A conversation every mom hopes to have with her two year old...

Two year old says, "I need a gun. I need a gun, mom."
Mom responds, "Your gun is under the TV."
Then a few minutes later, with a gun pointed at mom's back, two year old says, "Stop cooking dinner. Stop cooking dinner, mom."
A few minutes after that, mom gets hit a few times in the back with the gun so mom says, "No, no. Stop hitting mommy or I'll take your gun away."

(Is this what my life has become?)

Lindsay quite pregnant

The following pictures are me at about 3-1/2 - 4 weeks until my due date. I can't wait to have this baby.

Smart Little Grant

Grant has been very into Curious George since last week. It's all he wants to watch. I guess I should be grateful because I have watched Peter Pan about 50 million times already and am really tired of it. This morning he was watching Curious George and George got a piggy bank from the Man with the Yellow Hat to keep his money in. A couple of minutes later Grant looked at me and told me he wanted a money pig. Yes...at 2 years old the boy knows what money is (mostly because when he finds it I have to take it away so he won't put it in his mouth and swallow it). Thankfully, I had an empty Play-Doh container because the pink Play-Doh mysteriously disappeared last week (Barry (our white lab), do you know anything about that?). I cut a hole in the top of the lid and then we had to go around the house finding whatever change we could so that he could put it in his jar. How do they figure these things out?

Update on Potty Training

Grant has the #1 part about down. He still has an accident here and there but he's now telling me he has to go and actually going. He has stayed dry during naps and nighttime now. He did it in just over 3 days. #2 is another issue though. We are still struggling with that. He has a container of Play-Doh sitting on the bookcase that he really wants but can't have until he goes in the potty and not his underwear. So far, nothing but we'll see how it goes today. The 3 day method really did work amazingly well for #1 at least. For other kids, it may work for both. I totally recommend it.

Adventures in Potty Training

I began the mission of potty training this past Wednesday after my doctor's appointment. It has been long and exhausting but not quite as bad as I expected it to be. I am following the 3 day potty training method found at 3daypottytraining.com. He has come far in just over 48 hours. Wednesday was all about accident after accident. I bought about 25 pair of underwear and he went through just about everyone on Wednesday alone. The reward though was that Wednesday night he did not pee his bed all night. He woke up completely dry on Thursday morning. By Thursday late morning, he had finally peed in the toilet, after starting in his underwear of course. This continued for all of Thursday. One time he did actually tell me before he had to go. His mother was so proud. Today we have been focusing on telling me before he starts to go. This morning was rough and we had some regression. He fought me a couple times on sitting on the potty but since his nap he's been on track and has peed and stayed dry. He has non-verbal signals that I have figured out and that counts as telling mommy. Naps are the big problem. He doesn't hold it during naps at all, nor does he wake up. He gets up from his nap completely soaked. I don't know what to do about this so if there are any suggestions (other than putting on a diaper) I'd love to hear them. I'll keep you all posted on the potty training endeavors of the Mellen family. I know you're all deeply interested.

Monsoons: A blessing or a curse?

Every year we here in Arizona look forward with anticipation to monsoon season because it provides significant relief to the oppressive heat we have each summer. The monsoons are great because it makes everything cooler and greener and more beautiful. However, it also makes the weeds grow. Our backyard is presently filled with budding, blooming and thriving tumbleweed and sticker plants. The picture below is a pile of weeds Chad picked last night. This pile represents maybe, generously speaking, a third of the weeds in our backyard. You can see the size of some of the weeds in the picture with Chad two below. It's absolutely ridiculous. A friend of ours commented ealier this week that if let it grow out a little more, it would look like we did it intentionally rather than just out of serious backyard neglect.


Grant had a great time outside last night while Chad was weeding and I was sitting in a patio chair watching. He begged for about 20 minutes to have the sprinkler turned on but had to wait until Chad fertilized the grass. Once it was on, we could not keep him out of it. He plowed right into the sprinkler and threw a huge fit when we said it was time to go in. He loved drinking the water and stopping the spirnkler from turning. This morning when we were feeding the dogs he asked if he could go in the sprinkler. This may become a regular occurrence.

This is video of Grant in the sprinkler.

Third Annual Apple Annie's road trip

This past Saturday, August 9, 2008, we had the opportunity to go to Apple Annie's Orchard for the third year in a row to do some peach picking and some peach eating. This year we brought our friends, Amy and Lars Studley and their two boys, Nicholas and Zachary, along with us to experience the fun, flies and heat of August peach picking in Southern Arizona.

We had a great time. If you get there early you can buy an all you can eat pancake breakfast, complete with huge sausage links and fresh peach syrup. If you are a later riser, you can enjoy apple smoked hamburgers, beans, chips and homemade pie and ice cream for dessert. We had breakfast this trip. It was soooooooo good. I wish I could make peach syrup like that. Someday I'll figure out how.

After breakfast we grabbed our buckets and peach pickers and headed out to the orchards to find our peaches. Nicholas is the same age as Grant and they both had a great time. As you can see from the picture below, they both wanted to carry the buckets. Believe it or not, they actually carried those buckets for a lot of the picking, especially Grant. We all had a great time sweating, getting muddy, closely inspecting trees and sampling peaches. We bought enough so that Amy and I could each make a peach pie and some peach freezer jam. We were feeling quite pioneer.

(Amy Studley looking for the perfect peach)

(Chad and Grant)

(Grant and Nicholas with their peach picking buckets ready to go)

(Grant helping out with the peach picking)

(Lars and Nicholas with their prize peaches)

On Monday, Amy and I got together at my house to complete our pioneer experience. I taught amy how to make a peach pie and we learned how to make freezer jam together. With two 2 year olds and Amy's 5 month old, the process took about 4 hours but we had a good time getting sticky and covered with flour. Our pies turned out so yummy and the jam was unbelievably easy. If fruit weren't so expensive I'd always make freezer jam instead of buying it.

Mud Monster Madness

Yesterday, August 2, 2008, we attended Mud Monster at Reid Park. It was a free event put on by the Tucson Parks and Rec. It was quite fun. They had different age appropriate muddy obstacle courses and mud puddles to play in. The fire department also had two trucks there spraying water off their truck to "wash off." We had to wait about 20 minutes in line to register, which was rather annoying but once that was done, we headed over to the mud puddles for the toddler age kids. The area consisted of several plastic wading pools filled with dirt and water, making a muddy mess. The point was for the children to get in and splash around and get dirt. Grant did not enjoy that concept and refused to get in. A picture is below of me trying to get Grant in the pool. He was more interested in eating his free watermelon flavored eegee (for non-Tucsonans an eegee is basically flavored shaved ice, but it is a classic around town).

We were at a loss as to what to do if Grant didn't want to play in the mud but then Chad found the mud tables. Grant had no problem with those. He stood at a table and played in really thick mud with various sand toys. He loved it. He even got his picture taken by a Parks an Rec photographer who commented on how cute he was. The problem was that Grant told the guy "no" and refused to cooperate for the photos. A picture of Grant making mud pies is below.

Once Chad and I got too hot standing there watching Grant, we headed over to the firetruck to cool off. This was Chad's favorite thing, as you can see from the pictures below. Grant, on the other hand, did not enjoy it. He did, however, after a little encouragement, enjoy sitting in the muddy run off puddles to dig around with his eegee spoon and cup. He threw a fit when we tried to leave.

It was a great family event. We were only sad we didn't bring Barry, our white lab, with us. He would have loved getting wet and running around in the mud. It's just his thing and there were tons of other dogs there. Poor Barry. Since we got Sooner and had kids, he hasn't gotten to go many places with us and we used to do lots of things with him and for him. I guess that's the price he pays for being the oldest child in the family.

Grant digging around in the mud with his eegee cup and spoon.

Lindsay and Grant in front of the firetruck after cooling off in the water.

Chad helping Grant get accustomed to the mud.

Chad cooling off in the water spray.

Chad in the crowd of people cooling off and washing off.

Lindsay trying to get Grant to try out the toddler mud puddles.

Grant enjoying himself, making mud pies.

I know Aunt Kitty and Oma are having a heart attack after reading this but what's childhood if you can't get good and muddy once in awhile right?

Happy Homecoming!!!

I am going to apologize ahead of time for the following travel log, but I use this as my journal of sorts so I need to document the last two weeks.

I finished my job on July 18, 2008 and am now unemployed.

On July 22, 2008 my youngest brother, Brad, came home from his mission in Costa Rica, San Jose. It was awful awaiting his arrival at the airport. We were all anxious and antsy and impatient waiting for his plane to land and then for him to get off the plane and come out of the terminal. Brad had two friends come to the airport along with us family members, Andrew Anderson and Andy Kadelka (spelling?). Grant was running around the waiting area like crazy. He gets wild with his aunts and uncles around. In true Glenn tradition, we all made cheesey welcome home signs to hold up as Brad walked out of the terminal. There was even a Galewekitz sign (if you don't know what that's from, let me know and I"ll explain). Brad finally was spotted and we all broke into tears. My brother David was the most broken up, even more than my mom. It has been nice to have him back home and it brought our family together again for a few days. Below are a few pictures taken at the airport.

(Brad and mom hugging.)

( Andrew Anderson, Brad and Andy Kadelka.)

(Grant, Brad and David)

(David and Brad. As you can see, David is quite happy to see his brother.)

( Grant and Shelli waiting for Brad.)

After Brad arrived we all headed to Macaroni Grill for dinner. This restaurant, for some reason, has become the restaurant for family celebrations. We ate there the night before I got married and the day David, my other brother, returned home from his mission. We were keeping up with the tradition. After dinner, we headed back to my aunt Betsy's home for the night. Brad went through his suitcases, shared some mission stories and handed out gifts. He brought David and himself home machetes (no surprise there). On Wednesday morning, Grant and I headed back to Tucson and my mom and brothers headed to Prescott so Brad could be released. They then drove down to Tucson for a few days and Shelli joined us too.

On Thursday, we took Brad shopping because he needed new shoes and shorts. Brad just sort of walked around in a daze for awhile, not knowing exactly what to do, like or try on. He did manage to find a pair of tennis shoes and flip flops, as well as two pair of shorts. We had a fantastic BBQ to celebrate the homecoming as well. I grilled up Brad a t-bone and made some homemade ice cream. Shelli made congo cookies. I also had a summer cooler for the family (a cooler loaded up with soda for everyone -- a tradition started in our family several years ago). Grant had a great time helping make the ice cream. He loved putting ice around the freezer while it spun. He was a great helper. Pictures are below.

On Friday afternoon, my family headed up to Phoenix to pick up my dad from the airport. He was arriving from Seattle at 8:30 PM. I drove up with Chad a few hours later. Chad had his pharmacy boards on Saturday morning and then had to head back to Tucson to work on Sunday. We learned the following Tuesday that Chad passed his boards, so now he is a licensed pharmacist and officially done with everything. Now he can just stress about his residency and not a test too.

I went to Prescott with my family on Saturday so that Brad could speak in church on Sunday. Shelli and I stayed with the Mangums. David and Brad stayed with the Larsons and my parents stayed with Stacy Arnold and her husband. We visited a lot of people while in Prescott for the weekend. We attended a wedding reception and were able to see many people we had not seen in quite awhile. On Sunday, we all attended church on so Brad could speak. Sadly, he was the last person on the program and the guy before him took all but the last 5 minutes. Thankfully, the bishop told him to take whatever time he needed. It was so annoying listening to the guy before Brad blather on about nothing, knowing that everyone in the congregation wanted to hear what Brad had to say. Brad did a fabulous job on his talk. I cannot believe that he is the little brother I have. He grew up a lot on his mission.

After church, we had a potluck dinner at the Mangums and also celebrated my dad's birthday, which was Saturday. I was able to go visit my friends from law school who bought my parent's house. It was nice to see my friends and they showed me what they had done to the house to make it there own. The best thing they did was knock out the top part of a wall to open up the downstairs. The house looks great and not too many substantive changes were made. We also went over to the Anderson's to visit. Andrew arranged for a bunch of Brad's friends to come over and see Brad. Brad stayed out until midnight that night. He's not having too difficult a time adjusting is he? While there, Jeff and Bailey had to go feed some calves they are fostering so Grant and I tagged along. Grant got to help hold a bottle for one of the calves and then we fed the horses some hay. He is still talking about it two weeks later. He really enjoyed that and it made me want to have some of that kind of lifestyle.

After the Anderson's, my mom and Shelli dropped me off at Laura Campbell's house to visit with her for awhile. It was great to see her. She is living in Prescott again for the time being. She has two kids, one just two weeks older than Grant. My dad and David had to go back to Phoenix Sunday night but my mom, Shelli, Brad, Grant and I stayed in Prescott until Monday. Before heading back, we, of course, had to have lunch at The Office. It was so yummy and all of the servers there thought that Grant was just adorable. When we got to Phoenix we dropped my mom off at the airport then headed to Shelli's to rest and relax.

Later in the afternoon, my second vacation with Grant began. My sister drove us out to join my friend Amy and her boys, Nicholas and Zachary at her in-law's timeshare in Scottsdale. We spent from Monday afternoon to Thursday afternoon at the condo, swimming, letting the boys play, trying to relax and just hanging out. We swam on Tuesday mroning and twice on Wednesday. We headed out late Thursday morning for Tucson and stopped to shop at Old Navy in Casa Grande. That was crazy with two 2 year olds and a 5 month old. The sale was worth it though. I love Old Navy sales for kids -- such great deals. This is the boys after many days in Phoenix and the final shopping trip. They had had it.