Kai Lamoni

I am SO in love with my sweet little baby boy! I look into his baby blues & can see each and every member of our family in his facial features (except for myself, of course). We've blessed him in the last couple weeks, and I can't believe he;s already 3 weeks old, but time flies!

We named him Kai Lamoni Bodine!

He was 9lbs 3oz, and 23 inches long!! Born 11/11 at 10:06pm after a very easy (but lengthy) labor. Now recovering at home from delivery & a tube-tying surgery. Surgery recovery has been pretty rough, so you'll hear more from us & see more pictures when I recover a bit more!

Grape Juice Fiasco

Last night I was reading in the family room & the boys were running around playing. Keanu comes in to say, "Kalani got juice on the carpet". So I ran into the living room to find an ENTIRE JUG of grape juice completely dumped on our living room carpet! This carpet is only maybe 6-8 weeks old, brand spankin new. I totally FLIPPED!

Luckily mom was visiting & I could call out to her to bring lots of towels. We carefully tried to soak it up. Then I googled how to remove grape juice stains. I think with the help of a big container of lemon juice, tons of towels, and a pitcher of cold water, we were able to remove almost all of it. You can hardly tell it was there. But I'm SO worried about it wicking up dirt & the stain showing through in a couple weeks!! I think maybe the next step is to buy white vinegar & apply/dab up the carpet again. Anyone out there have any better ideas???

Kalani REALLY got yelled at, I hope he learned his lesson to NEVER get into the fridge again!! The problem is, now we have two fridges to monitor. Time to buy more child proof locks!

Mother Daughter project today: Pie!

I love my mother in law, she & I get along pretty well. And it is SO nice to have her visiting (even if the baby's not cooperating by coming on time!) She's helping me around the house, cooking, cleaning, caring for the kids, and I feel like I have time to enjoy things I haven't done in a long time. Today I showed her how to make apple pie from scratch. She's always used a mix and storebought pie crust, or bought the pie from the store. Homemade is So much better than the premade stuff!! We made apple, and then *surprise* she found out the pear tree in our yard had a few ripe pears! We made apple pear raisin pie. It was SOOOO good!

Halloween fun!

Since the baby is SO close to coming & I really didn't have a whole lot of energy to devote to Halloween, I purchased the kids costumes way in advance and Halloween was pretty low profile. We went to the Outlook School carnival the week before. And, Halloween weekend we spent doing crafty activities with the kids. We did tissue paper pictures, played with playdough, and painted baby pumpkins. Sidenote: It's SO nice to have our dining room all set up! And all the crafty/messy games & activities are right there in the closet, so the mess never makes it to any other rooms in the house! - THEN we went to the Halloween Trunk or Treat at Sunnyside ward. I felt very lucky that Jeff was there to help take over, and I think he was pretty happy to share in the celebrating too. I did NOT dress up - and really missed it because I dress up every year & really love it. Well, there are many more years to come of more festive holidays!

Here are the kids getting crafty, they LOVE playdough!

And in their costumes...

One more piece to the puzzle, Our Dining Room Is Finished!!

YES Jeff & I were hard at work the last two days!! He had two days off in a row & THIS is what our dining room looked like. The carpet was badly stained, the walls desperately needed some paint & it was the dumping grounds for flattened down boxes, several misc. boxes that had heavens knows WHAT inside, and boxes that were supposed to go to goodwill. Plus my desk corner stunk like cat pee & I really wasn't happy with how my office stuff was organized on all those track shelves. SOOOOOO - We've been hard at work the last two days going through boxes, taking things to the goodwill & cardboard recycling center, and FINALLY ripping up all that old carpet. Jeff found me a FREE desk that they were getting rid of at LTI that worked wonderfully for my needs! I painted the whole room in an entire afternoon, and made a trip to the lighting store in Sunnyside (I found a great deal on a floor model. It really was a PAIN to install that chandelier, but so very worth it!). Finally, after so much heartache, frustration, and backbreaking labor, this afternoon we finished! To celebrate, we put a turkey in the oven, made some pumpkin pie, and had some friends over for our very first sit-down dinner in our new/old house! It really was so nice to feel like one more big piece of the puzzle was put into place, and having a dining room all set up really made a huge difference on how homey our house feels! Now maybe I can take a break & relax tomorrow?

And the race is on!!! A bit of a rant

OK, so many of you know that EVERY pregnancy has came with a major upheaval in our household during the last month or two of my pregnancy. Keira=Major room remodel, Keanu=House flood & all new flooring, Kalani=House addition/Sunroom remodel, and so THIS pregnancy is no exception!! This time we've moved & our whole lives have been turned upside down. So I have between 1 week and 10 days maybe? And the race is ON to get everything situated in this house so I don't feel like I have tons to do when I get home with a brand new baby. We've still got those two rooms/dumping grounds that need to be set up, a bit of painting, organizing, and putting up decorations, wall hangings, etc... I know myself well enough to know that I NEED to have some kind of control over my life to keep myself  from being an emotional wreck after having a baby. So this week we're racing to get as much done as we can. Don't worry! I have some help & will try not to overdo it! I'll just have to pick & choose the minimum that can be done to have our house livable & comfortable.

At the same time, I've got appointments for stuff I'm selling through Craigslist. I'm trying to clear off our property a bit, so IF anyone is interested in any of the following, contact me OK?   2 used couches, 2 cheap bookshelves, 1 entertainment center, a little TV, a dryer, a stove, a dresser, a crib mattress, 2 older snowmobiles, 40 boxes of artificial stone for use on fireplaces or the exterior of your house, 200 square feet of patio blocks, and WHO knows what else is in that barn~!~ Eventually we'll get around to sorting through everything!