Wednesday Night Swimming

Wednesday night is my mom's night for fixing dinner for Grandpa.  Since it is summer and the pool doesn't get used quite as much as it used to, Wednesday night was a barbecue and swimming for our family.  This is Molly's 3rd time in the pool this year.  She laughed.  She cried.  In typical Molly fashion, she was a bit dramatic.  I think when she was all done, she had fun, though.  Jack just chilled and went from me, to my mom, and Annie, and back around again.

I asked Annie, "Are you sure you want to hold Jack?  You'll be tired of holding a baby by the time yours gets here."  She replied, "No, when mine gets here I won't ever get to hold Jack.  I better do it now."  Good thinking.

Oh, and Parker and Willie (Parker and Cindy joined us for dinner, too) were jumping off the deck and trying to splash Annie.  Willie had the most water displacement, but Parker had the best splash aim.

Count your blessings . . .

Name them one:  MOLLY

by one: Jack

We are lazy.  Our days lately are filled with lounging, watching movies, coloring, and doing a whole lot of nothing.  I keep thinking that we should be more active and productive, but then I stop thinking that.  Isn't it important for a little kid to be familiar with all the classic Disney movies?  Our time is so structured, routine, and busy from September to May that we just don't feel like doing much from June to August.

Today we attempted to go for a walk around the block.  We made it out of our circle and down about 4 houses until someone had to hurry back home to go to the bathroom.  We fully intended to go back and resume our walk, but we didn't.

When Molly has to go to the bathroom, she says, "I'm stuck."  I'm working on getting her to say, "I need to go to the bathroom," but she prefers being stuck.  She has also spent substantial time today marching around in 1 snow boot.  When we are listening to music, at the end of each song she'll ask, "You like that one?"  Today I found a grocery sack in our diaper bag.  I pulled out the sack and in it were a bunch of refrigerator magnets, a couple of small toys, and a pair of yellow flip-flops.  I'm glad she's prepared.  She makes messes and can be a stinker some times, but overall she's been a really good girl the last few weeks since we got the bathroom thing down.

Jack is super happy and will almost always smile at Molly.  He loves her, I can tell.  And, she always tells him, "I love you Jack!," . . .  right before she squishes him.  I don't know how many times a day I say, "Molly be soft.  Molly be careful.  Molly don't squish Jack.  MOLLY!!!!"

This little brother, though, is an eating machine.  I can't seem to keep enough in him.  During the day he still eats almost every two hours.  I'm trying to increase the amount I give him (if I can keep him awake through the bottle), but he still seems hungry all the time.  He just takes weird short naps all day long, but the will sleep for longer stretches at night.  He should probably be on a better schedule, but we haven't quite gotten to that point.  He did sleep almost 6 hours last night, though, so for that I am grateful.

He's very noisy, grunty, sneezy, farty, burpy, etc.  I guess that's because he's a boy.  I told him the other day I was going to nickname him "Hershey."  He is pretty messy on both the intake and outtake ends.  It's a rare day that he and I don't both have to change clothes.  Oh well.  We'll keep him!

Here's to the rest of a great summer!

Summer Happenings

It's summer.  It's hot.  Time for a new blog post.

Last week Molly and Jack spent 2 days with Grandma My Mom and 2 days with Grandma and Grandpa Binggeli.  (I'm still not comfortable calling my mom Grandma Judy, but she said not to call her Grandma Petersen.  I guess it is just Grandma or sometimes Molly will differentiate by saying Grandma-Grandpa-Willie or Grandma-Grandpa-Jarrell, or lately Grandma-Grandpa-Jason.  Whatever works.  This problem only exists when NOT in the presence of these wonderful people otherwise they are simply Grandmas and Grandpas.  We'll figure it out.)  I spent 4 days at West High School learning about the new Common Core Math that I will be teaching this school year.  It's exciting, but very overwhelming.  The training was good, though, and I met a lot of cool teachers from Salt Lake District.  Molly and Jack had way more fun with their grandparents than with their mom, but that's ok.  


Tonight we went to watch Elliott and Wyatt play T-ball.  We haven't made it to any of their games this latest time around and their short season ends this week.  We figured we ought to get to one and cheer them on.  The games were a lot of fun!  Molly really liked it.  She warmed up by running the bases with Elliott's team and then insisted on helping my dad be the catcher during Elliott's ups to bat.  I didn't take a picture, but it was cute!


I was a little worried about taking Jack outside for that long, but then remembered that when Molly was only 6 weeks old we took her to the Logan 4th of July stadium fireworks and then 2 weeks later to the Ogden rodeo.  She survived.  Jack was good, too!


Willie had been called to substitute at the Shavy Shack, James didn't make it home to eat dinner before we left, so we ended up at Shavy and Moutain Mike's for pizza and shaved ice after the games.  Jack was a good boy and Molly was pretty good, too.  She had fun running around the trailer.  Here is a photo stolen from my sister.

I didn't take any pictures tonight, but I do have a picture of Molly from Saturday.  She got her hair cut and let me curl it.  It looks really cute!  Though I've tried to avoid all things "princess" with this daughter of mine, she is such a girl.  She loves necklaces and bracelets and looks really cute in pink.  Two weeks ago when I got her dressed for church she twirled her dress around and said, "I'm a princess."  This last week we started watching "Beauty and the Beast" and her favorite part was the dancing scene.  She danced all around the living room.  Silly girl!  On the other hand, though, she loves to play in the dirt, throw balls, and does NOT like to get her hair curled (though with a toothbrush or her ipod to distract her we can usually get it done).

Binggeli Family Photos

A big part of our 4th of July Celebration was family photos!  The Binggeli Family in its entirety has not been together since 2007.  This was quite a momentous occasion and needed documenting with new family photos.

So . . . Where has everyone been?

• James is the oldest.  We are just here and not usually too far away.    

• Annie and her family are in Idaho, but generally also not too far away for holidays and other occasions.  

• Alicia has a house in Ogden, but has been doing some schooling with the Air Force in Texas.  She is home for only a couple of weeks and then relocating to New Mexico.  She has been fortunate enough to be here at Hill Field for quite a while, but will now be in New Mexico (for a couple of years again, I guess).  I did pin her down a couple of months ago with 20 billion questions and she told me she would eventually like to settle in Utah when her military service has finished.  That is good news.

• Jason has been living in Germany since his release from military service several years ago (and actually as long as I have known James).  He is back in Utah indefinitely and though unfortunate reasons have brought him back, we are glad to see him.

  

• Amber lives in North Carolina and her husband Colton is currently serving his second tour of duty in Afghanistan.  He is home on leave for two weeks and he and Amber are here visiting. (He still has a couple of months left in his deployment). I'm not sure how long Amber and Colton will be in North Carolina, hopefully long enough for us to get back there and see their home (and also visit some of college basketball powerhouses within short drives of Amber's house).  Hopefully one of these days they will also make their way back to Utah for good.  (Sidenote: This was the first time Jason had met Colton.)

• Jarrell was gone for a while serving a mission in Seattle, but has been back for almost a year.  He is working at Les Schwab in Logan and hopefully will stick around Utah for a while. 

It was nice to have everyone together, if only for a few hours!

 

4th of July @ the Binggeli's

We had a great day!  I am grateful to celebrate our Independence Day.  We took family pictures, ate good food, played outside, then ventured to Brigham City to watch the bigger fireworks show there.  Molly chilled out after a while and then had a lot of fun with her cousins, aunts, and uncles!  She even entertained everyone with her crazy animal sounds.  Jack was his usual chill self and Amber even got him laughing.  Here are some pictures to remember the day!

My extraordinarily happy and festive children before leaving our house.

Issac thinks Jack is pretty cool.  They are bonded as the only boy grand-kids.

Setting up Grandpa's slip 'n slide.

Molly squealing (and soaking wet) at the bottom of the slip 'n slide

Grandma and Grandpa enjoying Jack

Jason's daytime pyrotechnics show

We are brothers.  We scratch our heads in unison . . .  always!

Watching the daytime fireworks display.