Love Thy Neighbor

I was recently told about an issue that my 8 year old step-brother is having with a friend and it shocked me and made me very upset and sad for him and his friend. I was told that Garrett (my step-brother) was no longer able to go inside his friend’s house because the parents of his friend thought that he came from a weird family. It has nothing to do with Garrett’s character. If you meet him you would realize that he is one of the nicest and caring little boys ever. This family that banned my step-brother is a very active member of our LDS ward. So my thoughts on this is, aren't we taught to love thy neighbor, to not judge, to forgive...ect. To make matters worse my dad and step-mom's reply to this is, well Garrett your friend is not allowed in are home either. After my dad told me this I had no reply because the only thing I could say would surely start an argument. Why? Why would you do that? The only person here that is being grown up about the situation is Garrett and his friend and they are 8 years old. That's what I wanted to say but didn't to avoid an argument and It’s not my place to intrude on their family issues. I just hope someone realizes they are being an idiot.

Door Locks

Having a lock on bedroom doors, great for when I was a teenager. If I was mad at a sibling I could lock myself in my bedroom and make nasty comments to them as they got a bobby pin and tried to unlock the door. This was really fun to me. I did manage to get so much anger out of them that I had my door kicked in once and several times had them unscrew the door knob. But on the other hand they did the same to me. So I also tried the whole kicking in the door thing. Didn't work so well I just put a hole straight threw the door, which is still there to this day. This is all fun and games for us as teenagers but when my almost 2 year old son loves to push button, turn and twist things but still can't turn a door handle, probably a lock on the bedroom isn't the best idea. Since I'm living at my dad's house Bridger's room was once my little sister’s room. And my dad was so kind to put locks on all the bedroom doors so other siblings wouldn’t come in and bother us. Well today Bridger started throwing toys at me like normal and as punishment I put him in his room for timeout. When timeout is over I went to his room to let him out. Come to find out, Bridger had locked himself in his room. I had forgotten that he had a lock on his door. So I yell inside to Bridger to turn the handle but no luck. He doesn't quite understand what I'm talking about. So, I got a bobby pin and hanger and attempted to unlock the door. Meanwhile Bridger is in his room laughing and having a great time with he's toys. This brings up a whole lot of memories of my teenage years, but I use to be a pro at unlocking these doors and I now cannot seem to remember how to. Lucky my dad is right up stairs to come and help me out. After 30mins with a bobby pin and hanger we give up and took off the door knob. Bridger is finally free, not that he cared he was having fun in his room. But I have now witnessed my future with teenagers if I put locks on their doors. I will ground them to their room and they will laugh at me as I try to unlock there door. Moral of this story is, I'm not putting locks on my kid’s doors unless it's me locking them in their room.

Bridger's First Hair Cut

I made the brave attempt to cut Bridger's hair. I have cut Jeff's hair 3 or 4 times and had only screwed it up 2 times. So I thought I had a 50/50 chance to get this right.  But when I'm under pressure you know I'm going to screw up. I think that's why I couldn't play sports because when they need me to hit the 3 pointer to win the game, I would end up over thinking it and I would forget what team I'm playing for and score for the other team.  And well Bridger's first hair cut...that's a lot of pressure for me. When I started trimming it all was looking good, but I could not adjust the length of the trimmer so I just took it off and well the pictures explain the rest. I felt so bad.  Then I thought Bridger doesn't care he's only 18 months. As sad as it is my biggest concern was Jeff's family teasing me about it. 

We Are Building A Home

I think living with my dad finally took it's tole on me. We were planning on staying for another year. but I can't have another baby here and I don't have a kitchen. I'm really sick of making lunch and dinner out of a toaster oven and microwave. I got feed up one day and started looking for somewhere else to live. My husband said if you can get a loan for a house we could move. I think he was pretty curtain we couldn't get a loan. Well if you didn't notice we got a loan. We looked at houses to buy but found the best option for us was to build.  

I'm overly excited about this and I'm not sure it's really happening. I'm waiting for something bad to happen to screw it all up, which makes me nervous. 

This is the neighborhood. Our lot is the one highlighted white. There is a walking/running trail right behind us. I'm hoping I'll actually use it and start running everyday. 

This is the floor plan of our new home. The living space was originally smaller but we are adding on to make it larger. It comes with an unfinished basement. That is were the washer and dryer hook-ups are, that actually kindof sucks. If you notice in the plan it does not have a window in the master suite. It's lying to you! there is a window there.

A Dog Loving Family

Within a week my husband and I decided to watch 2 movie's about dogs (Bolt and Marley and Me). Now I haven't cried since we had to give up our dogs a year and half ago and we have watch dog movies prior to this. Well, it finally hit me. After watching Bolt I went to bed and cried over losing my two dogs (Twix and Gimli) and watching Marley and Me within a week of this did not help the situation. Not to mention we started watching a T.V. called Dogtown (it's about rescuing dogs that would otherwise be put to death). All of this combined finally made me realize how much I loved them and miss them. 

If you didn't know I had to give up my dogs for Bridger. If I wanted to be a stay at home mom I had to move back to my dad's house where he would not allow dogs. I know I made the right decision that doesn't mean it was an easy one to make. 

On a happier note, Bridger is finally saying real words. The words he has mastered so far besides mama and daddy are Toby (His cousin's dog), puppy, Woof Woof, Ball, Buh Bye and Banana. Interesting how most are dog related and the other ones start with B.  Jeff and I went to the park the other day and Bridger sees some dogs and wants to go pet them. So we go pet the dogs after 15mins with these dogs I thought we should go so the owner can get on with what they were doing. I pick Bridger up and start to walk away. Bridger starts to cry scream because we took him away from the dogs. So to help the situation I see a different dog I point at it and say "Doggie". Bridger starts to run towards it. The dog notices Bridger and starts to run towards him. Just as the dog was about to jump on Bridger in excitement the owner calls his dog off. The dog runs back to the owner and Bridger starts to scream. The Owner says to us "did my dog scare him?" I said "no just the opposite he's upset that the dog left." I'm thinking Bridger likes dogs just an assumption.  We are a dog loving family. By the way I thought I would mention the first movie that made me cry, it was Homeward Bound. 

A Big Boy Bed

I said when he can climb on his bed himself I would change his bed to a toddler bed. Well he's been able to do that for awhile now. I finially gave in when his crib broke. So last night we turned his crib into a toddler bed. I was very curious about how he would like this. It was bed time and Bridger climbed into his bed we gave him kisses and turned out the light and closed the door. Of course he started crying but I said we would wait 30mins and if he's still crying we will go back in there and comfort him. I'm not sure how long it took but he was asleep before the 3omins was up. I was in shock that was alot easier then I thought it would be. Well today nap time comes around. I thought to myself this is going to be the hard part. Again I was wrong, he climbed into bed I gave him kisses and left. He didn't cry. He is actually asleep right now. I underestemate that boy.  Now time for potty training "Yicks!!!".

Broken

What I am learning about being a parent is first do not keep glass in reach of children. As soon as Bridger could touch our pictures on our table he loves to play with them. I tryed to keep him away but you eye goes off him for 2 seconds and he has thrown one to the floor and broke the picture frame. That I wasn't so up-set about. but today he did something I was truely up-set about. I found a great floor lamp for really cheap on KSL and I bought it. It was nice because it was heavy which made it very sturdy and it was a glass top with a 3 way light. I did not take into consideration that our other floor lamp that broke was plastic and very old (my sister gave it to us for our wedding, So that makes it 6 years old and more well traveled then a lot of people I know).  Anyways this lamp broke from old age and I'm sure bridger always unplugging it and pushing it over didn't help. So when I got this very heavy lamp I thought no way could bridger push this over. well everything was great for the first couple of months he didn't unplug it or try to knock it over. Until the past week he started to unplug it, but still no pushing. Has i'm doing my hair in the bathroom I hear something fall and glass breaking. I thought to myself, I don't have any glass in reach of bridger a picture must have fallen off the wall. I went to check it out and Bridger pushed the lamp over. It scared him so bad he just stared at it for a second then burst into tears. Maybe he's learned his lesson, so maybe just maybe my nexted floor lamp won't get broken. I definitly won't be buying a glass top one again.

My beautiful glass top floor lamp before Bridger thought it was a toy.

The pictures after Bridger got to the floor lamp.