"Spam, wonderful spam...I'm anxious to try it..."

"Three banquets a day...our favorite diet..." - the words sung by vultures on Ice Age the Meltdown don't adequetly describe Tanner's experience with Vienna Sausages yesterday. As it happens, I opened a "72-hour food can" that had lived it's life on our kitchen shelf for years, only to be replaced last month by newer, more 'exciting' cans (Thank you, mom!)...As I was going through this #10 can full of soupmixes, gummed-gum and disinigrated jollyranchers, I found probably the one item that could potentially be 'good' to eat after spending six years in an air-tight aluminum can...a petite can of Vienna Sausages. It really was a cute litte can...just for a cute little boy.
Tanner thought these hot-dog like sediments would be tasty and begged and begged for me to open the can. He even successfully retrieved the can-opener for me to pry the lid off...so after arguing that he wouldn't like them yet he still thought they were a 'treat', I opened the can and got him a plate and grabbed my camera.

He struggled getting the first meat log out of the container, so I asked if I could help him, and just to be on the safe side, cut it into bite-sized pieces. I wouldn't want him to choke on it...but that's what he did - almost.

After getting out the rest of the little meat logs and precisely stacking them like a pile of firewood, we dared to taste one...and immediately spit it back out...I proceeded to tell him, "I told you so" in that smart-mom kind of way, all the while laughing at his facial expressions.


When it was all said and done, I helped him down from the table and just before he ran off to play, I dumped the 'glorious food' into the garbage...which Tanner loudly objected to. After that, I spent a good five minutes reminding him that he didn't like them, he had spit them out, and now they were on top of a pile of dirty, stinky diapers...

Hopefully we don't have to use our new '72-hour food cans' anytime soon, because meal number three, where the vienna sausage is supposed to be eaten, might go un-eaten by Tanner. :)

Sweet Baby Taylor

Taylor loves talking with mommy, daddy, and big brother, Tanner. This is a quick clip of him cooing...He is such a good baby. If I had known that I could do this funky video thing, I would have recorded Tanner's Vienna Sausage Experience that we had yesterday...I'll post pictures, though!

Saturday is a Special Day...

We all remember the song, "Satuday is a special day, it's the day we get ready for Sunday. We..."

Well, our Saturdays are special...It's Ryan's day to do homework, My day to see Ryan, Tanner's day to play with daddy, and Taylor's day to, well, be a baby...

Unfortunately for Ryan, he might have to find another time to work on homework - this Saturday thing isn't working out for him...we woke up this morning about 8, ate breakfast, and by the time Ryan actually got sat down to do homework, it was nearly 9:30...by noon, he hadn't accomplished a whole lot. In fact, now it's almost four o'clock, and he has been to Rexburg, but only to pick up MarbleWorks for Tanner from his mom and dad's house...When he gets home, he'll want to play MarbleWorks with Tanner, and then we'll have to get ready to pick up the sitter so we can go to Stake Conference...I sometimes wish I could give my husband two things in life - 1. a night of uninterupted sleep, and 2. more hours in a day.

He is working really hard right now - full time job, 9 credits for his Master's program, and fulfilling his church responsibilities. Besides all that, he get's to come home to two beautiful boys who love him to pieces, and a wife that has been dying all day for a break - and to give her man a great big kiss...

This is our regular routine right now, and hopefully, someday, Saturdays will be special in a different way - not so full of homework and homework, and more dreaded homework!

Being a Brother...It's a Cinch!

Sometimes Tanner gets a bit frustrated that Taylor takes up so much of mommy's time...but othertimes Tanner is so glad he has a brother to share his mommy with. I frequently catch Tanner helping Taylor with his binki (he normally doesn't take one, but will suck on it if I'm in the middle of a piano lesson or need him to hold off on eating for a bit) and laying down next to him pretending he's sleepinging, too. These are some of Tanner's ways of helping mommy.

Life sure is a lot different with two boys instead of one...although it's challenging at times, I'm learning to get through, and not cry over spilt milk all of the time...just part of the time (and when a glass get's broken). Ryan loves his two little boys, and looks forward to the days, or nights rather, that they sleep through the night so they can be enjoyed during the day. We have this idea that once grad school is done and they're a little older, parenting wont be so hard...but then there will be something else - who knows what!