Graison The Picky Eater

Lately Graison has been a bit better but he normally is a picky, picky eater.  He is the hard kid, when it comes to eating.  We have tried almost every angle to get him some proper nutrition in his body.  This kids just doesn't take to eating his veggies.  We've had some issues in the digestive department that have posed an even further depth into thoughts on how to solve this issue and keep him well balanced.  This led me to an Internet search on how to do things differently and even some of those things didn't take.

What this goofy goober did like though was the angle I tried with our homemade spaghetti sauce.  

What I did that was different from any other time we have done spaghetti, was blending veggies into my sauce.  I took olives, mushrooms, bell pepper, zucchini, carrots, and garlic and stick them in our ninja with all the other fixings I use for the secret spaghetti sauce I make.  I puréed them all evenly to where all the bits of veggies looked as though they were just spices used to season the sauce and I stuck some homemade meatballs in with it and out came perfection!!  I tend to avoid mushrooms and olives when it comes down to Italian cuisine and I ate a TON of it. 

Next time I will have to figure out how to add them into Alfredo! 

Life As of Lately

It is time for another update!

Lately we have been waiting for the heat and humidity to take a chill pill, we see all the Fall and Halloween stuff coming out and really miss that cool, crisp, fresh air that comes with it.  Oh and all of the Fall foliage, regardless of the cleanup that comes with it. Fall has to be our favorite season, and no not just because of all the pumpkin and spice flavored treats. 

Sheyden has taken and passed his Staff sergeant test and is currently undergoing the airman leadership school course.  He's got his first week done and about 3.5-4 ish weeks left.  It is draining but rewarding as well. We, well I, just got done baking a butt load of banana bread muffins for him to take so everyone can have something to eat, as it seems a lot of his classmates skip on the breakfast portion of their day.  I'm sure they'll all enjoy them. 

Graison is a crazy little guy!  He has such an imagination and a lot of that comes with sounds boys like to make: "bang bang" "pew pew" "vroom", ya know the works!  He loves being outside no matter how hot and humid it gets over here and has all the neighbor boys to play with too! 

He also does so good with his little brother, he will sit with him and show him how the hotwheels are supposed to work and Cowen will sit there like he's listening, even though Cowen doesn't quite understand it. He is getting pretty tall too, although I don't have any current measurements for him. 

Cowen just had his 9 month check up done and is weighing in at 19.5 lbs and is about 28 inches long/tall.  He is really active lately. His crawls are pretty much like an animal herd stampeding, and he's starting to get brave with his standing; doing the "look mom no hands" for a few seconds and one handed table guiding. He's getting close to walking, and every once in a while he will use his walker to my and walk it a few feet.  He likes to open cupboards and pull pots & pans out, drag the empty dog bowl across the kitchen and down the hall, and loves to try soft wrestling with his big bro.  He still has no teeth, but I think he will shortly after his birthday. We're closing in on it too, I can not believe how fast this year has been. 

As for me, I am pretty good lately. Just being mom over here and when I can fit it in doing some school.  I have about 8 months left of it to go, but my year is weird so it sometimes seems like I have more when I don't. Just as long as I can keep up the focus for this last stretch I'll be happy when I get my degree.  Hopefully I will be able to find a job over here that will give me some experience for whenever it's time to come back to the states, but for now we are still looking at 3 more years in Okinawa.

 LOVE YOU ALL!!

THE TURNER'S

7 Months...Already?!

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT HAS BEEN 7 MONTHS ALREADY?!  Cowen is such a cute and funny little guy.  He is almost crawling but for now is just inch worming around.  We think he is pretty close to saying "Dada" but hasn't quite got it down yet.  He is an eater for sure and I have never doubted that since the day he arrived, this little guy will literally eat a full jar of baby food and five minutes later want both his boobies to wash it down...if I pumped the full amount correctly that's 8 ounces of milk on top of about 4 ounces of baby food!!  Of course babies will get more out of the boob themselves than you actually will pumping but that's just a little estimate.  He is Tall!!  Last check up he was 17lbs 4 ounces and 26 inches long, that was about a month ago so I have NO IDEA right now and he is too wiggly to measure ourselves ha ha.  Lets just say that he is so wiggly that mama has almost mastered the roll and scoot diaper change.

Cowen is also only waking up ONCE at night!! Sleeping in his own crib!  Hope this keeps up, cause we may see a full nights sleep in our near future!!  I think he is also out growing the toys we have out too so its about time to dig into storage.....(more updates below continue the read!)

GRAISON has bought himself a bike and helmet and a few other toys with the whopping $103 dollars from his piggy bank!!  We could've saved it more, but he has been begging to ride a bike which he didn't have yet...until now!!  He did SO GOOD!!  He learned in just a day to ride his bike.  He still has some practicing to do, but for the most part does not need Sheyden nor myself to help him out.

DIESEL is our newest addition to the family.  After being saved from a near oceanic death, one of the Airman in Sheyden's shop asked us to help find this little guy a home.  This Airman previously asked us about another pup he had found one week earlier, so I took it as a little sign that we needed a puppy!  I am sure glad we decided to bring this little guy into our lives, he is such a good puppy and both the boys love him.  Graison has been learning some responsibility too, he helps put food in his dog dish and helps us take him out potty, He also helps point out the poo piles when when do doggie dookie duty!!.... ( again keep reading past the pics)

Alright The boys' rooms are finally completed...although I've been contemplating adding a little wall art for Graison's room too!  I absolutely love Cowen's rug it is so soft and fuzzy and it was a little Okinawan find too.  I also refinished Graison's old crib side into a blanket ladder.  Graison loves his room and does such an awesome job at night for us...he doesn't even wake up when Cowen cries next door!!  We hope to do some more exploring in the near future and hopefully I will have another update for you all.  We Love and miss all our Family and Friends!!

Easter 2015

It's Easter!  Since our St. Patrick's Day post we, from what it feels like, haven't done much...BUT...in reality I like to think we have.  For one we have finished up the rest of the unpacking and organizing and had a housewarming bbq for all of our new friends to come and hang out for a night.  That went suprisingly well and the clean up only took a few hours of pick up and organization...it initially was like one hour but we decided to just deep clean that day since nothing else was happening.

We went to church the following day (so this past Sunday) and stayed for all of it!!! We shocked ourselves by doing that, we mostly just stick to sacrament...but this time we thought Graison would like to hang out in nursery and meet some new friends plus it just really felt comforting and right.  I love going to church even just for a little bit like sacrament because I feel like a load has been lifted and my spirits are up and refreshed for a new week.  Sheyden signed up for a ping pong tournament they have going on and also found out that each Saturday morning some elders get together to play soccer.  I would like to think Sheyden is already pumped up about this Ward but I can't read his mind and he currently isn't in the same room as I type! So we will never know...maybe in the future we will!

I have finally started doing my family history and I feel amazing about it.  There's so much to learn and part of it has been done by another family member so atleast I don't have to worry about one third of my history.  I have a lot of work to do on my Sakahara side, and just some mild digging on my biological side.  I sat down and emailed a few family members about how to do adoptive and biological trees and finally got on the phone with Sheydens grandma Nancy to figure it out...we finally did so that will make the load a lot lighter.  I am very excited to learn my biological fathers history so I know where I come from...but I'm even more ecstatic to learn my adoptive fathers side ontop of it.  I just love history and I love my family so it's the perfect combo!!! I hope as far as the digging goes in the Sakahara side that it won't be too hard they're japanese and I'm living in a part of Japan haha! I definitely need to assign a period of my day to do it though, mainly because I have school to do as well as being a mom but I don't want everything to overwhelm me.  I like the fact that I will have things other than household work and parenting to do on my "rainy days" in the home...even if there's no rain outside.

So Easter is all about Jesus and the sacrifice he made for all of us.  It's a day to remember the atonement and why he died on that cross.  He did it so that we can be washed clean from our sins and this is why we have repentance!  I can only imagine the pain and suffering he went through for all of us, and I am thankful that we have a brother who would step up to the plate and do something like that for us.  It's all part of the plan and we need to remember what that plan is and do what we need to to be with our Heavenly Father, Jesus and our deceased family once again.  I know I sure want to be seeing my loved ones again, especially our children and I hope to give unto them the knowledge of this!

On the other side of Easter there is this being we call the Easter bunny!  All week we have been preparing Graison for his Easter bunny visit.  Thursday evening we dyed us some eggs, and it was his first time doing so.  He was pretty amped up about them and kept wanting to take the cups!  Good thing I did the mom thing and took control or dye would've been everywhere.  We didn't buy the kit, we had all the ingredients in the cupboard to make our dyes. We even brought the white crayon out and designed a few, Graison wanted a dinosaur so momma tried her hardest and it turned out good!

Friday, we had WIC appointment and a mommy appointment so it was a teeny bitcbusy...nonetheless we were able to spend the rest of the day relaxing with daddy!  Cowen has been on one so we've been pretty tired ontop of our daily activities.  I could only tell once a tooth was there with Graison but I feel like that is why Cowen has been a grouch lately.

Saturday, we took Graison to an Easter egg hunt on base and that was pretty crazy.  He didn't get a bunch from that but we threw one for him and his buddy and I think it was way better for those excited little boys.  He definitely got a haul from the family egg hunt for sure!  Next year should even be better as I'm sure he'll have more buddies and his friend we invited has some too! I'm just going to be sure I ask for the plastic eggs back so I will still have a bunch to do more egg hunts in the future.

Sunday, the Easter bunny left the boys some baskets and we went to church.  We made stir fry for dinner because we were out of propane for steaks and they didn't have any more at the gas station.  We were 15 minutes too late! But the stir fry was just as tasty!  Well that is our Easter this year enjoy some pictures!!

Our egg hunt

Looking for the Easter bunny 

Our egg dye