moving on

I hate to say it, but I'm moving on with my blogs. I will be merging from shelly'sbelly and barlow bits. That blog -- fromshelly'sbelly -- will be for family and more personal updates. I may cut it out entirely... that's to be determined later.

I have a NEW blog for my NEW shop(s). It's very exciting. I'm in the process of building and designing it, so be on the lookout for the grand opening!! YAY!

vote people!

I know, I know it's not that exciting for you, but it is to me! look at the poll to the right or I just may do something like post something really long and boring and whiny!

I'm going to be selling my goods (very exciting, i know!) and I'm wondering about my shop name. From Shelly's Belly - I do like Snap Dragon! I like too. I say it all the time (if you know me IRL you already know that). I don't want it to be confusing however my blog titled FSB and my shop something else.

think about it, and report back to me!

who knew?

microwave your toothbrush once a week to kill germs! Interesting!

changing your heart

I do love the song "1234" by Feist. I feel like it's my theme song for right now. Well, I say that only knowing half of the lyrics. Ha ha. I'll get back to you on that if I find out it means something totally different!

Lots of things are swarming around in my head right now. We're moving to Utah either the 5th or 6th of October. We're trying to get Nick admitted into school, a new job, a new home. We're trying to get things taken care of here, there and yonder. I'm excited for the new prospects that await us there. Schooling, work, family, and new undertakings. I don't want to say, but I do want to say exactly what. I've got so many ideas of what I can do to help support our little family so that Nick might not have to work so much while he's going to school.

It's times like these when I'm feeling bogged down with responsibility and urgency that music really speaks to me. I'm not that big on music. I know for most people they walk around with Ipods plugged into their ears constantly. When I drive, I keep the music off. When I clean, there's no music. When I sew (or whatever) there's no music. Throughout the day the only noises I hear are the laughter or cries of my children. I can almost go half of a day without talking. That is until Nick comes home and then I jabber his head off. No wonder my son doesn't talk, neither does his mother.
Anyway, right now I've got a list of 5 songs that rotate through my head all day long, so I just decided to play them on my computer, and now they rotate through the air waves in my house all day long. Until I get sick of them. Maybe I should put in different music, to lift me from the fog of overwhelm. I will tomorrow maybe. Right now I'm rolling around in it.

Never you fret, I am not in the depths of despair right now. I'm just overwhelmed and overstressed and overtempered (just keeping with the theme of the sentence).

We're getting our family pictures taken in a few weeks just when I'm feeling mega chubby. At this point I was supposed to be much smaller, however I have let my cravings take over my proper brain functions and now I am not smaller. I've got 2 weeks.

Just fine

Hey, I mentioned I was a bit stressed earlier. I'm fine now. I'm eating a cookie.

Check out my poll

It's over on the right underneath "where else you can find me."

When I talk about the 2 blogs I mean this one, and From Shelly's Belly

Thanks!

service auction

I just came back from enrichment night for my church and it was so much fun! We had a service auction night. You came to the activity with things you could auction off. For example, free babysitting, weed your garden, tech support, sew things, dinner, dessert, gift cards, thank you cards, etc. You fill out a questionnare at the beginning to determine how many points you get. For example, did you say your morning prayers? did you serve a mission? did you ever own a new kids on the block tape? have you been married for 20 years? and there were points assigned to each thing. I had 300 points to bid with. It was so much fun! I won a photo session for my family with the pictures on a CD! How awesome! I'm so excited, Lisa W. is doing it, and I just love her to death! It has been so long since we've had pictures together as a family. I really wanted to win a babysitting one as well, but alas, so did everyone else! Ha ha! I donated some sewing things and a dessert. I love to sew things for other people more than myself, so I'm excited to get to sewing! I think the service auction would be a fun thing for a family home evening type thing when we have more kids and they're older... or for christmas gifts or something. I don't think you could auction your christmas gifts though, but a really awesome service could be given as a gift. Not like those "coupons" you give your mother for mother's day that you never redeem, but real ones!

Sherrie had a good idea that I should go to gift boutiques and try to see if they'd want to sell some of my creations there. I think it's a good idea, but also scary. What if they look at my things and say - lame! ? Oh well, I'll have to get to thinking about it and brainstorming about things I'd want to sell. I'd try it there, and then sometime in the next year I'd like to set up an etsy store. I need to find a fabric store close by that has higher quality fabrics though. Or just pay for shipping.

cell phone

I am posting this on both blogs, because I don't know who reads what (if at all). For those of you who have my phone number pay attention, for those of you who only know me in blog-land, you can ignore this post.

I just found my phone yesterday, after letting Benji play with it (how stupid of me) and he stuck it in some random little hole. I haven't had it for a little over a month and so I have surely missed countless calls. I found it, charged it and am now accepting phone calls! Just thought you should know.

swirl this car around!

yesterday was a bit of a braindead day for me. I'm not quite sure what was going on, but Nick told me several times that I should go back to bed. When he didn't say that he just looked at me funny. I had a great time! For instance, when we were leaving for church I was backing out of the garage to do a K-turn. Well, I didn't turn the wheel enough as I was going forward so I had to reverse again before I hit the flowerbed. Anyway, I exclaimed, "oh! I didn't swirl the car enough, sorry!" Swirl the car? you mean turn it?? yep. so all day I kept saying Nick you'd better behave or I'll swirl this car around! Yeah, I'm that cool. I think it's going to be my new saying.

What else... I continually got words mixed up and couldn't think of things. I blurted out random things that had no connection to anything else. Here's an example from our first year of marriage (because I honestly can't remember what I said yesterday): I was cleaning up the living room and was not wanting to pick up after Nick so I said, "is that your fork?" while pointing to a pen on the floor. Nick walked into the room as I repeated the question and he just burst out laughing. I think that instance keeps getting brought up at least once a month when I do something similar. I think it's early onset alzheimers. I really hope not. I say it's children - I guess it'd probably be dangerous if I had too many children there's no way to tell what would happen to me. I wish I could remember what else I did and said, all I know was I was singing a lot, talking a lot, and laughing a TON!

what's been going on??

too cute! my babies playing together!

mighty tasty

good morning mommy (get dressed already!)

here's benji, I just missed the high five he just gave Lola! soon as he saw me with the camera, he got off the stool and played elsewhere, lame!

Benji turned two this month - the 7th! How dare I not blog that much about it! Check out the slideshows for more pics.

we were at grandpa's (my dad's) visiting, Jenee' LOVED the pool and her floaty boat that Mary (my dad's sweet girlfriend) got her!

I'll post a funny funny picture of jenee' in this and in the pool on another post soon. It's hilarious! I just love this shot though, she was so calm happy and content out here on the water.

my cutie, a bit sunburnt. it makes his beautiful green eyes stand out more (except for here he's squinting, so you can't tell)!

another picture of them playing together!

oh, such fun. I've been teaching asl classes, nick's been looking for a new job and researching the air force. Nick found a new job monday (YAY!!) that pays pretty darn good, and the air force is coming along smoothly. I've been sewing (check my other blog for some details) and thinking about doing projects with my son. Maybe he'll be more interested. He's been pretty hilarious lately. His favorite thing to say is "ow" and sign "hurt" - even if he's not, he loves it. He's very close to being potty trained - i mean starting the process - he hates hates hates it when his diaper is dirty, and he'll take it off himself, and he's been doing pretty good at trying to put his own shorts on and off. He's mastered all the other "readiness" skills they say to have (i just won't trifle with your time and list them all). I want to get the Dr. Phil program "scotty potty", that seems ideal and very successful from what i've found. He's been trying to "Charlie and Lola" high fives all the time, it's adorable.

Jenee' is soo going to be crawling any day now! She has been getting up on her hands and knees for weeks now, and she moves quite a bit, by rocking, twisting, diving, etc. She gets up on her toes and twists to the side and then goes back to her knees, rocks and then dives to her belly. It's quite amazing to watch. She could totally out push-up anyone! There's no doubt that she'll be crawling before she's 7 months old! She's teething like mad, but no sign of a tooth popping through quite yet; just swollen gums and biting everything in site. Benjamin teethed forever before a tooth finally popped up.

Becky just had her baby today (the 1st), a bit of a scare was surrounding it, but after she had little brooklyn (by c-section), the little angel was healthy and happy. I'm dying to see pictures and hear more, but I guess I'll just have to be patient. I'm just so so so happy that one of the happiest days in becky and phil's lives stayed one of the happiest days! I bet they're the cutest little ole parents ever! I'm an aunt too, I just realized this tonight, it's my first time and I feel special regardless of the fact that I had nothing to do with it!

book signing

well, lots has been going on, but I'll talk about that later. We recently went to a book signing for Lee Child; he's one of our favorite authors! His character is Jack Reacher, and he is awesome! My eyes hurt from squinting at the screen (the computer is in the room facing the HUGE windows with the sunlight streaming in) for so long uploading all the photos from the past few weeks. I was set on uploading and updating the blogs and such, but it's taking forever to get everything to do what I say. I want to share lots of the photos we took (hunderds and hundreds), so I decided to make a slide show, but it's taking forever. I'm getting off topic. I'd explain more about the books, but I'm just too tired to. Lee Child is a fabulous author. We went to this book signing, kids in tow (the only ones there by the way). It started at 2 in which he'd discuss the book, etc. It was great to hear about all he had to say, and really he was a normal guy. For some reason I always think "famous" people are like 8 feet tall in real life, but nope, he was a normal, non-giant sized guy. Then, about 3:45 we got to get our book signed (long long line). Benjamin's asleep in Nick's arms, completely bored and wiped out with all these adults standing around. Jenee's still in the baby bjorn, killing my back and shouders, happily sucking on my shoulder. We're in line, trying to think of what to say. Finally we step up, I hand him the book and say "hi". that's it. HI. no real excitement, no crazy inflection, nothing implied (except maybe exhaustion). He asks "who is this little thing?" "oh, this is jenee' (pause, pause, and more pause), oh this is benjamin, too" he says "have they been here the whole time? I didn't hear them once!" "yup, we've been here since before it began." he finishes signing it and we say "thanks" and walk out the door. could we be any more riveting?? I thought of at least 5 other things to say to him that weren't necessarily exciting, but they were intellegent. -- my side beef -- why do people always say that when they're surprised your children have been good. "i didn't even hear them, or know they were here" I always wonder about that. do they think most children just stand in one place and scream at the tops of their lungs non-stop? one straight 2 hour scream?? i think it's silly, but then they may not have any clue about children. --

anyway. we read the book. Nothing to Lose (the title). lame lame lame. it turned into a crazy idiotic politic rant of at least 5 touchy issues, with a lame plot and story. the main character, jack reacher, went against nearly everything he's stood for in the previous 11 books. example: he was born in the raised in the military, worked in the military, fights for it after retirement, etc - he still lives and loves and breathes the military code and law, blah blah blah. now, he apparently hates anything to do with war and the military. things like that. i won't go on much more, except, I still love Lee Child's previous books. Those were the bomb diggity. Not this one. I'll try the next one, but I'll be expecting him to still have let go of all his values, morals, and good characteristics to be replaced by just plain idiocy.

it was still fun to go to the book signing.

to utah and back

well, i've been sewing and sewing lately (you can see the projects on the other blog), and then we went to utah for tim's wedding (nick's brother). Nick's sister and dad flew us out (holy cow!) as a surprise to everyone else. Their reactions were priceless! We hung out and played guitar hero, the wii, and tons of board games and card games. Ate pizza, chips, soda, and all sorts of junk! We had so much fun!! We got back tuesday evening and are settled back home. Mom's back in town for a week or so, so benji's having fun with his nanna. I'll post pictures from the trip soon, and here's a random picture of jenee's cute feet.

*huntsville

well, it's noon and I've now been awake for a little over an hour. how lucky to have slept in you're thinking - oh no I didn't! Nick had an appointment last night at 7 half way to Dallas (2 hours away), and said he probably wouldn't be home until 11pm. So, around 11:30 I fell asleep on the couch watching a movie; somehow I found myself to bed because when I woke up at 3 Nick wasn't there!! I went around the house looking all over for him, and then I checked the garage. Empty! So I call him, and he says, "I've been waiting for you to call me" What an odd thing to say! Apparently he didn't have our home phone number, and my cell phone had died the other day and I failed to charge it. Well, it seems his tire blew out, and then the spare blew out (after only a 1/2 mile of driving on it). He'd been sitting at a gas station next to the Huntsville maximum security prison since 11:30. So, I packed up the car and drove 1 1/2 hours to get him, and 1 1/2 hours back. We all settled back into bed at 7 am. I'm completely surprised and very happy that the kiddos actually went back to sleep. I thought I was doomed to stay awake until their nap times. well, we're going to have to get a tire sometime today (after Nick wakes up - he hadn't slept in 24 hours, so I guess he can sleep in a bit more) and drive all the way back up to H'ville. Joyful. I had such fun plans for today too, oh well.

baby update

Well, we went to our first baby doctor appointment (yes, we are a little late in the first visit), but it did take a while to find a new doctor up here. I was pretty nervous that he just wouldn't be as great as my old doctor and then I started worrying about everything. Ahhhh... how fun to be a worry-wart sometimes (not really). So... we went and he was amazing! We totally felt at ease, and he is so approachable and he seems to really care and value our thoughts and opinions. He doesn't put off the -I'm the doctor and that means I'm the best-vibe at all. He has his own children too, I don't know why that matters to me, but it's nice to know that he's been there (well, his wife was mainly). We talked a bit about VBAC and cesarean and he sounds really positive about the possibility of having a VBAC and such. We haven't made our decision, but we'll take our time and really think about it some more and pray about it as well. This is serious stuff, we don't want to just go on a whim.

We heard the baby's heartbeat, it was around 150 bpm. Plus he did a ultrasound, it wasn't the full-blown one, mostly just to measure to see how far along I am because we weren't exactly sure. I was right, I said I was 16 weeks, and I'm really like 15 Weeks and 6 days or something --- 1 day off, not bad! We saw the baby, sooo cute and sweet! There's nothing like seeing your baby for the first time inside of you. The baby was just kicking and moving its arms all around, so fun! He couldn't see the gender. It's too young, and it wasn't that clear of an ultrasound, it was on one of those portable cart ones. We saw it's tiny little heart beating! The only clear picture we got was the top of its head. it's 3 cm across (width) how incredibly tiny! Can you believe that, such a tiny tiny teeninsie person!! I'm so excited. Nick is really excited and Benji's oblivious. We'll find out the gender at the end of July at the real ultrasound, and we'll have some pictures to post too!

delicious weekend

My itch to cook has come back, but only with baking. I am cooking us dinners now, but I still have to be cautious about what I cook. I made cinnamon rolls this morning, they were yummmmmy! They were so rich, I tried out a new recipe, the brown sugar/cinnamon/butter mixture crisped up on the bottoms of each roll and it tasted almost like toffee. You had to have a glass of milk with the rolls (and that's saying a lot since we don't really like milk, except chocolate) to get them down. So we had candy for breakfast. wahoo! Then, I made some Amish white bread - my first time to make bread (without a machine to do it for me) - and I loved it! It was so much fun and so easy! I'm going to start making tons of different kinds of bread, I'm so pumped! Why buy a loaf when I can make it myself?? We're never going to lose weight, but I'd say we'd be healthier without all those preservatives and maybe when I get tired of making it all the time, we'll never have it! Then later tonight we're having some divine chicken and corn-on-the-cob with some homemade lemonade! Can life get better than this? I submit that it cannot!!

Yesterday we had a feast too. We went on our first official family picnic! It was so much fun! We made huge sub sandwiches, had chips, homemade lemonade, and fruit. Next time we'll take some cookies though. We walked to our favorite park and spread out a huge blanket. Benjamin thought it was the funniest thing. He would crawl all around the blanket, but wouldn't get off of it. I'm going to enjoy that while it lasts. Soon he'll think he's supposed to stay off the blanket. We lounged and enjoyed our food. We had a tickle war and then collapsed and cuddled. Benjamin had a shirt on that had a hoodie and he hates it when we put it on his head. Nick would put it over his head and he would try to pull it off, but he pulls it forward which really frustrates him! Then he started crawling around like crazy. Our theory is that he was trying to crawl so fast that the wind would blow it off his head! We went on a beautiful walk through the forest, where Nick tried to scare me to death by letting go of the stroller down a steep side trail that led straight into a river. Nick nearly lost his life after that little incident. He's safe and sound now, and so is Benji.

well, that was our wonderful weekend! thought I'd rub it in!

happy father's day!!

Well, Sunday's rolled around rather quickly. ahhh, the week's over and a new one's on its way. Dinner's in the oven (I'm cooking again!), Benji's knocking everything off the shelves, and Nick's sleeping. Nick's graveyard shift begins tonight so he's trying to get some type of rest so he's not passing out on the job or the drive there and back. It's been a wonderful week since getting back to the regular comings and goings of family life at home. The men at church got a cool father's day treat. The primary children sang in sacrament, then the men were all asked to get up and sing "Ye Elders of Israel" - it sounded wonderful! I love all men choirs. Benji clapped while his dad sang, it was too cute. Then during the last class of the day (priesthood) the young women set up the gym with tables, balloons, and such. They had a ice cream buffet - vanilla ice cream with all the toppings you could dream of to go with it. Then there was soda to make floats and just to enjoy. They had the young women sing too. Sheesh - what a nice treat! I heard some of the women laughing saying - wow they get a heck a lot of treats and the women get a dead petunia for mother's day! - they did say it laughingly (they weren't really complaining).

Since Benji's turned one he's been consumed with energy! One night he kept crawling as fast as he could back and forth the room. He wasn't chasing anything or going after toys, just crawling and crawling as fast as he could. At church he was all over the place climbing on us, pulling things out of his bag, gulping his water, banging on the chairs, trying to pull the chairs over, pointing at everything and jabbering in his cute little language, clapping yelling out: it was hilarious! I'm sure other people didn't so much like it, but I couldn't help but laugh. Next sunday I'll control him a bit more, but I couldn't this time it was too fun to watch. He's happy, so as long as you can still hear the speakers does it really matter?? I guess it does to some extent.

I'm going to go enjoy the rest of my relaxing sunday and set the table for dinner.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

re*group

Hello all, I'm back from vacation! Nick, Benji, and I went down to Medford for Memorial Day weekend, but only Nick came back up so he could start his new job. Benji and I stayed down there for 2 whole weeks! I had tons of help while my body started recovering from morning sickness and got some sleep! Benjamin had a rough time too - we had to wean because I had no more milk, he got a cold, and he started teething too. Poor guy! Even though he was not feeling his best he was spoiled spoiled spoiled by his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and anyone else that came over to play! So, I'd say he had a blast!

While we were down there Benji had his first birthday! I can hardly believe it! The week of his birthday I could remember vividly that very week a year earlier and all the emotions of anticipation. The experience (pain - contractions, relief - the epidural, scared - C-section, complete joy - holding Benjamin) was always on my mind the whole day before his birthday and the day of. What a crazy week it was! I can't believe he's grown so much. He's still so tiny, but his personality is huge! He is one crazy kid! I'm so excited to see him get even older and I don't like it all at the same time! I miss my tiny baby boy! Oh well! I am excited that there's another one on the way! My morning sickness is pretty much under control, the only time I struggle is at night when I start becoming tired.

re*fresh

Happy thursday! This week has gone by quickly, and I'm happy about that! I'm doing a little better in regards to morning sickness - yay. Benji is teething like a fiend, he's got his bottom two and top two teeth slooooooooowly pushing their way out. They couldn't go any slower, but they're there and they make themselves known every hour of the day and night! Arg. As you can tell the blog's appearance has changed, and I'm very excited about it! I plugged away at it for a bit and there's some more things to add, but I don't have the time to do it all in one day, unless I lock Benj in a closet (not likely). I'd at least have to turn the music up real loud! I've got a new link list titled "barlow's bites" - as you know I love to cook and love food. I put only 4 good recipes out there for ya. I didn't come up with them, unfortunately, but I am a pro at enjoying them. The cowboy spaghetti is particularly one of my favs! I almost put more up there, but I thought - hey, let's keep 'em guessing - they'll never know when I'll change them or add more. Plus, I'm still wanting to be selfish about my favorite ones. We certainly can't have everyone cooking my favorite recipes, there'd be no need for me! Well, I think I'll dink around and do some more maintenance!

Ok, I lied...

I lied when I said nothing was going on in our neck of the woods! Last tuesday I was thinking to myself, "gee I don't feel so hot," but I just thought it was from all the traveling we'd been doing. I was very tired and could never catch up on sleep. Then I started feeling worse that morning (tuesday) and tossed my cookies. Then I started thinking, when was my last "moon cycle"??? I couldn't remember, but I thought hey, that was at the first of March! So I went to the store and took a test, and sure enough... we're pregnant! I did a dance and Benji giggled (b/c I looked crazy I'm sure). I made a shirt for Benji that said "I'm gonna be a big brother" and put it on him for when Nick came home. Nick walked in the door and I told him, "go get benji so we can eat dinner" he did and totally missed his shirt (it was very obvious). Then I asked him if he noticed anything. He said, "you cooked dinner and did Benji's hair?" I always cook dinner and I always do Benji's hair! "Look at his shirt!" He looked, but he didn't read it. "Read it Nick!" He read it and then I saw the wheels turning, "really!?" That's that. How funny, Nick is usually observant, but I'm not sure what happened to him that day!

The morning sickness has come full force and I'm doing everything I can to keep my food down. I'm feeling very weak, but at least this time some foods do sound good to me. Most of them sounded good to me last night (sunday) when I couldn't go to any store and do anything about it! Lame! You bet your boots that I'll be getting some of it today though! I'm going to have to postpone school until July, when my morning sickness should be pretty much gone. If not, then I'll go after the babe is born.

No we don't have any idea or hope if it'll be a boy or girl or twins even. I asked Benji through a series of tests and his conclusion is one baby boy. We'll see. If he gets it right, then we may have a second income coming our way - psychic readings.

Fun huh!

Just to let you know

Just to let you know, there's nothing going on here. Still on the hunt for a babysitter. Anyone want to move up here and babysit? I'll cook for you! School starts in a little over a week, it'll be awesome if I get to go! Benjamin is teething and is still wild and crazy. I'm sorry I have nothing to share with you, I just had to make sure y'all didn't think I would forget you for another month or so. Pictures to come soon!