the palmer family

november

2012-01-18T20:08:00.000-08:00

okay, i'm in hyper-blogging mode now because i'm pretty sure sara's going to take her first steps here in a few days and i want to be all caught up so i can blog about it!

november was an exciting month because that's when we went to the Fabulous Food Festival! One of James' favorite past times is watching the food network chanel which i love because he tries all the new recipes he learns about on me. :)

there were all sorts of famous food guys there that i had seen on james' shows. our tickets came with seats to see one of the shows so i went to guy fiery (i'm sure i botched his name) and james saw michael symons.

there were a million venders with food samples so we walked around all morning trying out the free food. here are scott and james taking an apple tasting test.

and here's a picture of Guy.

November is also the month when we finally cut scott's hair. it was growing a little out of control.

our mall had a big familiy day for the opening of the food court so we went and they had this robot guy for kids to take pictures with.

my favorite part was when i originally told scott to go stand by the robot i looked up from my camera and saw this...

he was so enamored by the robot that he walked up and gave him a big hug. how cute is that kid?

scott and sara's favorite past time is playing in sara's crib. sara loves it because having her brother by her is her favorite time of life and i love it because scott entertains her for a while after she wakes up giving me more time to finish whatever i'm doing.

these kiddos are so fun and love each other so much. i just love seeing them light up when they're together.

for thanksgiving we went to columbus and had dinner with bryan and annie. sadly enough the turkey turned out not to be done all the way through when we were ready to eat so bryan cooked it on the grill outside. it was seriously the best turkey i've ever had. i know bryan thought i was just being nice every time i said that, but i promise bryan... it really was amazing. and should be our new family tradition.

the kids waited very patiently for the turkey to be ready.

after dinner the kids played dress-up. scott and audrey were doctors. they had to make sure that none of us were going to die from the uncooked turkey. (just kidding bryan.)

and i loved walking out on the back deck and seeing julia and scott in front of their fake fire pit. i think scott was a little disappointed that there weren't any flames.

here's cute annie with our newest member of the family... Lilly Palmer.

the day after thanksgiving was time to get ready for christmas. we set up the tree and scott and james did a great job of straightening out the fake branches after they sat in a box all year.

then our sweet neighbor sharon came over for some left over thanksgiving dinner.

we feel so lucky to be living here in cleveland by family and new friends and all the super famous food guys. it was a great month!

Happy Late Halloween

2012-01-09T18:39:00.000-08:00

i'm not sure what happened over the past couple months but one day it was halloween and the next it was christmas and suddenly we're in 2012! Time is flying and i'm way behind on blogging. But here are the October pictures and more are to follow shortly.

scott was batman for halloween this year (and he's still batman today if anyone's asking). he was very fierce.
p.s. yes, that is a duct tape bat belt made by yours truly.

we were out of town this year for halloween so scott couldn't actually go trick or treating. but seeing this face during our ward trunk-or-treat party was enough for me.

and here's a shot of sara on the big night. she was a fairy/butterfly/bat girl princess.

the halloween festivites continued with our pumpkin carving night with mitchell jones and fam.

mine (the one on the left) is winking in case you were wondering.

we also headed to our ymca halloween bash. scott's batman costume was dirty so he was a (thrown together very quickly at the very last minute) super soccer player. he took the roll very seriously.

scott and i tried to do a lot of non-halloween fall activities as well. we've been trying to use sara's morning nap as a time that we do projects together. for this particular project we collected sticks outside...

and pinecones too...

and made a very cool stick house with a milk carton and superglue. (scott was very proud.)

and that was our very exciting october. stay tuned for november!

Time Out For Women -- Cincinnati, OH

2011-10-18T19:43:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was incredible! Full of laughs, tears and spirtual upliftment. I'm still recuperating from the late night girl-talk and the rollercoaster of emotions! I went to Time Out for Women with these cute girls in my ward (R-L: Shanna Olmsted, Katie Kirkham, Laura Pettersen, Lisa Ybarra, Lindsay Weston). Thanks to Laura I have all these great pics of our time there.

We were uplifted with amazing music. Here we are with the girls of Mercy River. I wanted a picture with Michael Mclean but i was too shy. :)

And outstanding speakers. This is cute Mariama. We all loved her and her heart wrentching stories.

But best of all I loved bonding with my fellow sisters. We got to know each other so well and I truly grew to love these girls more and more with each passing hour. It was such a great weekend!

I also wanted to post some pictures of our little sara with her new teeth. they are finally big enough to capture in a photo so here you go.

scott wanted in on the picture action as well.

When I came downstairs this morning from putting sara down for a nap I found these boys cooking together in the kitchen.

James has a slower rotation this week so he's been home a lot more. It has been so nice to have him around now that his board exams are over. Now his residency interviews begin! He has the first one this Friday and another fifteen (plus) over the next three months!

Scott's favorite part of cooking...

And another random pic of sara because I love this hat and i love her so much. she's such a cuddly little bear.

Cedar Point!!!

2011-10-10T19:12:00.000-07:00

this past weekend the palmer familiy finally made it to cedar point. we have had a goal to go there since we found out we would be doing two years of rotations in cleveland and we finally made it! for those who don't know, cedar point is a very large and very nice amusement park in sandusky, ohio (about an hour from us). and since we are enjoying 75 degree weather in october we decided to go (and so did the rest of the people living in ohio.)

yes, it was very...very crowded but we still had lots of fun. the park has a parent swap program where one parent can wait in line while the other one hangs with the kids. then the other parent can go through the exit and get right on the ride once the first parent is done. it was sad to not be with james while he waited in line but the kids and i found lots of ways to entertain ourselves. here we are waiting for james to ride the "dragster".

and here is james waiting to go on the "dragster". he was in line for almost two hours after the ride broke down half way through his wait! the break-down only added to the thrill of the ride.

i tried to capture this craziness of this ride. see that huge peek in the distance? the rollercoaster shoots ExTrEmEly fast up and over that peak. it is seriously freaky deeky. i was still shaking ten minutes after riding it. i'm not joking.

my favorite thing about cedar point is that you can leave the park for a while and walk along the boardwalk and go out to the beach. not many people were out here and it was so peaceful and beautiful and relieving to get away from the crowds for a while.

and this is just how sara was for 80 percent of the day. she constantly amazes me by how chill she can be in potentially stressful situations.

we finally got to the point where we decided that splitting up and waiting in long lines wasn't worth being away from each other so we spent most of the evening together going on "family rides".

the kids were so happy to have daddy back.

the whole reason we went to cedar point in the first place was to see our friends ryan callahan and b.j. jones. ryan came and hung out with us in the evening and it was so good to catch up with him. it was weird that he hadn't even met our little sara considering the fact that he was like a member of our family when we lived in iowa.

we kept saying that we'd leave the park when the kids got cranky but they never did! they were so good and so we stayed into the night letting scott run around from ride to ride having the time of his life. it was such a great day.

other things we've been up to...
scott had his first japanese "hibachi" experience. he loved the big fire in the middle of the table. we went there with some of our new ohio friends (katie and mark mcvey).

sara just keeps getting older and older. she is very much posed here and not at all big enough to actually sit at scott's table by herself but she is getting old enough for these two to entertain each other. scott is so good at playing with her (especially when i bribe him with treats) and scott is now willing to play in his room by himself as long as sara is there with him. i absolutely love hearing them play and laugh together. they're such cute little gigglers.

we had our new friend, tyler weston, over the other day. tyler and scott are such good buddies and here are some photos of them working with their jello jigglers.

and this is my new favorite picture... maybe ever. (scott found this bike helmet in the closet and was convinced that it was a baseball helmet.)

james is in philadelphia TONIGHT getting ready to take the second portion of his board exams tomorrow. these roses are what he brought home to me after the first section was over (last thursday). i can't wait to see what he brings me when he gets home tomorrow! :)

and lastly, i just wanted to thank everyone who signed my petition to move victoria secret from the play place in the mall. (this is a photo that i took to include in the letter that i wrote the mall management). and here is some positive news... i heard back from the mall and they said they have received a lot of complaints about this very issue and they are moving the play place!!! it will be in its new location by january of 2012! i'm so excited and so grateful to the many people who have opened their mouths so that this change could take place. thanks again!

batman, preschooler and other secret identities...

2011-09-25T17:27:00.000-07:00

it's hard to believe that james and i are the parents of TWO super heroes...

but when they have spider-man as a mom its not all that surprising.

scott started preschool this month. here he is still sporting his batman "fierce" face.

and here's his really good, no hitting, no pushing, "no pooping in pants while at pre-school" angel face.

and...this just melts my heart.

sara hates it when scott goes to preschool. she just sleeps her sorrows away in the backseat of the car while mommy reads/writes in the parking lot.

love those pigtails!

as a sunday family activity a couple weeks ago we made Auntie Anne's soft pretzels. I'd like to say i slaved all day to make them from scratch but thankfully all the ingredients came pre-made in one compact box. they were delicious! and so fun to make.

over labor day the palmer family drove an hour and a half south to Amish Country. they have a bunch of towns for tourists and this is scott in front of the cheese factory. the first couple of times we saw the amish riding around in their buggies it was really exciting and everyone in the palmer car was bouncing up in down with delight. but by the end of the day it became common-place and a bit of a nuisance having to drive around them. those Amish people are seriously patient.

Later that week we met up with the Bryan and Annie Palmer clan at a Dutch Restaurant in Mansfield. It's always good to see them and fill ourselves up with an endless buffet of food.

it's crazy how fast these kids are growing. i'm so glad we have this time in ohio with the other palmers so scott can bond with julia and audrey.

Just more fun pics of the kids...

Scott at the beach... it was a cold, overcast day so i didn't think scott would even touch the water. i was so, very wrong. the kid tore off his clothes the second he touched the sand and was running all over the place in his pull-up. he's such a little boy.

scott taking his blood pressure at the drug store... not looking too happy.

i had to take a picture of sara in this sweater because i wore it when i was a baby. she looked so angelic. it's hard to capture it on the camera.

A week ago we got together with Nick and Sarah Jones and fam at the Rocky River Reservation to make S'mores. They were delicious and the boys loved roasting those marshmallows.

me with sarah and sara.

scott and mitchell did NOT want their pictures taken so i had to sneak a shot when they weren't looking. they are too cute together.

i absolutely love this picture of the kids at chik-filet because this is such a typical moment for me as a mom of these cutie-pie kids. scott is always pulling some sort of super-hero/ monster/ "don't-take-my-picture-mom" face and sara is constantly beaming from ear to ear. i love hanging out with these two all day every day.

sara on the slide (smiling as always)

scott on the slide (fighting crime as always)

scott HATES the swings. he always has and i'm afraid he always will. but sara loves them which i appreciate because they were always my favorite as a kid (okay, they're still my favorite now). even though scott hates the swings, i have to say he's mastered the rest of the playground. over the past few weeks james has been working with him on sliding down the poles and now he even slides down the big-kid poles. (i felt like i had to brag about him after dissing his dislike for swings.)

this is kind of a funny video of scott throwing a tantrum (he's in that phase lately) that is if you can handle my annoying "tickle toes" voice. good luck.

7 weeks in UTAH!!!

2011-09-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

This year we were lucky enough to be able to spend most the summer in Utah with our family. James got a rotation at the University of Utah in the psych department and we lived with my mom and spent LOTS of time with the rest of our family. Here's a quick recap of the 7 week vacation...

Scott loved hanging out with his cousins. He's finally getting old enough that he can really appreciate them. Here is is with my mom and some cousins on my side of the family. (Dallin, Ellie and Katie)

And of course we spent as much time as we could with Scott's best little cousin - Allie Bowler. Phil was so good to have around as an extra pair of eyes at 7 peaks water park. We all had season passes this year and we went there as much as we could.

At Liberty Park with my mom, kim, mimi and more cousins.

Family BBQ up Payson Canyon with the Palmer Clan.

More 7 peaks!

Scott doing his Buzz Light Year face while jumping with Allie.

At the movies to see Cars 2 with grandma Palmer.

Sara and cousin Ilene (they are about 3 months apart).

Carl's Junior Play Place with Aunt Mimi and Family.

Homemade Fondu Night with the Palmers! (Seriously so delicious!)

We decided that this was our summer of sunglasses. Neither James nor I ever really wear them but this year we felt like they'd be beneficial. Plus Grandma Palmer got Scott his very own pair of Batman shades. We all looked so cool all summer long.

James and I on a date night out to a Fake Neil Diamond concert. Our favorite part was when the police raided the stage because the singer was going past curfew to sing "Sweet Caroline".

Spanish Fork Rodeo!

Mona Days Face Painting

Scott's Batman of course... with cousins Allie and Dustin

Celebrating Grandma Palmer's birthday at the Art City Trolley.

Scott and Allie just being... Scott and Allie

Uncle Ryan is always giving Scott really cool basketball jerseys. Thanks Ryan!

Out on a summer evening ride.

Fireworks!

Scott felt very cool that he could figure out the spiderman web thrower finger thing.

more scott and allie

Trip to Bear Lake with the Keyser side of the family.

Daddy and Scott out on the boat.

James on the water weenie with Bridger and Dallin.

Scott driving the boat with my mom's "friend" Brent. :)

Me celebrating the fact that i got up skiing after 6way too many tries. I can't believe i'm so out of shape!!!

my favorite time of the day... diaper changing parties! these two are so cute when i change their diapers together. they just play the whole time. as much as i want scott to be potty trained i will definitely miss this.

Owl's baseball game at UVU with the Palmers.

Scott and Allie eating their hot dogs at the ballgame.

Trip to Park City with the Palmer family.

Temple day with the Keyser Family. We all got together to do my grandma's work along with some other family names. It was a really great experience. (L-R: Brother-in-law Kelly, Sister Steph, James, Natalie, Brother Mike, Sister-in-law Mimi, Mom, Sister Kim)

Our favorite thing was coming down to grandy's room in the morning to cuddle with her.

Salt Lake Temple Day with Scott and Sara

I wanted Scott to be able to touch the temple. He always wants to go inside but i've finally convinced him that it will be better to go in when he's "bigger".

Hike to a waterfall with Grandy Keyser. (not as easy as it looks.)

i love sara's crazy morning hair. this picture captures it perfectly.

since we were around for a while i was able to see lots of old friends. this is my good friend jenny with her kids bella and jonah.

and a sweet girl i knew from my mission... nicki.

and can you believe we even found a way to see brody and anne while we were there.

the 7 peaks season pass also got us in to trafalga. here's scott and james on the bumper boats (soaking wet.)

and james, me, amanda and ryan living it up at the lazer tag.

splash pad day with keyser cousins katie, josh, kenzie and ellie

me and my sister kim

mauger reunion... scott, sara, addison mauger, and alex mauger

visiting my old work up at the Uof U... jeff johnson and my old boss Jim Parker

some of the ladies i worked with: mary louise, sonia, sandy, kathy and jane

this story is kind of cool... see that bird on the ledge behind scott? well it was on my mom's back deck all injured and not moving anywhere. so scott and i decided to feed him bread crumbs to see if it gave him enough energy to fly away. i honestly didn't think it would help, i just thought it would be fun to try to feed the bird with scott. but when we went back out the crumbs were mostly gone and the bird was too! i get that there's a chance that the bird just fell off and died somewhere but we like to think that we saved its life. :)

my cute, smiley little girl.

my mom took this picture but i love it because this is just a typical situation with me and my kids sitting in the kitchen enjoying a snack together. i really do love spending time with these kids.

my old work buddies.. becca morley and julianna barney.

Friends from iowa: Jamie Bingham and Alison Croff

another great photo of the kids in the morning. this is what i see every day when i wake up. scott always comes to my bed and happily tells me that sara is awake (she isn't crying she just plays in her crib until we get her.) so scott and i go to her crib and she is just kicking and smiling with this crazy hair of hers. its such a fun thing to wake up to.

Spanish Fork County Fair...

Sawing a log with daddy, allie and ryan.

Classic Skating Day with cousins Katie and Josh (who knew that classic skating now had bouncy castles and a water park!??)

Hogel Zoo with Mom and the kids. This is my new favorite picture...

Meeting up with our good Iowa friends Shalise and Brooke Kearns. The last time we saw Brooke she was just a baby so it was so fun to see her and scott play together.

not my most flattering picture but i wanted to show one of shalise...

my favorite missionary couple, the wollastons.

can you believe that sara is big enough to sit in the front of the cart? this poses a big problem at regular grocery stores but luckily costco has carts with two seats up front.

and last but not least my good friend sara tanner. (as a side note i saw other friends while i was in utah but didn't always remember to take pictures. sorry if i missed any of you!)

on our last night in utah we went to dinner with my family to olive garden.

james and i had to take separate flights back to ohio (long story) so i got another full day of traveling with these two kiddos. sara didn't love the plane ride but for the most part it went really well... and that guy in the background was a heaven-sent. he was so nice and he played with scott almost the entire 3 1/2 plane ride. Thank you random Tyler man that i'm sure i'll never see again!

and of course the second we got in the car at the aiport these two were fast asleep.

it was an exhausting trip but SO much fun. it flew by way too fast. thank you to EVERYONE who gave us beds to sleep in, food to eat, cars to drive and all sorts of time to play with us and make it the best trip ever!

One Photo Highlights

2011-06-22T18:33:00.000-07:00

I can NOT believe its been a month since i've updated this blog. i have a large collection of photos from the past four weeks because we've done so many fun things. But i have a lot less time and energy to go through them all and put them all up here so i'm just going to post one photo from each event that highlights the fun.

First of all... May 26th was scott's 3rd birthday. scott talked about having his birthday party with a spiderman birthday cake all month and he's spent the month of june talking about how he wants to do it again. the hardest thing about turning three for scott has been learning to say "three" instead of "two" when people ask him how old he is. he'll memorize the new answer soon enough.

the next party we had was scott's POTTY PARTY! i tried following the advice of a book that said to do the potty training all in one day with a party theme and treats and the whole deal. it worked really well for bodily function #1 but not so much for #2 which scott says, "scares me."
scott was rewarded by this awesome spiderman mask that he REALLy wanted for learning how to pee in the potty. and of course he's also sporting his spiderman Big Boy Pants!

playing baseball with daddy... in daddy's hat.

on memorial day we had a bbq with our friends derrick and crystal lee at a nearby park. there are SO many fun parks in cleveland! we're trying hard to see them all while we're here but i think that might be impossible.

one really huge event was when my sister kim came out to visit!

we were so excited to have her and since it was so awesome she gets TWO pictures for the blog. i tried so hard to take her to places with a "cleveland feel". i took her to kirtland and chagrin falls and here's a pic of us at edgewater park. i had never been there so i wanted to try it out. lets just say its a little too close to the city and the "element" that comes along with it. kim was pretty disappointed that lake erie was so brown. i swear its not always like that!

this is sara at age 3 1/2 months

and here she is a week later (also a week and a half ago.)

scott has really perfected the ultimate CHEESE.

we got sara her very own exersaucer and everytime i put her in it scott is right there with her. he'll spin her around in her chair until she is looking at the toy that he wants to play with. its hilarious.

here is yet another exciting adventure to our zoo. scott kept talking about wanting to ride the train so i was going to give in and pay the $3 for us to go on it. but then i had a fantastic idea! the tram is like a train and its free! scott loved it and of course, so did i.

and this is just an event in and of itself. scott is petting a boa! yikes!

and with summertime comes the splash pads! aka... scott's happy place.

i had to add this one in... can't you just feel the warmth of that bench?

and here we are TONIGHT at our local beach...the one i should have taken kim to. (kim! look at how blue the water is!) and okay, i know james is thin but this picture makes him look REALLY thin. so please don't think i'm not cooking him enough food!

and last but not least... here's our little beach angel she seriously melts my heart. and an extra special event is that today she turned 4 months old! solids here we come! (as if she needs them... look at those arm rolls!)

3 years and 3 months

2011-05-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

this past thursday scott, sara and i went to columbus to visit our buddies brody, macie and anne. as any avid follower of this blog will know scott and brody have the same birthday so we went down to celebrate. can you believe these boys are almost THREE!?!?!

here's the fearsome foursome in their matching batman shirts. i wonder if these kids like posing for pictures as much as we like taking them??

here are the boys opening their gifts from each other. scott gave brody an airplane (that he was a bit jealous of) and brody gave scott the coolest ever lightening mcqueen blanket that he now sleeps with every night.

these boys had so much fun playing in the backyard together...

eating icecream at graeters...

and just chilling with their sippy cups. i can't believe they are so old!

speaking of old... does anyone else feel like sara was born yesterday? she's THREE months today and big enough to be on an exersaucer!

macie and sara are already becoming best buddies. one of my favorite moments was sitting next to anne with our girls on our laps. they were just watching each other and gabbing and smiling and i know that in a few months they'll be running around together like scott and brody.

on saturday our whole family participated in a walk for cystic fibrosis at our zoo. scott's cute friend Porter has CF so we wanted to support him. plus we got to walk around and see all the cool animals. win win win!
here's scott with his little buddy mitchel. i was impressed at how well they stuck their heads through the slots.

frisbees or hats? either way...

watching the mokeys with their dads.

here we are in front of the brand new elephant exhibit. we have been waiting all year for these elephants to arrive and they did not disappoint.

and here's my little sara girl when i took her back to the car because it was much to hot for her (or me) to be in the sun any longer.

she really is such a little sweetheart. and i have to say that even though i've loved her from the day she was born i'm really starting to develop a bond with this happy, smiley little girl of ours. she truly brings sunshine into our home.

and i just thought this last picture was funny because while i was taking it sara was filling her pants. and by the time i put the camera away we were both covered in brown poop! how something so stinky can come from someone so sweet is beyond me!

so many things!

2011-05-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

a couple weeks ago we blessed sara which meant we had lots of visitors! james' dad's family as well as the bryan and annie clan came to town and we had such a fun weekend!

we all met at one of the church historical sites - the john johnson farm - and then we had lunch and played around in a nearby town called chagrin falls. the kids loved playing together and of course i loved taking pictures!

scott was a little moody in this pic because i had just gotten after him for getting too close to the river. he was still processing the lecture i gave him on how he could die if he fell into the water. i love how smiley audrey was despite it all.

scott and caleb LOVED getting pushed around in the stroller. i could complain about having had to push them all over the place but james had to carry sara all day in her car seat so he wins.

here are my boys in the john johnson farm. this was a very cool room where the prophet joseph smith had many of the revelations that are in the docterine and covenants. it was a really neat experience.

and of course the group picture outside...

i really wish i had some better pictures of sara's blessing day. unfortunately it was cold and really windy and sara was having an extremely rough day. she was crying so much that i never even got a picture of her in her blessing dress! she wore the same dress i wore when i was blessed so it was really special. i've been meaning to put her back in it for some pictures but that's going to have to happen later. hopefully before she outgrows it!

well its finally spring in cleveland which also means its BASEBALL season! i signed scott up for a tee ball league and even though i pulled him out because they ended up combining the 5-6 year olds with 3-4 year olds and scott was WAY out of his league... i still got some great shots of his one day on the team.

here scott is with his team and his coach. (the first day was inside because of the rain.)

and here is scott .5 seconds later when his attention span came to an end.

i LOVE this picture of scott getting ready to bat. he was such a little stud.

and here he is manning second base. i kept telling him to stand up but apparently he was tired.

and here's our little sister sara. what a big girl she is turning out to be!

i can't believe how much she has grown lately! she is starting to feel like a real little girl instead of just a female blob.

this picture was taken on mother's day. i feel like the luckiest mother in the world!

this is sara post-hair cut. i don't have time in my day to figure out my hair and sara's hair so hers had to come off. she does look a little boy-ish but we just throw a bow in there and its all good.

this was taken tonight while james played a computer game with the kids for FHE. its still weird to refer to "the kids" and i can't believe we have two!

not to jinx us or anything but sara has slept through the night for the past THREE nights!!! i can't even begin to express my excitement for this huge milestone! not to mention the fact that sara is out of our room and sharing a room with scott. they are so cute in there together.

and that's not all... without being too much of a bragging parent i have to say that this weekend scott learned to open the car door by himself, get in and BUCKLE UP HIS CAR SEAT!!! i LOVE it! i mean, i know that i could use the extra exercise running around to both sides of the car to get the kids in but it is still so nice to not have to!

easter eggs and baby bunnies

2011-04-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

for a kid who didn't know what an easter egg hunt was a week ago... scott is now an eXpErT at the sport! between church hunts, neighborhood hunts and mommy hiding eggs all over the house, scott has found more eggs than a kid could ask for.
first we had the church easter egg hunt. we were going to have it at a park but it was rainy so we had it inside the church gym.

still a screaming success! as you can see, scott found a LOT of eggs! (ok- he didn't really have to "find" them. they were just scattered across the floor. but still.)

then we had the very cool easter treat of having anne, brody and macie jones come up to play. and of course we had to have our annual egg hunt with brodes. it was still raining so they searched for eggs in scott's room.

he was so excited that you would have thought this was scott's first easter egg hunt.

but they didn't hunt very long. they sat down next to the first eggs they saw and started devouring the candy.

then we gave brody his easter present (a giant chocolate bunny).

i think the high dosage of sugar made the boys go a little crazy and they both found themselves in time out - at the same time - in the same place. i don't think they learned their lesson.

here's my scott with anne's macie. i keep telling scott he's too young to flirt but he just can't help himself.

i love these two.

i love these 4 even more.

the next day was the westlake easter egg hunt at crocker park. it was chaotic!

and not quite as fruitful as the other hunts but scott was extremely proud of his two eggs.

here we are on easter sunday. sara is wearing a cute dress that the kearns gave us (thanks kearns!) and fancy sparkly shoes that grandy gave us. (thanks grandy!) and the new bow that anne got us to help tame sara's wild hair (thanks anne!) scott and i have regular old clothes on but somehow they are special on easter sunday.

for easter dinner we had our friends derrick, crystal and linda over. scott loves these guys.

and here's my little easter bunny.

i took this picture on the one of the sunny days we've had recently. they are few and far between these days so when the sun is shining we run outside and soak in the rays!

sara? teeth? what?!

2011-04-18T19:30:00.000-07:00

i realize that i put pictures up of scott and me going to the zoo every few months or so but its always so much fun and this time was sara's first time! i really do love going to the zoo in the winter. less people, less heat, and of course i get to see scott in his funny little hat.

scott was mesmerized by the gorillas and as you can tell sara was really into them too.

i can't get enough of this kid.

somehow we have been to the Cleveland zoo a handful of times in the past year and have never been to the Australian Adventure section. it was so fun to discover this new spot, especially the enormous tree house!

scott was just a little excited.

posing in front of the lions.

and this is scott and me in the movie theater (sara was sleeping somewhere below us). i took the kids to go see the new Easter movie HOP. since both of them are free and it was a matinee it wasn't too expensive and it was fun to do something a little different.

the past couple weeks have been difficult for our little sara girl. we weren't sure what was wrong with her so we took her to the doctor where she received a clean bill of health. later that night, however, we realized that sara has TEETH poking through! what??? she's not even 2 months old yet! but apparently it IS possible. she has her two "vampire" teeth on top poking through (yikes). but james has been such a good dad to help sooth and comfort her during her rough time. and i'd be lying to say that i'm not just a tiny bit jealous of how much sara loves her daddy.

a few days ago we went with our friends sarah and nick jones (and fam) to the Jump Yard. we knew that scott would love running around and jumping on all the bouncy houses but we had no idea how much mommy (me) would love it too.

here's scott and me inside one of the bounce mazes. i had such a blast with this little scott man. i felt like a kid again and let me tell you... it feels AMAZING to be able to actually move like this again!

mitchell and scott. so hard to get them to sit still and look at the camera.

the other day when i was giving sara a bath scott pulled his chair up and started to help. i keep waiting for him to get tired of her or stop being so cute with her but it hasn't happened yet. (i'm keeing my fingers crossed.)

and here is the latest photo shoot (these were taken today which makes sara a day short of 8 weeks old.)

i was so excited because i FINALLY dressed her in an outfit that wasn't primarily pink! and i love even more how the blue in her shirt matches the blue in her eyes.

sara is smiling more and more every day but my favorite part about this picture is that sara is smiling at scott who was jumping on my back like a monkey while i was taking this picture.

at the end of the photo shoot i gave scott a wipe for a buger he found in his nose. after wiping his hands off he took the wipe (and many more) and proceeded to clean off all of his toys, his table, the floor, the wall and anything else he could find. when he was all done he threw the wipes in the trash and announced, "all done cleaning!" (i'm glad someone will clean our house!)

scott & sara

2011-04-03T18:09:00.000-07:00

this is a collage of our most recent photo shoots in no particular order.
this was last week sometime so sara is 5 and something weeks old.

this one was taken today so again... she's 5 and something weeks old.

this is scott with his buddy thomas waiting for the mall train to arrive.

scott in front of the very awesome (and not at all cheap) mall train.

scott unloading the utensil tray (never too young to learn how too work!)

i absolutely love this footage of scott and sara. he is seriously such a good big brother. he's so protective of her and always trying to help her be happy.

sara was having some "tummy time" when i looked down and saw that scott had decided to share his toy plane with her.

yes, this was staged but he does it all the time. he loves giving his sara kisses especially eskimo kisses.

i love this shot. i was taking pictures of sara when scott snuck in with this determined glare. i'm not sure if he was being protective of her or if he was mad that i wasn't taking pictures of him.

this was not staged. i looked over and saw scott carressing sara's face. luckily i had my camera in hand and ready to shoot.

this picture didn't turn out so well but i love that scott is holding sara's hand.

i was trying so hard to get scott to look at the camera but he was much too pre occupied with sara's hair.

again, not a great photo but i love that sara is watching scott with so much amusement. she loves watching him and honestly gets cranky when scott leaves the room.

at least they're both looking at the camera...

p.s. i am becoming increasingly aware of the fact that sara wears a LOT of pink.

feels great to be 29!

2011-03-24T18:20:00.000-07:00

my birthday was last week and as a great big birthday gift my friend anne jones came up to hang out and help me gain some sanity! it was so great to have her around. of course scott LOVED playing with his bff brody and sara was extremely excited to meet her new bff macie. i swear she's even smiling a little bit in this picture.

here's the fearsome foursome. (though sara is mid-diaper change and a bit naked). part of me can't wait until they're all old enough to run around with each other but most of me wants them to stay small forever.

anne got this precious shot of the girl. seriously anne... thanks so much for coming!

that night james and i took the kiddos to cheesecake factory for my birthday. sara slept the whole time, scott was a great kid and my dinner was delicious! so i would say it was definitely a successful birthday event.

i wasn't going to include this picture since i obviously forgot to put make-up on (for my birthday dinner?? hello!) but i thought it would be a good reminder of how exhausted and happy i was on my 29th birthday. i wouldn't change a thing!

on sunday james let me go to church while he watched the kids at home (scott had a runny nose so he stayed home too.) when i got home this is what i saw.

.... too cute.

then another birthday surprise came my way this past tuesday when my friend hallie tusberg brought me donut holes and a card signed by all our cub scouts. i told hallie once that i have a secret obsession with donut holes so she brought enough for everyone to eat. it was perfect!

and my mom has been asking all week for current pictures of sara... so here you go mom!
i took this one yesterday...

and this one about twenty minutes ago. (it doesn't get much more current than that.)

thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes, gifts and surprises! so far it feels great to be 29!

3 weeks and a kick in the head

2011-03-15T18:38:00.000-07:00

before my mom left for the airport two and half weeks ago she told me that i had to send her a picture of sara every day so that she could see her grow. well... every day is a bit much, but i thought i could do every week (at least for a while). so this blog post is for you mom!

these three pictures were actually taken a few days ago. i thought she looked adorable in this little purple outfit.

i love her eyes. when she is wide awake they are so big and dark and beautiful. and there is something so peaceful and calm about her when she is just sitting there looking around. she is such a good little girl.

these pictures were taken a couple hours ago. today is sara's 3 week birthday and i had her two week check-up yesterday (this slacker mom forgot to call the doctor to make the appointment.) anyway, sara had already grown two more inches (she is now 21 1/2 inches long) and she weighs 9 lbs. 6 oz. that is almost a pound heavier than her birthweight but still an ounce smaller than scott was when he was BORN. ouch!

scott loves playing with sara on her little play mat. he is such a good big brother to show her how it all works.

sadly this picture was taken about ten seconds before scott crawled off the play mat and accidentally kicked sara in the head. i wasn't sure if i should feel more sorry for my screaming sara or for my quivering lipped, distraught little scott. he felt so bad but sara was fine in the end and i figure its probably good that she start toughening up now.

happy 3 week birthday sara!

two weeks old!

2011-03-08T14:59:00.000-08:00

i can't believe our little sara girl is already two weeks old. and i'm happy to announce that she was only up for ONE middle-of-the-night feeding last night! (can't tell you how nice it was to see the sun coming through the window when she woke up the second time!!)

here's our big little girl having a bath with grandma palmer.

grandma palmer came out last wednesday to help us for a few days. it was so nice to have her around!

bryan, annie, julia and audrey even made it up to meet their new cousin. the hotel they were staying in had an indoor pool that was as warm as a bathtub (or so i was told...) so we all headed over there and had a pool party.

since almost all of us have a birthday sometime in the next month or two we had a joint birthday party. james and i have been looking for an excuse to purchase this gigantic chocolate cake from costco and this was the perfect event! (for whatever reason the cake looks really tiny in this picture... trust me, it is AnYtHiNg but tiny.)

fun family in town, pool party, birthday cake... what more could a kid ask for?

the next day we all went to the movie theater to see Gnomeo and Juliet. Unfortunately it was sold out so we went to Rango instead. It was kind of a weird show but the kids seemed to enjoy it... and so far scott hasn't seemed to have any of the nightmares that i was concerned he would have (or that i would have) from the movie, so thats good.

scott is really such a good big brother. he LOVES helping wherever he can with sister sara. he helps me give her a bottle, he helps change her diaper, and he INSISTS on going with me to check on her during her naps.

before taking grandma palmer to the airport we stopped in at Five Guys Burger and Fries since she had never been there before. it was truly a delicious experience.

thanks grandma palmer for coming out to visit and help so much!

we loved having you out here!

and here's the little stinker on the night before her two week birthday (the name "little stinker" isn't completely accurate however, because she is a BIG stinker. how can such a tiny little girl have so many messy diapers?!)

and naturally i had to get another shot of brother and sister together.

scott's expression pretty much says it all.

and then i get a photo like this and remember why its all worth it
and why we'll do it again and again...

introducing "sister" sara!!!

2011-02-27T20:34:00.000-08:00

Sara Patricia Palmer was born at about 12:15pm on Tuesday, February 22, 2011.
she weighed 8 lb. 9 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long
she has lots (and lots) of dark, crazy hair and rosy pink skin

here she is with her daddy. she was so excited to finally meet him.

sara was born at fairview hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. it was a cold, wintery, and snowy day.

and here sara is with her mommy... who looks a bit like she's been hit by a truck (she felt that way too.)

the labor and delivery went well. we got to the hospital just before 5am to be induced. they started me up around 6am. i got the epidural at about 10:30am after which they told me i was dilated to a 5. once the epidural kicked in i was happy as a clam and ready to take a nap for the next few hours until the baby was ready to come.
BUT an hour or so later i started feeling a terrible pain down south. within minutes the nurse was in the room telling me to turn over because the babies heart rate was dropping. the pain suddenly got really intense and the nurse (upon checking me) announced, "the baby is ready to come out!"
within minutes the room was full of nurses, students and a doctor that looked and talked just like dr. burke from the show grey's anatomy (my doctor was in the middle of a c-section). but i really liked the "dr. burke" doctor (whose real name is dr. harlem) so it was all okay.
about 15 minutes of pushing later sara was born!
first family portrait with our new little addition

here i am with my two little pals. scott has been such a good big brother to sara. he has been calling her sister sara for a couple months now and the name kind of stuck.

i can't stop taking pictures of this girl. take a look at all that hair! the camera just doesn't do it justice.

i can't say enough about how nice it was to have my mom "grandy" here this past week. i honestly don't know what we would have done without her. she cooked, she cleaned, she played with scott and took care of the baby while i napped. she nursed me back to health and was just so fun to have around. i am kind of in a state of panic right now wondering how i'm going to survive without her.

and a few more shots of the girly girl because she is as cute as a button.

my mom and i tried doing her hair with a bow but we weren't quite sure how to negotiate all that hair. tips from other moms would be greatly appreciated!

we finally let scott hold his sister sara and he was thrilled. he is constantly calling himself a "big boy" and whenever sara cries he becomes very concerned about her getting some "milk!" he loves playing with her hand and her hair and this afternoon after he had been fluffing her hair for a while i noticed potato chip crumbs in her hair! i guess that's what having a big brother is all about.

my mom didn't want me to put this picture of her on the blog (i think she looks cute but i agree that she looks better in real life) but i couldn't help it since this is such a great angle of sara's hair. i seriously can't get enough of it.

my mom left today (sunday) but we had to get a few more shots in before the sad moment arrived.

i keep trying to get a good picture of this girl but i can't seem to capture how stinking cute she is on camera. so you'll all just have to come visit us so you can see her in person!

today sara is 5 days old. i can't believe time is passing so quickly! and i'm truly sorry to those of you who have had to wait for details on the birth or for me to return your phone calls. the past 5 days have been a whirlwind of aches and pains and juggling two kids but i'm sure things will mellow out eventually... right?

and one last final thanks to my mom for coming out to help. i can't stress enough how much fun we had with you and how much of a life saver you were. thank goodness grandma palmer is coming in a couple days. i'm sure i'll have many more photos to post soon!

out with the old life.. in with the new!!!

2011-02-21T19:09:00.000-08:00

tonight is (hopefully) the last night of our life without baby #2!

we have been anxiously awaiting the day that my mom would get into town to play with scott

during all the upcoming events.

and she made it!

we're so happy to have her here and scott is in seventh heaven!

James has been working hard lately with his current surgery rotation. And his preceptor recently told him to (and i quote) "take off all the time that you need."

I'm still not sure if "all that time that you need" means a few days or a few hours.

and scotty and i have been spending as much time together as possible. today he joined me while i gave myself a pedicure. he was very adamant about me putting nail polish on every single one of his fingers and toes. (don't tell james.)

i'm supposed to be at the hospital at 5am tomorrow morning!

so if all goes well then the next time i blog you will see pictures of our new little girl!

wish us luck!!!

p.s. thanks a MILLION to anne jones for mailing me her camera.

ours broke last week and without her i wouldn't be able to take or post any pictures of our new baby!

book signing surprise!

2011-02-13T17:59:00.000-08:00

good news, bad news.
good news: the best people in the world (anne, bj, brody and macie) drove all the way up from columbus to SURPRISE me at my book signing.
bad news: my camera isn't uploading any of my pictures to my computer so i have no way of blogging all my pics AND i have to buy a new camera before the baby comes!!!

luckily anne loaned me some of her pictures of the event. and even though i'm super hesitant to put these on the net for the world to see (because of that large white moon-looking-thing bulging out of my sweater) i am still thrilled that i can show how much fun we had.

here we are at caribou coffee at the book singing. those windows surrounding us made sort of a greenhouse/sauna effect and my face was red and my armpits were sweaty but i still had a blast.

here i am with the whole jones crew (and scott... james is taking the picture). i can't express how flustered and giddy i was upon their arrival.

after the book singing festivities we all went out for icecream at Malley's. these little boys can't get enough of each other. they were born on the exact same day and have been best buds ever since.

just look at them digging into their very own ice cream sundae. (hey scott, leave some for brody!)

and how this guy can eat that humungous sundae all by himself and STILL weigh less than me (he seriously does) is beyond me. maybe his running three miles a day has something to do with it. or maybe its the extra human growing inside of me.... oh well, i'm not going to over analyze it. :)

it was seriously such a fun day. and a lot of my other cleveland friends came to the book singing too but again, those pictures are on my camera that is not cooperating right now.

thanks everyone for coming and supporting me and thanks so much to the jones clan for the perfect surprise!

more scott

2011-01-25T19:39:00.000-08:00

the days of scott and me hanging out alone together all day are coming to an end as we prepare for baby #2 to become part of our family in the next month. so i feel like i need to take this time to document every little moment we have together.

the other day i took the scott man to the zoo. yes, its winter. but its open and i have a seasons pass so we made the venture. and i'm so glad we did. scott loved being outside running around. and i loved the fabulous nap he took when we got home!

since we were one of about five other people at the zoo we made friends easily with this other little family that was on our shuttle. (yes, a heated shuttle takes you around to the different parts of the zoo. it is so nice.) scott was in seventh heaven with his new little friends and all the animals.

i have to say i think i liked the zoo more in the winter than at normal times of the year. for one, there are a LOT less people. two, you don't have to walk around in the smoldering heat looking at sad, heat stroked animals. and three, you kind of feel like you're really out in the wild with all the snow and the dead trees and the icy water and the brisk winter air... its pretty cool. (this was a random pic i took to try to capture that "out in the wild" feel.)

this is when i caught scott trying to be a scientist.

i can't get over how cute he is.

so when bryan and annie came for new year's eve they accidentally left one of their daughter's dolls at our house. well, it has turned out to be such good prepartion for scott's upcoming life change. he LOVES this little doll. he helps me dress her and then he puts her in the baby swing and buckles her into the baby carseat and has her sit next to him on the couch (as pictured). its so adorable. the only thing i'm nervous about is that he'll think that he can handle the real baby the way he handles the doll (which is often times by the head). yikes. i'm doing my best to teach him but i have the feeling i'm going to have to keep an extra close eye on him when the real baby comes along. (thanks for the temporary learning tool bryan and annie... and whoever it belongs to!)

i usually don't write too much on this blog - its more about the pictures and little blurbs - but i have to say that i've been thinking a lot lately about how everything has turned out. of course having our miscarriage a year ago was extremely difficult. but i think about scott and his personality and i think it is a real blessing that he is older when this second little kid is entering our family. i think he needed to be a little bit more mature to be able to get what was going on and be able to share his parents with his sister. i'm not expecting the transition to be perfect. i'm sure we all have a lot to learn. but it strengthens my testimony of God's plan for all of us and how he knows us better than we know ourselves.

the trick is... remembering that during our next big trial. :)

on the bookshelf!

2011-01-17T18:14:00.000-08:00

some of you reading this blog may not realize how big of a deal it is to have your book on the shelves of any bookstore (let alone Barnes & Noble). it may be a common assumption that if you have a book published its automatically sold in stores. not so... not so.

it is actually a huge deal and has been a really big goal of mine for a really long time. tonight james and scott and i had our family home evening at the local Barnes & Noble to see if my book was finally in (they said they ordered it a week or so ago). and it was! yeah! so we covertly took a couple of pictures and here is your proof...

can we blame my puffy face on the fact that i'm 8 months pregnant???

here it is close up. and here's a funny little secret... when we found it, only the bindings were showing. we made room for the entire front cover to be out for everyone to see. afterall, this is a must read!

and just because he's so cute and i can't help myself, here are a few good shots of the kid.

here he is with daddy's hat and his toy microphone gettin' down with the rapping like JZ. okay - i'm not hip with the rapper lingo and i have no idea who JZ is but it sounds like a name a rapper would have.

and here he is with his chik-filet cow hat that our friends (the Lees) got him. he just makes my heart melt.

and of course a video because he's too cute for just still photos... we're thinking of getting him a record deal.

the future scott palmer

2011-01-12T15:19:00.000-08:00

computer geek or dance champ? you tell me...

(this is how i found him, i swear.)

happy thanksgiving...christmas and... new year!

2011-01-03T19:21:00.000-08:00

i promise i have a good excuse for not blogging since pre-thanksgiving, never getting my christmas cards out and providing james with the smallest christmas he's ever known...

can i just blame it on being pregnant?

at any rate, i have a lot of catching up to do!

here we all are the weekend before thanksgiving for the tree lighting ceremony at crocker park.

there were a TON of people there. we saw the giant tree light up, lots of fireworks and we stood in line FOREVER to see santa afterwhich scott (of course) wanted nothing to do with him.

this is a video of the tree lighting. the end is so sad because scott got a bit freaked out by the fireworks.

thanksgiving weekend was extremely chill. we mostly hung out around the house and just spent time together. it was SO nice! we rearranged scott's bedroom in an effort to start getting ready for the baby. this is james and his little helper putting the changing table together.

james and i made the perfect thanksgiving dinner together. and what made it even better was that scott was napping while we ate it so we REALLY got to enjoy it!

when scott woke up we fed him some turkey and put up christmas decorations. he loved helping me with the christmas tree. and i quickly learned that starting this year all breakable christmas decorations get put at the tippy top of the tree.

this is just a funny and random picture of my little scott man with his plastic puppy. he really does have days where he has to take this dog everywhere. i took this picture on our way out of the ymca. you can be sure that i wasn't the only one there that was entertained by him.

okay, it really was cute enough that you have to see the video too.

early on in december we spent a weekend in columbus. we stayed with our jones buddies and scott was in seventh heaven. can you tell that he loves this kid?

since we were going to be heading to utah for christmas we had a pre-christmas christmas morning. scott came down to a brand new "Cars" table (from grandy keyser) with a castle and "guys" to play with (from Santa). i was a bit worried that the new toys would throw scott off his morning routine (he's very particular about his routine in the morning). But he LOVED his new table and toys and still (three weeks later) its hard to pull him away from them.

he even wanted to eat christmas breakfast at the table (and he still eats there whenver we let him.) our iowa friends will be happy to know that all of his "guys" have names. there's a devin, a ryan, a james and a daddy oh, and one of them is just named bo-boy... brody maybe? not sure.

we finally made it out to utah where we had a fun week with all our family. grandma palmer fed us lots of delicious treats including these cute gingerbread men that she decorated with the kids.

on our way up from salem to draper we stopped in american fork to have lunch with our good friend ryan. he introduced us to jcw's and i can't believe i've lived in utah my whole life and have never eaten there. i've been craving it ever since!

i think scott would agree that hanging out with the real ryan was better than just playing with the small plastic guy named ryan. we tried seeing devin and shalise too but sadly it didn't work out. hopefully next time!

up in draper we were able to squeeze in some time with our mauger friends. scott loved hanging with cute alex on the big chair watching scooby doo.

for christmas eve eve my mom treated us all to a fun night at the lion house and temple square. we had our own room and our own waitress and a ton of delicious food and fun. thanks mom!

then on christmas eve we got together to exchange gifts, tie blankets for the needy and just talk and have a good time. my favorite part was chatting with the girls while my mom did our nails.

then we headed back down to salem for the rest of christmas eve and christmas day.

scott loves all of his cousins but he and allie have a special bond. i think it has something to do with the fact that they can barrel each other to the ground and they both think its funny. allie is one tough cookie.

i had to get a shot of scott at the airport. even though he's been on way more airplanes than a two year old should ever have to be on... this was the first time he really got it. he LOVED watching the planes and getting on the planes and he even sat so well in his very own seat with his very own seatbelt. he was so cute when the flight attendants would bring around his pretzels and drinks. he'd set up his table with his snack and his "guys" and he was good to go for a while... which was a huge relief to us!

and this is scott about point 5 seconds after we landed back in cleveland and got in our car. it was a fun, busy and exhausting week!

since we were back in cleveland for the new year we had bryan and annie up to celebrate with us. it was really good that they came because i think scott was going through withdrawals being away from all of his cousins. we're so lucky to have them close by!

unfortunately in rained most of the weekend so we spent most of the time watching movies on the couch...

...and eating!

big thanks to all of our family for making the holidays so great.

happy thanksgiving

merry christmas

and

happy new year!

Notre Dame Weekend!

2010-11-14T19:43:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I decided to surprise James and plan a little road trip. The Univeristy of Utah (our alma mater) was playing football against Notre Dame and we have some good friends that live there so we made the three and half hour drive to South Bend, Indiana!

The first night we stayed in a hotel in Sturgis, Michigan (thanks to my mom giving us some of her credit card points so it was free!) Scott LOVED playing in the hotel pool with daddy.

The next morning we met up with our friends Heather, Russ and Hannah Cramer. Russ is getting his MBA at Notre Dame so the took us on a tour of campus. I have always wanted to see Notre Dame ever since I saw the movie RUDY! RUDY! RUDY!

this is a photo of the grotto. its a pretty famous place where catholics go to pray. i actually ran into an old work buddy here (jaimee farrer). what a small world!

this is the basilica - the catholic cathedral.

we did A LOT of walking while we were there but scott was a trooper with it all.

Luckily we got a great babysitter for scott while we went to the game. It was raining and the utes played terribly but i enjoyed getting a snack and hot chocolate duing half time!

even though the Utes lost we still had a really good time. many thanks to Russ and Heather for getting us tickets and showing us around!

new blog!

2010-11-09T14:21:00.001-08:00

one of the suggestions that my publisher gave me was to create a blog or website for me an my book. i'm still figuring out the website world but in the mean time i created this blog that includes information about my book and basically my journey of writing it. check it out at www.nataliepalmerbooks.blogspot.com

thanks!

so many things!

2010-11-08T19:16:00.000-08:00

i can't believe how much has happened over the past few weeks! between halloween festivities, my mom coming to visit and scott being irresistable to take pictures of.... i have a lot of catching up to do! (i threw in a bunch of miscellaneous pictures on this blog because i'm getting to the point where i'm just not sure i'll ever do another scapbook besides a blog scrapbook and i don't want to miss out on these memories.) here we go!

i love this picture. i can't tell you how many summer/fall days we have seen scott just like this. riding around our condo complex on his little trike, looking up at his favorite thing... an airplane.

there's this really pretty little pond area in our complex that scott and i love to walk to. our favorite thing is sitting on the grass and throwing pinecones into the water. this is scott with his collection of pincones.

this is our tree and behind it is our rock and behind that is our pond. but the fountains are turned off for the winter and the leaves are dead and the grass is cold and wet. we'll miss you little pond... until next spring.

across the street from our condo is the westlake recreation center which is the home for most of the community events. including the very popular pumpkin hunt. this is a pictur of scott and i mentally preparing ourselves for the hunt. there were a lot of competitors!

and here we are with our prized pumpkin. i was a little more excited about it than scott was. (i' still not sure what he thought was going to happen, but he was NOT happy about it.)

after the hunt scott bounced on bouncy castles and took a look at a real live helicopter. it was an awesome day.

for fhe one night we carved pumpkins with our friends sarah, nick and mitchell. its been a while since i've carved a pumpkin but as you can tell... i still have the touch. (you can't get much more basic than the triangle face.)

while us girls were furiously carving, the boys were trying to bake some of the pumpkin seeds. (emphasis on the word "trying". :) )

and the little boys (who were both utterly disgusted by the pumpkin guts) kept themselves busy with some of sarah's apple dessert.

nothing like pumpking carving and apple deliciousness to spice up your halloween!

the best thing that happened to us lately is grandy keyser came to visit! she had a conference in columbus ohio for work so i drove down to pick her up. i dropped scott off to play with brody (which he was ecstatic about) and then my mom and i went to the columbus temple.

thanks to my good friend anne who watched scott. (at least the mom's are looking at the camera.)its amazing how much these boys still love being together even after some months apart. the second they were together it was like no time had passed at all. the week leading up to this scott would periodically shout, "i want brody!" the toddler brain is incredible.even though my mom came in october she wanted to have thanksgiving dinner with us. i was elated because it has been a good three or four years since i have eaten my mom's thanksgiving dinner. i'm sure she tried to teach me in the past how to make all her famous goodies but this year i REALLY paid attention. it was delicious!as always, my mom spoiled us while she was here. we took scott to the disney store (his favorite store on earth) where she got him some toy story figurines and this cute shirt. scott was in heaven. (she also got me that cute maternity dress in the photo above.) we also took mom to kirtland ohio (which is about a half hour drive) to see the church history sites. first we went on a tour of the kirtland temple. and then we went to the Newel K Whitney store. i always have the best experiences when i'm on the LDS visitor site while listening to the missionaries tell me what happened on that very spot. we truly had a wonderful day.

and this is just a photo of james that my mom snapped. i love it because this is what he looks like every ay when he gets home from his rotations. cute dress shirt and tie with his fancy white coat and stethescope. he's going to be such a handsome doctor!

a few more little outings with grandy took us to the movies, out to dinner, the ymca and the lake erie beach (though it was way too cold to get close to the water.)

and when we weren't running around scott was soaking up all the attention at home.

the thing that took the most time while she was here was SHOPPING for a king size mattress. yes, my mom realized it was time for james and i to stop bumping noses in our queen size bed. so for an early birthday/christmas present (for the next five years) se got us this awesome mattress. it came in a box so it took a few days to flatten out but that is normal and it is SO comfortable now! and the best part is that james and i can sleep without breathing in each others faces. its true... a LITTLE distance realy does make the heart grow fonder. :)

sadly, grandy had to go back to utah but luckily there were plenty of halloween parties to distract us from her absense. this one was with some of the girls in my ward. all the kids were so cute and surprisingly cooperative for the picture. this is the longest scott had worn his lion costume up to this point. i was amazed!
scott was cheesing it up.... i think he was trying to impress the girls.

this is the best shot that my friend mckenzie took with her camera. i can't believe they all sat there for so long! L-R: hannah petersen, madeline harding, shana's two kids, abby nielsen, scott palmer, ella nielsen, cailyn davenport and brinkley davenport. i'm sure i messed up a bunch of those names but they're close.)

i had to throw in this picture from babysitting my friend loni's boys. this is grant and he and scott have so much fun together. they re a week a part in age, both blond haired and blue eyed and scott LOVES playing at "hrants house."

then we had a ward "trunk or treat" party the night before halloween. scott refused to wear his lion costume so we put him in last year's costume. the pants went to his knees and his cute little belly was showing all night but he looked SO cute! this is scott with his dinosaur friend mitchell.

here are a couple cute vidoes of him in the costume parade:

after the trunk or treat we had our friends derrick and crystal lee over for a monopoly night. i was SO excited. i LOVE monopoly... until i got stuck with stupid properties and went bankrupt! james ended up winning. grrrrrr.

finally the night of halloween arrived and we were able to take scott trick-or-treating for the very first time. (we were going to go last year but it was FREEEEZING). we just took him around to five of our little old neighbor friends. they loved seeing scott since he's one of about three kids that live in our entire complex.

this is a picture of us with our cute neighbor pete. he's always walking around and we'll feel safe knowing he has his eye on everything that is going on. :)

this is our other neighbor lynn. she has showered us with all sorts of helpful items since we moved in. we really lucked out with our neighbors.

after our brief trick or treating journey we came back to the house and ate popcorn and candy while watching "bedknobs and broomsticks". it was so fun and all james' cute idea. i love hanging out with our fun little family.

and i had to include this picture for a pretty obvious reason.

this picture is up for two reasons: 1. because i love seeing how much fun scott has with his dad and 2. because grandma palmer mailed scott this cute halloween shirt and he refused to where anything else for three days (he probably still would want to wear it but i finally hid it so i could put it in the wash!)

and this random little photo is of scott and i at panera bread. it is our most favorite place to go these days. (for those of you that don't know, panera bread is sort of like the midwest/east coast equivalent of einsteins bagels... only a little bit better.) the warm, delicious smells of bagels and soup tickle our toes and we take any opportunity we can to go in there for a panini and soup or a bag of cinnimon crunch bages. (i'm hungry just thinking about it!)

and i had to include this shot of scott with the orange bucket on his head. it is a very strange day when scott hasn't at one point put this bucket on his head and run around begging us to find him. he really thinks we can't see him if the bucket is on his head and its so rewarding for him to be able to peek underneath it and show us where he's hiding. this kid really is a barrel of fun.
the moral of this very LONG blog is...

Life is Good.

autumn is...

2010-10-15T04:09:00.000-07:00

watching conference with friendsandrew and his gf ashley, scott, crytal and derek

running in the leaves with mitchell

and rolling in the leaves with mitchell

stirring hot apple butter at the apple butter festival in burton, ohio

riding rides at the festival with mitchell

eating all the apples you can get your hands on

to the very core

walking through a pumpkin patch searching for the perfect pumpkin

going on crisp autumn day bike rides on grandy keyser's early christmas present

making a leaf hat at the library and showing it off to daddy when he gets home

going on a bunny hunt in the back yard and showing "your happy" face

trying on halloween costumes (and being bribed with fruit snacks to smile for the picture)

fall is also grandy keyser coming to visit next week! we can't wait!

it's a........

2010-09-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

after my last mishap with the blog post pregnancy announcemnt, it has taken me a little while to finally feel like i can offically make the announcement again. but now that we know what we are having and have had a confirmation from the doctor that everything looks good (fingers crossed) i feel a bit more comfortable making the official post. I'M PREGNANT!!! and due on February 26th!! I had the ultrasound yesterday but James couldn't be there so I had the ultrasound technician write the gender down on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope so that we could find out together when James got home from his rotation. (It was SO hard to wait an extra 6 hours to find out!!! i seriously deserve a pat on the back.)
anyway, we got it all on video and since i don't want to spoil the fun you are going to have to watch the video to find out what we're having! :)

My book!

2010-09-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

my book, Second Kiss, is finally published! (*sigh*... a very deep sigh) i've been working with Tate Publishing for almost a year preparing for this day. i've been working and reworking, editing and re-editing, checking and double checking and its hard to believe that its finally complete.
the book is a teen fiction novel about a young girl in junior high. i've always wanted to write books that are fun to read while simultaneously promoting good, moral values.

i keep reminding myself that this is my first book and i have a long road in front of me and plenty of room to improve. but for now i'm so excited to be one step closer to accomlishing my goals.

if you want more information on the book you can click on the title of this blog post or the link below.

Thanks so much to everyone who have been so supportive and encouraging through this whole process!

http://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-61663-767-5

love those 70's

2010-09-07T18:17:00.000-07:00

70 degrees fahrenheit that is. now that its not scorching hot outside scott and i have been able to get out and do some fun things during the day. i thought this picture was hilarious. we shared a piece of pizza from a little kiosk in the middle of our outdoor mall. i coudln't believe that it was bigger than his face! (scott was obviously stoked about it.)

we've been spending some more time on our lawn outside our house. i like to lay on the blanket while scott runs around and plays. but he usually ends up tackling me before too long. we also found this really cool splash pad that a friend told us about. i know i post a lot of pictures of scott at splash pads but if you could see how happy this kid is when he's running around in the splashing water you would take a lot of pictures too.

and (drum roll please) scott has made ANOTHER friend!!! This is his friend Mitchell. They are almost the same age and they play so well together. His family invited us all to go to the zoo with them on Labor Day and we had a blast.

this is us with the mitch and his mom and dad (nick and sarah).

and this is just a fun pic of scott and mitch sticking their heads through our staircase when they came over for dinner the other day. this is crystal and derek. they are some other friends we've been hanging out with lately. they took us to this cool beach at Wallace Lake. we feel lucky to know such great people.

and last but DEFINITELY not least. here is our cute little boy reciting his abc's. you may think i'm bragging but for any of you who know scott and how he is slightly behind in talking you will be very impressed.

never bored!

2010-08-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

life in ohio has really started to get exciting now that we actually know where things are. it turns out that cleveland has a TON to do and it is really nearly impossible to ever get bored.
james is doing his rotations now days so scott and i have had to figure out how to entertain ourselves without him.
scott LOVES water so we try to hit up any type of FREE H2O whenever we can. the beach on lake erie is one of our favorite. and how can we not go as often as we can when we live so close to it!?

when daddy is around we try to do fun stuff with him as well. this is our FHE last week at the local swimming pool.
and of course we had to hit up the county fair. i'm not going to lie, it paled in comparison to the iowa state fair, but there was this juggler guy that juggled chain saws and rode on his tall bike while juggling fire that scott was absolutely mesmerized by.

scott's getting slightly easier at restaurants these days but we have a goal to (as much as possible) only go to local restaurants that are only in cleveland. so far we've had some delicious local italian, mexican and the best gyro i've ever had!

scott is finally starting to make some friends. this is his cute friend thomas. scott gets a little confused when i tell him that thomas is coming over though. he tends to run around saying, "Train!" (as in thomas the train...)

one of our favorite findings in cleveland is the emerald necklace. the emerald necklace consists of a bunch of reservations or metro parks in the area that have walking paths, play grounds, lakes and nature centers in the middle of vast forests of trees. this is a picture of scott last saturday when we went to the nature center at rocky river reservation.

and of course we still have hours of down time at home where scott gets to run around in his underwear and superman pajamas and play with his animals! (he's not supposed to play with them on the lap top but i came in from the kitchen this morning and found them ALL lined up where? on the lap top. and what do i do? encourage him by taking a picture. i'm a great mom.)

another random tid bit about scot these days is that he really really loves mom's crocks. like he LOVES them and wants to walk from the house to the car with them every chance he gets and then he likes to wear them in the car and then he gets mad when he can't wear them all day. i forgot they were in the car one day and i opened the door to find that he had somehow reached them and put them on his feet. it was hilarious. you had to be there...

okay, i know i have a lot of scott pics but these are his new pajamas that grandy keyser sent him in the mail the other day. they are his "airplane" pajamas and he can't get enough of them. thanks grandy!

another clip of him in his pj's. he's too cute.

and last but definitely not least it was mine and james' 4 year wedding aniversary last week and james brought me home not 1, not a dozen, not even 2 dozen but 25 red roses! kind of a random number but i loved them!

grandma came to visit!

2010-08-01T18:31:00.001-07:00

the best part about living far away is having family come to visit. james' mom "grandma palmer" came to visit us last week and we had a blast!

scott LOVED having a pal to hang out with while driving around. grandma palmer knew just how to entertain him. in this particular instance she used scott's socks to make hand puppets. he thought it was the coolest.

one night we took grandma to Friendly's to get icecream. does scott look happy to anyone else? just a little.

another day we took a ferry boat ride out to Kelley's Island.

we rented a golf cart and explored the island for a couple hours.

then we had lunch at the beach.

here's a picture of us in front of the island (not sure what position i'm trying to pull there.)

it got kind of hot so we poured water on scott's head. i loved his wild hair.

one of scott's favorite things was when grandma took us all to see Toy Story 3. This was scott's first time going to see a movie in a real live movie theater. grandma bought him popcorn and candy and a drink. he was in seventh heaven. and mom and dad were so proud of him for sitting quietly through the whole movie (almost).

on friday night we went down to columbus to hang out with the bryan and annie fam. we slept over friday night and grandma was a hit with story time.

the next day we went to the columbus zoo (which annie boasts as the best zoo in the USA) it really was a very cool zoo.
the baby elephant...
scott LOVES his uncle bryan.
we were so sad when we had to leave. these little kiddlings are so cute together.

thanks for coming to visit grandma palmer! can't wait until next time!

saying goodbye to iowa / moving / getting settled in clevland

2010-07-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

this is the sad little face that scott made when we told him we had to move away from iowa. okay, he really doesn't understand what's going on. but he's definitely going to miss all his friends in des moines. we all are. a huge part of mine and scott's daily routine was going to the ymca where i exercised and worked in the child watch. (i could take scott with me so it was perfect) This is a picture of our good friend Deborah who worked at the cafe there. She always talked to us and gave us free food and played with scott. we are going to miss her so much. i don't have pics of the other people i worked with but i'm going to miss all of them too.

shayla fursov (one of my closest friends) brought her kids over for one last play date. scott still asks for her son isaac. it breaks my heart.

we also had one last play date with our good friend ryan callahan. he came to the pool with us. as you can see the boys (who had spent the whole summer studying up to this point) really needed some time in the sun. :)

and of course we had to have one more picnic with the tory family.

then it was time for the big move. we had so many guys come and help us move. it was slick!

thanks boys!

then we were off on our adventure to ohio. we made a few stops on the way. first we stopped in chicago. (james was so nervous about me leaning out the window to take this picture. he really thought i was going to get mugged or something. on a crowded freeway in the middle of the day? really james?)

then we went to columbus where we met up with some long lost frends. the jonses and the other palmers (james' brother bryan and his wife annie). we went to the "bunny" fountains and had a blast!

we feel so lucky that we only live a couple hourse away from these guys.

we finally made it to cleveland and are getting settled in our condo. i don't have pics of the new digs yet since its not quite finished but we were finally able to get scott his birthday present (a few months late). it's a new tricycle! and he is getting so good at it!

since james doesn't start his rotations for a while we have had a few weeks to become aquainted with cleveland. first we took scott to the zoo. scott's been a little isolated from other kids since we moved here so i'm not sure if he's more facinated by the monkey in this picture or the little boy standing next to him.

this was the coolest. the gorillas were SO close to the glass!

we also took scott to the beach. it's on lake erie and its only about ten minutes away from our house! so fun!

and then of course, when we heard there was a circus in town we had to hop on that too. scott did such a good job for the first half hour when the animals were out. he didn't love the random girls dancing inside the ring.

during intermission we took him on the train. which of course... he loved.

and most recently we all went to visit kirtland, ohio. we did (part of) the tour and went to a play. it was all really fun.

we can't wait until we have lots of visitors (hint hint) that we can take to all these cool places! :)

he's officially 2!

2010-06-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

i feel so terrible that i didn't make a post about scott's second birthday that was almost a month ago! but we got his 2 year pictures the other day so here is the official post a bit late...
my good friend christia palizzi was nice enough to take the pictures for me last week. i think they turned out SO cute! christia had her two little boys there with us and scott was in heaven running around the playground with them. i love that these pictures are all so natural of what he really and truly looks like day to day when he's running around and playing like his cute little self.

this one is funny because as we were leaving there were some boys playing frizbee-golf (frolf) and scott stole one of their frisbees. this is scott's classic face when i'm telling him to "give it back" and he really really doesn't want to.

even though james has been studying like crazy for his board exams (that are in just over a week!) we have found a little time to have some final iowa moments before the big move. last week we went to the iowa cubs baseball game. (okay, we actually left at the beginning of the first inning because it started pouring rain) but we were there long enough to have a hot dog and popcorn and listen to the national anthem and get the general idea of the experience. it was a lot of fun! another fun thing is the local swimming pool. we went there with our friends shalise and brooklynn kearns - brooklynn was the only one lucky enough (or calm enough) to get her picture taken.

and just a couple days ago we went to Blank Park Zoo with our friends Stephanie and Jack. We even rode the train (though Scott was a slightly bothered that he couldn't DRIVE the train.)

you can't see it too well but these boys are covered in water and dirt. scott likes the zoo but he LOVES the zoo when he has a buddy along.

and naturally he had to give the giant penguin a five before we left. because what would the zoo be without a giant penguin?

the best part about a thunderstorm...

2010-06-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

...is playing in the mud the next day(scott with his good buddy isaac.)

bye bye brody

2010-05-25T17:12:00.000-07:00

this is such a sad little post because brody and his mom & dad are moving to columbus ohio in a few days. we will be moving to cleveland (two hours north of columbus) in a month so we'll still be able to see each other. but this may be the last time they'll ever be a 30 second walk away from our front door. so we are trying to get as many shots of them (and us) as we can before they move. this was taken at our last sunday dinner together at ryan callahan's house. they LOVED playing together on his huge bean bag chair.

and here we all are... one last time (sniff): ryan, b.j., brody, anne, james, me & scotton a funnier note - scott and i got to have brody over to play for a while today so i got some footage of scott feeding brody (and himself of course) chocolate pudding.

and this is what brody looked like after the feeding.here's our boys with their "uncle" ryan. we always knew that scott & brody must be related somehow.
these last pictures don't have anything to do with the jones's leaving but they are still cute. this was when scott and i had our own mommy/son beach day at raccoon river park.and this is the day that scott played with two of his other friends (ethan and isaac fursov). they were having so much fun with their trucks in our backyard. and can i just throw the question out of how many apartment complexes do you know of that provide THIS much GRASS in the backyard? we seriously lucked out!
could someone please explain to scott that this isn't a bike?

utah trip 2010

2010-05-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

scotty got to ride in his own seat on the first flight to utah. he felt like such a big boy.
we got to utah before daddy so we got to hang out and play at grandy keyser's house for a bit. scott LOVED taking baths in her big bathtub.

he was constantly dragging me downstairs to play in the toy room. and once we were in the toy room he would drag me into the tent. he loved cuddling in there and i loved being able to take "play" naps while he rolled around.

for mother's day my sisters and mom and i all went and got massages. can you tell how relaxed we look in this picture?

james flew in a couple days later and we headed down to salem for the main event of the trip. Phil, James' brother, is going on an LDS mission to Tuscan, AZ next month. So the entire family flew out to go through the temple with him. It was so fun to have everyone together. this is a picture of all of james' siblings with his mom and grandpa. he said its been a LONG time since they've all been together like that. (L-R bryan, amanda, grandpa ross, phil, patricia (mom), james, jason)

we were only with the james' family a couple days before he had to head back to school but we made the most of what time we had. phil was such a good uncle to scott. scott seriously LOVES him.i love how audrey is hugging scott and scott is like "where are your pants?" one afternoon we all went to jason's house for a bbq. they have a huge yard with all sorts of animals. scott was in seventh heaven.

he even got to ride a horse with his cousin dustin. but he didn't like it very much so we hurried and got this picture before he started to cry.

and at the end of the day we had to take off scott's muddy shoes and pants and hose him downscott and i stayed for another week after james left. so i got to see a lot of people in utah that i don't usually get to spend time with. i had a game night with my sister steph's family (L-R courtney, steph, kenzie, katie, kelly and josh) and got my trash kicked in a game of Ticket to Ride (that sad part is that i actually thought i was going to win and i came in at a distant THIRD place!)

i also had some time while everyone was at work and school to take scott to the neighborhood that i grew up in. this was the park that i used to play in when i was little. since all the kids were still in school scott and i got to go see a bunch of their recitals and baseball games. i had to get a picture of this... this was the first time scott had even seen my nine year old niece kenzie this trip. and the first thing she did when she saw him was say, "hi scott" and put her hand out for him to hold it. he latched right on and they walked all the way out of the school like this. for anyone who knows scott... that is amazing.

one night my mom took us to the In and Out Burger that has graced Draper, Utah with its presense. I'm always surprised by the lack of choices at that place. but the food is truly delicious.

and of course we went on lots of walks with grandy keyser.

one morning my good friend jenn mauger and her son alexander came and played. they were so cute together.

and another day we drove up to bountiful to meet up with my old work buddies. here's a picture of all our little boys. (L-R scotty, julianna barney's son - owen, and becca morley's son - luke) they all did a really good job of saying "cheese" for the camera.

this was just a shot of scott eating but he lookes so darn cute. and also, he's sitting in the chair that i used to sit in when i was little. love it.

here's a priceless shot of scott playing with my grandma (grandma lola). they were playing catch and my cute grandma was having so much fun with it.

even though james was back in iowa i was able to meet up with his family a couple more times while i was out there. one afternoon we went swimming in Lehi. scott wasn't too thrilled to be OUT of the water.

and another day we all went to the petting zoo at thanksgiving point. (L-R me, scott, patricia, amanda, allie, phil, my mom)

i was amazed but this time scott actually wanted to ride the pony! (probably because he secretly knew that this time it cost money.)
i liked this picture of our moms.

and again... here is scott having so much fun with his uncle phil.

this is a picture that phil took. no one can get him to cheese for the camera like phil can.

f this photo breaks my heart. its of scott waving goodbye to phil. he won't see his favorite uncle for 2 whole years while he's on his mission. we're going to miss you phil!we ended the week with a birthday party for scotty at my sister kim's house.

scott had so much fun on the trampoline with all of his keyser side cousins.

and of course there was cake and ice cream.

thanks everyone for making our trip so fun!!!

tulip time!!

2010-04-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

james and i took scott to Pela, Iowa yesterday to see all the tulips. there were SO many and of course tulips are perfect because they mean it's spring. and spring is perfect, too.
(scott has finally learned how to cheese it up for the camera...)

pella is also home to the nations tallest windmill. james still doesn't believe it, but i have the pamphlet to prove it. we hung out with our friends the muetings and the palizzi's. scott was so funny - he had to hold my hands the same way that andy mueting was holding marie's hands. he's a little copy cat.

everything was in bloom. it was so beautiful.

scotty loved playing with all the deliciously soft tulips. and he climbed right into the big danish shoes.

naturally, we had to get a family picture in front of the tulips. don't we look so nice and pleasant?

and here is what we really look like as a family. scott has mastered the "terrible two's" a month early.

another thing scott and i have been doing with our summer weather is going to the zoo. i got a season pass (because it works at the cleveland zoo too) and we have been going as much as we can. scott likes the giraffs.

and the fishes.
and i don't know what was behind the glass in this picture but he was LOVING it.

So, a couple weeks ago scott got Hand-Foot-Mouth-Disease. It sounds a lot worse than it is but he was really contagious so i had to keep him in isolation for about 10 days. scott was secretly so excited when his little friends across the street got it too (even though we feel really bad if we gave it to them) because he could finally have someone to play with.
these are our little HFMD kids.
thankfully he's over it now - but who knew that ten days in isolation could make you so crabby? he's had a hard time reentering the real world and learning how to share again. and i'm just crabby because i had to entertain him for ten days straight. because if scott's in isolation then SO AM I!!!!

spring fever!

2010-04-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

just catching up again with all the fun things we've been doing lately. our biggest adventure was going out to cleveland ohio to look for housing. scott would agree that hitting up ten apartments in two days wasn't the most rip roaring part of our trip. (so we have no pictures)
but we went to columbus to visit james' brother bryan, his wife annie and their cute little girls. and we have lots of pictures of that!
scott loved hanging out with his cousins julia and audrey. i was nervous how he was going to be around two girls but he coudln't get enough of them. they were so good to him.

scott definitely thought this was the better part of the trip.

this is a picture of us all eating at some really cool market place downtown. they have every type of food you can ask for. james got italian. i got indian. and the other palmers shared viatnamese! i don't even know if i spelled that right.
did i mention that we DROVE to ohio? twenty four hours of driving in six days was a bit much for this little kid. but i have to say, he did a really good job with it. this picture was taken in the hotel we stayed in on the very last night of driving. we tried giving him a cookie for being so good but as you can see, he was even too pooped to eat that. now that's tired!

back in iowa the weather was turning into SPRING! and scott discovered (all on his own) that dirt is really really cool to play in.

with spring comes easter and with easter comes the EASTER BUNNY! we went and visited him at the mall with the jones' and scott did pretty well with him. i kept trying to get him to look at the camera but he was a little unsure and wasn't about to take his eye off that bunny.
the jones' also came over to color easter eggs with us. this was the first year that the boys have really been able to help. we only ended up with 3 or 4 cracked eggs at the end of it!
and this is my favorite picture of scotty's little hand putting stickers on the eggs. he got really good at manuevering those iddy bitty stickers.

i just had to include these videos of the easter presents both grandma's sent us in the mail. scott was in seventh heaven.

when scott isn't outside playing in the dirt (or with the neighbors basketball hoop that he is absolutely obsessed with) he loves watching movies in his little chair. we got him this chair because his cousin allie got one for christmas and scott loved it so much when we were visitng. this is just a classic picture of him watching so intently with his little hand propped up on his cheek. his favorite movies are cars, elmo and tarzan. (or in scotty language; gars, melmo and mo - don't as me.)

another fun thing that we've had going lately is our babysitting club. every friday scott goes and plays with a bunch of neighborhood girls (katelyn and kylie fowler, shalie and millie johson and devi northcott). he is really learning how to play with girls and discovering that they play a bit more softly than boys. once a month we have all the girls at our house. it's a full house!

james is such a good babysitter. the girls LOVE him.

scott loves it too but he is very protective of his chair. this is a shot of shalie trying to sit down in it and scott booting her off.

life is a party.

Lesson Learned

2010-02-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

don't write a post announcing to the entire blog world that you are pregnant the day BEFORE the appointment where you're supposed to hear the heartbeat. because sometimes things don't always work out the way you hope. and then you have to write awkward blog posts like this one. :)
in other words, i'm not pregnant anymore and even though it was a very sad and rough week for our family we are moving on and excited for what is in store.
thanks to everyone for all your love and support.

p.s.

2010-02-15T18:49:00.000-08:00

there's a good chance that the main reason for my two month vacation from blogging was the fact that for the past two months i've been experiencing the first trimester of my 2nd pregnancy! Yep! that's right! i'm pregnant again! he/she is due august 27th!

back from a 2 month blogging vacation

2010-02-15T16:23:00.000-08:00

there's really no reason for my two month blogging hiatus... i guess i just needed a break. the whole uploading pictures/figuring out what to say/and releasing it to the blogger world thing just got too overhelming for me for a while. but i'm officially back.

and since i uploaded my pictures from present to past you will get the last two months in reverse order. here are the highlights...

we've been up to all sorts of fun everyday activities like-

giving scott a haircut - in the bathroom sink.

having sunday dinners with the jones's and the callahan.

puddle jumping.

sledding

even against scott's will...

pulling a new carton of eggs off the counter when mom turned her back for a nano-second.

wearing bowls on our heads.

learning a new trick...

going to the science center with the palizzi's.

seeing a real live snake for the very first time.

and having way too much time in the water.

back in december over the christmas break we went to utah to visit family.

scott and his cousin allie had a lot of fun discovering everything they could about each other.

like their bellybuttons.

their big cheeks

and just each other's company.

they were best buddies.

up in draper with the keyser side of the family we did some service projects...
and frosted cookies.

we even got to see our good friends the maugers.

but most of all scott loved hanging out with his grandma's

(this picture was taken just before we left for the airport... at 4am!)
thanks for the great christmas vacation everyone!

my new favorite song

2009-12-15T19:40:00.001-08:00

ok, i don't usually do this. i don't usually blog about anything other than what we've been up to or the cutest thing scott did today but i just have to put the word out about my newest musical interest. its the first song playing on our playlist when you click on our blog so if you don't have the volume up on your computer you'll have to turn it up. it's this guy and he calls himself "owl city" and this song is "fireflies" but i like others (that are also in random places on the playlist) the first time i heard this song i thought, "good, not great." But it has completely grown on me. so visit my blog a few times and give it a chance and let me know if you fall in love with it too!

little christmas train ride

2009-12-14T18:20:00.000-08:00

such a sad picture for such a fun outing! anne and i took the boys to the mall today to ride the christmas train but we decided to ride separately so that we could take pictures of each other. these were scott's feelings about that idea...

scott cried through out anne and brody's entire train ride. for any of you that knew me as a small child this video may remind you a little too much of myself. (for those of you who didn't know me as a child we have many home videos of me crying because i couldn't go on the rides with my older brother and sisters. scott and i have such hard lives!! :))

but scott did finally get his turn and he loved it! he cried again when he had to get off. we may have to make a couple trips to the train this year.

then we let the boys roam around the mall a bit. they just have so much fun together. i love it so stinking much.

we're finally out!

2009-12-14T17:33:00.000-08:00

we are finally able to get out of our house and drive on the roads again though they are still really icy and kind of scary. but here are some more pictures of when we were trapped inside.
thursday morning james and his car-pool buddies got up early to dig themselves out of the parking lot. they ended up digging this lady out while they were at it. (i was safe and warm up in our bedroom taking the picture. :)) this is one of my favorite little pictures of scotty looking out at the snow. he was so mezmerized by all of the white stuff building up outside our window. he wanted to go out and play so much until he realized how freezing cold it was.

after a while we decided to do some baking but we didn't have access to the stores. luckily jaime mayo and emily crofts gave us their recipe for these delicious chocolate ball things so we tried them out. no - scott hasn't grown three feet in the past week, we just pulled in a stool for him to stand on. he was such a good little helper.

here i am mid-roll.

this is a REALLY long video of our chocolate ball making. don't feel pressured to watch it all - or any of it for that matter. i just love the memory of this day.

and this was the final measuring of the snowdrift outside our house. as you can see, it almost comes up to james' shoulder. its been four days and the wall is still there. its just so cold here that i swear its never going to melt away.

snow day!!!

2009-12-09T09:21:00.000-08:00

i haven't experienced an official snow day since i was in seventh grade. i have always had that day in my memory as the most perfect day and now i know why. isn't there just something special about being trapped inside the house with your family because of white fluffy cold stuff that's building up around your windows? i love it!
so here are a few of the things we've done today to keep ourselves busy:
first we decided to make some chocolate treats (because you can't very well have a snow day without chocolate treats). scott LOVED licking off the spoon. he was seriously in heaven.
our fudge-face boy...

and then we played a little bit of dress-up with mom's glasses. doesn't he look old? not like 3 or 4 years old, like 67 years old.

and of course we had to get some more footage of the snowdrift outside our door. its so cool looking! (and even high now than it was when we made this video) we literally can't see outisde our windows unless we are standing on the couch.

(movie not uploading on blogger. hopefully coming soon!)

scott's first tromp through the snow

2009-12-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

we've had a lot of snow in des moines today. it makes me glad that i bought this door wreath a couple days ago. and this just shows the dedication of my husband to run barefoot out into the snow drift to show how high it actually is (it wasn't my idea, i swear).

but earlier today, before things started getting crazy, scott had a nice little tromp through the snow. (tromp? did i make that word up?)

the box

2009-12-08T18:31:00.000-08:00

its amazing to me how much fun two little boys can have with a box.

we love having sweet brody over.

to complete thanksgiving weekend...

2009-12-08T17:52:00.000-08:00

this post is a bit of a catch up of how we finished out the thanksgiving break. of course we watched the utah/byu game with our peeps. (some of them more our peeps than the other depending on who they cheered for. just kidding!)

scott loved running around getting attention from everyone. and he also loved watching the game with his dad. he just loves the utes. that's why he picked out that red shirt to wear. he just can't get enough of them.

another highlight of the weekend was when scott got to meet santa. it was in the middle of the afternoon on a monday and poor santa had no visitors so he called us over to read a book with him. scott was a little hesitant and he needed his dad right there by him but he actually did a pretty good job with it all.

he even got to give santa a 5. we kind of think he might be the real santa.

james and i also got to go to the winter quarters temple in omaha. the jones' babysat for us so we didn't even have to switch off with scott. thanks anne and b.j. and brody!

and my personal highlight of this winter season was buying scott this head sock! i was so worried about his little cheeks, neck and back getting cold where his coat and other hats didn't quite cover. this was the perfect solution! and he only hated wearing it for like twenty seconds!

and this is big... scott is starting to smile for the camera again. its a miracle!

this is just a fun little video of scott in the mall car cart. its not that exciting but he seriously looks so cute.

thanksgiving day pop quiz!

2009-11-26T15:36:00.000-08:00

this thanksgiving has had one major theme to it... we are thankful that james doesn't have a test for a full week!!! this semester has been pretty grueling (i haven't had to take a single test and i'm worn out so you can imagine how james must feel!) so we have been pining for a holiday! here we are on one of our many winter night adventures...last thanksgiving scott was too young to enjoy the food so we made sure he got his fill this year. we went to james' school for thanksgiving dinner again this year since it is free and requires no work at all on our part. (woo hoo!) so i boycotted all cooking this year but james pulled out his amazing baking skills and made a delicious pumpkin pie. (it really was delicious, i'm not just being nice.) you can probably tell that i was trying some new editing techniques with this picture. its kind of weird.and last but not least, today was so special because not only was it thanksgiving but it was also scott's 18 month birthday!!! he's such a handsome little boy but he's just too cool for the camera these days.and of course the little brodster is 18 months old today too! brody was gone for a whole month and scott would literally cry when we couldn't go over to his house. shopping is just so much more fun when you have a shopping cart buddy.we are so glad the jones's are back in town! and as a little 18 month birthday celebration i'm going to conduct a little pop quiz about our boy scott. let's see if you can get them all right (the answers are in the comments section):
1. what is scott's favorite animal to immitate?
2. which of these words can scott NOT say yet? a)hot b)bye bye c)hi d) ball e)ma ma f) da da
3. what is scott's favorite lullaby?
4. what is scott's mom most proud of about her little boy?
5. what is scott's favorite movie?
6. who does scott prefer out of his mom or his dad?
7. what is scott's favorite thing to give people (even complete strangers)?
8. true or false: scott LOVES putting on his winter coat.
9. what color is scott's favorite blanket?
10. out of the following items what does scott NOT like to eat: a) pretzels b) oatmeal c) cheese d) bananas e) pizza

happy 18 month birthday scotty boy!

hole in the couch treasure hunt

2009-11-14T06:29:00.000-08:00

so anybody who's been to our house in the past few months knows that us palmers have sort of an issue with losing our remote controls. so far we have lost two t.v. controls and one dvd control. we've searched high and low over the past little while for them all but always concluded that "scott must have thrown them in the garbage." even though we've never actually witnessed him throwing anything into the garbage we didn't know what other conclusion to come to.
until today.

after realizing that we had officially lost the third control james got a little investigatory. he was so determined and strong as he practically lifted our couch over his head with his bear hands (slight exaggeration) and as he did we could hear multiple objects bouncing around in the under boards of the couch.

we had obviously searched the couch many times before as that would be the most logical place for the controls to be. but what we didn't know until today was that there were super secret crevices for the controls to sneak down into the unknown black hole of the couch.

after a little snipping and much searching we found all sorts of wrappers, toys from the last couch owner and our two favorite treasures....

ta da! two out of the three missing controls. this is the dvd control and the first control that w lost MONTHS ago. as for the third control... scott probably threw it in the garbage.