BIG BOY BED

Shea is sleeping at this very moment for the first time ever in his brand new big boy bed!!! I have NEVER seen a kid that excited to go to bed. We had a big talk about "THE RULES" of the big boy bed. We'll see tonight how it goes, but I have to say, so far so good. Usually I am required to rock for at least 10-15 minutes (which I do love but...) and then coax him to let go of me, to stop crying and whining to come in mommy's bed and to go to sleep. Tonight it was story, prayer and wahoo, into his big boy bed. He was absolutely adorable about it, he couldn't stop smiling.

Play Dates

This is one of our FAVORITE things about mommy's new job as a stay-at-home mom.
PLAY DATES. Mommy gets to talk to her friends and Shea gets to play with his friends. We sure had fun last week playing and sharing fishies with Trevyn and playing rowdy big-boy games with Jacob and Nathan.

Shea's New Favorite Sport: Boxing

A few days ago Shea discovered some boxing gloves in the basement, and ever since all he wants to do is box. He just walks around challenging everyone. I taught him to ask, "You want a piece of me?"



As you can see, he knows how to protect his face and jab. Unfortunately his hook is still a little weak and he tends to leave his body open, but we're working on things.




He even knows to get up before the ten-count. You can't see his face, but I promise he's laughing here.

Happy Harry Potter Day!!

I've been waiting for today for soooooo long. I'm so excited for the release party tonight and yet dreading it at the same time. How can Harry Potter come to an end? I was lying awake sick last night and I started thinking about how much I LOVE Harry Potter. They have brought so much joy and delight to my life and I just wanted to write a little blurb about my love of Harry.

I was reading an article from an English Education journal the other day that said how the past 10 years have seen an incredible rise in both the quality and quantity of Young Adult literature available now days. This being a HUGE passion of mine the past two years since I started teaching English, I eagerly researched a few things. YA lit is selling now in numbers never before seen, and the quality is better than EVER before. This can honestly be attributed in part to Rowling. Kids who started reading and loving the Harry Potter series when they were 10 have continued to read and demand high quality stories and they're buying them more than ever. Another reason for the explosion of this genre is that again, when kids read and love a 700 page Harry Potter book at age 12, what book can they not read? They can read anything! Kids feel empowered that they can read whatever they want, and they do, not always of course, but many life long readers were born w/ Harry Potter 1. I remember when I was in junior high and read Gone with the Wind. I'm pretty sure I was just about the only kid at school who'd read a book with 1000+ pages, but today, there are very few kids in a junior high school who haven't read that 800+ page Harry Potter. It's amazing.

Then of course, there's just the delight, the joy and the wonder that the Wizarding World has brought us. There are too many cool things to even start mentioning all my favorites. What an imagination that lady has. I'm so excited to see how it all ends and to have my faith in Snape proven true. :-) But I'm so sad it's ending. The past 9 years either reading, re-reading, watching, discussing, defending or anticipating either a book or a movie have been so much fun. Only a few more hours until it will be in my hands FINALLY! I'm so excited. So... just in case you were thinking of calling me or coming over or bugging me in any way over the next few days, you should probably re-think that, I will be BUSY!!!!! :-)

Happy Harry Potter Day!!!!

Happy 4th Anniversary Babe

So, being inspired by my sisters-in-law, I thought I'd blog a little Happy Anniversary to Chris. Our day yesterday was far from romantic - we couldn't get a babysitter to do anything fun, so we'd just planned to order take out, (wow, exciting) but then we were both sick and we couldn't even order take out because I would have just thrown it up again! So we put Shea to bed, watched a movie, then fell asleep. The excitement and romance factors. Wow! :-)

So even though our anniversary wasn't stellar I just want to tell Chris how much I love him and how grateful I am for him. I've learned so much from him in the past 4 years. I love his sense of humor, I love how he sees the best in me and expects the best from me, which makes me better than I really am. I love how smart he is. He thinks of things that no one else thinks of and has insights into things that no one else has. I love his commitment to the gospel and the amazing comments he makes in Church. I love his inventions and business ideas. I love that Chris registers for the Publishers Clearing House online everyday in the hopes that someday we could send all our siblings to school and buy houses for our families. I love that his favorite Christmas gifts are Legos. I love how much he values learning and education and books. I love that he thinks I'm talented and beautiful and that he really likes to be with me. I love that he respects my opinion and always wants to know what I have to say. And I love, love, love the amazing dad that Chris is. He is so patient and loving and tender and kind to Shea. Shea will be smart and articulate and funny and polite and good and responsible because Chris teaches him those things every day. Unfortunately our kids will also love the Simpsons, but I guess I can live with that. :-)
Happy Anniversary Chris. I love you.

This week's update

Ok so this week has been pretty yucky at the Floods. Either we all got a nasty bug or I poisoned us sometime Sun or Mon (this is Chris' theory by the way) :-) because we have all had some nasty upset tummies and I've been constantly vomiting since Mon afternoon. I'm sure that my extreme vomiting has been a combination of morning sickness and whatever this bug/poisoning is because being sick, I throw up if I eat, but being pregnant I throw up if I don't eat, so I'm pretty much throwing up no matter what. Today however, was finally, better. It's 4:20 and I haven't thrown up yet. :-) We still managed to make it to swimming lessons in the morning and had two play dates, but I was just lying on the couch for most of those. So, that's the update, hope everybody else is doing well.

Pregnancy has finally hit

Since Jenna is asleep and not feeling well, I figured I should step in and update the blog. All I can say is that the pregnancy hormones have officially taken over... unless it's normal to burst into tears while watching "Shaq's Big Challenge." Luckily she generally feels better in the mornings when she and Shea go to the mommy and me swim lessons. They go while I'm at work, but I hear that Shea is quite a little fish. Everyday when I get home, he tells me about how he dove for rings and swam under the snake.

Chocolate Pudding Heaven

Shea loves his chocolate pudding. Today he got to do it all by himself and voila the results. He even managed to get it on his elbow. When I exclaimed over the mess he'd made he immediately asked me to take a picture. I'm not sure what it means when your 2 year old begs to have his picture taken, but there we are. :-)
(When we ask him to smile lately - this is the face he makes. I think it's so cute.)

Happy 4th of July

We had the best 4th of July I've had in a long time. The parents of one of my favorite students called earlier in the week and offered us tickets to Provo's Stadium of Fire. We have never gone before because well, tickets are really pretty expensive and because they always have a big country act headlining and Chris doesn't like country music. So, because we knew we were going this year on Tue night we went and got some little fireworks to light off in front of our house. Shea was a big fan of the sparklers, the flowers and the snaps of course, but his favorite thing was the little flag we got free from the fireworks place, he hasn't put it down in 3 days.



So yesterday, we left for Stadium of Fire at about 7. We parked on the opposite side of campus and had a nice (and hot) walk to the stadium, but it was great afterwards we just drove right home and didn't have to wait at all. So when we got there it was hot and we were hungry so Daddy went to get hot-dogs for us. While he was gone, Shea's favorite thing happened. 4 men parachuted out of a plane and landed on the grass in the stadium. I thought Shea would die of excitement, literally he has said this sentence 90 times since it happened. "The mens jumped out of the airplane and jumped down on the grass." He was mightily impressed!!!! Then we saw a man fly around with a rocket strapped to his back, we saw lots of girls dancing and some little kids doing cool acrobatics on a trampoline. We had a really really cool Air Force fly-by. Then Brooks & Dunn came on. I had forgotten how much I LOVE country. They played lots of great songs, and then 2 songs that were brand new and really hot in '93 when I was at my country hayday. It was so fun to sing and dance along and remember all those good times. The surprising thing was that Chris really really enjoyed them too and we all just had an absolute blast! Then the fireworks!!! WOW! There is NO COMPARISON to being in the Stadium for those. They were amazing. Shea, again, thought it was so much fun and tells everyone about the "big fireworks" and the "little fireworks" and the "orange fireworks" etc. etc. etc.
Thanks so much CRAIGS!!! We had the time of our lives!!!
Happy 4th of July!

CONGRATULATIONS DADDY!

Shea and I are happy (but not as happy as Chris) to announce that after hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and revision after revision after re-write after re-write that Chris is OFFICIALLY finished with his Masters Thesis! He defended his thesis today and it was a roaring success. His committee was really, really pleased with his 84 pages and all his hard work. He will rework his title a bit and then off it goes to the publishers. If anyone has any research to do on Chateaubriand at the BYU library, when you do a search Chris' thesis will come up. Cool. Way to go babe! We are really proud of you and are looking forward to seeing more of you. Now all we're wondering is who you'll dedicate it to...... :-)

February 21, 2008

For those of you who don't know yet - if all goes well, this is the day we're expecting to welcome a new baby or a new baby to our family!!

We're really excited. Shea tells everyone and anyone that there's a baby hiding in mommy's tummy. It's pretty cute. We're kind of hoping for a baby brother for Shea, but we'd be happy with either. I feel great so far. I'm 7 weeks pregnant and have had very, very little morning sickness. I have felt nauseous a few times in the evening, but not much. I haven't been very tired or grouchy (according to Chris) yet either. I think it could be doing nothing but fun stuff with Shea and taking cuddly naps every day. But whatever it is, I'll take it! We'll keep everyone updated. :-)

Family Home Evening

(Coloring President "Hinkey" at the end of FHE tonight)

I know I've gushed about our FHE packets before, but seriously. I swear, tonight we had the best FHE with a 2-year old in the history of FHE! These packets are amazing! Chris was in charge tonight and he pulled out the Prophets packet. This awesome packet starts off with the song Follow the Prophets. It has a laminated color photo of every prophet in the song for the kids to hold. We just did the first verse with the photo of Adam and Eve then we showed Shea all the other pics. He held them all and repeated their names. He can now tell you who they all are and that they were all prophets and that a prophet talks to Heavenly Father and Jesus and then tells us what they want us to know. Usually Shea lasts 5-10 (maximum) minutes for FHE. So at this point tonight I looked at the clock and he has been TOTALLY concentrated and into it for almost 20 minutes! He was having such a good time we kept going. We pulled out the latter-day prophets matching game in the packet. He held a picture of each modern-day prophet and said their names, then we layed them on the ground and he matched them (by color and shape) to their "focus" or something important they did. THEN he still wanted to color the coloring page of President Hinkley. FHE lasted almost 45 totally fun, focused, learning minutes tonight. IT WAS AWESOME. And all this with absolutely no prep or work. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE my packets!!!!


(April, Julie and Amber - we're doing another FHE packet exchange with girls in my ward because we love the first ones we did so much. I'm making you three a copy of mine this time. The packets are ages 2-5 again, but even if you can't use all of it now, you can pick out bits the little boys will look at or listen to, and then you'll be able to use the whole thing in a while, when they're a bit older. It won't be the best one I'm sure, my friends are so creative! but at least you'll be able to see what they look like and decide if you want to do an exchange in your own ward or with some girlfriends. If you love the packet, let me know and I'll send you the info for doing your own exchange so you can get more packets. It's all about MORE packets!!! They are so awesome!)

Summer Rules!!

We are having the best summer ever! (hence, the no blogging - :-) I can't believe how great it is to be a stay-at-home mom. I am loving it!! Our days start sometime around 8 or 8:30 (HEAVEN!) when Shea and I wake up and go for a 3-mile walk around the neighborhood. We both LOVE our morning walk. Then we come back and have breakfast and get ready for the day. Then we read, or go to the library, or have a play date with friends, go to the pool, or go to the park (although it's getting way too hot lately. It was 103 today - uugghh!) or play a baseball game in our nice cool house. Shea is a fanatic for "playing a baseball game." He actually hits that little ball about every 1 out of 3 tosses. He is SUCH a boy!!! Then daddy comes home from school and we have lunch then daddy prepares his lesson for the next day while mommy and Shea take a nap together. EVERY DAY!! Have I died and gone to heaven??? Then our afternoons are more playing, playing, playing. I LOVE this!!! If only the house would sell, I wouldn't have a care in the world. Summer rules!


One afternoon we took Shea to see a movie. He and Chris were ECSTATIC to be able to sit next to their FAVORITE television personality. I humored them by taking the photo. :-)



One Friday our playgroup went to an awesome park that has a huge fountain for kids to play in. Shea and his friends all had a BLAST!


This is one of my favorite moments this summer. After our walk one morning I was getting ready and Shea was just wandering around waiting for me. He'd been pretty quiet for a few minutes, but I could hear him talking so I peeked around the corner and saw this. He was reading to his Tiggers. I listened to him turn every page in that book and tell those Tiggers the story word for word. I can't believe how sweet and smart he is. I love him SOOO much!!!