Fall Stuff

It's been a long time. I've started several posts and never finished them. But, since we put the boys to bed at 7 tonight, I don't even have a good excuse for not doing it. I don't exactly have anything exciting to say, but figure I should update this at least once before the baby is born.

1. Livingstone #3 is due in less than 4 weeks. I am counting the hours until that happens. It will likely be a done deal on November 9th. Because we are delivering in Ogden, I have opted for an induction if all goes as planned, which it never does. The baby might well decide to come before the induction. Cameron was born 6 days before my due date. Who knows if this little girl will follow suit? If she does, we'll just do what we did last time. Drive like crazy and hope labor doesn't kick in any faster than the last one. I had 12 hours with Cam.

2. I have never liked pregnancy, and here's why. I can't say that I'm sick all the time because I'm not. After the first trimester, I'm OK. Certainly it gets uncomfortable for everyone toward the end. Tyler claims to suffer as much as I do because he says I snore and retreats to the guest room nearly every night. Anyway, back to what I was saying. Pregnancy is pure misery for me simply because I cannot find a pair of pants that will stay up. I spend months pulling up my pants only to have them falling down again a few minutes later. I don't know if it's my anatomy (I have no hips) or if all women have the same problem. It's too late now, but I'm convinced the only solution is pants with suspenders built in, like those cycling shorts. Also, as long as I'm complaining, almost all of my maternity shirts are too short. The only ones that are long enough are those from Shade. Ian eyes me suspiciously if anything is hanging out, and informs me that my shirt is too small. He told me a few months ago that pretty soon, I was just going to have to stay home all the time because nothing fit. I don't have a problem with that.

3. The name of the baby is still up in the air. After Tyler told me he felt like I have named every animal/child we have ever owned (even though I used names that he suggested), I told him he could name her. I thought it was a done deal until the other day he told me that he didn't believe that I was actually going to let him do it. Now I'm insulted. Let's all pray Tyler has good taste. Cameron wants to name her Froggy.

4. These two pictures are from our latest adventure to Battle Creek. Though the deer hunters probably didn't appreciate us there, we had a good time. Right after I took the second picture, Cameron tripped and started rolling down the rock. I was close enough to catch him, and it (luckily) scared him more than hurt him.

5. These three pictures are from the Dinosaur Park in Ogden. We went there during our September trip to the doctor. The boys had a great time, and much preferred it to the Dinosaur Museum in Lehi because the dinosaurs were actually full scale models with skin instead of just bones. If you go, make sure you check out the robotic dinosaurs. They were the best!

6. This is Cameron and his cousin Britain at the Elko County Fair parade (they are only two months apart). I love Dilly Bars from DQ, so we walked over and got some, but do you think I even got one for myself? NO! I can't believe such little people can eat so much junk.

7. I'm so glad Halloween is just a week away. We've been dressing up for months now. We buy the actual costumes from the thrift store, then have to fill in the holes with stuff we already have or make something. I had to hunt for red duct tape so I could make Ian's ditch boots into Superman boots. Ian has about four costumes, and he can't pick just one, so he says his plan is to change several times throughout the night so everyone can see all of them. I will not be sad when we can move on to the next holiday after Halloween, if you consider that to be a holiday. We do get that day off school in Nevada because it just happens to be the day Nevada was admitted to the Union....just in case you wanted to know.

8. Everyone should have a pair of nerd glasses. We have so much fun with them.

Poor Charley!

9. I started a kindergarten co-op with some other parents in the valley, and Ian loves it. Right now, we only do it every other week, which is wholly insufficient, but life seems so busy right now for everyone. Ian has finally submitted to learning to write his own name. It's really cute. His "a" looks like an upside down Q. At first the letters were all mixed up, but he caught on after awhile. Hopefully we can do kindergarten more often during the winter when we're all dying to get out of the house.

10. Why was potty training so hard the first time? I swear it was a breeze this time. I guess there's something to be said for waiting until the child is ready. Don't let me tell you that we don't have accidents every now and then. We do. But, the level of frustration for all is so much lower this time! Granted, I still have to help Cam in the bathroom like every 5 minutes sometimes, which can be taxing when you're 8 months pregnant. Also, why must Cam call his poop "candy bars"? That is not appetizing at all. But hey, we're diaper free...for two more weeks!!

11. For some reason, Cameron doesn't say the "s" at the beginning of some of his words. If there's a consonant following the "s", he doesn't say it. But, if there's a vowel following the "s", he does. I don't get what the difference is. These are some of my favorite words: wimming, kittles, mack and of course he always wants the leftover "craps" when I make biscuits or bread.

Baby Names

You know, back in the days when people had 10 kids, it seems like bestowing names was more like passing out lollipops than the serious matter Tyler and I make it up to be. Of course, we had our first child when I was 31, so we will never have that many children. Thus, we choose a name only after much deliberation. This is why we could never wait until the baby was born to find out the gender. The sheer number of names we would have to mull over would be much too overwhelming. When our first child was born, I think we had to narrow it down from 19 names.

Every parent has a different philosophy when choosing children's names. There are the family names, ethnic names, Bible names, names they made up in high school that are usually some derivative of some traditional name and then horribly misshapen (I'm not such a fan of these types.), those who watch old westerns to find names and those who name their children after their favorite past times (that one was for you, Paul, although you are surely not the only one).

Tyler and I are ethnic namers. Ian is a Scottish form of John and means Gift from God, and Cameron is a great Scottish warrior. Of course, had we known what the children were going to be like at birth, we would have definitely switched them. Maybe Cameron will grow into his warrior name as he learns the art of warfare from Ian. We did, however, resist the temptation from Grandma Livingstone to name either of them Duncan, which is Scottish and a family name. Apparently, she had been advocating that name for quite some time, with no success. We will have to bestow that name to an animal, since we have many more animals than children on our horizon.

Anyway, we are expecting our only girl in November. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to continue our naming trend because I am not a fan of most Scottish girl names. Here is a sample: Fiona, Bonnie (no offense to my hairdresser), Leslie, Elspeth, Balfour (I'm not exactly sure if this is a male or female name - but who would name their child Balfour?), Chait (meaning catlike, that would be a funny name), Evina, Laria. They are all too much for me to handle. And so, the search continues.

Family names would be interesting. My great grandmother (this is not a joke) was named Lennie Cecil Higgenbotham. Here are a few more. Some are not bad. Phyllis Katherine, Beryl Jean, Merne, Anne (I like Anne, but Tyler says it's too close to Ian.), Margaret, Ethel Gertrude, Amy Ethel......surely there are many, many more. I haven't done enough research on the Livingstone side, so please enlighten me Livingstones!

The Bible is really an endless resource for names. One of my mission companions has given all her 5 kids Bible names. If you have an open mind, you might name them something really awesome, and totally original, like Abishag for example. Currently, my favorite Bible name is Miriam, but of course, you would have to call her Mia, which is unfortunately sort of trendy.

So here we are in the midst of great deliberation. We must try to avoid the most popular names because you don't want your child to have to go by first and last name like every Jennifer and Stephanie did when I was growing up, but not something so unusual that no one can pronounce it, or for that matter remember it. Also, you have to think of every nick name other mean little children will twist your precious little baby's name into when they are in 2nd grade. Last, you have to weed out all the names that remind you of people who you'd rather not think about for the rest of your child's life, every time you say their name.

Lucky we still have 4 months left.

My Last Picture

In four days, it will have been 1 year since dad died. I can't believe it's been that long. This is the last picture I have of dad. It's sort of grainy because it was extracted from a video. The guy who videos our cows for the cattle sale took this video and was kind enough to go to the trouble of getting it to me. Thanks Gary!

Anyway, I have wanted to find someone who could paint this for me, because it won't print very clear in a size I could hang on my wall. I guess I don't really know where to look for someone who could do this for me and also no idea how much it could possibly cost. Maybe I don't really care, because I want something nice to hang on my wall that will help my boys remember their grandpa.

Please let me know if you know of anyone who can help me!

If I Had a Million Dollars......

1. Of course, I would do all the important stuff first, like pay off our house, actually start the retirement accounts we've been talking about but have never found the time/spare funds to start, medical savings account (as it seems our children's teeth are going to be a serious expense). Luckily though, our house is our only debt.

2. I would buy Tyler a truck. Even though Tyler's 1992 Isuzu Trooper is falling apart (partly because he doesn't maintain it...so it will die and he can get a truck), he bought a van for me and the kids instead of a truck for himself. It has to be old enough that he doesn't care if he scratches it, and new enough that he could drive it 500 miles without worrying.

3. A water pump. Our water pump exploded over a week ago. It never really worked the way the drillers said it would. The first estimate we had to get a new pump installed was $900. Of course, we'll have to get that fixed, even without a million dollars....but we're really not in a big hurry because our well is artisian and we still have water in the house, just less pressure.

4. GRASS. We planned to put grass in this spring, but when things start hopping at the shop, all bets are off. Some of the others in the valley with new homes (and are soon to have grass) have convinced Tyler we need a sprinkler system. This would be nice as we'll have A LOT of grass, but sort of impossible without a water pump. Anyway, our next plan is for the fall. I may not be much help being 7-8 months pregnant by that time. If I had a million dollars, I'd just hire someone else to come do it.

5. I'd pay someone to deliver dinner every other night. Especially when it's hot. And I don't want to heat the house up anymore than it already is. Maybe this person could also plan the meals I do have to cook and do my shopping. If I had nothing else to do in the world, I wouldn't mind cooking so much, but there's just so much else to do....important stuff...like blogging.

6. I would build a garage. As if we don't look white trash enough already in our dirt patch, we don't have any place to put our bikes, gardening supplies etc. We have stuff stashed behind the house, under trees...and if we got everything we have stashed in the ranch sheds, we'd really have a mess on our hands. Then, I wouldn't have to worry so much about our cats during winter (and spring) blizzards. By the way, our kittens have decided to move into a bush down in the Sharp's field. Was it really so bad here? I'm wondering what I have to do to convince them to stay. Probably something along the lines of a giant beef roast.

7. Furniture. All of you with kids know there is always something else to spend your money on. We have one couch that we bought when we were first married. We made 3 giant bean bags to serve as furniture until we get actual couches. I'll be honest...the kids like them, but sometimes I just want to sit on an actual couch. I wouldn't complain about bedroom furniture for us, either. A night stand would be nice!

8. A fireplace. I swear it is winter here for 9 months out of the year. Our heater has a hard time keeping up sometimes. After Tyler works outside all day, he needs a little more to heat him up. You wouldn't believe how expensive stovepipe is.

9. A pair of pants, or maybe two that fit. As this is most likely our last child, I am not excited about spending money on maternity wear. I'm trying to keep my one nice pair to wear in public...except I only really have one pair. So, if I'm not wearing them, I'll be wearing sweats and pajamas. Don't judge me.

10. I'd find a good doctor who could do something about Tyler's allergies. Poor man is a walking zombie all summer when he is the very busiest. Anyone know a good doctor?

We don't have a million dollars. We still have everything we need. We are clothed for the most part, we have food on our table and we are healthy and happy. More money won't make us more beautiful, happier or more righteous. In fact, we could end up less so. I'm just grateful for all I've been blessed to have.

July News

1. Unless you live on another planet, you know that our baby is a girl. Ian says it's a gewl. At least that's what they said. I looked at the picture, and could gather no such thing. So, it could come out at as a boy, but I'm just assuming they're right since I was sick for so much longer this time than with the boys. I'd post the picture, but let's just keep it sacred. I don't need to be showing off all my little girl's parts. Let the name negotiations begin. I have my favorites. Any suggestions? She is due November 16th.

2. Ian went with Tyler the other day to deliver some twine and fix some equipment, and came back covered in dirt. The twine around his neck was his own doing. Now I know how mom felt when I used to go to work with my dad.

This delivery was supposed to just take the morning, but they ended up being gone all day. Ian played fetch with some dogs on one ranch for hours until he came back to Tyler crying because they wouldn't leave him alone. I was pleasantly surprised he came back so happy.

3. The 4th of July weekend is our family reunion and the volunteer firemen's picnic. It makes it a busy time. Almost too busy to be enjoyable! We were in charge of the games at the picnic.

Cam helped me make the pies for the pie eating contest.

Which was by far, the most entertaining part of the picnic. No one comes to watch the little kid games, but no one could ignore all the yelling at the pie eating contest. I think some of them almost suffocated on the pudding. Next year....it's gotta be fruit pies.

My cousin's band, the "Pretty Darns" performed at the picnic, and later at the dance, which we unfortunately missed because we had no energy left after a softball game and two picnics. By the way, the guy on the right isn't in the band, he just happened to show up with his banjo, and started playing along.

Good thing Marla saved the day and brought some sparklers and glow sticks. It would have been a dull fourth without them.

This is my favorite picture. He may grow up to be a pyro.

So this is what the fireworks setting is for on my camera.

4. I'm getting kind of discouraged about my garden. Various things have frozen multiple times. The rabbits have eaten half my peas to the ground. This is one thing I have to control, so Tyler left his gun home the other day, and I shot a rabbit. It wasn't a big ugly jack rabbit, either. It was a soft little cottontail. It didn't run like I'd hoped it would. It just stood there and took it. I felt so bad that I actually apologized to it after it was already dead. It's possible it was protecting it's young, which our cats have picked off one by one over the last month.

Mustache June

As one of the originators of Mustache May, Tyler was ashamed to learn that he had completely forgotten about the annual event. When I showed him a few pictures of some friend's mustaches, he decided he needed to grow one in solitude, to show his penance....or in his words "suffer". Tyler says this because in the past, people have openly laughed at his attempt at a mustache (thanks a lot - reject who works at Auto Zone....you can hardly take that one seriously). Anyway, this isn't a great picture of it, but you get the idea.

Tyler shaved his stache off a few days ago because he thought it would make me more excited to mend the holes in his work pants. (I still haven't even fixed my dress that Cameron cut holes in, which I unfortunately didn't discover until I was at church.) Until next year, I bid the mustache a fond, fond farewell.

Life Through the Eyes of a Four Year Old

Ian likes to take pictures....A LOT. If there's ever a chance to snap a picture with mom's camera, he does it. While this gives me serious heartburn (it took months to get it fixed last time), I decided I couldn't just erase his pictures.


Here are just a few:


Taken while spinning around in circles at the shop.

Definitely can't get rid of this one! This is what life is like at our house. We don't normally have pictures of this.

Never thought to take a picture of that.

Tyler will want you all to know that he cleaned off those shelves and reorganized them. This is us packing up after our spring open house at the shop.

Cameron doesn't look like he was expecting a photo shoot.

Grandma's green umbrella. It was supposed to be part of his Little Black Sambo outfit. Instead we used it to shade the kittens if it ever got to hot. I did erase the 30+ pictures Ian took of the same 2 kitten's backs.

Uh. This is Ian's foot.

Dad at the computer.

Dinner time at the Livingstones.

There you have it. Are you inspired?

Kittens

So, our cat had 5 kittens about 5 weeks ago. We probably have enough varmints to keep all 5 busy, but we just can't justify having 6 cats. I mean we already have stuff stacked up outside our house on our dirt patch. We're totally white trash. (Luckily both of our cars are still running - but that could end at any minute). We'll have to keep one kitten to replace our ill fated Weazy who disappeared a few months ago. Just look into these kitties eyes and tell me you can resist them. Their mother is training them well in the mousing arts. There are usually at least 3 dead animals laying around their house at all times.

We call this one runt. He's just so much smaller than his fluffy brothers and sisters.

This is Rocky Blue. Some of our friends recently named their baby Rocky Blue, and Ian loved the name so much, he was going to name all the kittens Rocky. If we hadn't had kittens to name, he probably would have insisted we give the name to our next child, regardless of the gender.

We named this one Eloise, out of remembrance for our other fluffy black cat that disappeared. We hope this one is as good at mousing as she was.

You have to love Guido. We call him that because he's so enormously fat. (No offense if your name is Guido.) He is fluffy, but it's not all fluff. He's got a belly on him....and his tail is really short. He's almost a perfect round ball. We think he might be better at eating than mousing.

We don't have a name for this one. We don't really know the gender of any of them yet. I'm saying, if it's a boy, we should call him Lyle. If it's a girl....Ramona. Don't tell either of these actual people we want to name our animals after them. The fact is, we have so many animals that drift through our lives, everyone has to have their turn being named after something. We still have two calves to name. Like I said...everyone will get their turn.

What We've Been Up To

First of all, I'd like to say that I've been highly dissatisfied with spring. We've had a hard time climbing out of the 50s. I went to the doctor the other day, and she said that she could see that I liked to be outdoors. (I wonder what, exactly about me, screams outdoors.) Listen lady, where I'm from, there isn't anything except the outdoors. We only have two choices: in or out. So, anyway, we've been spending a lot of time indoors because snow, we can handle. Blizzards aren't so inviting. I don't think that makes for very exciting blogging.

1. Ian finally learned to ride a pedal bike. No, I don't have a picture of him riding. I say finally because he's been riding his Boot Scoot bike really skillfully since he was 2 1/2. I've been trying to get him to just try a pedal bike for a year. He wouldn't do it. Then one day, he decided to try, and it literally took him less than 5 minutes to master it. Hooray for the Boot Scoot!

2. We go on "adventures" a few times a week when the weather is nice. This is at Brighams, a sort of developed camp spot on the ranch where my dad grew up, and where we lived for our first 2 years in Ruby Valley. We didn't plan on building a fire, but Tyler happened to have some flares that the Volunteer Fire Dept. uses to light back fires. Man, that's the way to build a fire!

3. Charley is way too gentle for his own good.

4. What do you do when it's 30 degrees outside? Get ready for swimming season, of course!

5. Ian calls this his horse. Her name is Chipmunk, and she needs to be ridden more. She barely tolerates out little outings.

6. This is Cameron riding Boach, Tyler's "new" horse. Boach is 20 years old. Ian has renamed him "Geo".

7. Tyler built a sandbox for the boys. It is now full of sand, but it's been too cold to enjoy playing in it. Hopefully we'll use it more if summer or possibly even spring ever arrives.

8. Who doesn't love to ride/drive a four wheeler?

9. On an adventure near Indian Rock and the Bat Caves. We walked around Indian Rock, and I don't know how we ever got up to the top of it. I wouldn't go up there without climbing gear now.
I really want to find the time capsule we put up there, years ago.

10. I don't have a picture of them, but we now have 5 kittens. Margie had her babies two weeks ago, and shortly thereafter, Eloise (her sister, who was also pregnant) disappeared. We don't know if something happened to her, or if she just ran off. We're really sad to lose her because she was a much better mouser than her sister, who is now totally preoccupied with her babies. Let's hope the kittens get trained in the art. And, incidentally, if anyone is looking for kittens, we are willing to part with a few of them!

Cam is TWO!

It took us over two months to get our camera back from the repair place, and now I'm finally getting around to downloading the few pictures we've taken in the interim.

Cameron turned 2 on April 3rd. We were in Provo, so we celebrated with family there. It was a little bit of a challenge to fit it in among all the Saturday conference sessions, but luckily a two year old has very low, if any expectations.

Cam is really a delightful child. Really. He is. I took him to his well child check up last week, and was telling this to the doctor, who just looked at me incredulously. He finally commented how cooperative Cam was....exactly. If a stranger pulled up and asked him to hop in, he probably would. But, he really is such a happy go lucky, fun loving kid. He is a delight. We're so happy he's part of our family!!

Mmmmmm. Strawberry shortcake. He got that for his birthday because that's what I wanted.

Cam loves his hats.

After his winter hat was removed.

We are all so fashion conscious around here. We went to the church to kick balls around. I love it when they're friends!!

Margie LOVES Charley

There is something wrong with this cat. She will not leave our dog alone. Charley tolerates it, but usually jumps at the chance of coming in the house just to get away from her.

I don't know if she acts this way around all males....but if she does....this may explain why she's pregnant.

If You Like Pirate Books......

This one is a must!

Dirty Joe sails the high seas with his crew in search of booty (dirty socks) until they meet their nemisis, Stinky Annie. My boys love it!