Is she THAT old already???

So last night, Tara and I were food shopping with Rachel and her kiddos. Mason was in Rachel's cart, and Tara was in mine (after sitting with Rachel for most of the trip). Tara asks me all of a sudden "Where's Mason?" They were right behind us, so I stepped out of the way so she could see her friend. Then I hear my daughter say "Ooh...he's cute!" Rachel and I cracked up, and it was certainly a glimpse of things to come :) Oh boy...am I ready? haha

Rip my heart out, why don't ya?

So today, Tara went a little bit longer than usual before she went down for her afternoon nap. Which of course meant that she was more cranky and whiny beforehand. So as I was getting ready to put her down, she was crying, and yelling, and fighting me at every turn. She wanted me to read her a story before nap, but I knew she was way past the point of where she could handle being awake any more. So I told her I'd read her a story when she woke up. That of course made her cry even harder, and I laid her in her bed, stroked her hair, and started to sing to her; hoping she'd calm down. She did, and when she finally stopped crying she turns to me, looks me in the eyes and said "I was very sad." Wow! First time she's ever verbally expressed her emotions, and it ripped my heart out! I wasn't ready for that one...

An eventful saturday, to say the least...

So this is the first time I've sat down since I woke up at 6:00 this morning. I got up early, because my mom was coming by once she got off her overnight shift at work to give our car a jump. She's so wonderful! It wouldn't start yesterday, and we had a lot of food shopping and other errands to run today. So she gave us a jump, car started, and then we went shopping. First stop: Wal Mart. When the shopping was complete, the car wouldn't start again. Boo...We called our friend Edie, who came to give us another jump. While we were waiting for her to come, Sean and I were discussing how to handle the situation. We had been given the car for a dollar from my stepdad, a couple years ago. It's always had problems, sometimes we thought too many. We need a vehicle though in the meanwhile, until we can get a better one. It's had so many problems lately though, that Sean was of the opinion that if the jump didn't work-just having it towed to the junkyard. The car wasn't even worth the money it would cost to get it fixed. We figured instead of it sitting in the complex for heaven knows how long, to just scrap it like had been suggested to us before. We honestly though there was nothing left to salvage. At this point, Edie arrived, and after about 5 or 10 minutes of seeing if the jump would work; nothin. So, she called AAA; and they sent out a tow truck; along with the news that the service comes with a free diagnostic. (Thank you Edie!!!) However, before the tow truck arrived; a vehicle pulled up next to us, and I heard a familiar voice. I looked to the right, and there was dear friend Mr. Randy Garver. In town, at Wal Mart, on the same day at the same time we were. Coincidence? Nah. Even in the crappiest situation-Randy & Kim always make us smile and laugh. So while Edie and Sean and I were still fiddling with the jumper cables, I was chatting with Randy a bit. All of a sudden, white steam started to rise from the hood of his car, and I saw this greenish fluid GUSHING from the undercarriage of his car! It was like a wave of what I only assumed was anti-freeze coming like an ocean wave crashing and spilling all over the parking lot. Although an unfortunate situation, I don't think I'll ever forget all of our reactions to that. The look on Randy's face was a combination of shock and horror. Randy's kids Lizzie and Kyle were in the backseat, and had no idea what was going on. Honestly-my very first though was "Is his car going to explode?" lol My naive self, I had never seen a vehicle do that; and I had no base of reference for if there was a threat of danger to this or not. The thought that followed immediately after was "grab his babies!" Mom instinct, whatever-I was going to act first and ask questions later. I saw Randy reacting with a calm measured attitude-and get to work checking out what had happened. When he lifted his hood, and didn't panic-I realized there was no present danger. Haha Wow. At this point Kim showed up, with her purchases; and was caught up on both why the Martindales were broken down, and what had happened to her car. Poor woman! The tow truck was due to show up any minute, but when you have three kids (Lizzie Kyle and Tara) who are hungry and restless; "any minute now" means nothing to them. So Sean Randy and Kim took the kids inside for food, while I stayed and waited with Edie for the tow to arrive. A few minutes later it was there, and after a diagnostic on everything, and a clean bill of health for the car; the guy from Ray's explained that the parts of the battery where you attach the jumper cables (excuse my lack of knowledge of anything when it comes to cars) was corroded, and just needed to be cleaned, which he had done. We had told him our plan, that if it was an issue with the battery, to tow it to our apartment. If it was a connectivity issue, however; to tow it to a junkyard. He said "Nothing's wrong with your car, just the corroded area which I cleaned. I wouldn't put your car out to pasture quite yet!" Yay for us!!! Super good news. Anyway, our car was running; and we still had a couple of hours of errands ahead of us, mainly food shopping. At this point, Randy had called his dad and Roy and Susan had showed up. We didn't want to leave until we knew they would be okay. Randy said they were going to take their car to Meineke, and that they'd be okay. So before we left, Randy made sure to thank us for breaking down. haha He was convinced that if he hadn't spotted us, and stopped to spend a few moments with us; the valve in his car would have burst once they were further down the road, making the situation a bit more difficult. Leave it to Randy Garver to see the bright side of a tough situation-he's always been like that! So anyway, off we go to Winco. After an hour or so of food shopping, we get on the beltline to head home. We see a car broken down on the side of the road with it's hazards on. I told Sean we should stop and see if they need help. We pulled over, and these two guys (early twenties, I assumed) had already started walking in the direction of West 11th. We asked if they needed a jump, and they said they were just out of gas. One of the guys said his mom was waiting at the Wal Mart for them, and they just had to get there. We offered them a ride there, and after dropping them off; headed back home. After unloading groceries, dinner, giving Tara a bath and getting her jammies on, and getting some laundry done; I'm relaxing for a few minutes before we get Tara off to bed. So-at the end of the day, we're very grateful for all our blessings. We're grateful for a safe home, the ability to purchase food, our sweet little family, our dear friends and family, the chance we had to help someone else today for all the times we've been helped, and the fact that our car still works and is not sitting in a junkyard quite yet. So yeah...Good day :)

What's my name?

So...this last Saturday afternoon, we ran a few errands. At one point, we stopped home to grab a package of diapers that we had to return. We walk through the front door, I was first in the door. Sean follows behind with Tara, whom he sets on the floor so she can walk in all by herself. She runs up to me and as she's coming towards me, she says "Melissa" CLEAR AS A BELL! Sean starts laughing, and I'm speechless. We couldn't believe she had just called me that :) Fast-forward a few minutes later, when we're ready to head back down to the car again. Sean picks Tara up, and she points to the photos we have hanging on the wall off the kitchen, of the baby and I when she was ten months old. She points to the photos and says again, "Melissa!". We couldn't stop laughing! She's a smart one...

I'll be home for christmas...

So, we're back in Burley for christmas. Wow, I just realized that the last time I blogged was when we came to visit at the end of October! Two whole months guys, I'm sorry! Well, I'll just stick to the highlights: On November 19th, Sean had his 28th birthday :) I made him a birthday cake; pretty amateur, but he liked it. That's what the photo of the cake is all about...

Tara is learning so many new things; her latest is doing crunches in her bouncer. She's developing her abdominal muscles, and man; is that girl strong! She's still as vocal as ever, and getting more adorable every day. Her hair is starting to come in a little bit more. She's got this blond fuzz all over her head, and it's so precious :) Also, this last Saturday night just a few hours after we flew into Boise; we crashed at my sister-in-law's place, and we had Tara have some tummy time on the floor. Normally she prefers her back, and as soon as you put her on her tummy, in two seconds flat she's on her back again. But this time she not only stayed on her stomach, but she started to wiggle and scooch and attempt to crawl!! It was a proud moment for mom and dad, and I was so proud of her. It was actually a night of firsts for her...A few hours before that when we had been at the Boise Airport, gathering our luggage off the carousel, and loading up to head out; she amazed us with a new move. I had just snatched her car seat as it had come around the carousel, and I went to put her IN her car seat; and she was inches from it when she yelled out with complete intent, and did the splits mid-air! Her little legs were on both sides of her, and she would have been straddling the car seat had I completely set her down! So I scooped her back up and started laughing hysterically :) I got a glimpse of toddler hood-to-come...can we say "Miss Independent"?

Tara sat on Santa's lap for the first time-mommy and grandma Laurie took her to see him last Friday, and she had her photo taken with santa. I'll post it soon...She's good with strangers, and there was no crying; however, I didn't get the ear to ear grin that I was hoping for. She was so distracted by all the Christmas lights, and the people watching, and Santa's helpers, that she had this expression the whole time of "oh my goodness, so much to take in at once!" I just wish dad was there...but he had to work. I'm crossing my fingers that next year she'll take to him well. My cousin's husband was telling us though that with their two boys, the first year they're pretty little and just sleep. The second year they cry because it's not mommy or daddy holding them, and at around the third year you might start having luck with them taking to it better. We'll just have to wait and see with this little girl...

Speaking of my cousin-my cousin Heidi just moved to town a couple of months ago, along with her husband Jared and their two boys, Logan and Jack. Sean and I have been able to spend some time getting to know them, and it's been so nice. I've rarely had a chance to get to really know Heidi, because she grew up on the east coast; I was only born there. We've been over for dinner, we took Tara trick or treating on Halloween with them and their boys, and we've babysat for them a couple of times. Their boys are SO cute, and just plain entertaining. This last Friday evening, the night before we flew here to Idaho; we babysat the boys again. Logan's almost four, and Jack is not even two yet. Logan is a very smart boy, and he's at the point where he's very worried sometimes that he might not make it onto Santa's nice list. Sean and I had quite an entertaining evening with him, seeing as how every time he didn't listen, he would ask us "does this mean I'm on the naughty list?" or "Am I gonna get coal for that?" At dinnertime Logan kept sliding off his chair and getting distracted. We tried to keep him on track and at one point I told him that if got down one more time, he wasn't going to have the dessert that his mom had set aside for the boys if they had all their dinner. He said "Okay. I understand." He got down to the two last bites of his pizza, and about three sips of milk. He went to slide off his chair again, and scamper of to do something; and before I could say a word he slid right back onto his seat and said loudly "Oh yeah!" He finished his dinner without any more distractions :) About 45 minutes later it was time to get ready for bed. After about 20 minutes or so of asking him repeatedly to please get his pajamas on, and using every trick in the book to reason with this strong willed little boy, I discovered who I was up against. He had taken to hiding under his bed, and insisting that he wasn't coming out. His little brother had already had his jammie's on, and was brushing his teeth a second time while waiting on his big brother to come around :) I had just come back into the bedroom to reason with him (although I had felt it was a losing battle..) I said "Logan, Jack already has his p.j.'s on, and has already brushed his teeth. Because he's been a good boy and listened the first time, he's going to have a bedtime story. If you want a bedtime story as well, you'd better come out now and get your jammies on. At that point, Sean had just approached the bedroom door. We both heard Logan say from underneath the bed "well that's just not going to HAppen...." in a sort of mocking singsong voice. I simply said "okay" and shut the bedroom door behind me. It took everything we had to walk down the hall, and into the living room before Sean and I busted up laughing. After Heidi and Jared got home, and Sean was buckling the baby in her car seat; I was talking to Heidi. She and Jared could barely contain themselves when this earlier encounter was shared with them upon arriving back home. Heidi was telling me right before we left, that Logan is just one dramatic little boy. She said that earlier that afternoon, Logan had asked for a cookie. She said no, and he held his hands up to his cheeks and said "this isn't HAPPENING to me!!" Man, can you tell now why it's so entertaining when we go over? he he

Anyway, I'm exhausted. I'm waiting on the laundry to finish, but I think I'm just going to head to bed. I'm going to include real quickly just some cute photos I've taken over these last two months. If you guys don't know this about me yet-I'm a photo freak! I love taking pictures, and you're going to learn that soon enough. I'll always have cute pictures to put up, and most of them are going to be the baby :) Anyway, I'll write soon-goodnight guys!

Baby's First Vacation

So I forgot to mention the other day that this was Tara's first plane ride; the flight from Portland to Boise. She did fairly well, she was calm and happy the entire time. Then she decided to pull a trick on mommy halfway through the pilot's descent into Boise. I had her on my lap, facing towards me. She was smiling and cooing for us, and all of a sudden she erupted. Spit up was trailing down her onesie-completely normal one might say. She is a baby, and she does spit up; often in fact. But this time, it was a scheme to distract mommy from what she was REALLY doing. All of a sudden, I heard a "pop" and felt a movement around my waist. With her little foot, she had slyly unbuckled me. I looked at her, and she just grinned. Sean and I cracked up, of course; and I handed her to him so I could re buckle my seat belt for the remainder of the landing. She's such a sweet little girl...


On other fronts, vacation's been nice. Sean's family is really into cribbage. Since our arrival in Burley, Sean's played quite a few games with his brother; as well as his mom. However, the score between Sean and Jake still remains 0-0. Same with his mom, 0-0. That's because in this family, when they get close to losing; instead of watching their fate play out, they simply flip the board...First game of cribbage with his brother on Saturday night Sean was gaining on him, and all of a sudden Jake overturns the entire cribbage board. Sean starts laughing hysterically of course, as well as the rest of us. The same scenario tonight, except this time with his mom. It's hilarious...Sean's been know to do the same on occasion; it must be a family thing :)


So we're kinda sad that our vacation's almost over, not really looking forward to returning to the normal routine; ya know? However, we know that we'll be returning again in two months for Christmas. It makes leaving a little easier, knowing we'll be coming back so soon. Anyway, I'd better be off to bed. We want to get to Boise a little early tomorrow so we have time before our flight to hang out with Kayla and Rylee at their place for a while. See you guys soon~