Sucker

I'll admit it. I'm a sucker. If I ever come across an infomercial, I have to watch it. I start out scoffing, but within 10 min. I've decided I just HAVE to have those awesome knives that cut through aluminum cans or the Shark vacuum cleaner that picks up nails. Never mind that I've yet to serve tin for dinner or had a need to clean up a construction site via vacuum cleaner. Now the latest contraption on my list is The Magic Bullet. I had seen the actors whip up salsa and smoothies in mere seconds on T.V., but the clincher was when I went home two weeks ago and my mom had actually purchased The Magic Bullet! I had a delicious fruit smoothie for breakfast every morning and now I was as hooked as a trout on a line. Now some may ask, why the need for the individual sized cups? That my friend, is the essence of the Bullet. No big blender to clean up! The blender becomes your cup and washes as easy as a glass in the top rack of the dishwasher. I am a "dish consolidator". My mother is not. Which is interesting considering that she bought the Bullet. I can make a whole pan of enchiladas and only dirty one pot, a bowl, and the pan that they bake in. When my mom came to visit, I think she used every pot and bowl in my kitchen to make enchiladas. This is humorous, but beside the point. I now feel like the Bullet is my destiny. I woke up this morning, turned on the T.V. and wouldn't you know it, the Magic Bullet infomercial was on! The complete 21 piece system was selling for only three easy payments of $33.33!! But wait! There's more! Order now and get the second system completely free! That's all I needed to hear! Of course I only needed one system, but I could sell the second one on Craig's list. It was the perfect plan. I had the number written down and was up in bed, waking Travis to beg for it, in mintues. He just paused, sighed, and said "whatever you want". (He's gotten really good at responding to my requests this way!) However, I know it means he really doesn't think we need it, but he's not going to tell me no. Funny how giving me the go-ahead actually has the opposite effect. I got to thinking, we're poor students. I guess we don't really, technically need the super cool Bullet. I could probably spend $50 on something practical like the phone bill I always forget to pay. Sigh. Being practical never has a bright side. So I will go without my dish consolidating- uber cool smoothie maker for a while longer. I guess I still have my completely useless Shark to ease my pain. If only it sucked up hair as well as it sucks up screws....

It's Gettin' Cold in Here....

... so put on ALL your clothes!

The weather is so weird out here! On Thursday it was so humid and warm that I turned on the air conditioning and then this morning the thermostat read 63 degrees! I must have been cold last night because I dreamed that it snowed again. Shudder. I didn't think Collin would get the chance to wear this cute, wool jumpsuit, but here he is, all warm and snuggly!

I think the weather started going downhill on Saturday night. Camille wanted to surprise Andy for his birthday, so she threw him a BBQ at our house. Lots of people came and we had a great time until about 9pm when it started to rain. :(

Collin enjoyed the party from his perch on the picnic table.

Even though it was a sunny day, the wind was pretty cold and I ended up giving out a couple of my jackets to some girls who hadn't anticipated the cold weather.

Here's Dave with his new toy.

The three prego girls...

Trav was the grill man for the night, but the wind was making the fire a little difficult to control...

... thus singeing some poor hair on his hand.

Camille went all out on the food- burgers, hot dogs, beans, veggies, watermelon, fruit, apples and Snickers salad, pasta salad, green salad, chips, dip, rootbeer floats, cake and ice cream. I'm full again just talking about it!

He turned the big 26 today. Happy Birthday Andy!

I don't know if my cousin, Jenny Richardson, ever checks my blog, but I wanted to thank her and Randy for helping me out last week. Collin had an appt. at a Diagnostic Imaging Lab to have a scintiscan done. It was to check to see if he has reflux. I debated about actually going through with it because 1- I was nervous about the procedure and 2- even if it confirmed he did have reflux, I didn't really think I wanted him on Prevacid or Zantac to treat it. It was the night before and I had been online researching everything I could find on reflux and the scintiscan, etc. when Randy's name popped into my head. He's a pediatric radiologist and would be the perfect person to ask for his opinion about this. I only hesitated because I know doctors get annoying people asking them all sorts of questions and wanting free advice and I didn't want to be one of "those" people. But I guess I either have no shame or was just really desperate because I called him anyway. Not only did he not act annoyed, but he asked me questions about Collin, was so helpful, and told me just what I needed to hear! I was SO relieved and thankful! So in case you're wondering, I did not go through with the scintiscan. I still think Collin has reflux, but they eventually grow out of it, and I'd rather help it with natural things. Hence, the picture below. I bought some homeopathic Colic Calm and the only think I hate about it is that it's dark black, because of the vegetable charcoal. I don't give it to him very often, but I did one time last week, then stuck his pacificer in. When I pulled it out, this is what he looked like! Hehe, my little French man with a goatee :)

Collin keeps pretty busy during the day with such things as......

helping me with the laundry ....

(with the washer in the basement, and our room upstairs, the poor kid has taken many a ride in the laundry basket as I transfer loads up and down the stairs)

... tummy time.....

(yes mom, we are doing all we can to prevent the dreaded "flat head" :)

... working on balance.....

.... and of course looking handsome!

I think this pic is hilarious with his facial expression and the way he's holding his hands. Like he's on the way to the country club or something. Oh this kid makes me so happy!

Collin's Blessing

How lucky are we? My in-laws were going to fly out to come to Collin's blessing then decided if they were going to be paying for plane tickets, why not just pay for us to come to AZ so all the family could be a part of it! So nice. So last Thursday we packed up (a bit more involved with a baby) and flew home for five days!! (Side note: I think it's funny that when we are in Buffalo I refer to AZ as "home", but when we are in AZ I refer to Buffalo as "home". So which is it?? :)

Collin was excited to be on his first plane ride! Can ya tell? :)

I was so worried that he would cry and annoy the people around us, but he did great on both flights and slept most of the time! When we sat down on the first flight, there was a man in front of us who took note of our seat choice, waited just a few seconds after we sat down, then moved a few more rows up. Haha. Guess ya can't blame him.

We flew Southwest, which doesn't have T.V. screens (boo!), but we did have Travis's lap top! We watched Bolt on the way there and I laughed my head off! Such a funny movie. Granted, I do have a thing with animals that pretend to be human. I mean seriously, it's hilarious. And the hamster in this movie had me cracking up. Then on the way home we watched Tremors. Anyone remember this one? I remember watching it when I was younger at my cousin's house, the Montagues. That's where we saw movies that were PG-13, but we didn't realize they were PG-13. I promise Mom! I just remember being kinda scared by this one and I wanted to see what it was all about. It was kind of comical, really. I was mostly embarrassed that the lady sitting next to us would see the screen and wonder why in the world we were watching something so corny/gory/old school. The other one we watched recently that I remember from the Montagues house, was Gremlins! Oh wow, corniest movie ever!

Ok- back to the trip! Well, Collin had only met Grandma Sharon up to this point so he had lots of fun meeting all his aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Here he is with Grandpa Evans, who we are so grateful is still with us! (He was the grandpa who had the heart attacks a month ago)

Cousin Neil was so sweet and wanted to hold him. Neil loves babies.
Here he is meeting Kael, Chase Rogers' son. (His torso is displayed in the back :) They are about 4 months apart and I'm sure will be great friends!

Great Grandmother held him for at least an hour while we went swimming. She had the magic touch!

Here he is with Uncle Craig (a whole 8 years older than him, haha)

Here he is with my twin sister, Shelley.

And now Lane, Shelley's son, finally has a cousin on the Lindblom side! When we came over for the first time, Lane was so excited to meet "Tollin" and promptly placed a baseball mitt on his lap so they could play catch. So cute. I don't think he's so sure about the whole situation!

Sunday was wonderful! My mom always said that she loved baby blessing days more than Christmas and now I know why. He started to cry right before it was time to go up, but we got him swaddled and asleep just in time for the blessing. On the other hand, I cried through most of it! And I was lucky enough to have three different people take notes, so we have most of what was said in writing. I am so grateful for the gospel! And I'm so grateful for a husband who is worthy and holds the priesthood. What a blessing that is!

These are my two sisters. Whenever I look at pictures of the three of us I can't help but think of that song.... "one of these things is not like the other... one of these things just doesn't belong" Haha. Luckily they both have on tall shoes so they look more my height at least:)

This is everyone that came to the blessing, minus Chase and his wife, and my cousin Leah.

Great Grandpa Jess, Grandma Ann, and Great Grandmother.

The Grandparents

Lindblom side, minus Christopher and Jael who are in Switzerland.

Evans side

Here's our munchkin in his blessing outfit that Grandma Ann bought for him.

The two most common commets I get are "Oh, look at those big eyes", and "Oh, he look at those little chicken legs!" There is a roll people!! Check out the chub on that thigh! Well, it's gettin' there anyway.

Our parents live less than a mile apart, which is SO convenient, but it's also hard to divide up the time equally. Memorial Day was so fun! We spent from 9-2 with the Evans and the rest of the day with the Lindbloms. We attempted to teach Collin to swim- he wasn't digging it. Actually he very loudly let us know that the water was not to his liking.

Check out that bottom lip!!! LOVE IT! It's so hard not to laugh when he pouts that out. He gets so indignant and want me to know! He's looking at me like, "What the heck Mom!" It's seriously my favorite face.

He only suffered a few minutes, then got bundled up and fell asleep in my arms. Such a love.

We were not without entertainment! David likes to scare us all with his acrobatics by jumping off the roof into the pool. Now he's trying flips. He's lucky he still has his teeth. . .

.. and so is this kid! Sweet Lane busted his mouth while running on the deck. After spurting blood and screaming it out for a few minutes he was ready to go swimming again, much to Grandma's chagrin. I thought it was funny that everyone kept asking Travis to check his teeth and make sure they were ok. I was thinking "Uhhhh, he's only done one year of dental school..... not sure if he's qualified to do that, but oh well!" It made everyone feel better I guess, haha. By the way, doesn't he have the most amazing eyes!

After swimming and eating the day away, we went with my family to go see the Night at the Museum sequel. Pretty funny movie.

And at the end of the night, my cousin Leah came over for one last visit. I thought it was funny that even though my eyes burned from exhaustion and I could tell her's were doing the same, we still could talk for hours. We used to have sleepovers and Shelley barely lasted past midnight, but Leah and I would talk until the sun came up. We get along so well. I love her to death and hate living so far away from her!

We had such a fun trip and can't wait to do it again in July! Woohoo!

Another week....

Well, it's midnight and I couldn't sleep..... I know- I'm just as surprised as you! So I decided to do a post. I actually got a decent nap today so my body must just not know what to do with enough sleep. I never know what my posts will be about until I upload the week's pictures, so here's what came up this time!

I was swaddling Collin on Tuesday night and I got up to grab something and when I walked back in the room I found the little turkey watching T.V!!! Now, if he's going to be contaminated at such a young age, at least it's with one of my favorite shows! Haha. And I'm so sad the finale is this week. So I have to put a plug in for my favorite, Kris. I've never voted in any other season, but I'm voting now because we can't let Adam win!!! I know it's inevitable, but gosh darn that guy BUGS! Enough with the ugly screaming already! And ditch the eyeliner and black nail polish! Pu-lease!

Blue Steel, take two. :)

For one of Trav's presents I got him Bison tickets. The Bisons are Buffalo's baseball team but they are just a farm team for the Mets. As you can see from the seats behind us, it was a packed game. :) It's was actually pretty fun, we haven't been to a baseball game in a while. Our friends, Bron and Megan came too with their baby, Lily. As you can see from my jacket, it was a pretty chilly night. Trav pretended to be helpful all night by holding Collin, but really he was just trying to stay warm! Just kidding, but seriously :) We are planning a short trip to AZ this week and I don't know if I can handle 100 degree weather! I'm starting to think 70 degrees is too warm! Anyway.... afterward we hit up Applebees happy hour and were thrilled to be accompanied by the high school prom crowd. Complete with matching neon orange dresses and suits no less. I should have taken a picture!

The Buffalo Bison was making his rounds so we snagged a picture. Collin was thrilled, or maybe just sleepy. Hard to tell :)