Mother's Day Rocks!!

Here is a little run-down of the awesome Mother's day that I had this year. I was a little worried at first since it's the first one being so far from our extended family-but it was actually more than I could have even imagined. I received roses on Saturday from my parents-Thanks Mom and Dad Whittaker-what a great surprise! Kenny and Nolan made breakfast, and made a homemade card for me-yes, Kenny actually used some of my scrapbooking materials and it turned out really nice! I was asked to speak in our Sacrament meeting, and it was just such a great way to prepare and share Mother's day with all of the amazing Mom's and families in our Branch. We were able to web-cam the Merrell's later that night and I got to chat with both of my brothers-while trying to track down own my Mom. What a great day!!

A little side note: I kind of bought myself my own Mother's day present "from" Kenny & Nolan the Thursday before while checking out a rummage sale down the street from our house. I came across the exact same dinner ware that my Grandma Whittaker had-I only had a serving platter from the set but I just loved it. When I asked about it and was told that it was a set of 12 place settings for $25-I got teared up and knew that I really had to have it! It was a very exciting discovery and Kenny agreed that it would make an excellent Mother's day present.

Caught card making!!

Grandpa Merrell's Visit

Grandpa Merrell came to visit after a business trip to Chicago this last weekend. We had a great time hanging out at home, going to the Zoo, and having dinner at Oscar's custard shop.

"Ring around the rosies"...

Monkeying around at the zoo...

Watching for tigers...

Mmm...chocolate chip cookie dough custard

Explaining to Grandpa the wonders of Bob the Builder.

An object in motion....

Or maybe a Nolan in motion (as our case may be) remains in motion...

"Moments"

So as I'm sitting here playing with some new page elements for our blog, (gotta keep up with the "e-blogging Jones" right?) I started thinking about what I should post about tonight.
It's midnight-Kenny's in bed he's been studying for next week's exams and actually fell asleep putting Nolan to bed, so he's conked out. I hear Nolan start crying in his room-he's rolled off of his mattress again-it's just on the floor right now, we're getting him a toddler bed soon. So anyway, I go in there and scoop him up and lay him across my chest to help him fall back asleep. I realized just how big my little boy has gotten! When I first laid him on my chest as a newborn he was around 5lbs...now he's 22lbs 19mos and he lays across my whole body, WOW!
I started thinking about Elder Ballard's talk that he gave on the Sunday session of this last conference about young mothers. He said, "First, recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction."
I can't think of any better way to describe motherhood than that. Some moments will touch your heart and burn into your memory forever, and some you just hope that you can make it through so that you can move on to the next thing. However, whatever the moment is we have been put here to share those with our children-the Lord is trusting us to do that for him. What a huge responsibility!
When we say our prayers with Nolan together at night, he folds his arms and usually listens for his cue to say "all done" which to him means "Amen", but I think that I like his version better. "All done" means that we can give all of our thanks, and problems and desires to the Lord and then retire for the night knowing that we are in good hands.
Well tonight I have recognized that my role as a Mother, Wife & Daughter have brought me my greatest, happiest and most important "Moments" and I am so thankful for each one of them.
To all of my Mother's, Grandmother's, Sisters, Cousins & Friends- Thank you for being a part of my best "Moments" and keeping my in your good hands!
Happy Early Mother's Day!!

Nolan's Chores

Nolan has been developing his independence lately, and I've been amazed at how much he understands and can do for himself. So of course I've been trying to use this to our advantage and I'm proud to say that Nolan has his own set of chores that he loves to do.


1-Throwing his own dirty diaper in the garbage can. (Usually not the poopy ones though)

2-He loves to help with the dishes...or you may more recognize it better as splashing the bubbles all over himself and the floor.

3-He loves to put the dirty laundry down the laundry shoot and says "one, two, three...go!" each time.

4-He is in charge of loading the silverware into the dishwasher and does a really good job too!

5-He's in charge of the Swiffer...although we've had to monitor that a little more closely lately since it's funner to lift it up high and smack it into Mommy, Daddy or the cabinets.

6-He loves it when I vacuum-he goes crazy and runs and shouts all around the house while I'm doing it and occasionally he'll come try to push it with me.

So that is a sampling of his chores for now...he may actually have more than Kenny does! Ha ha-just kidding...well mostly.

Getting his dish-pan hands.

Cleaning off the wisk for me.


Ready to clean the tub!

Ode to a dishwasher and a heating pad

I decided that I needed share the great joy that these two items have brought me in the recent months.

To my portable dishwasher...
Although we had a rocky start and you kept blowing the circuit breakers in our house, you have redeemed yourself since your repairs by making the mountain of dishes almost a joy to deal with each day. Bless you.

To my heating pad that I got from my brother Jason for Christmas...
You have made living in a poorly insulated 1924 duplex during one of the worst winters in Milwaukee history almost bearable. Who needs an electric blanket when I've got you?

Wuff, Wuff, Kisses and a Hi!

This video was taken this last Tuesday at a restaurant called Stonefire Pizza-it is like a classy Chuck-E-Cheese's and we love it! Kenny's sister Allyson was kind enough to make the trip out to spend part of her Spring break with us and she took some great videos. We had so much fun this week-special thanks to Allyson for being such a great Sister and Aunt!

"Oww!"

(March 3rd, 2007)

Nolan has been saying the word "Oww" lately when he hurts himself...or thinks he's hurt himself. It's is really quite cute and endearing because he usually says it when he has hit his hand or something or stepped on a block. But when he said "Oww" this time he really meant it.

He was playing on his tent in the front room watching Bob the Builder, and got a little too crazy and fell through the tent and banged his head into the leaded glass cupboard near our fireplace.

You can see the damage to both parties-I'm actually just thankful for the lead in the glass since it is probably what prevented him from going all the way through. His goosegg finally went down the next day, however the glass will not be repairing itself until I breakdown and take it to the glass shop.

Somehow I did get him to feel better though...thank goodness!!

WELCOME SPRING!!...er...Winter....wait, this is spring??

This has been a long winter for most people we've talked to-whether you are in Utah, Idaho or Wisconsin, but when I look out the window today I am truly stumped. Spring officially began yesterday March 20th and it was quite a beautiful day in the mid 40s and very sunny. Today was just a kick in the teeth!! It is just under 30 degrees, but with windchill it's 17 degrees and since about 5am this morning we've gotten a foot of new snow and it's still coming down!! Yesterday we could see the grass..today we can't even tell where our driveway ends. Is it too late to cry "Uncle"? Cause I've had it!

Feb 6th-Snow total for this storm 18"+

Picture of today's snow out on our balcony-snow total 12" & counting...(Sidenote: We ended up with 20" of snow on our balcony!!)

Usually he likes the snow...guess he's had it too.

An 18 month old's Addiction...

So it used to be that Nolan didn't want us to be on the computer at all-he always wanted us to go do something else with him. Understandable, since the computer is not really fun until you kinda get what it is. Well, that time has come folks! He loves to webcam with family and look at pictures or movies of himself. However for the last couple of months, if we are on the computer Nolan wants to be sat up on your lap and either the YouTube or National Geographic Kids websites have got to be running, with the window taking up half of the screen while whatever you were working on is taking up the other half! I blame it all on Kenny-out of desparation one day he pulled up dog videos on YouTube to make Nolan happy since his first animal sound was "Oof roof". Now we have it up at least once a day! Wanna see what we watch the most of?? Here are some links:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qit3ALTelOo -Mean Kittty Song
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQzUsTFqtW0 -Skateboarding Dog
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qXVK3hTRxlY- Taco Johns Wiplash-Monkey

He has a very fine taste as you can see...we hope you enjoy them as well!