Little Boys and Frogs

I had mentioned in one of my previous posts that Fisher is really into catching frogs with Todd these days. I finally took some pictures of them doing their thing.

Fisher stalking his victim.


Gently scooping it up in his hands. Sometimes the frogs don't cooperate and he winds up chasing after them over and over.

Caught it!

Another one of his little friends.

I was surprised to see how calm and gentle Fisher was when dealing with the little frogs. Todd had told me he was but I had never witnessed it for myself. I normally avoid situations where I know I will have a panic attack over germs. Catching frogs falls into that category in my mind. :) I might have to lighten up since I am going to have a house full of boys.

Can you find the frogs in the following pictures? These were some of the frogs Fisher was chasing after.

This is one of my favorite frog pictures and I might use it in the baby's room if I ever get around to cleaning that room out.

Grandma & Grandpa Church came down on Friday to watch General Conference with us. We had a great visit with them. Fisher is always sad when they leave.

My boys minus the one currently hanging out in my belly :) Fisher is obsessed with playing in the car. It is not a rare occurrence for me to start the car only to have the lights on and the windshield wipers going full blast from the previous ride in the car where he hopped into the front seat after I had turned off the car. It has become a big cat & mouse game trying to get him out of the car and is only becoming more difficult as the pregnancy progresses.

Helping me make orange juice.

Fisher cleans up pretty well when he wants to. It is amazing how he can go from looking like this...

To this.

We have to make sure he looks snazzy at church so that his teachers can find one good redeeming quality in him :) J/K.

This is what I was doing at 1:00 am last night. Happy Spring! After I finished, I sat looking at dozens of cookies wondering what in the world I was going to do with them all and why I had made them in the first place.

I figured I should probably include one picture from this pregnancy. We've only taken two or three total so my "just climbed out of bed and am heading to church" look will have to suffice :) This was taken at around 28 weeks. And yes- Fisher is trying to climb the wall...or attacking it. Who knows with that kid.

It's Raining, It's Pouring...

Although it has been raining the past few days, last week brought us a lot of beautiful weather. We took full advantage of it and spent time outside. I happen to love the rain so I am not complaining about the current weather but the sun definitely helped boost the spirit. The rain is nice because everything is starting to turn green. Louisville in the spring is so beautiful. Too bad the dreaded summer full of gross humidity has to follow. :)

Fisher flew his first kite and loved it.


Todd had some time off last week for spring break and we had such a good time spending it together. He had been really busy with tests and projects for weeks leading up to his break and so Fisher and I were both thrilled to have a little more Todd time :)


Fisher and Todd have spent a lot of time catching frogs in our back yard. Fisher's become quite the pro.

Lately he's been growling at us a lot along with everyone else who happens to be nearby. I took him for a walk today where we came across some people standing in their driveway. We walked on by and all of sudden Fisher turns around and back-tracks. It turns out there was a cute girl of about 17 or 18 who must have caught his eye. Like any other eligible, un-potty trained three year old, Fisher proceeded to start flirting with the poor thing. Right as she started talking back to him he started growling at her and everyone else who is standing there. That was that. No more talking- only growling.

A similar event happened with Todd at the grocery store, although Fisher was not hitting on the cashier before he happened to start growling at her and telling her he was "anngrryyy!" Thanks a lot to Sesame Street and the episode they talk about being angry. Now Fisher seems to think that he is perpetually angry. The growl just accentuates how he is feeling.

Another grocery store story about Fisher is that he loves gum. Just ask anyone in Jr. Primary who has to listen to Fisher turn around to me every single week and throw temper tantrums for gum during sharing time and closing exercises. He also loves scented things. He loves washing his hands at other people's houses and smelling what scent of soap they have. Anyway, as I was trying to deal with the groceries and cashier, Fisher had climbed out of the cart and was sitting on the little conveyor belt thing with about four packs of gum deeply sniffing each pack. The cashier was looking at me like I was crazy or something. I wanted to remind her that I was not the one sitting where the food goes and sniffing gum.

A classic Fisher pose.

I guess this has become a post about Fisher stories. I was making some things for pre-school the other day and had the permanent marker out. There was a mess up on one of the plates that I had drawn on with the marker and so I tossed it aside. When I looked over at Fisher he had picked up the plate and was sniffing it; surprise, surprise. When he saw I was watching him he said "Mmmmmm, pemenant mawkah." (He's extremely verbal but still can't pronounce his "r's".) I have a feeling we are going to have to continue to keep this kid away from the cleaning supplies and paint cans when he is older.

During his prayers lately he always includes "and thank you that the baby can come out."

In other news I had my glucose test this week. I don't find out until Monday as to whether or not I passed. I am a little nervous considering I consumed a ridiculous amount of sugar the week leading up to the test starting with a book club complete with a fondue spread to die for and topped off with a chocolate fountain. Later on that night there was a viewing of Twilight at my house that started at 1:00am and nine of us crazy ladies loaded up on more sugar of which almost all the goodies were left behind and so I continued to snack on them for the remainder of the week. Later on in the week we had the Relief Society Birthday Enrichment night for church where there was more sugar...Yeah...I wouldn't be too surprised if I failed. I did not have the gest. diabetes with Fisher and I really hope that is the case with this one.

The baby is moving and shaking like crazy. He is so much more active than I remember Fisher being. We are fairly sure that there is another Fisher x10 baking in my belly. The other thing is that Fisher was always really active while I was at work during the day and at night he never moved or kept me awake. I like to think this is why he was such an excellent sleeper from the very beginning doing 6 hours a night by the time he was two weeks old. Little JR, here, seems to have his Mom's internal clock of being awake during ridiculous hours of the night. I will be trying to go to sleep only to have him start doing a Tae Bo work out. Needless to say, I am terrified :)

Have I mentioned that Fisher's hair reminds me of a chia pet? He actually had his first real haircut (meaning not from Mom) up in Cincinnati when he was visiting G & G Church. Todd knew my back had been bothering me and so he and Fisher actually paid for their hair to be cut. It already is looking like a chia pet.

Fisher is really into golf these days. Todd and I are in agreement that he has a similar style to his uncle Robbie who likes to crank the club/ball.

It's too bad that everything is made right handed. Fisher has a little play guitar that he tries to play left handed sometimes and can't. Same with the golf clubs. He started doing it left handed until he realized it hits better when you use the club correctly. He still uses his left hand a lot to eat and paint/color. I guess time will tell if he is going to be a leftie.

The post that is about ten miles long...

I am behind, as always, on posting pictures of Fisher and so this is one of those looong posts that will catch me up.

My boys growling at each other. Fisher is really into the whole growling thing.


And then showing the love...(Both of the boys have a case of bed head in these photos.)

Fisher has had a big fixation with his tongue and spit as of late. It is gross and there have been many time-outs due to spit landing in the vicinity of our faces.

Searching for his adams apple after noticing Todd's.

This is a pose all to familiar for me growing up in a house with three brothers...shirt off and flexing. All that is missing is a mirror for him to stare at himself (and maybe some muscle as well :)

Our camera that enabled us to take videos happened to break a while back and so we don't have a way to take a movie of Fisher's latest dance moves. It's too bad because the latest is pretty funny. Here is a picture that will have to do.

Today we decided to do a little finger painting. He loves to make pictures: water color, finger paint, crayons, markers and even outside chalk. Anything goes.

Please don't come near me with those hands.

This is another one of my pictures that you can't see anything unless you enlarge it but I wanted to put it on the blog since this was a first for me. One day I heard something outside and when I looked out the window I saw Woody Woodpecker pecking away on the tree right in the middle of this picture.

Fisher spent at least ten minutes jumping on and off this curb.

We are so happy that the weather is starting to warm up so that he can expel a little more energy through out the day when we go outside. The stir crazy bug was starting to get to us.

Some other things Fisher is into these days are:

-Asking us what letter a word starts with.

-Coming up with names for the baby. At the moment his favorite is "Toenail"

-Drumming. He is our little drummer boy and is very good at finding the beat in songs.

-Catching frogs out back with Todd.

-Asking us where things come from meaning "which store".

-Movies. He has never been into movies but this past month as our household has had really bad colds, the flu & allergies,there have been more of them than normal. At the moment, Aladdin, Beauty & the Beast & Madagascar 2 are his favorites. We need to ease up on them though because I find myself having a lot of talks about how we don't say certain things, and we don't yell like that and we don't spit like the zebras on Madagascar. The more I think about it, the more I know we need to turn off the DVD player. Being sick is not a good thing.

Fisher also loves sticks. There is not a time that he goes outside that he does not pick up some sort of stick.

Most of the time his eyes are bigger than his actual strength.

Thankfully there were no kids on the playground at this time.

He also loves to help around the house whether it is helping me dust, sweep, vacuum...pretty much everything but cleaning up his own toys & messes. He is always excited to help his Daddy with projects such as putting together his new dresser or hanging a shelf.

My boys hard at work.

The kid still refuses to poop on the toilet. I am beyond frustrated. He was completely potty trained with the whole pee thing but has since decided that since he doesn't have to poop on the potty then why bother peeing on the potty. I HATE potty training and am ready to say "Fine. If you want to wear diapers like a baby then I am going to start treating you like a baby." The kid is intelligent enough but potty training just doesn't seem to be his thing.

He is excited about his baby brother. I've been asking him lately if he understands what it means when I say that I am having a baby. You know- the whole fact that the baby will come home with us, stay forever and completely turn Fisher's world upside down. He normally just smiles and says "yes."

He also has had some smart come backs lately. One day we were driving home from church and I was lecturing him a little on spitting and sticking his tongue out. The conversation went a little like this:

M: "Fisher, I just don't know where this came from!"

F: "From my mouth Mommy."

(in the tone of voice to say that I must be an idiot not to know where spit comes from.)

One thing Todd and I discovered a few years back is that daylight savings time is not as fun when you have a kid.

Fisher has loved his little pre-school group and can now say the pledge of allegiance almost the whole way through.

His favorite bedtime/primary songs are Book of Mormon Stories, I am a Child of God and the "Whenever I hear the song of a bird"-I can never remember the name of that one :)

Thanks to Grandma Church for making a quick visit the other day. Fisher had so much fun playing with bubbles, puzzles, chalk and everything else you did. I enjoyed some personal R&R, which for me stands for reading & relaxation. :)

24 hours in Cincinnati

About a month ago I had a bad day and decided last minute to drive up to Cincinnati so Fisher could see Grandma & Grandpa Church -aka- I would get a free moment since he would be preoccupied be them :) Thanks for all of the help and for putting up with my last minute craziness! We made a trip to IKEA, the Gap Outlet and the mall for a ride on the carousel. Fisher was able to ride on three different animals and loved every minute of it. I have been promising to post these pictures forever so here they finally are:

Hangin' with the Horses

I've been too lazy to blog anything lately but I loved this picture my parents had emailed a few weeks ago. Growing up, wild horses in our yard was a very common thing as they would come down from the mountains in search of food. Home sweet home.