School time

I came downstairs from showering to find Bean in full teacher mode. Her classroom seemed a little cramped--guess budget cuts got to them.

Cool Cars

All summer, Bean has been talking about the cool cars at Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford museum. This past weekend, we got to see some really cool cars. Rock star's cars. And guitars.



The King

Kid Rock's Duke's of Hazard car


The Little Duece Coop


I think Bean just likes to talk about Cool Cars--she was done pretty quickly with the actual exhibit. But she and Bugaboo did like their chance to drive:

Changes

Well, my favorite critic informed me that the black background on this site was just too dark and dismal, so I'm playing with it yet again. Someday I'll figure out what I like.

I'm not sure if it was the tooth coming or just another night in the nutty family home, but Friday night was not one of our best. Here's the play-by-play for anyone who has ever wondered if I'm exaggerating when I say our kids do not sleep through the night:

After a rough afternoon nap-wise
6:20--Bugaboo is in bed
7:00--Bean is in bed
9:00--I'm conked out
9:20--My lovely deep sleep is interrupted intermittently by crying, but Daddy-o is still awake so I try to ignore it.
10:30--Daddy-o finally gives up and brings Bugaboo to me to feed.
11:00--Buggy is back in his bed and asleep
12:30--Bugaboo needs a paci replug--twice.
1:09--We hear this little sweet voice, "I want cake, Dada". Not sure why Bean thought we were going to give her cake--we may not be the best at teaching our kids to sleep, but we do NOT give them cake in the middle of the night.
1:30--Bugaboo awake, paci replug and patting seems to help
2:00--Buggy is crying again--I give up and feed him again and we both pass out in the bed where we finally get a little sleep.
5:35--Bugaboo is fidgeting so I do everything I can for the next hour to keep him still and asleep.
6:45--Buggy is up
7:00--Bean is up, and so another day begins.

This is why even the nights that I go to bed early, I can spend 10 hours trying to sleep, but only get about 5 hours of sleep.

And Saturday got even better--Daddy-o is sick, the post on the car battery broke off (killing the battery) so I got to have a lovely chat with a AAA tow truck driver who reminded me of a very dirty leprechaun. He did manage to get the car started so I could drive home and send Daddy-o out to get a new battery while I fed, bathed and put a couple cranky kids to bed.

What happened to our weekends?

A tooth!!!

Bugaboo has a tooth!

More later . . .

Stair Master

Bugaboo has completely mastered the stairs, both going up and coming down. In the last couple days, he has wanted to spend hours practicing. I'm just glad that he finally figured out how to turn around and come down backwards. Until this last week, his method of coming down the stairs (or off the bed, or anywhere else up about the ground level) was to crawl to the edge, look over, and then launch himself face first toward the ground. Thank goodness for baby gates.

Yum!

After 4 months of no dairy because of Bugaboo's Milk/Soy Protien Intollerance (MSPI), I thouroughly enjoyed my trial day of dairy today. It's my birthday and I went all out--quiche for brunch, Chicago style, stuffed crust pizza, and cake and ice cream. Daddy-o made the best frosting which was full of heavy cream, butter, and chocolate. We'll see how Bugaboo reacts--even if he starts the spitting up and gets a rash, at least I was able to enjoy one dairy-full day and try the pizza everyone's been talking about since we got here (and it was SOOOOOOO good!). If only I'd gotten some sleep, it would have been a perfect birthday.

And speaking of birthday gifts, my mom surprised me with a Cricut. For those of you who don't know what this is, its an awesome scrapbooking machine :(http://www.cricut.com/shopping/ProductDetails.aspx?id=1&s=5&sc=1)

I spend hours cutting out the lettering for some of my lay outs, but with this, the machine will do it all for me! Actually, the lettering on the pages in my last post were all done with a Cricut, but now I won't have to borrow anyone else's.

She's crafty . . .

For some reason, Daddy-o and I both thought we were going to have excessive amounts of free time this summer to catch up on all our hobbies and projects. I don't know exactly where we thought this time was going to come from. Daddy-o does have some extra time since he no longer has to study day and night, but my job of taking care of the kids and house really didn't change all that much summer.

We did join Netflix (and LOVE it) so we've watched a lot more movies lately, but my box of crafting supplies was untouched for the first few weeks we were here. But I finally have gotten a few things done:

A page for Bugaboo's album
A double page for Bean'sand a card with the leftovers.

Guess where we went?

It was pretty like the beach. It was breezy like the beach. And crowded like the beach.

It just wasn't our beach. We didn't make it out to San Diego this weekend, but we did drive across Michigan to St. Joseph, and it really did feel a lot like a little beach town. Lake Michigan is so big, it pretty much feels like the ocean, just without the big waves. It felt really nice to walk barefoot through the sand again.

And just like the Pacific ocean, the water was REALLY COLD! So we didn't actually swim in the lake, although we did dip our toes in. We swam in the pool instead (and even that was too cold for little Bugaboo),

had a couple picnics, walked through downtown with some friends, and tried out every little car we found.

There were a lot more but I stopped taking pictures after awhile. Apparently this is part of the city art project they do each summer--they pick a theme and artists are able to display their works on the street corners for the summer. Sounds like a fun idea!
Funniest thing all day: As we were walking downtown, I started noticing people sitting on benches and at little coffee shops all along the way, reading. And of course, the majority of them were reading Harry Potter. It was like being in a movie--I've never seen something like that. My copy was waiting on our doorstep when we got home, thank you Amazon. Now if I could just find time to read it before someone slips up and tells me something about it.

Kirtland, Ohio

We spent the last weekend in Kirtland, touring the church history sites. This was the first time any of us had done something like this (Daddy-o never even saw the things at the Mormon Battalion Visitor's Center in San Diego, after living there for 10 years!), and while the experience will probably be more spiritual when the kids are older, it was still interesting.

First, we were able to see a video about the Saints in Kirtland and then tour the Newel K. Whitney Store and home as well as a couple other buildings that had all been restored. It was amazing to stand in some of the same places that the prophet Joseph Smith also stood.

Then we went to the Kirtland Temple. The Community of Christ has done a great job at keeping it in good shape, while still allowing religious groups to hold meetings in there occasionally. The temple was very different than what we'd imagined--I think I was expecting something a little more like the temples we have now, but this one was mainly used for teaching and large gatherings so the two floors were almost identical and looked more like a chapel. We were able to do this tour with 2 of the other families who are interning with us at Ford and then we let the kids get down on the grass for a bit to get some wiggles out.

We stayed overnight (and it was worth every penny to have a night away from the air mattress--we actually had a king-size sleep-by-number bed--huge upgrade!) because we knew we couldn't squeeze in all the sites in one day with our bouncing Bean. And it was worth it--the two farms we visited on Sunday were probably my favorite part of the trip. They were both places where Joseph Smith lived at some point and the missionaries doing the tours had some great stories to tell--I want to find some biographies of the people who lived during those times so I can learn more about everything that happened. We walked away with a feeling of amazement at the sacrifices that some of the people made.

The ride home was definately not my favorite part of the day, but it was very exciting (WARNING: If you don't appreciate poop stories, stop reading now). We were ready to leave the Johnson farm at 3:30 and I thought we'd be home before 7 which would give us time to get cleaned up and everyone to bed at a pretty good hour. Then, the delays began. First, I realized I hadn't fed Bugaboo for about 5 hours. He's a pretty mellow traveler--as long as there are people to flirt with, he's a happy camper. So I fed him while Savannah took Steve on a "tour"--I think she'd been on too many in the last 2 days--she told him the whole story about this rock--how it was a baby chicken inside and the mama sat on it, then went to get food from the nearby tree and then the rock cracked and the little babies came out.

So at 4, we're finally on our way. We made it about 1.5 hours before we had to stop for food, which of course with kids, turned into a long stop--it took me forever to figure out how to get Bugaboo's baby food warmed up, and while the kid loves to eat, he doesn't like cold food. 15 minutes on the road, Bean announced she had to go poo. So we get off at the next exit and when I open the back door of the car, I can already smell poo. Luckily, it wasn't Bean, but now Bugaboo's diaper needing changing. So Daddy-o took over that while I ran in with Bean. When we came out, Daddy-o still hadn't changed Bugaboo and was holding him like he was going to bite. I walked around the car and saw a huge pile of poop on the ground. Apparently the pressure of being strapped into a carseat caused some problems (and probably explained why he'd been so fussy for the last few mintues) and the majority of the poop skipped right past the diaper and ended up in his pants where it fell out his pant leg as soon as Daddy-o picked him up. So we did our best to clean everything up--the kid, the carseat, Mr. Murphy (his monkey lovey), and the ground (who wants to get out of their car and step in baby poop?) and rode home the rest of the way in a slightly stinky car.

But the trip really was worth it, really!

Thankful Time

I've been thinking about what I'm going to miss about this summer when we head back in a month, so here's the list I've come up with. Some of these things are definately looking on the bright side of things.

• Greenfield Village--think I've already explained that one!
• green trees everywhere
• not having to use lotion (thanks, humidity--glad there is something its good for)
• the historical neighborhood we live in--I love my morning jogs past all these well-kept homes from the 30's and 40's--and the shady streets, thanks again to the green trees, are beautiful
• fireflies--none of us had ever seen them and they are just beautiful! The other night I pulled into our neighborhood at peak firefly time and it felt magical driving along with these little glowing lights moving all around me--like I was in Peter Pan or something
• storytime at the library--Provo's storytime is awesome, but if you don't get there early, you can't find a place to sit. This one is good sized, friendly, and with plenty of room
• having friends who live in our complex--its been so fun doing an internship with 3 other families right here as well
• the ward--this ward has been so friendly and we feel more at home than we have for the past year. We have callings, have spoken in sacrament meeting, and been invited over to three different families homes for BBQ's. We really feel like we're needed and that people know who we are, which is a nice feeling--it had been awhile
• Bean having friends to play with--Provo was pretty lonely for her this last year--hoping we can fix that this year!
• Trader Joe's--I love that place and am already planning my list of things to stock up on when we leave
• having new places to explore--I'd never been to this part of the country so its been a great adventure
• And probably the biggest one: Having Daddy-o around in the evenings with no homework to do!!!!! It's felt like a vacation even though he has to work 8-5.

Everything hasn't been great, but a lot of the hard times we've had would have happened whether we were here or in Provo or even San Diego, our heaven on earth (like the fact that I haven't gotten more than 2 hours of sleep in a row, and less than 5 hours total, for the last 2 nights). So I'm glad this summer has been fun and we've found a lot of great things out here in Dearborn.

Adventures in Detroit

Ok, first, this has nothing to do with Detroit, but I just want to warn everyone that this blog may look different everytime you come for awhile--I'm still deciding what I want it to look like :)

Now, to our adventures in Detroit. There really aren't many reasons to go downtown or even into the Detroit city limits, but the second weekend in July we decided to head down to the Farmer's Market which claimed to be the largest of its type in the U.S. And I have to say I was very impressed. Along with a huge area of produce stands, there were blocks and blocks of stores that were food related--Bean's favorite was the shop with candy bins. After picking out a bag of candy, we walked out of the store and saw a couple of drummers performing on the side of the street. I mentioned in the last post how much Bean loves music--she walked towards these drummers in a trance. They were pretty amazing.

Greenfield Village

I think Greenfield Village (http://www.thehenryford.org/village/default.asp) is my favorite part of living out here in Dearborn this summer. Hendy Ford collected buildings and other historical items (that is a collection that would be a little too large for me--I'll stick to collecting scrapbooking supplies)--its so amazing to be able to stroll by Thomas Edison's laboratory the same morning as the bus Rosa Parks took her famous ride and see the farmhouse that Henry Ford grew up in. And there are people whose job is to wander around the park dressed in period clothing, just to make the experience more authentic.


The kids and I go at least once a week and Daddy-o joins us on weekend trips. On July 2nd, we were all able to go to the 15th Annual Salute to America--the Detroit Symphony performed, including the 1812 Overture, complete with real cannon's firing, and then they accompanied the firework show. It was a fun experience, and our kids proved their unique little spirits once again. Bugaboo fell asleep about halfway through the symphony (it was 2 hours past his bedtime), slept right through the cannons blasting and the fireworks, and then woke up as we left. Bean LOVED the symphony--conducted several of the songs for the people around us, danced to a couple more, and then hid, shaking, in Daddy-o's lap through the entire firework show--didn't see a single one. Guess we need to skip the fireworks and take her to more music performances.

We've also been during the Motor Muster, where hundreds of old cars were on display, and the Civil War Remembrance which was incredible--hundreds of people dressed up and camped out in there canvas tents, living the life of a soldier or civilian during the civil war. I've now added that to my list of things to do before I die--it was fun to wander around and watch, but I want to try living that way for myself!

And then there is the everyday fun of all the rides--a steam engine train, old Model T's, the carousel, and the "horsey buses". Luckily we got the membership that included rides or we'd have spent everything Steve made this summer!

Jumping on the bandwagon

I've been thinking about creating a blog for years, mainly to save myself a lot of repeated typing since I find myself sending the same stories and pictures to many groups and people. So now, if you want to know what's going on with Kim and Co., you know where to come!

I feel like I need to do a lot of background info, but as I said, the point of this is to reduce the amount of time I spend on the computer, not to rewrite my history, so here's our family today, July 10th. Because I haven't decided if this is going to be public or not, we will be going by code names for now.

My darling husband (known as DH on my other sites) will be referred to as Daddy-o, our 3-year-old fireball daughter is Bean, and the little funny-man in our lives (8 months) is Bugaboo.

Dadddy-o is working for Ford Motor Company this summer and enjoying the break from school because he now can spend his evenings trying to get the kiddos to sleep, channel surfing, and researching random topics online--much more fun than Walmart case studies and Excel spreadsheets.

I'm enjoying this summer because of the said help in getting kiddos to sleep, great neighborhood for early morning runs, and Greenfield Village, the most amazing "museum" ever (more on that later).

Bean, who recently is "skipping 3 and going straight to 4", loves the library storytime, swim lessons, the carousel and "really cool" old cars at Greenfield Village, and "Cheeries" (AKA Cheerios) for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Bugaboo thinks having stairs is the best idea ever, food can't come fast enough, and even if its not food, everything deserves a fair taste.

More details to follow!