught your wife at a very early again to walk on her hind legs, that's what" (are you kidding me? is he really trying to say that we are meant to be quadrapeds but some silly person taught us to walk?!)


• Speaking about women who get epidurals and other medications during childbirth "Would they let their kindergartner have similar narcotics?"


• "we have found by actual esperience that there is a 'background music' that beats all others and there is no substitute for it. It is th familiar, beloved voice of a husband, a lover, gently, softly, endearingly whishpering in his sweetheart's ear that same line of love gobbledygook" (gotta love love gobbledygook!!)

So maybe these are only funny to Trustin and I as we've been reading them, but I hope you have enjoyed them too.

cougars and a garden

Shocking news to most of you: Trustin is crazy about BYU basketball. His downtime in the evening always seems to consist of reading articles about BYU and other college sports. (How much can they have to say about one team, I say...but apparently a lot). And luckily I'm a fan too, if not so crazily. A while back we got to see BYU play in the Mountain West Tournament here in Vegas. Unfortunately we didn't see the 52 point scoring Jimmer Fredette but the exhausted team the day after that game. So the cougars lost...but luckily we took along our own cougar/lion who always makes things fun.

Trustin said, "We should put Zeke in his lion costume." I said "Oh, no, he'll die of heat!" But Zeke heard and he definately wanted to wear the costume.

We had the best seats in the house: the very back row. This meant I could throw Zeke way up high in the air to cheer, he could sit on Daddy's shoulders for the fight song or I could hang him upside down and tickle him. Zeke's favorite thing was singing the Cougar fight song. He would clap and laugh and he even started doing the rolling his hands and punching the air at the end (for those of you familiar with the fight song). He's a natural cougar.

We didn't take many pictures though. But here he is happy. He was kind of a zombie the first half of the game (combo of just waking up and his people watching tendency) but he was really into the game during the second half. And for the week afterwards he kept wanting to sing the fight song.

And this is our garden! Wahoo! In two weeks when the sun really shows up around here it may be gone, so we've got to admire our green thumb while it lasts.

And hey, that dead tree I bought Trustin for Christmas really is a living tree! It has two buds started so we're hoping for some pomegranates in a while.

And just because he's cute.

We also had a family date to the park last week but all the pictures are on Trustin's phone. It was crazy though. We made the mistake of letting Zeke throw a cracker before we'd finished eating and suddenly we had ducks and geese and pidgeons swarming us from all sides. Zeke was rather worried for his life, and I was too. If Trustin hadn't come to our rescue Zeke and I would have been Goose food for a minute there.

Zeke is as usual being a cutie these days. His current favorite things to do include raiding the kitchen drawers for wooden spoons and then hitting little plastic golf balls around the house. Trustin's our ward Ragball coach and Zeke has become a baseball fan too. He will swing his arm in a throwing motion say "catch" and usually point to his head because he realized he isn't wearing a baseball cap. And he will randomly grab twigs and and sticks and try to bat with them (or more frequently, make us bat). It is fun to try to pitch to him because he stands with absolutely perfect form, perfect (at least to Mom's untrained eyes) but by the time we throw the ball he is completely distracted and looking or walking somewhere else entirely.

Unfortunately, we've hit a phase, a hitting phase. When Zeke doesn't get what he wants he is quite liable to smack me in the face, stomach, leg, etc. I am truly at a loss of how to help him. I was hoping it was one of those phases that comes with the age, but from a recent case study (asking only one friend with a daughter two months older) this is just a Zeke phase. Uhgg. We were watching Toy Story the other day and there is a scene in the first one where Woody is just pummeling Buzz. Suddenly I realized why parents get so paranoid about what their kids watch. We will be skipping that part of the movie now, just in case. goodness he's gotten simultatneous cuter as he's gotten a bit cantankerous (this is the word Trustin uses to describe it).

For example: Trustin typically whistles as me as he walks out the door (aw, precious). Lately Zeke has taken to returning the favor. Cracks me up. Even last week when he got ridiculously sick he was still my whistling buddy. He had a fever of over 104 and was laying on my chest completely weak and sad and Trustin walked out the door and whistled and Zeke in his sick weak voice says woo-woo. He's a keeper.

Patting ourselves on the back

We moved in five months ago now (wow, that went by fast) and I bought fabric to make curtains for our giant sun-attracting windows pretty quick after that. That step was easy: a couple awesome coupons, a minor self-control battle to resist the fabric that was still $30/yd after the 50% off coupon, making myself fall in love with something off the discount rack and then bringing it home with a lot of enthusiasm and optimism for the easy task ahead of me. Afterall, curtains are pretty much just big rectangles, I don't even have to any piecing. One day project. One deluded mama.

Why didn't someone tell me giant curtains are so darn hard? All the blogs and how-to's I read made it sound so easy, so maybe I'm just not a natural curtain maker. Making these puppies took me ages to make and included a lot of unpicking and replanning.

Luckily I did have my one special helper. I've always hated the pinning step of any sewing project, so I turned that step over to Zeke:
Whereas I'm tempted to scrimp, Zeke knows you need a lot of pins...per square inch.

He was pretty pleased with himself.

So wa-la, curtains. They are done, that is the end of the pain right? Oh how we wish. Last night we installed the curtain rods and lets just sum that whole story up by saying it included a lot of brokenness: broken dry wall screws, broken drill bits, broken windows and broken egos. I may have even cried a bit, but hey I'm pregnant. The culprit in our troubles? The ridiculous man who decided to put windows in the corner with only two inches of wall. Just try making two curtain rods meet up there, look nice, and still keep your curtains on. On second thought, don't try, it's no fun at all. Luckily, what stinks at 11:00 at night is pretty entertaining at 3 in the afternoon. Plus, we have curtains to show for it! (nevermind that I haven't yet hemmed or ironed them, this counts as complete to me)

Now as long as Zeke doesn't go Tarzan on us, we're set!

Which brings me to our couches and further evidence that our family is not normal. We have two mismatched couches, and one of them, big and yellow, probably doesn't fit the typical description of beauty. But I decided this week that I am in love with our couches. I've heard several lessons on respect in primary lately, and the example that has been brought up repeatedly is "You don't jump around on your mom's couches do you?" My answer, "Well of course not, never...who would do such a thing?..." In reality, that is precisely the beauty of our big yellow couch. It was made for "To infinity and beyond!" and the accompanying jumps and dives and rolls. A minimum of 20 minutes a day is devoted to flying, crashing, jumping, touch-downing, rolling and climbing around the couch and the love sac. It kind of clashes with our new curtains but I realized that even if somebody offered us a brand new beautiful set of couches I think I'd have to turn them down. I don't want a couch Zeke can only sit on. That sounds awfully beautiful and dull. (see, we're abnormal). What I really want is beautiful couches and then a basement for our fun couch to live on forever. I don't think I can part with it, and Zeke can't either.

This is just a cute picture of Zeke and his friends that we got to babysit for two days. Zeke was in heaven. He loves playing with friends.

This was too cute. Zeke is going to be the best brother.

And somebody has got to teach little sister how to put on make-up, so Zeke practiced this week. He was quite proud of himself when I found him putting blush on his cheeks. He did a scarily good job. Oh heavens, this kid knows how to make me laugh.

Happy Birthday Trustin!

The landmark has come and gone, and Trustin is officially old and wise. I asked Trustin how he feels about reaching the big Three Zero and his only thoughts were "Well it's nice to be legal to play on our soccer league"(we've both been playing on an over-30 league, with permission, but with Trustin looking about 22 and me about 16...we've gotten some comments).

Celebrating this year was really fun and relaxing. Trustin requested pizza with breadsticks and Little Caesars was glad to oblige. Then Trustin made us mango smoothies, mmmm. We rented a movie, which wasn't a big hit, but good enough and just relaxed.

Then came the presents:

We've discovered that we may never have to open a present alone again. Zeke was very willing to help. The only presents he didn't unwrap were the ones he carried to Daddy and that weren't wrapped.

Ironically the first present Zeke opened was actually for him. We didn't read the writing on the paper so we didn't realize it was for him and were laughing at how he was going to town on Daddy's present when he suddenly pulls out a pair of Zeke-sized gloves. Perfect. And then matching gloves for Trustin.

That calls for a high-five!

Gramma and Paca aptly labeled this gift "a treasure." Zeke was quite thrilled by it.

Trustin was too!

(In case you can't tell, it is a watering can. We really need one and now we have one that is both practical and entertaining)

Zeke and I bought Trustin a laser-level... I know nothing about buying such things, so who knows what we got.

Then the "berry" on top: blueberry bushes and a grape vine. We didn't get a picture of it but we also bought a big trellis for the grapes to grow on. When we dream, we dream big, and I'm sure our grapes are going to flourish enough to need a giant trellis.

Happy Birthday Trustin! Zeke of course wanted to help blow out the candle and he requested to do it again after the first time. I love this kid. The cake, as you can see, well, it tasted good. I made an ice cream cake roll last year and it turned out really good. This years model certainly won't be pictured in any recipe books but luckily you just can't go wrong with mint chocolate chip and it tasted wonderful! I kind of want to try a fondant cake for Zeke's birthday this summer just for the fun of it and because "its all the rage" but I realized I'll be 39 weeks pregnant, or better yet, in labor, so we'll see about that cake ambition.

Now the really important stuff. To say how much we love Trustin. If Zeke could talk:

Daddy is the greatest. He is so silly and so easy to scare when I say boo. He is fun to tackle and chase, just like a dad should be. And he's fun to climb; his face is one of my favorite stepping stools! He is so strong, he can throw me so high, and whoa he can throw a ball even higher (do it again, do it again). Daddy is the best at making me laugh! I am always so excited for my daddy to get home from work I run to the door the second I hear the garage opener so I can jump out and scare him the second he comes in. I love Daddy so much that I don't even like to take naps when he's home because I don't want to miss a minute with Daddy (true). I love love love my daddy!

From me:

Well there's too much to say and I'm sure you don't want me to go all mushy...but, I do have to say that I am certain that I'm the luckiest wife ever. I love my wonderful husband so much. Happy Birthday Love!